Blue Underground going Blu-Ray

Blue Underground is killing it lately with all their 4k releases. They are quickly becoming one of the best labels out there.

 

This and Zombie were my first Fulci movies. House by the Cemetery was also probably my most anticipated upgrade and it ended up being one of the last ones to get it lol. Wait was worth it though. I’m sure this will look stunning.

All we need are remasters of The Beyond and Argento’s Inferno and that should mostly do it in terms of upgrades for those awful LVR scanner noise transfers. Man they were terrible.

~Matt

 

As much as I look forward to seeing a BD of The House by the Cemetery that is on par with their recent Zombie and New York Ripper releases I really wish Blue Underground would focus on doing new titles instead of stuff they already released on BD, all these repeats are getting kind of annoying.

 

I totally agree, but it also puts you as a buyer/collector at a point where you question a purchase, maybe waiting for a better print or an actual 4k release, all of which has got to be a minus for the physical game.

 

Generally I’d agree but no, those old scans are fucking horrendous and should never ever have been released that way. They’re complete garbage and virtually unwatchable. On a 4K TV they’re even worse.

Dead & Buried, all the Argentos, Fulcis, etc needed remasters. Maniac too. That was probably one of the most worthwhile upgrades of any cult film ever.

~Matt

 

While we both agree that the previous releases sucked I think it’s overly dramatic to label them virtually unwatchable and doubt many, if any, fans went back to their DVDs after watching them; as bad as they were they were still upgrades, just problematic upgrades and not upgrades to the extent that people wanted. My problem is that the only justification I can see for them doing the same titles on BD again is ‘because we fucked up the first time’ and that sucks because there are plenty of movies not on BD and plenty not on DVD, so they should move on to one of them. If they must do another release of the same movies then it should at least be on the current physical format bundled with a BD.

 

Yeah, they were definitely better than the DVDs in terms of their native resolution but that’s about as far as it goes. They were also viewed as problematic from the moment they were released. Not all reviewers may have noticed them but there was talk on forums from people in the industry about how bad and inaccurate those releases looked. I stand by my statement that I think they’re unwatchable. Especially now since we’ve come so far with how well we can restore a film. Those scans don’t resemble film whatsoever and that is the biggest issue. They affected a very significant chunk of both Argento and Fulci’s filmography and they have huge cult followings so those titles were screaming for a remaster.

Also many of these titles came out in the early days of the format so on top of them being terrible transfers, they had shit compression as well. The initial release of Cat o’ Nine Tails is one of the worst looking Blu-ray discs I’ve ever seen. House by the Cemetery came out in 2011 so a reissue in 2019 is really not that bad.

However, I also would love to see more titles that haven’t even come out but I also want blu-rays that already look like shit to get proper remasters. I dunno these new remasters really don’t bother me at all because the initial releases were complete and utter trash.

~Matt

 

Also agreed that if they’re coming out as remasters, they should be coming out in UHD and be packaged with a remastered blu.

Fulci and Argento in TRUE 4K? Ugh. Amazing.

~Matt

 

So according to Diabolik DVD, it turns out Django is still owned by Blue Underground. As is result, the Arrow release is cancelled.

The good news however, is that Blue Underground will be working on their own edition soon!:
https://www.facebook.com/DiabolikDVD/posts/10157510922913530?comment_id=10157510954533530

 

Considering how much of my introduction to great horror was on rented VHS tapes, pan-and-scan, edited versions, etc etc, and loving every minute of it, it takes a lot before I'll call a movie unwatchable. Not that I want to go back to those days, but considering what I started out with, something like color correction or "DNR" (which I'm sorry, I've NEVER noticed while watching a movie) isn't going to make me hit eject on my player.

 

I can't help but wonder if we'll be seeing these same transfers on UHD in a few years just like Blue Underground re-used these LVR scans of their DVD upgrades for their early Blu-ray releases.

