Scream Factory Blu-ray Discussion Thread

[omahajon]

Watching the ANOES boxset from WB. PQ looks fine, but I think could really benefit from new transfers. Extras are slim, mostly in SD and only 3 commentaries (2 on original, onther on New Nightmare). Bonus disc has 2 Freddy's Nightmares episodes which is neat. Nothing overtly wrong with this set, but with what SF has done with Halloween and the upcoming F13,I'd gladly rebuy this set if this is a possible title from next year from Scream.

Just a fun thought.

Wish list ideas for this set: All films get audio commentaries. 3D footage for Freddy's Dead reinserted, new transfers on all, especially 1-5, besides the udual interviews, documentaries.

[JBene]

Originally Posted by omahajon

Watching the ANOES boxset from WB. PQ looks fine, but I think could really benefit from new transfers. Extras are slim, mostly in SD and only 3 commentaries (2 on original, onther on New Nightmare). Bonus disc has 2 Freddy's Nightmares episodes which is neat. Nothing overtly wrong with this set, but with what SF has done with Halloween and the upcoming F13,I'd gladly rebuy this set if this is a possible title from next year from Scream.

Just a fun thought.

Wish list ideas for this set: All films get audio commentaries. 3D footage for Freddy's Dead reinserted, new transfers on all, especially 1-5, besides the udual interviews, documentaries.

THE DREAM CHILD has to be the uncut version. That was missing from the DVD box set.

[Hitman Horton]

Originally Posted by omahajon

Watching the ANOES boxset from WB. PQ looks fine, but I think could really benefit from new transfers. Extras are slim, mostly in SD and only 3 commentaries (2 on original, onther on New Nightmare). Bonus disc has 2 Freddy's Nightmares episodes which is neat. Nothing overtly wrong with this set, but with what SF has done with Halloween and the upcoming F13,I'd gladly rebuy this set if this is a possible title from next year from Scream.

Just a fun thought.

Wish list ideas for this set: All films get audio commentaries. 3D footage for Freddy's Dead reinserted, new transfers on all, especially 1-5, besides the udual interviews, documentaries.

Like the DVD box set, all extras must be found in the Labyrinth. That was really cool and I'd love to see it done again.

[Member-222782]

The Labyrinth was a cool idea and, yes, it was fun to navigate and find stuff, but who has time to go digging around a puzzle? I went through that disc and am pretty sure I never found everything. Much of what I did find was OK: music videos, EPKs, PSAs, and a lot of other short segments or parts of TV specials or interviews. These films need a reappraisal with a good selection of new featurettes and other extras specific to the films. And, of course, fresh scans. Hard to believe this franchise hasn't been re-released to death like Friday the 13th.

[Jay H.]

Originally Posted by Cinema84

The Labyrinth was a cool idea and, yes, it was fun to navigate and find stuff, but who has time to go digging around a puzzle? I went through that disc and am pretty sure I never found everything. Much of what I did find was OK: music videos, EPKs, PSAs, and a lot of other short segments or parts of TV specials or interviews. These films need a reappraisal with a good selection of new featurettes and other extras specific to the films. And, of course, fresh scans. Hard to believe this franchise hasn't been re-released to death like Friday the 13th.

Almost everything in The Labyrinth is available on the same DVD without going through The Labyrinth. Music videos, featurettes, trailers, interviews...it's all on there, and you don't have to jump through any hoops to watch it.

The Labyrinth is a lot of fun, but you don't have to go through it.

[prkchopexpress]

Originally Posted by kp404

Its like Linda Blair was taking any part she was offered in the 1980s and she's great in everything.

she really got a bad rap. i mean, it’s hard to overcome the exorcist. an actor has to work. any of the stuff you saw with her afterwards, it’s not like she was bad. she’s the best part of roller boogie, hell night, savage streets. all wildly different movies. she doesn’t bring the movie down.

and she might have been unfairly maligned by the reaction to exorcist II. which she can’t be blamed for. it was one of the most successful movies in the history of warner brothers. of course they would want to make a sequel. and it’s not even like she is bad in that movie.

[barsalou]

Exorcist II is awesome, just want to throw that out there.

[kp404]

Originally Posted by prkchopexpress

she really got a bad rap. i mean, it’s hard to overcome the exorcist. an actor has to work. any of the stuff you saw with her afterwards, it’s not like she was bad. she’s the best part of roller boogie, hell night, savage streets. all wildly different movies. she doesn’t bring the movie down.

and she might have been unfairly maligned by the reaction to exorcist II. which she can’t be blamed for. it was one of the most successful movies in the history of warner brothers. of course they would want to make a sequel. and it’s not even like she is bad in that movie.

