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Arrow
Video started in the UK in 2009 with two cult titles: Lucio Fulci’s The
House by the Cemetery and Lamberto Bava’s Macabre.
The label ethos was ‘The Art of Cult Films is Back!’ and we still have that on
the packaging today. We were bored with formulaic Photoshop covers, all digital
and smooth, without personality or humour, and we thought it’d be cool if we
brought back those video store days when VHS covers were lurid and exciting. So
we had an artist paint new covers for each film but now for DVD – new releases
that had everything, great covers, extras, audio tracks and more. But we also
didn’t want to ignore the original art so we decided to do fully reversible
covers allowing you could choose between the new art or the original. Aside
from a few special edition boxsets every release has had a reversible sleeve to
this day.
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Each
edition was bursting (often literally) with extras: booklets, postcards,
on-disc interviews, commentaries, alternate audio tracks, documentaries and
more! Soon we started releasing films on Blu-ray, including George Romero’s Dawn and Day
of the Dead, but we didn’t want to stop there or fizzle out – why not
do a whole load of cult films, we thought? So we added action, sci-fi,
Blaxploitation, spaghetti westerns, euro crime, thrillers, erotica, sex
comedies, the plain weird and more. Our collection now spans more than 100
releases and includes films by Dario Argento, Mario Bava, Tinto Brass, Donald
Cammell, John Carpenter, Larry Cohen, Roger Corman, Wes Craven, David
Cronenberg, Joe Dante, Brian De Palma, Lucio Fulci, Toshiya Fujita, Kinji
Fukasaku, Terry Gilliam, Frank Henenlotter, Jack Hill, Tobe Hooper, Teruo
Ishii, Philip Kaufman, Jeff Lieberman, Seijun Suzuki, the Wachowskis, Brian
Yuzna and more!![]()
The
values that started our label in 2009 still stand today, though we’ve had a few
design tweaks here and there to get things just right and these days we tend to
restore a lot of films ourselves meaning we can rescue a lot of titles that are
stuck in material limbo!
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Since
we’ve seen so much great feedback and success in the UK we thought the timing
was right to expand into the US and Canada (where rights permit). As we’ve
restored so many films we thought it’d be great to make any new restorations
available on both sides of the Atlantic.
Our first
release will be Tonino Valerii’s Spaghetti Western Day of Anger [I
Giorni dell’ira, aka Gunlaw] it stars Lee Van Cleef post-The
Good, the Bad and the Ugly and SW legend Giuliano Gemma (A
Pistol for Ringo), and is described by the Spaghetti Western Database
as featuring “the real deal Van Cleef, complete with gunsight eyes [and]
Giuliana Gemma in fine form and one of the best theme tunes you'll ever hear.
All in all, this one is a winner.” It also features in the Top 20 lists of the
site admins, Quentin Tarantino and SW author Howard Hughes. With a brilliant
score by the legendary Riz Ortolani (whose music has been sampled in recent
hits Drive, Inglorious Basterds and Django
Unchained) as well as being lensed by DoP Enzo Serafin who worked
with Michelangelo Antonioni and Roberto Rossellini among others. The only
reason we can surmise that it’s not better known has been to its limited
availability on video so far, but that’s all set to change with our new
restoration!
Our
second release has been described as “positively the most horrifying film ever
made”, it’s Mark of the Devil, starring horror icon Udo Kier
(Blade, Flesh for Frankenstein, Suspiria) who plays a witchfinder’s
apprentice who’s faith in his master (Herbert Lom) becomes tested when they
settle in an Austrian village. This deluxe director-approved edition comes from a new restoration
featuring both English and German audio tracks and is bursting with extras
including a new commentary with director Michael Armstrong, a documentary on
the ‘new wave’ of British horror directors who emerged in the 60s and 70s,
critic Michael Gingold on controversial US distributor Hallmark, interviews
with cast and crew, the locations then and now, outtakes, a gallery, reversible
sleeve featuring new artwork by Graham Humphreys, a collector’s booklet
featuring artwork by Adrian Smith and Anthony Nield as well as an interview
with Reggie Nalder by David Del Valle, all illustrated with original stills and
artwork!
