Vinegar Syndrome and Their Partner Labels

[therewillbeblus]

It would be a stretch to consider it star-studded or a sleazefest (particularly the latter by VS standards) but I want it to be The Doom Generation. It is violent!

[beamish14]

“Star studded sleaze” that is “decades” old can’t be anything other than Caligula…can it? It’s certainly a bloodbath as well

I can't imagine VS would tease Caligula MMXX instead of outright saying it'll happen (i.e. Thriller: A Cruel Picture), but last I heard it's still slated for 2023 with a theatrical run (!?!) and a coffee table book, which has been years in the making. Also, the MMXX crew just handing the keys over to VS seems a little haphazard, though not entirely improbable - just not exactly what I'd expect from a Black Friday surprise pre-order.

I’d love to finally get some more concrete information on that long-gestating restoration. I don’t even know if Merhige is still involved with it

[colinr0380]

Bigger news: the three Wakefield Poole DVD titles (Bijou, Boys In The Sand, & Take One/Moving!) on the VS site have been added to the Going Out Of Print page, so pick those up! The stock was fluctuating for a while, but I hope this means that there's a blu-ray set on the horizon (I need to pick up a copy of Dirty Poole, now that I mention it)

It looks as if Bible! is already Out of Stock/OOP on the site.

[swo17]

Can someone remind me the best strategy for going into the Black Friday sale? Don't you want to have something already pre-ordered so you can add to that shipment and not have to pay extra for shipping?

The free shipping threshold going into the sale is $100. If I place a pre-order now for less than $100 and add enough to it during the sale, would that order then qualify for free shipping? If so, it seems like maybe the only way this could work is by pre-ordering Road House (which ships after Black Friday) since all the Partner Label titles say they ship mid-November

[Peacock]

The same few star-studded sleaze epics have been mentioned a few times now so I’m going to throw Salon Kitty into the ring. Even though it already has a release in the states I think…

[What A Disgrace]

My copy of Robinson's Garden seems to have come with a replacement disc, but I can't find any information on what was wrong with the original.

[Glowingwabbit]

My copy of Robinson's Garden seems to have come with a replacement disc, but I can't find any information on what was wrong with the original.

The original disc wouldn't play on some machines.

[billfitzgerald]

Can someone remind me the best strategy for going into the Black Friday sale? Don't you want to have something already pre-ordered so you can add to that shipment and not have to pay extra for shipping?

The free shipping threshold going into the sale is $100. If I place a pre-order now for less than $100 and add enough to it during the sale, would that order then qualify for free shipping? If so, it seems like maybe the only way this could work is by pre-ordering Road House (which ships after Black Friday) since all the Partner Label titles say they ship mid-November

For past Black Friday sales there has been no free shipping option for non-subscribers. During the sale they charge a flat rate of 6 dollars for ground shipping which covers all orders placed during the sale plus any November Vinegar Syndrome (but not partner label) pre-orders.

The advantage of ordering Road House now would be that you could add items to this shipment during the sale and they would be processed and shipped sooner than if you waited until Black Friday to place the order.

[J Wilson]

The newest wrinkle in the mystery title discussed above comes from today's VS email, which says: "What makes this release even more exciting is a discovery we made a mere weeks before manufacturing. It was so major that we stopped everything we were doing and hit reset. This cryptic message will make more sense soon... "

[Glowingwabbit]

Looks like Terror Vision is leaving in order to start it's own subscription service (hence the going OOP titles we've seen): https://bloody-disgusting.com/home-vide ... -releases/

[yoloswegmaster]

Someone went thru their emails that they received from VS and made the following list of titles that they called "star-studded":

Dracula Sucks
Televised Terror
Summer Camp Girls
Dark Tower
Pandemonium
Savage Dawn
Tammy And The T-Rex
Lust in the Dust
Dominique
Cutting Class

I'm now convinced that this mystery UHD is for some third-rate trash that very few people have seen.

[swo17]

Freeway!

[Yakushima]

Woo-hoo! Ordered.

[domino harvey]

OMG

[domino harvey]

Also, Evil Laugh is... singular!

