sleepyhead55

What is the best film in their collection? I've seen Gore in Venice and another film and wasn't impressed with either one.

JasonX

Full Moon is mostly crap. That said, I enjoy these (even if none are great films):

The Pit and the Pendulum
Castle Freak
Cannibal Women in the Avocado Jungle of Death
Sorority Babes In The Slimeball Bowl-O-Rama

Although I believe all of them have better releases from overseas.

Brian T

Not much! I'm not fond of most of the actual Full Moon branded titles (SUBSPECIES, DOLLMAN, PUPPETMASTER, they all start to blend after a while). I did buy a lot of the 70's 'Eurotrash' DVDs in a previous sale. Most of those are well stacked with nudity, but not really worth revisiting. The only Blu-rays I've kept are SORORITY BABES IN THE SLIMEBALL BOWL-A-RAMA and SLAVE GIRLS FROM BEYOND INFINITY. They're both cheap and cheesy and likewise full of skin, but I prefer them to the more common Full Moon stuff. TOURIST TRAP has its moments, too.

They've put out a number of 70's Eurosleaze and giallo-style movies on Blu-ray in the last few years (CRUEL DOLLS, GORE IN VENICE, CRAZY NIGHTS) that I'm tempted by, but that's stuff is always so hit and miss, and I suspect the top-shelf titles in those genres may have mostly been picked over by the likes of Arrow, Vinegar Syndrome, etc. Still, $8.50's not bad . . .

Brian T

Vinegar Syndrome Valentines Day Weekend Sale, until Sunday at 11:59 pm
https://vinegarsyndrome.com/collections/v-day-2023

- 4K debut of, sigh, MASSAGE PARLOUR MURDERS
- New Peekarama Blus of DOUBLE EXPOSURE OF HOLLY, BODY GIRLS + LET’S GET PHYSICAL double feature
- Catalog slipcovers going for $10.50 each now ( )

Paff

The slips of A Women's Torment and Her Name Was Lisa are both $7.99, the usual price.

I don't know if I'll upgrade from plain old DVD, but Let's Get Physical is pretty decent for a porn movie. Star Hypatia Lee co-wrote it, and it does seem like porn from a woman's perspective, but don't worry there's still a lot more sex than actual plot. Plus, either she's an excellent actress (at least better than when she has to deliver dialogue), or Hypatia Lee was genuinely excited in her sex scenes.

Brian T

My bad, sort of. These Shopify-style sites default to the currency of the country the user is in, so it is $10.50 Canadian, and regardless $8.00 or $10.50 for a piece of printed cardboard has been ridiculous for however long it's been that price. And before anyone says I don't understand the costs associated with card stocks, soft-touch coatings, spot lamination, and other bells and whistles, that's all a huge part of my job so I have a nice idea of the margins on those kinds of things. It is interesting that the slipcase + slipcover combos (as on the Doris Wishman sets, for example) add $10.00 to the cost of a title (compared with the standard editions without them), and are reduced to a difference of just $5.00 during the sales (again, using the Wishman sets as examples). And since the harder slipcases actually represent a higher expense, the plain slips don't entirely make sense at $8.00 a pop. But hey, I can't really begrudge VS – as I've always said, they know the collector mentality all too well. Consistency of packaging is probably as important than the movies themselves for a lot of folks!

Paff

Oh, the slips-only are overpriced, no argument there. But I was just saying they didn't raise the prices of them, for whatever small consolation that is.

Captsmee.00

Puppetmaster 1-5, Demonic Toys, Subspecies, Pit & the Pendulum are all good flicks. You’ve got to understand what Full Moon is. They are the granddaddy of direct to video movies from the video store heyday. Movies like Puppetmaster back then could only be rented.

Paff

By the way, the VS sale includes movies that are not porn, but porn-adjacent, if you know what I mean. Like the Hong Kong flick Viva Erotica, which is sort of a behind-the-scenes look at a softcore porn movie set, including all the good and bad that comes with it. Pun sort of intended. Like a Hong Kong Boogie Nights, except it came out a year before PTA's classic.

I watched it for the first time last night, and was very surprised to see the artistic director of the film festival I work for does the commentary on this release. Like, you think he would have told me while we were shooting the shit about Hong Kong movies during the festival last year...

Brian T

The old non-anamorphic Hong Kong edition of this was in my 'keeper' collection of HK films for a couple of decades. Despite the subject matter, it was a seven-time Hong Kong Film Award nominee, with Shu Qi's wins in two acting categories moving her almost instantly from Category III starlet (and former nudie model) to A-list star. I was just about to buy the Panorama Blu-ray edition last fall (it came out in 2020), and literally stumbled across the Kani version while visiting VS to grab a different HK title. I realize the benefit the partner labels must get from being boosted through the VS site but sometimes really great stuff gets kinda buried in the mix there. But then without VS, those labels would probably struggle more to be recognized.

