The Gate Is Awesome (DVD/ Blu-ray Comparison)

This is a release I almost passed on, but I'm so glad I didn't.  I've owned The Gate a couple times before; it's a great film.  But the last version was a pretty neat special edition from Lions Gate (yes, there was actually a handful of catalog titles they didn't completely neglect), and I was thinking, you know, maybe the DVD was good enough; I could be content with that.  But when I looked up the specs online, I couldn't resist the siren call of all those extras.  And now that I've got it here at home, zero regrets.

The Gate is the story of a kid who finds out he has a hole that leads directly to Hell in his backyard, and this film is everything you'd want from that premise.  It's a blast, with a great cast of essentially all unknowns (Stephen Dorff grew up to be pretty famous; but you'd never recognize him here as a little kid in his first role), smart writing, really impressive special effects and a bevy of surprises.  It's just one cool, imaginative scene after another; and I'd honestly put it up there with the great horror movies of the 80s, right alongside the Nightmare On Elm Streets, Poltergeists, and anything else you'd hold up as an essential classic.

I kinda wish I'd held onto my old Gate DVDs just for this comparison, but it doesn't really matter.  You get it: the old ones were worse.  Originally, there was a really awful, fullscreen US DVD from a company called Platinum.  Other regions had comparable crap until Dutch Film Works put out an anamorphic widescreen DVD that was actually at least watchable (I think there might've been one in Germany, too).  But finally, eventually, Lions Gate heard fans' pleas for a proper special edition and delivered one in 2009.  That one I do still have, and like I said, almost decided was good enough.  But now they've issued it in HD as part of their Vestron line, and even though the master might look a little old and flat, it's a big improvement.

2009 DVD on top; 2017 blu-ray beneath.

2009 DVD left; 2017 blu-ray right.

This isn't a really impressive transfer where the colors pop and detail is super crisp.  But it still leaves the DVD well in the dust.  The colors are thankfully corrected, dialing down the excessive red to an attractive, lifelike image; and all that ugly compression is cleared away.  The dark scenes (and there are a lot of them in this movie) look a little low contrast and light on detail; but the daylight scenes look super (check out the close-up a little further down the page).  It's a solid, HD transfer that holds up to the scrutiny of a giant-sized TV, unlike the DVD, which looks like a washed out mess in comparison.  The blu is slightly matted to 1.85:1, but finds more horizontal information than it loses vertically, as opposed to curiously 1.79:1 DVD that only has a thin matte line along the top.

Both versions have stereo 2.0 mixes, but of course the blu has it in DTS-HD.  As ever, Vestron reliably includes optional English subtitles, but to be fair, the DVD had them, too.

So like I said, the DVD was already a special edition and had some great stuff.  There's a terrific audio commentary by director Tibor Takacs, writer Michael Nankin and effects artist Randall William Cook, plus two great featurettes by Red Shirt (yes, they did the old DVD back then, too): one on the special effects and one on the writing and development of the film.  They're full of great anecdotes and shouldn't be missed.  They also threw in a trailer and a slipcover with that cheesy art that features a kid who almost passes for Stephen Dorff but clearly isn't. And the good news is, the new Vestron blu includes all of that content from the DVD, but they've also come up with so much more.

There's an all new commentary that focuses more on the effects with Randall William Cook, Craig Reardon, Frank Carere, and matte artist Bill Taylor, and another of those score tracks where the first half is an interview with the composers (in this case: Michael Hoenig and J. Peter Robinson) and the second half is the soundtrack album.  Then there's a new half hour conversation between Takacs and Cook, and a new on-camera interview with Reardon.  What's great about these is that Red Shirt was clearly conscious of the fact that they were making new interviews with the same people, and managed to get a ton of new anecdotes and insights out of them without repeating any of what they said in the older interviews.  So that made all these interviews worthwhile, where on other special editions they'd tend to get repetitive.  Like on The Crazies DVD, Lynn Lowry repeated pretty much every anecdote word-for-word on each feature.  That's not the case here.  They also interview new people, including the film's producer Andras Hamori and effects man Carl Kraines.  And there's a great featurette where they pull together a whole batch of people we hadn't heard from before, including the assistant director, the actor who played the father, the stuntman who played one of the minions, and several more.  This disc really covers all the bases.  And they dug up a vintage 'making of' feature, where we get to hear from the filmmakers back during the time of production.  There are also two stills galleries, two trailers and a TV spot.  And of course it comes in a nice, shiny slipcover.

