I hadn't been following this thread too closely, but I'm curious, what was the disc error on Delicatessen, and was it resolved? How is the disc in general? I know the transfer was ported from Studio Canal, which leaves me a little leery, as SC seems to mess up more things than they get right.

It’s been a while since Severin did some Cellar videos but these two popped up recently, with Josh Olsen (A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE, Trailers from Hell), and alt comics and animation writer Johnny Ryan.

Some modest grain management was used on Delicatessen's 4K transfer and they used digital techniques to replicate the photochemical process used on the original interpositive's unique aesthetic. Generally the video results are quite good for Delicatessen and I'd recommend it. Antiviral just isn't a movie that really needs 4K and the leap from BD is largely underwhelming.

As for the disc errors, first pressings for both Antiviral and Delicatessen accidentally duplicated Disc 2's content necessitating replacements.

https://www.reddit.com/r/boutiqueblu...ntiviral_disc/

I was at Midsummer Scream yesterday in Long Beach. It’s a yearly horror Con here in California. Severin had a small booth there and I talked to the guys there for a little bit. Told them I’ve never owned any titles from this label and what are some recommendations. They suggested these 3 and I picked them up. Crazy expensive, but I did save $24 total from the website buying these there. Not familiar with these cult horror movies, but I’m psyched for them. Anyone here have any familiarity with these? Two of these are in 4K.

Doctor Butcher is actually a 2 movie pack with Zombie Holocaust. Also 4K for both. It actually includes a barf bag

Beyond the Darkness from Joe D'Amato is one of his more notorious films. Music by Goblin. Expect gore.

D’Amato’s also kind of a hack, so if you’re not familiar with these Italian genre pictures, you might not be rolling your eyes at a lot of his stuff over time. It’s all still watchable but lowered expectations help. I think NIGHTMARE is the most effed-up one of that bunch, incredibly sleazy (so much so that the UK distributor did prison time for releasing it uncut!), but in a good way if it’s appreciated in context, which Severin’s extensive extras on the Blu-rays amply provide. DOCTOR BUTCHER is almost like a companion film to Lucio Fulci’s more famous ZOMBIE, particularly in its use of some of the same sets. I prefer ZOMBIE, but BUTCHER is a decent companion piece, and again the extras are exhaustive.

This is personal opinion only, but most Severin titles aren’t worth the expense of 4K (and yes, I say that about nearly everything, but especially old drive in schlock, even the better ones) but I’m sure they’ll look fantastic in the format, and the extras on the Blu-rays can at least justify the outlay because those packages (especially NIGHTMARE and DOCTOR BUTCHER) are beyond comprehensive.

If you do end up liking them and want to sample more Severin stuff, you’ll definitely save a ton of money by avoiding their pricing at both conventions and on their website in general, because their sales in the last couple of years – and presumably going forward – have included impressive swaths of their Blu-Ray back catalog priced at 75% off (thus $7.50 - $8.74 each) and that’s for stuff that’s not even going OOP. The Severin sales thread in that forum shows some scores from their most recent sale from a couple of members (including me). They don’t usually include 4K at 75% off . . . yet, but I wouldn’t be surprise to see the odd one discounted like that down the road as their 4K titles age a bit. Their most recent sale did have some discounted 4K, though, if that’s your preference, so it’s worth keeping an eye peeled for their fall sales. Severin has a lot of funky low-budget junk in their catalog, so I find it’s more economical to load up at the sales if you suspect you might not keep some of their offerings long-term.

I agree on avoiding their normal website/con prices. I have been waiting for a deal on Blood for Dracula, and ended up getting it during their sale a few weeks ago. It was $29.98 during the sale, which is only $4 off what Amazon has it for all the time. I would have passed on it had there not been other items with a steeper discount that I was also ordering.

And I just got an email from Ronin Flix about a 50% off sale for Severin Films.

https://roninflix.com/collections/se...=shopify_email

I could have saved about $28 total vs what I paid at the Con. Oh well. I don't plan to buy anymore Severin content at Cons because I already thought these were pretty expensive.

