Hello there, and welcome back to the Disconnected. I'm here with Logan and
Sam and they are from Air four four four four. First off, is
that how you guys actually say it out loud or is there an easier way
to say it? I think I think four four four four is great.
Sometimes, especially at the beginning, I would always just say three four's and
I would think I was saying it. But forty four to forty four is
also good. That's an easy way of saying it. Forty four to forty
four perfect. I always stumble over it when I'm trying to say it as
quickly as possible. So so do we. Well, First, just genuinely
thank you guys for getting on here. I know that you guys have been
literally very busy this weekend with a launch of your newest wave of titles,
literally just yesterday, so thank you for taking a brief moment to step on
and just share a little bit about the company. I've been doing this for
a while and you guys are probably the youngest label that I've done one of
these interviews with, and that's not a bad thing at all, because all
of your titles have been so high quality so far. So first, what
is the story behind air forty four? Forty four? Like, how'd you
guys get into this? Logan? You want me to take it away?
You want to it honestly started off as like a joke, really, because
I mean, Logan and I have been collecting for a long time. You
know, it's been probably probably for me over over five years. For Logan
maybe longer. He's the grandfather in this, in this friendship. And yeah,
we were just joking around and like talking about like just trash talking some
like friendly trash talking some other labels that we like and we support, and
we were saying, like why why does nobody release or why is there not
a label that specializes in Asian films? Or what are some of these labels
that specialize in all films? Why do they not release more Asian films?
And you know, we were talking about just other stuff like Hong Kong and
you know, films from Japan and whatnot, and that that Logan I think
I think it was Logan. Oh no, what I think I forget it,
but I think it was Logan. He said we could just start a
label, like let's just do it. Let's be the ones who like do
that let's specialize in Asian cinam and blow everyone else out the water who tries
to do Asian cinema. And I was like, what are you serious?
And then he was like, yeah, you just said it. There's a
market for it, let's do it. And then I was like, shit,
okay, well we have to come up with the name. And that's
how kind of kickstarter from there, you know. And of course we have
like again a background of like just being big like fans of like horror exploitation
and just weird bizarro cinema. And with that focus on Asian genre cinema,
we've both always like kind of been surrounded by a lot of Asian pop culture,
or rather we've surrounded ourselves with it, been active about it and stuff.
So yeah, that's that's basically it. Is there a certain film or
films when you were younger that really got you attached to the genre, that
really set it all on fire for you. Lookan, what do you think
for you? I'm trying to think of mine still too. I mean,
like I I mean, I think everybody grew up watching Godzilla runs on TV
or just having VHS tapes from good Will stuff like that, watched that really
burned the tape out of that. And then old Kung Fu movies, you
know, dubbed and really bad but really funny and and and you know,
but knowing that there's actually like a better version of those movies and that we
kind of get the shittier ones because they're cropped or they they're dubbed, and
so we don't really get the full story or the full effect of the actors
and everything. So I mean that kind of like really speaks to me,
you know, trying to find those films and trying to re release them too.
What about you, Sam, Yeah, I mean I was, I
was. Godzilla was the first thing pot in my head. I think some
of my earliest memories of like I guess Asian, like pop culture Asian,
like are you know, like movies where Godzilla and then also like certain animes.
I mean, I think, like a lot of people in my age
where I grew up watching like Naruto and like you know, catching that on
tsunami and whatnot. And then and then the earliest I think, now that
I think of it, they'll be earliest for me because I had a cousin
he he owed me very very young, and my dad he used to talk
about Bruce Lee a lot. He's my dad would talk to me about all
the rated R movies, all the more mature stuff. He would only tell
me it through his dad filtered way, and he would say, oh,
yeah, it's like very violent. You can't watch it until you turn seventeen,
you know, or whatever. And then my cousin like one day we're
hanging out, and then I talked to him about him. He said,
Bruce Lee, like, yeah, I have movies. We can watch it
right now if you want, because my parents weren't home with me and my
cousin, so like he just showed me. I think he should. Yes.
