Panic Room (4K UHD Blu-ray Review)
Even early into 2025, it feels like the year of David Fincher. With the late 2024 release of Zodiac in 4K, as well as the new years release of Se7en for its 30th Anniversary we’ve already seen some of his greatest hits on display in the best physical media format. Now, we’ve got Panic Room making its UHD and Blu-ray debuts from Sony Pictures Home Entertainment! How did this tense thriller take over 20 years to make it to these formats? How many of us are still holding onto our slim Superbit DVDs of Panic Room? And where does the film live on your list of Fincher flicks? Read on and find out what’s hidden behind the mirrored door!
Film 
As the ink dries on her divorce papers, Meg Altman (Jodie Foster) and her daughter Sarah (Kristen Stewart) begin to search out homes in Manhattan. With the idea of being close to Sarah’s father, Meg also wants comfort, something classic and something with space. Sarah wants something cool and maybe with a yard. When the mom and daughter duo are shown a gorgeous brownstone that seems almost too good to be true, the two can’t deny its charms and they take it.
One of the perks of the brownstone is that the previous owner outfitted the master bedroom with a panic room that can seal from the inside to keep valuables and the inhabitants safe. It’s a bewildering idea to Meg, and for Sarah, besides the elevator that’s also in the house, the panic room is intriguing. While the two are getting used to the new space, the panic room seems almost eerie to Meg.
Unbeknownst to anyone, a group of intruders are waiting to come in. Burnham (Forest Whittaker) works for the company who installed the panic room, along with Junior (a corn-row sporting Jared Leto) and Raoul (Dwight Yoakam) know the owner of the house has vacated but not that Meg and Sarah have moved in. They believe something valuable has been hidden in the panic room and they want it. When the group realizes that Meg and Sarah are inside, they don’t deviate in the slightest. A terrified Meg scrambles to get herself and Sarah inside the panic room.
Through a series of cat-and-mouse moments, we see Meg and Sarah try to avoid the trio of thieves. There are double crosses and health scares: Sarah is diabetic, and her issue is a plot point for a moment. There is also the idea of there still being humanity within someone who is robbing someone else. The Burnham character is in need and the one thief in the group with a sense of conscience. Raoul is ruthless and nearly evil, while Junior is plainly young and dumb.
I wouldn’t say that Panic Room resides as top tier David Fincher, but I would never say that this is a film that isn’t tense, well timed and well made. For a thriller with mostly one setting and few characters, it gets the job very well done. As always, there is style and tension in spades. There are some cool for their time technical moments too. Sure, now in 2025 the CGI camera moves feel like animation, but back then they were too cool! The Howard Shore score is sly and playfully creepy to keep you thinking something may come popping out anytime.
There are also those performances! Jodie Foster leads the pack with her strong mother Meg. Newly divorced and openly vulnerable, she makes herself stronger to survive everything. Her daughter Sarah as portrayed by Kristen Stewart is a classic smartass with a great personality. The trio of intruders is strong with Forest Whittaker’s kindly Burnham being the highlight. Dwight Yoakam leans into the hateful psycho routine very well and you as the audience don’t like him immediately, so that speaks volumes for his performance. Jared Leto’s Junior is greedy, stupid and arrogant and Leto’s work here shines simply because he was able to disappear into the character so easily.
David Koepp wrote the screenplay. As we know, Koepp is a durable writer giving us a lot of Hollywood popcorn hits that you’d know from Steven Spielberg and Brian DePalma, and a few smaller films of his own like Stir of Echoes and Premium Rush that are smaller gems that are getting their due later on. (Stir of Echoes celebrated its 4K Debut and 25th Anniversary last year!) His writing here keeps things basic but interesting, involving and briskly paced. That’s all you can really want from a thriller. Mr. Fincher has also patented the film with his trademarks of specific colors, excellent camera tracking and of course the subject matter. Fincher’s thrillers are always so wonderfully layered.
23 years later and we finally have our beloved Panic Room in 4K! It’s odd to think that once upon a time Nicole Kidman was to be Meg, with Kristen Stewart’s character meant to be her opposite. It would be very interesting to see that iteration, but the one we have is nearly perfect as it is. The story is simple and gets the job done with exceptional quality and is extremely satisfying for that reason. It’s crazy to think all this time later that this film only cleared about $90 million in the US. Of course, that DVD was a massive seller along with a Special Edition that followed in 2004. But this 4K edition? Of course this is the way to go!
Video 
Encoding: HEVC / H.265
Resolution: 2160p (Upscaled from 2K)
Aspect Ratio: 2.39:1
HDR: Dolby Vision
Layers: BD-100
Clarity/Detail: Panic Room Debuts on 4K UHD Blu-ray with a Dolby Vision HDR transfer. The overall look is mostly satisfying with a few moments that feel questionable. Opening titles have some detailing that looks like it has been enhanced or sharpened digitally. There are some other issues that I noticed that I’ll delve into below. Details on clothing or hair are not as sharp as a proper 4K scan might be, but they’re not delineated or poorly constructed either.
