Is Media Blasters Out of Business?

[MacabreFilms]

BOOOOOOO!!!! I loved Media Blasters! They put out tons of rare, quality films. I have many of their releases and still need to pick up quite a few of them that I've been holding off on. This is sad news indeed.

[eric_angelus]

Originally Posted by Paff

What pisses me off is that when I saw them at the above-mentioned Con, I chose not to buy anything (even though their entire inventory was available and laid out for sale), because they wanted list price for everything. This is actually common at conventions. I looked over everything and said "nah...if I want any of these discs, they'll be cheaper at Amazon"

True. Although with media blaster in particular they usually have a large assortment of stuff that is really cheap...generally in a box at the end of the table. I know I got the Uncut Patrick Still Lives from their table for $5. Last con they had a big display of the three packs and I want to say they were $8 apiece. If they are at the event I am headed to this weekend I may pick up a couple of things.

[Kim Bruun]

Very sad news! Media Blasters drew heavy criticism a few years ago for releasing some werewolf movie with the image cropped, removing some lady's privates.

However, I own several SS releases that I'm very fond of - The Dark Just Before Dawn (would like uncut, though), All the Colours of the Dark, Seven Blood-stained Orchids - and that I would gladly buy on blu. I was delighted to see MB tapping into the blu-ray market, so this is a big disappointment for me... The Shriek Show line always struck me as a labour of love, with generally very well put together releases.

[make believe]

I really hope they pick up from this as they were one of the better companies putting out decent discs. Perhaps someone else will pick up what's left of the Shriek Show and Tokyo Shock titles. This explains why Death Kappa got pushed back out of nowhere.

Is there a good list anywhere of all the titles they've released? It would be nice to go through and maybe start picking up whatever titles are around before they end up on ebay for ridiculous prices.

[TheDreamMaster]

Originally Posted by make believe

I really hope they pick up from this as they were one of the better companies putting out decent discs. Perhaps someone else will pick up what's left of the Shriek Show and Tokyo Shock titles. This explains why Death Kappa got pushed back out of nowhere.

Is there a good list anywhere of all the titles they've released? It would be nice to go through and maybe start picking up whatever titles are around before they end up on ebay for ridiculous prices.

Tokyo Shock titles

Shriek Show titles

[make believe]

Originally Posted by TheDreamMaster

Tokyo Shock titles

Shriek Show titles

That works, thanks!

[TheDreamMaster]

It'll be a pain in the ass, but you'll also have to be aware of the titles that are doubled in those lists, since a lot of them showed up in packs as well. So really, with Shriek Show especially, you'll want to get a list of all their 3 and 4 packs because it'll be so much cheaper that way.

Off the top of my head, this is what I can remember:

Jungle Girls Triple Feature
Jungle Horrors Triple Feature
Demons Pack
Zombie Pack 1 and 2
Eurotrash triple feature
British Horror Quadruple Feature
Evil Animals
High School Horrors
SS Hell Packs 1 and 2
Mutant Monsters
Wicked Women
Vampire Triple Feature
Bikers From Hell
Psycho Killers

[17thJuggalo]

I love Shriek Shows releases, it'll really be awful if they go. What really do we have left as far as DVD labels go?

- Shriek Show might be gone
- Anchor Bay isn't even close to what it used to be
- Synapse is still awesome but doesn't release too much anymore
- Severen hardly ever releases anything
- Blue Underground is doing mostly back catalog stuff on Blu at the moment
- Code Red's release are top notch but barely available anywhere
- Image is gone (I think)

I'm sure there's more I'm missing. Things aren't like what they used to be.

[Jeremy]

Originally Posted by 17thJuggalo

- Image is gone (I think)

Not gone, but in trouble and saddled with a lot of debt.

[rhett]

Originally Posted by CPT HOOK

Between the triple packs and buying them individually, I actually own most of their releases. I don't own Murder Rock or Psychos In Love, can anyone give those a recommendation?

I can...for both:

Murder Rock

Psychos in Love

Fulci's is cheesy fun with good music and style, while Psychos in Love is refreshingly quirky. The latter has really stuck with me the last year. Both are top notch discs filled with extras, too.

[FilmFiend]

John Sirabella is posting over at avmaniacs and he says it all BS about closing down. A poster over there doesn't believe him and still thinks the company is in trouble. Quite interesting.

[TheDreamMaster]

Wow, I'll have to keep an eye on that. Really alot of hearsay at this point, but it's odd that at least 2 people have gotten info that points to their demise. Could it be damage control?

HAVING TO DEAL WITH THE OTHER BOARDS THIS HAS PASSED AROUND TO.

Originally Posted by JKurtz

Very bad news!

I have been a Lurker here for many years (great, knowledgeable people), but felt the need to post this info.

Hello I am the President of Media Blasters and feel I need to post a reply to this outlandish post.

Originally Posted by JKurtz

Apparently, this has been canceled due to MB's current financial problems. Two days ago I received a call from one of my friends who worked over there in sales. He wishes me to not use his name, but he said he was let go, along with almost all other staff due to severe financial issues. I was told that in april, they had a staff of 52. In may, they let 24 people go. Then in July, they went down to a skeleton crew of 10. Now in August, when he was let go, the NJ warehouse was padlocked due to non payment and that the NY office was "days away" from a similar fate.

Buio Omega is not cancelled and has been moved to October as we finally got the transfer from Italy and this is our first time dealing with a PAL HD transfer and working on the Blu Ray now. As usual Italy takes longer than we expect to do a transfer. Zombie Holocaust will be next in line.

Staff of 52? MB at its highest had about 40 people. 24 people let go in May? We lost people over time as honestly the home video market is bad and I am sorry we lost people but honestly as far as number laid off it never came close to 24.

NJ warehouse padlocked?? Come on by and say hi! We are there and it will be open till August 30th as we are moving it to Des Moines Iowa and having a company by the Right Stuf handle it.

The NYC office is there and not going anywhere...I need somewhere to do my cycle training... You can come by and say Hi also.

Originally Posted by JKurtz

I was told that market conditions were making it impossible to move product and in early July, best buy returned about 7-10 thousand discs for a refund. A simple Google search confirmed all these events, and as I have known the person for almost 10 years, I would think there is nothing to gain by lying. He also stressed that he was owed quite a bit of back pay which is unfortunate as he has a family. It was alsomade clear that the reason for the ichi and versus delays were due to not being able to pay the replicator to release the product to them.

Returns are common and this environment you get many...who is this person owed monies? Product is flowing...we just started to ship Learning the Hardway and Death Kappa is not far behind. The honest truth in this environment it is just not worth releasing that many titles. We are cutting back the number of releases.

Originally Posted by JKurtz

Finally I was told that work hadn't even begun on this title as there was no available cash to even get an HD master, so this wasn't going to happen.

This is really sad news as, even with their hit and miss track record, I was eager to get this on blu-ray. I tried to call over to their office, but nobody picked up for two days leading me to believe that the office has been locked down.

Is it possible that anyone here has any more inside info that can shed light on this mess?

Any help is appreciated and I'm sorry to bear such bad news.

I can send you a copy if you like personally as soon as it is done. Shoot me your address to jsirabella@media-blasters.com

We are now doing the transfer but the authoring is pretty much done.

-js

As Rihanna says...I LOVE THE WAY THEY LIE.

[indiephantom]

Hope it's not merely a ploy to get people to buy a bunch of discs out of fear they won't be availabe much longer.

I do have some I really want to grab, though.

[Serega_M]

Rumour control from John himself? Cool Although we'll wait and see