This blu-ray transfer may not be one for the showroom floor, but it's a big step up from what we've had before.  And in terms of special features, this could be Red Shirt's greatest release to date.  So it may be tempting to pass this one over - I almost did - but it really deserves a place on your shelf.

The Hateful Eight: Target Exclusive (DVD/ Blu-ray Comparison)

Quentin Tarantino's Academy Award winning The Hateful Eight on DVD and Blu-ray.  This is it?  There's just the one, practically barebones edition of the shorter, theatrical cut out there?  Even internationally?  Where's the fancy, six-disc, boxed in an authentic, working stagecoach edition?  There's got to be something out there, some smarter buy, some fancy collector's edition.  Well, there is the Target exclusive edition with its own bonus disc; that's a little bit better.

If you slept through 2015, The Hateful Eight is Tarantino's latest and supposedly eighth film.  I mean, lord knows how you'd come to all of that.  Even assuming we only mean his films as director, as opposed to writer, producer and/or actor (sorry, Destiny Turns On the Radio), so no True Romance or From Dusk Till Dawn, it still leaves a lot of questions.  Do Four Rooms or Sin City count?  Or not, because they're only partially directed by him?  If partials don't count, what about Grindhouse?  He only directed half (less if you count the fake trailers) of that one, but maybe Death Proof counts on its own?  And it's probably safe to assume pre-Reservoir Dogs juvenilia doesn't count, but how about Kill Bill?  Is that one or two?  I feel like the books had to be cooked a little to arrive at this cutesy Eight is eighth heading; it was a little more straight-forward in Fellini's case, but let's just let him have it.

Anyway, The Hateful Eight has some of Tarantino's usual depictions of excessive violence (thanks to Greg Nicotero), but for the most part it's a light, Western whodunit.  Kurt Russell is a bounty hunter escorting his convict, Jennifer Jason Leigh, to the hangman.  But he gets waylaid at a small in during a massive blizzard with a colorful rogues gallery, some or all of whom might secretly be there to take his prisoner.  As a light entertainment, it's pretty long and self-indulgent, but that's Tarantino for you.  Anyway, it's masterfully done enough that it keeps you hanging on to every second.  Beautiful, 70mm photography, a fantastic cast full of Tarantino regulars like Samuel Jackson, Michael Madsen and Tim Roth, and a score by Ennio Morricone.

If you've been following this film, then you should know there's an alternate, even longer cut of this film, called The Roadshow version - so called because Tarantino was touring with a 70mm print of this film.  The film as released, and the one that played in most theaters across the country, is almost three hours, but the Roadshow version is over three.  Now, a large chunk of that time came be accounted for by an overture and intermission in the Roadshow version, but there are also extended and exclusive scenes in that cut.  So where's that version on home video?  Nowhere.

And seeing as this film went to great expense to film on 70mm, it's surprising there's no 4k UltraHD disc.  Plus, with only two tiny featurettes for extras, is this a release to skip?  Is it like Nymphomaniac, where the full, director's cut would follow it up just a few months later?  Or like The Hobbit movies, where they hold onto the extended cuts with all the better extras for half a year, after letting all the suckers by the theatrical versions first?  Is a Criterion edition just around the corner?  Well, maybe; but it's been a while now and there haven't been any signs yet.  Tarantino might want to preserve the exclusive nature of his theatrical prints forever, and this might just be the best edition we'll ever get.  Maybe.  Who knows with Tarantino.  Let's just see what's available now.

Anchor Bay 2015 DVD on top, and their blu-ray below.

You can buy the DVD by itself, but the blu is a combo-pack, so you're going to wind up with the standard definition version anyway you slice it.  At least that gives me an easy comparison.  This film is super wide, framed at 2.75:1.  Having been shot in 70mm gives it the capacity for detail and image quality very few other films have the potential to achieve, and the cinematography wisely exploits that throughout the film.  In HD, detail is super crisp and sharp.  If you're looking for a blu-ray to test your set-up, The Hateful Eight would be a great choice.  That increased resolution really makes a difference, which you see when you get in close to the DVD.

