Transmission, Raro, Arbelos UK and other sublabels

[yoloswegmaster]

RADIANCE FILMS ANNOUNCES NEW BLU-RAY AND 4K UHD IMPRINT TRANSMISSION

The new imprint will focus on revitalising left-of-the-dial cult classics with new 4K restorations, newly commissioned special features, and limited-edition packaging


7th August 2025 - Radiance Films today announces the launch of Transmission, a new imprint for UK Blu-ray and 4K UHD releases, focusing on offbeat cult classics and underappreciated genre film-making.

Equally inspired by late-night TV oddities, all-night cinemas such as the Scala and 42nd Street grindhouses, and the video shop experience of the 80s and 90s, Transmission will invite new audiences to recapture that same thrill of discovery with its upcoming slate of left-of-the-dial UHD and Blu-ray titles.

The first Transmission title will be 1979’s Night of the Juggler, a long-unavailable action-crime cult-classic that sees the mean streets of 70s New York become a battleground as an ex-cop (James Brolin) mercilessly attempts to track down the psychopath (Cliff Gorman) who has kidnapped his daughter.

Night of the Juggler will be released in a dual format 4K UHD and Blu-ray on November 17th, with the film newly restored in 4K and presented in Dolby Vision HDR, and accompanied by an array of special features, a 40 page bound book, poster, a set of lobby card postcards, and limited edition packaging.

Radiance Films also holds all rights for Night of the Juggler in the UK and Ireland, and plans theatrical events plus digital and streaming presentations to follow.


Pre-orders for the dual format 4K UHD of Night of the Juggler go live on Radiance’s website at 11am tomorrow (8th August) alongside regular Radiance November announcements.

Future Transmission titles include underseen genre gems; an offbeat cult classic about the perils of movie-making; an acclaimed touchstone of 1970s horror, and one of the most outrageous black comedies of the 80s. All currently planned titles will be receiving their UK Blu-ray premieres.

[CSM126]

I suppose I don’t see the need to create a new label for this but… ok.

[tenia]

Yeah, same here, I'm not sure why the need to create a parallel line, though I see it will have its own spine numbering.

[nicolas]

Full details also announced:



Kino’s extras for comparison:

NEW 4K RESTORATION FROM THE ORIGINAL CAMERA NEGATIVE
DOLBY VISION/HDR PRESENTATION OF THE FILM
NEW Audio Commentary by Film Historians Steve Mitchell and Nathaniel Thompson
NEW Summer of '78: Interview with Actor James Brolin
NEW The Sweet Maria: Interview with Actress Julie Carmen
Pandemonium Reflex: An Inquest into Sidney J. Furie's Night of the Juggler
Theatrical Trailer (Newly Mastered in 2K)
5.1 Surround and Lossless 2.0
Optional English Subtitles

Some info from their Discord:

- This will not be part of their subscription as it’s a hosted label
- Like with Raro, Radiance are helping with the curation
- Fidelity in Motion is doing the encode
- There won’t be new titles every month but they already licensed 7 or 8 with more in discussions
- Radiance want to broaden their slate without their main line spreading out too much
- The Limited Edition has a print run of 5000

Basically it allows Radiance to keep doing what it’s doing while also broadening the scope of the kind of films we can acquire and put out. There’s been a few examples of things we’ve been interested in doing but didn’t feel ‘right’ for Radiance, so this opens that up a bit

[nicolas]

Fran Simeoni himself weighed in on the debate:

For those wondering why we needed another label my position on this was that I didn't want to see a repeat of my experience with Arrow Video/Academy. It's very easy to become influenced by positive feedback and sales so that something that starts as one thing turns into another. Yes we've done genre and controversial cinema on Radiance but these have been specific choices within a line of curation while Tranmission may overlap with that it's a line of curation I am much less involved in and it will not reflect my overall tastes, indeed of the 7/8 titles we have lined up I've only seen 2. I may later watch those titles and love them and wish they were Radiance titles but you can't do all the titles all the time and I can't watch everything that gets mentioned as a possible title. In attempting to do more it can be very easy for a label to become watered down by many curators all putting their voice in and the influence of that causing the label to change over time. In 5 years I want Radiance to be doing what it was doing on day 1. And hopefully the same will be true for Transmission.

[knives]

a.k.a. I need an excuse to get that sweet sweet Jesus Franco money without souring the well of good taste.

I’m only kidding, mostly.

[domino harvey]

a.k.a. I need an excuse to get that sweet sweet Jesus Franco money without souring the well of good taste.

I’m only kidding, mostly.

Literally my first thought when I saw they were going to release crap on a dedicated crap label

[MichaelB]

I suppose I don’t see the need to create a new label for this but… ok.

I assume it's because of all the people who complained about being "forced" to buy Messiah of Evil despite them being too sophisticated for mere commercial horror films.

On the subject of curation, it's worth noting that the most distinctive labels over the past decade or so have heavily benefited from a very small number of people involved, which may often be just one. Second Run, for instance, has always been an outlet for Mehelli Modi's personal taste, Deaf Crocodile is very much a vehicle for Dennis Bartok's, Indicator strongly leans towards Sam Dunn's, and ditto Arrow Academy and Radiance towards Fran Simeoni's. Which is not to say that they don't take on things recommended by others, but they clearly make the final curatorial decisions.

