Sure enough, MYA Communication's planned 6/30 releases of Joe D'Amato's HORRIBLE (aka ABSURD, ANTROPOPHAGOUS 2) and Sergio Martino's ISLAND OF THE FISHMEN have been bumped to (tentatively) 7/14. Severin's announced 6/30 release of Fulci's DOOR INTO SILENCE has also been bumped to 7/14. These won't be out on 7/14. Meanwhile, Code Red's release of the Ovidio G. Assonitis production CHOKE CANYON is showing "not in stock" all over the place. I doubt it was ever IN stock.

I've griped about this endlessly, I know...but does anyone know why Eurocult seems to be delayed more than any other genre? And why can't these companies get it together enough to meet a date they've already announced? I support these outfits--I buy almost everything they release (sorry, Severin--not springing for THE SINFUL DWARF). I don't feel I'm OWED anything, and we all know times and budgets are tight, but you announced the date. It would just be nice if those announced dates could be met with a little more consistency.

And hey, MYA....get a web site.

Oh - you'd like that, wouldn't ya! MYA won't be pinned down that easily! :ph43r:

This is just a wild guess but....could these companies be trying to put out a quality product.....and figure a little more time won't hurt to insure this?

I ask this because it's quite obvious from some forums how venomous some fans can be when a disc does not meet their approval. Myself included. MYA still have the FOUR FLIES wounds to recover from....

Please dont take this the wrong way Mark....I see where you're coming from. Quite frankly.....I'm fed up with waiting for Code Red to put out some updates regarding MESSIAH OF EVIL....but the more I think about it, the more I realize that the extra time puts it that much closer to being a product I'm sure will be worth the wait...just look to Grindhouse Releasing for solid proof of this. B)

...Except so many DVDs that received not one but multiple release date push-backs still turned out to have all sorts of dopey screw-ups (Shriek Show, anyone?). I'd love to believe every DVD release date missed was because the company found new lost footage or caught a critical error just in the nick of time and now they're making it perfect, but I can't.

I think these companies would be doing themselves a big service in terms of keeping their fans happy (or at least not foaming with rage) if they just posted specific updates of their progress. Like, "We regret to inform you that Zombie 7 won't be meeting its scheduled July 9th release date because one of our quality control experts realized our print was missing a small scene, and we're now in the process of restoring it." But, of course, that would demand the companies have good reasons for missing their dates, as opposed to the more likely reasons that'd annoy fans even more like, "we just heard MGM is releasing a movie with zombies this month and we don't want to compete, so we're just gonna sit on it for six or ten months" or "we actually didn't have the rights to the film when we announced a release date for our DVD of it; we were just being optimistic - sorry!"

They'd also potentially catch a lot of errors before it was too late if they showed aspects of what they were working on as they went along, and got a little pre-release feedback; as opposed to waiting for it to hit stores across America to have fans on the 'net point out that it's in the wrong aspect ratio, etc.

Sean--I'm all for the waiting for the best product they can release. No issue there. My problem is that they announce dates, issue press releases, and then, less than a week before the date, bump it two or more weeks ahead. Then bump it again. And again. If it were an isolated incident, there'd be no griping from me. If they don't have it ready to go, if they don't have all their ducks in a row....then don't announce a date. We were happy (relatively, I guess) with the perpetual "Coming Soon" status of Grindhouse's PIECES...because they never announced a date, and when they did, they made that date. And boy was it worth it!

Code Red has reportedly stated that pre-sales were so poor on CHOKE CANYON, the title has been shelved. I wonder just how low they were. They went ahead early on in the company's history and released DOOM ASYLUM with poor pre-book; it only moved 400 units.

I'd buy CHOKE CANYON if they ever released it. I'm not going to charge a fee on my credit card for a product that may never exist.

Code Red's release and marketing strategies baffle me. Too bad they don't have their Fred Travelena killer-basketball movie ready to go.

I was actually looking forward to a nice presentation of CHOKE CANYON. At least they got BEYOND THE DOOR out, however briefly (though the Best Buy exclusive version is still in their stores). I've pretty much given up hope that THE VISITOR is ever coming out. Hell, do it Warner Archive style. I'd buy THE VISITOR, CHOKE CANYON, and many others.

Good points John.