Anchor Bay 2015 blu-ray on top, and their DVD below.

So much information is just washed away in SD.  In close-up, it looks like I'm comparing the blu to some old, non-anamorphic DVD from the 90s.  The blu-ray really makes a difference here, especially if you have the screen size to appreciate it.  Again, it makes you wonder how it could look in true 4k.

Audio-wise, the film is mixed in 5.1 and featured in DTS-HD.  There's also a Spanish dub and optional subtitles in both languages.

So, let's talk extras.  On most versions, there are just two short featurettes: one making of that runs seven and a half minutes long, and one about the 70mm format that's under five.  And about half of that second one is really a shameless advertisement for the roadshow.  They're not terrible, fans should give them a watch, but it's a pittance.  However, the Target exclusive version has a bonus DVD with a roughly thirty-minute long documentary that is at least distinctly better.  First of all, though, I have to point out that it's essentially an extended version of what's on the first disc.  Or, more accurately, the two short featurettes are cut out of this original, longer feature.  All of the footage in those two featurettes (except a little of the blatantly commercial talk in the second one) is contained in the bonus disc one.  But that one also has extended interviews with the cast, a behind-the-scenes look at scoring the film, and more on the 70mm stuff.  So it's definitely better.  And if you get it, there's absolutely zero reason to watch the short extras on disc 1.  Skip 'em; they're completely redundant.

content only on the bonus disc.

But I don't want to overhype it.  Even this bonus disc documentary isn't exactly Burden of Dreams.  It's still pretty short and not the special edition you'd expect for a film like this.  But it is a worthwhile improvement that feels more substantive than what everyone else gets.  The Target version also comes with a cool, lenticular slipcover.  The standard version comes in a slipcover, too, but not with that holographic-style front.  ...And, it should be pointed out, that Best Buy has an exclusive steelbook case, but no bonus disc.  Just in terms of content, the Target version is the only one that makes an improvement.

If you're a fan of this film, you don't have a lot of options.  The difference between the blu and the DVD is definitely noticeable, though.  And the Target exclusive isn't exactly amazing, but it gives you more than any other release, and as of this writing, can still be ordered new direct from their website.  So that's definitely what I'd recommend, unless you're going to hold out hope for a stellar Roadshow Edition a few more years down the pike.

The One and Only Lair Of the White Worm

Well, you know, curious cult films that lay way off the beaten path are right up this site's alley.  And you see I've been writing about a whole bunch of Ken Russell films.  Plus, I've been covering almost the entire Vestron line.  So was there ever any doubt that we'd be looking at the new, 2017 special edition blu-ray release of The Lair Of the White Worm?  I really love that Vestron isn't just going for the most obvious, franchise titles first, and instead creating a really diverse line-up of creative and interesting films.  And nothing says diverse, creative and interesting like Lair Of the White Worm.

Update 2/7/20: Just adding the 2003 Artisan DVD to the comparisons, no big deal.

Oh man, this film gets better every time I see it.  I mean, seeing it in HD for the first time might be part of it, but I really think it's my appreciation of the material that keeps rising the most.  Lair is a smart, trippy experience where Russell films the abridged and altered version of Bram Stoker's final, delirious novel, and of course lays his own layers of eccentric sensibilities on top of that.  I've seen (and okay, even taken part in) online arguments over whether this should be categorized as a comedy rather than a horror movie.  I mean, if you're calling it a comedy, you're not wrong.  Certainly, there's plenty of intentional wit (when the cop radios for back up and the voice over the radio responds, "I can't; you've got the car!") and campy humor to be enjoyed, and Ken even tosses the terms "satire" and "spoof" around in his audio commentary; but if you force the film to only play through that lens, I think you're missing something.  At it's heart, it's a "straight" horror film that's not afraid of its absurd roots and proud to indulge some wild divergences.

