Editorials
Long Live Physical Media: 5 Labels Every Horror Fan Should Know
Right now is an excellent time to be a fan of the horror genre and collector of physical media, as there are so many incredible companies doing great work in the space.
Here are five labels every horror fan should be aware of…
Vinegar Syndrome
If you have a deep interest in film preservation and film archives, you may already know the term “vinegar syndrome” which refers to the chemical process that causes a breakdown of film reels over time. These reels smell strongly like vinegar, hence the name.
Vinegar Syndrome the label was founded in 2012 with the goal to preserve and restore films from the 1960s through the 1980s. Preservation has always been top of mind with Vinegar Syndrome. Still, because of their fantastic preservation and restoration work, we also get some of the best DVD, Blu-ray, and 4K releases on the market from their archive.
While Vinegar Syndrome got its start releasing a lot of X-rated, exploitation, and erotic films, they began to shift into more cult horror as they expanded. Their current lineup of available 4K and Blu-ray restorations include more recognizable movies like Madman, From Beyond, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2, and The Amityville Horror, but they also have a ton of deep cuts available as well. If you want a Blu-ray copy of The Devonsville Terror, Graduation Day, Hobgoblins, or Blades, they have you covered there.
Vinegar Syndrome puts a ton of effort into its physical media releases, with high-quality packaging and unique artwork, loads of special features, and simply the best film restorations available in the genre. Watching some of their restorations is truly like watching a movie again for the first time. Since 2012, Vinegar Syndrome has also expanded quite a bit with partner labels which can be found on their website including The American Genre Film Archive, Deaf Crocodile, Culture Shock, and others that add to their impressive catalog.
If you are a horror fan, do yourself a favor and check out Vinegar Syndrome. They are worth every penny, and you simply will not find a better release of their movies anywhere on the market.
Shout! Factory/Scream Factory
Shout! Factory has been around in the home entertainment game since 2002 and is well known for its DVD and Blu-ray releases of many classic TV shows, animation, and cult movies. For horror fans, Shout! Factory become a household name when it announced the creation of its partner label, Scream Factory, in 2012.
With the launch of Scream Factory came dozens of new “Collector’s Edition” Blu-ray releases of some of the best movies the horror genre has to offer. These Collector’s Editions come with slipcovers featuring new artwork, tons of special features, and occasionally an optional full-size poster or other add-ons that make them one of the best labels at catering to the collector and hardcore fan.
Scream Factory may have the most extensive catalog of any label on this list, especially in the slasher subgenre, including films like Sleepaway Camp, Child’s Play, Carrie, The Thing, The Burning, and Terror Train. Scream Factory has also released incredible box sets for Friday the 13th, Halloween (with new 4K UHD releases for the first 8 films), Critters, The Fly, and collections focused on stars like Vincent Price and Paul Naschy.
Scream Factory also has a licensing deal with IFC Midnight, one of the best horror movie production companies out there today. If you want an IFC Midnight film on DVD or Blu-ray, chances are Scream Factory will have it.
Scream Factory is probably the most accessible label on this list, with recognizable titles and price points that will make your wallet happy. If you are looking for a place to start a physical media horror movie collection, Scream Factory would be a great starting point.
Arrow Video
In 1991 a small family-owned film distribution company called Arrow Films was founded in the United Kingdom. For years they focused on theatrical distribution, but in 2009 they launched the Arrow Video label to release cult/horror movies on DVD & Blu-ray to the UK market.
Since then, Arrow Video has expanded outside of the UK to offer releases to the North American market with an extensive catalog of impressive movies, restorations, and collectible packaging. Arrow Video has become well known for their Limited Edition releases which typically feature a hard case box with newly commissioned artwork. Each box includes double-sided posters with both the original art and the new art, a book with essays and critical analyses of the film, and of course, the Blu-ray or 4K UHD release of the film.
Arrow Video offers a wide variety of horror movies including limited editions of genre classics like Tremors, The Hills Have Eyes, and An American Werewolf in London and other great Blu-ray/4K releases of films like Hell High, Children of the Corn, and Society. Arrow also has a special focus on foreign horror, with incredible box sets for series like Ringu (The Ring) and Ju-On (The Grudge) as well as their Giallo Essentials series and fantastic release of Dario Argento’s filmography including Deep Red, The Bird with the Crystal Plumage, and The Cat O’Nine Tails. Outside of horror, Arrow has plenty of other films from genres like Asian Cinema, Film Noir, Cult Cinema, and Sci-Fi including their excellent Shaw Brothers box sets, True Romance, Robocop, and Wild Thing.
