Chad

CHOOSE A MINIMUM OF 10 DVDS (MIX AND MATCH TITLES) FROM THE 50 CENT SPECIALS AVAILABLE THROUGHOUT OUR SPECIALS SECTION - NOW THROUGH JUNE 30TH!

What is it with Troma and all caps?

Currently 16 titles at 50¢ apiece:

https://buy.tromamovies.com/specials.php

Worth it? You be the judge.

That'sAllFolks

5.00 shipping 1st item, 1.50 additional.

I guess it's worth it if you really like these movies.

kenbenobi

I just figured that out... There are a few I wouldn't mind gambling on, but probably not with a minimum of 10... It would come out to $23.50 for 10 movies...

ProfessorEcho

I wish these were the ROAN GROUP titles instead of TROMA.

bmvtoys

shipping is huge..

SterlingBen

I am a fan of bad movies but the ones that are .50 during this sale are real barrel scrapers. Now if all the movies in this sale were .50 that would be a horse of a different color.

Bachmelle

Anybody try it with less than 10? What's the difference? I've made it all the way to the payment screen with just one in my cart, just to test it out, but still not sure if I want to pull the trigger at $5.00 shipping.

CropsyX

Wow! Shipping to Australia is $85.00 for the first DVD Canada is a slightly more reasonable $19.

MooMooMooMoo

I am currently on a crusade to pick up all the Roans I care about on ebay & Amazon before they're permanently gone (Troma appears to be not repressing titles as they run out).

Too bad the IDIOTS at Troma F'd up Roan. Even the "bonus features" in the Roan releases after Troma purchased them are lame.

For classic film fans, in most cases Roan has by far the best quality versions of the films they released.

For me the good news is I'm down to about 5 left to pick up, & at least 2 of those are out there new in the $11 range. As most people really don't know about Roan's high quality, the only one i know of that seems to be only available at sky high prices is the Of Human Bondage 3 film set. The majority I've purchased in the last 2 months have cost me under $7 brand new on ebay &/or Amazon.

I did pay $18 for a sealed copy of Bird Of Paradise, which is the most I've paid for any of the 15 or so Roans I own.

For Boris Karloff fans, I HIGHLY recommend the Roan Mr Wong box. I haven't checked ebay/Amazon pricing on it lately.

mortalplague

I was hoping James Gunn's Lollilove and Tromeo were in that deal.

ProfessorEcho

MooMoo, I have some of the Roans in my library. They had a New Year's Sale a few years ago and were selling most of the Roan titles for $2 each, but then you had to add shipping onto each one, which I think brought it up to something like $7-8 each. I bought a few then. I agree that they were a far better operation before Troma got involved. The Roan laserdiscs were legendary.

Which Roan DVDs do you recommend?

Alan Smithee

I still haven't watched all the Troma DVDs I got in their 25-cent sale back in 1999.

MooMooMooMoo

I wish I would have caught the $2 sale, though 1 time several years ago I tried to do an order from their website. I don't remember why, but it kept erroring out & the Troma customer service was awful with attitude.

Keeping in mind that I currently have a number of them I haven't watched yet, here's the ones that I have watched & particularly recommend:

Mr Wong Box (Karloff)
SOS Coast Guard
Svengali
White Zombie
The Stranger +1
Undersea Kingdom (This one is beyond cheesy, but amusing)
Bird Of Paradise + 1
Of Human Bondage (I have not seen the other 2 films, I got OHB from Netflix & they didn't have the other disc)
Black Dragons + 2 (I'm a Lugosi fan & this is the best print around)
Corpse Vanishes/Devil Bat
Dead Man Walk / Monster Maker
Human Monster / Mystery Liner
Lady Of Burlesque
Mysterious Mr Wong (Lugosi)
Patterns

I also just bought Rain, & haven't yet had the chance to compare it to the Image edition.

