Anolis Got Hammered

[Hellbilly]

Um, I dunno this is old news: German independent label Anolis Entertainment (http://www.anolis-film.de/inhalt/film/vhs/index.html) is releasing a batch of Hammer Films on DVD (distributed by e-m-s (http://www.e-m-s.de/)) over the next 3 years. All releases will have German/English audio, some will have documentaries, audio commentaries, trailers and other stuff. Here's the line-up:

10/2002 Frankenstein Created Woman
01/2003 The Reptile
02/2003 The Vengeance of She
04/2003 The Abominable Snowman
06/2003 Men of Sherwood Forest
07/2003 The Quatermass Experiment
09/2003 Dracula - Prince of Darkness
11/2003 The Witches
01/2004 Quatermass 2
03/2004 A Challenge for Robin Hood
05/2004 Plague of the Zombies
07/2004 Viking Queen
09/2004 The Mummy's Shroud
11/2004 Slave Girls/ Prehistoric Women
01/2005 The Devil rides out
03/2005 Frankenstein and the Monster from hell
05/2005 Rasputin the Mad Monk
07/2005 Quatermass and the Pit
09/2005 The lost Kontinent
11/2005 Captain Kronos - Vampire Hunter

[mutleyhyde]

I always wondered why Anchor Bay never put out A Challenge for Robin Hood. It was on their disk of trailers, and they made a VHS for it... so what the hell??

Ah well, I can't fault them too much - they've done pretty good by Hammer fans. :)

[Johnny Alucard]

Mutley
I was holding out for the Challenge for Robin Hood Laserdisc at the time it was released as they were releasing all of them on Laser at the same time as the VHS(this was when DVD was still getting started). When they didn't release it on Laser I finally bought the VHS. Well the high quality transfer seen on all their other Hammer releases was nowhere to be seen here. The color is extremely muted almost to the point of being monochrome. I can only guess this is the best print Hammer provided them and because it is shoddy they may have decided it would only look worse on Laserdisc and DVD and have passed on releasing it. Hopefully someone can find a better print or a major color restoration can be done and a good DVD can be released but the limited appeal of this film may be affecting those possibilities.

[mutleyhyde]

Hmmm, I see... well, if that's the case, then AB probably did the right thing (way to stick it to those diehard VHS folks ;) ).