I don't have a Best Buy in town but was out of town last weekend and went to one and I have to say their horror selection in general (at least at that store) was complete shit. Very small selection of the mainstays and a couple obscure titles that have come out over the past few months or so. I didn't see a single Scream Factory title which I found disappointing.

The only time I've seen Scream Factory titles have been recently with The Babadook which was probably there since it's a new film with some hype and Mad Max which is probably die to the new film hitting soon. I saw both at Walmart and Target. Aside from that it seems rare. I think I've seen mainstream stuff like Halloween II and Halloween III around October, but usually only on DVD.

With all the issues I've been reading about it, is the Mad Max Blu-Ray worth picking up? Should I try to find the previous MGM release?

The Shout edition has some new supplements but apparently the picture quality is better on the old release, better grain and Shout's filter has scrubbed away some detail.

Thank you!

Both BD releases are missing the (actual) Mono track that apparently on the MGM DVD correct?

At this point, I'm avoiding Shout releases because of their incompetance in encoding the titles they put out. Really, it shouldn't be that hard to hire a competant encoder / compressionist. Almost every single title that they've released has had problems with DNR, EE, or low bitrate encodes. This seems to be getting WORSE rather than better of late...

This is indeed sad because Shout and Scream Factory seem to be a company which cares enough to release many of our favorite B-titles that major studios won't bother touching / releasing on their own labels.

If Shout would get their act together (shouldn't be that hard!) with their encoding issues, the world of Blu-ray would benefit greatly thereby.

I thought that the BDs had the mono? Is it a downmix ?

From what I'm reading over at Blu-Ray.com, neither BD has the right audio. Both are weird/various Downmixes.

http://forum.blu-ray.com/showpost.ph...&postcount=844

Most folks are keeping or buying the MGM BD now because the picture quality is better.

I take it thats why the Woo stuff has always looked bad, even the earlier discs, from when the films weren't that old

Scarecrows turned out fairly nice and came from a solid, if somewhat older, film transfer.

http://www.doblu.com/2015/06/01/scar...lu-ray-review/

I actually liked Scarecrows a great deal as an action-horror hybrid from the 1980s.

That's part of it, but Fortune Star have apparently not handled the masters with much care either. However, like Snake said, I think part of it just comes down to storage. The HK film industry was a studio capitalist system times fifty. Once the film was done, the next film was out, reissues weren't frequent, and the films are just not in good condition as a result. Compound that the with the fact the cult audience for these is really small and and there probably isn't much return on investment in big 2K scans and expensive restorations, much less properly translated subtitles. And the age of extras went out with 35mm.

Though apparently there is money in the budget for pointless remixes. Seriously, how hard is it to include the damn mono that is on the fucking film prints? Wouldn't a downmix be MORE effort? Fortune Star are also apparently notorious for only giving out crappy upscales and bad SD masters too. And most DVD and BD companies in HK aren't exactly chomping at the bit for a better product, especially when the physical media market is about as active as my sex life.

Yes, my sentiments are likewise. I've been looking forward to SCARECROWS for awhile now, and it seems like it has been given a serviceable encode. So, I'll adding this gem to my library.

I've heard mixed things on Scarecrows so I'll probably wait on it for now. I want to pick up Sleepaway Camp II and Sleepaway Camp III but don't feel like dropping full price for both at the moment.

Any word on a Summer of Fear sale this year?

I tweeted to them and they replied, nothing planned for June, but the Summer is early....

So who knows what their plans are. :-\

Army of Darkness just announced!

Can't wait to hear the bitching about how they screwed up this release. You know it's going to happen.

I haven't been keeping up on announcements. Very nice to hear about the Tales From the Crypt films especially. Honestly while its sort of cool that they're doing a new version of Army of Darkness I'm not super excited for it. I already have the Screwhead Edition that came out a while back. Might still pick it up depending what's on their edition.

Guess this is why Criterion delayed their announcement, they didn't want them to be overshadowed

If they include the TV cut it's an automatic purchase. It's only available on the European releases.

I have both the French blu-ray of Army of Darkness (3 versions on the same disc) & the German set with the TV cut (a LOT of discs). It's gonna tough one for Shout to get right. French blu-ray is cheap, region free and looks exactly like I remember it looking in the theater. BUT the transfer itself could use a cleanup. I'll probably pick up the Shout release if there's more than one version included with some new extras.

Well the press release says that they aim to make it the most definitive release of the film to date. Hopefully they follow through with that statement and make this collector's edition a solid release.

I'm pretty excited about the Tales From the Crypt movies coming out. Bordello of Blood has always been a guilty pleasure of mine.

Holy mother of harlots... They really ended up going all out on this one!

Bonus Features
-Audio Commentary With Director Philippe Mora
-Audio Commentary With Composer Steve Parsons And Editor Charles Bornstein
-Leading Man - An Interview With Actor Reb Brown
-Queen Of The Werewolves - An Interview With Actress Sybil Danning
-A Monkey Phase - Interviews With Special Make-Up Effects Artists Steve Johnson And Scott Wheeler
-Behind The Scenes Footage (In HD - From Philippe Mora's Archive)
-Alternate Opening And Alternate Ending (In HD – From Philippe Mora's Archive)
-Theatrical Trailer
-Still Gallery

https://www.shoutfactory.com/film/fi...-is-a-werewolf

Same here, they're fun movies. I don't own the series on DVD yet but have considered picking up the season sets as well.

I remember when Bordello came out and bombed. They had delayed it for quite a while and it may have had something to do with From Dusk Till Dawn coming out before them. The last act of BoB is reminiscent of FDTD.

Demon Knight rocks, though.

people on blu-ray.com are losing their shit over Dog Soldiers because the director was involved and due to crappy elements, altered the transfer.