Best & Worst Blind Buys You’ve Ever Made...

[Dark City Denizen]

There are few things more satisfying to me in this hobby than a successful blind buy. An obscure film you come across, allow yourself only a barebones awareness of, & purchase on risk of wasting your money. It doesn’t always come off, of course, which is what makes the wins so meaningful.

What are your hits & misses blind-buying? Don’t be too descriptive in your hits, as someone reading this thread may be enticed to give your recommendation a go.

HITS...

Thelma (2017)

This is the best of the bunch, & the only blind buy to end up making my top 100 favourite films. A Norwegian movie about a sheltered young woman coming to terms with a dark family secret & burgeoning supernatural powers. Dramatic, compelling viewing from start to finish.

Spring (2014)

A sort of Let the Right One in for adults (& just as good) about a young American man who flees turmoil for the Italian coastline...& gets a lot more than he bargained for. Excellent pair of lead performances.

Harpoon (2019)

A Canadian film I discovered on Arrow’s website. A brutal, daring black comedy. Extremely funny & smart, but not for the faint of heart.

Triangle (2009)

An English film starring Melissa George & a young Liam Hemsworth, this is a frightening, challenging horror movie set at sea.

Sputnik (2020)

Russian movie set in the later stages of the Cold War. There’s no beating around it...this is obviously an Alien-inspired film (the Director has admitted as much), but it’s a damn good entry in that regard. Wonderful creature design.

The Lure (2015)

Utterly bizarre but wholly captivating Polish film available on the Criterion Collection. Mermaids, horror & music.

Red Hill (2010)

A contemporary Wallaby Western from Australia, this is a good old-fashioned revenge thriller with guts, guns & a mysterious, possibly mythical panther.

Control (2003)

Take a wild (& wildly entertaining) ride in the underbelly of the Budapest Metro Rail system in this Hungarian film that mixes suspense, thrills, some light drama & many hilarious comedic scenes in a one of a kind genre mash-up.

[theEXORCIST]

A lot of my best blind buys came from Criterion in the form of Bergman and Kieslowski also La Dolce Vita, Sullivan's Travels, Night of the Hunter etc. But then again I'd say over 50% of my Blu-Rays I buy are blind buys. 30% are upgrades from DVD's I bought blind. The worst blind buys I've made were cheap Black Friday impulse buys, I, Tonya and Childs Play remake come to mind. I love Margot Robbie and Aubrey Plaza but not enough to like a lot of their movies

[Gargus]

Worst: satan's blade.

Best: alejandro jordowsky (spelling?) 4k set from arrow.

[jtu128]

I don’t have many blind buys anymore. It’s very easy to watch a film prior to purchasing these days.

[jzbadblood]

I do mostly blind buys. I love buying a disc and putting it into the player only knowing what the case art tells me. It's like renting a movie based on the VHS art back in the day. Also I don't like streaming titles I think I might like as the experience of holding the disc and watching for the first time can't be replicated.

Best: The Candy Snatchers
Worst: Franky and His Pals

[gregmtl92]

Best: Angst
Worst: Demented

[murphywmm]

It’s hard to pick a best blind buy, but it’s easy to pick my worst one:

Force Majeure

This won a bunch of awards and got a ton of critical praise but I absolutely hated it. The IMDb description is hilariously inaccurate: “A family vacationing in the French Alps is confronted with a devastating avalanche”. Well, there isn’t actually an avalanche but a “false alarm avalanche” in which the man of the house runs away instead of staying with his family. The rest of the movie is basically his wife bickering at him for being a weakling. It just didn’t resonate with me at all.

[Al_The_Strange]

Best:

• Annihilation
• Baby Driver
• Baraka
• Donnie Darko
• Harakiri
• Inception
• Man With a Movie Camera
• Minority Report
• Red Cliff
• Samsara
• The Third Man
• Timescapes

Worst:

• Argento's Dracula
• August Underground
• BloodRayne: Deliverance
• The Brink
• Cult (2007)
• Ilsa: She Wolf of the SS
• Machine Head (2000, not related to the metal band unfortunately)
• Raving Maniacs
• Recon 2020: The Caprini Massacre (was a double feature with Battlespace, which is barely any better)
• A pack of early Tony Jaa movies, which included Hard Gun and Mission Hunter 2: Battle Warrior
• A four-pack of Italian war movies, which included Hell's Heroes, Bridge to Hell, Warbus 2, and Apocalypse Mercinaries (packaged shamelessly to tie into the Inglourious Basterds craze at the time)

Most of the worst ones are cheap DVDs I saw at thrift stores and such, and they caught my eye just enough to blow a buck on them. I don't own most of them anymore.