Mark, with Grindhouse Releasing.....the titles that tease me the most are the Duke Mitchell titles, and AN AMERICAN HIPPIE IN ISRAEL. I'm dying to see these! They're been including the trailers for them on each of their releases for what seems like forever....PIECES really didn't seem as long a wait. I'm in agreement that it was worth the it though. A great package indeed. The Paul Smith footage is priceless to this fan who grew up knowing him as Bluto....lol.

I really do share in the frustration...but am trying to see it from both sides.
Of course, if Code Red were to cancel MESSIAH OF EVIL(knock on wood)well, we'll see how calm I'll be able to keep myself then...

Yeah, I'm waiting for Grindhouse's release of Lenzi's THE TOUGH ONES.

And judging from the trailer, GONE WITH THE POPE looks like the greatest film ever made. I posted that trailer on my Facebook page a while back--with warnings that it was offensive--and some goody-two-shoes from way back in high school saw that as sufficient reason to defriend me. Duke Mitchell would be proud.

HORRIBLE and ISLAND OF THE FISHMEN have been bumped to 7/28. I'll update everyone when they get bumped to 8/18. There's actually a review of HORRIBLE up at horrordigital.com, so it seems to at least be on its way. For real. Still...

DOOR INTO SILENCE, on the other hand, still looks like a go for Tuesday, so mad props to Severin!

CHOKE CANYON is back on schedule for September 1.

We'll see. Thanks for the update!

I don't know why they're wasting time and sitting on THE VISITOR. The commentary with star Paige Conner and fan Scott Spiegel (and someone else from Code Red) was recorded in '06, I think. I'd think this was a sought-after title, but I was shocked to hear that BEYOND THE DOOR tanked for them sales-wise. I understand times are tight, but Code Red didn't do themselves any favors by making BOARDING HOUSE one of their flagship releases. Does ANYONE like that movie? They've also had one distribution problem after another, which hasn't helped.

The Code Red releases I've seen have been quite well done. I just wish they had come along earlier in the game when better movies were still available for licensing. I mean, DON'T GO IN THE WOODS? BOARDINGHOUSE? DOOM ASYLUM? NIGHT OF THE DRIBBLER?

You're right. Code Red generally does a very good job with their discs, once they're finally released, but they desperately need someone to do some marketing research and pick their titles.

I'm not that surprised to hear BEYOND THE DOOR tanked, because I think it's terrible. THE VISITOR is a better, crazier movie with a more marketable cast.

Agree 100% on point 1.

Point 2? Blasphemy! May you be accosted by streetcorner nose flautists!

I think we're splitting hairs here. BEYOND THE DOOR may be terrible, and VISITOR good (though I find them both kind of terrible), but BEYOND THE DOOR was a much bigger moneymaker, so one would think it might've done decent on dvd.

I think, simply, that the novelty has worn off and people look at dvds they bought 6 years ago and have watched once, and are less likely to buy something now than rent it. That, plus there is nowhere left that physically stocks these sort of films, and I don't see any upsurge in the near future. My Borders did get the MYA Argento releases, but once they apparently sold the one copy each (both to me!) they never restocked.

But we have to face a reality; this stuff isn't that popular. It just isn't. I like these things, but there's no way people are buying 25 year-old Italian action flicks in any large quantities. I really find any company releasing these things involved in a noble effort, and I think people are way too hard on them for street date delays; these things (especially lately) are often about the simple fact nobody ordered the damn thing, and they're hoping a couple more months will bump up the order. I myself am into this stuff enough I might buy CHOKE CANYON on an impulse buy, but will probably regret the decision upon purchase and put it up on ebay. It's happened before!

Good luck to those companies waiting for buyers to preorder now a DVD that may come out next month, next year, in five years, or never. They should find out through marketing research if anyone even wants the DVD long before making plans to buy the rights and create the disc. If they've done a good job gauging audience interest beforehand, then they should have a decent idea of how many discs they can expect to sell.

If they had come to Mobius or a similar forum first and asked, "Okay, which do you want first: BOARDING HOUSE or THE VISITOR?", I think Code Red would be in a better financial position today. Granted, they probably did have an idea that BEYOND THE DOOR would be a good seller, but the DVD business ain't an exact science.

Then, when the DVD has been released, they need to let people know. We know they aren't gonna sell many to the typical Best Buy customer, so forget about him (not that indie companies are having much luck getting product into the chain stores anyway), but there are plenty of methods of getting the word out to its target audience. Code Red (not to pick on these guys, but...) has neither a Twitter nor a Facebook page that I can find. These are great ways (and free!) to spread the word to an enthusiastic audience.