And apart from bringing the film to modern times, this is a more faithful adaptation than you might think.  Certainly, Russell adds a lot, like the crazy dream sequence, and there are a few scenes, like the worm rising over the forest, that you just know Russell would've loved to include but Vestron's budget wouldn't allow.  But instead of moping over what isn't here, let's celebrate everything that is.  This is a great cast, including an early role for Hugh Grant, who's better in this than he is in a lot of his later work.  Peter Capaldi makes a strong male lead decades before he'd become Doctor Who himself.  And Amanda Donohoe, who would go on to do one more film with Russell and then spend years as a regular cast member on LA Law, is the ultimate vamp.  The worm itself looks a fair bit dodgy, and the actual pit is a pure throwback to drive-in cinema; but the rest of the effects are great, from the super huge vampire fangs, an incredible, gruesome bisection scene and of course the wonderfully ambitious, video composite hallucination sequences.  It's also got some great locations, costumes and set design, plus one of the all-time great horror movie theme songs.

For the longest time, the counter-intuitive rule with this film was the oldest DVD was the best.  Pioneer/ Artisan released this as a nice, anamorphic widescreen special edition DVD way back in 1999, with an audio commentary and everything.  Unfortunately, when that went out of print, Artisan replaced it with a blander, no frills DVD in 2003, and that's been the official US release until, finally, now.  Vestron has just released a 2017, loaded Collectors Series blu-ray to render everything else here and abroad obsolete.

1) 1999 Pioneer DVD; 2) 2003 Artisan DVD; 3) 2017 Vestron BD.

The DVDs offer identical, slightly matted 1.82:1 transfers, while the blu open it up to 1.78:1.  But you'll notice not just the expected slivers of additional picture along the top and bottom, but also along the sides, particularly the right.  Colors are also warmer and more vivid and lines edges are a lot clearer and more natural.  We don't really discover much more detail, though the finer points are smudgier and softer on the DVD, which the blu certainly smartens up.  And we can easily make out the fine grain throughout, which suggests we're seeing pretty much all there ever was to see.  It could be a little more consistent; I'm not saying there isn't more potential for higher res improvement, but there's no doubt that what we have here is an attractive HD image that pulls way ahead of the old DVD.

Audio-wise, Vestron gives us the same stereo 2.0 mix as the DVDs, but now it's in DTS-HD, and for the first time ever, they've given Lair (optional English) subtitles.

Now, the original Pioneer DVD was a special edition, primarily by virtue of having a terrific audio commentary by Ken Russell.  Now Russell always did good commentary tracks, but here he's adopted a bit of a performative element in conjunction with the tone of the film, which is highly entertaining.  But don't get me wrong, it's not him being self indulgent and silly; it's a highly informative track that gives legitimate answers to the questions viewers of this film would have.  But he definitely adds some flavorful character as well.  Besides that, there's the trailer, some text-screen filmographies, and a nice insert.

The Artisan DVD, on the other hand, has been completely stripped bear, not even the trailer.

Hi, Ken!

But Vestron, as we've come to know by now, plays to win.  Working again with Red Shirt Pictures, who are really the top of the line guys in special features these days, Vestron starts out by yes, thankfully importing the original Ken Russell commentary.  Then they've created a new, second audio commentary with Lisi Russell, Ken's widow, and film historian Matthew Melia.  It's a pretty strong commentary, too, although Melia has an annoying habit of telling us what Russell said in his commentary (thanks, we just listened to it)... it would've been a lot better if he chose a magazine article or just about any other source in the world to quote Russell from.  Also, I'd suggest making a drinking game out of all the times Lisi exclaims "YES!" to something Matthew says, but I'd be liable for the fatalities.  But those quibbles aside, it is an engaging commentary that does provide some new insight as well.

And there's plenty more.  Several of the effects artists are interviewed to tell their boisterous anecdotes of working on this film at a young age in a nearly half-hour featurette.  Editor Peter Davies and actress Sammi Davis also get to share their personal experiences in two separate on-camera interviews.  And we get to hear from producer Dan Ireland for a quick episode of Trailers From Hell (oh good; Vestron is working with them now?  Let's hope to see them appear on more discs in future then).  The trailer's also here ("hang onto your asp!"), as well as a stills gallery; and as always, this disc comes in an attractive, glossy slipcover.