It was Return of the Dragon Borne with Chuck Norris, and I just
remember having burned in my head the fight between Bruce Lee and then like the
people like outside of in the alley of the kitchen, like a the restaurant
he works at that was ingrained. And that was kind of like a big
I guess moment for me because Bruce Lee kind of became an idol of mine
at that at that time, just by watching that and only remembering a few
scenes until later on when my dad finally was like, here's my Bruce Lee
like Va just collection. Okay, now you can watch it. Yeah,
bless your cousin, because I think most of us have a story about at
least one person like that that was your your gateway where they you know,
they wait for parents to leave and then open their trench coat and say,
check out these films that you're not supposed to see. And it's it's so
fantastic and also probably a little demented how some of those original situations can really
shape our taste for decades. And it's so cool that this generation is now
turning into a generation of people leading these labels. So I don't know if
you've been asked a question like this before, but how how does it feel?
Or have you even considered the fact that your releases are now going to
be possibly pedaled to the younger generations as a gateway into some of these more
extreme films heavy responsibility? Yeah, I don't think we can won't discuss that
at all. I mean, you are gnuinely that type of an influence in
in this hobby now, and I mean that's a good first question to go
off of. Did you guys expect the immediate level of success that you seem
to have with your first release. Probably not. I mean I I would
say like it's half and half. I think I think there were there was
definitely like a part of us where especially leading into it, like the months
of planning and doing the work and watching the film and seeing also the film
get cleaned up, and working with Yoshi Hero for Anatomy Extinction. Oh sorry
for for some people who may not be familiar like Anatomy Extinctions gold we should
be holding it. I've got them already, I swear. Okay, thank
you, you know, I appreciate the supportant No, but yeah, and
to the extinction, Uh, Yoshi here in Nishimura's first film, and it's
Token Goore Police, the prequel the schematic to the Toko Goore Police, and
yeah, we were lucky enough to be able to work with him and stuff.
So a lot of that kind of was feeding us that confidence. But
then literally like a couple of days just before making it live, that's what
we get nervous, and we're like, what if nobody buys it? What
if it's just like okay, the first day maybe like we were, we
were gonna be happy if like a hundred people bought it, you know,
And so we were We were definitely like very shocked. We were shocked.
Yeah, I think it was shocked. I mean, we were super happy,
but it was definitely a feeling a shock because that was kind of the
make or break like this could be. And and on top of that,
we'll get into that later, but it's also how is how will people receive
it once they get it in their heads exactly? So you know, yeah,
looking back on when you released, I think one of the hardest parts
of the story is going to be the fact that all of this happened during
a global pandemic. So overall, how did that affect you guys, because
I'm sure it had to have been a major thing, And obviously the first
release was delayed slightly, So I think the global pandemic it affected us in
different ways. I mean, I think on the one hand, it kind
of pushed us to start the label and to really kind of pursue this like
full fledge. But then on the other hand, like when it came to
delivery time, like when we got the materials in hand or before that prior
to that, I think it also affected us in a negative way because we
had like delays and stuff because of the global pandemic and shortages of different materials
and things. So I think it kind of hit us both ways. Gave
us a hug and then smacked us in the face. Yeah, I'm sure
for people listening when they hear that you were just collectors and joking around kind
of formed a label on accident, they are going to want to find out
like were you just born with the silver spoon in your hand, or how
did this happen? Did you happen to have tons of friends in the industry,
or how did you get to that next step after making that discovery that
you really wanted to do it together? Definitely, I mean a lot of
it is are the first release. It's it's literally us digging into our parkings,
like you know, like everything we have savings. We're also this is
also you know, people have taken consideration. This is also us coming out
of grad school. You know we met in school together. Yeah, that's
that's how we met. And like this is both pursuing filmmaking degrees. Yes,
that's fantastic, So so going to film school. Not even like technically
if you want to be technical about we didn't even complete it. Fully.
It was very weird because yes, we got our diplomas and everything, but
literally we had a shift from in person to online like at the very last
like quarter practically. So all that there's kind of a lot of stress,
a lot of pressure, a lot of like not knowing what the future was
looking like in terms of jobs, in terms of all that, you know,
and a little bit of I don't know, like a lot of doubt,
I would say, not a little bit, a lot of doubts.
