What's wrong with New Line

[stone88]

New Line was pretty good about releasing uncut horror on VHS (Jason Goes To Hell, Leatherface). Now both of these titles are sitting in the vault waiting for DVD release.
I know there are lots of titles that each company has to release first but you would think that both of the above mentioned titles would sell considering the fan base.
I have part 1 & 2 of the Chainsaw series but won't bother to buy part 4 until I know I can complete the set with part 3 which happens to be my favorite of the chainsaw sequels.
I also remember New Line lying about releasing JGTH on DVD when JasonX was released in theatres. What happened?

[dlundh]

Jason goes to hell is out on a R2UK DVD, unmatted and uncut.

See for example http://www.play.com/

Go regionfree or bust! :)

[froggydogg69]

I've been waiting to add JGTH and Leatherface to my collection for a while now. I'm used to bullshit when it comes to F13 DVDs, Paramount's not any better when it comes to that. I hope when NLC does release JGTH & JX they have some good features. Paramount's bare bones versions of the older ones need to be re-released, uncut with some goddamn extras!

[rhett]

I imagine New Line is probably waiting to see how Jason X fares at the B.O. before deciding on what to do with JGTH. I imagine they will do what Paramount did and release both films simultaneously around Halloween, but I think the extras will depend on JX's box office. If Jason X struggles at the B.O., then I don't image we will see too many supplements on either release.

But I have high hopes that Jason X will do good, have you guys seen the movies it is competing against? Jason X will clearly debut atop all the other new openings that week, but whether or not it muscles out The Scorpion King (which rumor has it is horrible, so it should suffer at least a 50% fall on its second week) is anyone's guess.

[SEANVALEN]

Originally posted by froggydogg69
I've been waiting to add JGTH and Leatherface to my collection for a while now. I'm used to bullshit when it comes to F13 DVDs, Paramount's not any better when it comes to that. I hope when NLC does release JGTH & JX they have some good features. Paramount's bare bones versions of the older ones need to be re-released, uncut with some goddamn extras!

Agreed.

Alot of competition, as good as Blade 2 is, great first week, but with family films like Ice Age out, it draws in consistent money, these type of family films are a danger, as you get adults in the family going to see a family film, where as if there was nothing on, they'll probabley go for the horror film, but then its always been tough for horror, higher certification, but it can do good, with some luck and good timing, and most importanty a good film.

[Fart Lighter]

I often feel that NEw Line have betrayed their horror fans/roots. It's poeple like us who went to see thier cheapie horrors that got them where they are.

Why the hell no uncut NIGHTMARE 1 & 5. Even here in the UK, where our censors passed these films uncut, NL sent the video company the 'r' rated verisons for DVD, so we've got to have them cut to ribbons (or intact on VHS).

And CRITTERS too!

[Agent Z]

Isn't it funny how a lot of people ride Anchor Bay, a company dealing with some pretty obscure titles and limited resources, while Paramount, with all THEIR resources, are releasing bare-bone-editions of one of their most popular horror series... at 20+ dollars a pop?

[DavidHess]

Paramount home video has a very interesting way of looking at the business. They seem to have a problem with taking people's money :)

If they didn't, why price the hell out of their dvds? Why get involved in divx? Why is it impossible for any company to license films from them? Why is it impossible to even license SOUNDTRACKS from their films?

But it's strange. This is the same company that produced The excellent Tom Savini documentary Scream greats? I guess the architects of that are long gone. Oh Well.

As for New Line, I definitely think they're ahead of Paramount. Has Paramount released a comprehensive box set of the Friday films, completely remastered and complete with an entire disc devoted to extras? No, but New Line did. Their Nightmare collection payed off.

[Fart Lighter]

Originally posted by DavidHess
As for New Line, I definitely think they're ahead of Paramount. Has Paramount released a comprehensive box set of the Friday films, completely remastered and complete with an entire disc devoted to extras? No, but New Line did. Their Nightmare collection payed off.

Their NIGHTMARE films aren't complete, and despite mass opinion and all the abuse that comes with it, NIGHTMARE 1's OAR is 4:3, something which was lacking from the set.

[Dave]

I think what people are forgetting is that the studios are a business. The goal of a business is to make money. The more it makes, the more successful it is. Not to mention keeping stock holders happy and what not. Perhaps Paramount would make more money if they released a lot of special editions. It's hard to say. You can point to other studios that release a lot of special editions and say, "See, they make tons of money." The problem is, so does Paramount. Should they spend extra time and money on extras that aren't necessarily going to guarantee more sales?

