Scream Factory Blu-ray Discussion Thread

[NeMo_ET]

I know a lot of people around here would disagree with me, but I'd take basic releases with a good picture/audio over collectors editions at cheaper price points all day. I wonder how much money they drop into first and foremost licencing but also into extras, cover art, etc. and how that gets reflected on our end. We can all guess, but I'd be curious what it really looks like in the end. If no new cover art means I get something for $2 cheaper, I'm in.

[crikan]

Originally Posted by Cinema84

The Shout pricing thing is beginning to get old so I won't bring it up again but I do want to say one more thing before moving on. They have to be losing a LOT of business from the impulse buy/double dip segment of the market, of which I am a part of, so why are they still doing it? This strategy can't possibly be working for them. I don't hate them for it but it's going to be easier to start drawing parallels to the Rubenstein/Dawn of the Dead situation where you have one person (in this case, a company) holding strong to a very unpopular policy. Just sayin'.

Maybe they don't have a choice. Perhaps the options are 1) retrain their customers to pay more or 2) stop acquiring titles like Critters, Candyman and the Corman library. I doubt the price strategy was changed so they can buy more Lamborghinis.

[NeMo_ET]

Originally Posted by crikan

Maybe they don't have a choice. Perhaps the options are 1) retrain their customers to pay more or 2) stop acquiring titles like Critters, Candyman and the Corman library. I doubt the price strategy was changed so they can buy more Lamborghinis.

Or was it...

[Jay Mammoth]

Originally Posted by crikan

Maybe they don't have a choice. Perhaps the options are 1) retrain their customers to pay more or 2) stop acquiring titles like Critters, Candyman and the Corman library. I doubt the price strategy was changed so they can buy more Lamborghinis.

You can get any title for cheap if you wait. Got The Thing Steel and Urban Legend for under $20 from amazon, Candyman, TCM IV, Single White Female for $21 each from SF directly. So the complaints that they are forcing people to spend $30 is false.

[1234567?]

Originally Posted by Jay Mammoth

You can get any title for cheap if you wait. Got The Thing Steel and Urban Legend for under $20 from amazon, Candyman, TCM IV, Single White Female for $21 each from SF directly. So the complaints that they are forcing people to spend $30 is false.

True, I did get Urban Legend CE and Valley Girl for great sale price on Amazon. But it does mean waiting for price drops long after release date. Right now is the worst time for them to do this imo because of the other competition. There is so much coming out from tons of other labels right now, I could see it hurting Scream in the long run. People especially me are being a little more picky and choosy when it comes to their titles.


As far as the sale they just did, idk how long it ran for, but the next day I swear nothing was marked down so I never ordered anything. Never seen anything on their site advertising a sale. So for me a working man, these little periodic pop up sales really never benefit me. Glad you knew there was a sale though. They send out emails for that.? Because I really never know when a sale is unless members here start a dedicated thread for and it runs for a good 3-4 days.

[sancho]

The bullshit with Shout was resolved for me.

1. Wait patiently for a price drop on Amazon or somewhere else.
2. Use a gift card if I have one. (Got Creepshow for $25 with a gift card)

Other than that, Shout and their new pricing can go eat a D*ck!
In ending: Shout's Customer Service is Shit, and I will not order from them directly.

[LordSummerIsle]

Originally Posted by sancho

The bullshit with Shout was resolved for me.

1. Wait patiently for a price drop on Amazon or somewhere else.
2. Use a gift card if I have one. (Got Creepshow for $25 with a gift card)

Other than that, Shout and their new pricing can go eat a D*ck!
In ending: Shout's Customer Service is Shit, and I will not order from them directly.

Welcome to the club

[crikan]

Ever since bd.com's price tracker went away I've been losing out on deals. I need to look for another Amazon price tracker.

[nekromantik]

Im still waiting for a good price on Exorcist 2.
Valentine I do want more but its pricey still for UKers.

[Puffy]

I’m going to cancel my Valentine preorder. I thought when it dropped to $27, it would be worth buying in the light of the recent pricing changes.

But then Urban Legend went to $17 and only after a month. I like Valentine and would like to pick it up ASAP but I think I’ll take my chances now.

[schwano]

I just want my order for in-stock and available items from over a week ago to ship.

[Jay Mammoth]

Originally Posted by 1234567?

True, I did get Urban Legend CE and Valley Girl for great sale price on Amazon. But it does mean waiting for price drops long after release date. Right now is the worst time for them to do this imo because of the other competition. There is so much coming out from tons of other labels right now, I could see it hurting Scream in the long run. People especially me are being a little more picky and choosy when it comes to their titles.


As far as the sale they just did, idk how long it ran for, but the next day I swear nothing was marked down so I never ordered anything. Never seen anything on their site advertising a sale. So for me a working man, these little periodic pop up sales really never benefit me. Glad you knew there was a sale though. They send out emails for that.? Because I really never know when a sale is unless members here start a dedicated thread for and it runs for a good 3-4 days.

I didn’t know about either, I saw a post a couple pages back about it and ordered. Most of the CE’s were marked down to $25 with an extra 15% off at checkout. Didn’t work for preorders or I would have ordered more.

[LordSummerIsle]

Originally Posted by Jay Mammoth

I didn’t know about either, I saw a post a couple pages back about it and ordered. Most of the CE’s were marked down to $25 with an extra 15% off at checkout. Didn’t work for preorders or I would have ordered more.

