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One of the most singular auteurs of the horror and science fiction genres, David Cronenberg has wowed audiences with his depictions of body transformations and explorations of society, this collection of his early short and feature films shows a master learning his craft and exploring many of the themes that would dominate his most celebrated work.

Transfer (1966), Cronenberg’s first short film, is a surreal sketch of a doctor and his patient. From the Drain (1967) finds two men in a bathtub, which may be part of a centre for veterans of a future war.Stereo (1969), Cronenberg’s first official feature film, stunningly shot in monochrome, concerns telepaths at the Institute for Erotic Enquiry where patients undergo tests by Dr. Luther Stringfellow. In Crimes of theFuture (1970) Cronenberg worked in colour and with a larger budget, where we find the House of Skin clinic director (Ronald Mlodzik, returning from Stereo) searching for his mentor, Antoine Rouge, who has disappeared following a catastrophic plague.

Cronenberg’s early amateur feature films, shot in and around his university campus, prefigure his later films’ concerns with strange institutions, male/female separation and ESP, echoing the likes ofVideodrome, Dead Ringers and Scanners.

SPECIAL EDITION CONTENTS:

• Brand new restorations of four Cronenberg films
• Original mono audio for all films
• Optional english subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
• Transfer the Future – Author and critic Kim Newman discusses Cronenberg’s early works
• Sleeve featuring newly illustrated artwork by Gilles Vranckx

The first half (like 40 pages) of the book that came with the 2015 LE for Videodrome was devoted to these early films, including lengthy excerpts from Cronenberg on Cronenberg and an essay by Caelum Vatnsdal. All of this has been excluded from the booklet in Videodrome's 2022 4K release. Was all of this writing truly exclusive to the 2015 LE? In other words, did the first pressing of this 2016 Blu-ray release not carry any of that over in a dedicated booklet? I'm thinking not

AFAIK there was no booklet in this release whatsoever, so the writing was indeed exclusive to the initial 2015 LE (and one of the few Arrow titles I now regret skipping, along with the original Borowczyk set). Arrow generally don't include booklets in reissues unless it's a particularly popular title that sells out relatively quickly (e.g. Donnie Darko), or a steelbook edition. I imagine they couldn't include those excerpts you mention in any further editions, such as the UHD edition, for contractual and/or budgetary reasons.

In fact, I remember reading lots of heated comments for them reissuing this disc altogether, let alone any of the literature from that Videodrome LE, due to them advertising it as an exclusive aspect (along with the booklet). In other words, they implied it'd never be released separately, and therefore their wording was more careful after that (notice now that a lot of 2-disc/3-disc LE titles now don't mention the extra disc(s) as 'exclusive' to the LE).