(Which reminds me of a truly bonkers episode involving the other place, when someone concocted a theory that Arrow's future acquisitions could be gleaned from IMDB synopses signed by me. The only problem being that (a) those synopses were twenty years old, (b) back in 1995 I had not the faintest inkling that I'd be working full time in home video; the thought had never even momentarily occurred to me, and (c) I was never involved with Arrow acquisitions on any level.)

[Finch]

Rather than me creating separate threads for Juggler and other Transmission titles plus any films from Raro etc, I was thinking of this as the equivalent of the Non-MoC Eureka thread for Radiance's sublabels. This would help the Radiance speculation thread not get cluttered with sublabel stuff.

[Finch]

an acclaimed touchstone of 1970s horror

Made me think of Let's Scare Jessica To Death.

[beamish14]

Any other guesses for future titles?

“The perils of movie-making”-Fall Guy? Living in Oblivion? Strangers Kiss?

[domino harvey]

Any other guesses for future titles?

“The perils of movie-making”

An Alan Smithee Film: Burn Hollywood Burn

[dwk]

I assume it's because of all the people who complained about being "forced" to buy Messiah of Evil despite them being too sophisticated for mere commercial horror films.

I think people that have the need to buy the entire output of a label just because said label is releasing it should be punished by having to buy a number of films that they don't want.

[Finch]

I'm grateful that while I have OCD, it's not about spine numbers!

[therewillbeblus]

I just watched Night of the Juggler the other night, and was pretty disappointed. It's got a nice crackerjack opening act, and I think I expected that tense chase-narrative to extend across the whole picture, but it dips into too many incidents of action-stalling, which contain lots of cringe-inducing moments of dialogue (the scene between Brolin and his ex-wife stands out). MVPs are Mandy Patinkin as a Travis Bickle-like cabbie who's inexplicably immediately more invested in getting the bad guy than Brolin, by whatever means necessary(!), and Dan Hedaya as a crooked cop with a vengeance against Brolin, chasing him through streets toting a shotgun maniacally. Other than those two brief parts, it's pretty forgettable

[DeprongMori]

I assume it's because of all the people who complained about being "forced" to buy Messiah of Evil despite them being too sophisticated for mere commercial horror films.

I think people that have the need to buy the entire output of a label just because said label is releasing it should be punished by having to buy a number of films that they don't want.

The situation with Radiance was a bit different in that many people bought a three-year subscription to the new label for all the releases in order to help launch it, with the expectation it was going to be what Arrow Academy had been, and not the Arrow that released Microwave Massacre, so some of them felt a bit burned by the Messiah of Evil announcement.

[domino harvey]

I don’t like the film, but it is clearly art house adjacent at worst

[Forrest Taft]

Any other guesses for future titles?

“The perils of movie-making”-Fall Guy? Living in Oblivion? Strangers Kiss?

Maybe The Stunt Man?

[beamish14]

Any other guesses for future titles?

“The perils of movie-making”-Fall Guy? Living in Oblivion? Strangers Kiss?

Maybe The Stunt Man?

I was thinking that was a bit too high-profile.

[TechnicolorAcid]

Isn’t The Stunt Man also a Fox title so unless Radiance managed to snag a deal with them, I don’t think it’s that. I definitely think out of the possible choices, the most likely option would be Inserts, especially considering it is an MGM title.

[dwk]

I'm not sure of the UK rights of The Stunt Man, but it is owned by Shout Factory in the US.

[DeprongMori]

Any other guesses for future titles?

“The perils of movie-making”-Fall Guy? Living in Oblivion? Strangers Kiss?

One in this category that I am shocked we haven’t seen in a restoration and re-issue, given Robert Eggers’ recent Nosferatu, is E. Elias Merhige’s Shadow of the Vampire (2000).

I’d give my right fang for that one.

[Ribs]

My immediate thought, given the way these things usually end up, was the just-announced-in-US The Woman Chaser

[beamish14]

Any other guesses for future titles?

“The perils of movie-making”-Fall Guy? Living in Oblivion? Strangers Kiss?

One in this category that I am shocked we haven’t seen in a restoration and re-issue, given Robert Eggers’ recent Nosferatu, is E. Elias Merhige’s Shadow of the Vampire (2000).

I’d give my right fang for that one.

Stuck in Lionsgate apathy purgatory. Merhige is supposed to have a new feature out next year, I think

[MichaelB]

I think people that have the need to buy the entire output of a label just because said label is releasing it should be punished by having to buy a number of films that they don't want.

Someone actually said, apparently in all seriousness, that they hoped that Indicator's Jean Rollin survey would be over soon as he can't stand his films but nonetheless "had to" buy them all because they had Indicator spine numbers.

The situation with Radiance was a bit different in that many people bought a three-year subscription to the new label for all the releases in order to help launch it, with the expectation it was going to be what Arrow Academy had been, and not the Arrow that released Microwave Massacre, so some of them felt a bit burned by the Messiah of Evil announcement.

Although of course quite a bit of what Radiance releases would be considered thoroughly mainstream thrillers, comedies, etc., in their respective countries of origin - it's just that the addition of subtitles magically makes them "arthouse".

And not just Radiance, of course - I'd be the very last person to complain about Second Run turning to Oldřich Lipský and Václav Vorlíček, as their best films are wonderful, but they couldn't be more mainstream back home.