I ordered Inferno and I was thinking I would receive the Anchor Bay or Blue Underground disc to watch. What arrived was a poor quality bootleg by "westlake entertainment inc." The transfer looks like it's from a vhs, only worse with loads of pixelation. It looks like they took it from anchor bay's Inferno widescreen vhs. There is no menu either. Has anyone else received obvious bootlegs from netflix before? I feel like complaining honestly but don't know how to exactly go about it since I never had a problem before.

Westlake isn't a bootleg company. They're an independent distributor.

What it sounds like is someone wanted to upgrade their Inferno disc to a better version.

OK, I found an entry on them on wikipedia. I tossed this junk back in the envelope and will throw it in the mail. My old anchor bay vhs is better quality, a total waste of time.

I did a little investigating and someone on a website was complaining about a westlake dvd of Suspiria from netflix so it looks like netflix actually bought these possibly.

Yeah, I recently received a copy of Deep Red from Netflix, and it looked exactly like that.

tough to do with the inner ring sticker they use...

If they get a disc back where the sticker's removed/not there, they probably put another one on.

edit: Or they just bought movies from that distributer.

I ran into a similar problem when Dragon Dynasty starting issuing upgraded versions of Chinese movies that had previously been available on lousy-looking imports or "public domain" discs. The renter who got them first would swap his bad copy and that's what I ended up getting as a rental.

It is a bootleg since this film hasn't been out of license from Anchor Bay to Blue Underground. At what point in time could Westlake have had the rights to release this? Reminds me of the old "Diamond" DVDs that were taken directly from Anchor Bay and other companies minus all the extras and menus. Those were sold all over the place but it didn't make them legit.

I forget the movie, but I had a similar thing happen to me. Return the DVD and tell them about the problem - it's no big deal. Another customer probably snuck the bootleg into the system, and no one noticed. Or maybe someone at Netflix messed up and bought the cheap version. The Netflix page for the movie clearly indicates the Anchor Bay version. So whatever the reason, they made a mistake. When it happened to me, I submitted an online note (through Netflix's site) about the problem DVD. Someone quickly got back to me apologizing for the problem, and they immediately sent out the correct DVD to me (not counting it against my total).

That's what I figured. It looks like they straight out took anchor bay's version and made a mess of it. An "independent distributor" that makes bootlegs.

where do I submit an online note? I only see report a dvd or shipping problem but it doesn't let you type anything to them.

thanks

Yet has been in business for around 5 years. Most bootleg companies don't sell their stuff to large companies when they're running illegal operations.

I'd say that print they used was one they could afford and they got the rights to distribute it to get a name out there for themselves, since it's a popular horror film.

If they were really a bootleg company, they'd just rip one of the better DVDs sources out there and sell that. There's no reason they'd spend more effort hunting down some VHS source to use instead.

I've noticed this issue with NetFlix for years. It seems to happen when the 1st release of a movie was a poorly-transferred, early DVD release. NetFlix then apparently bought copies of the movie at that time because it was the only version of that movie legally available. But, years later, a better quality release of the same movie is made with bonus features and so on. However, NetFlix doesn't buy the new release because they already have the movie in their inventory, even though it's the old release.

So I rent the movie expecting the new good release and get the old crappy release instead.

like I said it looks like it was taken straight from anchor bay- it wasn't anything else. They didn't go out of their way to find some public domain version. The film isn't even in the public domain. It wasn't anamorphic but it looked like a highly compressed dvd rip possibly or vhs source. Probably not vhs come to think of it because there was no line at the bottom of the screen. This company is totally gray area and they have done it with Suspiria, Deep Red, Inferno and possibly others. They don't even have a website which should definitely tell you something is wrong. Anchor Bay and or Blue Underground hold the rights to those films. Deep Red is the only one that is in public domain but I'm sure they just stole anchor bay's extended english/Italian source which is bootlegging. These should totally just be taken off netflix and trashed.

There is no reason for Netflix to have the best DVD version of a movie.

no definitely not but it's advertised on their website as being anamorphic and having extras- leading you to believe it's the legitimate anchor bay or blue underground disc.