So going into it, like I really like, I have a supportive family.
I'm you know, my family's middle class, so they especially my father,
he's like he's the one who who earns the most money in my family.
So he was very willing to like want to loan me money, but
I said, no, I don't. I don't want that. That's how
I've always been, to be honest. So I dug into my own savings
whatever that was, you know, a couple of thousand, and put it
down and logan similarly the same thing. Yeah, we're not rich at all.
We're not rich all, so you know that. So that's really just
from our bootstraps, you know. Yeah, I kind of figured the answer
to that. I just wanted to share because a lot of what I do
on this channel is to try to help the labels be transparent. And there's
a lot of people in this hobby that are really getting entitled. It feels
like in kind of trying to assume that these these things are either something they
just or also on the other end, they feel like they're out of reach
and in all reality, literally just a passion for these films can get a
lot of people there, and they're just not taking those steps. It's sure,
it's true. Yeah, yeah, I guess anyone could really do it
if they had the passion and they worked really hard and put a lot of
effort into it. And we're not worried about not making money for a while,
you know, like focusing more on the titles, releasing films, acquiring
more films, making sure they look nice, you know, stuff like that,
but not being scared to not really bank anything for a good bit,
good while, right, yeah, anything major. Yeah, So acquiring those
films is a good lead off to the next thing. What was the reason
to make Anatomia your your first release that you were going for. I had
seen it and it and that was it's kind of a crummier version. I
don't know where the version comes from the internet, just from the internet.
Just saw it on there and I thought, hey, it would be really
cool to release this, and I told Sam and made Sam check it out,
and then we just were like, Okay, yeah, this could be
a good first like a nice a nice first one. So we just decided
to go for it. And then, you know, Yoshihiro was really excited
and he wanted to you know, he was really eager to help us with
special features and to you know, help us with the restoration, you know,
like because we wanted to do those things, and he was he was
just excited, you know, because it's his first feature and not a lot
of people have seen it. You know, some little trolls like myself on
the internet might have like come across and stumbled upon it and seen it,
but you know, for the most part, a lot of people haven't.
So it was it was really a pleasure to work with him and to get
it released, and he was he was excited. It was you know,
he's got a lot of energies, so he gave us energy and it kind
of worked off each other. Yeah, and it's also like, uh,
sorry, I don't mean, I don't know you're no, just I guess
really quickly, just a piggyback. Also from the perspective of like strategy and
like if it's bankable, like we like I I looked at the perspective of
like the fact that nobody knows that this is literally what what became Tokyo Gore
Police, essentially like his idea that because that's like the movie that everyone associated
with them, you know, that's it's his Uh. I don't know his
pulp fiction so to speak, you know what I mean, So that that
is like another big reason I was like, I think we should I think
this is good, and we loved the film when we watched it. Like
when I never I didn't know about Anteli Extinction. I was a big fan
of usually Here already from Tokyo Gore Police, but I didn't know anything about
Antili Extinction. So when Logan pulled that up and watched it and then we
talked about it, I was like, I think this is this is a
good idea. I think the coolest part about that was when you equate the
two, you can see a lot of what would become the future of that
filmmaker in this film. So I think it's a really nice first step,
and likewise kind of shows what would be the future of the label, because
once you lead from that, you guys dove into something that people would seemingly
been clamoring for for quite some time for a couple of these titles, and
just recently I had on the channel for an interview just like this Adam from
Third Window, and you guys seem to work in tandem with him, right,
Yeah, Yeah, we worked with Adam and he's a great guy.
I don't know if did he say he loved us? Did he say good
things about us? Yeah? Of course off air we talked about it quite
a bit. Yeah, he's great. Yeah, he's very helpful. He's
very he's like he's like a coach almost, you know. Yeah, you
know, he gave his pointers and gave us great and a little bit of
a mentor. Yeah yeah, yeah, like a mentor. Yeah, he
wrote us some nice emails and stuff when he didn't have to. So,
like like you were saying, some of the label's heads might feel entitled and
stuff at Adam was not like that. So you know, it was really
nice to work with him. And I mean Sam and I kind of made
a list of movies that like, we really really wanted to release, and
for me, Funky Forrest was at my top. You know, Forest,
I really wanted to Warp because I had never seen it. It only did
film festivals back in twenty fifteen, so I was like, we can uncover
this. I'd be really excited. So I you know, I quit.
