Scorpion Releasing - BluRays of Cult Films, Including Isolated Scores

[scallenger 481]

http://www.scorpionreleasing.com/

The website is not much to go by itself, since you can't even buy their releases from them (on Amazon you can, however), but this company is starting to release cult films on BluRay, and it seems like the running theme will be that they will include isolated scores! Now, granted, many of you may not be excited or care about this at all since these are cult films that you have probably never heard of, or even composers you have never heard of. But someone like myself who adores cult gems every now and then will probably be very interested. And any isolated score in this day and age is something to celebrate.

For starters, their first release, the 1980 cult film Death Ship, will feature an isolated score by Ivor Slaney "from the original 3 track Mag sound":

http://www.scorpionr...thship_syn.html

Death Ship will be available November 6th, from Amazon.

However, their upcoming releases on BluRay will include Day of the Animals and Grizzly, which are both films I really think are awesome, with Grizzly being a nice rip-off of Jaws that some of you may enjoy. I recently e-mailed Scorpion Releasing to see if Day of the Animals or Grizzly will have an isolated score, and he confirmed that he made sure there would be an isolated music track for Day of the Animals, composed by Lalo Schifrin! The release for that film is still not yet determined, but I believe it is sometime next year. Still no word on if Grizzly, composed by Robert O. Ragland, will have an isolated score, but perhaps matters are complicated for that one since it had an LP release, whereas Day of the Animals and Death Ship did not.

Anyway, could be some really cool cult movie scores coming this way via these BluRay releases, which probably would have never got CD releases anyway due to their extreme obscurity for some cases! I for one am definitely looking forward to both Grizzly and Day of the Animals, both featured pretty good scores, especially Grizzly.

[filmmusic 1,823]

I don't know a single film from all these..

Oh, I wish - since they are releasing cult films - they included classic Italian peplum films.

I love those!!

[JoeinAR 1,949]

I don't think Grizzly is a rip off of Jaws, but inspired by Jaws.

It's scary as hell

[Ollie 1,059]

I love the main title to Grizzly.

[scallenger 481]

Just thought I would let people know Scorpion Releasing's first BluRay release, "

" is already on BluRay, and it does indeed feature it's isolated score by Ivor Slaney, as promised (as will the upcoming "Day of the Animals", and presumably "Grizzly", too). DVD Beaver confirms it on their review.

Although obscure, the score actually seems kind of nice. You can hear it on an older transfer of the film on YouTube if you look up the film itself and watch it. Just by judging the main titles and opening scene, and even some over the top but fun music like this particular moment, the music is not bad at all. It's just really nice another film company is making the effort to release these obscure scores in isolated format, which would probably never have gotten releases at all, most likely, from the popular film score labels we all know and love. I'm still really excited about the other two isolated film scores mentioned above. I NEVER thought those would be released, especially "DOTA", even though it was by Lalo Schifrin.

[scallenger 481]

An update to this, half positive, half negative.

According to this post, it is again confirmed that Day of the Animals will indeed have an isolated score. I had already been confirmed this before via e-mail a while back but nice to know things haven't changed and it is still indeed a feature. Fantastic!

Bad news for fans of Grizzly, however. Apparently the isolated score was not found, only a music/effects track, which will be included. It is a bit of a shame, however, at least Grizzly DID have an LP release of it's own (not sure how much was missing from it, though), whereas Day of the Animals never had ANY soundtrack release of any kind.

[scallenger 481]

Been a while since I have posted in this thread. There have been several releases from this label since it started, but I'm not sure if all of them feature isolated scores from their films. But this label is getting some serious traction now, with good reviews on the transfers of their titles of obscure films, and even has the label has their forum topic pinned at BluRay.com, where you can find info. on all of their releases so far.

http://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread.php?t=215078

However, I came here to also update on Day Of The Animals, for which the label owner posted this awesome account of why it has been delayed so long. It's nothing short of awesome for a label to go out of it's way for a film to bring everyone the best presentation (despite anyone's feelings toward said film).

The reason for the delay is that I wasn’t happy with the original HD master. On DAY OF THE ANIMALS, I assigned the lab I usually use to do the HD from the IP and the 3 track mag (but not anymore, as you will read on). Unfortunately, my colorist of choice there was busy with another assignment for the next three months, so they assigned me to another colorist, whom I had met a few times and to make a long story short, the colorist did nothing to bring out the details, and frankly, I was just not happy with the job. And to top it off, their sound department did not do a separate isolated music track at all, which I had requested.

I hated that I was stuck with a very costly HD master that was unusable (and they refuse to refund or honor their poor job, despite being a royal customer there). DAY OF THE ANIMALS is one of my favorite films, and it NEVER had a proper release on DVD, and I wasn't going to have history repeat itself, so I spoke with the colorist of choice for Shout Factory at another lab, and he felt he could make it look better, but that we would have to start from scratch.

Financially, it was tough as I had already invested in one HD transfer, but after much consideration, I bit the bullet and did it all over. The result is night and day as the film now has details and everything looks much better, and we also now have the isolated Lalo Schifrin track as well.

So those are the reasons why it's coming out a little later than I’d hoped. I got stuck with two different HD masters, but I am using the best one for the Bluray of course. And now I can put a street date on the BluRay of DAY OF THE ANIMALS, which is currently 11/26. Here is the front art for it, and it will be double sided so you can choose which art you prefer. And the BluRay will have exclusive content: the isolated music track. Thanks for your patience!

So basically we got ourselves a new Lalo Schifrin score to look forward to in November. This film is truly one of my favorite guilty pleasures, and it's exciting to finally be able to have the transfer it deserves and the isolated music track. Apparently Grizzly is one of the next ones to be announced, as mentioned before. It still appears that one will have only a music/effects track based on the elements he was able to find. But we'll see if that has changed (I hope so!).

For those curious about this film... the entire film is actually on YouTube (although for some reason the video has the movie on it TWICE, the 2nd time silent.. so it's not really as long as it appears in it's runtime, LOL). This was from the previous DVD transfer and you can see how HORRIBLE it is compared to what I am sure will be a totally amazing transfer in comparison on this BluRay.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fOmTOoD8MLw