Dust Devil: Collector’s Edition (4K UHD Review)

Reviewed by: Stephen Bjork
Review Date: Dec 22, 2025
Format: 4K Ultra HD

Director

Richard Stanley

Release Date(s)

1992 (December 3, 2025)

Studio(s)

Miramax Films (Umbrella Entertainment)

Film/Program Grade: See Below
Video Grade: See Below
Audio Grade: See Below
Extras Grade: A
Overall Grade: A

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Review

[Editor’s Note: This is a Region-Free Australian 4K Ultra HD and Blu-ray import.]

South African writer/director Richard Stanley is a fascinating filmmaker who has frequently had a cloud over his head, both personally and professionally. He made a splash in 1990 with his debut feature Hardware, but just six years later, he was fired a few days into the production of the legendarily troubled The Island of Dr. Moreau remake (in hindsight, Stanley may have actually dodged a bullet with that one). That left him in director’s jail for more than two decades, at least as far as mainstream filmmaking was concerned, and his eventual return behind the director’s chair with Color Out of Space in 2019 was marred when he was accused of domestic abuse two years later. Yet that dark cloud has followed Stanley all throughout his career, and it didn’t start with The Island of Dr. Moreau, either. During the six-year span between Hardware and that film, he worked on another project that seemed cursed from its inception: Dust Devil.

Dust Devil actually began as an unfinished 16mm student film that Stanley shot in 1984 as a way of breaking into the movie business (similar to what Sam Raimi had already done with his Super 8mm short Within the Woods). That version of the film went walkabout in 1989, never to be seen again, after a dispute with an ex-girlfriend (something that would end up being a running theme in his life). Yet after the success of Hardware the next year, Stanley was finally able to get a feature version financed through Palace Pictures and Film Four International, with the participation of British Screen and Miramax (through their Dimension Films label). That’s a lot of cooks with their hands in the pot, and the broth was eventually spoiled as a result. Stanley told Sight and Sound in 1992 that his initial cut was 120 minutes, which he later tightened to 110. But by the time that he got through the gauntlet of test screenings, it had been hacked down to 87 minutes, and that’s the version that was distributed theatrically by Dimension in the United States. Yet Stanley personally financed a reconstruction of his original cut, which screened in London as the 108 minute Dust Devil: The Final Cut in 1993 before going straight to video. It was a long, strange trip to get to that point.

While there’s no question that the longer cut of Dust Devil is superior to the theatrical release, it’s fair to question Stanley’s version of events since he can be an unreliable narrator who has always seemed willing to fan the flames of his own legend. That starts with the conception of Dust Devil, which came partly from his own dreams, but it was also inspired by the legends of a Namibian serial killer called Nhadiep who may (or may not have been) killed by the police in 1982. At least, that’s what Stanley has said to Sight and Sound and other sources. The problem is that it’s difficult to find any documentary evidence about Nhadiep outside of stories related to Dust Devil and another fictional film (which we’ll get to in a moment), or even to a string of murders in Namibia during that admittedly chaotic period in the country’s history. While there have been a variety of serial killers in South Africa, the only Namibian one mentioned anywhere is the “B1 Butcher” who was active in the early 2000s.

Nhadiep was also the subject of the 1989 film Windprints, directed by Black Sails producer David Wicht. Windprints opens with a title card that states: “In April 1982, the South African occupation forces launched a massive manhunt in southern Namibia for a mysterious serial killer who had become a legend among his own people.” Yet the closing credits at the end of the film offer the standard disclaimer that “all characters and situations portrayed in this film are entirely fictitious. Any likeness to any persons living or dead or to any events is entirely coincidental,” without any kind of “while this film is based on real events” qualifier. It’s true that the South African colonial government launched a variety of manhunts during that period, but their targets were usually members of the SWAPO resistance movement (Namibia didn’t officially gain independence until 1990).

Was there really a Nhadiep, or did Stanley just take inspiration from the story for Windprints and incorporate it into his existing story from the 16mm short? In the end, that doesn’t really matter, but it does provide important historical context for the final version of Stanley’s film. Dust Devil is steeped in magic, myth, and legend, but it takes place in a very real Namibia that had suffered for more than a century under the oppression of colonial governance. Stanley told Sight and Sound that his memories of South Africa included “terrible fire-arm abuse, serial killings, car accidents, (and) people being strangled with barbed wire,” which were birthed by the twin evils of racism and sexism endemic to that region during that era. He also mentioned that “South Africa is very big on wife-beating, women are treated appallingly, and there's very little women's liberation” (which is ironic given the later allegations against him). All of that informed the story of Dust Devil.