I don't think buyer preorders per se is the whole problem, it's that amazon or whoever isn't buying units in general, one assumes based on sales of similar titles; I don't know how much "marketing research" small labels can afford to do, and coming to a board that hasn't let on a new member in 3 years (!) and getting 20 responses hardly qualifies as such. But your answer that we'd say we'd want THE VISITOR first doesn't prove anything, as THE VISITOR hasn't come out yet and may well bomb. The rights to VISITOR likely cost more than BOARDING HOUSE, and I don't see how 31 years after release at this point at time we can assume VISITOR will move decent units -- I would've assumed BEYOND THE DOOR (which was a real actual hit when it came out) would do "well," but isn't the whole point of what we're seeing is that companies like No Shame and Blue Underground found that whatever they were paying for rights was too much to make a profit.

Would 5,000 people across the country actually buy it so that it isn't simply released as a public service, but as a profitable capitalistic exercise? I don't know. I want this stuff out, but I'll take delayed release dates over no release date from the companies that are hanging in there...

Stumbled on this accidentally...it's the closest thing yet to an actual MYA Communication web site.


MYA blog!

Wow, check out THE list of 119 films that they have their hands on:

http://myadvd.blogspot.com/2009/03/list.html

Even if they only release a third of those, I would be happy!

Alberto De Martino's THE PUMAMAN!!!!

GIALLO A VENEZIA!

I've heard some interesting things about #83 on that list, THE EYE BEHIND THE WALL (1977), with John Phillip Law and Fernando Rey.

I'll be happy if TEN of these things come out.

ISLAND OF THE FISHMEN has been bumped to 8/11. HORRIBLE is still (tentatively) 7/28.

Severin has also bumped Enzo G. Castellari's EAGLES OVER LONDON from 7/28 to 8/11.

I just read that 5 minutes of VHS footage has been included to extend scenes. Is there an option to watch this (non anamorphic) DVD with just the nicer telecined sourced material? BTW - where is the surviving negative of this film?

In a old school move, Stelvio Massi's HELL'S HEROES with Miles O'Keefe, Fred Williamson and Chuck Conners is hitting DVD as INGLORIOUS BASTARDS 2: HELL'S HEROES on Aug. 18th.

http://www.amazon.com/Inglorious-Bastards-..._tit_17_rdssss1

EDIT: Eurocult DVD stalker Mark Tinta lets me know this is a box set with four films:

-Inglorious Bastards 2: Hell Heroes
-Bridge to Hell
-Warbus 2
-Apocalypse Mercenaries

Nope. Just play and scene selections (and choice of languages from the main menu page). Looks like a template authoring program. The VHS footage looks awful (looks like a dub of a dub of a dub).

I wonder if MGM has better materials.

Strange -- I used to have a VHS of INGLORIOUS BASTARDS that was under the title HELL'S HEROES.

Hopefully all this INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS DVD-coattail-riding is as successful as all the GRINDHOUSE cash-ins that flooded the market two years ago. Do they really think this will be some kind of hit? I still enjoy Tarantino's films, even though I remain convinced that JACKIE BROWN will be the last truly great one he makes (that one just gets better with each passing year)...I'm just shocked that a film of his still inspires this sort of cash-in mentality. It's not like they're big financial hits or anything.

FISHMEN and EAGLES OVER LONDON have been bumped to the "Saved" section of my Netflix queue, "date unknown." Not a good sign I reckon.

Probably not. Both still show street dates of 8/11 with various vendors, but there's still plenty of time to bump them. The last couple of times, the date didn't change until about 4-5 days beforehand.

Amazon shows ISLAND OF THE FISHMEN as "shipping in 1-2 months." Months?!

. . . FISHMEN and EAGLES (actually, not a bad title) have now been moved to 8/25 on DVDEmpire - it has been moving down the road every week for the last month or so, but DVD Drive-In did manage to lay hands on a copy of FISHMEN for a review a bit ago . . .

What the? Really? Gosh, and I thought FOR SURE they'd be out this Tuesday!

Diabolik has EAGLES OVER LONDON in stock now, so it looks like that will be streeting.