Can you tell I recommend this film?  I haven't been too subtle, have I?  Like a lot of Lions Gate catalog titles, this has been locked up for far too long, and getting this in an HD special edition has been long-awaited.  And it's turned out maybe even more satisfying that I expected, as my appreciation for this film continues to rise. Now bring us Warlock 1 & 2, Rawhead Rex, Nightwish, Eyes of Fire, Beyond Re-Animator, Alligator, Sundown: the Vampire In Retreat, Gothic, Metamorphosis: The Alien Factor, and all the other awesome titles you've got!

The Strange Oeuvre of Coffin Joe, Part 1

Collecting José Mojica Marins movies can be almost as weird and confusing as the films themselves. You'll find yourself encountering unreleased films, double-dips, alternate aspect ratios and untranslated imports. It's as frustrating as it is fun. Marins is a Brazillian exploitation director best known for his iconic horror character Zé do Caixão, or Coffin Joe to us English speakers. His work practically defines the concept "not for everyone," but if you're of the right mindset, there's a lot to be appreciated in his ambitious films, especially the Coffin Joe titles. When you get past those, you're really putting on your "I Am a Curiosity Seeker" hat.

Update 1/30/15 - 2/12/17: It's update time, boys and girls!  Synapse has just released their Coffin Joe Trilogy 3-DVD set.  How are the transfers?  What are the extras?  Is there anything new?  Should we replace our previous editions?  Let's have a look!  Oh, and I have also updated Part 2, but most of the pertinent new Synapse stuff is covered here in Part 1.

Update 2/12/24: Holy cow!  His films are in HD now?  Yes, Arrow has released a massive blu-ray boxed set featuring 4k restorations of his most famous features, which you can read a lot more about in Part 4. But we've done a whole overhaul of Parts 1 and 2, too.  I've been busy!

His films have been primarily available in three main DVD collections. The Coffin Joe Trilogy from Fantoma came out first in 2002, after their success and notoriety via a series of VHS tapes from Something Weird. The titles were all sold separately or available together in a pretty wicked awesome coffin-shaped boxed set. Each DVD also came with a cool, reprint of a Coffin Joe comic book, and you got a bonus fourth if you got the coffin set. It's now long out of print, but was reissued in Australia in 2011 with the same transfers and extras, minus only the coffin box and comic books.

Then, in 2009, in conjunction with the release of his Marins' comeback film, Anchor Bay released another boxed set in the UK called The Coffin Joe Collection, which included a bunch more titles.  And a few years after that, Marins released a huge boxed set of elaborate special editions through Cinemagia in Brazil called Coleção Zé do Caixão. A lot of it was untranslated, including most of the extras (we'll get into all those specifics, don't worry), but the films were.

In 2017, we got Synapse's The Coffin Joe Trilogy, which features the original two Coffin Joe films, plus his 2008 comeback, Embodiment of Evil, as opposed to the Fantoma set, which included Awakening Of the Beast as its third entry.  It also has more extras that the Fantoma set, much of which comes from the Cinemagia box.  Though fan hopes that they'd add subtitles to all the wonderful features there that lacked subtitles are mostly dashed; Synapse did at least do a little something.  But more on all the specifics as we come to them.

And of course, now we have HD versions of all three films in Arrow's 2024 blu-ray set, Inside the Mind of Coffin Joe.  How do those new transfers look compared to what came before?

At Midnight I'll Take Your Soul is the debut of Coffin Joe from 1963, the first of the trilogy. Here we're introduced to the evil undertaker (played by Marins himself) who keeps a small village under his thumb and is determined to find the perfect mate to give him a heir. He defies God by eating lamb on Good Friday and screaming monologues at the sky, treats people terribly, kidnaps potential concubines and even murders those who oppose him. It's a weird and original story, and Joe is a fantastic character. Opposed to those great elements are a low budget and non-professional filmmaking techniques as Brazil really didn't have a film industry. The flaws will drive most people far away from these films, but those remaining will have a huge grin on their face. This is something wild.

1) 2002 Fantoma DVD; 2) 2009 Anchor Bay DVD; 3) 2012 Cinemagia DVD;
4) 2017 Synapse DVD; 5) 2024 Arrow BD.