Dust Devil traces the intertwined stories of a malevolent hitchhiker, the black police officer hunting him down, and a woman who has just left her husband and ends up getting drawn into the hunt. The hitchhiker (Robert John Burke) is a serial killer who may be the incarnate form of a desert spirit chasing after the weak and the faithless in order to end their suffering. At least, that’s the interpretation offered by Joe (John Matshikiza), a mystic who is consulted by Sergeant Ben Mukurob (Zakes Mokae). Ben has been assigned to the case by his white superior officer Captain Cornelius Beyman (William Hootkins), and he rejects Joe’s interpretation due to the fact that he’s lost his own faith since his wife left him after the death of their son. At the same time, Wendy (Chelsea Field) has left her abusive husband (Rufus Swart) and hit the road in search of... well, she’s not exactly sure what. Wendy’s in the depths of despair and feeling suicidal ideation, which is what draws the hitchhiker to her. That leads to a three-way chase between Ben, Wendy, and the hitchhiker, but in the end, only one of them can rule the road.

Dust Devil exists at the intersection between dreams and reality, with both Ben and Wendy being unable to distinguish between the two. Ben doesn’t believe in magic, or at least that’s what he claims, but it’s not so much that he doesn’t believe as he doesn’t want to believe. He’s been living in denial, and confronting the hitchhiker forces him to confront that fact (regardless of whether or not the killer is ethereal or corporeal). Wendy, on the other hand, has simply lost her will to live, which is what draws the hitchhiker to her. What follows may be a dream or it may be reality, but either way, Dust Devil takes place within a waking dream state that obliterates conventional lines between fantasy and reality. Ben has been forced to deal with the reality of the racism that exists within his own police force, while Wendy has been forced to deal with the reality of sexism at the hands of her abusive husband. What happens when they encounter the hitchhiker may be fantasy, but it’s still fantasy that’s born of the harsh reality of life in South Africa. While Stanley deliberately left all of that somewhat ambiguous, he did offer an interpretive key to Sight and Sound:

“The idea in my version is that, just as vampires have to be invited into your home before they can take you, so Hitch can only take people who want to die. Both Ben and Wendy are seeking out the Dust Devil as an end to their pain; they are searching for death. To me, Dust Devil is about magic and suicide. That is the key to my version.”

As a result, it’s not surprising that Dust Devil ended up being a troubled film. After all, it was born out of the imagination of a filmmaker who has experienced plenty of trouble of his own, and it was inevitable that the cloud over his head would darken the films that he makes. Yet great art is sometimes born from great pain, and the various pains suffered by the people of Namibia, Richard Stanley, and (allegedly) his domestic partners all ended up informing the creation of one of the most unique horror films of the Nineties. It’s a fever dream of a film that was driven by the stark reality of pain, oppression, and suffering. While the story may bear some superficial similarities to Robert Harmon’s The Hitcher, the actual experience of watching Dust Devil couldn’t be more different. It’s The Hitcher meets Carnival of Souls, with a generous dose of Nicholas Roeg thrown in for good measure—and an even more generous dose of the reality of life in South Africa. There’s nothing else quite like it.

Cinematographer Steven Chivers shot Dust Devil on 35mm film using spherical lenses, framed at 1.85:1 for its theatrical release. This version of the director’s cut is based on a 4K scan of the original 35mm camera negative, cleaned up and graded for High Dynamic Range in Dolby Vision and HDR10, with results approved by Stanley. (More on the theatrical cut in a moment). There’s some brief speckling during the opening credits, but the rest of the film is much cleaner, with nicely resolved fine detail, especially in environmental textures like gravel, sand, and the ubiquitous dust. Chivers did employ diffusion in some shots, and all of the effects work was composited optically, so things can vary a bit from shot to shot, but it all looks like it should. The colors are gorgeous, really leaning into the oranges and browns that dominate the visual design of the film. Contrast, black levels, and densities are all excellent.

