Thrillers from the Vault 8-Film Collection (Mill Creek)

[Riwriwriw]

I own two of those.

Pillow of Death is the complaint about the Lon Chaney set. It’s clearly a bad master. That is Universal’s fault. Even on the Universal DVD, that one looked really bad. I suspect a source issue. The Eureka release isn’t a better scan, they just brightened it and upped the contrast digitally. Personally I think it looks worse, washed out, but if you prefer it, you can replicate the Eureka look by messing with your tv and doing the same thing they did.

I dream of Jeanie could look better. I suspect there are source issues at play here as well but it is admittedly less clear. Compression is at play. Still it generally looks pleasing to me, and 130 episodes of TV for 30 bucks is such a steal that I am still happy.

Maybe I have bad taste, however, I find mill creeks blu rays to be excellent value, and generally passable to excellent visually.

To each their own

[captainsolo]

Originally Posted by tangerinewolf

Agreed for the most part. But the Eureka two blu-ray set in the UK has it's problems. The Man They Could Not Hang has a lot of speckling and other print damage such as a very bad splice or something in the source elements. And The Man With Nine Lives is fine until the final reel where the PQ changes to a very soft image.

The other films have good, not great PQ. I have not seen Mill Creek's DVD set, but expect any blu-ray releases of the six Karloff films will be from the same masters with no additional restorations.

Actually, the original DVD releases by Sony had better PQ in terms of cleaner
images throughout.

I did extensive comparisons when the Eureka came out to the original Sony DVDs. They are the Sony HD preservation masters in 1080p and all have the same wear and tear especially Nine Lives with the dupe reel source-however they all were distinct improvements over the old single layer DVDs and Nine Lives didn't have the frame with the digital noise like my old DVD did. In fact there might have been some additional tweaking on one or two films because they did look slightly better than a simple bump to 1080p.

If Mill Creek is going to do a release they should also focus on lesser known films they could licence for cheap that others haven't or likely won't ever get to.

[MifuneFan]

I found the cover art! Looks quite nice in my opinion.



Here's the Sci-Fi from the Vault art too

[MifuneFan]

Cover art now on Amazon in higher-res. The back cover shows there will be select audio commentaries included, and I believe some sort of documentary feature as well.

[Mikezilla3k]

Spine also says 4 discs, so this will be 2 movies per disc.

[Rzzzz]

No way they will be the same commentaries as the Eureka release....right?

[Mikezilla3k]

Originally Posted by Rzzzz

No way they will be the same commentaries as the Eureka release....right?

Probably not, if anything they'll be new ones like with the Hammer set.

[filmlover22]

I have everything but Boogie man and Five, so it will come down to price, though Eureka might come out with these later. Can't get too excited about the featurette and commentaries until I read reviews.

[MartinScorsesefan]

If there are commentaries by Tom Weaver or Greg Mank, I'll be tempted to buy this.

[Mikezilla3k]

Originally Posted by MartinScorsesefan

If there are commentaries by Tom Weaver or Greg Mank, I'll be tempted to buy this.

Believe Weaver is doing commentaries for Devil and Five.

[filmlover22]

Way too much money for just a few different commentaries, at least for me

[playingphysicist]

Really expensive for a Mill Creek - I wonder if these are the same scans used for the UK release Karloff at Columbia?

[ij72]

I have had this pre-ordered, but according to Amazon, this has been bumped to Valentine's Day, along with the Sci-Fi 4 film collection.

Noticed the date change when seeing if there was any progress on my preorder.

[ij72]

My copy I had pre-ordered from Target came in today. I haven't watched it yet, but the special features listed on the disc labels (but not the disc case label):

FEATURETTE: Madness and Mayhem: Columbia Horror in the 30s and 40s (about 36 min, C. Courtney Joyner discusses the films)

COMMENTARIES:
BLACK ROOM (Steve Haberman)
MAN THEY COULD NOT HANG (C. Courtney Joyner and Heath Holland)
DEVIL COMMANDS (Tom Weaver)
BOOGIE MAN WILL GET YOU (Monster Party Podcast)
FIVE (Tom Weaver and Larry Blamire)

[playingphysicist]

Really want to see a review of this set; some of these were only in the region locked Columbia set in Europe before, and my interest in a couple of them is high enough that I would actually get this Mill Creek release if they are passable transfers.

[starsteam]

Mm, stacked discs with scratches. The insert sheet is also bigger than the case used, which probably means they were planning on using a thicker, flipper-tray case. Too bad.

Was hoping their would be a site review for these already up so I wouldn't have to scan through the films myself. Too busy at the moment anyway.

[Akuash]

Originally Posted by starsteam

Mm, stacked discs with scratches. The insert sheet is also bigger than the case used, which probably means they were planning on using a thicker, flipper-tray case. Too bad.

Was hoping their would be a site review for these already up so I wouldn't have to scan through the films myself. Too busy at the moment anyway.

Same here. I had to take out the insert and cut down the edges. Now I have it placed under a few books to help flatten it out.

[ij72]

Originally Posted by starsteam

The insert sheet is also bigger than the case used, which probably means they were planning on using a thicker, flipper-tray case.

Does seem like perhaps the decision to go with a slipcover instead (and a standard case) was made late in production.

I haven't time to check myself yet, but apparently there isn't a commentary on FIVE from Tom Weaver, according to the man himself, due to his missing the deadline.

[ij72]

I've been slowly watching a few of the movies from the set the last few days, and hit THE MAN WITH NINE LIVES last night.

Everything was OK - not award-winning, but fine - for most of the movie, until it hits the last fifteen minutes when the video quality takes a massive, massive nose dive. I guess the last reel was missing from the source used for the rest of the transfer, perhaps?

Although I've seen these movies before, I only had THE DEVIL COMMANDS on DVD, since Sony kept the price on these pretty high for catalog DVD titles, as I recall. As a result, I don't have the DVD to compare to.

[SMOOT]

Originally Posted by ij72

I've been slowly watching a few of the movies from the set the last few days, and hit THE MAN WITH NINE LIVES last night.

Everything was OK - not award-winning, but fine - for most of the movie, until it hits the last fifteen minutes when the video quality takes a massive, massive nose dive. I guess the last reel was missing from the source used for the rest of the transfer, perhaps?

Although I've seen these movies before, I only had THE DEVIL COMMANDS on DVD, since Sony kept the price on these pretty high for catalog DVD titles, as I recall. As a result, I don't have the DVD to compare to.

The old DVD of The Man With Nine Lives has the same issue.
As does a copy of the film that played on Svengoolie or somewhere else that I saw a year or so ago.