Good points, it wasn't until Repossessed that I found the first movie of hers I didn't necessarily like. I don't hate Repossessed as much as most do, but it was the breaking point for me. Up until that point, I enjoy all of her roles.

[Jay H.]

Originally Posted by prkchopexpress

she really got a bad rap. i mean, it’s hard to overcome the exorcist. an actor has to work. any of the stuff you saw with her afterwards, it’s not like she was bad. she’s the best part of roller boogie, hell night, savage streets. all wildly different movies. she doesn’t bring the movie down.

and she might have been unfairly maligned by the reaction to exorcist II. which she can’t be blamed for. it was one of the most successful movies in the history of warner brothers. of course they would want to make a sequel. and it’s not even like she is bad in that movie.

Her bad reputation/inability to get roles in "A" movies is due to her issues with drugs. Society was less forgiving back then. Quite a few people in Hollywood were blacklisted; Robert Evans is a prime example.

[prkchopexpress]

Originally Posted by barsalou

Exorcist II is awesome, just want to throw that out there.

no matter what happened or what the conditions were, you would never be able to recreate magic and impact of the original.

and it’s hard to ignore the morricone score. it’s an interesting movie that might not work entirely, and if didn’t the fellow the exorcist, it would probably be more liked. but hey, what can you do?

[DaveyJoe]

Originally Posted by barsalou

Exorcist II is awesome, just want to throw that out there.

Man, I've only seen it once and that was years ago. Is it worth revisiting under a lees critical eye?

[TripleHBK]

Originally Posted by DaveyJoe

Man, I've only seen it once and that was years ago. Is it worth revisiting under a lees critical eye?

It's a really bad film in any number of ways despite being a technically well assembled film. The story is a mess from top to bottom and anyone saying otherwise is grossly misleading you. Is it worth seeing? Absolutely. Does it get better with repeat viewings? Small bits yes, but any desire to watch it or any praise it gets stems largely from the sum of it's parts. The score is interesting, it's fun to see a more mature version of the Regan character and what her life became after the original story, it's interesting to view it and realize just how far off the mark the film is and question who in their right mind would have ever green lit such a thing... etc. A person doesn't turn on the Exorcist II the way they turn on other films... this is more of a "You gotta see this" type of film for most folks and for the hardcore it's more a study on what went wrong and trying to find salvageable aspects of the film to sell others on.

Had this film came out 6 years later it would have fell into the 80's mentality of horror films and resulted in a far less "creative" interpretation of a script, but universally would have resulted in a better more beloved film. (ie. something closer to Exorcist III). It's a travesty that Linda Blair and her character weren't given a better story to work with... something that more closely matched what we got in Exorcist III.

[barsalou]

Originally Posted by DaveyJoe

Man, I've only seen it once and that was years ago. Is it worth revisiting under a lees critical eye?

For sure. TripleHBK pretty much nailed it though so don't go in expecting a lost masterpiece or anything. I just love it because of how nuts the whole thing is.. there's a few genuinely effective moments, but its mostly goofy and entertaining for the wrong reasons. The overall atmosphere is one I very much enjoy, the Morricone sets the mood quite nicely in that regard. It has a great cast too, can't go wrong with Linda Blair and a drunk Richard Burton leading the charge. It's great in a B-movie kind of way.

[prkchopexpress]

Originally Posted by DaveyJoe

Man, I've only seen it once and that was years ago. Is it worth revisiting under a lees critical eye?

Originally Posted by TripleHBK

It's a really bad film in any number of ways despite being a technically well assembled film. The story is a mess from top to bottom and anyone saying otherwise is grossly misleading you. Is it worth seeing? Absolutely. Does it get better with repeat viewings? Small bits yes, but any desire to watch it or any praise it gets stems largely from the sum of it's parts. The score is interesting, it's fun to see a more mature version of the Regan character and what her life became after the original story, it's interesting to view it and realize just how far off the mark the film is and question who in their right mind would have ever green lit such a thing... etc. A person doesn't turn on the Exorcist II the way they turn on other films... this is more of a "You gotta see this" type of film for most folks and for the hardcore it's more a study on what went wrong and trying to find salvageable aspects of the film to sell others on.

if you’re a horror obsessive, you have absolutely seen worse sequels. (i don’t knew really want to name some, but there are plenty) but that isn’t exactly a ringing endorsement. so this is in that weird category of movies where it isn’t as bad as people make it out to be, but it’s not exactly good. this isn’t a halloween 3 scenario.

the score is absolutely the best part of the movie. everything else is like weird, interesting dream

[zbinks]

Originally Posted by barsalou

For sure. TripleHBK pretty much nailed it though so don't go in expecting a lost masterpiece or anything. I just love it because of how nuts the whole thing is.. there's a few genuinely effective moments, but its mostly goofy and entertaining for the wrong reasons. The overall atmosphere is one I very much enjoy, the Morricone sets the mood quite nicely in that regard. It has a great cast too, can't go wrong with Linda Blair and a drunk Richard Burton leading the charge. It's great in a B-movie kind of way.

