Arrow Films

[repeat]

Ah, sorry about that - as you can see I haven't really been following their output until now. It is indeed a graphic of a steelbook on the ad, so that's what it is.

[L.A.]

Deranged (1974) BD @ DVDBeaver

[MichaelB]

A rave review of The Fall of the House of Usher on DVD Beaver.

I entirely agree with Gary that the occasional image softness is all but certain to be inherent in the original materials - in the commentary, Roger Corman clearly has difficulty believing that he pulled off a colour and CinemaScope film with elaborate sets and complex camera movements in just two weeks, and says he'd never be that demanding of his own protégés!

[EddieLarkin]

That is some lush colour photography. The caps look amazing! I hope Scream Factory will be providing an all but identical product in their Vincent Price Collection, or I'll be double dipping on Usher.

[MichaelB]

Tim Lucas has let slip that he's recording a commentary for The Pit and the Pendulum for Arrow.

No great surprise that they're releasing it (House of Usher on its own would be somewhat strange), but it's good to have it confirmed.

[Minkin]

Tim Lucas has let slip that he's recording a commentary for The Pit and the Pendulum for Arrow.

Excellent news!
I think that's enough to keep me from buying the upcoming Shout Factory Vincent Price set. Although it would be nice to have some notion that Arrow plan to release the other titles in the set (with the exception of Witchfinder General, which is already out on an excellent blu in the UK). Although the extras have not been announced yet for the Shout bluray collection, I doubt it will hold a candle to the Arrow blus in terms of PQ and extras (the set will have the six films on only 4 discs! Thus things don't look too good for special features at this point).

Here's what else is in the Shout set, which will hopefully find their way to better editions from Arrow:

The Haunted Palace (1963).
The Masque of the Red Death (1964).
The Abominable Dr. Phibes (1971).

[MichaelB]

Mondo Digital on Deranged:

Now we jump forward to 2013 with the best release by a long shot, the UK Region B Blu-ray from Arrow (with no DVD counterpart, so if you're a fan, this should be incentive enough to make the jump to HD and go region free if possible). The HD transfer of the film aired a few years earlier on MGM HD wasn't all that impressive, but this disc looks fantastic; the colors are extremely strong without being oversaturated, detail is razor sharp, and the film grain looks fine and natural as opposed to the chunky, messy appearance on its TV broadcast.

I'm not sure what he means by "no DVD counterpart" - it's a dual-format release.

[David M.]

^ I think the journalists are often only given the BDs which maybe gave him that impression. A shame because I'd like to let the journalists see what's still possible on DVD!

[dwk]

Does anyone know of any reviews of Arrow's Zatoichi: The Blind Swordsman DVD? Since it isn't in the Criterion box set and the Media Blasters DVD is OOP, this seems like the least expensive way to add it to my collection, but I'd like to find a review before buying.

[MichaelB]

Does anyone know of any reviews of Arrow's Zatoichi: The Blind Swordsman DVD? Since it isn't in the Criterion box set and the Media Blasters DVD is OOP, this seems like the least expensive way to add it to my collection, but I'd like to find a review before buying.

The Digital Fix.

[dwk]

Thanks Michael. If I can't find a reasonably priced copy of the Media Blasters disc, I'll go with the Arrow.

[Adamg11]

The Arts Shelf on The Fall of the House of Usher

[MichaelB]

DVD Active on the new Time Bandits restoration.

[Adamg11]

The Arts Shelf on Deranged

[MichaelB]

Cathode Ray Tube on The Fall of the House of Usher - a 4,300 word whopper that's more than half the length of Edgar Allan Poe's original story!

[tenia]

I just received my Usher and Time Bandits steels from Arrow store, and these are genuinely beautiful package. I especially like the intern artwork of Time Bandits, which seems shiny deep blue. Can't wait to pop them in my BD player this afternoon.

[vsski]

I think it's safe to say that Arrow of lately has become one of the most exciting labels out there and without a doubt their BD releases of the Bava titles are vastly superior than the Kino ones.
However, reading some of the older posts on this thread as well as several review sites it appears the same can't be said for the Argento BD titles.
Is there common consensus that the Arrow BD Argentos are hit and miss and one should better look elsewhere (although Blue Underground doesn't seem to be the answer either)?

[MichaelB]

Is there common consensus that the Arrow BD Argentos are hit and miss and one should better look elsewhere (although Blue Underground doesn't seem to be the answer either)?

The problem with the Argento BDs is that both Arrow and Blue Underground (for the most part, although their OOP The Bird with the Crystal Plumage seems to be the exception) had to make do with Italian-produced HD masters created by facilities houses whose attitude towards the liberal application of DNR and other digital gunk is, to put it mildly, not in sync with their own (or ours).

