25th June 2004

Stop the press... here's the artwork for Warner Home Video's R2 version of The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires! Click on the sleeve to go to the review.

A few new bits and pieces of artwork today.

Let's start with Tartan's Battle Royale II: Requiem DVD (for details see yesterday's News entry).

Here's a look at the packaging for Columbia Tristar's DVD release of the Stephen King mini-series Kingdom Hospital, which is due on August 2nd...

And here's the art for The Shield - The Complete Second Series, which is due on August the 9th.  Way to go with the ugly certification logo's, Columbia...

24th June 2004

Network has confirmed new release dates for several of their upcoming titles:

Press Gang - Series Two is now due on the 12th of July

Strange Report - The Complete Series is also due on the 12th of July

Dick Turpin - Series Two is now due on the 19th of July

Tartan's Asia Extreme label is releasing a two-disc Special Edition version of the Pang Brothers' creepy 2002 film The Eye, about a young woman who starts to see ghosts after receiving a cornea transplant.

The second disc will feature the horror anthology film Three, which was directed by The Eye's producers. Both discs will have anamorphic transfers, with a choice of Dolby Digital 2.0, Dolby Digital 6.1 and DTS 6.1 audio options. The disc will be released on August 23rd, with an RRP of £22.99.

Asia Extreme will also release Kinji and Kenta Fukasaku's smash-hit sequel Battle Royale II: Requiem on August the 23rd. The disc will include the trailer, and will have an anamorphic transfer, with a choice of Dolby Digital 2.0, Dolby Digital 5.1 and DTS 5.1 audio tracks. The RRP is £19.99.

Tartan have announced the full specs for their world-exclusive DVD-only release of Edgar Reitz's epic 1984 German TV series Heimat. The eleven-episode series, which chronicled village life from the tail end of the first World War to the early 1980s. Running a whopping 924 minutes, the series originally aired here on BBC2.

The series was shot over two years, featured twenty-eight leading performers, a hundred and forty speaking roles, and five thousand non-professional actors.

The series will be split across six discs. The set will contain extensive background notes to the series, written by film historian David Parkinson. The set will be released on August the 23rd, with an RRP of £99.99.

Anchor Bay are releasing two box sets that should be of interest to horror-philes.

The first, The Wes Craven Collection, features the existing discs The Last House on the Left, The Hills Have Eyes, Mind Ripper (which Craven produced) and Scream. The set will feature a bonus disc featuring Adam Simon's feature-length documentary The American Nightmare, and the AFI's profile The Director's - Wes Craven. The set, which comes with a twelve-page booklet, will be released on August the 30th, with an RRP of £29.99.

The second is a box set of the four House Films, titled The House Collection. Special features include commentary on House, House II and House IV; a Making of House featurette; trailers; photo's and stills galleries. From the available information, it looks like only the first film will have an anamorphic transfer, although all of the films have 5.1 mixes: all four have Dolby Digital 5.1, but only III and IV offers a DTS alternative, apparently. The third and fourth films will feature English HoH subtitles. RRP is £29.99.

19th June 2004

It's been a busy couple of days! All sorts of bits and pieces have turned up, including Fox's Millennium discs, and a copy of Warner Home Video's new disc of The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires.

You'll find a full review of the Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires DVD here, comparing it to the existing R0, NTSC DVD from Anchor Bay. Menu screens from the new Warner Home Video disc can be found here.

Hammer fans will be very happy to hear that Richard Klemensen is about to release another issue of the numero uno Hammer magazine, Little Shoppe of Horrors. The issue will re-visit the company's Karnstein Trilogy of films (The Vampire Lovers, Lust For A Vampire and Twins of Evil). The magazine also now has its own website, albeit in embryonic form!

A new edition of Alan Barnes' comprehensive overview of Sherlock Holmes' appearances in feature films and on TV, the Reynolds & Hearn book Sherlock Holmes on Screen, is due imminently. You can read a review of the book by clicking on the sleeve image, left, or here. Amazon are currently offering the book for £13.99, which is a saving of £6 on it's list price. There's a link at the bottom of the review, if you want to order it, and it'll help support Zeta Minor if you do! Consider it your civic duty!

On a related note, Amazon are offering the complete twenty-three-disc box set of the Jeremy Brett Granada Sherlock Holmes TV Series for the bargain sum of £76.97 (the RRP is £159.99). Click here to check it out!

There are two new competitions for you this week, where you could win a copies of the first three seasons of the hi-tech BBC action series Bugs, courtesy of Revelation, or a copy of The Third Rock From The Sun - The Complete Season Two, courtesy of Network. Click on the banners above, or here for the Bugs competition, and here for the 3rd Rock From The Sun competition.

There's no update from Ceri this week - he's having a well-earned holiday - but he did leave a few scraps to pass on to you...

A featurette presumably destined for the Millennium - Season Two box set has been certificated by the BBFC. It's titled The Turn of the Tide: Making of Season 2, and runs for 32'11".

Extras for the BBC's forthcoming DVD of The Forsyte Saga have also passed through the BBFC: From the Rehearsal Room (from Late Night Line Up of 7/1/67) (8m 45s) and The Forsyte Phenomenon (Talkback of 18/2/69) (21m49s). So, that means the Late Night Line Up material running to 29m25s cleared a while ago is Soames vs Irene (from Late Night Line Up of 10/2/69).

Other stuff that's been examined by the BBFC include a four-minute Backstage featurette for Five Children and It; a twenty-five minute Making The Case featurette for Fox's Murder One box set; extras for the Doctor Who - Ghost Light DVD;

One of the retailers is listing a Missing Believed Wiped featurette for the Dad's Army - Series 1 & 2 DVD set, due on September the 13th. Also, Warner Home Video have apparently scheduled Wolfgang Petersen's Troy for release on November the 5th, with an RRP of £22.99.

For the latest bargains, have a look at the High Street forum over at Roobarb's DVD Forum.