Bye Bye Anchor Bay

Anchor Bay have undergone a name change, and it feels like the end of an era.

Criterion have the hardcore cultists who buy every title, sight unseen, even if the film itself (Michael Bay and Jean Luc Godard, I'm looking at you) happens to be really quite dreadful, those who will defend the new Eclipse line until they're blue in the face, but they certainly aren't the only DVD label of note.

Far from it. Other favourites include Eureka, and their Masters of Cinema imprint, Blue Underground, Subversive Cinema, Warner Bros. (especially when it comes to their older titles) and Anchor Bay. As of today, however, Anchor Bay is no more.

Anchor Bay is now Starz Home Entertainment, and if you check out the official site, you can see the immediate effect in design and labelling. In the UK, the branding seems to be split - one foot in each camp. At least for now.

Now, I don't know if this rebranding is a foreshadowing of content and philosophy changes to come, but we simply don't yet know. In their time, Anchor Bay have released a whole truckload of must-have DVD packages - and who else lavished such care an attention on titles like Can't Stop the Music, The Stunt Man and The Living Dead at the Manchester Morgue? Could those days really be gone?

Bye bye, Anchor Bay.

Blue Underground Plant Flag In Anchor Bay

Several old Anchor Bay titles are getting rereleases from Blue Underground between now and the end of April. Thankfully, their extra features area all being ported over and each title will retail for under 15 dollars. If you ask me, this is brilliant news. There's a couple of Argento titles - Inferno and Deep Red - which will likely be the most popular, but Fulci's Don't Torture a Duckling is a must for me too.

The full list: Autopsy, The Black Cat, City of the Living Dead, Deep Red, Don't Torture a Duckling, The House by the Cemetary, Inferno, Let Sleeping Corpses Lie, Macabre.

I wonder if this is the beginning of something bigger?

[EDIT: A few sites have linked back to this story, and one in particular expressed surprise at Anchor Bay's decision. Let me fill you in just a little on the backstory. Bill Lustig, the Blue Underground main man, used to be one of the Anchor Bay power players. All that's happening here is that the rights are reverting to Lustig, personally, and the films changing labels to stay with him. Thanks to my anonymous source for seconding what I had supposed - and for pointing out that, sadly, some of these titles will not even be anamorphically encoded. Crying shame]