[RCRochester]

There are lots of great blind buys that I've seen - I usually have good instincts about what I'll like. Brewster McCloud stands out as one that I really enjoyed.

The worst is definitely Tim & Eric's Billion Dollar Movie. One of the worst films I've ever seen. I like stupid comedy but that film was just rancid and I have no idea why those two d1ckheads are so popular.

[Al_The_Strange]

Originally Posted by RCRochester

The worst is definitely Tim & Eric's Billion Dollar Movie. One of the worst films I've ever seen. I like stupid comedy but that film was just rancid and I have no idea why those two d1ckheads are so popular.

I couldn't even make it past the first season of Tim and Eric's show.

[dylrichard02]

Best: Blue Velvet
Worst: Cyborg

[Partyslammer]

Hits:
The Dragon Trilogy
The Holy Mountain
The Blood On Satan's Claw
Color Out Of Space
Annihilation
The Good, The Bad, The Weird
Hans Zimmer Live In Prague

Misses:
The Hemisphere Box Of Horrors
Dragon Wars
Rampage
Jinnah
The Brain
Serial
Doctor Modred

[dkelly26666]

I don't do many blind buys.

But one of the worst ones I recall was also one of the most disappointing.

What sounds more intriguing than a modern produced, late 90s era, Italian made spaghetti western homage, with none other than Harvey Keitel and David Bowie as aging, rival gunslingers with a score to settle? Tell me that doesn't SOUND like it would be cool???

It was terrrrrrrible....

I love Keitel and Bowie both, and they are two of my favorites. But even they couldn't save that drek.

Especially when you get there and discover that the two big draws, shown prominently on the cover, actually have very limited screen time, and most of the movie is bungling comedy with some young Italian dude and his wife and child living on a farm, with the dude and a ridiculous old sidekick just bumbling around with a bunch of silly, slapstick humor? And that the movie constantly plugs this lame, anti-gun woke message, instead of being the badass spaghetti western it promised in the marketing, LOL.

Oh it was awful....

[buck135]

Best: Autopsy of Jane Doe
Worst: Machete

[Bradsdadg]

I do what I call informed blind buys. I watch trailers and get a feel for the movie before buying. Though I'd say 90% of my buys I have never actually seen before. Having said that some disappointments have been: Walkabout from Criterion, Death Row Game Show and Hobgoblins from Vinegar Syndrome, Doom Asylum from Arrow and generic titles like Kong Skull Island and a few more...Most others have been very good and worth consideration into the better/best category. So it is hard to pick for those. Fade to Black is one that I watched fairly recently that was excellent though

[HD Goofnut]

My worst blind in recent years is definitely Pacific Rim: Uprising. It was an absolute train wreck compared to the first film. The best is undoubtedly Ford v Ferrari.

[notops]

Best: The Raid: Redemption
Worst: Horrible Bosses 2

[GoneJoel]

BEST
Annihilation
A Cure for Wellness
mother!
Overlord
Contagion
Call Me by Your Name

WORST
Breaking In
Shut In
Blumhouse’s Truth or Dare
The First Purge
FearDotCom
Morgan (2016)
It’s Complicated

[jzbadblood]

Originally Posted by Bradsdadg

Death Row Game Show

I expected more gore and a darker tone out of that one then I got. What did you think?

[Dark City Denizen]

Originally Posted by Bradsdadg

I do what I call informed blind buys. I watch trailers and get a feel for the movie before buying. Though I'd say 90% of my buys I have never actually seen before. Having said that some disappointments have been: Walkabout from Criterion, Death Row Game Show and Hobgoblins from Vinegar Syndrome, Doom Asylum from Arrow and generic titles like Kong Skull Island and a few more...Most others have been very good and worth consideration into the better/best category. So it is hard to pick for those. Fade to Black is one that I watched fairly recently that was excellent though

You watch the trailer!? That’s too much information to be considered a blind buy IMO.