Communion (1989), directed by Philippe Mora, Shout! Factory remaster, encoded in 10 bit HEVC with AAC sound, including original theatrical stereo, two commentary tracks, and English subtitles.

IMDb : https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0097100/

Video encoded in two-pass 10.5 Mbps x265 10bit with the veryslow preset for archive quality image. Audio encoded separately with Apple AAC for the highest-quality AAC sound available.

Subtitles converted to VobSub and repositioned.

Note : I have a tip for horror writer Whitley Strieber. If, after writing a series of successful novels that amongst other things get adapted into films like Wolfen and The Hunger, you get actually, honestly abducted by aliens and decide to write an autobiographical novel about it, and then that's going to get adapted into a movie, maybe don't get Christopher Walken to play you, tell him to crank the eccentricity and (multiple) accents up to eleven, make him wear a series of increasingly outrageous outfits, and then include not one, but various little dance numbers in the film. Strieber apparently complained that the crew laughed at him behind the back on set, and, dude, you might have brought this on yourself. On the other hand, some of the alien set pieces are on their own genuinely really creepy, especially in the beginning, and the altered reality feel at times approaches that of The Mothman Prophecies. It's a very, very weird film, and it's hard to know if you're supposed to take it seriously, but for better or for worse, several images from it have stuck with me.

Whitley is a successful novelist living with his family in NYC, but he's having some problems, and don't just mean his dress sense. He's having recurring paranoid dreams about someone being in his bedroom, which evolve to him dreaming about grey aliens, little hooded figures, and insectoids. There are several incidents in their cabin in the woods (remember what I've said about those before), culminating in him almost shooting his wife, which leads him to go a to a therapist specializing in hypnotic regression, who seemingly confirms he's been abducted by strange beings several times, and he realizes he has to face his fears and the aliens.

This remaster is decent enough, but it's very obviously sourced from an older transfer, probably a telecine, and so is a little soft and dull. It's definitely good enough, though, the original stereo track sounds fine, and the two commentary tracks are also interesting enough, although one of them only if you can tolerate the blatherings of a "UFO expert".

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