News from Fangoria.com:

http://www.fangoria.com/news_article.php?id=4342

Actually, Scarecrows is the one I'll be keeping an eye out for. While it's not a ignored gem, it's still unnerving and has enough going for it that it deserves a better shelf-life than the crappy VHS that was floating around (and even then was a chore to track down... although I'm sure there'll be plenty of copies flooding eBay soon).

. . . I read up on the credits for THE BURNING (80) and discovered that, along with all of the people mentioned by FANGORIA, this was also an early co-writing credit for Brad Grey, producer of THE SOPRANOS and THE DEPARTED, who is now Chairman and Chief Executive of Paramount - gosh, from little acorns . . .

Finnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnally!!

Good news about the other two, too; assuming Scarecrows is the uncut version.
Any idea what the "many more" are?

GREAT news about the uncut FROM BEYOND. It'll go nicely on my shelf alongside Anchor Bay's spiffy new RE-ANIMATOR DVD (the best transfer of this film ever; the previous Elite DVD was too dark).

It would be nice if that one extra juicy bit not included in the Director's Cut but included in some documentary I can't remember would be at least added as an extra...

Do you mean this extra juicy bit?

Vincent

Is that from a Chinese vcd? I had the Hong Kong version, but I never noticed anything different.

And why didn't this make it into the restoration? That's the kind of stuff us horror fans search the world for.

Shame SCARECROWS will be a no-frills release. It's a terrific movie but I've always thought that it was one of those films saved by post production. It's propped up heavily by the voice-over/walkie-talkie narration and much of the ambiguity might've been generated by judicious editing. Given the writing credits on IMDB, I'd guess a lot of the scripting took place after principal photography to get the film working. I'd kill to hear the inside scoop on this film. And whatever happened to SCARECROWS 2: THE LAST STRAW?

Victor

Victor Boston:

That Fangoria news has been updated on the site and there's going to be a commentary after all. I wonder if my speculations turn out to be true. Apparently there are storyboards included that will demonstrate how close the final product turned out to the early conceptions so that might counter my argument that this was a project saved in post. Sounds like a must-have disc though. I'm already sold on the TALES FROM THE CRYPT movie from the same batch.

Victor.

Dread Central has a peek up at the FROM BEYOND art. Looks like they went with that really odd artwork that has been around for a while.

http://www.dreadcentral.com/index.php?name...rticle&sid=2409

Has anybody found The Burning or Scarecrows available for preorder yet? Amazon has From Beyond up for preorder but not the forementioned titles.

Well, it looks like now we won't be getting a special edition of SCARECROWS. From Fangoria.com:

I wrote to my pal Ned Eisenberg to tell him that The Burning is coming out on that unfortunate date. You may know that he appeared in the film World Trade Center.

Oh my God, that's such utter crap. Really, do they intentionally want poor sales? I even hate the font for the title, which is more suitable for a late 80s Terminator rip-off. It amazes me that more companies don't directly ask the fans (on civilized boards like Mobius) what sells to us. I think "Humans are such easy prey" still really works to sell that movie. So does Barbara Crampton. Will either appear even on the back?

Does anyone else see a person stretching their arms and yawning in that cover?

Just found a copy of From Beyond today for only $10 (yeeeeahhh!!!) at one of my local haunts. I haven't looked through the whole thing yet, but the picture quality is just stellar. Those pink and purple lights are served up vividly with wet gooey 80s effects you could almost reach out and squish. A handful of pretty cool bonus features are included, all introduced with a wall-shaking MGM Lion roar (thanks, guys).

The box art still sucks, without any decent special effects shots, a tiny picture of Crampton on the back that does nothing to show off her beauty, and only mentioning Re-Animator in tiny print. Unless you already know the movie, there isn't much here to entice buyers. But they did amend the cover tagline to "Humans Are Such Easy Prey." Maybe those marketing people really are all watching us here... all the time. :unsure:

My copy had a "from the makers of Re-Animator" sticker right on the front.

Quite right. I had shredded the wrapping off the DVD inside of the shopping bag while still on the sidewalk, acting like something between a kid on Christmas morning and a blindfolded assassin breaking down his sniper rifle. In the process, the sticker was ignored. Par the course after I waited so long for this damn thing.

The deleted bits are so well-integrated into this new cut of the film that I needed the bonus featurette on the reconstruction to spot them. Nice job all around. I love Combs on the commentary, remembering his bitch-rant about the "dog dick stuck to my forehead." I'm off to watch it again.

As I was watching THE BURNING, I was thinking how much more lively the film might have been if Wakeman had used some of the cues he wrote specifically for the album in the film itself such as his "Theme from the Burning."

I haven't listened to the entire commentary yet but its great that Savini seems to have kept video footage from the films he's worked on. It's too bad we probably won't see that sort of bonus on a Friday the 13th disc.

The commentary is decent though repetitive. Director Tony Maylam sets straight some assumptions fans of the film have based on the credits--namely that Brad Grey had nothing to do with writing the film. His main contribution to THE BURNING was that he was the manager of a standup comic hired to play the camp's supervisor...and being a friend of the Weinsteins. Maylam also intimates that Harvey's and Bob's writing credits are mostly bogus, and that the script is primarily the work of Peter Lawrence.

THE BURNING seems to have been a fun film to work on with no major problems or upsets. The cast was great, the crew was great, the Weinsteins were great, according to Maylam.

Savini's behind-the-scenes footage is cool. I was sad to learn the stuntman who did the big fire gag, Ronnie Rondell's son Reid, who was 17 (!) at the time, died a few years later in a helicopter crash.

My review with screencaps up at DVDBeaver:

THE BURNING

Nice work, although that is not Holly Hunter in the screenshot you reference.

Darn. I thought that was her. I know she played Sophie but every time someone said her name, her character was not in frame.

Hunter is barely in the film, and the only time I've ever been able to spot her (I've seen THE BURNING twice) is the scene where the campers are watching the raft with their "sleeping" colleagues float back to them. Once you hear her distinctive voice, there's no missing her.

Ned! Where's my Ned?

Marty's right--she yells "Hey, Todd!" or something to that effect. IIRC, she talked about being in the film and actually said her one line on Letterman's show after her Oscar win for THE PIANO. I could, however, be totally off on the timeline of her appearance.

I finally took in THE BURNING DVD last night. I had seen the uncut version previously on a foreign tape, but this really looks amazing. I did slo-mo through the river raft massacre and it is so clear you can see Savini's filament line rip off the young girl's head piece.

This is probably the slasher of note from the 80s that I have seen the least (this being the third time I guess). I never really liked it as a kid as I thought the entire middle section drags and too many people escape. Of course, Savini's effects and the nude ladies do help out. I have to laugh at the "Created and Produced by..." credit for Harvey Weinstein. Like he didn't just go see FRIDAY THE 13TH the previous year and say, "Hey, I could do that."

Also, what is with that wonky bit of editing at the end where they are trying to pretend Todd sees the throat slashed girl in Cropsy's lair when all they did was freeze the frame and poorly black out the surroundings. They couldn't find anything better to insert there?

Let me just set that down and slowly back away...

I found it amusing that all of the bonus documentaries just happen to use Barbara Crampton's topless scene as background. The Sony technician talking about how he restored the film just happens to have Crampton's bare breasts playing across his monitor. Richard Band, discussing his score, just happens to have Crampton's bare breasts bouncing on his monitor too. Hmmmmm.

Yeah, putting the MGM lion on those featurettes was a bad idea, but the marketing people had a lot of bad ideas on this DVD. The film and commentary are great though.