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Check your title, bud.

(Posted on Thursday, September 29, 2011 at 3:46 PM)

Ah, so it's LVR is it? I don't think I'd seen them named and shamed before.

My copy of TORSO is on the way. From Mondo Digital's review it sounded like BU have done a good job of putting together a complete version of the film with the various little extra bits of dialogue intact (although I always forget the differences between the various DVDs).

(Posted on Thursday, September 29, 2011 at 3:53 PM)

Will you be getting Zombie ( aka Zombie Flesh Eaters ) at the end of October. ?

I want to buy that one to replace my old 2 disc Shriek Show DVD edition but i'm not willing to buy it if it turns out like some of these other Italian sourced transfers, hence you can be the guinea pig. ( please )

After seeing how impressive Tron looks on blu ray ( thanks to your site and review ) i decided to take advantage of the Tesco 2 Disney for 1 offer and bought it along with The Incredibles.

(Posted on Thursday, September 29, 2011 at 5:27 PM)

Foxymulder:

"Will you be getting Zombie ( aka Zombie Flesh Eaters ) at the end of October. ?

I want to buy that one to replace my old 2 disc Shriek Show DVD edition but i'm not willing to buy it if it turns out like some of these other Italian sourced transfers, hence you can be the guinea pig. ( please )"

I will most definitely be getting it, even though I fear for the transfer!

(Posted on Thursday, September 29, 2011 at 9:49 PM)

I'll likely pick up Zombie regardless how it looks just 'cos I know it'll look infinitely better than Media Blasters' shit transfer. Had I only known of their reputation at the time I bought the DVD... Saw the two releases, MB and BU, side by side, and went with the MB one 'cos it was two discs and had cooler packaging!

Depressing to hear about Torso. Not that I've seen it, but I wanted to. What the fudge is going on in Italy?? I don't think some of the results, like The Cat o' Nine Tails are as bad as people are saying, but they're certainly far below how they should be.

Oh, and I guess Four Flies on Grey Velvet comes out on Blu-ray in December courtesy of Shameless. I know nothing about them, but I'm hoping for a nice transfer and a fix in the English audio over Mya's DVD.

(Posted on Friday, September 30, 2011 at 5:07 AM)

Shameless are very diligent at putting together "complete-as-possible" versions of films, with some fairly decent extras, for their DVD releases. I wouldn't say their video transfers are exceptional, but that may be down to the quality of the materials available, in many cases.

I haven't seen either of their Blu-ray releases so far (New York Ripper and Cannibal Holocaust). Fingers crossed for Four Flies....

(Posted on Friday, September 30, 2011 at 6:09 PM)

If their Four Flies BD ends up looking real darn good, I reeeaaally hope that it won't be Region B-locked. That would be such a hard kick to the nuts.

(Posted on Friday, September 30, 2011 at 9:29 PM)

http://www.cintel.co.uk/Products/5

"Grain Reduction Technology"- Oh great!

I can't wrap my head around them making a modern scanner using CRTs. I suppose it's just to separate themselves from other scanners, or maybe a patent issue?

Vincent

(Posted on Saturday, October 1, 2011 at 6:53 PM)

http://www.cintel.co.uk/Products/5

"Grain Reduction Technology"- Oh great!

I can't wrap my head around them making a modern film scanner using CRTs. I suppose it's just to separate their product from other scanners, or maybe a patent issue? Criterion's HOWARDS END was scanned on a C-Reality, and some folks have had huge issues with digital noise patterns on that Blu-ray, as well.

Vincent

(Posted on Saturday, October 1, 2011 at 6:55 PM)

Sorry for the double post above, but to follow up some more, I e-mailed Don May of Synapse Films to ask if he knew anything about the Cintel DSX scanner. Turns out, he does:

Don: "I have seen tests on a DSX and didn't like what I saw. Not so much noise in my case, really, but the scans, especially on older film stocks, was just... harsh. The Spirit gives a much smoother image."

Talking to Don a bit more on the phone he said the DSX is "fine for new films" but that it's very unforgiving on film grain and tends to accentuate it in a very harsh way and that he was specifically warned against using a DSX for the types of cult titles he does.