- - - - - - -

On an unrelated note, I watched the VS release of SCARY OF SIXTY-FIRST, picked up in the 10 for $10 sale before Christmas. Firstly, it's the third title from that sale haul that I'm glad was only $10, and secondly, it's probably the third or fourth VS or sub-label title of recent vintage where the subtitles are really sloppy. I don't need them, but I tend to watch most movies with them turned on just in case characters mumble or whisper. SCARY has a lot of mumbling and amateurish acting. You CAN make out everything they say, but the subtitle writer apparently has such a limited vocabulary that they heard the world "celebratory" as "Salvatore" (WTF?), and "cuck" as "cock", among countless other sloppy errors misunderstandings and grammatical errors. A bigger example, one of many: "How do I know they haven't gotten to you?" becomes "How do I know you've been gotten to you?" – seriously, no one proof-read that? It doesn't even make sense in the context of the conversation on screen. As I mentioned, this is not the first VS or sub-label title where I've spotted this, and while it's admittedly not evident in the majority of the discs I've watched, in all cases where I have spotted it, it's not just a one-off error here and there, which is forgivable; it's pervasive, and frankly unfair to the hearing impaired. Subtitling, in English at least, would seem to require a reasonably strong grasp of the language as well as the ability to read the scene when a word or sentence might be muffled in the sound mix, rather than just typing whatever words seem to be emanating from your speakers (or, worse, typing "unintelligible" when the dialogue actually isn't; I've seen this on so many subtitle streams it's not even amusing anymore). I'd love to get gigs doing subs but I'm sure that market's glutted. It's just a shame that people with actual hearing impairment watching something like SIXTY-FIRST -- as bad as it is otherwise -- with subtitles turned on might not even realize they're being given a compromised translation of the film's dialogue.

Proglodite

The sub-labels may just use some sort of auto-generated program for the subtitles just to meet the requirements for being under the VS brand. Most of the bona-fide VS releases do a pretty good job with subtitles, though I have seen a few major gaffes here and there. I do sometimes wonder if whoever's in charge actually tries to add another level of cheese to a bad movie with the subtitling (esp. when it comes to describing sounds or music - ever notice just how many subtitle variations they have for the VS logo music?). --Peter

Brian T

Happy Silence of the Lambs Anniversary Sale at Oscilloscope Labs
50% Off Nearly Everything In The Store with 'OSALEOSCOPE' code

Brian T

In Flicker Alley’s newsletter from Friday: Use coupon code Reinhardt2023 for an additional 20% off on our already marked-down web store price when purchasing The Guilty and High Tide — offer expires March 1, 2023!

https://www.flickeralley.com/classic...egory=20414531

Brian T

New 'Movie Madness' sale on 100 titles at Ronin Flix. A nice selection of labels this time, too, in addition to their own in-house line: Blue Underground, MVD, Visual Vengeance, Arrow, 88 Films, plus some 4K items. Not entire catalogues, of course, but some ok stuff. The 88 boxes (4k and Blu) for DRAGON'S FOREVER makes me wish I'd waited on that one; SHAWSCOPE 2 is under $100 with the discount, but it will be lower in the future. Probably worth comparison shopping on some stuff. Site prices are before the code.
https://roninflix.com/collections/sale?page=1

smurrlock

Kool, just ordered the Haunt collector’s ed. -$39.00 shipped.

Adam Tyner

Hamilton Book has some unbelievable prices on Arrow titles right now! (link!)

Captsmee.00

super low! Trying to decide what I want

Brian T

Some good cult stuff here . . .
https://mvdshop.com/collections/UNEARTHEDWILD2023

laidbacklarkin

this only one selection filter at a time - is it a Shopify thing ?

Brian T

Not sure. Seems to display ok for me, with options to view the items various ways (low to high, etc).

laidbacklarkin

I meant only ‘Blu-ray’ OR ‘Blu-ray + DVD’ OR ‘4K’…why not all at once ?

Brian T

Hmm. For me, I see all 369 items 'all at once' -- spread across 16 pages -- as soon as I land on the site (and without checking the boxes), so maybe it's a Spotify thing on different browsers?

Brian T

Vinegar Syndrome has a 50% off sale on the full Canadian International Pictures partner label, March 17 - 19. A whopping 16 titles. For Canadian buyers, I'm pretty sure these will ship from within Canada for around $10 once you're over a certain amount (just don't quote me on that). Also keep in mind that a lot of these films are available for free on the NFB website, albeit probably not restored like they are on these discs:
https://vinegarsyndrome.com/collecti...ional-pictures

Toddarino

Thanks for the heads up. Just ordered Mind Field, the Rainbow Boys, Nobody Waved Goodbye, Don’t Let The Angels Fall & and the Clue Documentary (not included).

Brian T

Got an Eblast from Cauldron Films today. Flash Sale March 24 - 31:

https://www.cauldron-films.com

Small catalog, and the reductions seem better on the older titles, with three of their first four now $14.99 in standard editions, the next wave $19.99 (with slips) and so on. $5.00 flat rate shipping. Not sure if there’s a threshold for free shipping.