Kino Lorber’s 4K release had a modest bitrate that averaged in the 40Mbps range thanks to squeezing both versions of the film onto one disc and giving them a static encoding. The grain and some background textures suffered as a result. Fortunately, Umbrella’s release hovers in the 50-60Mbps range and spikes up to 80-90Mbps when necessary (it also drops into the teens when it isn’t), and that’s despite the fact that Umbrella is also offering both versions on a single disc. The difference is that they brought in David Mackenzie at Fidelity in Motion to do the encoding, and that’s all the difference in the world. The grain and background details are better resolved throughout, enough so that the light speckling and scratches in the body of the film are more visible. It’s mostly damage of the single-frame variety, and it’s only really noticeable when step-framing while viewing up close, but some of it appears to have been filtered out by Kino’s encode.

Unfortunately, the theatrical cut is a different story. It appears to have been partly upscaled from a 2K or even 1080p source, and not necessarily just the altered footage. The textures can look sharp and detailed in one shot, and smooth and waxy in the next—sometimes, it shifts within the same shot. It looks like AI detail enhancement was used, and without someone monitoring it in order to guide the results. In the sequence where Wendy gets out of the tub at 22:55, details appear and disappear as she walks to the door. Textures on her back suddenly go smooth, and water droplets wink in and out of existence. In the closeup at 30:32, the subtle lines on her face suddenly get exaggerated, making her look like she aged in the middle of the shot. Yet the worst example may be when Wendy and the hitchhiker are standing next to each other at 46:10, where their faces look like they’ve been airbrushed—literally, as in it looks like someone has physically sprayed paint on the screen. There’s also heavier speckling and other damage visible that’s not present in the director’s cut. It’s a mess. Yet FiM has still given it a more robust encoding than Kino Lorber did, although it doesn’t help as much given how the AI enhancement has smeared parts of the image. Fortunately, most people will prefer the director’s cut, but it’s still a shame that the theatrical cut wasn’t treated better.

Audio for both versions is offered in English 2.0 and 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio, with optional English subtitles. Dust Devil was released theatrically in Dolby SR, so it’s theoretically a four-channel mix matrix encoded into two. It’s not clear if this 2.0 is the theatrical mix or a fold-down of the discrete 5.1 version, because there’s not much surround activity either way; the bulk of the sonic energy is spread across the front channels. Kino’s 5.1 version had significantly more bass extension than their 2.0 track, but the tradeoff was that it was muddier and sounded too boomy in comparison (maybe a channel level issue?) Umbrella’s 5.1 doesn’t have the same boominess, making it a viable alternative to the 5.1. Simon Boswell’s memorable score sounds equally fine in both versions, so it will mostly come down to personal preference.

DIRECTOR’S CUT (FILM/VIDEO/AUDIO): B+/A-/B+
THEATRICAL CUT (FILM/VIDEO/AUDIO): B-/C+/B+

The Umbrella Entertainment Region-Free 4K Ultra HD release of Dust Devil is a three-disc set that includes both cuts on a single UHD, plus one Blu-ray with the director’s cut and another with the theatrical cut. The insert is reversible, with the same cover art on each side but with the alternate one being free of the mandatory Australian Classification Board ratings label. There’s also a slipcover featuring new artwork. Umbrella being Umbrella, they’re offering four additional Limited Collector’s Edition sets that include a hardbound book; a copy of Stanley’s script with storyboards and a shooting diary; 8 art cards; an A3 poster; and a rigid slipcase. One includes a Blu-ray release of Stanley’s Color Out of Space; another includes Color Out of Space and a Dust Devil T-Shirt; yet another includes Color Out of Space and a 2-Disc 4K Ultra HD release of Stanley’s Hardware; and still another includes Color Out of Space, Hardware, and both Dust Devil and Hardware T-Shirts. Regardless, the discs for Dust Devil are identical in each of them, so the following extras are always included:

DISC ONE: DIRECTOR'S CUT & THEATRICAL CUT (UHD)

2025 Commentary by Richard Stanley
2025 Commentary by Bryn Tilly and Richard Kuipers
2006 Commentary By Richard Stanley and Norman Hill
Director’s Cut Original Storyboard Overlay

DISC TWO: DIRECTOR’S CUT (BD)