Paramount's DVDs are overpriced compared to other studios. Fortunately, they have drop their prices (Friday 5 and 6 MSRP $25, which means you can buy it on-line for $20).

I know I sound like a broken record saying this, but I'm used to paying $40-$60 for a bare bones laserdisc (I won't go into special edition prices). I realize DVD has a much wider market than laserdisc and therefore demands lower prices. Even so, $20-$30 for a DVD with an almost-always top notch transfer seems like a bargain to me. Say what you will about Paramount with their high prices and lack of supplements, but their a/v quality has always been superb.

[Mr. McMinn]

I agree with Dave about Paramount. I'm not really interested in extras like I used to be (I still like extras though), it's all about a/v and Paramount does a good job of that on some of their dvds. Paramount's prices may be a bit steep, but I don't mind paying the extra buck if their dvds have a good transfer and audio.

Take The Dead Zone, only a trailer and OAR. Bare bones to the fullest, but worth the 29.99+tax price tag.

The Dead Zone+dvd=pure and simple classic!:D

[SEANVALEN]

Originally posted by Fart Lighter
I often feel that NEw Line have betrayed their horror fans/roots. It's poeple like us who went to see thier cheapie horrors that got them where they are.

Why the hell no uncut NIGHTMARE 1 & 5. Even here in the UK, where our censors passed these films uncut, NL sent the video company the 'r' rated verisons for DVD, so we've got to have them cut to ribbons (or intact on VHS).

And CRITTERS too!

I didn't know the nightmare films were cut in UK, luckily I have not brought them yet.

[CrumpsBro]

I hate to get into a pissing match, but on the other hand I also hate to see misinformation left unchallenged. So here it goes...

<b>Nightmare on Elm Street</b>'s aspect ratio is NOT 4:3! In fact, only one major studio picture shot on 35mm has been released in the Academy ratio since 1954, and that picture is <b>One from the Heart</b>.

The original aspect ratio of <b>Nightmare</b> is 1.85:1. It was shot full-frame (as are almost all 1.85 films; hard-matting is VERY rare), but when it was first shown in theaters here in the U.S., it was shown at 1.85! End of story...

[DavidHess]

Yeah, I didn't want to get into an argument either about the aspect ratio issue, which I understand is a confusing subject even for people well-versed in film and video to really understand.

Even though numerous films such as Deadbeat at Dawn and Evil Dead have had their mattes removed for various video releases, I still think that presenting a film in its proper theatrical aspect ratio is a valid way to release a dvd, especially for a 35mm feature which was shot with that AR in mind. It's what we fought for all those years during the early days of laserdisc and it's something I still appreciate, IE seeing the film the way the DP/Director intended. While NOES was made during the video revolution of the eighties and there was even talk at the time of New Line just selling out and Media giving it a quick video release, I've heard nothing to indicate that the film was composed for TV beyond what some people would consider to be compositional errors.

I find this a little funny because I've read numerous articles and books on cinematography written around the period NOES was made and nobody was thinking about protecting the frame for video; most of the time it was the in-thing to complain about how television could never equal film due to the horrible cropping and low res, etc. Now we've got dvd, letterboxing, anamorphic video and we're going toward HD and now some people have totally FLIPPED IT AROUND! "Full Frame." Man, that's the dumbest term I've seen on a video box. There's nothing full or fullfilling about it

[Fart Lighter]

Originally posted by CrumpsBro
In fact, only one major studio picture shot on 35mm has been released in the Academy ratio since 1954, and that picture is <b>One from the Heart</b>.


I would like to remind you here that NEw Line was not a major studio when it made Nightmare. It was hardly staying in business at the time. ANd 4:3 films were up until fairly recently still quite common in the american low budget horror industry. Think of Frank Hennenlotter for one, who shot BASKET CASE and BRAIN DAMAGE that way (I'm not sure about FRANKENHOOKER).

And no, it's not 1.85:1, or the end of story. Just your saying so doesn't make your opinion forced on us, or immediately make you right. For the record I work in Uk TV and Video production, including (when I'm lucky) directing and camera work.

I went through NIGHTMARE 1 closely when things looked odd to me in WS, and found a number of parts where the image had been tampered with to get it to fit into a 1.85:1 frame. THere's no way it was shot for that ratio, no way on earth. Even an amateur filmmaker can gat basic framing right.

