Arrow Video Round-Up.

 

Whilst I would never wish to post anything on this blog that could be seen as shilling for or uncritically cheerleading for a particular brand or commercial enterprise, it nonetheless behests me to repeat a truth that should be plainly obvious to anyone who still maintains an interest in owning niche/genre films on physical media: namely, that the UK’s Arrow Video have been absolutely killing it over the past couple of years, orchestrating a seemingly endless schedule of releases, the breadth, depth, quality and general audacity of which is enough to send even the most grounded of fans into an occasional frenzy.

Whilst I don’t by any means support all of Arrow’s title choices or marketing decisions, their Japanese releases alone have been enough to repeatedly push me into “dreams come true” territory, and I’d go as far as to say that their previously unthinkable restoration & revival of such mistreated masterworks as Borowzyck’s ‘Dr Jekyll et les Femmes’, Donald Cammell’s ‘White of the Eye’ and Matt Cimber's ‘The Witch Who Came From the Sea' represent an invaluable gift to the world of cinema as a whole. From a euro-horror POV meanwhile, they deserve a whole other set of high fives simply for finally getting decent looking versions of ‘Blood & Black Lace’ and ‘Nightmare City’ on the shelves, and, well… you get the idea.

As if that weren’t enough, Arrow have also recently upped their charm offense against yours truly by allowing me to win a prize draw stemming from their annual customer survey, thus allowing me to claim a huge pile of their releases entirely gratis. In addition to the substantial haul of discs acquired via several recent sale events, this basically means I currently have Arrow blu-rays comin’ outta my ears – a situation that will no doubt be familiar to many people with a fondness for films and a certain amount of disposable income.

By means of channeling this happy circumstance into some long-overdue content for this blog therefore, I thought it might be a good time for me to flex my shorter-than-usual movie review muscles and knock out a few summations of my thoughts on some off the odder and less-celebrated films that could easily get lost in the shuffle of Arrow’s big-hitter releases.

I’ll be posting these one every few days over the next couple of weeks, sans screen-shots but hopefully plus some second-rate wise-cracking and helpful “what the hell is this movie – should I buy it?” style consumer advice. We begin tomorrow. What thrills!