Off the Shelf: CRY-BABY (4K Ultra HD)

 by Patrick Bromley

He's a doll. He's a dreamboat. He's a delinquent.

It's astounding to me that my parents allowed my sister and me to walk to our local theater and see Cry-Baby when we were just 12 and 11, respectively. Written and directed by Trash King John Waters, the movie is part tribute, part spoof of the rock and roll/teenage delinquent pictures of the late 1950s and early 1960s in which horny young people rebel against their parents, against authority, against anything that's put in front of them in the pursuit of individuality and a belief in personal freedom. And because it's John Waters, it's a movie made by and for perverts. There's no way my sister and I were ready to understand what's going on in Cry-Baby at 11 years old, nor is there any chance my parents had any awareness of Waters' filmography or the content of the movie they were blindly allowing us to see.

Johnny Depp, still uncomfortable with his pretty boy teen idol image (this was the same year he made Edward Scissorhands in an attempt to shed it once and for all) here decides to lean into it as Wade "Cry Baby" Walker, a delinquent -- here called a "drape" -- who runs with his family and fellow drapes (including Ricki Lake, Traci Lords, Susan Tyrrell, and Iggy Pop) in 1954 Baltimore. When he meets "square" Allison (Amy Locane), his world is turned upside down. The couple must fight against the odds -- and Allison's disapproving grandma, and her preppy boyfriend, and a stint in jail -- if they're ever going to be together. 

After a lifetime in the independent world and the relative success of Hairpsray in the late 1980s, Waters was ready to make his first real studio film by the start of the decade. The result was Cry-Baby, his ode to movie musicals which wound up being so in demand that it was at the center of an actual bidding war. The project wound up at Imagination Films with a budget of $12 million, about $10 million more than he previous biggest film. Depp was still mostly a TV star at this point, looking to break out of 21 Jump Street and onto the big screen; the rest of the cast is mostly made up of Waters' usual array of showbiz outliers, cult celebrities, and general characters. The finished product is a raucous, energetic blast full of good music and horned up antics. I joked on Twitter when I was rewatching Cry-Baby for this review that the movie is like Grease or Dirty Dancing but for perverts and I stand by that review. The writer/director went back to working at indie mini-majors like New Line and Artisan after this, meaning Cray-Baby is the only John Waters studio movie we're ever going to get. We're lucky to have it.

The new Kino Lorber Studio Classics release offers the theatrical cut of Cry-Baby on 4K UHD (a slightly longer "director's cut," previously available, is also included on a second Blu-ray disc). To my eyes, the movie looks fantastic in 4K; of course, I only had my standard def DVD to compare it to, but I was impressed by how film-like and carefully colorful this version looks. I popped in the Blu-ray disc just to see how that looked, and it's strong, too, coming as it does from the same restoration used for the UHD and not, according to a little reading I did online, from the HD master used for the old Blu-ray released by Universal 10 years ago.

Disc One contains only John Waters' original commentary track for the film, ported over for this release, while Disc Two contains a boatload of extras. The commentary is repeated and there's an archival featurette, a trailer, and a collection of deleted scenes that have appeared on previous versions, but all of the other featurettes and interviews are new to Kino's release. There's so much included here that you'll be an expert on the production of Cry-Baby by the time you get through it all, and isn't that all anyone can hope for in this life?

Disc Specs

4K UD (1.85:1)

1080p HD Blu-ray (1.85:1)

DTS HD Master Audio 2.0 (English)

DTS HD Master Audio 5.1 (English)

English SDH

Bonus Features

Disc 1

Commentary by John Waters

Disc 2

Commentary by John Waters

"Bringing Up Baby" Featurette

"Hip to be Square" Featurette

Part of a Collection: Traci Lords Interview

A Few Yucks: Iggy Pop Interview

All These Misfits: Ricky Lake Interview

So Tired of Being Good: Patricia Hearst Interview

In the Sandbox: Darren E. Burrows Interview

Talking Hair: Howard "Hep" Preston Interview

It Came From... Baltimore!! Archival Featurette

Deleted Scenes

Trailer