Monster Zero x SciFi Japan - Archive Only

Just found out that CALTIKI, THE IMMORTAL MONSTER, is getting a deluxe, 2-disc release from Arrow. Due out early April with a slew of bonus goodies. For those who don't know, it's a great "blob" type movie, with terrific cinematography courtesy of Mario Bava, in one of his earliest credited efforts.

Plenty of good things announced so far for this coming year, and this one's certainly near the top so far.

More fully remastered Bava is always good... now bring on a remastered "Hercules In The Haunted World".

No worries, Klen. I'm guessing that the price will drop at least 30% by the time it's out. That's the usual pattern for pre-release for some reason. I think the companies watch to see the number of pre-orders and adjust accordingly as the release time nears. Hardly ever seen something - especially an older film - stay at original retail by the time it hits shelves.

Heads up: the original digibook Blu-Ray release of Kong '33 has gone out of print, but it's being rereleased soon, presumably in a standard case.

Glad I asked for a copy for Christmas (and received one); I hadn't picked up a copy yet as I have the DVD set and had getting a blu-ray lower on my To Get list. The digibook is nice - I know the eventual re-release would have been an identical disc but the booklet is like having a TCM intro every time you want to watch the movie.

Went back to my from a year and half ago and amended it with what's transpired since then.


- The remaining Godzilla films, as well as anything kaiju related: any of Honda's other genre films, the Yokai films, Guilala, ect.
- The remaining Universal Monster Legacy sets (Dracula, Mummy, Invisible Man, Creature) as well as their most prominent non-monster films from the same era like The Black Cat (a Karloff/Lugosi set?)
- As many of the other Hammer Horror films as possible. The essential ones I want are the few left from WB and several favorites (The Devil Rides Out, Quatermass and the Pit) which are in the domain of Studio Canal/Lionsgate. With Lionsgate going headlong into cult titles I think this is more possible.
- We have Cat People from Criterion, now the rest of the Val Lewton catalog.
- Blu-Ray version of Warner's complete Thin Man movie series (I think this should be a general, retail release) as well as their box set of other films where William Powell and Myrna Loy were teamed (bit more obscure, this could be from the Archive).
- The rest of the Marx Brothers film, all owned by WB.
- Plenty of swashbucklers Warner owns: Captain Blood, The Sea Hawk, The Crimson Pirate, The Flame and the Arrow, Scaramouche, The Spanish Main, and anything else of that genre.
- All of the classic romantic comedies Warner owns featuring folks like Cary Grant, Katherine Hepburn, and Jimmy Stewart: The Philadelphia Story, Bringing Up Baby, Shop Around the Corner... oh, and the Gary Cooper/Barbara Stanwyck classic Ball of Fire (owned by Samuel Goldwyn, currently licensed to Warner)
- Other Warner genre films not already covered in the Special Effects Collection: The Thing From Another World, Gwangi, Giant Behemoth, Black Scorpion
- The '50s War of the Worlds.
- Pretty much the entire contents of Universal's classic sci-fi DVD set, mostly Tarantula and The Incredible Shrinking Man.
- Criterion upgrades: Thief of Bagdad, Red Beard, and all the Chaplin and Lloyd films they haven't released yet.
- Dersu Uzala. KINO's DVD looks very poor.
- Robert Altman's Popeye (Paramount)


Oddly, I life out the complete Pink Panther series back then. A big omission, but one I no longer have to worry about.

King Kong '33 is being reissued sans-digibook. This new cover is part of their 'Monster Mayhem' series of reissues (PacRim is getting one, Godzilla '14 will probably be next). The covers are supposed to have a '50s drive-in look, and I'm not sure if they're the interior covers as well or just special slipcovers.

^Criterion has released It Happened One Night on Blu-Ray! They're doing more and more studio titles!

The Thing From Another World has parts of the movie sourced from a lower quality source (scenes trimmed out in rerelease?), and they're looking for a complete, high quality print... somewhere. I feel that if they just plain can't find such a thing they'll eventually release the movie as-is.

The George Pal War of the Worlds is owned by Paramount, Paramount had a distribution deal with WB for its catalog titles for a few years but only released a few titles (mostly it was DVD rereleases). Paramount was apparently still in charge of the releases, Warner just made and distributer them, so blame them and now WB.

... I feel that between Criterion, the Warner Archive, Kino, Shout Factory, Arrow, Twilight Time, as well as Universal and Lionsgate actually putting out some catalog titles again that most of my wishes will be granted in the next few years. The pressure for the Classic Media Godzilla films will increase because they'll be some of the last prominent genre films to be released (like how Return of Godzilla's long unavailability made Kraken's release such a seller), I think someone like Arrow will start doing vintage kaiju movies, I know at least half of my list in WB titles and the problem with them is that they just have so many movies that even with them releasing a title every week from the Archive and licensing to Criterion it'll take a long time for them to release everything.

Anyway, here's a tumblr post detailing the extent of WB's 'Monster Mayhem' rereleases (DVD and Blu-Ray), or at least the ones we know about so far:

http://starestream.tumblr.com/post/1565 ... s-also-set

^^I wonder if that "Godzilla" re-release will contain the corrected video seen in TNT's recent broadcast?

I imagine they'll just be the previous releases with the new 'Monster Mayhem' slipcovers on 'em.

http://www.blu-ray.com/movies/One-Milli ... 61/#Review

Blu-ray.com's review of Kino's One Million Years B.C. - coming next week! Looks like a winner.

(fingers crossed WB announces Gwangi in a couple of days for their March releases)

^These are reissues, so I wouldn't count on a new release having a Monster Mayhem tie-in.

Word's coming out that the Monster Mayhem line is connected to the MonsterVerse: namely, by containing movie bucks for Skull Island.

I believe the Warner Archive releases are dictated simply by whether the movie had been remastered in HD by the studio. Naturally, they're going through their catalog and doing this for download/streaming purposes, but who knows what dictates the order in which it happens.

I want it to be tomorrow so that my One Million Years BC and It Came From Outer Space Blu-Rays would be here.

(first world problems)