You could quit, that's what you said. He was like you could.
He was like, I could quit. If we do, you get so
lucky and you get your like dream release to wanted like a film a grail
of yours and the reason why when Running Hill happens, you're gonna quit.
Yeah, exactly, You're only going to see him if he comes back for
an interview. I mean, that's that's great that you made the connection so
quick to be able to get some of those titles. Is there was there
any sort of stumbling box blocks for these first few that you guys got with
with uh, Funky and Warp. We actually went in solo and that was
you know, I had reached out and we were talking about it and then
I don't know, it wasn't like because we didn't meet Adam before that.
We met him during the process, Like we were already pursuing it from the
US Canada, and he was we didn't know unbeendown stunts. He was pursuing
it from the UK. And then there was another company, Spectrum, and
they were pursuing it from France. So it all kind of just came together.
And then it was like, oh, let's you know, work together
and let's split costs and stuff. And so it felt it felt a little
easier because we all worked together and everything. But I mean, finding certain
finding certain films are really really hard, you know, like you really have
to dig. Like Centipede and Red Spills, for instance, They've been sought
after for years, like we've been told. I'm not just saying that.
I mean like we've had conversations with Massacre and he said, like OnEarth has
been looking for it, and there are some other companies. I think maybe
what's the other one, Mondo. Maybe Mando was looking for it at some
point. So but you you know, it takes a lot of ding and
stuff, and we didn't even know if it was out there. But we
you know, there were phones that interested us, and we you know,
we had watched them and really liked them, so we really wanted to really
dig so some are easier to find than others. You know, it takes
time. Yeah, you brought up Hong Kong earlier, and I've been curious
because we've not talked a lot to any sort of label who's working currently in
these major Hong Kong titles. With the news and the current law changes over
there, has there been any you know, talks of like a mad dash
to get some of these Hong Kong titles before stuff is enacted or censored or
anything. I have heard from some people I know, like some friends and
some people who have a little bit of connections within some of these labels or
no, some other people in these labels. I think there is this like
a little bit like you're saying. It's not something that I think has been
vocalized by any label like you said, But I personally when I heard about
that, because I do try to keep up a little bit of what's going
on over there, because obviously anything Asian like you have to kind of keep
up with anything from Asia. If you're trying to realize Asian films, absolutely
you have to be a little bit aware of the climate. So no,
for sure it is a worry because they technically can from what I know from
reading some of these of that new law that passed in Hong Kong, they
can technically censor whatever they want, release a film however they want, destroy
whatever they want. So definitely worried us. But funny enough, we didn't
even Centipede Horror and Red Spells. It was out of the jurisdiction of China
technically, and Hong Kong for that matter. We didn't find it there,
so you know, like that's the thing, like, technically some of these
films might not even be in China or Hong Kong. But that also makes
it trickier because you're you're some some people might be. I'm not to say
these labels aren't doing their job. They probably are looking in the places we
look too. It's just that it's really about finding like somebody who works at
that company and is involved with those things, or just making phone calls to
places you wouldn't think, you know. So yeah, but for sure that
is a worry, uh, and it's not for us. Hong Kong isn't
the only country you want to specialize in it, especially because we kind of
since Asia is our kind of playing playground, so to speak, right or
a sandbox that we want to go for all all sorts of countries and diversify.
Uh, the catalog Hong Kong is a means a lot for me because
I love Hong Kong films. I know Logan also same same with him.