There are about 10 more I own that I either haven't watched yet, or left out due to the film itself being weak, though I have never found any Roan that didn't have the best print of any version. I have 1 Roan (I think it was The Outlaw) that had superior video but inferior audio compared to the next best version (Legend) (or it could have been the opposite, my memory bites these days)

The Roan titles currently on the top of my want list are:
The Cagney "Collection"
Of Human Bondage +2
Invisible Ghost

One of the many reasons I am so positive about Roan, is my Lugosi collection; many (though not all) of the Roan Lugosi titles are the only decent print available.

The Man with the Golden Doujinshi

That's the one thing that always keeps me away from their sale. You're paying a minimum of $18.50 for shipping, which is a complete rip-off since you can get one of those priority boxes from USPS for around $10. 10 DVDs can easily fit in one of those.

That'sAllFolks

It's funny - I saw your original post which was just stating what I had 7 minutes earlier. Then you changed it and it didn't indicate the post had been modified.

ProfessorEcho

Moo, many thanks for the list of recommendations! I'm happy to say that I have a bunch of those already, but some I still need to get.

I sold my copy of the Cagney Collection years ago, but wish I had hung onto it. Also sold RAIN for 99 cents long ago because I was wanted to get the IMAGE version, but I have never found it for a decent price and now it's OOP.

I would add BEHIND OFFICE DOORS to your list because it's a swell pre-code.

And also the horror double features:

KING OF THE ZOMBIES/REVOLT OF THE ZOMBIES
DEAD MEN WALK/THE MONSTER MAKER

MooMooMooMoo

I own all 3 of those, thanks! Haven't watched office Doors or the Zombie set yet. i agree with you on Dead Men.

I will post as soon as I have the chance to compare the 2 versions of Rain. I've heard rumor that the Roan is better, but i guess I'll find out.

MooMooMooMoo

OK, here's the quicky Rain comparison, Roan vs Image. I have some caps, but i assume posting here would be a no no.

Audio: Roan by a longshot. Much louder & clearer. Only neg is the sound of the rain is quite clear & sounds a bit like static.

Video: Both are decent prints, though there is some scratching in both especially near the beginning. I noticed some left-right drifting on the credits on both versions; I have a suspicion that both may have come from the same print. There is a 4 second difference in running times.

This is a bit odd: On my television (CRT Toshiba 36") I preferred the Roan, as it appeared sharper, with better definition, blacker blacks & a bit more contrast/brightness.

However, on 3 screen caps I took I saw the complete opposite: on the caps the Image has better detail & is brighter by a fairly significant margin. On the caps, some detail was visible on the Image that was obscured by darkness on the Roan.

While I've probably only done this sort of comparison on around 10 films (a small sample), I've never before had the opposite results between my tv & the caps like this (& no, i didn't get the caps backwards!). My current television doesn't have the best picture to start with, so it's likely the caps are more accurate.

Either way, since both versions are out of print & both are quite watchable I can recommend either.

If it is acceptable to post caps in this forum, please let me know & I'll be glad to do so.

For those who haven't seen this film, imo it is her best performance of Joan Crawford's early talkies, & amongst her best ever.

The Man with the Golden Doujinshi

You can post caps.

emanon

haha - same here!

berigan

Have you seen the 1941 Vincent Sherman film, Underground ???

Amazing to see talk of Roan, I thought no one was aware of them!
Did the people behind Roan run out of money?

nodeerforamonth

I still have Tromo films from the 25 cent sale they did over 10 years ago. Unopened.

JerryKILL

Roan rules. Troma sucks.

ProfessorEcho

Moo, many thanks for the detailed comparison of the two RAINs. I'm glad there is not a drastic difference between the two as I would hate to learn that I erroneously sold my Roan in favor of the Image version. And I completely agree with you about it being one of Crawford's best films.

So now that us Roan aficionados have emerged from the UNDERGROUND, maybe we should start an official ROAN thread?

MooMooMooMoo

I bought Underground recently, haven't watched it yet. Thanks for the recommendation!

The only thing I know about Roan/Troma is Troma bought Roan for a ridiculous amount of money a few years ago & than ran it into the ground.