Depth: Depth is handled deftly when things haven’t been tinkered with for upscaling. Some of the motion shots do appear blurry at times as if you have motion smoothing filters on at times. The opening credits show some decent depth of field for the nature while again the CGI wording looks a little suspet.
Black Levels: Blacks and shadow detailing are one thing that haven’t been tampered with in this transfer, thankfully. Overall the blacks look great with zero crush.
Color Reproduction: Colors lean on the cool side. Since much of the film takes place on a rainy night, things are mostly grey, blue and black. Clothing colors would be the exception and even then, most of the clothing is dark colored. Other colors are the fall leaves you see early in the film and at the end and some brighter hues when lights are turned on in a few moments.
Flesh Tones: Flesh tones are up and down. Some close-ups reveal some more digital clean-up and therefore some of our characters can have that waxy look we don’t want to see. This isn’t constantly apparent but when it’s noticeable it’s not very good looking.
Noise/Artifacts: Panic Room features a schizophrenic layer of grain. Sometimes it’s visible, sometimes it’s very light. Sometimes it’s completely gone. It just depends on the shot and that’s a shame too.
Audio 
Audio Format(s): English Dolby Atmos, French and Spanish 5.1 DTS-HD MA
Subtitles: English, English SDH, French, Spanish
Dynamics: While I can’t give super high marks for the questionable video quality of Panic Room, The Dolby Atmos mix that comes with this new release is another story. Playful, busy and ever so subtle, this mix makes takes full advantage of the Atmos setup. There are very few moments for heavy bass but that’s not a huge deal for this film.
Height: Height speakers catch footfalls above heads, house sounds, whirring elevators and more as characters move from floor to floor of the brownstone. There’s also a consistent use of rain as the film takes place on a rainy night.
Low Frequency Extension: While there aren’t many big moments for the subwoofer to come out to play, there is an instance where within the panic room there is a constant bassy buzzing that is a strange treat to hear and feel. Other more traditional moments for LFE come with fights, gunshots, and hammer swings to name a few.
Surround Sound Presentation: Rain, more house ambience and music take time in the surrounds as well as off screen sounds.
Dialogue: Dialogue sounds excellent for the whole 112 minutes!
Extras
A big deal for this release is that the new Steelbook edition of Panic Room is a 3-Disc set! 2 discs are devoted to the movie – One is the 4K disc, One, a Blu-ray and One, a disc of bonus features. While these are all the same bonuses from the 2004 Special Edition DVD, they are entertaining, interesting and well worth revisiting! A treat!! The release also comes with a digital code!
Bonus Features:
PRE-PRODUCTION
6 featurettes on the prep phase, from pre-visualization through testing
Interactive previsualization — Compare the pre-visualization, storyboards, dailies and final film in a multi-angle, multi-audio feature with optional commentary
PRODUCTION
Shooting Panic Room – An hour-long documentary on the principal photography phase
Makeup effects featurette with Alec Gillis and Tom Woodruff Jr.
Sequence breakdowns – An interactive look at the creation of four separate scenes in the film
POST-PRODUCTION
21 documentaries and featurettes on the visual effects
On Sound Design with Ren Klyce
Digital Intermediate and other featurettes dealing with the post-production phase
A multi-angle look at the scoring session conducted by Howard Shore
Summary
Panic Room took over 20 years to make the jump to the next physical media format. Shocking as that may be, and with its fair share of issues video-wise, this is still overall a solid release for the film. Digital tinkering and edge enhancement and motion smoothing will never be ok, but we also know that those things won’t be fixed. The 2K Upscale is what it is, and as it stands, it’s still very good overall. The Atmos mix here is excellent and the bonus features on disc 3 are outstanding as well.
Fans of Panic Room need not hesitate for this to be a purchase. For newcomers and thriller fans, you shouldn’t hesitate either. People who are really discerning about the idea of tinkering, maybe find a way to check it out before buying. Either way, Fincher is bringing his films home for collectors, and we should just rejoice… Hopefully Fight Club next??
Buy your Panic Room Steelbook HERE
Adam Toroni-Byrne
Adam is a lifelong physical media collector. His love of collecting began with a My First Sony radio and his parent's cassette collection. Since the age of 3, Adam has collected music on vinyl, tape and CD and films on VHS, DVD, Blu-ray and UHD Blu-ray. Adam likes to think of himself as the queer voice of Whysoblu. Outside of his work as a writer at Whysoblu, Adam teaches preschool and trains to be a boxer although admittedly, he's not very good.
