Dark Force Entertainment Discussion Thread

[TheHorrorNerd]

Originally Posted by miribeau

They still have the $65 bundle with Steel Arena and Point Doom and the $70 bundle with Zombie Nightmare and Point Doom. Given the overseas complaints, I'm kind of surprised they still have any. Neither was listed as US only, but the sold out $100 bundle was.

I can understand passing on Zombie Nightmare, given that it is actually really terrible, without the Mystery Science commentary to make it halfway enjoyable, but Steel Arena was excellent and Point Doom is quite fun, if you like Dice and Grieco, which most people do. Maybe they all bought individual copies, somehow.

But, given the few complaints visible on Facebook, I'm still wondering how the store is still open. Did people not notice it went up? Does everyone have Dead Pit already? Are there not even 1000 people who wanted it? Is a second pressing viable, with another 1000 willing buyers out there, when there are still copies of the first 1000 up for sale and a deficit of willing buyers for them?

I think people are wearing thin on DF's antics. Also the ebay flippers are only able to list it at around $60 because of the slowing interest in the film.
Probably not worth their time

[eric_angelus]

Originally Posted by TheHorrorNerd

I think people are wearing thin on DF's antics. Also the ebay flippers are only able to list it at around $60 because of the slowing interest in the film.
Probably not worth their time

Agreed, the carny barking theatrics leave a very poor taste in mouth. I am a sucker for limited editions and cool pieces that display nicely (hell just today I bought an old VHS of Halloween because it would look cool on my shelf). I just cant bring myself to give this guy any of my money. I have had at least two chances to get it when it became available...and nope I just can't bring myself to do it. Would rather give up the cash to just about anything else. I can watch my old DVD of Dead Pit. This is the first movie I have decided not to upgrade from DVD to blu ever, am I missing out on a fun little movie and a nice looking item? Sure. But I also don't feel like I am supporting someone whose antics annoy me, and for me it is worth the loss.

[miribeau]

Originally Posted by eric_angelus

Agree the carny barking theatrics leave a very poor taste in mouth. I am a sucker for limited editions and cool pieces that display nicely (hell just today I bought an old VHS of Halloween because it would look cool on my shelf). I just cant bring myself to give this guy any of my money. I have had at least two chances to get it when it became available...and nope I just can't bring myself to do it. Would rather give up the cash to just about anything else. I can watch my old DVD of Dead Pit. This is the first movie I have decided not to upgrade from DVD to blu ever, am I missing out on a fun little movie and a nice looking item? Sure. But I also don't feel like I am supporting someone whose antics annoy me, and for me it is worth the loss.

I can understand how the theatrical aspect wouldn't appeal to everyone. I really enjoy the Live Feeds with David and Bill as well as the ones where David just talks about the product he has coming out and answers questions about upcoming films, but the uncertainty as to when the store will open does make me a bit anxious. I love knowing I'll get a Ronin email or a Vinegar Syndrome email with all the pertinent details of the new release/releases and I look forward to the day when David does the same thing.

To be clear, I do believe David will use that strategy at some point. Right now he is just working really hard to make the business profitable enough to purchase rights to more titles and get the ball rolling, as it were, but he'll get there. I think sometimes people forget how important it is to make enough profit out of the early releases to be able to buy more rights and release more films that fans will actually want to see enough to buy. Getting those sales, especially early on, can be really difficult.

Originally Posted by TheHorrorNerd

I think people are wearing thin on DF's antics. Also the ebay flippers are only able to list it at around $60 because of the slowing interest in the film.
Probably not worth their time

Thing is, I want practically everything, because I love movies far more than anyone should, but, if a title is really bad, such as Zombie Nightmare or Neon Maniacs, just not one you would expect to sell in the thousands, I can usually spot it. With Dead Pit, I was a little surprised when he said 1000 followed by another 1000 at some point in the future, after a second deal is made. I just wasn't sure there would be an entirely separate 1000 people who would want it and, now, I'm just wondering again. You put it well, "slowing interest".

