Scream Factory Blu-ray Discussion Thread

[RCRochester]

Originally Posted by Monterey Jack

Gee, that isn't condescending at all. And Scream Factory has released a TON of absolute garbage from those decades. It may be "nostalgic" garbage for those who grew up watching these movies on VHS and cable, but it's still crap. When I see a dreadful slasher movie like Graduation Day, Final Exam or Urban Legend receiving a lavish special edition treatment, with the people who happily snap them up denigrating 50s or 60s sci-fi/horror flicks as "cheesy rubber-suit" movies, it does stick in my craw. I'm an 80s kid, I didn't see a lot of those formative horror flicks from the Fangoria era back then, and getting around to them now...a lot of them are terrible.

Cinema84 didn't refer to them as "cheesy" though, nor did he denigrate them. He merely expressed his lack of interest in them. And in fact, now that you've somehow taking his stance personally, you're the one needlessly denigrating films from other eras.

[jcole8882]

Originally Posted by DukeTogo84

Think they will start announcing August titles this week?

Yes, most likely this Wednesday or Thursday... maybe even tomorrow...

[Monterey Jack]

Originally Posted by RCRochester

Cinema84 didn't refer to them as "cheesy" though, nor did he denigrate them. He merely expressed his lack of interest in them. And in fact, now that you've somehow taking his stance personally, you're the one needlessly denigrating films from other eras.

Okay, I'll agree I went too far, but it's just kind of silly when people groan about movies from the 50s getting SF releases, when a lot of the 70s/80s genre films they squee about are fairly bad. And seeing a movie as authentically lousy as Urban Legend receive a 2-1/2 hour(!) making-of documentary... A movie that legitimately claimed a stake as being a formative smash hit of its era, like Scream, I could imagine being worthy of such treatment, but Urban Legend? THAT movie gets a lavish SE, while movies like The Abyss and True Lies aren't on BD at all...

[MassiveMovieBuff]

Originally Posted by Monterey Jack

Okay, I'll agree I went too far, but it's just kind of silly when people groan about movies from the 50s getting SF releases, when a lot of the 70s/80s genre films they squee about are fairly bad. And seeing a movie as authentically lousy as Urban Legend receive a 2-1/2 hour(!) making-of documentary... A movie that legitimately claimed a stake as being a formative smash hit of its era, like Scream, I could imagine being worthy of such treatment, but Urban Legend? THAT movie gets a lavish SE, while movies like The Abyss and True Lies aren't on BD at all...

I actually found Urban Legend to be a pretty great throwback to the slashers/horror films of the 80s and a lot of great ones at that.

James Cameron is the issue with True Lies and The Abyss not having blu ray releases yet and quite frankly True Lies is pretty problematic IMO

[RedHarvest]

Originally Posted by Monterey Jack

Gee, that isn't condescending at all. And Scream Factory has released a TON of absolute garbage from those decades. It may be "nostalgic" garbage for those who grew up watching these movies on VHS and cable, but it's still crap. When I see a dreadful slasher movie like Graduation Day, Final Exam or Urban Legend receiving a lavish special edition treatment, with the people who happily snap them up denigrating 50s or 60s sci-fi/horror flicks as "cheesy rubber-suit" movies, it does stick in my craw. I'm an 80s kid, I didn't see a lot of those formative horror flicks from the Fangoria era back then, and getting around to them now...a lot of them are terrible.

Condescending to whom? Scream Factory has a certain brand, horror films of the latter part of the 20th century. That has long been their selling point. As a Scream Factory fan from the beginning, I am their target audience -- a physical media collector with a fondness for the horror films I grew up watching.

[RedHarvest]

Originally Posted by MassiveMovieBuff

I actually found Urban Legend to be a pretty great throwback to the slashers/horror films of the 80s and a lot of great ones at that.

James Cameron is the issue with True Lies and The Abyss not having blu ray releases yet and quite frankly True Lies is pretty problematic IMO

Let's face it; what else is there within Scream Factory's grasp at this time (Paramount deal notwithstanding)? The selections are getting thin. And it's difficult to factor in classic Warner/Sony properties, because they're releasing their own stuff now, albeit slowly.