My ten year old Plasma finally developed a green line in it so getting a new UHD TV is foremost in my mind now. When I never even opened my BU release up should I be investing a the double dip when we already have a new format?

 

I'm also old enough that I remember feeling so lucky when VHS came around. Now I could actually see some of those legendary titles that I read about in magazines and books. Back then the quality was what it was and everything was basically full screen. When we wanted special editions typically you had to buy a bootleg (many times quite low quality). Laserdisc was the high quality format. Today we are lucky to have the available and quality to see most of the movies we want.

 

Right now, Kino seems to be the only domestic, non-studio label showing even a passing interest in the format, and they're being extremely cautious about it. Note: I'm not counting UHD announcements of anime such as Akira or Space Adventure Cobra as I expect the upcoming US releases to be clones, more or less, of their Japanese counterparts.

https://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread.php?p=16286186#post16286186

https://forum.blu-ray.com/showpost.php?p=16388120&postcount=30852

https://forum.blu-ray.com/showpost.php?p=16479313&postcount=31683

https://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread.php?p=16667520#post16667520

I don't think Lustig's going to take a chance on UHD unless Kino and some of the other high volume labels (Shout! Factory, Criterion, Arrow, etc.) start making some serious moves in that direction, first, with less mainstream films.

 

I don’t think the Arrow release is actually cancelled, that’s not what that link states. Arrow have put it on hold for the time being. Nobody has said for sure if it’s cancelled or not the whole thing is still kind of up in the air. And I don’t believe BU have made an announcement either, just that they have the rights. I think part of the problem was that the Italian licensor sold the rights to Arrow when BU still had them. I may be wrong on that but I remember reading that on the Blu-ray.com forums. The whole thing is kind of strange, Arrow had that release announced for months and only when it was about to release were they hit with this rights issue by BU. Not saying it’s BU’s fault but the whole thing sounds like a giant mess. I think it’ll get worked out, as Blood and Black Lace was also sold to two different distributors (Arrow and VCI?) and that was worked out.

I managed to get a copy of Arrow’s Django before it was pulled. It’s a beautiful set I hope it gets released so other fans can enjoy it. The movie looks amazing.

~Matt

 

Certainly. And from what you've shown Kino's targeting next spring. So in a few years we may see Blue Underground's transfers on UHD. Though I don't see Shout Factory or Criterion doing it. I expect we'll see the majors themselves putting titles like Fright Night, Return of the Living Dead and The Thing on UHD first. The latest round of licensing by the majors to the minors for titles like these seems to be one last squeeze out of Blu-ray. The next frontier for titles like these is UHD. And once they make their foot print the minor studios will follow.

It'll be interesting to see if Second Sight's UHD of Dawn of the Dead will be the break out UHD title the independent distributors need. If that doesn't do well nothing will. And it very well may spur a US release. But Europe has been experimenting a lot more with UHD releases of films like Suspiria and even The Blood Rose in France! I know the United States largely ignores what Europe's up to but the net result is we have more and more UHD ready masters burning holes in licensor's pockets.

Lustig was all sorts of doom and gloom a few years ago about physical media and in turn Blue Underground slowed down with only a slow but steady trickle of titles. Now suddenly he's hitting the 4k remastering really hard. Something's up...

 

Why in the hell is the Two Evil Eyes blu listed at $61.11 on Amazon ? Too high, I don’t care what it includes.

 

Price matching Wal-Mart.

https://www.walmart.com/ip/Two-Evil-Eyes-3-Disc-Limited-Edition/873779781

Diabolik has it for $32.99 and it's only supposed to have a $49.95 MSRP.

 

Thanks for the head’s up on Diabolik. Usually the Amazon price drops, previously it was $49.95 which is still too high.

 

Amazon may go down though. The New York Ripper release went down to just $22.09 before the release date ... and that also had a $49.95 SRP.

 

Amazon just dropped Two Evil Eyes to $35.49. Just a heads up.

~Rocker10