Vinegar Syndrome - New Genre Label

Quick question. The VS is still closed correct?

 

I believe so. It looks like it's taking a little longer than normal to get their Halfway to Black Friday sale stuff shipped (just visit the Blu Ray.com Forum for proof), and they don't put the site back up till they're finished shipping and doing an inventory.

I got my order a couple of days ago. Haven't watched any yet, but I popped 'em all in for a preview. I really love the work they do on the films they release. It can be tough sometimes, as often the films are really bad, and no amount of restoration can make a bad film good. But you have to respect the effort and appreciation they give all movies, regardless of filmmaking quality. I wish I could afford to get every movie they release, but it's just not in my budget, especially when so many of their releases are of movies that are just so unwatchable. Still, I'd love to see them anyway, at least once.

 

Oh ok. Just wondering. I thought maybe my browser was stuck on some page/cookies. Then that admin password section upper right.

 

June bundle is here (along with today's release of New York Ripper):

View attachment 9566

 

Apparently, there's a discount code hidden as an Easter Egg on The Corruption of Chris Miller.

 

There's a screen that will allow you to enter a 6 digit code and once you enter it you’ll be told that the code is the discount code and that it can be used through 2019, one time per customer, for $5 off. No idea how to get to it from the menu or how to figure out the code, I just know the code because I cheated to find it. :]

 

Play Dead was, uh, interesting?

It feels like a made-for-TV movie with some brief nudity spliced in (it's a body double according to the actress, not sure about her male counterpart). It's very slow and very tame. Super quaint and melodramatic with a few sparse silly horror moments throughout. This was supposedly made in 1981, but feels like it could have been made a decade earlier. Add a few scenes of Yvonne DeCarlo practicing satantism and you have Play Dead.

Extras are pretty brief. The director interview is maybe 5 minutes and he basically just says "that was 35 years ago and I don't remember". There's an audio interview with the lead actress that is much better, runs maybe 20 minutes? Also includes a trailer.

The reverse cover is pretty wild. This is the artwork they used:

 

Finished up this month's lite offerings with Them aka Hellmaster last night.

This was another, uh, interesting one. It's incredibly '90s. Think a mash-up of Mindripper and Happy Hell Night. Another way to describe it might be Wishmaster 3 directed by Dante Tomaselli. I went for the HD Director's Cut titled Them, but I'd be curious to know what the differences are in the SD straight-to-video cut titled Hellmaster. I'm not ambitious enough to watch it again so soon (and in SD).

The short version of the plot is this. You have a group of college students on a campus (in reality an old insane asylum in Pontiac, MI, it's a great location!). John Saxon rolls onto campus in an old school bus full of his mutated cult followers. John Saxon and his mutant cult attempt to take over the campus, killing off the college students one-by-one. There's much more if you really want to get into it, but it's weird and confusing and somewhat irrelevant.

For the most part, this hit me in the perfect mood because I had a lot of fun with it. It does get a bit repetitive and monotonous towards the end. They probably could have shaved ten minutes off the final act. It's really just a silly "kill the attractive college students" teen horror film, but the villains are genuinely kind of creepy and the movie as a whole is extremely stylish. The score is pretty great too, it plays over the menu. The 2.7 IMDB rating is incredibly harsh, but I imagine they watched the Hellmaster cut I didn't see.

Both versions of the movie include a director's commentary, which I didn't listen to. The best extra here is the 25-ish minute interview with DP Michael Goi. He also shot Moonstalker (his first movie) and has since gone on to work frequently with Ryan Murphy (he's worked on American Horror Story, Glee, Scream Queens, Town That Dreaded Sundown remake, etc). He is also the director of Megan Is Missing. Coolest of all, he's a Vinegar Syndrome annual subscriber (one of us! one of us!). Two photo galleries are also included, as well as some nondescript footage of the location where they shot the movie.

Most horror fans hate '90s horror on principle, so YMMV, but I think the decade was fun and this fits right in with those direct-to-video fright flicks of the early '90s.

 

Anyone else having playback issues with their Mountaintop Motel Massacre Blu? Mine skips around the 57 and 59 minute marks. I tried cleaning the disc to no avail.

