In addition to their successful effort to bring Inferno to the UK and the world on home video via region free Blu-ray disc, they've also built up a nice little catalog of fully featured Argento discs that are perfect for collectors. First I'll focus on the DVD only releases, which have heretofore made up the bulk of the collection, though that seems to be a thing of the past with all of the new releases on tap.
Arrow Video has lovely DVD editions of Terror at the Opera, The Stendhal Syndrome, Sleepless, The Card Player, and the Argento-Romero collaboration Two Evil Eyes. Each of these DVDs features brand new artwork commissioned from Rick Melton, who is something of a house sleaze merchant for Arrow Video. The artwork is created not as a copy of anything, but new creations based upon the principles of exploitation marketing: make it flashy, make is nasty, make it catch the eye, and if possible throw in some tits! If the new artwork isn't your style, Arrow Video have helpfully provided a reversible cover featuring classic poster art. All of the covers follow a template, meaning that these discs cut a lovely figure when displayed together on your shelf. Many of us have dedicated Criterion or Masters of Cinema shelves in our collections, and there is no reason that these Arrow Video covers can't joins those ranks.
Now onto the good stuff, the supplemental features are really a great strength of these presentations. Each film comes with its original theatrical trailer, and many of the discs contain a complete 18 film trailer reel for everyone's Argento collection. This is a great feature that I love. Arrow Films Russ Meyer collection offers a similar trailer reel, one which I enjoy thoroughly. It is a great thing to put on a loop for parties, or just to watch to remind yourself how trailers used to look before they were market-tested all to shit.
Two Evil Eyes and The Stendhal Syndrome get the barest treatments among the collection, but they are still in no way throwaways. Each gets an original and exclusive collector's booklet and your choice of the original Italian or dubbed English audio track. These dubbed tracks are often the way home viewers, like myself, first remember seeing the film, so they aren't really abominations in that they can take you back to the way you felt the first time you saw these films. I think that is a great idea. The Stendhal Syndrome also gets a fold out movie poster suitable for framing!
Next up, the classic Terror at the Opera, which gets quite a package. Most importantly, this DVD gets the complete international version with your choice of Italian or English audio, as well as the US home video edit with your choice of the original cringe inducing dub used for its premiere at the Cannes Film Festival or the rerecorded and corrected English dub familiar to most. In addition to the trailer reel and booklet similar to those described above, Opera also gets a fold out, two-sided poster. Additionally, the disc has an Argento bio and filmography, a collection of production photos, the music video for Opera by "Demonia", the US and International theatrical trailers, as well as a quick menu to cut to the top six gore scenes in the film, obviously full of spoilers. Of course, this film also includes the reversible cover with both classic and new artwork, and a collector's booklet. This is arguably the most complete collection of features for Opera anywhere in the English speaking world, competing only with the out of print Anchor Bay limited edition which also included a CD soundtrack for the film.
Sleepless and The Card Player get similar releases not quite up to the Opera standard, but still quite complete. They both feature the now familiar trailer reel, reversible cover art, folt ou posters, and exclusive booklets, but they add more to the package to differentiate themselves from former weaker home video appearances for these films. They both appear in their OAR, both original stereo audio tracks and 5.1 surround tracks. Sleepless has an original featurette entitled "Murder, Madness, and Mutilation: Sleepless and the Modern Italian Giallo" which has interviews with Joe Dante (Gremlins), and Tony Timpone (Fangoria). Sleepless is missing a few features from other home video releases, including the Argento doc, An Eye for Horror, but that documentary shows up on another Arrow Video release that I will get to shortly. The Card Player is another that is missing a couple of extras from the Anchor Bay US release, however, it bests that disc on the most important stat, video quality. The Anchor Bay release was interlaced and the Arrow Video disc is correctly flagged as progressive. 5 or 6 years ago, this might not have been such a big deal with lots of people still owning CRT monitors, but with the prices plummeting on flat panel screens, interlaced features have become increasingly vilified, and with good reason, they look terrible! The Card Player does have a "making of" featurette and a "behind the scenes" featurette to add to its CV.
Now for the king of Argento releases thus far in the Arrow Video catalog: Inferno. This is Arrow Video's first Blu-ray release of one of their Argento films, and though I haven't yet seen it, it is getting raves from all the usual suspects, including Twitch! Though, there has been another awesome edition promised to us from Germany's Koch and Camera Obscura, I still think Arrow's release is, so far, the one to beat. Arrows Video's 30th anniversary edition is chock full of special features and even more great paper based goodies than all the rest of their Argento features. This release is available on DVD and Blu-ray, which both have almost identical special features, however, the Blu-ray does have an exclusive Q & A with some big name horror scholars, including Video Watchdog's Tim Lucas, who is a wealth of information, star Irene Miracle, and Keith Emerson. Also included in the packages are not just two, but four reversible cover art choices, including one original and three classics, the exclusive collector's booklet, fold out two-sided poster, and a really cool white slipcase with a window for the Blu-ray only. Other supplemental features include: an introduction by Daria Nicolodi; "The Other Mother", a look at Luigi Cozzi's unofficial sequel to Inferno, "The Black Cat"; an interview with Daria Nicolodi; "X Marks the Spot", an Easter egg containing Argento providing some his memories of the great Mario Bava; Dario Argento and Lamberto Bava providing their thoughts on Inferno and its making; and finally, An Eye For Horror, the Argento TV documentary "missing" from Arrow Video's Sleepless DVD. It is really quite a package. The most important thing, though, is that it is the first appearance of this film on English friendly Bu-ray and its first appearance ever uncut in the UK, thanks to Arrow.
Arrow Video has many future plans to continue their Argento line, starting with Deep Red coming on Blu-ray this fall/winter before 2010 is up. Currently it is on the schedule for November 15th, but Arrow have been known to bump their releases back a little bit if everything isn't' just so. Honestly, I'd much rather have a complete and well-crafted package in a week than a problematic one now. This is for our benefit. 2011 sees a whole new slate of Argento releases coming to Blu-ray if all goes well. I'm not at liberty to discuss particular titles yet, but believe me, when I get the go ahead, I'll spill the beans immediately!
Arrow Video are one of the good distributors, they care about their films deeply, and they understand that their customers do, as well. They ask for input, and unlike some other labels, they actually listen to the feedback and adjust things as they go along. One of the greatest assets of Arrow Video is the Cult Labs forum. Arrow Video and Shameless Screen Entertainment use this forum to elicit opinions and poll members not only on what kinds of features and artwork should go into their releases, but also what properties they should look into buying! I've really never seen such an interplay of distributor and consumer, it is amazing. I highly recommend you visit the forum and give it a read, it is quite enlightening, and unlike many boutique labels, Arrow Video are pretty open about their future plans and where their releases are in the production pipeline.
That's it for the Argento portion, if you have any questions about these releases, please leave them in the comments and I'll be sure get as good an answer as I'm able! Later on in the week, we'll take a look at Arrow Video's other Italian output from Lucio Fulci and Mario and Lamberto Bava, including some upcoming releases!