Anchor Bay blu's WTF!

[Crimson King]

Anchor Bay is starting to go downhill IMO. The ARE releasing blu's, but the ones they are mostly releasing are pretty bad (alot of direct to video stuff). Get me wrong,there are some good blu releases Halloween, Hellraiser, Children of the Corn, Evil Dead 2, Heathers, Ghost in the Shell, Beowulf and Grendel, Henry Poole is Here, Traitor and Righteous Kill. But now they are mostly releasing dreck like The Fallen Ones, lots of those were released on Tues Feb 02 without any extras at all.The only one that looked interesting was the Hellboy animation twofer(but all the great suppliments that were on the DVD's are absent on the blu). Anchor Bay used to be a reissue giant back in the day and had some super cool reissues. Thank God former Anchor Bay employee William Lustig started his own company: Blue Underground. Actually BU has reissued a lot of stuff that Anchor Bay had the rights to years ago.

[AKORIS]

yeah, they've gone from hero to zero from what they used to be

[Crimson King]

+1 I've got many of their DVD's, even though they are DVD. they were the highest in quality and extras. Macon County Line, Fitzcarraldo, Tapeheads, Repo Man, The Stunt Man 2 disc set, Out of the Blue, Three/Four Musketeers,and Cockfighter were just a few of their great reissues!

[benricci]

Anchor Bay isn't starting to go downhill. They went downhill about 8 years ago when Bill left. A lot of their good catalog is with Blue Underground, as you mentioned (who is doing fantastic work on blu-ray, btw).

So what do you realistically expect from them? They can only work with what they've got.

[DetroitSportsFan]

I agree that AB needs to get it in gear. They have quite a few catalog titles on DVD that I own that I'd like to upgrade.

[blu_sharpy]

Lets face it, Anchor Bay have been going down the toilet with DVD for a while now and they are starting to do that with blu. It doesnt help that 'Starz' sounds like the name of some porn company.

[Crimson King]

Originally Posted by benricci

Anchor Bay isn't starting to go downhill. They went downhill about 8 years ago when Bill left. A lot of their good catalog is with Blue Underground, as you mentioned (who is doing fantastic work on blu-ray, btw).

So what do you realistically expect from them? They can only work with what they've got.

At least we have the good memories!

[DetroitSportsFan]

Originally Posted by benricci

Anchor Bay isn't starting to go downhill. They went downhill about 8 years ago when Bill left. A lot of their good catalog is with Blue Underground, as you mentioned (who is doing fantastic work on blu-ray, btw).

So what do you realistically expect from them? They can only work with what they've got.

Do you know of a link that shows everything that AB lost?

[Clark Kent]

What has become even more troubling is the complete lack of lossless audio on all of their recent releases. This is a company whose initial Blu-rays all had PCM soundtracks, and now they are giving us straight Dolby Digital only. What a shame, and it has cost them any money from me. All those low-budget horror movies would have been picked up if they had thrown in lossless audio, but I do not need a BD that sounds no better than the dvd version.

[ZIPPO]

Originally Posted by BillyJack

Anchor Bay is starting to go downhill IMO. The ARE releasing blu's, but the ones they are mostly releasing are pretty bad (alot of direct to video stuff). Get me wrong,there are some good blu releases Halloween, Hellraiser, Children of the Corn, Evil Dead 2, Heathers, Ghost in the Shell, Beowulf and Grendel, Henry Poole is Here, Traitor and Righteous Kill. But now they are mostly releasing dreck like The Fallen Ones, lots of those were released on Tues Feb 02 without any extras at all.The only one that looked interesting was the Hellraiser animation twofer(but all the great suppliments that were on the DVD's are absent on the blu). Anchor Bay used to be a reissue giant back in the day and had some super cool reissues. Thank God former Anchor Bay employee William Lustig started his own company: Blue Underground. Actually BU has reissued a lot of stuff that Anchor Bay had the rights to years ago.

I was thinking of starting a thread on the same subject yesterday. All their recent Blu-ray.com reviews have been very bad. I wonder why they bother releasing some of these Blu's( most are direct to video ). Bad movies, poor video transfers & shoddy audio. If they're not going to include lossless audio at least make an effort to get the lossy audio right. I'm thankful for Blu-ray.com Starz/Anchor Bay reviews, although I can't help but think the reviewers time would be better spent reviewing something worth watching.

[benricci]

Originally Posted by DetroitSportsFan

Do you know of a link that shows everything that AB lost?

I don't, but if you go on BU's site, a lot of what they have for genre films used to belong to AB (or at least, would have gone to AB had Bill stayed there):

http://www.blue-underground.com/cate...=0&per_page=50

Anchor Bay retained a few classic horror titles like a few Argento films, Phantasm, Re-animator, Dawn and Day of the Dead, Halloween, Children of the Corn, Hellraiser and Evil Dead 1 and 2.

These are mostly out on blu-ray, except for Evil Dead 1, Phantasm and Re-Animator. Those 3 are all rumored for release this year.

[dcowboy7]

Do you have to put wtf in the title ?
What are you like 14 years old.

[Eidolon]

i regret buying their bd of Day of thr Dead, the DNR is so bad that most of it looks little better than dvd. Arrow are putting out a much better release in the UK.
I'd really like AB's Mario Bava catalogue on blu, if they can do decent editions of them.
i heard AB were losing the rights to Evil Dead. Whoever puts out should include the 4.3 version hopefully

[DetroitSportsFan]

Originally Posted by dcowboy7

Do you have to put wtf in the title ?
What are you like 14 years old.

Let's keep personal attacks out of this topic.

[Joe Molotov]

Yeah, I remember some of their great DVD releases of some of my favorite cult movies, like the 3-Disc Suspiria and The Sword and the Sorcerer, but now those days seem long gone.

[PowellPressburger]

They released a bettter DVD version of HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME last fall with the films original score back in place.

I wish they would have released that on BLU not a great film but I would have purchased that title for sure on BLU.

[PowellPressburger]

Originally Posted by Eidolon

i regret buying their bd of Day of thr Dead, the DNR is so bad that most of it looks little better than dvd. Arrow are putting out a much better release in the UK.
I'd really like AB's Mario Bava catalogue on blu, if they can do decent editions of them.
i heard AB were losing the rights to Evil Dead. Whoever puts out should include the 4.3 version hopefully

I agree i don't mind if they have the FILM in Widescreen for EVIL DEAD, but please I hope they release the 4:3 in HD also cause it works better with the camera movements etc in 4:3 that was the original aspect ratio the widescreen was just a matted in theatres.

[benricci]

Originally Posted by PowellPressburger

They released a bettter DVD version of HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME last fall with the films original score back in place.

I wish they would have released that on BLU not a great film but I would have purchased that title for sure on BLU.

I must have begged AB for months to release it on blu when the DVD announcement was made. They dropped the ball, there.

[csdot]

i wish they would stop dragging their feet. i need Demons & Demons 2, Tenebre, Phenomena, Re-Animator, Phantasm, Twitch of the Death Nerve, Evil Dead etc etc NOW

[Captain Morphus]

I'm waiting somewhat patiently for Hellbound to be released by AB.