The original Fantoma set boasted of their 1.66:1 widescreen transfer from the 35mm negative and supervised by Marins himself. Unfortunately, the discs are non-anamorphic, but I guess with 1.66 you can just about get away with that; but they're still going to look window-boxed on your widescreen TVs. Especially when, as in this case, it's really 1.53:1.  I'm sure they look heaps better than the old video tapes, but they still look soft and dirty and sound hissy. Anyway, the Cinemagia transfer looks almost identical, but a bit brighter and softer. And as we can see the Anchor Bay set is very different, being both unmatted at about 1.25:1, and... yellow.  The Synapse is fullscreen but at a more traditional 1.33:1 and without the yellow tinting.  It has deeper blacks, like the Fantoma (as opposed to the faded Cinemagia), and it also seems to have been a bit cleaned up - note the absence of most of the dust and dirt in the sky - but possibly at the cost of smoothing some grain.  That may be why Syanpse opted to make these DVD only, where the grain doesn't really bear out no matter what you do, anyway.

The Arrow restoration, a 4k scan of the 35mm interpositive and a print, is sticking with the full frame viewing, at a slightly wider 1.37:1, erring on showing more of the image than less.  It only shaves slivers off the sides compared to the AB and Synapse, and vertically compared to AB.  Grain is still on the soft side, but much more accurate than any of the previous releases.  This is one of the more subtle upgrades - later discs in this set are more distinct improvements - but unquestionably still a solid upgrade.  It has some of the strongest contrast levels yet, with solid blacks but if you look at the clergyman in the second set of shots, the highlights are not blown out for the first time ever.  A naturalism has been restored to this movie, with less dirt distress than ever (that smudge in the upper right-hand sky is finally gone).

The original mono is a bit hissy and noisy on all of these, even Arrow's lossless LPCM.  But the newer track is a better, with dialogue easier to discern.  It's also important to point out that the English subtitles are removable on the Fantoma, Cinemagia, Synapse and Arrow sets, but burned into the print on the AB set.

Extras-wise, the Fantoma disc has an insightful ten minute interview with Marins as its main feature. It's also got trailers for all three films in the set, the comic book (which is a seriously high quality, 35 page reproduction of an original Coffin Joe story - don't underestimate these bad boys), and an insert with notes from his biographer. Anchor Bay has... nothing.

And the Cinemagia disc? Oh man. Well, it starts with a really cool claymation Coffin Joe intro, that appears on all the Cine discs. Then the film opens with a tragically unsubtitled introduction by Marins in character as Coffin Joe. Other untranslated extras include an audio commentary, audio from two Coffin Joe records, a silent short film called Bloody Kingdom (with commentary by Marins) and clips of two other short films, interviews with the editor, composer, two DPs, and the screenwriter, a new (2002) Coffin Joe scene that ties into a scene from this movie, a new interview with Marins, a featurette called Who's Afraid of Coffin Joe where people seem to be asked on the street about their Coffin Joe memories, a short featurette on his website and multiple trailers. There's also the complete, infamous footage of his eye surgery, which has no audio, so English speakers can "enjoy" this feature as much as anybody else, as well as several stills galleries.

Claymation Joe

With all of that said, again, Synapse isn't giving us the definitive boxed set we all hoped they would with all those wonderful extras translated.  But they have given us a pretty sweet package.  First of all, they do have that cool claymation opening.  And next, it has the interview from the Fantoma disc.  Then, it includes the newer interview with Marins from the Brazilian set, finally translated!  It also includes the film intro from that set - finally translated!  It features that new scene - finally translated!  And it features the Bloody Kingdom short with the commentary, you guessed it - finally translated!  And finally, it includes two trailers for the film.  So it's pretty awesome... just try to block all the other, wonderful extras from the Brazillian set, like the interviews with the editor, composer and DPs, that got left behind.

Or you could've just waited for Arrow who... also left most of them behind.  They rescued and translated the audio commentary, though, which is no small thing.  And that Bloody Kingdom clip.  Apart from the trailers, though, none of the other stuff has returned, either from the Cinemagia set or any of the other releases.  We've gone backwards as much as we've gone forwards.  Arrow has included clips from two of Marins' other early works, though, a new visual essay and a bunch of other random stuff on the other discs that I cover in Part 4.  Real quick, though, I'd say the overall summation of the Arrow box is that the commentaries are awesome to finally get, but hang onto your old DVDs.