Vincent

(Posted on Saturday, October 1, 2011 at 8:04 PM)

For what it's worth the Shriek Show and Blue Underground DVD transfers of ZOMBIE were pretty much identical, aside from the fact that BU's compression was better. The upcoming BD, reference quality or not, is sure to make both releases equally irrelevant.

While I look forward to your in-depth analysis (as always!), I have taken an all too brief look at TORSO today, and can only echo Michael's sentiments; it's got an almost static grid of "grain" that's not totally dissimilar to ZOMBIE HOLOCAUST, and that's not something anyone involved should be proud of. The only prior BU title I can think of to be cursed with obvious DVNR was THE LIVING DEAD AT MANCHESTER MORGUE... a shame that we're almost taking a step backward on this one.

(Posted on Sunday, October 2, 2011 at 12:04 AM)

First time reading this. I already posted a few days ago about this one on AVManiacs. It does have the same noise as some of the other Italian titles. The noise dances on top of the image. However, it doesn't bother me too much here, it's far better than Cat o' Nine Tails or Django.

(Posted on Sunday, October 2, 2011 at 12:34 AM)

Yah two years after writing on that Cap-A-Holics page in defence of my old Shriek show version of Zombie i must now hold my hands up and say the Blue Underground looks superior in the screencaps they printed.

(Posted on Sunday, October 2, 2011 at 2:36 AM)

@Michael - interested what you'll think about Zombie. I feel like you might not like it. Ha.

(Posted on Sunday, October 2, 2011 at 7:20 PM)

"....and of course INFERNO (which was transferred in the US and escaped the Cintel DSX treatment completely)"

As usual, I'm the last person to become aware of that!

So did Arrow have a different master after all, or did they mess up the "good" one all by themselves?

(Posted on Sunday, October 2, 2011 at 10:11 PM)

Michael:

I didn't know that about Inferno. Figures! That one looks excellent. Maybe The Crazies (Romero) was another? That one looked nice also.

(Posted on Monday, October 3, 2011 at 1:22 AM)

As far as I know, none of Blue Underground's American productions I've seen have had the 'harsh' noise that their Italian features do (which was always a red flag to me). Some look better than others, with THE PROWLER in particular having an unpleasant look to it, but even that doesn't have the same look we've basically come to expect from LVR.

I'm sure the Italian producers who own these films are more comfortable having the work done by a local lab they're familiar with versus having the negs shipped stateside. I can't, however, think of a single good reason to ship an American negative to Italy to have the telecine work done.

(Posted on Monday, October 3, 2011 at 3:48 AM)

Well i thought i had bought Tron from Tesco in their two for one offer, it arrives and i see they have sent Tron Legacy, so i then have to go out and buy Tron all over again and i then see HMV had both films for around £11, that would have been a better deal than Tesco, duh of me for not checking around.

As for The Incredibles and the extra content, for a quarter of the price of the USA version i'm happy to just take the film, the transfer and encode will hopefully be as good if not identical to the USA edition.

If anyone here is getting the new release of Evil Dead 2 i can tell you the price seems very cheap at Planet Axel right now, i don't trust Lionsgate so i will wait for reviews on that one.

(Posted on Monday, October 3, 2011 at 9:24 PM)

P.S. That price on The Incredibles should say one third not a quarter.

(Posted on Monday, October 3, 2011 at 9:25 PM)

Oh man, I hope that Evil Dead II Blu-ray re-release is good. I don't loathe the current one, but there certainly is a very waxy look to the Divimax transfer and it's too bright. Crossing fingers it's done justice.

Those of you in North America may be interested to know that Blue Underground are doing a limited theatrical run of Zombie. I DEFINITELY won't be missing this one. (I missed out on Grindhouse's presentations of The Beyond and Gone with the Pope at the same theater 'cos I wasn't aware they were showing.)

http://www.blue-underground.com/zombie/

(Posted on Tuesday, October 4, 2011 at 10:51 AM)

Also: Curious if anyone has word on how the new Dead Alive BD is. It looked all right on Netflix HD.

(Posted on Tuesday, October 4, 2011 at 10:52 AM)

Also, from a Lustig quote in this article, it sounds like Lustig and co. have handled the Zombie transfer themselves so maybe the Blu-ray will be a treat to behold.

