This is from the DVD Drive-in review:

http://www.dvddrive-in.com/reviews/t-z/werewolfcurse7073.htm

Remind me what BCI have improved?

The bulk of BCI's Spanish Horror series was beautifully done. Sadly, the series did not perform at the box office and funds ran low, and without the monies to fix the problems with the materials they were provided with by Atlas International, these last couple titles are not what they should have been.
They really tried with these titles, but the market simply did not support them ( ala CasaNegra ).

A shame, as I really looked forward to their titles. What else where they working on, that we may not see?

In my opinion it's not surprising that these companies are having difficulties. Fans of these films often originally fell in love with them through bootlegs and part of the attraction was their obscurity and underground "club" appeal. Now that they are being afforded the respectability of decent presentations, the self same audience are hardly going to have a moral turnaround and go out and pay for them - that same audience has for the most part turned to the internet and illegal downloads. I'm generalizing of course, and it doesn't even make sense as the bad dupes of old were invariably more expensive than a typical new cult release. I'm still buying more DVDs than I need (or have time to watch) but I don't regret a single penny when I consider the money I used to pay for a crappy Dutch VHS all those years ago - stuff that's all but worthless and redundant now. I haven't picked up the Naschy titles yet but only because I'm waiting for the inevitable bundled pack - I resented the Best Buy Double Deals that were available in the shops but awkward for this Internet shopper to impulse buy, however it suggested a complete pack might be marketed at some point.

Victor

There was an option to pick up a second package of an additional 9 films, and that is not going to happen now ( at least BCI is not going to snag them ). The entire group was never carved in stone but would have included COUNT DRACULA'S GREAT LOVE, HUNCHBACK OF THE MORGUE, WEREWOLF VS YETI and some other non Naschy Spanish thrillers.
I bought all of the 9 that came out, despite already owning them in several versions. I had to have them...but with most the thrill in watching them simmered down over the years and years I poured over the various boots I collected. It's great to have these in top form but for me, they won't get viewed much. While 'the thrill is gone' to a certain extent ( I went thoughroughly Naschy through out the 90's ), I still wanted the definitve DVD's.
I think alot of die hards are like me and snapped these up. Freebies via torrents certainly did not help sales any , but I think BCI abandoning the series is also a symptom of there just not being enough people interested in the films, period.
And selling niche DVD's is a dicey proposition, especially if you want to operate your business in the black. There is no way to judge the size of the market for this material in advance.
I would expect a bundled pack to come out sometime too ala the recent DRIVE IN sets of 8 titles ( BCI may have to leave one of the nine in the dust if they go this route ), maybe next year?

I would not be greatly surprised if Severin snags these, and issues them in a couple of boxes, a la the Black Emanuelle films.

Or they could release all 9 in a set.

I still have to pick up THE DRACULA SAGA, and passed on the last two, since I already have the AB releases. Otherwise, I picked up the rest of the BCI releases. Sad News.


:(

I'm still waiting on my copy. I'm not very technical but I have an idea about the cause of the motion problem. If no one else identifies it as what I think it is, I'll get back to you all once I've seen it for myself.

Well, yer a hell of a lot more technical than me! I'll be curious to hear what you have to say.

I'm forgoing the pleasure of this fresh CURSE myself, as I have the AB, don't like the movie that much, and don't much relish another stutter-start motion anomaly - especially one that sounds worse than those on NIGHT OF THE WEREWOLF and BLUE EYES OF THE BROKEN DOLL.

... than I.

Thanks!

'Yer' is ok, though... right? :P

http://hkfilmnews.blogspot.com/2008/06/wer...-devil-two.html

We didn't come across any issues during our reviews.

Granted I won't miss Naschy too much and personally wish BCI would get some of Bruno Mattei's action films from back in the day. Still its nice so many of them came out.

I just got my discs today. I noticed some motion problems in the first couple minutes of WEREWOLF SHADOW. Although the transfer itself is an improvement over the AB disc (though the new disc is a PAL-NTSC conversion - as is CURSE) it is still darker than both the US version (without tinting) and the Spanish disc (with lighter tinting).

I'm not sure if this is the issue but where I have seen similar issues (in my own experiments with DVD authoring) with two different methods of converting PAL-NTSC. The first is when the audio and video running times do not quite match (even by a matter of milliseconds) and the authoring program multiplexes them together anyway. Rather than consistently speeding up the video to match the audio, it does so fitfully. I had this problem when I took DVD video that had been converted from PAL-NTSC, used a script that removed the ghosting and recovered the progressive image but at a speed of 24.975 rather than 25. I then slowed the video down to 23.976. The problem was then when I stretched the audio, it was from 25 fps to 23.976 instead of 24.975 to 23.976. The other time something like this cropped up is when I inserted a 23.976 to 29.97 pulldown flag into a 25 fps progressive image (instead of 25-29.97).

I'm working with all free and open source software so with a professional authoring house it might be something entirely different.

CURSE is also at the wrong ratio, it's a little bit squeezed. There are rumblings that a replacement may be forthcoming. The motion jitter is apparently more pronounced on CURSE than SHADOW.
Both titles clock in at their PAL run times too.

The BCI WEREWOLF SHADOW is the same length as the Spanish disc but for the new Atlas International logo at the start.

Julia Saly's my favorite countess but Paty Sheppard's Wandesa is more effective in Spanish with English subtitles than on the English dub.

DVDBeaver reviews:

CURSE OF THE DEVIL
WEREWOLF SHADOW

Well, anyone who held off on some of the Naschy releases with the belief that they would do a box set can breathe easy now.

http://www.amazon.com/Paul-Naschy-Collection/dp/B001CHFM58

BCI's set will include EXORCISM, BLUE EYES OF THE BROKEN DOLL, HUMAN BEASTS, HORROR RISES FROM THE TOMB and VENGEANCE OF THE ZOMBIES.

CURSE OF THE DEVIL is going to be fixed and re-issued according to a post in the Naschy folder at Latarnia. No such love for WEREWOLF SHADOW unfortunately.

The BCI box omits one Naschy they put out ( NIGHT OF THE WEREWOLF ) and the 2 Ossorio flicks and Klimovsky's Dracula Saga. There well may be a second box coming sometime that may include the 3 Daninsky pics.
After putting out sets with 8 films, this 5 title set is a mite curious.

Well, it is called the THE PAUL NASCHY COLLECTION so the Ossorios and the Klimovsky flick would not be included. Like you, I'm betting on a set with the fixed CURSE, WEREWOLF SHADOW, and NIGHT OF THE WEREWOLF later and the other three in some Spanish Horror set.

I'm thinking the set has the non-werewolf films as a way to entice viewers familiar with the werewolf films but not his other horror films (including those who know BLUE EYES as HOUSE OF PSYCHOTIC WOMEN).