Hello

Has anyone here bought the RARO VIDEO dvd's of Mario Bava's
REAZIONE A CATENA (Bay of Blood), GLI ORRORI DI NORIMBERGA (Baron Blood), LISA E IL DIAVOLO & LA CASA DELL'ESORCISMO (LIsa and the Devil/ House of Exorcism)??
A Swedish dvd shop sell these, and I'm thinking about buying them. But I'm hesitant as I've heard rumours of varying quality (someone said the IMAGE dvd TWICH OF THE DEATH NERVE was superior to REAZIONE). So my question is:

Equal, better or inferior (picture/print quality, sound) compared to the IMAGE editions?? Also is this Italian ed. of Baron Blood superior to the German E-M-S dvd??



/ Mathias

Here's what dvdcompare has to say:

BARON BLOOD AKA GLI ORRORI DEL CASTELLO DI NORIMBERGA AKA THE TORTURE CHAMBER OF BARON BLOOD (1972)

Hmmmm, they seem to be leaning toward the Italian disc. Also you can look up reviews at dvd-basen (for instance):

Baron Blood

Not all the reviews are in English (maybe not an issue). You can do as much research as you need to make an informed decision.

The source materials used in the Italian discs are the same as those used for the Image discs; they come from Alfredo Leone. But they do have bonus documentaries with English subtitles, and are thus of interest for completists.

Same source prints or not, newer anamorphic transfers of BARON BLOOD and LISA & THE DEVIL should look a lot better than the non-anamorphic Image versions.

Vincent

According to DVD MANIACS the print for REAZIONE A CATENA is less good than the IMAGE one (scratchier, etc.)

I do hope that GLI ORRORI (Baron Blood) is better than them German E-M-S dvd which was a huge disappointment, though I've heard several thinking it superior to the IMAGE dvd (?!).

To me the E-M-S dvd looked very dark, fuzzy, colours bleak and washy. Even my old REDEMPTION VHS was much better looking.

I wonder waht the long awaited the Anchor Bay (Bava/Image) remastered dvd' s will look like.

Hopefully they will not disappoint like the BLue Underground BLIND DEAD box, which was neither complete (Tombs was missing one scene) plus the prints were poor, not to mention the audio glitches :-(

From memory, Raro's BARON BLOOD disc wasn't up to the standards of some of their earlier releases; IIRC, the image is a little soft and Bava's vivid colour scheme isn't terribly well represented. I think the DVD-R I made from the old Redemption VHS is more colourful, but of course has all the drawbacks of analogue video. Still, the Raro disc may well be the best that's out there at present. (I avoided the US Image release as it was reportedly sourced from VHS tape, although I'm not sure that's true...)

The Image release of BARON BLOOD uses the same master that was prepared for the Elite laserdisc, which would have been D-2 digital. It's far from a great looking DVD, but it certainly didn't come from a VHS tape.

Vincent

Yeah, I just re-read the original review of the Image disc over at Mondo Digital and you're right, no mention of a VHS source, only a comparison with the Elite laserdisc (and Redemption video release). Now I think about it, I believe the "looks like VHS" notion may have come from a discussion forum, where there was some criticism of the DVD's strangely fuzzy resolution - which, via my strangely fuzzy recollection, became misinterpreted as an accusation that Image may have sourced their DVD from magnetic video. Nobody needed to know that, which is the beauty of the internet: tons of inessential factoids, available at the touch of a button.

How do the German and Italian DVDs of BARON BLOOD compare to the Image DVD in terms of sound? Cipriani's music didn't have a lot of presence on the US disc.

This notion might stem from the film's opening moments. The opening credits have a layer of static film grain throughout that I have always assumed was a consequence of the optical overlaying of the opening credits. I'm sure they could have been coded better (although the poor image is compounded by the use of stock airport footage) but I'm also pretty sure that the problem disappears after the credits finish. I'd pick up another copy if there was an improved transfer AND there was an alternate audio track with the US electronic score.

Victor

The same footage looked better letterboxed on the HBO tape.

Me too. I prefer Baxter's more overtly creepy score (although I do like Cipriani's "Magia Nera" track for the seance sequence). I believe the AIP versions of this, BLACK SUNDAY, THE GIRL WHO KNEW TOO MUCH, and BLACK SABBATH are in some sort of legal limbo. Some day, it would be great to see these even as part of MGM's (now Sony, I guess) Midnight Movie line (though short on extras, they usually have high bitrates), don't they?

MGM has moved their DVD distribution over to Fox, which will hopefully do a better job than Sony did. Unfortunately, the timing has prevented any Midnite Movies releases from coming out for the Halloween season. Last year, the MGM catalog had moved to Sony, resulting in no Midnite Movies releases for Halloween that year, either.

The lack of resolution on VHS will smooth out the appearance of film grain.

Vincent