Those prices aren’t bad, but Severin’s own sales are decidedly better, generally speaking, especially for the steep discounts on fairly large chunks of their Blu-ray catalog (kinda randomly chosen by them each time, it seems). Looking back at my orders from the last couple of years, I see that their main sales are the Summer Sale and Black Friday (I could’ve sworn they did a Halloween sale too, but I must be thinking of another boutique). At both of those I got a large number of Blu-rays for $7.50 / $8.74 / $9.99, some of which are a fair bit higher at that Ronin link. As noted, the 75% off titles are randomly included (if they’re discounted that much this time, they might not be next time, and then again the time after that), so it pays to just load up cheap on whatever looks interesting. At least at that those prices if you decide to unload them later on, you might get most of or more than your investment back. As for 4K, I don’t collect those, but I know some of them do get discounted in Severin’s sales, though possibly about as much as Ronin (others might be able to confirm if they go for less).

EDIT: I notice a lot of Severin DVDs at that Ronin link as well, most under $10. When Severin got out of DVD entirely a few years back, they likewise discounted those pretty heavily over the course of a few sales, to the point that they blew them out at $3 / $5 before presumably (?) turning over remaining stock to sellers like Ronin, MVD, Oldies, etc.

Announcements so far from the Super Shock Pop-Up Festival, per Disc Connected:

1. Hunters of the Golden Cobra
2. Bay of Blood (UHD)
3. Beat Girl (AKA Wild for Kicks)
4. The Crippled Masters (presumably part of the next Bruceploitation collection)
5. Adam and Eve (1983)
6. The Idiot Box (Alex Winter’s MTV show)
7. Squeal of Death (also on the Alex Winter tip)
8. Student Confidential
9. The Ghost (1963)
10. The Hands of Orlac (maybe this and Beat Girl in another Christopher Lee collection?)
11. The Classificada S Box Set (19 films on 10 discs, including Severin’s Excorcismo doc)

And spotted elsewhere:

1. Andy Milligan doc
2. Emmanuelle box set

I started watching my BD of Beyond the Darkness last night.

I haven't been exposed really to any 70s Italian horror, but my gosh they did some crazy stuff in it. That movie gets into some cannibalism as well. I mean it's probably borderline NC-17 material.

I got through about 45 minutes before I had to sleep. But, I will resume it this weekend.

Curious about these two. I have the excellent UK Blu-ray of BEAT GIRL from BFI’s ‘Flipside’ series and it has some decent supplements (spoilered for space below), so I’m curious to see what Severin ports over. As I recall, the UK Blu might be all-region, so I’ll probably just keep it.


Film Masters released an excellent Blu-ray (or DVD) of CRIPPLED MASTERS just last year but it appears to be OOP already. I wonder if Severin found better elements to work with.

BEAT GIRL also has a catchy early score by John Barry:

The Game of Clones Brucesploitation box set just had a huge price drop at Amazon.

It’s now $97. I saw this at the Severin booth at the Con for $130. It’s MSRP is $200. I’m pretty tempted.

I saw the documentary in the set on digital and really liked it. Might be fun to get this set to have some of these. I don’t foresee a bigger price drop, especially from a small label like Severin. And the movies are all remastered and there is a ton of bonus content.


The Game Of Clones: Bruceploitation Collection - Volume 1 (7-Disc Special Edition) [Blu-ray] https://a.co/d/3bi4NLW

Got it. Used some credit card points to drop it a few extra dollars.

Cool. I was always interested in this set. Should be a fun watch.

I still got the Media Blasters DVD for this. One funny thing about this disc is that it says "Audio Commentary" on the special features. Not only is it not a commentary, it's an audio interview with the cinematographer. The interviewer tries to get him to talk about Beyond The Darkness, but he goes, "Oh, I don't like that movie. I'd rather talk about [Some other movie he worked on]". And, true to form, he spends the rest of the track talking about "That other movie". I have no idea if Severin wasted their time porting that funny tidbit over to the Blu-Ray, but it's still one of my favorite DVD memories.