The quote:

We are very excited about this theatrical release of ZOMBIE. We spent hundreds of hours working by hand to restore every frame of the movie. When we premiered our restoration of the film at Fantastic Fest in Austin, fans told us that ZOMBIE looks like it was made yesterday!

(Posted on Tuesday, October 4, 2011 at 11:39 AM)

SInce I am not willing to pay extra for BU's dubious Italo Blu-rays, does anyone know which DVD version of TORSO is the one to get? I already have the Anchor Bay one, which needs an upgrade apparently.

(Posted on Tuesday, October 4, 2011 at 12:23 PM)

I suppose the best English-friendly release of TORSO is the Shameless UK release. The print is complete and in 1.72:1 anamorphic PAL, though it's swapped out the title card with a portion of the US prologue sequence and it's missing a few lines at the start of the end credits.

While I'll let Michael get into the nitty-gritty of it all, the Blu-ray might not be perfect, but it's by far the most accurate and complete presentation of the film so far.

The Dead Alive Blu-ray looks... eh. Not especially good, dirty and noisy and washed out - similar to the Netflix version though, so if you liked that, indulge. It's an older HD master based on the Interneg(?) that Trimax was given in the mid 90s, so it'll only ever look so good. I'm personally far more fussed about the cuts than I am the image quality, but that's because until Jackson goes back to restore his "Early" films they're all going to look like varying degrees of crap anyway.

And why did you have to point out that ZOMBIE's getting a theatrical release!? One of those theaters is about a hundred miles away, and I couldn't be any more broke when it's playing... Crap, I really need to do some soul searching on this one...

(Posted on Tuesday, October 4, 2011 at 6:30 PM)

Ah. Damn. Well, I'm hoping for something stellar; maybe more effort was put into this than other LVR-handled films.

Sorry, Kentai. :p Hope you make a wise decision on whether or not to go see it. It's only about a 45-minute drive for me. I think I'd prefer a dirty old beaten-up print, but a new one minted from the 2K master sounds like it should hopefully be pretty sweet.

(Posted on Tuesday, October 4, 2011 at 11:04 PM)

Ha, no worries Chris - I've eMailed BU to find out what the theater is actually screening. If it's a vintage 35mm print, hell yes, I'm dragging my wife there at Midnight. If they'll just be hooking up the Blu-ray to a 2k projector, then screw it - I've already got my pre-order in.

(Posted on Wednesday, October 5, 2011 at 12:07 AM)

I forgot to post the Dread Central link to coincide with the quote above.

http://www.dreadcentral.com/news/47679/lucio-fulcis-zombie-crashes-back-theatres-new-theatrical-one-sheet-trailer-and-more

A couple of snippets from the article:

Blue Underground is bringing its digitally restored and remastered version of Lucio Fulci’s ZOMBIE to theaters across the U.S. and Canada this month.

Blue Underground is proud to present ZOMBIE in a new 2K High Definition transfer from the original uncut and uncensored camera negative.

“We are very excited about this theatrical release of ZOMBIE,” says Blue Underground founder and president William Lustig. “We spent hundreds of hours working by hand to restore every frame of the movie. When we premiered our restoration of the film at Fantastic Fest in Austin, fans told us that ZOMBIE looks like it was made yesterday!”

So yeah, an old raggedy print it ain't. :( But I'm hoping it'll still be an awesome experience.

I figure it'll be a film print minted from the 2K master, though, like what Grindhouse Releasing have done with their theatrical showings. The theater it'll be playing at in Minneapolis, I don't even think they have a digital projector; every feature I've seen there has been film, including some ancient prints of drive-in classics from time to time.

(Posted on Wednesday, October 5, 2011 at 1:24 AM)

The theater that's closest to me on the list (Capitol Theater) only shows 'HD Digital Presentations' so I wouldn't expect a new film print to be shown there, at least.

(Posted on Wednesday, October 5, 2011 at 1:14 PM)

Thanks Kentai and Michael, looks like I will have to go for the TORSO BD after all. I'll wait for a sale though, since I already have the movie on DVD.

(Posted on Friday, October 7, 2011 at 12:14 PM)