This Night I'll Possess Your Corpse (1966) is a the direct sequel to At Midnight I'll Take Your Soul, and Coffin Joe is back to up the ante. I hope I'm not giving too much away when I say that this is the film where Coffin Joe goes to Hell! I mean, literally, we see him walking around there and interacting; and those scenes are in full color, too. Holy shit, it's amazing! And no, that's not the ending. That just happens midway through; because Joe gets out to wreak more havoc on his quest to sire an heir and defeat God. And this time he has a hunchback assistant, too.

1) 2002 Fantoma DVD; 2) 2009 Anchor Bay DVD; 3) 2012 Cinemagia DVD;
4) 2017 Synapse DVD; 5) 2024 Arrow BD.

The first thing you'll notice is that This Night looks much better preserved than At Midnight. Probably partially because the negatives were kept in better condition (they were even able to be used for the blu), and partially because he had better equipment and more money this time around. Still, the differences between the transfers in At Midnight still seem to hold true here. The Cinemagia disc is still softer (possibly a compression issue with all the extras), though maybe not any brighter this time. AB is yellow again, full-frame (though a closer to normal 1.31:1 this time) and the subs are still burnt in.  And as with At Midnight, Synapse basically looks like a 1.33:1 version of the Fantoma set, which had at least been the best of the bunch.

Even the color scenes look a little off on the AB disc, with the blacks looking blue. Worse, though, is the fact that Anchor Bay also has this crappy interlacing issue going on, which is possibly the result of a poor NTSC to PAL transfer. Fantoma and Synapse clearly had the superior picture (in this rare color section, we see the colors are a little more natural on the Synapse version), with Cinemagia a reasonably close second, while Anchor Bay's are a mess.  But I say "had," of course, because Arrow has come and blown all past editions out of the water.  It's a 1.37:1 4k from the original 35mm negative and interpositive, even without clicking through to the full-size screenshots, the more natural grayscale speaks for itself.  It's a much more vivid picture, even if the colors are a little more muted than you might expect in the Hell sequence.  It feels like they could've cranked the saturation a bit more, like past DVDs have, just to make the image more gloriously spectacular.  But I suppose this is more accurate.

For extras, Fantoma once again has a Marins interview, plus the trailers, comic (they're all different) and another insert. And Anchor Bay has nothing.

Cinemagia continues to blow the others away, except for the fact that they're untranslated. It starts out with a new Coffin Joe intro to the film. There's another audio commentary. There's two more vintage recordings. There's six interviews, a featurette of Marins giving a tour of his museum, outtakes from a Coffin Joe commercial for Cinema Trash, a special effects make-up demonstration from some Marins project called Bruno (I think), a screaming test with a couple of actresses, another interview with Marins, a bunch of trailers, a website interview which might be the same as the last one and another episode of Who's Afraid of Coffin Joe. For us English speakers, well, there's a bunch of stills galleries... oh and an almost 30 minute documentary called The Universe of Mojica Marins! It has subtitles and it's pretty neat. It's a vintage doc about Coffin Joe from 1978 - if you've got the set and have been skipping the extras because they're not in English, go back and watch this.

And once again, Synapse comes in with a nice set of extras, but still leaving so much awesome Cinemagia stuff behind.  But we do get the Fantoma interview.  And we get one of the few already translated extras from the Brazilian box, the Universe documentary.  But newly translated from the Brazilian box are the new interview with Marins, the museum tour, and the introduction.  All those other interviews and stuff are not carried over, though we do also get the trailer and a photo gallery.  Again, Arrow drops that, and doesn't add much that's specific to this film besides the commentary... which is, of course, a great addition.  Other extras just on this disc could just as well be on any disc, as they relate more to Marins in general; and I cover that stuff in Part 4.

Now, Fantoma calls their set The Coffin Joe Trilogy and the third film they include is Awakening of the Beast (1969). But it's really just an unrelated, totally wacked out Marins film that, like many of his movies, has a strong hint of the Coffin Joe character in it. Marins himself has often said the trilogy was unfinished, and it was only in the late 2000s, when he made Embodiment of Evil (well after the Fantoma set had already come out), that he finally finished it. If you've been enjoying the Coffin Joe horror films so far, prepare for a huge shift and possibly a major disappointment. But if you can get past the fact that this isn't Coffin Joe 3, or even a horror movie at all, it's still pretty good, or at least interesting.