. . . Mya's DVD of Sergio Martino's ARIZONA COLT RETURNS did ship today from DVDEmpire . . . good news regarding EAGLES OVER LONDON, perhaps DVDEmpire will send this one out sooner than expected . . .

It looks like EAGLES OVER LONDON actually made its street date. No stores have it, but vendors are stocking it, and I hope to have mine by the beginning of next week.

ISLAND OF THE FISHMEN is now showing a 9/29 release date on a couple of sites. They've gone from delaying it in two-week chunks to delaying it in six-week chunks. So look for this in 2010. Or never. They got ARIZONA COLT RETURNS out this week, on schedule. Do they think there's more of a demand for that than FISHMEN? Now, if this delay was because, say, they were putting both FISHMEN and the US re-edit SCREAMERS in the same package, then that would be cool. But you know that's not it.

Maybe these companies SHOULD go the Warner Archive route and burn-to-order. Any other ideas? Let's be realistic here: MYA's "huge slate of November releases" and that long list of films they've acquired? That's a pipe dream worthy of THE ICEMAN COMETH.

Or Code Red.

I'd fork over $25 to MYA right now if that were an option. I'm more than willing to support their company. I'd love to buy their product....if only they made it available. Same with Code Red.

I don't mean to ruffle feathers, because I know Marc Edward Heuck is involved in the release of it, but at the risk of coming off like a dick-- does Code Red really think there's a demand for NIGHT OF THE DRIBBLER? I'd have no problem with them releasing it if it were one of several new titles, and hell, I'll probably Netflix it out of curiosity, but when you consider everything else they're sitting on....and NIGHT OF THE DRIBBLER gets the greenlight? I'm all for STUNT ROCK later this month, but how many DRIBBLER do they think they're gonna sell? If they had a Warner Archive thing going, I'd plunk down the money for THE VISITOR, CHOKE CANYON, and about four of their other perpetual "coming soon" titles right now. I wouldn't even expect Warner Archive's one-week turnaround, either. I'd give 'em a month.

I'm trying to see it from all sides, and honestly, in the grand scheme of things (life, etc), this really isn't a vital issue at all. I realize this. But it's pretty annoying. When these companies fold, I'll regret what might've been but I can't say I'll feel all that sorry for them. They've made one bad decision after another. Severin is prone to delays as well, but at least they're getting their stuff out there. By my count, this is the SIXTH time that ISLAND OF THE FISHMEN's release date has been bumped. I'm sorry, but that's ridiculous. And what irritates me as a fan as that MYA can't even get their act together right now, but they've got the gall to toot their horn about how they're going to release all these new titles in November? Will ISLAND OF THE FISHMEN even be out by November? Will MYA even exist in November? They're the DVD Company Who Cried Wolf.

I think Marc mentioned on another board that DRIBBLER was part of a package deal. I guess the fact that it is making a fairly speedy trip to stores means that there are no behind the scenes issues with this particular film.

I don't mean to come off as a dick either and wish I had not made the last comment. The Code Red discs I've seen have been assembled with a great deal of love and care and the company has been faced with some really bad luck in terms of distributors, as well as some rights issues that could not have been foreseen. There is also the market downturn that has affected all DVD labels. Netflix and torrent sites also contributed to this. Additionally, there have been complaints from some consumers that are truly ridiculous (like the fact that DEAD PIT didn't come with light box packaging like the old Imperial VHS release, which had an SRP of about three times what Code Red was asking for their much better -- and uncut -- DVD).

That said, I wish they had been more realistic in terms of their announcements, ie. don't announce a title until you are at least sure that workable elements are available (CLASS REUNION MASSACRE come to mind) and don't keep announcing reams of new acquisitions if you are taking much longer than anticipated to get your earlier ones out. I think some consumer annoyance was justified on these fronts, especially given the ballyhoo Code Red allotted to a much anticipated title like THE FARMER, which is now finally apparently forthcoming from the company under a new sub-label.

That's a good point, John. Code Red has faced a lot more distribution obstacles than they should have. So perhaps I was a bit too harsh in my comment that they've made one bad decision after another. It hasn't ALL been their fault. And yes, I have several Code Red releases and am happy with all of them.

MYA on the other hand....they're distributed by Ryko, so they don't get that pass. They just don't have their act together.

What's up with the nonanamorphic discs from Mya, anyway? And for that matter the P&S on PASSION? Very disappointing. I'd love to support them whole hog but not if they're going to let standards slip this badly.