Sorry, forgive the awful. But rest assured that’s the kind of joke a pop-culture pundit only gets to make once—when he or she first enters the glorious world of Blu-ray DVD. Your fearless FEARnet editor took that plunge recently, and his head’s still swimming from the sublime clarity, the razor-sharp images and the knock-yer-socks-off sound quality Blu-ray offers movie lovers. Of course not all the latest Blu-ray DVDs take full advantage of this high-definition format’s full potential, and the ones that fall short barely distinguish themselves from those musty old standard-definition DVDs. There’s an ever increasing number of places one can turn for reviews and comparisons between the two formats, but we wouldn’t be doing our job here at Casa de FEARnet if we left all the genre reviews up to the mainstream press, now would we? Here are a few of the more significant titles to come out in the last couple of months, complete with my two cents on whether or not they warrant a rental or even an upgrade from the shiny little discs you already have in your collection...

Doomsday – Why is it movies that don’t fare that well in theaters get all the Blu-ray DVD love? Well, in the case, of Doomsday -- who cares?  It doesn't matter to me how many people didn’t catch Neil Marshall’s high-octane love letter to the action films of John Carpenter and George Miller, it still thrilled the pants off of me. (I could make a joke here about star Rhona Mitra doing the same, but I’ll leave that for lesser critics.) Yes, the picture is noticeably sharper, even on a smaller screen (retaining just enough grain to generate a smoothly film-like image), the soundtrack rocks, and there are three nifty Blu-ray-only bonus features—Reaper Virus Files (giving backstory you can reference while you watch the film), Tech Specs (on the film’s oh-so-sweet Bentley and weapons), and Picture-in-Picture behind-the-scenes footage and interviews. Good stuff for a good film.

Cloverfield – Good Lord, yes! Director Matt Reeves giant-monster epic played well enough in standard def, but those faux handheld camera images benefit tremendously from Blu-ray. On top of that, the disc has an “Enhanced Viewing Mode,” with GPS Tracker, Creature Radar, Military Intelligence, etc. Only a full-scale built-in you-are-there Cloverfield videogame could improve this disc. Well, that and a trailer for Cloverfield 2. Go on, treat yourself—watch Lizzy Caplan explode in 1080 dpi.

Beowulf – Robert Zemeckis’ CGI mo-cap fantasy extravaganza plays less well without the 3D that adorned in theaters, but if you want the best visual presentation of the film available on home video you may still want to check out this disc. It’s pulled directly from the computers on which it was made, so its clarity really is near-limitless, but I suspect the difference between this and the standard edition comes down to how big your TV set. The movie’s hero be damned, size does matter. FYI, the Blu-ray offers no features that weren’t on the standard.

The Ruins Unrated – It’s in the same league as Beowulf. If you want to appreciate the torture that Jenna Malone and her buddies go through in all its skin-cutting, human-voice—mimicking-flora glory, you may need a TV set 50 inches or bigger (mine’s forty). No new features on this disc either, but the makers were at least kind enough to put the standard’s special features in HD, which is often not the case when such features are ported over to Blu-ray.

The Nightmare Before Christmas – Nightmare always looked pretty good, even in its old non-anamorphic standard DVD edition, so there wasn’t that much room for improvement here. But there are a host of spiffy new features that may make this worth grabbing for you diehards. First up, there’s a Blu-ray exclusive intro from director Tim Burton (who does not explain why the quality of his filmic input has gone decidedly downhill since the days of Nightmare and Ed Wood). Yes, it’s lame. Then there’s a tour of Disney’s Haunted Mansion, courtesy of Jack Skellington, which is kind of interesting. And an all-new audio commentary from Burton, director Henry Selick and composer Danny Elfman, which is a step up from the old disc’s Selick-only commentary. Next up is in-depth video look at the worlds of Nightmare, including Halloween Town, Christmas Town and “the Real World” (which, thank God, does not include the cast of the MTV series.) The best new feature, however, is horror icon Christopher Lee reading Burton’s original poem, a nice companion piece to the Vincent Price tribute, Vincent, which, along with Frankenweenie (Burton’s other early short) has been ported over from the standard DVD. Plus, you get a free digital copy of the film to watch on your laptop or handheld. Nice.

The Mist – Frank Darabont’s acclaimed take on Stephen King’s classic novella gets a lush treatment on Blu-ray, which offers fans both the color version of the film, seen in theaters, and Darabont’s black-and-white version, the format in which he originally intended it to be seen. It’s the black-and-white version that shows improvement, and it’s a huge improvement, to the point where the entire film is elevated. Somehow all those Bernie Wrightson-designed beasties that attack a supermarket full of hapless townies look even more disturbing, and Thomas Jane’s firmly clenched jaw that much more masculine. Mmm… Sorry. Where was I? Oh, the extras! Right—there’s a few new special features, including a conversation with King (who doesn’t often do this sort of thing for DVDs) and Darabont, deleted scenes, and all the documentaries of the previous standard release. Highly Recommended.

That’s all for now. But I’ll keep an eye out for more Blu-ray titles of interest in the days ahead. And with The Thing, Beetlejuice, Hellboy II, Carrie, and Poltergeist due out soon, just to name a few, I don’t imagine I’ll have very far to look. Expect in-depth reviews of these and many other upcoming titles soon!