Evil Laugh (Dominick Brascia 1987) Self-aware proto-Scream with the nerdy loser telling all of his fellow med students over and over that the house rental they're hanging out in is hosting a mass murderer. "This is how it always happens in horror movies," he whines at them, and he's mostly right of course. There's a few good gags to this effect, and the film has a surprising lightness of touch for a film in which all of our protagonists unknowingly eat one of their fellow victims. As you'll see if you scroll down, while I hit a milestone in my slasher viewings this round, Evil Laugh still proved that even after this many slasher films, I can still be taken aback by one of the strangest things I've ever seen in any movie, slasher, 80s, or otherwise. There's a few other memorably weird bits present too, such as the conceited stud uttering the line, "They call me Young Doctor Kildare" while fake-flirting with a male realtor, or a bizarre sex scene in which an extra hand appears in the midst of the lovemaking and starts grabbing the hunk's butt, to which he replies, "Wow, how did you know I was into butt stuff?"

[therewillbeblus]

Well, that's all I need to order both

[tenia]

So, 1996's Freeway is the "star studded big budget sleaze fest that has been flooring audiences for decades and that's as trashy and outrageous as they come" ?
(Of course it is)

[domino harvey]

Yes, and if you haven't seen it, that's actually an accurate description

[bad future]

It's honestly a lot starrier than I was expecting, and in a more novel way too given that it occupies the thinnest sliver of overlap between the type of stuff Vinegar Syndrome puts out and the career of a still-successful star so increasingly risk averse that it feels like there shouldn't be any overlap. Even better that Witherspoon's performance here fully justifies her stardom imo, even if it didn't directly cause it. I was expecting some middling forgotten sleaze that just happens to have a larger than usual amount of over-the-hill names slumming through walk-on roles, but the cast here is actually oozing the qualities that remind me why they were famous.

Very fun little film and feels like a major get for VS.

[yoloswegmaster]

Here is a excerpt from a newsletter talking about what to expect from next year's slate:

In January, we'll be delving back into Category III horror, with a box set featuring a trio of gruesome shockers, in addition to the UHD debut of an iconic 80s gore-fest, a whacked out regional creature film, and one of the best exploitation-horror hybrids to come out of the wilds of Mexican genre cinema (it's been the talk of the VS office and the film we're most excited for).

Then in February, we've got another blood soaked delight from Hong Kong along with a melty treat of American folk horror, in addition to a psychotic - yet beautiful - slice of Eastern Euro sci-fi!

March is shaping up to offer a box set celebrating one of Mexico's most acclaimed genre film directors, including new 4K restorations of some of his most iconic works, along with UHDs of a late 90s indie shocker and an 80s Italian-American gore-fest.

The rest of the year will bring disc (including several BD & UHD) debuts of plentiful Slasher rarities, some of which have never (legally) made it off tape, plus more 70s and 80s Exploitation and Horror (from the US and Europe), more regional weirdness, more Hong Kong action and horror, and of course more Gialli! Plus, in honor of our 10th anniversary, we're working on an epic box set that will speak both to the origins and history of VS and champion the type of way-out, forgotten films we were founded on releasing. We guarantee this set will defy expectations.

[agnamaracs]

I remember seeing the last few minutes of Freeway on TV and thinking, what the hell am I watching

Fun fact: the director Matthew Bright also co-wrote and co-starred in Forbidden Zone

[Grand Wazoo]

Fun fact: the director Matthew Bright also co-wrote and co-starred in Forbidden Zone

He also wrote/directed Tiptoes which seems to have ended his career. Definitely one of the strangest movies I've ever watched and I will forever wish for the 150min. director's cut to appear.

[tenia]

Yes, and if you haven't seen it, that's actually an accurate description

I admit I'm a little perplex over "flooring audiences for decades".

[domino harvey]

I saw this on cable as a teen and absolutely never forgot it. Some of its surprises are spoiled in the packaging itself, but this is trash on another plane of existence. This has been one of the big “Why isn’t this on Blu-ray yet?” holes for over a decade, and honestly I’ve never heard of anyone who didn’t like it— I understand your skepticism of ad copy, but for once they’re not exaggerating. I think the only other comparable film on a star and tone level is Killer Joe. Whatever you think of Witherspoon now, she’s incredible here as the white trash Little Red Riding Hood

[tenia]

Wow OK, my bad then (or maybe it doesn't have the same cult status in France ?).