[DukeTogo84]

There are still a lot of good titles out there, but again Warner and Sony are slowly releasing their stuff.

Shout! has the select line, so the company can probably survive on that for awhile, but the horror titles have to be drying up. They need to make another deal with a label. Hopefully Paramount? If they could do something with Liongate, then they would have a gold mine of material to release. Even with Fox, but it sounds like they can only get a few Fox titles at a time as they don't release many of those each month. (0-2 it seems)

[MassiveMovieBuff]

Originally Posted by RedHarvest

Let's face it; what else is there within Scream Factory's grasp at this time (Paramount deal notwithstanding)? The selections are getting thin. And it's difficult to factor in classic Warner/Sony properties, because they're releasing their own stuff now, albeit slowly.

Yeah agreed. It really is a shame that a deal couldn't be made with Lionsgate especially now that Lionsgate is doing a friggin' BD-R line

[BarnDoor]

If they're doing most classic Universal/Paramount horror in box sets now, there isn't much pre-1960 Universal sci-fi/horror left for Scream to do as individual releases, save a few titles from the Universal Sci-Fi sets (providing they have them).

As for Warner, given what they're doing with Warner Archive, I can't see Scream having much of their pre-1960 horror (there's not a great deal of 40s-50s stuff left now) beyond more Val Lewton titles.

With Sony, there's a fair few 30s-50s titles they could release, but not a huge amount. Certainly a box set of Karloff titles would account for a decent chunk.

As such, I don't think we'll see as many pre-1960s studio titles from Scream moving forward, at least not in terms of individual releases. But if you're not a fan of Hammer, well that's tough I'm afraid - I think it's very possible they have another 10-15 Hammer titles in the works, possibly more. I for one am eagerly awaiting certain titles without a release elsewhere, including The Abominable Snowman, X: The Unknown, The Lost Continent, and of course the already-announced Lust for a Vampire, one of my most anticipated releases.

[Mr. Yellow]

Aren’t there still of monster flicks for them to potentially do? Why not do more foreign films?

[moviegeek1992]

I received my order of Species from ImportCDs and the case was cracked from the bottom, which isn't such a big deal because cases can be replaced. It was clearly resealed as well. Then I opened it to find the main disc missing!

Don't laugh, but I think someone managed to get it out of the small crack. I'm open to other theories

[Show spoiler]

[RCRochester]

Originally Posted by Monterey Jack

Okay, I'll agree I went too far, but it's just kind of silly when people groan about movies from the 50s getting SF releases, when a lot of the 70s/80s genre films they squee about are fairly bad. And seeing a movie as authentically lousy as Urban Legend receive a 2-1/2 hour(!) making-of documentary... A movie that legitimately claimed a stake as being a formative smash hit of its era, like Scream, I could imagine being worthy of such treatment, but Urban Legend? THAT movie gets a lavish SE, while movies like The Abyss and True Lies aren't on BD at all...

I think you are still going too far, TBH. You're complaining that "people groan about movies from the 50s" while you're putting the boots to Urban Legend just because it's your subjective opinion that it's lousy.

The likely reason why Urban Legend was afforded such a lavish release is because it's a relatively newer film that holds a high nostalgia factor for the age demographic that buys Scream Factory releases the most, not to mention that many of the people involved with the making of the film are still alive and able to participate.

I think it's commendable that Scream are also trying their best to cater to fans who enjoy those "50s rubber suit monster movies" even though I'm sure the market for those is far smaller than slasher movies from the 70-90s. The hard truth is, I'm willing to bet that they were forced to accept those movies as part of package deals so they could get the stuff they really wanted.

[Member-222782]

Originally Posted by Monterey Jack

Okay, I'll agree I went too far, but it's just kind of silly when people groan about movies from the 50s getting SF releases, when a lot of the 70s/80s genre films they squee about are fairly bad.