EDIT: 21 copies left, bundled with Point Doom and Steel Arena. The Zombie Nightmare bundle actually sold out before Steel Arena, so I'm thinking some of the bundle purchases may actually have been scalpers. Who would prefer Zombie Nightmare, a one and done and wish I'd never watched it, over Steel Arena which is good enough to watch multiple times and pick up an extra copy to give at Christmas. So, unless they've held some in reserve, they are down to 21 copies of the Dead Pit Limited Edition.

[Jope]

Originally Posted by eric_angelus

Agreed, the carny barking theatrics leave a very poor taste in mouth. I am a sucker for limited editions and cool pieces that display nicely (hell just today I bought an old VHS of Halloween because it would look cool on my shelf). I just cant bring myself to give this guy any of my money. I have had at least two chances to get it when it became available...and nope I just can't bring myself to do it. Would rather give up the cash to just about anything else. I can watch my old DVD of Dead Pit. This is the first movie I have decided not to upgrade from DVD to blu ever, am I missing out on a fun little movie and a nice looking item? Sure. But I also don't feel like I am supporting someone whose antics annoy me, and for me it is worth the loss.

look what i did just a month ago...

[Fiocca_Cola]

Originally Posted by eric_angelus

(hell just today I bought an old VHS of Halloween because it would look cool on my shelf)

I’ve recently gotten into collecting cool shelf VHS from my youth. My latest addition is the classic Vestron Video of Godzilla

[Jope]

it's very tempting to start up a (small) vhs collection. i keep telling myself if i were to do this, i would limit it to the paramount era of friday the 13th, '70s and '80s carpenter, and some of the classics: romero's dawn and day, phantasm, maybe jaws. like the above poster, stuff i grew up with/on.

but i also know i won't stop either, which is why i don't start.

[kraven]

I look back fondly at the era of VHS, bu not the format. Thankfully I have no desire to collect it.

[Ruined]

Originally Posted by kraven

I look back fondly at the era of VHS, bu not the format. Thankfully I have no desire to collect it.

I think when people look back they will find DVD was the golden age of home video. VHS was a nice start and Blu ray gave nice quality, but DVD is where we really saw so much creativity and effort poured into so many releases.

[kraven]

Originally Posted by Ruined

I think when people look back they will find DVD was the golden age of home video. VHS was a nice start and Blu ray gave nice quality, but DVD is where we really saw so much creativity and effort poured into so many releases.

Yeah, not much you can do to a vhs. 1 special feature I would love to see on bluray releases is the old sales package ads that ran on the front of screener tapes. My uncle owned 3 video stores in the vhs days, and would bring me boxes of screener tapes when I was sick. I used to love watching the sales pitch to the stores. "order 3 and get a full body display of Sylvester Stallone as Cobra. Sure to keep the movie flying off the shelves!"

[splintersan]

Originally Posted by kraven

I look back fondly at the era of VHS, bu not the format. Thankfully I have no desire to collect it.

Yeah, I have no interest in collecting VHS. I do have a few kicking around the house because I found them for insanely cheap at the local antique shop. One in particular is Slugs which I have on a shelf below a full sized theatrical poster repro and the novel right next to it. I also have a copy of Iron Master because the art was so awesome I thought it would look cool displayed on a shelf. I have a few VCR's but they are in storage and I dont' foresee myself ever pulling them out to hook them up.

[GasmaskAvenger]

LaserDisc master race representing.

Even if the quality is not as good as Blu-Ray, LaserDiscs make much cooler collectibles to me than VHS.

[Jope]

discussions re: quality is irrelevant when it comes to vhs. it's entirely nostalgia -- that's what fueled the purchase in the first place.

for a laugh, i watched that vhs of halloween i bought and it honestly blew my mind a little bit. that was how i'd grown up watching it, and the intervening years of widescreen dvds and blu-rays took a little away from that experience. watching halloween on vhs felt like coming home again.

[miribeau]

Originally Posted by Jope

it's very tempting to start up a (small) vhs collection. i keep telling myself if i were to do this, i would limit it to the paramount era of friday the 13th, '70s and '80s carpenter, and some of the classics: romero's dawn and day, phantasm, maybe jaws. like the above poster, stuff i grew up with/on.

but i also know i won't stop either, which is why i don't start.