One thing to keep in mind when buying from Arrow Video is that their releases do vary depending on the location, so some of what is available in the UK will not be available in the US/Canada, and vice versa, so pay attention to the region coding of the discs. But no matter what is available in your area, Arrow Video makes fantastic box sets and limited editions that are sure to make any horror collector happy.
Vestron Video Collector’s Series
Vestron Video is likely a name that longtime horror fans know well, as it was one of the most popular home video distribution companies from the 1980s through the early 1990s. However, the label was brought back from the grave in 2016 by Lionsgate Home Entertainment with a new line of collectible Blu-ray releases beginning with cult classics Blood Diner and Chopping Mall.
For this new label, Lionsgate took the Vestron Video logo and gave it a fresh update, added spine numbers to each release, and introduced new artwork and slipcovers that have had horror movie fans chasing these Blu-rays to complete their collection.
The Vestron Video Collector’s Series has introduced a wide range of horror movies to Blu-ray for the first time from various production companies. There are a handful of popular Vestron Video titles, but the line also includes titles from Lionsgate and their production companies like Artisan Films and Trimark Pictures.
Some of the movies in this Collector’s Series include classic horror movies like Maximum Overdrive, Slaughter High, The Gate, and Waxwork. More recently, the series has shifted to include more cult films like Steel Dawn, Earth Girls Are Easy, and Dream a Little Dream, but the series remains horror focused as their most recent releases include The Silent Night Deadly Night Collection and The Dentist Collection.
With 29 titles as of the publishing of this article, the Vestron Video Collector’s Series is slowly growing but is still small enough to make for a fun project for collectors to acquire a complete set. I will say, they look great on a shelf, especially with those individual spine numbers!
Blue Underground
Blue Underground is a label that has been around for roughly twenty years but really picked up steam for collectors in the last several years as they released several extremely high-quality Blu-ray and 4K UHD movies. While their early history tended to skew more toward erotica, they have recently shifted more toward horror.
The Blue Underground catalog is a bit smaller than the others on this list but in this case, it is a matter of quality over quantity. Blue Underground has some of the finest 4K UHD video restorations available and packages them with lenticular slipcovers of original theatrical artwork. Most releases include hours of special features on a second disc, and some even include CDs containing the original soundtrack.
The catalog here has some deeper cuts than the average horror fan may recognize but includes titles like House by The Cemetery, Zombie, Uncle Sam, Daughters of Darkness, and The Toolbox Murders and films from directors like Dario Argento, Larry Cohen, George Romero, and Larry Cohen. Whether you see a title you recognize or not, these movies are well worth checking out to expand your horror movie experiences, and well worth the purchase as a collector.
While these five physical media labels are all great choices for horror movie fans, they are certainly not the only options. Some honorable mentions that could have easily made this list include Synapse Films, Severin Films, and the newly formed Terror Vision, but don’t forget about the work that larger labels like Kino Lorber, Criterion Collection, or Paramount Presents are doing for the genre either. While horror may not be their main focus, there have been plenty of great horror Blu-rays from each company that are worth a collector’s time.
Long live physical media!
Editorials
11 Years Later: The Horrific Cycles of Violence in ‘Only God Forgives’ Starring Ryan Gosling
Traditionally, movie theater walkouts are usually associated with the horror genre, with infamous cases ranging from 1973’s The Exorcist (particularly during the crucifix masturbation scene) and even Lars Von Trier’s controversial serial killer memoir, The House That Jack Built.
That being said, there are exceptions to this rule, as some movies manage to terrorize audiences into leaving the theater regardless of genre. One memorable example of this is Nicolas Winding Refn’s 2013 revenge thriller Only God Forgives, a film so brutal and inaccessible that quite a few critics ended up treating it like a snuff film from hell back when it was first released. However, I’ve come to learn that horror fans have a knack for seeing beyond the blood and guts when judging the value of a story, and that’s why I’d like to make a case for Winding’s near-impenetrable experiment as an excellent horror-adjacent experience.
Refn originally came up with the idea for Only God Forgives immediately after completing 2009’s Valhalla Rising and becoming confused by feelings of anger and existential dread during his wife’s second pregnancy. It was during this time that he found himself imagining a literal fistfight with God, with this concept leading him to envision a fairy-tale western set in the far east that would deal with some of the same primal emotions present in his Viking revenge story.
