Paramount Scares – Vol. 2: World War Z 4K Ultra HD Review

Estimated reading time: 8 minutes

Brad Pitt takes on the zombie apocalypse in the adrenalin-fueled action/horror flick World War Z, directed by Marc Forster (Quantum of Solace; Machine Gun Preacher) from the book by Max Brooks. After a couple of decades of vampires claiming the coolness crown, it seems that zombies are back, with series like The Walking Dead heating up the airwaves and internet theories about a “real” zombie apocalypse. Of course, zombies have never been sexy, they have always been the pariahs of the horror world – slow-moving, dimwitted, vile. Ask George Romero, who pretty much created the entire mythology surrounding these creatures.

World War Z doesn’t stray far at all from Romero’s zombie mythology in how it portrays them – they are undead, they can only be killed with a bullet to the head or by being burned, they have an insatiable appetite for live human flesh, and they pass on their affliction through biting you. Where the film differs form any given George Romero film is its lack of social commentary and any sense of humor whatsoever. World War Z, instead, goes for big Hollywood action – nonstop, go for broke special effects like explosions, car crashes, plane crashes, gunfights, and a self-sacrificing hero who must save the world.

That hero is Gerry Lane (Pitt), family man and former U.N. Employee, who is re-enlisted by the U.N. To help halt a worldwide zombie pandemic that has toppled every major city and government. After a death-defying race out of Philadelphia with his wife (Mireille Enos) and two daughters amidst absolutely chaos in the streets, wherein they manage to make it to Newark, New Jersey, finding temporary shelter in an apartment with a family, Gerry, and his family, along with the young boy of the family they stayed with – his family all turned into zombies — are airlifted to safety aboard a U.N. ship off the coast of New York. In order to keep his family aboard, however, Gerry is instructed that he must travel to the military base in South Korea to seek a solution. Of course, the South Korean solution doesn’t pan out, but it leads to another clue that sends Gerry heading to the Middle East, where he learns about where the pandemic began, and the dangerous hunt for patient zero begins.

In making this sprawling zombie epic, Marc Forster completely misses the tongue-in-cheek, subversive attributes of the very source material the film is taken from, World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War, itself an expansion of Brooks’ The Zombie Survival Guide. Rather than making smart and witty take on the brain-dead genres we are often fed (pun intended), the film instead unabashedly lifts every previously used cliché mythos, only bigger. Albeit, the action here works, and Pitt is likable in World War Z.

Purchase World War Z 4K Ultra HD + Blu-ray in Paramount Scares Vol. 2 on Amazon.com

The Video

World War Z comes to 4K in “newly remastered” 2.39:1 HEVC 2160p (4K UHD) Dolby Vision with HDR10 metadata showing MaxLL of 1000 nits and MaxFALL of 0.0001 nits. The 4K brings strengths of richer color, greater contrast and good pop in the highlights over the Blu-ray. The image looks exceptionally clean to my eyes, versus the Blu-ray which seems just a little bit grittier. This latter observation has me leaning a little toward favoring the Blu-ray in overall PQ, just because it has more texture and seems to work with the content more, whereas the 4K looked just a little too glossy to my eyes and not like what I remember from this film. That is not to say it looks bad at all. It looks very good, just more digital even though the source is a combination of Arri 2.8K and Super 35.

The Audio

World War Z gets the DTS-HD Master Audio 7.1 mix for this release on both the 4K and Blu-ray Disc. It is a cleverly mixed, aggressive soundscape that smacks you in the face from early on. While it does seem just a little pushed to max, the quieter moments never really getting to a real hush, the big sound, deep lows and clean high frequencies will get your adrenalin flowing. It works for the material well, and the dialogue never gets lost. The scene with the Belarus Airlines plane crashing has big, bombastic low end. There is a very slight difference in low and midrange on the 4K and 2013 Blu-ray. A good example is in Chapter 9, the scene in Israel where the zombie hoards begin to swarm over the wall. The sound of the guns and the thumping of the zombies are just a bit thicker on the Blu-ray – very slightly so. There is a little more lower midrange and low frequency extension going on, but the difference is very negligible. An Atmos mix would have been very welcome here. The film ran in theaters with an Atmos mix, which has never seen a home video release.

The Supplements

This disc and the entire collection it is in comes housed in a premium box with original artwork and digital codes for each film. My rating pertains only to the on-disc bonus features for World War Z and not the contents of the entire collection.

In the Paramount Scares: Vol. 2 Box:

• Full-size FANGORIA magazine produced specifically for this release with new and classic articles about the films
• Four unique iron-on patches representing each film
• A domed PARAMOUNT SCARES logo sticker 
• A new PARAMOUNT SCARES glow-in-the-dark enamel pin
• Limited-Edition poster by acclaimed artist Orlando “Mexifunk” Arocena   

Blu-ray Bonus Features for World War Z:

• Origins (1080p; 00:08:21)
• Looking to Science (1080p; 00:07:28)
• WWZ: Production (1080p; 00:36:18)

The Final Assessment

In many ways, World War Z is a disappointingly brain dead take on the Max Brooks source material from which it was taken. As summer blockbuster entertainment that allows you to sit back, enjoy the A/C and the wild ride, it works. It takes all the key elements from the well-established zombie mythos, turns them up to 11 and offers up some astounding visual effects. This 4K release in the Paramount Scares Vol. 2 collection is hard to argue against. And Paramount also includes the Unrated cut on Blu-ray.

PARAMOUNT SCARES – Volume 2 is out October 1, 2024 from Paramount Home Entertainment

Purchase World War Z 4K Ultra HD + Blu-ray in Paramount Scares Vol. 2 on Amazon.com

• Rating Certificate: PG-13 (for intense frightening zombie sequences, violence and disturbing images) | Unrated
• Studios & Distributors: Paramount Pictures | Skydance Media | Hemisphere Media Capital | GK Films | Plan B Entertainment | 2DUX² | Apparatus Productions | Paramount Home Entertainment
• Director: Marc Forster
• Written By: Matthew Michael Carnahan | Drew Goddard | Damon Lindelof
• Run Time: 116 Mins. | 123 Mins. (Unrated)
• Aspect Ratio: 2.39:1
• Video Format: HEVC 2160p (4K UHD)
• HDR Format: Dolby Vision (HDR10 Compatible)
• HDR10 Metadata:
  • MaxLL: 1000 nits
  • MaxFALL: 426 nits
  • Max. Luminance: 1000 nits
  • Min. Luminance: 0.0001 nits
• Primary Audio: English DTS-HD MA 7.1
• Secondary Audio: German DD 5.1 | French DD 5.1 | Italian DD 5.1 | Japanese DD 5.1 | English Audio Description (Blu-ray Only) | Portuguese DD 5.1 (Blu-ray Only)
• Subtitles: English | English SDH | German | Spanish (Castilian) | French | Italian | Japanese
• Street Date: 1 October 2024