My Dad said he saw Society opening weekend in an empty multiplex 6 theater. He said there also a massive cardboard advertising the movie in the lobby. The movie did poorly and played in empty auditoriums and was gone the follwing week. :eek2: So what you say is and was actually quite true for a long time.
I've seen a million movies in this situation. I remember seeing The Prophecy (1995) twice in one week on release, first time there were two other people there, next time it was just me and a date. Then gone.
The only reason I found out about Society was due to blind buying it back in my early collecting days. So glad I did. I probably wouldn't have heard about it till Cape Light or Arrow's release otherwise.
I originally saw it on the Sci-Fi (now SyFy) channel back in their early days. They used to play a lot of really great stuff. In fact, having grown up in the '90s, my first encounter with most of these films was via TNT's MonsterVision, USA's Up All Night, or the Sci-Fi Channel. I used to scan through those channels in the TV guide and circle anything that sounded even remotely horror.
Monstervision and Up All Night were awwwwwwwwesome. I don't remember watching many cult movies on Sci-Fi, but that's where I saw Tales From the Darkside, Monsters, and Friday the 13th the Series for the first time.
The only time I ever saw Society was on a Japanese laserdisc. My roommate at the time bought it because it was a different cut of the film.
Dammit I want all the Arrow Blus. Society, Cannibal Ferox and Madman tapped me out for the month though.
I'm all over The Mutilator and Blood Rage. Going to have to review Contamination - can't recall whether I dug it or not. Seems like one of those cool gore flicks that is lame on plot and acting, but I'll reserve final judgement after a second viewing.
Looks like another winner with Contamination. I have the old DVD available if anyone is on the fence and wants a cheap copy to tide them over. $7 shipped (US and Paypal only, please)
Where are you guys buying Arrow's North American releases? I want to pick up Society but at 28 bucks it's far too steep.
Your best bet at the moment would be to keep an eye out for coupon codes. I nabbed Society and Spider Baby for $20 each from Sears with SYW coupons, but those are random so it wouldn't necessarily help you. Last week, GoHastings had a sale for 20% off all new blu-rays, which made Arrow releases $22.99 shipped. The sale is no longer valid, but I even posted about it here while it was. On Sunday and Monday, Barnes and Noble had 20% off + free express shipping, which would have made it about $21 shipped. Society was in stock there at the time, but appears to be gone now. Family Video currently has Arrow blu-rays for $23.99 each, and free shipping with coupon code FREERIDE (expires 6/21). Looks like Society is now back-ordered though. It looks to be backordered most places now, so you might end up having to wait until September for the re-release on Society. As for their other releases, Arrow UK usually does a big sale through their website about 3 times a year. Not sure if they'll be doing that here in the US, they're just getting started here, but I hope so. I'm waiting on sub-$20 for Island Of Death myself, even sold off my Arrow DVD to cover it. Speaking of Arrow, my back-ordered Spider Baby blu-ray just arrived today. I already had the UK blu-ray, which is pretty much the same exact thing, but it only worked in one of my blu-ray players. So I sold that for $20, the Dark Sky DVD for $10, and upgraded to the Arrow US blu-ray that will work in all of my players.
Mutilator is available for pre-order. What is up will all these $40.00 list price blu-rays? I can't imagine there is that big a market for low budget films like this.
Not defending the prices as a consumer BUT, Arrow is doing a few things here: packaging is top notch. The clear cases, the booklets, even the printing quality of the insert is all high end. and they are also releasing films we have been wanting to see. The rights holders for films with a market probably ask for more than, say, a Stan's Blade. And the restoration work is AMAZING. I watched my German DVD of Blood and Black Lace and then the restored version on Blu ray and it's like two different movies. So all those costs get passed on to us. Now, I could buy $14.99 discs of films that are ho hum and that I watch once or I could drop $25 on a disc that I will watch A LOT of. I'd rather do the latter.
I think it's at least partly due to the dual territory licensing fees, and it seems to be affecting the pricing of their UK releases as well. Most of Arrow's UK-only titles seem to have RRPs of £19.99 ($31.65), while the dual territory releases seem to have RRPs of £24.99 ($39.57).