It was actually Ryan Gosling who convinced the director to tackle the more commercially viable Drive first, as he wanted to cement his partnership with the filmmaker in a more traditional movie before tackling a deeply strange project. This would pay off during the production of Only God Forgives, as the filmmaking duo was forced to use their notoriety to scrounge up money at a Thai film festival when local authorities began demanding bribes in order to allow shooting to continue.
In the finished film, Gosling plays Julian, an American ex-pat running a Muay-Thai boxing club alongside his sociopathic brother Billy (Tom Burke). When Billy gets himself killed after sexually assaulting and murdering a teenager, Julian is tasked by his disturbed mother (Kristin Scott Thomas) with tracking down those responsible for the death of her first-born child. What follows is a surreal dive into the seedy underbelly of Bangkok as the cycle of revenge escalates and violence leads to even more violence.
SO WHY IS IT WORTH WATCHING?
There’s no right or wrong way to engage with art, but there are some films that clearly require more effort from the audience side in order to be effective. And while you can’t blame cinemagoers for just wanting to enjoy some passive entertainment, I think it’s always worth trying to meet a work of art on its own terms before judging it.
Despite being a huge fan of Drive, I avoided Only God Forgives for a long time because of its poor critical reception and excessively esoteric presentation. It was only years later that I gave the flick a chance when a friend of mine described the experience as “David Lynch on cocaine.” It was then that I realized that nearly everything critics had complained about in the film are precisely what made it so interesting.
If you can stomach the deliberate pacing, you’ll likely be fascinated by this stylish nightmare about morally questionable people becoming trapped in a needless cycle of violence and retaliation. Not only is the photography impeccable, turning the rain-slicked streets of Bangkok into a neo-noir playground, but the bizarre characters and performances also help to make this an undeniably memorable movie. And while Gosling deserves praise as the unhinged Julian, I’d argue that Vithaya Pansringarm steals the show here as “The Angel of Vengeance,” even if his untranslated dialogue is likely to be unintelligible for most viewers.
However, I think the lack of subtitles ends up enhancing the mood here (even though some editions of the film ended up including them against the director’s wishes), adding to the feeling that Julian is a stranger in a strange land while also allowing viewers to project their own motivations onto some of the “antagonists.”
And while Only God Forgives is frequently accused of burying its narrative underneath a pile of artsy excess, I think the heart of the film is rather straightforward despite its obtuse presentation. I mean, the moral here is basically “revenge isn’t fun,” which I think is made clear by the horrific use of violence (though we’ll discuss that further in the next section).
To be clear, I’m still not sure whether or not I enjoyed this movie, I just know that I’m glad I watched it.
AND WHAT MAKES IT HORROR ADJACENT?
There are two different kinds of gore effects. One of them is meant to entertain viewers with exaggerated wounds and excessive blood as you admire the craftsmanship behind the filmmaking. The other kind is simply a tool meant to simulate what actually happens when you injure a human body. Like I mentioned before, Only God Forgives isn’t trying to be “fun,” so you can guess what kind gore is in this one…
From realistic maimings to brutal fist fights that feel more painful than thrilling, the “action” label on this flick seems downright questionable when the majority of the experience has you wincing at genuinely scary acts of grisly violence. I mean, the story begins with an unmotivated rampage through the streets of late-night Bangkok and ends with the implication of even more pointless violence, so it’s pretty clear that you’re not really meant to root for an “action hero” here.
I can’t even say that the deaths resemble those from slasher flicks because the movie never attempts to sensationalize these horrific acts, with Refn preferring to depict them as straightforward consequences of violent people going through the motions – which is somehow even scarier than if this had just been yet another hyper-violent revenge movie.
Not only that, but the characters’ overall lack of moral principles makes this story even more disturbing, with the main antagonist being the closest thing to a decent person among the main cast despite also being a brutal vigilante.
Only God Forgives doesn’t care if you like it or not (and actually takes measures to make sure that the viewing experience is often unpleasant), but if you’re willing to step up to this cinematic challenge and engage with the narrative and visuals on their own terms, I think you’ll find an unforgettable nightmare waiting for you on the other side.
There’s no understating the importance of a balanced media diet, and since bloody and disgusting entertainment isn’t exclusive to the horror genre, we’ve come up with Horror Adjacent – a recurring column where we recommend non-horror movies that horror fans might enjoy.
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