Editorials
Beware of Bootlegs When Navigating the Blu-ray Market
By now we’ve all been beaten over the head repeatedly when it comes to the pirating of movies via illegal downloads and streams. Typically these discussions about pirating seem to revolve around newer films from the big studios. What we don’t hear about as often is how pirating and releasing illegal copies of Blu-rays and DVDs impacts the little labels. These are the labels responsible for bringing all these weird, obscure cult movies to Blu-ray that I’m sure most of us never expected to see beyond the VHS days. Bootleggers can severely damage these companies by releasing illegal Blu-ray and DVD version of their titles for pennies on the dollar.
Sascha Imme, the CEO & Head of Acquisitions over at OFDb Filmworks in Germany, recently took to the OFDb website to tackle the issue of bootlegging. Sascha wrote a wonderful piece talking about the variety of issues that arise when someone makes illegal copies of a movie and tries to pass them off as legit. I wanted to pass some tidbits from Sascha’s blog onto the Bloody Disgusting readers because I know that much like myself, many of you are avid collectors of physical media. And when these bootlegs happen, it hurts the collector just as much as the labels.
Special shout out to BD reader Horst Matuschek for bringing this blog to my attention. I translated Sascha’s article from German to English using Google Translate so it’s not a perfect translation but you should be able to get the gist of it.
The situation is different, however, when the fictional teenagers (or below rather an adult) is Downloading and burning on a 20 cent blank and sold for 25 euros. And here we are in business of bootleg traders: take a foreign DVD or Blu-ray, the German soundtrack pack to then burn the result on a cheap blank – and hope for as many buyers.
This form of crime is a completely different caliber and harms not only the film industry, but ultimately also the inexperienced buyer who can not tell the difference in a legal publication (or want?) [and a bootleg copy] Bootlegs appear natural…and in some cases even [available] in commercial online stores.
Could we not be indifferent? No! After all, are we now a film label. We pay money for licenses, money for bonus material, money for beautiful packaging – Bootlegger make [none of] that. They steal diligently. And that bothers us not only “because it a matter of principle ‘, but currently also again very concretely: Two published by us tracks are brazenly offered as Bootleg – earlier on DVD and recently even as a burned Blu-ray.
This isn’t the whole blog and again the translation isn’t perfect, but I think you can see the very valid and important points Sascha brings up. From a buyer perspective it can be very difficult to tell the difference between a bootleg copy and a legit copy, especially when you’re looking to buy something online. Once you get the copy in hand you can usually tell pretty quickly if it’s a bootleg. A lot of bootleg Blu-rays come on BD-R’s for example. These can still be dolled up to look very nice, but at the end of the day they’re still a BD-R. To further complicate the matter however, some legit releases can be BD-R. Just depends on the release and the label releasing it.
Adding to the difficultly is a lot of the times these bootleg copies are the random one-off horror titles. The stuff we usually have to go to a foreign market to get. Given that there could be a language barrier this makes things all the more tricky. And, as Sascha pointed out, these bootleggers are sometimes able to get their stuff onto legitimate commercial sites like Amazon, so even if you buy from a site you trust you’re not entirely safe. These bootleggers do not care either. They’ll illegally release a movie even if they know someone already has the rights and is planning a release. This actually happened with OFDb and their upcoming release of Humanoids of the Deep that someone bootlegged.
We’re not going to be able to get rid of bootlegging entirely. That’s just not possible. But we can do our best to limit it and make sure it isn’t a successful and profitable approach for those trying to make a quick buck off someone else’s product. As I’ve said it’s not always easy to spot a bootleg right away, so you may buy one unknowingly. The key once you know is to not buy from that person or “label” again and make sure everyone you know that purchases Blu-rays and DVD does the same. Not only does it help the real labels, but it’ll save you from wasting your hard earned money on an inferior product.
There’s plenty of great companies out there – Arrow Films, Synapse, Kino Lorber, Scream Factory, OFDb Filmworks, Umbrella Entertainment, Criterion, Vinegar Syndrome, Shock, Koch Media, Illusions ULTD, Severin, Blue Underground, Artsploitation – the list goes on and on. We have lots of options for cult film on Blu-ray. Keep supporting labels like these while shutting down the bootleggers and they’ll continue bringing us the films we love.
You can read Sascha Imme’s full blog on bootlegs here.
From child-eating witches to village-burning dragons, fairy tales have always had a foot in the horror genre. That’s why it makes sense that, for every The Hobbit and The Chronicles of Narnia, there are also darker and more adult-oriented stories about magical worlds inhabited by ravenous monsters and cruel villains.