It's called subjectivity. I feel about 50's monster movies the same way you do about the 70's or 80's. I don't (usually) get all bent out of shape when someone denigrates movies from my favorite decade so all I can do is

[Member-222782]

I don't believe Shout Factory is "at the end" but they do need to seek out other deals. The Kino insider said Shout grabbed a good chunk of the Studiocanal titles thanks to them (Kino), and we've already gotten Superstition and The Manitou (which I'm VERY happy with), with Vice Squad on the way. I'm sure some of the "better" B titles are forthcoming, while Kino likely grabbed most of the artier fare (as they should). And Shout didn't go far enough with the Warner deal, only grabbing a few titles and bypassing (as far as we know) some of the expected - and more popular - ones like Deadly Friend, The Hand, He Knows You're Alone and Alone In the Dark. I'm sure they have some of the "big guns" and will announce them at Comic Con.

Then there's the Corman library, which they acquired. So far, very little has trickled out of that acquisition, with Shout mainly just reissuing select titles in steelbook editions. They never released all of the Corman stuff from their initial deal so they need to get a move on with those.

If you're more into the 70's and 80's (as I am), the happenin' stuff is coming from Scorpion, VS, Kino and other labels via Lakeshore and Studiocanal.

[jcole8882]

We will find out when they announce October titles and Sdcc titles whether or not they still have warner... I'm sure they are saving the goods for that time...

Like..

Beetlejuice
Mars Attacks
Thirteen Ghosts
House of Wax
Jawbreaker
Childs Play 2 and 3 (eventually/hopefully)
Ghost Ship
It (1990)
The Cell
Wrong Turn
Dreamcatcher
Dead Silence
Orphan
The Witches
Dont Tell Mom the Babsitters Dead
Interview with the Vampire
The Lost Boys
Stay Tuned
Deep Blue Sea
Twister
Wild Wild West
Selena
It Takes Two (1990)
Ladyhawke
Deadly Friend
The Witches of Eastwick
Dead Calm
Swordfish
Queen of the Damned
Murder by Numbers
Insomnia
Eight Legged Freaks
Blood Work
Fear.com
Gothika
Taking Lives
Girl, Interrupted
Constantine
One Missed Call
The Reaping
The Invasion
The Box
Happy Birthday to Me
Vampires
Night of the Living Dead (1990)
Idle Hands
I Know What You Did Last Summer and 2
28 Days
Shaun of the Dead
The Glass House
Identity
Darkness Falls
Secret Window
The Fog (2005)
The Grudge

[Rzzzz]

Originally Posted by Mr. Yellow

Aren’t there still of monster flicks for them to potentially do? Why not do more foreign films?

Like this one.....

[Show spoiler]

[TripleHBK]

I feel like a deal with Full Moon Entertainment is a likely scenario at some point. All of Full Moon's catalog could use a good remastering and uncompressed audio. Most have a handful of special features though I'd wager more could be done, and particularly the older works... The Pit and The Pendulum, Castlefreak, The Lurking Fear, Creepozoids, Meridian, Tourist Trap (Uncut), Sorority Babes in the Slime Ball Bowl-o-rama, and Subspecies. I'd love a Scream Factory Box set of the Puppet Master films as well.

Yes these are all double dips, Yes I already own every one of them, but every single film would benefit from a re-release and would fit perfectly with the Scream Factory Brand. I also feel that Band would be a fool not to pursue such a partnership as he himself could/would continue to sell his stripped down editions while making money by allowing Scream Factory to release their own.

[BarnDoor]

At this point I don't think they need 'new' partners as such (not that they'd turn down a deal with Paramount of course). Further access to Warner and Sony titles (if they haven't got this already) would see them fine for at least a couple of years, on top of the Corman, StudioCanal, Hammer, Fox, MGM and Universal deals.

[DukeTogo84]

I really hope Scream gives us Alone in the Dark. I really thought that would have been one of their first titles with their Warner deal.

[BarnDoor]

Originally Posted by DukeTogo84

I really hope Scream gives us Alone in the Dark. I really thought that would have been one of their first titles with their Warner deal.

It's pretty obvious at this point that Warner are holding onto certain titles for whatever reason. No doubt Deadly Friend, for example, would have been very high up on Scream's wants-list. It might be that they get it eventually, but it could also be that Warner have their own plans.

As for Alone in the Dark, I'm still hopeful about this one because of the easter egg on the recent Valentine release.

Also important to note though that they're at the mercy of WB when it comes to remasters, so it might be that they've been made wait for certain titles.