But even then, like I'm just as as somebody who's a fan of Hong
Kong cinema in general, I'm I'm just happy that other labels are also releasing
films that we, for example, weren't even involved in reaching out to them,
because as a fan, it makes you happy to be able to own
that film or whatnot that you couldn't have for a long time. But yeah,
yeah, again, I guess, just to simplify the answer, yeah,
it worries us a little bit, but it's not enough for us to
be like, Okay, we only have to do Hong Kong, you know,
because we'll be known as a Hong Kong label. Then you know,
a Hong Kong film label. Then there's a hell of a lot more Asian
cinema than most Westerners know about. So I think that the pool is large,
and yeah, I don't think it'll affect any of you know, the
prospects of a label necessarily, but there's a lot of beloved films that could
genuinely be lost. Yep. Yeah, that's a personal, like a personal
concern as a fan of that of Hong Kong cinema. Yes, that's like
a big personal concern for sure. Yeah. Well the next thing, I
mean, you even just touched on a bunch of labels after you guys,
you know, notice that not a lot of labels were putting out Asian cinema.
Seems like the pandemic was the perfect time to suddenly release all of the
Asian cinema. Is there a lot more competit behind the scenes for you guys?
Now? Are you going towards like a different pool than they are?
I think a little bit of both. I think Sam and I talk and
we're like, well, there are some movies we're a smaller label, right,
some movies we can find and we can discuss about, but at the
end of the day, it's not feasible for us to release because there's a
lot more deal making with the company involved in stuff and such. So there
were some that we were interested in, but then you know, other companies
like eighty eight Films or something ended up getting them and we're we're perfectly happy
with that because you know, we it just wouldn't work for us, It's
not feasible for us. So we're kind of happy that, you know,
some labels are putting out stuff, but we also you know, we also
fear that, you know, our holy grails are going to get snapped up
at the same time. But you know, I think at the end of
the day, are our films like we are doing, like like we have
other things coming that we have never done before in regions that we've never released
yet, so and a lot of companies have not done this region. So
we're really excited about that. And we're going to try to dip our toe
all over and do all different types of films from all over. So I
think we're a little different than some because some are just doing Hong Kong right
now, Hong Kong Kong, some are doing some Japanese are just Japanese.
But we want to kind of do more of a mixture and different genres too,
not just horror exploitation, but we also want to do like sci fi
if we can, or like we're like, I have some titles that I
really want that are more martial arts. Some action kung fu stuff that's coming,
and like, I really want this Kaiju thing because that opened up a
whole other thing for us, So like, I really want this Kaiju thing,
So we're considering that. But yeah, we're a little different. So
I think it's okay. It's exciting and not to mention, I mean you
bring in more fans that way, You get more people interested in the label
by not putting yourself in one tiny little pocket, which is always important for
the future of your success as well. And speaking of success, I mean,
this one seemed to sell just as quick if not quicker, than the
first title, and it's really a step up for collectors from the first title.
I mean obviously with the type of release, it is, the extras
that you got with it, the CD, the I mean everything. You
guys are clearly coming at this as collectors. Is there somebody that you're trying
to emulate or are you trying to go out there and kind of forge your
own path. I guess I'll just quickly kind of speak to the part of
your question about the collectors and kind of like, yeah, this label like
one of the big parts of it, and we kind of always remind ourselves
and ground ourselves is that it's like collectors for collectors. You know, it's
kind of like that's that's kind of our motto, like whatever logan and I
are like thinking of what type of you know, packaging options, what type
of artwork, and how we even the collaborators, like are collaborators like artists
or people contributing even essays or features, you know, like we try to
push people like in a good way. You know, we try to like
push them to make like some of their best work, you know, and
and like because we also know like from from a commercials and and uh like
strategic standpoint, like nice artwork is gonna sell movies, you know, like
even if for us though, like these movies that we're trying to find the
quality movies, but we want the we want quality artwork to match. So
because again, like nice artwork you could sell shit and and they have like
you know, beautiful artwork, uhlip cover on top of it. So you
know, like that's always something we we talk constantly. So we want to
make releases that we would want to buy as soon as they are announced.
