Dear Almar Haflidason,
You are the head honcho at Arrow, yes? I am assuming, therefore, that you have the ability to check what your company release, BEFORE it gets unleashed into the public's hands, yes?
So why does this keep happening? You take a great film, you promise a great release, and what happens? You botch it up... Again! For the umpteenth time, in as many months!
The DEMONS Steelbook had the two posters, and the two DEMONS 3 comic books, excluded from it, due to "inadequate space". Your staff originally told Arrow Forum members that these were going to be included. Then you said they weren't. Then you said they couldn't be included. Then you announced that something was being worked on, so that fans who had bought the Steelbook, could get the posters and comics. And yet, there's been no further news on this. Hmmmm.
THE BEYOND (1981, Lucio Fulci), was initially authored with a low-bitrate, and the opening sequence in black-and-white, rather than the proper and intended Sepia format. This resulted in discs being needed to be sent back, exchanged and replaced. The replacement disc was better, and yet, even now - some 15 months after that title was released - there are still people buying this film, and getting the old, faulty disc inside their copies!
DEEP RED (1977, Dario Argento), had issues with edge-enhancement and picture-quality, as well as a picture-glitch around the 45-minute mark.
TENEBRAE (1982, Dario Argento), had shockingly bad picture quality, to the point, there appeared to be more grain on screen, than actual image.
THE BIRD WITH THE CRYSTAL PLUMAGE (1969, Dario Argento), was released in a new "approved" ratio of 2.1:1 instead of the original, and proper 2.35:1 CinemaScope ratio. This resulted in large amounts of picture information being cropped out, or removed, noticeable from the very first few moments of the Opening Credits.
TENEBRAE (1982, Dario Argento), had shockingly bad picture quality, to the point, there appeared to be more grain on screen, than actual image.
THE BIRD WITH THE CRYSTAL PLUMAGE (1969, Dario Argento), was released in a new "approved" ratio of 2.1:1 instead of the original, and proper 2.35:1 CinemaScope ratio. This resulted in large amounts of picture information being cropped out, or removed, noticeable from the very first few moments of the Opening Credits.
CALIGULA (1979, Bob Guccione and Tinto Brass), was released on DVD in a lovely 3-disc edition with every edition of the film (hardcore, softcore, and European 90-minute version) and extras. Your Blu-Ray version decided to drop one of the versions, but this isn't made clear on the boxed artwork, nor on your website. It's ever-so-slightly deceptive. Some might even go as far as to infer that you were deliberately cheating your customers!
Now, THE HOUSE BY THE CEMETERY (1981, Lucio Fulci), has been released, and this release also has problems! (Good God, no!)
Firstly, some copies of this great Fulci horror classic, may have the wrong second disc in them. If you have a DVD labelled Disc 1 (or it has the movie on it in Standard Definition), then you'll need to get it returned or replaced. Unfortunately, you may have to register with Arrow's crappy Cult Labs Forums, in order to find out what to do.
Whilst Arrow did discuss this on their website, and Arrow blame the disc manufacturers for the problem, some of these faulty sets are still being sent out to customers. Either Arrow needs to stop using this manufacturer, or else invest in some major Quality Control checks. Which leads me onto this next complaint...
...Arrow has ballsed-up the subtitling.
The Opening Credits are all in Italian, and there's no English subtitle translation. Fair-enough, I can live with that minor issue.
However, the ending of the film has a prophetic quote from Henry James, in Italian. All fine-and-dandy, but there's no English translation for it... Unless, that is, you opt to leave the English subtitling on all the way through the entire goddamn film!
Well done, Arrow! Yet another bad mark, and yet another reason why your releases smack of absolutely NO Quality Control whatsoever!
Does nobody at Arrow check the discs before replication? Did no one actually think to themselves: "Uh, guys? We're using an Italian-produced HD master, and the film has Opening and Closing Credits all in Italian. Maybe we should, perhaps subtitle the ending of the film, so that our English-language audience can understand it"?! Clearly, not!
