http://www.fangoria.com/news_article.php?id=3638

Bunch of new stuff from the Fango site:

Evil Dead II, Halloween IV, and Halloween V will get the Divimax treatment.

May 3 - The Entity

June 28 - Race with the Devil

Aug 23 - Card Player and Trauma

Sept. 6 - Cemetery Man and Bad Dreams

Man...a new version of Evil Dead 2? I'm skeptical...but also looking forward to it, for some odd reason.

After hearing all you guys praising Freaked! and Cemetery Man, I'm going to be picking them up.

Wow, finally Cemetary Man. Too bad I paid the extra to import it from Italy. Oh well, it's still 7 months away.

Oh, nice...I've been wondering when the Card Player would come out. Argento is the best! Thanks for the news.

about time for cemetary man. isn't there some serious nudity in that?

You gotta be shittin' me--I gotta spring $ again for HALLOWEENs 4 and 5 after buying the high-dollar collector's tins???

(Please, no lectures about how I don't *have* to do anything...)

Looking forward to Race with the Devil. Creepy film.

Same here!

Ah, man... Anchor Bay must -- simply MUST -- aquire the rights to Halloween 2 + 6. We need decent editions of those!

Put me in for all 3 of the Divimax editions. I'm assuming that they will carry over the past extras, and maybe even add new ones.

The other big news to me is that they picked up the rights to some Mario Bava films. Black Sabbath is one of my favorite films, hope that is one of them. Also, they are re-releasing Rabid Dogs/Kidnapped. Glad I didn't drop the 100+ dollars for this on Ebay. People were so sure it would NEVER get released in the Lucertola Rabid Dogs version but Anchor Bay came through. They are putting both versions on DVD.

What the hell are they going to add to the Halloween reissues? The last re-release of Halloween 4 had a remastered anamorphic widescreen transfer, Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound, featurette on the making of the film, and the trailer! Halloween 5 on the other hand had both anamorphic widescreen and full frame transfers, Dolby Digital 5.1 sound, it's own featurette, and of course the theatrical trailer. How much more can you add to these two films?

Also nice to know they're going back for another Evil Dead 2 release. Wasn't the last one (which had an anamorphic transfer and Dolby Digital 5.1 supervised by THX) good enough? My God....

good news on The Card Player, Trauma, and Cemetary Man. bummed that it's so far away, I wonder if I should just get the imports.

Evil Dead II Divimax

Cemetery Man

yeah all the Divimax adds is DTS (which usually isn't nothing to rave about on titles like these)

I'm happy with my current ones.....Mmmkay!?

Well, seriously... if you don't want to upgrade, don't.

But the titles that I've owned that have had Divimax versions later have all been a noticeable improvement.

What can they add? If history is any indication, the picture quality will be improved. They'll add DD 6.1 and DTS 6.1 sound. And they'll probably add more extras. H4 and H5 could do with commentary tracks and/or more detailed documentaries.

So far, the Divimax discs have been geniuine improvements, not just stupid repackagings. (Not to mention that these usually show up at DDD for 11 bucks or so.) I'll take this over dozens of boomstick editions any day.

Entity! YAY! Love that one!

so no date for "Evil Dead II: Dead By Dawn"?

and how come no one mentioned "Rabid Dogs" new release as "Kidnapped"? I thought that one would be highly sought after...

Well, I'll get ED2, but I will pass on Halloween 4 and 5. I really don't care much for 4,5 or 6.

There's some pretty good nudity from Anna Falchi. I was always putting off picking up the Italian disc, and now I'm glad I didn't.

Both versions are going to be on the DVD? Nice, I'll definitely be picking this one up too.

I'm Anchor Bay's bitch for Evil Dead 2. If it has any new extra material I have to own it.

I'll definitely be picking up Bad Dreams and The Entity, but I'll have to hold off Evil Dead 2, Halloween 4 & 5 until AB announces what new extras, if any, will be added.

For titles like Dawn of the Dead, Day of the Dead, Manhunter, and Time Bandits; ANYTHING would be a noticeable improvement from Anchor Bay's original transfers done on those four films. Especially for the fact that Anchor Bay's initial release of the "director's cut" of Manhunter looked like complete shit. Those were four titles that were in dire need of remastering.

The Halloween Divimax edition was a complete step down in terms of video quality when it's compared to Anchor Bay's second release of the flick back in 1999.

I haven't seen the Children of the Corn and Creepshow II re-issues, so I can't comment on those.

However, I don't believe that Halloween 4 and Halloween 5 need to be upgraded. Both films sport great transfers, despite being low budget films from the late eighties. And what additional extra materials would be needed? How much can one say about those two films?

The only thing that would benefit Evil Dead II is if they drop the full frame transfer in exchange for DTS and add a retrospective documentary from the cast and crew's point of view.

But at this point, it's looking to me that Anchor Bay is trying to cash in on their bigger releases so far because they're about to lose a huge (and profitable) chunk of their library to Blue Underground in a few months. I'd rather have them focus on trying to acquire more 20th Century Fox titles instead of re-releasing DVDs that don't need an upgrade.

No. DiviMax is Anchor Bay's indication that a film has been transferred in High Definition (and then downconverted to Standard Definition for DVD). Titles without that designation have transfers that were done natively in Standard Definition. Prior to their first DiviMax release (Manhunter Director's Cut in mid-2003), Anchor Bay had never done an HD transfer before. This includes Evil Dead 2, which only had a native SD transfer.

DTS, or even sound at all, has nothing to do with it. Dead Heat, a DiviMax title, has only a DD 2.0 track.

DJ

i have the tins of Halloween 4,Halloween 5,and The Evil Dead 2,but i am DEFINETLY getting the divimax editions of those 3 flicks and a for THE ENTITY

I think you're confusing "video quality" with "color correction." In strict technical video terms without regard for aesthetic errors, the DiviMax transfer is superior. The 1999 transfer has, for example, shimmering issues (probably from excessive DVNR), haloing, and is riddled with mosquito noise. It doesn't hold up at all.

DJ