«

I'm confused to discover Sinister Cinema, another PD dvd publisher
with some pretty interesting titles, including Fantomas, Demon Barber
of Fleet Street, FPI Doesn't Answer, and Fabiola.

I understand why many dealers hesitate to handle Alpha Video, whose
low prices can't offer much of a profit margin. But Sinister Cinema
has quite "healthy" prices -- most discs are $16.95. Yet I can't find
a single dealer who handles them. Nor is the company in the "studio"
database of DVD Profiler.

They offer at least a couple movies which are so obscure that they
don't appear in IMDB: Couples Only (with Peter Lorre) and The Hound of
the Baskervilles (with Peter Cushing, but *not* the Hammer version
available on dvd from MGM -- this one was done some years later).
(Sinister Cinema also offers German and Russian versions of The Hound
of the Baskervilles!)

They offer several of the German Edgar Wallace titles, and even a
couple old British ones.

The site (http://www.sinistercinema.com) has some mildly strange
things to say about packaging, and about DVD-Rs. Is this some sort of
amateur outfit? Are their DVDs generally above or below Madacy
quality?

"karlpov" <> wrote in message
news:...
> I'm confused to discover Sinister Cinema, another PD dvd publisher
> with some pretty interesting titles, including Fantomas, Demon Barber
> of Fleet Street, FPI Doesn't Answer, and Fabiola.
>
> I understand why many dealers hesitate to handle Alpha Video, whose
> low prices can't offer much of a profit margin. But Sinister Cinema
> has quite "healthy" prices -- most discs are $16.95. Yet I can't find
> a single dealer who handles them. Nor is the company in the "studio"
> database of DVD Profiler.
>
> They offer at least a couple movies which are so obscure that they
> don't appear in IMDB: Couples Only (with Peter Lorre) and The Hound of
> the Baskervilles (with Peter Cushing, but *not* the Hammer version
> available on dvd from MGM -- this one was done some years later).
> (Sinister Cinema also offers German and Russian versions of The Hound
> of the Baskervilles!)
>
> They offer several of the German Edgar Wallace titles, and even a
> couple old British ones.
>
> The site (http://www.sinistercinema.com) has some mildly strange
> things to say about packaging, and about DVD-Rs. Is this some sort of
> amateur outfit? Are their DVDs generally above or below Madacy
> quality?

They've been around a long time selling VHS tapes out of a lovingly put
together mail order catalog (good service with good prices too). IIRC,
besides the HUGE catalog of obscure genre films, they had trailer tapes
galore. I suspect they made those themselves, along with probably most of
their catalog. So, it's not a stretch to assume they are doing this with
DVD's. I'm not sure of the legality of this (if it is even true, but the
tapes I bought from them were certainly not studio tapes), but they've been
around forever. From what I remember, the quality was fine.

Of course, we expect so much more from our DVD's these days, but I for many
of their titles, they are probably the only choice.

JWB

Forgive the trivial question, but for purposes of cataloguing, I
wonder, do Sinister Cinema products bear a UPC?

On Fri, 17 Oct 2003 04:13:42 GMT, "JWB" <>
wrote:

>
>"karlpov" <> wrote in message
>news:.. .
>> I'm confused to discover Sinister Cinema, another PD dvd publisher
>> with some pretty interesting titles, including Fantomas, Demon Barber
>> of Fleet Street, FPI Doesn't Answer, and Fabiola.
>>
>> I understand why many dealers hesitate to handle Alpha Video, whose
>> low prices can't offer much of a profit margin. But Sinister Cinema
>> has quite "healthy" prices -- most discs are $16.95. Yet I can't find
>> a single dealer who handles them. Nor is the company in the "studio"
>> database of DVD Profiler.
>>
>> They offer at least a couple movies which are so obscure that they
>> don't appear in IMDB: Couples Only (with Peter Lorre) and The Hound of
>> the Baskervilles (with Peter Cushing, but *not* the Hammer version
>> available on dvd from MGM -- this one was done some years later).
>> (Sinister Cinema also offers German and Russian versions of The Hound
>> of the Baskervilles!)
>>
>> They offer several of the German Edgar Wallace titles, and even a
>> couple old British ones.
>>
>> The site (http://www.sinistercinema.com) has some mildly strange
>> things to say about packaging, and about DVD-Rs. Is this some sort of
>> amateur outfit? Are their DVDs generally above or below Madacy
>> quality?
>
>They've been around a long time selling VHS tapes out of a lovingly put
>together mail order catalog (good service with good prices too). IIRC,
>besides the HUGE catalog of obscure genre films, they had trailer tapes
>galore. I suspect they made those themselves, along with probably most of
>their catalog. So, it's not a stretch to assume they are doing this with
>DVD's. I'm not sure of the legality of this (if it is even true, but the
>tapes I bought from them were certainly not studio tapes), but they've been
>around forever. From what I remember, the quality was fine.
>
>Of course, we expect so much more from our DVD's these days, but I for many
>of their titles, they are probably the only choice.
>
>JWB
>

I've bought many VHS tapes from them in the past, some okay, some less
so. Virtually all their stuff (with just a handful of exceptions) is
taken from 16mm, hence all the scope films are pan and scan.

Their DVDs are, in fact, just home pressed DVDr. and I believe their
packaging is the same as their generic VHS packaging - no, there are no
bar codes.