Make that three. Had no idea.

[jcs913]

I would suggest people take a look when Ebay has a 15 or 20% coupon. I get most of my SF releases from a place called blowitoutahere. They have a 20% off coupon when you purchase 4 releases and since they are Deepdiscountdvd, they have most of the SF releases. I picked up 1 Criterion and 3 SF releases, including SW Female and paid about $16 for each after the 20% off the 4 and then stacked a 15% ebay coupon on that. If you are not in a hurry, check Ebay or the selling board here to see when one is being offered. They typically offer 1-2 per month and you can fill in a lot of holes that way and still pay much less than $20 each for them.

[LordSummerIsle]

Originally Posted by schwano

I just want my order for in-stock and available items from over a week ago to ship.

One of the reasons why I don't buy direct from them.

[TripleHBK]

There's been a small bit of movement on the Texas Chainsaw Massacre The Next Generation price today on Amazon. Currently sitting at $25.70.

[LordSummerIsle]

Originally Posted by TripleHBK

There's been a small bit of movement on the Texas Chainsaw Massacre The Next Generation price today on Amazon. Currently sitting at $25.70.

Still too much, though. I'm waiting for a sub-$20

[TripleHBK]

Originally Posted by scwilli1

Still too much, though. I'm waiting for a sub-$20

$19.99 would be great, but I'm not convinced you'll ever see that price. Outside of Hamilton books selling them for $17.99 each which I missed out on at the time around a year or so ago, I've been waiting for Poltergeist 2 and 3 to dip below $20 as well. The latest examples of titles getting solid price cuts have all been the result of pricing errors on one retailer or another. Since TCM:TNG is already out I don't see the price getting much cheaper than $22.99. If I didn't have to pay tax on the current price I'd be picking it up. At $25.70 + tax It's not quite enough of a deal for me I think, but is worth considering since Amazon and everywhere else has been stuck at $29.99 for a while now.

[ravenus]

The other day I saw Shout's blu-ray of Murder by Death, the 1976 spoof on the classic archetype sleuth stories / films. Written by Neil Simon (The Odd Couple, The Sunshine Boys), the sleuths of MbD - barely veiled variations on the famous fictional detectives including Hercule Poirot, Miss Marple, Nick and Nora Charles (from The Thin Man series), Charlie Chan and Sam Spade - are "cordially invited to a dinner and a murder". They congregate at a remotely located mansion where they are greeted by a blind butler (and there's a deaf-mute cook too, and as you may well guess, the combination makes for some peculiar circumstances). These parts are played by a bevy of stars including Alec Guinness (irrepressible as the blind butler), David Niven, Maggie Smith, Peter Falk and, yes folks, Peter Sellers caricaturing to the hilt as the Charlie Chan character.
After assorted bits of comedy for the introduction and settling down of each sleuth party in their strange host's home they settle down to dinner, during which, in a nod to Agatha Christie's Ten Little Indians / And Then There Were None, the host makes his appearance in the flamboyant form of Truman Capote and challenges each of them with the prize of a million dollars to solve by dawn a murder that is to occur at midnight (and I'm not sure he didn't say In Cold Blood), while failure will mean the loss of their reputations.

MbD is a no-holds-barred farce on the stereotype rigmarole of the whodunit. It has interesting elements, like the culture clash between the genteel fastidious sort of detective that Christie created and the hardboiled gumshoe dick. Some of the comedy like the scenes played between the blind butler and the deaf-mute cook for the dinner party is priceless. But given the premise and the starcast I expected greater sparkle. Beyond the introduction of the different sleuths, there is not as much fun from their interaction in the screenplay. And Peter Sellers' Oriental detective is problematic. I wouldn't have minded the racial stereotype so much (apparently Sellers had deliberately heightened the caricature to draw attention to the silliness of white people playing non-white roles) if it was actually funny, but most of it is just awkward. And while one understands that the script aims to poke fun at the ludicrousness one comes across in the denouement of many suspense stories, MbD's climax feels cloyingly overdone. I expected a comfortably funny film spoofing my favorite genre, but I doubt I will be revisiting this film too often.

Shout's blu-ray features a decent transfer although the image is not free of age-related damage and the compression (especially in the scenes of fog) is a little suspect. The lossless mono audio is fine within limitations, with a decent boost to the music. Extras include an okey-dokey short interview with Neil Simon (in which he mostly seems to describe specific scenes of the film) an audio commentary by a Mr. Gambin (who seems to refer to everybody as incredible and makes such wincing gaffes that I turned it off after a while).

[crikan]

Originally Posted by jcs913

I would suggest people take a look when Ebay has a 15 or 20% coupon. I get most of my SF releases from a place called blowitoutahere. They have a 20% off coupon when you purchase 4 releases and since they are Deepdiscountdvd, they have most of the SF releases. I picked up 1 Criterion and 3 SF releases, including SW Female and paid about $16 for each after the 20% off the 4 and then stacked a 15% ebay coupon on that. If you are not in a hurry, check Ebay or the selling board here to see when one is being offered. They typically offer 1-2 per month and you can fill in a lot of holes that way and still pay much less than $20 each for them.

Where do you see that? Is there a code? TIA