Ron Howard's kidnapping thriller Ransom comes to DVD with a widescreen transfer that preserves the original theatrical aspect ratio of 1.85:1. The English soundtrack is rendered in Dolby Digital 5.1. The film has neither looked nor sounded better on home video. Spanish subtitles are accessible, and a French soundtrack has also been included. The extensive supplemental materials include a detailed commentary by Howard. He discusses many elements of the production and is full of praise for his cast. Those who like insider gossip will greatly enjoy the story of what happened the day Mel Gibson was nominated for an Oscar for directing Braveheart. Numerous deleted scenes have been included, and two behind-the-scenes featurettes allow the actors to talk about the process of making the film. This disc was released simultaneously with a number of Ron Howard films that have all been outfitted with quality extras.

This low-budget, tongue-in-cheek horror film of the slasher genre -- which had recently been popularized by Halloween (1978) -- stars that film's lead, Jamie Lee Curtis, as Kim Hammond, a prom queen who becomes a scream queen. Six years ago, a little girl was taunted by four classmates and fell to her death from an abandoned schoolhouse. The quartet of kids promised to keep their complicity in the accident a secret. Now it's their prom night and they've got the jitters because they have recently been receiving phone calls and notes from an ominous, unknown individual claiming to have witnessed the girl's death and vowing revenge. At the prom, the four become fatal victims one by one of a mysterious, axe-wielding, masked, and hooded stalker. The many possibilities of the murderer's identity include Kim, who is the little dead girl's sister, her school-principal father (Leslie Nielsen), or her disc-jockey brother, Alex (Michael Tough).

Fox offers yet another excellent DTS audio transfer for Predator. During the scenes witnessed from the eyes of the alien, the rear speakers are wonderfully utilized to hear the soldiers' barely comprehensible voices. The depth of the sound field in these scenes helps to heighten the suspense of the film. The crisp DTS sounds shine during several shootout scenes, especially when all the soldiers fire at the unseen jungle for several minutes. This disc also includes a well-done 5.1-channel Dolby Digital transfer, as well as a decent 2.0-channel Dolby Surround track. The 1.85:1 widescreen anamorphic transfer on this disc is surprisingly uneven and varied. During certain scenes, the events on the screen shine with brilliance and clarity, while other portions contain large amounts of grain that hinder the overall presentation of the film. Overall, the visuals are stunning and work well, but the intermittent poor moments keep it from being an excellent transfer. This disc contains no extra features except for a brief theatrical trailer, which is presented in a full-screen format that is around VHS quality. It's nice to see a preview that gives away very little about the plot of the film. Of course, at that time, Arnold Schwarzenegger's name was enough to draw hordes of fans to a picture. The menus on this disc are amateurish and poor; in fact, they rank with some of the worst on any recent DVD.