Originally Posted by kraven

I look back fondly at the era of VHS, bu not the format. Thankfully I have no desire to collect it.

Originally Posted by splintersan

Yeah, I have no interest in collecting VHS. I do have a few kicking around the house because I found them for insanely cheap at the local antique shop. One in particular is Slugs which I have on a shelf below a full sized theatrical poster repro and the novel right next to it. I also have a copy of Iron Master because the art was so awesome I thought it would look cool displayed on a shelf. I have a few VCR's but they are in storage and I dont' foresee myself ever pulling them out to hook them up.

You all kind of make it sound like you don't already have VHS collections. Plenty of films were never released in any other format. Did you all just chuck them or did you not get into film collecting until DVD?

Originally Posted by Jope

discussions re: quality is irrelevant when it comes to vhs. it's entirely nostalgia -- that's what fueled the purchase in the first place.

for a laugh, i watched that vhs of halloween i bought and it honestly blew my mind a little bit. that was how i'd grown up watching it, and the intervening years of widescreen dvds and blu-rays took a little away from that experience. watching halloween on vhs felt like coming home again.

That's been my experience. We still have a couple hundred, ones that weren't released on another format or that matter too much to be thrown out, the Vincent Price tapes, for instance, and we still watch the ones that aren't on DVD. A whole bunch of Lionsgate "owned" titles, in their digital catalogue over on Amazon and shown on Cinemax and Epix, are actually just digitized copies of the VHS versions from their vault, no better in quality than a standard copy, with little tape-specific artifacts in the digital version, because they didn't have a perfect VHS to copy.

Beyond that, a bunch of titles that are unreleased in the US were copied, in that same way, and released in England on proper, pressed, DVDs by labels like "Hollywood DVD" and in Germany by one I won't try to spell, because the interest in the films is there, just not enough to dig up film and scan it. So they go out of their way to find and purchase pristine VHS copies to get the best versions they can.... Good thing Bill and David go all out and buy honest to goodness 35mm celluloid or it'd be digitized-VHS copies of everything.

[Scoot79]

I have two VHS cassette tapes remaining in my possession. Black Christmas (1974) and Showgirls (1995) (131 minute, NC-17 edition). I kept Black Christmas because I love that cover art and I kept Showgirls because it's the only option to watch the film in the 1.33:1 aspect ratio. Yes, the OAR of 2.35:1 is how I prefer to watch the film, but the 1.33:1 ratio shows more nudity. Overall, I have no desire to collect more VHS tapes. I have some good memories, but it was a flawed format and I never had a large collection of VHS tapes anyway. I didn't really start collecting movies until DVD launched. LaserDisc is far more collectible than VHS.

Here's my Black Christmas VHS.

[Jope]

Originally Posted by Scoot79

Here's my Black Christmas VHS.

i miss that old warner bros. vhs font.

[Coatchief]

This just popped up in one of my VHS Collectors groups on Facebook. Anybody here got one of these?

[Show spoiler]

[Ruined]

Originally Posted by Coatchief

This just popped up in one of my VHS Collectors groups on Facebook. Anybody here got one of these?

[Show spoiler]

I've been trying to get the demon to release it on DVD glow-in-the-dark cover and all

[babybreese]

More titles came out on VHS than any other format, and that will likely never cease to be.
Fewer titles hit DVD, way fewer have hit Blu, and so on.

That, and it was 1st, gets my vote for golden era.

[The Geek]

I love collecting VHS tapes and popping in one here and there to enjoy it. It's not my go to format, far from it, but I can't dismiss it completely.

[Ruined]

Originally Posted by babybreese

More titles came out on VHS than any other format, and that will likely never cease to be.
Fewer titles hit DVD, way fewer have hit Blu, and so on.

That, and it was 1st, gets my vote for golden era.

One big problem with VHS though is that some titles were ridiculously expensive due to rental pricing. I remember I wanted Brainscan and it was like $80 for a vhs. iMO DVD was the first format you really could build a full collection with almost every movie you'd want.