Therein lies the real problem; it was meant to be an A-film. It was more expensive to produce than Star Wars ($14 million to $11 million), which was still in it's first month of release, when Exorcist II was released. The Exorcist was a best picture nominee (a first in the horror genre), hyped as the scariest film of all time (or one of them), and had been among the highest grossing films of all time. Expectations were sky-high.

[sxerunner]

Now if only Exorcist 2 would drop in price. It seems like it never drops even to standard collectors edition pricing.

[anthony21879]

Originally Posted by Savage_Blu

You know, I like to think I'm a patient man. But really Shout? 11 days since I placed an order for Attack of the Crab Monsters and Deathsport and it has not shipped yet?

SMH.
Whatever.

I was feeling like spending money while on their website today, for the Vincent Price collection #1. F that.
I'll get it somewhere else.

Lol, I'm on over a month now with one order of four blus that are stil "in stock" and being sold.

[Savage_Blu]

Originally Posted by anthony21879

Lol, I'm on over a month now with one order of four blus that are stil "in stock" and being sold.

Had the same issue with the last sale they had... Several months ago (the one before the Steelbook sale). Ended up cancelling the remaining title after almost two months.

[The Great Owl]

In 1962, the luxury cruise liner, the SS Antonia Graza, disappeared, along with its passengers. In present-day, a marine salvage team locates the long-missing ship in the Bering Strait. Our rugged and capable protagonists, led by Murphy and Epps, played respectively by Gabriel Byrne (The Usual Suspects) and Julianna Margulies (ER), celebrate their acquisition and prepare to haul it to the mainland, unaware that this seemingly deserted vessel is not as empty as it appears. The spirits of the violently departed have a grisly agenda all their own, and they are eager to bring the living into their fold.

The 2002 horror feature, Ghost Ship, directed by Steve Beck (Thir13en Ghosts), comes close to exhausting its capacity for coolness right out of the starting gates with a brilliantly grotesque introductory scene involving a crowd of celebrating passengers on the main deck of the titular boat in 1962. This sequence, which surely had all of the short people in the audience breathing a sigh of relief during the movie's theatrical run, leaves genre fans wondering what the filmmakers can possibly do as an encore. Fortunately, although the remainder of the story does not quite match that same level of cinematic excellence, the overall end result rides high on a tide of convincingly eerie settings.

As with the 1980 drive-in cult classic, Death Ship, which I revisited just before enjoying this one, the concept of a haunted ship makes for an engaging tale, simply because of the notion of being trapped about such a vessel while surrounded on all sides by open ocean. The computer-generated special effects are outdated now, as are those of most early-new-millennium offerings, but the images still maintain an aura of damp and rusty claustrophobia.

Gabriel Byrne is always a commanding presence. I chuckled during one scene where he is deliberately outfitted with the same clothes that his character in The Usual Suspects wore during that film's finale. Margulies excels here as a tough and practical action hero. Ron Eldard (House of Sand and Fog), Desmond Harrington (Wrong Turn), Isaiah Washington (Clockers), Alex Dimitriades (The Heartbreak Kid), and Karl Urban (The Lord of the Rings) all fare well as the rest of the salvage team, while Emily Browning (American Gods) commands attention as an early victim of the malevolent occurrences aboard the boat. Be on the lookout for Italian actress Francesca Rettondini during a few eye-opening moments.

Ghost Ship makes no strenuous intellectual demands on its viewers, but it certainly makes its spooky catacombs a fun place to be for 91 minutes.

This Scream Factory Blu-ray gives us a beautifully detailed transfer that looks impressive on my 4K television setup. The audio comes across nicely, bringing out the best of the sound effects and the out-of-place nu-metal inclusions. The Steve Beck commentary track is informative and entertaining, as are the short supplementary features.

[kngtmat]

I am not sure others who won the last shopping spree have gotten theirs. I am still waiting since early August after they said early September because of the current delays.