Funnily enough, these sinister tales were precisely the ones that I gravitated towards back when I was a kid, and I was reminded of this while watching Netflix’s recently released I Am Frankelda, Mexico’s first ever feature-length stop-motion animation and one hell of an entertaining parable about the intersection between fiction and reality.
In honor of this special kind of horror-adjacent fairy tale, today I’d like to share this list recommending six Dark Fantasy films that horror fans might enjoy.
For the purposes of this list, we’ll be defining Dark Fantasy as fantastical stories that don’t shy away from the more macabre elements that fuel classic fairy tales. That being said, don’t forget to comment below with your own grim favorites if you think we missed a particularly thrilling one.
With that out of the way, onto the list!
6. Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters (2013)
I’m fascinated by bizarre attempts at blockbuster filmmaking – especially when the resulting movies are somehow still fun despite their corporate-mandated origins. Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters is precisely one of these strangely compelling studio projects, as this surprisingly successful action-thriller boasts a lot of heart (and tongue-in-cheek humor) for a CGI-heavy creature feature.
Directed by Dead Snow’s Tommy Wirkola, Witch Hunters re-frames the classic fairy tale as an origin story for a duo of badass monster-slayers. Of course, it’s the flick’s anachronistic aesthetic and overall visual flair that make it stand out from other action-horror endeavors from around the same time.
5. The Wolf House (2018)
Made in the tradition of faux cursed films in the same vein as Antrum: The Deadliest Film Ever Made, the eerie backstory to 2018’s Chilean animated flick The Wolf House (La Casa Lobo in the original Spanish) already makes it a nightmarish experience before the flick even really begins.
After all, the movie is presented to us as a faux propaganda film produced by the leader of a death cult (heavily inspired by the real life Colonia Dignidad), with this hybrid animated feature using complex movie magic to simulate a single uninterrupted shot as it tells the story of a lazy young girl who runs away from an isolated colony and encounters a creepy old house in the woods.
4. The Brothers Grimm (2005)
Out of all the Monty Python alumni, Terry Gilliam has had the most interesting career outside of the original comedy group. From fascinating canceled projects (such as his scrapped adaptation of Watchmen) to dystopian parodies that feel more relevant by the minute (1985’s Brazil), even his “lesser” films are still intriguing in their own way.
2005’s The Brothers Grimm is one such project, with this peculiar movie attempting to combine the comedian-turned-filmmaker’s unique visual style with a more blockbuster-oriented plot reimagining the titular brothers as con-artists rather than mere writers. The end result isn’t exactly a masterpiece, but it’s still a legitimately fun ride with plenty of memorable monsters and wonderful performances by both the late, great Heath Ledger and Matt Damon.
3. Dante’s Inferno: An Animated Epic (2010)
2010’s Dante’s Inferno game may have a reputation as something of an unapologetic God of War clone, but I’d argue that the now-obscure game was aesthetically unique enough to deserve a bigger fanbase. However, while the title remains trapped on the seventh console generation, its highly underrated anime adaptation is a lot easier to get a hold of!
Animated by 6 different studios in order to make the 9 circles of hell feel unique from each other, this may not be a completely faithful adaptation of Dante Alighieri’s poem, but it’s still one heck of a great (not to mention gory) time that I’d highly recommend to fans of Netflix’s take on Castlevania.
2. Underworld: Rise of the Lycans (2009)
My personal favorite entry in the Underworld franchise, Rise of the Lycans, is a highly ambitious prequel that actually works better if you haven’t had the story spoiled to you by the previous Underworld films.
While the rest of the series features plenty of urban fantasy elements as the movies combine machine guns and modern environments with gothic storytelling, Patrick Tatopoulos’ prequel fully embraces its fantastical origins and tells a classic tale about a doomed romance between a werewolf and a vampire amid a medieval uprising.
And the best part is that we get a lot more Michael Sheen as the fan-favorite Lucian.
1. Solomon Kane (2011)
One of my personal favorite movies on this list, MJ Basset’s criminally underseen adaptation of Robert E. Howard’s other iconic warrior is thoroughly steeped in horror ambience and features plenty of memorable monsters. However, it’s also a classic origin story for a swashbuckling hero that wouldn’t feel out of place in a tabletop RPG.
While I’ve already written about how the film deftly combines both horror and fantasy elements without breaking the bank, I’ll never pass up an opportunity to recommend the bizarre movie where James Purefoy expertly plays a puritan John Wick.
It’s just too bad that we never got the other films in this intended trilogy.
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