According to the specs, the Image/Redemption R0 NTSC release of LA ROSE DE FER is anamorphic widescreen. I believe their previous UK release was non-anamorphic. Anyone reviewed it? I have the German disc which is anamorphic but when viewed on a 16:9 monitor, there is so much noise (it looks like a 4:3 letterboxed transfer cropped and resized for anamorphic enhancement.

Are the specs listed for November's THE NUDE VAMPIRE? A new anamorphic transfer would be nice but the UK disc is quite nice with both the English and French tracks and English subtitles though it features abbreviated English credits compared to the more complete French credits on Something Weird Video's dubbed OOP release.

Where did you find specs listing it as anamorphic?

I'd love for this to be true, but so far have been unable to find any info beyond a generic 'widescreen' designation.

I believe Xploited lists it as anamorphic.

I am curious to know if Encore Films will be releasing this title as well.

Although expensive, I have become enamored of their loving treatment of the Rollin catalog.

http://www.encore-films.com/index.html

Compared to those old Image releases at the dawn of the DVD era, the Encore releases are a revealation.

Here is hoping for LE VAMPIRE NUE, the original EYES WIDE SHUT...

I also enjoy the ENCORE FILMS releases very much, so far I have REQUIEM and LES DEMONIAQUES. Especially the latter is very impressive with excellent colours, REQUIEM unfortunately is a scratchy print. The ENCORE dvd sets are expensive, but are impressive with great books with LOTS of great pictures and comments by Rollin.

The LEVRES DE SANG release though is said to be cropped at the top of the image making, so I've been a bit hesitant of buying that as ENCORE has said of releasing a remastered version that will be complete.

I have all six of the Encore releases. LEVRES DE SANG is a bit cropped on the top and its missing its title sequence - rather the footage is there but not the title overlays.

Yes, I got my specs from Xploited.

I would really like to see FASCINATION get the Encore treatment.

The lack of any official word on these Redemption discs, doesn't bode well for their quality me thinks....! ;)

Anamorphic after all! :D

I sent an email off to Encore Films kindly asking what and when their next release would be and this is the response I receieved:

"Next month Le viol de vampire"

I'll be darned.

What about ENCORE FILMS' edition of LE FRISSON? Is it superior to the Redemption release?

I haven't gotten any of these (as Redemption had, once upon a time, announced a Region 1 box of new masters), but they're all considered superior to the Image/Redemption releases. And with bucket-loads of extras, too.

Even REQUIEM POUR UN VAMPIRE, which is over-matted on Encore's and considered their weakest effort, is an improvement over Image's - a composite-sourced, noisy mess. Aside from that anomalous occurrence, the Image discs are still pretty good first-gen DVD releases.

I have found all of the Encore discs to be a tremendous improvement over the Image releases. Even with some of Encore's matte issues. The Encore editions are also lovingly packaged, devoid of the cheesey goth artwork and bumpers found on the Image/Redemption releases.

The Encore disc of LE FRISSON is terrific. It has both the French and English soundtracks and it looks beautiful (Rollin and his cinematographer use a lot of color gels in this one).

IRON ROSE is indeed anamorphic. There is still a lot of grain but its more natural and less noisy than the German transfer. The short film LES PAYS LOINS is an extra but no commentary from the LES DEMONIAQUES disc (along with two trailers for the films HURT and BLACK MASS, the latter of which is an annoying clip compilation of Nazi sluts and other images edited to music with no explanation as to what its supposed to be). The trailer for IRON ROSE is the same one as on the German disc. It has the English title THE CRYSTAL ROSE but I've never heard of an English dub being available so this might have been intended to be marketed as a subtitled "art film" (which it certainly is) rather than as an exploitation film.

I Netflixed the disc and will hold off on getting it until we here if Encore plans to do a release of it.

[B]EDIT: While comparing caps for a review between the US and German DVDs, I take back what I said about the German transfer. It is noisy and grainy but also sharper. The Redemption US disc looks as though it was slightly softened to make the grain look less apparent.[B]

Redemption R1 (left); X-Rated (right)

Knew mine was missing something...

Here's my comparison at DVD Beaver.

Well, it's on the way to me, so it is what it is, I guess - but I'm not encouraged based on those grabs.

The X-Rated Kult looks to be edge-enhanced, and the Redemption seems like the same base transfer with noise reduction overtop?! Did you notice any artifacting resulting from the PAL to NTSC standards conversion?

At any rate, I really hope it's passable in motion - I've wanted to see this 'Rollinade' for some years now.

Its certainly converted from PAL (it has almost the same running time as the German disc minus the LCJ logo) but the conversion artifacts I noticed were few but the natural darkness of the image, slow camera movements and character movements, plenty of long shots, and film grain probably cover up what more there are.

I expect some distraction - as with Redemption's RAPE OF THE VAMPIRE disc.

But you're right - LE VIOL DU VAMPIRE is a much busier film in terms of camera and character movement than is usual for Rollin, so THE IRON ROSE shouldn't be as intrusive.

Has anyone taken a look at the Spanish reissues of Rollin's films? They are from a company called "EuroCine Films" but I don't think its Eurocine Paris and they have much more attractive artwork than the previous RSR discs. Only NUDE VAMPIRE has an English option. DVDGo lists it as being 16:9 so its possible that a new transfer was created and the R1 will differ from the Redemption UK release but the specs could also be wrong.