And yeah, the movie is quite nasty, but it's also high up there in my list for most-liked D'amato films.

That’s indeed a great set. I’ve had it a while and I’m still working through it. That documentary is one of their absolute best.

That Amazon price is great, and I believe it’s even a little less than the box was in Severin’s recent summer sale. Regular price from Severin is $135, and I think the sale price was around $100 or $110, so Amazon beats that. The only thing worth noting is that the retail copies are 7-disc sets, whereas box that’s exclusive to Severin’s site is an 8-disc set. Still, what’s on those seven discs is a lot of fun.

Yeah I think I'll survive without disc 8.

Some folks can, some folks can’t. Still worth noting the difference in case others are eyeing the Amazon deal. Personally, I wish they had just included all the films in all the sets because I really dislike ‘website exclusives’ and Severin doesn’t usually do that (other than the add-on knickknacks in their bundle deals, which can be avoided). BIG BOSS II is probably the most ‘important’ film of the bunch because it was presumed lost for decades. That’s not to say it’s some unheralded classic – it’s not, and many of the others are better – only that it’s been talked about forever right back to the 80’s in my experience, but never seen in its entirety (outside of original theatrical showings) until Severin found a copy. I do wonder if there are perhaps some rights issues that prompted them to just add it to sets that they can keep on their own premises (and remove it if necessary) instead of freely circulating in retail sets out in the wild. Who knows.

It's because the films on the exclusive disc had the worst elements.

The Game of Clones box set went back up to $121 on Amazon. Whew so glad I got it.

I started going through it last night and it's a damn good set. There is actually a host, Michael Worth, who introduces each movie and talks a little about it before it starts. He's also on the commentary tracks. Very cool. Feels like old school 80s Kung Fu theater back in the day.

I can confirm this having watched the disc (and Michael Worth’s extras), but they’re certainly watchable, and just being able to see BBII was a treat. I still suspect there’s more to it but don’t dwell on it much. Severin has issued sets before where the extant materials weren’t ideal and they just make a point of noting it somehow. Either way, they went above and beyond with both the set ‘as is’ and digging up something extra that fans had given up on ever seeing. Not sure what will be in Volume 2 or how long we still have to wait, but there’s still a lot of ‘Bruce-adjacent’ stuff out there deserving the treatment. Some time ago they posted a photo on social media of Ron Van Clief participating in . . . something (interview? commentary?), so it’s a safe bet some of his movies will be in there, presumably the BLACK DRAGON movies and/or KUNG FU FEVER.

And what about Bruce Lee in New Guinea? Nearly every (Early) review I've seen of this movie had the reviewer saying, "This movie was said to have a lot of nudity in it, but the version I saw didn't have any". An uncut snippet of the movie made it's way into the documentary to prove that this wasn't an urban legend. Does an uncut print of the movie exist or was that just used from a (European) trailer?

Sure would be cool if they found an uncut or longer version. I’m hopeful that the first CLONES set engendered enough goodwill overseas that the Severin folks might have proven their worth to other rights-holders hidden all over Asia. I recall on either the CLONES documentary or its commentary the team talking about how hard it was to wrangle the most famous clone Bruce Li. I believe he wasn’t interested at all, and doubted they were serious, so they proceeded to film a huge chunk of the doc with the other Bruces so they could show him they weren’t kidding around, and that got him on board. So in that sense, perhaps their determination might precede them on the production of Volume 2, which makes me hope that if BRUCE LEE IN NEW GUINEA exists out there in some uncut form, they’ll have a shot at it. Fingers crossed, of course.

I mean, that's the reason they give on the Severin podcast when that was asked, but if you want to read more into it, that's cool.

I heard it on the podcast, too, and I do want to read more into it, even if I might be totally wrong. Thanks for being cool with it.