Dario Argento films

Here's my Dario collection:

I know that The Church and The Sect weren't directed by Dario but he still had a big input to The Church and they were classed as parts 3 and 4 of Demons.  Just realised that I didn't include Once Upon A Time In The West bluray which he wrote the story for.

Thankfully I've been able to get all the Blurays I wanted but I may have missed limited editions of Bird, Inferno and Tenebrae but I'm happy that I still got the Arrow Video releases.  Especially glad I got Deep Red.  Suspiria is the one that everyone seems to talk about but to me Deep Red is far superior.

I'm not caring about getting the rest on BD as to me Terror At The Opera was the start of his lesser quality work which seems to just get worse and worse as he makes them.  The Mother of Tears, Giallo and Dracula 3D are particularly bad.  Leaving it so long to finish the Mothers Trilogy (Suspiria, Inferno, Mother of Tears) was a bad decision.  I still haven't properly looked to see why it took him so long to do Mother but it just feels completely different to the others.

I only got Cat O Nine Tails and The Bird With The Crystal Plumage last week which finished off the collection.  I still have the DVDs but they're the really low quality DVDs done by labels that you never see anymore.

The two versions of The Stendhal Syndrome are the EU and UK releases.  I think the UK was "Extended" but it was definitely still censored and the EU one is not Extended.  I'd have to check them again.

Here are the DVDs I'd bought before getting a BD player.  I also got the normal version of Arrow's Phenomena release way before I'd heard about the limited edition.  I'll be keeping the Arrow DVDs as they're well packaged with the reversible covers and clear sleeve.

I'm not sure about keeping the BD of Phenomena.  I *think* there are different extras but again I've not properly compared it to the limited edition.

Hellraiser Box Sets

So, here's a few photos of my Hellraiser DVDs and Blu Rays.


First up is the Limited Edition Puzzle Box DVD set.

Nice to look at on the shelf.

 This is the bottom of the box with all the juicy details.

And these are inside.  The design of it isn't very good as you need the polystyrene to keep all the sides upright and it's just made of cardboard.  The main part is thin card (maybe 1mm thick).  Stuck to that on the outside is 4mm thick card with the Lament Configuration pattern on it.  It's all pretty well stuck together but the folds are a bit thin.  You know the old Warner Brothers DVD snapper cases?  They had a plastic frame with cardboard making up the bulk of the case.  The folds on this box are about on par with those.  The discs are safe though, the plastic holding them in place is stiff.  The booklet is loose, glad it's not stuck to the case like some companies do with CDs that I've got.

I think the only reason the box is in good condition is it hardly ever got used as I was afraid it'd rip.

Now I don't need to worry about it ripping when I watch them as I now use my new set, the famed Scarlet Box Limited Edition:

 The outside of the box looks really nice.

 Front and back of the Hellraiser I and II discs

 Front and back of III and The Clive Barker Legacy bonus disc.

 Front and back of the Damnation Game hardback book and Documents of Blood.

 And this is inside the Documents of Blood sleeve.

And this is the inside of the front, the spines of all the discs, book and sleeve, and the inside of the back.

This set is fantastic.  The box itself is very sturdy.  Sure the discs themselves are just in folded cardboard but they're definitely thicker than the snapper cases.  The book is actually hard to open properly as the spine is very well made.  You can only open it about 60 degrees before you feel the strain of the spine.

Once again Arrow Video have done a fantastic job of the packaging as well as the extras and quality of the film transfers.  Arrow are fucking brilliant.

I'll be posting my Dario Argento collection in a few days as I've just got two Arrow Blu Rays to finish it off.  But more about that later.