Arrow's Zombie Flesh Eaters shows what can be achieved if you go right back to celluloid basics and supervise the entire restoration process from initial film scanning to final encoding, but that isn't often possible - either because they simply aren't granted access to the negatives/interpositives required (on the catch-22 grounds that an HD master already exists, so why would they need to?) or because it would be too expensive to carry out a full-scale restoration on a title that isn't as much of a commercial dead cert as ZFE.

The crucial difference between now and a few years ago is that Arrow has much higher technical standards - hiring the BFI's former DVD/BD technical guru James White to supervise their masters has made a whopping difference. (I don't recall exactly when he started working for Arrow, but I think it was late 2011 or thereabouts.)

[EddieLarkin]

It appears MoC have come to value Mr. White's expertise as well. On their most recent releases he's credited as part of the core production team, rather than just resto supervisor like he was with The Passion of Joan of Arc. And let's not forget about David Mackenzie as well, who seems to be handling a lot of the authoring for both companies. And isn't it right that you do a lot of the proofing, Michael? It's no wonder standards are so high when companies like the BFI, Arrow and MoC are all utilising the best in the biz. The days of shoddy Argento transfers are hopefully long gone.

[dwk]

Regarding the Argento titles, The Blue Underground releases are preferable to the Arrow because the BU have better encoding. It is a shame that they are marred by masters that range from ok, Deep Red, to abysmal, Cat O'Nine Tails. Actually, Cat may be so bad that it doesn't matter which one you pick up.

VCI will be issuing their own The Bird with the Crystal Plumage Blu next month that will use the Blue Underground master, so it will be in the proper aspect ratio, but they've done some additional work on it, so, there is no telling what it looks like.

Arrow's Tenebrae may be one of the worst Blu-rays ever. The French release looks really good, but has forced subtitles. Synapse will be using the same master as the French Blu when they release their Blu-ray next year.

Arrow's Phenomena Blu is currently the best release of that film, but it does have some audio errors caused by sloppily joining the English dub to the longer version presented on the Blu. Synapse will also be releasing this next year, and they have access to the master that Arrow used and a French master of the shorter, Argento preferred, international cut, that was, supposedly,supervised and approved by Argento and the Romano Albani, so you might want to wait.

[vsski]

Thank you both, Michael and dwk, what you are describing is consistent with what I read elsewhere and I agree the best conclusion is to wait and see if VCI and Synapse produce better releases.
Given the stellar work Arrow is doing now, I hope that moving forward inferior masters will simply be rejected, especially for titles where the fan base is large enough to warrant them doing their own work.

[doc mccoy]

Looking at the trailer reel, Arrow appears to be putting out Fernando di Leo's Milan Caliber 9 next year.

[A man stayed-put]

Looking at the trailer reel, Arrow appears to be putting out Fernando di Leo's Milan Caliber 9 next year.

Could di Leo be the subject of the complete films box set Arrow previously mentioned? Certainly ticks the cult and european boxes.

[Graham]

Looking at the trailer reel, Arrow appears to be putting out Fernando di Leo's Milan Caliber 9 next year.

Could di Leo be the subject of the complete films box set Arrow previously mentioned? Certainly ticks the cult and european boxes.

If so, I'll be selling my Raro box as the transfers will like be superior and the dubbing on the English language version of La Mala Ordina is way out on the Raro blu.

[MichaelB]

Arrow has published a list of all the titles featured in their trailer reel:

Spoiler

Spider Baby; Frankenhooker; Invasion Of The Body Snatchers; Django, Prepare a Coffin; Street Trash; Beyond Re-animator; Big Trouble In Little China; Black Sunday; White Of The Eye; Deadly Blessing; The Fall of the House of Usher; The House By the Cemetery; Silent Night, Deadly Night; Lisa and the Devil; Black Sabbath; The Lickerish Quartet; The Car; Knightriders; Dressed to Kill; Runaway Train; Pieces; Class of Nuke 'em High; Island of Death; Caligula; The Burbs; Demons; The Funhouse; Day of the Dead; City of the Living Dead; Foxy Brown; Lifeforce; Deep Red; The Beyond; Slaughter High; The Fury; Blow Out; Battle Royale; Baron Blood; The Deadly Spawn; Maniac Cop; The Last American Virgin; The Abominable Dr. Phibes; The Texas Chain Saw Massacre 2; Motel Hell; Combat Shock; Theatre Of Blood; Zombie Flesh Eaters; Milano Calibro 9 / Calibre 9; Sisters; The People Under the Stairs; Forbidden Zone; Lady Snowblood; Phenomena; Squirm

I've bolded the ones that haven't yet been officially announced - I believe they're all on the 2014 slate.