For the record, if your TV doesn't overscan badly, stick in the bit where tina is running around the boiler room during the opening titles. Look at the edges of the screen. You'll see two black lines present running down the sides (like you get on 1.66:1 films), which then dissapear for the rest of the film. Are you telling me Craven shot it like this? Hmmmm.....No, I don't think so. This segment has been 'shrunk' tog et everything to fit into the frame.

There are about 6 other places in the film where the image had been altered to get information into the frame.

Why are you so sure it's 1.85:1? Becuase mass opinion these days is that everything's supposed to be? Do you like the matting on EVIL DEAD, Which pisses me off a lot.

Hitchcock's PSYCHO was also supposed to be 4:3, by the way, that was a major studio film made after 1954. Matey, you don't know half as much as you like to think. Do you go to HTF?

[CrumpsBro]

I also work in the film industry, in Los Angeles, nothing glamorous, but I've been doing it for over 15 years now.

And the reason that I am so certain that <b>Nightmare</b>'s original aspect ratio is 1.85 is because I saw it in a theater opening weekend and it was being projected at 1.85! How much more "original" can you get with an aspect ratio?!

While it is true that New Line was not a major studio at the time, it was producing it's own films by then, <b>Nightmare</b> being one of them, and the films NL produced were primarily intended for theatrical release. Here in the states it's a given that any film not shot in "scope" will be projected at 1.85. While an independent crew shooting in 16mm may not be mindful of this, there is no way that Craven, a director with several theatrically released films under his belt at that point, would not be.

Now, if you want to say that you prefer the full-frame image in the case of this film, fine. If you even want to say that New Line tampered with the widescreen transfer of this film on the DVD, I won't argue with you. I wasn't there when they did it, I don't what they might have done in the process.

My problem lies in the assertion that the "original aspect ratio" of this film is 4:3. If we can both agree that "original aspect ratio" refers to the way that the film was originally shown in the media in which it was first released, then, I'm sorry, but this film is 1.85. If you disagree on that definition than we have an even bigger problem as the over-whelming majority of non-scope films are shot open-matte, and therefore must also be said to have an OAR of 4:3, by that definition.

As for <b>Psycho</b>, if my memory serves me, I recall reading that this film was shot on 16mm using the crew from Hitch's TV series, for the sake of speed and budget. Yet, I have never read anything that said this film was ever intended by Hitch to be anything but a theatrical release, nor have I ever heard anyone argue that the film was first shown in any ratio other than 1.85, which was already the de facto standard by that time. Therefore unless you can cite something to the contrary, I'm going to continue to be refer to the 1.85 matted transfer on my <b>Psycho</b> DVD as being OAR.

And for the record I dislike the pompous posters at HTF as much as you obviously do. I just think they got this one right. ;)

[DavidHess]

If you look at some of the old unmatted Universal tapes of Psycho you can clearly see the top edge of the set wall during the scene in the Sheriff's home where they wake him up and tell him about the doings at Mr. Bates' hotel. For many years this was incorrectly interpreted as an unintentional film flub.

Universal must've caught on to this, since later full-frame (AKA reformatted AKA Pan and scan) transfers have been slightly cropped during this scene to eliminate the excess headroom.

The most telling sign that Psycho was meant for 1.85:1 has to be the famous shower scene itself, which seems like it might've been partially hard-matted to remove any nudity. The old transfers present this scene with a slight letterbox at the bottom of the screen.

[Fart Lighter]

I was informed by someone in Universal regarding PSYCHO's 4:3 OAR. Ther emay be a chance he was wrong, but he's not the first to mention it. Also, it's of note (to my knowledge) that none of Hitchcock's other WS flms were that way by matting.

Anyway, there's a thread about OAR tampering over at DVD-FILE, whcih I've just replied to. For the first time in all this NIGHTMARE OAR crap (it's been bought up numerous times, not always by me, when somebody notices something wrong), I've actually listed some of the 'prove it to yourself' details evident in the 1.85:1 version, as well as some details that I know about when the ratio was actually altered.

Link:

http://www.dvdfile.com/interactive/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=160286#post160286

I'm currently trying to develop a HELLRAISER TV series. Anybody interested?

[CrumpsBro]

Well, we've each stated our piece and neither of us is about to budge. So, let's move on to something we can both agree on...

It's a great film, regardless!