This is a very 60s film, showing the shocking things people might do while on LSD. Lots of dancing to bad music, sleazy sex... mostly those two things. Basically the film is a series of vignettes. Characters come, have their shocking LSD-induced moment, and then disappear, all being narrated by a couple of doctors talking about the effects of LSD. What would've been shocking in the 60s is tame now, making this pretty plodding and dull if you ask me. But the film picks up in the third act when Marins starts to get involved, playing himself. He experiments on some people, showing them his comics and movies (we even watch a clip of This Night), and talks about his work having strong psychological effects on people. It sounds like BS until he injects them with LSD and they hallucinate a crazy, full color sequence of Coffin Joe menacing them. It's trippy, imaginative, and a total blast. Coffin Joe walks across a bridge made of screaming humans, butts talk. Honestly, now that I've seen this film all the way through the first time, I tend to just skip to this part. It's got a great ending, too, which always makes me smile. The first half is just so rough to get through. So, I really don't think it has the broader appeal of the other Coffin Joe movies at all. But it is the most released of his films, not only included in all three sets, but as an individual release by Mondo Macabro. That's right, this next comparison is going to be a four-way.

1) 2002 Fantoma DVD; 2) 2002 Mondo Macabro DVD; 3) 2009 Anchor Bay DVD;
4) 2012 Cinemagia DVD; 5) 2024 Arrow BD.

Things get different here, and not just because we've added an extra disc into the mix. Anchor Bay, you'll notice, isn't full-screen and yellow... well, faintly more yellowish than most of the others, but not like before. Its subtitles are still burnt in, though. Cinemagia still looks very similar to Fantoma but a bit fuzzier. And Mondo Macabro actually looks the softest and fuzziest of all. Online sources sometimes cite MM as being fullscreen (example: filmaf), but all the DVDs are framed exactly the same at 1.66:1. They're all actually pretty close, with Anchor Bay rivaling Cinemagia. But Fantoma still looks the clearest, while Mondo Macabro looks almost VHS sourced.

But they all look like junk compared to Arrow's new 4k scan of a 35mm interpositive (and a print).  The framing has again opened up to 1.37:1, and it's curious how much bluer the color scene is here than it ever was before.  But it's just a whole different work of natural contrast, lossless audio and a genuinely crisp, filmic look.  I'm actually surprised Marin's footage ever looked this good.  And this is one of the films where the negatives didn't survive!

Mondo Macabro gets back into the race in the extras department, though. They've got a nice, little documentary called The Nightmares of Coffin Joe, which runs about 26 minutes and interviews not only Marins, but some of his collaborators, who we normally never get to hear from (they're on the Cinemagia set, sure, but not translated). If you're a big enough Coffin Joe fan, and starved for material like we all are, Nightmares is worth the price of admission alone. It's why I've got. Fantoma, meanwhile, comes slow but steady with another Marins interview, comic book, insert and set of trailers. And Anchor Bay - wait for it... has nothing.

And what has Cinemagia got for us this time? Another untranslated intro, commentary, pair of recordings, a 15 minute doc film on Joe called Fogo-Fatuo, five interviews, some kind of visit to the national archives about Marin's films, a weird orientation where Marins yells at what looks like college students and they squirm in their seats (hey, don't look at me), another Marins interview, another episode of Who's Afraid, more trailers, more stills galleries, and that website thing again (I don't know, maybe they are different on every disc). Nothing in English, though; move along.

And again, yes, Arrow has finally translated that commentary, but little else.  The trailer's back, and there are alternate opening credits in addition to their pair of expert video essays.  One of them is really just a shameless excuse to talk about himself using Marins as a framing device.  Meanwhile, Cinemagia's interviews are left rotting on the vine...

Marins from the Fantoma interviews, say goodbye to these

Well, that gets us through the "Coffin Joe Trilogy" (really two-thirds and a bonus Marins film), but there's still plenty more to go. But this post has started to get unwieldy in length and we've still got a lot of crazy movies to look at, so let's go ahead into Part 2...