Almost like the disc was switched. I rented Inferno from Netflix before and got the disc as described on the sleeve.

That's very possible, but I can almost guarantee you that these are 'unlicensed' releases (to put it nicely). As an Argento fan it has been very frustrating waiting for new editions and unreleased films to come out due to various licensing issues (thanks Paramount and Weinsteins). There is no way this company got rights when the major independents like Synapse and Blue Underground couldn't get them (Four Flies, Suspiria, etc) and the ones they do have are heavily protected and promoted.

Hmm ... I thought I remembered a space to type out the details (if any) of a disk problem. But I don't want to accidentally report a problem just trying to double-check it for you. I think this would fall under "It's the wrong DVD". If there's no option to explain further, call the toll-free customer service number. It's pretty easy to get through. If nothing else, warn them to take this DVD out of distribution so no one else gets stuck with the same problem (and that you're not sent the same DVD as a replacement). I'd be shocked if they gave you any trouble about it.

Short answer, and without getting into a ton of detail, is when you want to distribute a film, it's not always the title you're trying to get but the source you're using for your release. One example of the source being an issue is Night of the Living Dead. It's public domain and has been released as a crappy release due to the crappy source that's been used. Then there was that remastered version that cleaned it up, making it look nice. You won't see that source used for a public domain release because that specific cleaned up version has a copyright on it. Even though it's a public domain title, that source isn't available for others to use unless they licence it.

Before anyone goes off on how this is different because NotLD is public domain, this point I'm trying to show is that source can be an issue. This isn't the first Argento film that's been put out like this, I have a set with The Cat O' Nine Tails that I was surprised to run across like that.

The easiest way to figure out the deal with Inferno is to find the vhs source it came from, since there'd be some info on who put it out in the first place and if it's an edition with some cuts to it or perhaps music, which would make it different than Anchor Bay which probably has some remastered and uncut source.

Back to The Cat O' Nine Tails, I also have the Blue Underground release. I'll try pulling them both out and see if there's any obvious differences with run times or music.

This same issue pops up a lot concerning non U.S. films and legit dvd releases. Often a foreign print is used because the U.S version is copyrighted by the major studio that distributed it in the U.S. That's why some Hammer releases don't have the U.S. title. Same with several AIP titles where MGM/UA owns the music score and dubbed soundtrack.

Very frustrating. For a company that has had the success rate of Netflix and now stands to once again set the standard for delivering media to homes, they have a horribly amateurish web site. Countless times information is in error, details obscure and their search function not as expansive as it should be.

Add to this the fact that at least 40-50% of the titles I search for (mostly grindhouse and foreign exploitation on relatively substantial labels, not black market DVD-Rs), are either not available or relegated to the SAVE section for years on end, and I can only hope that when streaming does arrive in earnest, Netflix is not the paradigm everyone else follows.

Netflix is ok for mainstream stuff but if you want something more obscure, try greencine.com.

Their site is hardly horribly amateurish, for what it is and does. The biggest issue I've ever run across is the newer way you can remove or drag around movies in the queue.

It seems like a lot of those exploitation movies just end up getting stolen or "lost in the mail". I've rented a ton of them but many of them slowly seem to not become available anymore and you can only save them. This is especially the case with OOP movies that fetch a high price on Amazon or ebay.

That's just my take on it.

We can agree to disagree on the merits or lack of same thereof with how Netflix has designed and executes its site. I maintain that for an industry leader, the site is woefully lacking in professionalism and find sites like Oldies.com or Swap A DVD to be much more comprehensive and user friendly. Would that other retail sites could follow their lead.

That's an interesting point about the exploitation films not being available due to theft. There are so many I have not been able to find on Netflix, but it's possible, given your theory, that they were once part of the collection. I have only been a Netflix member intermittently for about four years. Still, there are labels, e.g. WILD EAST, that they never stock. In the past year they certainly have stopped buying newly released exploitation titles, indeed lots of general catalog titles, as they focus more on streaming.

In any case, I got a gift sub for Netflix for Christmas, but once that's done, I will be too with them. Right now streaming doesn't interest me as I have not been impressed with the quality or variety of titles offered.