2025 Commentary by Richard Stanley
2025 Commentary by Bryn Tilly and Richard Kuipers
2006 Commentary By Richard Stanley and Norman Hill
Director’s Cut Original Storyboard Overlay
Deleted Scenes and Workprint Introduction by Richard Stanley (Upscaled SD – :57)
Dust Devil Workprint (Upscaled SD – 114:18)
Deleted Scenes (Upscaled SD – 3:59)
Dust Devil Home Movies: Making of Featurette (Upscaled SD – 17:39)
Highway to Nowhere (HD – 16:37)
Dust Devil Interview with Richard Stanley (Upscaled SD – 35:27)
Dust Devil 1984 16mm Short Film Trailer (Upscaled SD – 2:01)
Dust Devil 1984 16mm Short Film Behind-The-Scenes Gallery (HD – 3:21)
Trailer (HD – 1:36)

In addition to two new commentaries, Umbrella has also ported over Richard Stanley’s track for the 2006 Limited Collector’s Edition DVD from Subversive Cinema (although it may have been recorded earlier, since Stanley makes a reference to 2003 at one point). Subversive Cinema’s Norman Hill serves as a moderator, and he brought pages of questions with him, so in practice it’s as much an interview as it is a commentary track. Stanley traces the history of Dust Devil all the way back to the lost 16mm short. He discusses his inspirations (like his own dreams) and various cultural themes and visual motifs, like the circles throughout the film and why the hitchhiker uses a camera to record his victims. He also covers practical challenges like burning the house at the beginning of the film; having to wait for hundreds of hours waiting on location until they were lucky enough to shoot a real dust devil; and making a few changes after The Hitcher ended up being released first (that’s why the hitchhiker holds out his hand instead of using his thumb). Stanley makes a few minor errors along the way, like misidentifying William Hootkins as having played Biggs in the original Star Wars instead of Porkins, but he’s always a fascinating speaker, so this is still a great track.

There first of the new commentaries offers Stanley solo, revisiting Dust Devil two decades down the road from his previous commentary. He speaks a bit more slowly and deliberately here, emphasizing his inspirations and the mythology behind the film’s story. He does offer some technical information, like how he shot controversial material in long takes in order to hopefully avoid interference from “Harvey Scissorhands,” aka Harvey Weinstein. (That didn’t work out so well.) But he’s definitely more interested in myth, legend, folklore, and black magic than he is in practical details, so this has a much different vibe than his track with Hill. The second new commentary features critics Bryn Tilly and Richard Kuipers, who offer an outside view of the film’s themes and style. They tend to be descriptive as much as analytical, but there’s still some interesting stuff here.

Note that the Director’s Cut Original Storyboard Overlay can be played in conjunction with any of the commentary tracks, or else on its own. It provides periodic overlays of relevant storyboards that shed light on the design and execution of Dust Devil.

Highway to Nowhere is a 2021 interview with Steven Chivers, who talks about starting out his career working in standard 8mm and then tells stories about the making of Dust Devil, which was a challenging shoot for a variety of reasons. He says that Stanley is always far more interested in capturing the images that he wants than in guiding the performance from the actors, which makes it harder to get the required number of pages from the script in the can every day. There were also plenty of practical issues, like having to find ways to direct bright lighting on Robert John Burke’s face in order to keep it from being underexposed thanks to the brim of the hat that he was wearing.

With the exception of the Dust Devil 1984 16mm Short Film Behind-The-Scenes Gallery, the rest of the extras on the first two discs were originally created for the Subversive Cinema DVD. (Although even the new gallery appears to be an updated version of the Dust Devil 16mm Scrapbook from that set.) The Dust Devil Interview with Richard Stanley, subtitled Dust Devil and Other Misadventures, starts by stepping through the early part of his career, including the 16mm version of Dust Devil, and breaks down the differences between that version and the eventual 35mm feature film. He also talks about other films like Hardware and Voice of the Moon before breaking down the making of Dust Devil. Simon Boswell also makes a separate appearance near the end to discuss the score (which is interesting, because Stanley previously stated that he actually prefers the music in the Super 8mm version).

There’s also a collection of Deleted Scenes and the Dust Devil Workprint, both of them accompanied by an Introduction from Richard Stanley. The actual workprint no longer exists, and even the Deleted Scenes were sourced from VHS, so this version is a reconstruction that takes the director’s cut and inserts the missing footage from the VHS copy where appropriate. As a result, it’s easy to locate where it was added, but the scenes are also included separately for ease of access. Both the deleted scenes and the workprint are presented here with 2.0 Dolby Digital audio.