Third up
is the thrillingly bizarro yakuza-samurai-ghost story-horror hybrid from Teruo
Ishii, Blind Woman’s Curse (also known as Black
Cat’s Revenge). Starring Meiko Kaji (Lady Snowblood, Female
Prisoner #701: Scorpion) as Akemi, a dragon tattooed leader of the
Tachibana Yakuza clan. In a duel with a rival gang Akemi slashes the eyes of an
opponent and a black cat appears, to lap the blood from the gushing wound. The
cat along with the eye-victim go on to pursue the Tachibana gang in revenge,
leaving a trail of dead Yakuza girls, their dragon tattoos skinned from their
bodies. The release is newly remastered in HD and features an audio commentary
by Japanese cinema expert Jasper Sharp, a trailer and trailers for the Stray
Cat Rock films, a series which would help launch Kaji to fame around
the same time as Blind Woman’s Curse. Along with a collector’s
booklet featuring new writing by author and MidnightEye.com co-founder Tom Mes
and reversible sleeve featuring new artwork by Gilles Vranckx.
Future
releases include films never on DVD and/or Blu-ray from European and Japanese
cult directors, more will be revealed soon!
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Here are all the goodies you can receive for backing our project. Thanks in advance for your support!
$15 - Arrow Video Tee
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$25 - Blind Woman's Curse DVD/BD
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$25 - Mark of the Devil DVD/BD
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$25 - Day of Anger DVD/BD
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$25 - The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Miss Osbourne DVD/BD
20 - Massacre Gun DVD/BD
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$20 - Retaliation DVD/BD
$65 - 3 Unannounced titles. Includes The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Miss Osbourne, Massacre Gun and Blood and Black Lace (you will need to select either the standard or SteelBook edition)
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$65 - 3 Release Bundle. Includes Blind Woman's Curse, Mark of the Devil and Day of Anger.
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$100 - 5 Release Bundle. Includes Blind Woman's Curse, Mark of the Devil, Day of Anger, The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Miss Osbourne and Black Lace (you will need to select either the standard or SteelBook edition)
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$100 - 5 Unannounced titles. Includes The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Miss Osbourne, Massacre Gun, Black Lace (you will need to select either the standard or SteelBook edition), Retaliation and Island of Death!
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$175 - 10 Releases Bundle Includes Blind Woman's Curse, Mark of the Devil, Day of Anger, The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Miss Osbourne, Massacre Gun, Black Lace (you will need to select either the standard or SteelBook edition), Retaliation, Society, Island of Death and Spider Baby!
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$1,500 - 5 Year Gold List (**our 3 year Gold List has been upgraded to 5 years!**). Includes everything you see in the Arrow Video USA Collection below!
$2,500 - 10 Year Gold List. Includes everything you see in The Arrow Video USA Collection below!
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Investing
in a new and large territory like North America means a lot of upfront cash for
the investments we need to make at launch. Apart from the cost of acquiring the
rights to the films (more of which will be announced soon!), we will need to
set up office, establish our business to retail and digital partners as well as
invest in marketing and the development of a new website. The greatest
immediate investment will be in the restoration and production for the first
batch of titles we have acquired and work is ongoing right now!
Indiegogo
is not only a good way for us to gauge your interest – after all North America
is a fiercely competitive
market – but also for us to have the funds available to pick up more titles for
release without there being a big gap in our schedule and have you get bored
and forget about us. Without Indiegogo we would need to wait til our
first releases go on sale before we can then see what appetite is like for a
new label and the kinds of titles we release with the approach we take. Indiegogo enables
us to weigh all that up in advance meaning we can continue at our usual pace –
which in the UK is about three to four releases a month. Your pledge to our
campaign will not only ensure we’re in North America to stay but it’ll also get
you some cool stuff at a significant cost saving and if you’re bold a really,
really, really significant cost saving!