There is artifacting, digital noise, and some bad compression artifacts in scenes involving pure black. Even on my 37-inch Panasonic TV, I could see the problems! So god-knows what it's going to look like on a 50-inch TV or a Projection Screen! It's not horrific, by any means, but it is there, and it is noticeable. When the picture is great, and the scene involving the murder of the Estate Agent looks truly great, the print is recommendable. However, when it's bad, it's awful. For that reason, again, Arrow needs to either start using a different authoring team, who know what the difference is between film grain, digital noise, and digital artifacting! Kentai over at Kentai's Blog has been mentioning this issue multiple times on your releases, and even though on the Cult Labs Forum, (which is not a true Forum, but a place where praise can be left for Arrow, but dare to post anything remotely critical or question their method of doing things, and you'll quickly find yourself being told to shut up or banned), you say that Kentai knows nothing and is simply an angry, overtly-critical anti-Arrow fan, you still seem to think that your releases are perfect!
Well, they aren't! They're anything but perfect! They're not even "flawed". They're shambolic!
The second disc - providing you get the correct one, of course - is a DVD containing some of the Special Features. One of those extras, is an hour's worth of Italian film trailers on it. Unfortunately, bar about two of these, many are even worse than some of the low-res trailers you can see on YouTube. It's as if Arrow just cobbled together 20 trailers, stuck them on a disc, and said "That'll do"! What should have been a very good hour's-worth of trailer-watching, is a frankly embarrassing mess of hideous proportions. I know some of the trailer are old and rare. They're not the ones I'm blaming you for. I'm talking about the trailers which have been released on other discs, or by other companies, and which we know and have seen in far better quality editions, than the ones showcased here. In fact, some of them are so utterly shocking, that not even a no-name, cheap-as-chips label would have stuck them on their discs, so bad are they!
Arrow need to get their head out of their backsides, and start doing some serious Quality Control, as I'm sick of so many of their films having problems, errors or other QC issues! Just how many "botched" releases do Arrow need to do, before someone at Arrow Headquarters decides that Quality Control is important?! One? Two? Five? Ten?!
Initially, I was forgiving of Arrow. I ignored people who said that Arrow weren't good, and didn't produce good releases. I thought that people were being overly-sensitive over minor issues in Arrow's titles. But the more I spend my money on their releases, and the more problems I keep finding, AND the more I keep hearing from them that they DO care about making great UK Blu-Ray and DVD releases, the more I feel like they just don't give a damn! It appears to be purely about making money. Nothing more, nothing less. If you praise them, they are happy. Make a single negative comment, and they lambast you, ban you from their hideously-patrolled-by-jackbooted-morons forum, or try and placate you with cries of "your comments are unfair criticism", because "we're a small label, with little money"!
Well, look, enough's enough! Start checking things out, before you manufacture them. Start making sure that when you produce an HD-master, that the print doesn't contain lots of scenes of digital noise or artifacting in scenes featuring large amounts of pure blackness; double and triple-check your prints, so that English subtitles are available for the pertinent parts of your Italian-language films; stop allowing your manufacturer to bodge your releases, resulting in recalls, delays, and problems for your customers. And stop, whinging that customers are ungrateful when we're the ones keeping you in business in the first fucking place!
No customers buying your products, means no sales.
No sales, means goodbye Arrow, and hello unemployment line at the Jobcentre!
I'm sure I'll receive numerous comments from other people, saying I'm being overly picky; overly sensitive, or even comments telling me to stop whining or to grow-up. Well, to those of you who are happy spending £10-£15 (or $25+ in the USA, for the poor bastards that import these), on each Arrow release, and finding problems and errors, go ahead and waste your money and time. However, for the rest of us in the real-world, we deserve better!
To be frank, Arrow is a joke! Your off-the-chart ineptness and derisory acknowledgement of problems from customers, suggests to me, that you genuinely don't care what customers think, because you are more concerned about selling product, no matter how bad that product may actually be.
Well, I've had enough! People, cult-film-fans, lovers of extreme cinema, do NOT buy Arrow/Cult Film Labs releases. Do NOT support this label, with your hard-earned money, until they are ready to get their act together!
Give your money to labels that DO care about film as an artistic medium, who DO care about DVD and Blu-Ray releases, and who DO care about their customers.
Signed,
Pooch
(Curator of "Cinema-Extreme" Blog!)