The Dust Devil Home Movies Making of Featurette provides some behind-the-scenes footage from the set of Dust Devil, including interviews with the cast and crew. The interviews with Stanley are particularly interesting, because at that point, he had no idea of the post-production issues that he was about to face—and he definitely didn’t know that he was going to have to pony up his own money to finish the film properly.

DISC THREE: THEATRICAL CUT (BD)

Chaos Walking: Guy Davis on Dust Devil and the Dangerous Drifter in Popular Culture (HD – 10:27)
The Secret Glory:
- The Secret Glory Trailer (Upscaled SD – 1:33)
- The Secret Glory (Upscaled SD – 97:06)
- Commentary by Richard Stanley
- The Secret Glory Interview with Richard Stanley (Upscaled SD – 26:38)
The White Darkness:
- The White Darkness Trailer (Upscaled SD – 1:20)
- The White Darkness Introduction by Richard Stanley (Upscaled SD 1:44)
- The White Darkness (Upscaled SD – 50:25)
- Commentary by Richard Stanley
- The White Darkness Interview with Richard Stanley (Upscaled SD – 17:08)

(Note that the listing from disc three has been re-arranged slightly here for clarity, since the menu design didn’t translate well into bullet points.)

Chaos Walking: Guy Davis on Dust Devil and the Dangerous Drifter in Popular Culture is a new visual essay exploring the nature of roadside killers in popular culture from songs like Riders on the Storm to books like Blood Meridian and films like Dust Devil. Davis addresses the fact that Robert Harmon’s The Hitcher ended up interfering with Stanley’s long-gestating plans for Dust Devil. Unsurprisingly, he eventually makes his way to The Walkin’ Dude himself, Randall Flagg, who has appeared in multiple Stephen King stories.

The rest of the extras on disc three consist of Richard Stanley documentaries that were originally included on the Subversive Cinema DVD. The Secret Glory was originally produced for Channel 4 in the U.K., which wanted a documentary about the Nazi search for the Ark of the Covenant to tie into Raiders of the Lost Ark. The only problem was that it never happened, but Stanley inadvertently discovered that SS officer Otto Rahn did end up searching for the Holy Grail. Channel 4 wasn’t interested the Grail, so they shelved the film while Stanley continued to work on it on his own—and he was never able to complete it to his satisfaction. It’s presented here in 2.0 Dolby Digital, with optional commentary by Stanley (moderated by Hill) and a separate interview with him.

The White Darkness is another television documentary, this time commissioned by the BBC—or rather, Stanley was one of a group of people who were commissioned to shoot footage of voodoo rituals in Haiti for the series Last of the Medicine Men in 2000. Stanley later took the 200 hours of footage that they had captured and recut it into his own 2002 documentary The White Darkness. Like The Secret Glory, it’s presented here with 2.0 Dolby Digital audio, an optional commentary (moderated by Hill), and a separate interview, but it also includes a brief introduction from Stanley as well.

There was a third Stanley documentary on the Subversive Cinema set, Voices of the Moon, but it hasn’t been included here. Subversive Cinema also offered a CD copy of Simon Boswell’s soundtrack for Dust Devil. Most of that was ported over to Koch Media’s 2019 Limited Collector’s Edition Blu-ray in Germany, which also added an interview with Marianne Sägebrecht. Kino Lorber’s 2025 UHD set added a featurette with the storyboards and some production Polaroids, although that’s mostly been superseded here by the Original Storyboards Overlay. While it’s not surprising that Umbrella isn’t including the soundtrack CD and the Sägebrecht interview, it’s still a shame that Voices of the Moon was left out in the cold. Yet in all other respects, Umbrella’s set trumps all of the previous ones. It’s got enough new extras to more than compensate for the omission of Voices of the Moon, and superior video quality thanks to the Fidelity in Motion encode. (It’s not the bits, but how to use them, and no one can use available bits more efficiently than David Mackenzie.) For now at least, this is the definitive 4K release of Dust Devil, and so it’s highly recommended.

-Stephen Bjork

(You can follow Stephen on social media at these links: Twitter, Facebook, BlueSky, and Letterboxd).