 

This has been reported on other forums as well. I haven't gotten around to watching mine yet, but there was a replacement disc included in my July monthly shipping with Play Dead and Hellmaster.

If you contact VS I'm sure they'll send you one.

 

And it's driving me nuts. I cannot find the code! The screen where you would enter it, yes, but not the code.

 

It's a "game" you have to play on the screen. Choose numbers until you get the right ones, and keep track of the correct ones you find...since they'll disappear if you choose an incorrect number on one of the slots.

 

I received my replacement already and can report that it works fine now except one of the trailers doesn't have sound now, So hold on to your old one if you care about such things

 

I though that at first...I got the first two numbers but then couldn't get any more to stick. I must have skipped a number inadvertently when cycling through. I'll get it figured out when I get home later.

 

Thanks Guys. I live near The Archive, so I was planning on waltzing in there for a replacement disc. Which trailer is having sound issues so I can relay it to them?

 

That's just what I've heard on the BLuray forum. I haven't actually checked the trailers out yet myself, Probably tonight.

 

***NEW TITLE ANNOUNCEMENT***
August Vinegar Syndrome titles revealed!

Decoder -

brand new 2k restoration of its original 16mm camera negative.”English
Widescreen 1.33:1
DTS-HD Master Audio
• Region Free Blu-ray/DVD combo
• Newly scanned & restored in 2k from its 16mm original negative
• “Sound as a Weapon” – a brand new interview with writer/producer Klaus Maeck
• Audio commentary with critic, author and film programmer Kier-La Janisse
• Archival audio interview with Klaus Maeck
• Excerpts from “Pirate Tape” – filmmaker Derek Jarman films William S. Burroughs on set
• Video footage from the 1982 Berlin Riots
• Locations ‘then and now’ comparison
• Stills gallery
• Original trailer
• A mini-documentary on the Italian “Decoder Collective”
• Reversible cover artwork
• English SDH subtitles”

9 Lives of A Wet Pussy -

Widescreen 1.85:1
DTS-HD Master Audio
• Region Free Blu-ray/DVD combo
• Newly scanned & restored in 2k from its 35mm original negative
• Audio commentary with film historian Samm Deighan
• Original theatrical trailer
• Reversible cover artwork
• English SDH subtitles”

Hell Comes to Frogtown -

brand new, 4k restoration.”
Widescreen 1.85:1
DTS-HD Master Audio
• Region Free Blu-ray/DVD combo
• Newly scanned & restored in 4k from its 35mm interpositive
• Audio commentary with cinematographer/director Donald G. Jackson and writer/producer Randall Frakes
• ”Mean and Green” – a video interview with Randall Frakes
• ”Grappling with Green Gargantuans” – a video interview with lead actor “Rowdy” Roddy Piper
• ”Amphibian Armageddon” – a video interview with actor Brian Frank
• ”Creature Feature Creator” – a video interview with f/x artist Steve Wang
• Extended Scene
• Theatrical Trailer
• Reversible cover artwork
• English SDH subtitles

Let My Puppets Come -

Vinegar Syndrome presents this nearly lost midnight oddity in its fully uncut, 75 minute version, newly restored from the best known surviving film elements.”
Widescreen 1.85:1
DTS-HD Master Audio
• Region Free Blu-ray/DVD combo
• Newly scanned & restored in 2k from 35mm archival elements
• Audio commentary with film historians Heather Drain and Samm Deighan
• Audio conversation with puppeteer and puppet designer James Racioppi
• Rare audio from a production of the musical “Kumquats”, the inspiration for Let My Puppets Come
• Audio conversation with “Kumquats” director Nicolas Coppola
• Original theatrical trailer
• Reversible cover artwork
• English SDH subtitles”

 

Was first introduced to Puppets 20 years ago at a midnight showing. Very funny movie but I completely forgot about it, and that I have a VHS copy kicking around here somewheres...

 

Wasn't expecting Hell Comes to Frogtown to end up with VS, that's awesome. And Let My Puppets Come has been a long time coming, , but with those extras it's clearly been worth the wait.

 

Just checked my replacement disc and the original theatrical trailer has no sound now but does on the old disc so hold on to that if you're getting the replacement