British feature The Bunker (2000) directed by Rob Green, has long been a favourite of mine, since I saw it at the 2001 London Frightfest. It's an outstanding slow burning atmospheric World War II Nazi ghost story in the same mould as the BBC Ghost Stories For Christmas, and stands up to many of the best 70's ghost-led US horror features.

After the limited theatrical run (there were only fifty 35mm prints in circulation), it was released on DVD by Salvation in 2003, and then nothing. No Blu-Ray, 4K, or HD streaming, and only a handful of SD TV airings & foreign DVD releases pre-2009.

While running my 35mm Movie Scans Blu-Ray Box-Set, this feature was always one I wanted to get scanned, but the film wasn't owned by any of the 35mm collectors I work with in Europe or the USA. In May 2023 on a shot to nothing, I contacted the director through Facebook to see if he would be interested in being involved in my 35mm scans project, and if had a print he could loan out for scanning. Unexpectedly, it turns out he was both was interested, and had a print. Around a month later on the 24th of June, he dropped his own 35mm print off to me. That was packed up & DHL'd straight off to the scanner in Germany, for a 4K scan.

While chatting to the director, I was given reasons for the lack of a HD release. While I can't go into specifics, there are both legal issues, and separately logistical issues around the unknown location of any of the film elements beyond a few 35mm prints. Back when the 2003 Salvation DVD was created, the option was given of having a high definition scan made, but this was passed on as it was more expensive, and HD was still in its infancy (the first retail Blu-Ray releases weren't until mid-2006). That standard definition BetaCam transfer is the source for every other version out there.

In 2016, Arrow Media attempted to assemble a release of the film, but were unable get the permissions & legal sign-offs needed. In addition, they wouldn't generally release a Blu-Ray sourced from a 35mm cinema print (they have released a handful, but they tend to be much older, and far rarer features where there is no possible alternative). Getting both the legal issues sorted, and the ultimate location of the film elements (assuming they still exist), may be something that can never be resolved, which would make an official retail release very difficult.

As of writing, the director is still trying to work things out to get his feature a proper retail release, giving it the widespread worldwide attention it deserves. Either way, he's given his blessing for my fan-made release, along with loaning the feature print, trailer, and a number of other production elements enabling me to create the best set I can, featuring the first high definition version of The Bunker feature & trailer available anywhere in the world. The Bunker is among the shortlist of my all time favourite features, which has never been released on physical Blu-Ray in the US or UK. While most of the features have a HD alternative, some don't. You can read my list below, with clickable links for each entries' IMDB page; Of these, three have no HD source at all, including The Bunker. The Parallax View (1974) would have also been on this list, but in writing this I've just discovered it was released un the US by Criterion in 2021.

I was sent the links by the scanner to download the compressed previews of The Bunker on the 9th of July, which I roughly regraded and used to encode a complete version of the feature to show the director, and he was pretty pleased with the result. The director also came across a 35mm trailer which he mailed to me, arriving on the 11th of July, which was also sent off to the scanner the next day. The feature print, trailer and hard drive were all DHL'd back to me a few weeks later. The total scanning cost, including DHLs back and fourth, was £629.94. Unfortunately the 35mm trailer must have been water damaged years back, so was stuck together. It was unpeeled and scanned anyway, but major emulsion damage makes this fairly pointless to include. I have added the preview encode to the BD-ROM folder for anyone interested, and the SD version is included on the disc. A 4K uncompressed DNG scan of a 90min feature might be around 800GB. The normal process is that once a scan is done, compressed 1080p preview encodes are uploaded so they can be checked through, and to see the quality of the print. If that's all fine, then the raw scan files are copied to a hard drive, and mailed back. You can see a gallery of screenshots below, from both the 1.81:1 open-matte version (left) and the cropped 1.85:1 (right). While the raw 35mm print frame was full 1.18:1 open-matte, the director's preferred aspect ratio to be cropped to 1.85:1. In order to preserve the full frame scan, I decided to make this a two-disc set. The first disc is more akin to a retail release, with the cropped feature, along with related extras. The second disc preserves the fully open-matte frame, with a number of 35mm scanned trailers & snipes playing before the feature. My double-sided Blu-Ray cover artwork design was quite different to the 2003 retail DVD, which I was never overly a fan of. The main skull image was actually generated by Bing AI Image Creator; the first time I've AI generated images in a project. It took around an hour of different word permutations and seventy attempts, to get the program to generate the sort of images I wanted, and the final version is a composite of four different slightly different images to get the exact look I was after. The back and reverse sides were populated with 35mm photo scans provided by the director. The remaining text was adapted from the 2003 retail DVD. Both discs are in UK PAL format. The features themselves play at a universal 24fps, but some of the extras carried over from the old 2003 Redemption DVD are standard definition 25i PAL. For any US fans, please make sure this won't be an issue for you. You can see the specs for all the items included across the set below. Click each one for a screenshot gallery;


Disc 1 - PAL (2h 36m 41s)

• The Bunker 35mm 4K Feature transfer (2000 ~ 91m 47s, 1.77:1 matted / 1080p)
• The Bunker, Theatrical Trailer (2000 ~ 1m 49s, 4:3 / 576i)
• The Bunker, The Making Of (2000 ~ 23m 21s, 4:3 / 576i)
• The Bunker - Deleted Scene 1 - The Ambush (2000 ~ 1m 48s, 4:3 / 576i)
• The Bunker - Deleted Scene 2 - The Deathtrap (2000 ~ 0m 57s, 4:3 / 576i)
• The Bunker - Extra Scene - Schenke's Story (2000 ~ 6m 02s, 4:3 / 576i)
• Rob Green's Early Shorts - The Black Cat (1995 ~ 17m 37s, 4:3 / 576i)
• Rob Green's Early Shorts - The Trick (1997 ~ 11m 45s, 4:3 / 576i)

Disc 2 - PAL (1h 46m 51)

• Event Horizon Trailer (1997 ~ 2m 28s, 2.34:1 scope / 1080p)
• Matrix 2/3 Trailer (2003 ~ 1m 24s, 2.34:1 scope / 1080p)
• Contagion Trailer (2011 ~ 1m 33s, 1.77:1 hard-matted / 1080p)
• Harry Brown Trailer (2009 ~ 1m 51s, 1.77:1 hard-matted / 1080p)
• Secret Window Trailer (2004 ~ 0m 37s, 1.26:1 open-matte / 1080p)
• Shutter Island Trailer (2010 ~ 2m 24s, 2.34:1 scope / 1080p)
• The Bunker 35mm 4K Feature transfer (2000 ~ 92m 16s, 1.18:1 open-matte / 1080p)
• Odeon Cinemas 'First Choice' & Misc 35mm 2K Snipes (1986-95 ~ 3m 48s, 1.77:1 matted / 1080p)

Disc two has no menus (since there is nothing additional to choose from), it starts playing through the playlist in order as listed above, and stops at the end. The set is supplied in a clear double Blu-Ray case, with a laser-printed reversible cover & printed disc artwork. The discs are single layer BD-Rs. If you're interested in any of my fanmade projects, you can contact me via email at , or through the Rob's Nostalgia Projects Facebook page. Check out & 'like' that Facebook page to see the latest in-progress updates to any current projects, and check out my Wants List to see if you can assist me with any future projects or upgrades.