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When the
Indiegogo is finished we will be putting our first titles up for pre-order, if
successful we will be adding more titles to our roster and letting you know of
any updates on our various social channels:
www.facebook.com/arrowvideo, https://twitter.com/ArrowFilmsVideo, http://arrowvideo.tumblr.com/, http://www.arrowvideodeck.blogspot.co.uk/
And
don’t forget to share the Indiegogo link with your friends!
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Whilst it
would be a dream to have the Indiegogo met should the pledges go above and
beyond our goal we would look to do a variety of things which could include
restoring the films we have acquired in 4K rather than 2K, picking up more
titles, adding more special features and even more - just let us know what you
want on our social channels and we’ll try and make it happen! Look out for our
updates to this page (which will be automatically emailed to pledgers) where
we’ll let you know of new title acquisitions, restoration news, stretch goals,
artwork and packaging reveals and more!
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You’ve
listed more releases than you have announced, how do we know these releases
will ever materialise?
We have
announced releases that are very nearly ready or completely finished. We don’t
want to announce every single title as we want to get things a bit more ready
so we can really wow you! As there’s so much to digest here already we’ll be
sending regular updates through Indiegogo to pledgers as well as on our social
media, so stay tuned!
Will your
UK releases like Foxy Brown/Lady Snowblood/Shivers/etc. be released in North
America now?
We’d like
to bring as many films as possible from our existing UK catalog to North
Americabut many are owned by other companies or the studios themselves so we
cannot guarantee anything unfortunately.
Will your
releases also be released in the UK still?
We will
make every attempt to ensure all our new releases appear at the same time in
North America as they do in the UK. We still have many titles acquired for the
UK only so this will become more standardised as time passes.
What
region code will your releases be?
Whilst
many of our older releases are Region Free and most are currently Region B, any
future release intended for both North America and the UK will be exactly the
same and coded Region A and B or region free where possible. Please always read
the specifications on our website www.arrowvideo.com (coming soon) or www.arrowfilms.co.uk
Will you
release SteelBooks in the US like you do in the UK?
Yes our
intention would be to have SteelBooks in the US and UK where one is
manufactured for a particular release. Please keep an eye on our website for
details!
Will you
release films on DVD?
In the UK
Blu-ray rights have often only been available for certain titles like The
‘Burbs and Big Trouble in Little China, but every effort
is made to secure DVD and Blu-ray rights.
Will you
release films on Blu-ray?
Where
possible we will always release films on Blu-ray.
What
languages and subtitles will be available?
For films
licensed in an English language territory it is usually only possible to
include English subtitles and the original spoken language audio track and/or
an English audio dub. We always make every effort to include English subtitles
for the deaf and hard of hearing for English language films.
Will the
films be available for digital download?
Where
rights are available to us our films will indeed be available for digital
download. Please see our website for details.
I am
thinking about purchasing one of the Gold List items but I want to know how
many releases a year there will be and will it be just US releases or UK too?
As this
campaign is for North America it won’t include UK releases. As to how many
releases a year it’s very early to tell right now but as explained above we
currently release 3-4 Arrow Video titles a month on average (sometimes more,
where boxsets are concerned of course, but with slight dips at Christmas and
New Year) and we aim to get up to that level as soon as possible providing the
Indiegogo is a success. Gold list backers get releases ahead of
everybody else and these will include SteelBooks, boxsets, special and limited
editions* alongside our regular releases so you’ll always be guaranteed a
special edition where one is released, and remember if the Indiegogo is
not a success you won’t be charged, so go and ahead a be bold, we know you want
to!
*This
will not include personalised editions. For an example of a personalised
edition see withnailfilm.com
I’m not a
US resident, can I still back this?
But of
course!