Got my copy of the smaller (but still gigantic) set yesterday and I agree about Blood Feast - it's pretty stunning looking.cdnchris wrote:I'm 6 films in and I'm fairly impressed but there are limitations. The digital presentations themselves are solid, though.
Blood Feast and Color Me Blood Red look shockingly good. Colours can look off and blacks can be crushed, but the restorations are thorough, just some minor issues remain.
2000 Maniacs! shows more damage and comes from multiple sources. Arrow also had to use a standard definition source from Something Weird Video to fill in a few gaps. There is one long sequence at the camp fire that uses this but the rest, limited mostly to the first half, are quick inserts. Moonshine Mountain does this to an extent as well, but it's mostly sourced from badly degraded film prints and it literally jumps back and forth between these sources and the changes are obvious. The damage is so bad, though, I somehow doubt any restoration could have been done without making the image look like a digital mess.
Something Weird is also heavily damaged but according to notes it was the best they could do. Scum is decent enough. Damage is still pretty consistent and there is a bad flicker but it's still decent enough.
I again have to stress that any issues are really source related and I really doubt much more could have been done than what they've already done. The digital presentations themselves are all quite good and don't exasperate any problems. They look like film presentations and detail is strong (you know, when the camera is actually in focus).
It's a bummer that not all of the films can look so good, but it's obvious that Arrow did the best that they could with all of the available elements. Of the three that I've watched, The Gruesome Twosome is in the worst shape, with constant damage, missing frames, and inserts taken from SWV's old master. Still, these are drive-in movies and the grubby presentations actually kind of work in their favor?
Looking forward to checking out the films that I hadn't seen before (Moonshine Mountain, Taste of Blood, She-Devils, Just For the Hell of It, How to Make a Doll, and This Stuff'll Kill Ya)!