Ages ago, I bought a whole bunch of cheap b-movies from a Base Exchange. I mean, dirt cheap like $5-7 brand new. They were distributed by Diamond Entertainment. The ones I got were House by the Cemetery, The Demon (which I eventually got rid of), Pieces, Cat O' Nine Tails (sadly, it's full screen, so it'll probably be ousted from my collection eventually), and Mutant. They also had a few other Fulci moives, but I already had those.
Anyway, while logging these into my DVDAf profile I noticed it said that they were "unauthorized releases." What is the exact story behind that?
I've got several of those 'Diamond Entertainment' DVDs also, including the infamous DON'T LOOK IN THE BASEMENT. The one Diamond Fulci disc I have , SEVEN DOORS OF DEATH, is widescreen and appears uncut. It was probably four years ago or so when I bought them.
I've only seen them at those 'mile-long' yard sales, roadside flea markets, and thrift stores. I don't think I've ever seen them for sale in a legit store, not even the Dollar General or WalMart bargin bins.
i got SEVEN DOORS OF DEATH (The Beyond) and Crippled Masters for 4.99 a piece at my suncoast.
I've got a bunch of those and bought them all at "legit" stores.
Slightly off-topic but kinda interesting: I have both the Diamond and Anchor Bay discs for Fulci's The House By The Cemetery. The Diamond disc clocks the film at 84 minutes while the Anchor Bay edition claims to be 87 minutes. One would think the AB version had restored footage that was excised from the Diamond version, right?
Wrong. The two versions are identical, scene for scene. For some reason the Diamond version plays faster. I tested this by playing one on my Sony DVD player which is hooked up to the computer and the other on my Xbox nearby. I got the films synchronized perfectly, so that the dialog was "in stereo" but all too soon the Diamond disc would start to pull ahead. I even swapped the discs and players, but the result was the same.
Strange but true. :question:
It's like that with some movies. Some companies clock them at faster speeds. It used to be like that with some of the Godzilla movies on VHS when Sony first started releasing them after the Heisei series ended.
The Diamond Entertainment copy of House by the Cemetery I used to have was bought at Best Buy, for probably $5.99, when they still had a separate bargain/value section in the DVDs. Also got Quills and Eddie Izzard's Dressed to Kill out of that section. Just one of the things I hate about what they've done with their DVD section.