That's that's how how we try to go about it and handle each release we
do so yeah, each each release in terms of like a consistent kind of
like packaging. It depends because like boxes might be different. Maybe people will
see that our materials get better. Maybe like I'm not going to say they're
gonna get super deluxe anytime soon, but they could get better. Maybe the
sipcovers will get better, you know. So it depends. We're always talking
to new people, talking to new companies you know here, Yeah, manufacturers,
and you know, we're very we keep an open mind, but we
also again we're collectors. We still collect movies. We are fans of a
lot of these labels and we look at them and we also get inspired by
them. So that's a big part of it. Yeah, I think even
with these two that we that we're pro ordering right now, it's another step
up because we have like the rigid box with the magnetic clasp thing, like
we're trying to we want it to be good, you know, and we
want to take it up as high as it will go without being too goofy
I guess, you know, and being too over the top, you know,
adjusting not The art for this round that you guys just put up for
pre order is astonishing. It looks like a beautiful release and I can't wait
to have it in my hand. So bravo on that, because obviously the
films were already sought after by a lot of people, but this just makes
it that much more compelling. Has it been a fairly successful weekend? Can
you share? Yeah, I'd say it's been very successful, Sam, how
do you yeah? I mean no, I think I think this is our
best release so far. I mean that. Also, we did double like
a lot of kind of you know, the numbers, so that and then
bundles are very new to us, you know, we this is our first
time. It was for me, I will say I was very resistant a
little bit when because Logan's kind of the one who brought up the idea of
these bundles, and at first I was like, I don't really know about
that. And not to say that it sunk other companies because for example,
Severn, which were fans of Severn, they do bundles, you know,
and a lot of people buy their bundles. Their bundles sell out, so
you know, we kind of, uh, I guess, took a little
bit of a page out of their book and we got the inspired uh.
And that's once like Logan kind of convinced me about the bundles that we try
to like come up with, Okay, how do we make every bundle kind
of worth it for people? Because also that's a part of it. For
me, I'm like sometimes I look at if I look at some of the
bundles, not to say that Severns are bad, it's just me. I'm
the type of collector where it's like, you really got to sell me on
like the bundles, like for example, like I've never bought any of like
the highest bundles from Severn. And that's not to say that because I mean
they sell out. Maybe even if I try, they probably still sell out,
Like so they do well, but it's more like for me, it
needs to be something that's like it has to be like, Okay, I
need that, I need that. And that's kind of one of the reasons
I think, Uh, we went ahead and did the bundles to kind of
one in some sense, to give us that challenge and to experiment, and
it worked. I mean, it's doing well, and again I think it
is our one of our It is right now our fastest selling release. And
the numbers, yeah, the numbers have been crazy, like yeah, we're
worth continuing to get surprised. Yeah. I do a live show every single
Thursday night to talk about announcements from that previous week and talk about what's coming
the next week. And of course you guys were the following day on this
last Thursday, and the comments were just on fire about everybody excited about them.
I also have a Patreon on the channel, and with that, I
have a discord where we all discuss and we literally had a countdown and almost
every single person in our discord was there right at launch, and pretty much
everybody bought one. So this has been a very busy wave, I can
tell. So just kudos again because everything is it looks beautiful. Thank you
for that, and thank you, yeah, thank you for that, because
I mean that's kind of like a nice way of rallying people and trying to
get people excited over not just like buying but movies, you know, like
getting people together watching these stuff because a lot of a lot of people who
are buying these have never watched them, and we're like, that's one of
the things we're most excited for now. Now the this is a painful part
for us because it's like we got to wait, because it's not just about
like you know, like having the movies and holding on, and it's like
we have to wait too, you know, for the manufacturing and stuff.
So we want people to see these movies as fast as possible. We want
to hear what people have to say. We want to start seeing more of
these pop up on letterbox. You know. That's that's one of the biggest
joys for me, at least, I know, I'm pretty sure for Logan
too, But for me, that's I love reading people's reviews, not just
about our release, but like the movie itself, you know. That's I
love that. Yeah, on a on a small scale, I love even
just recommending a movie to somebody and they respond that it was a perfect home
run, Like this was exactly what I needed. But you guys are literally
like programming for the entire world. Most people have never seen some of these
titles, So for you to release it is sort of what is going to
catch some of these on fire on something like letterbox. That's that's a big
deal. I imagine that feels absolutely great to see it take off. Yeah,
that's yeah. That's that's another thing that kind of separates us from other
labels. Because we we do try to go for films that are less lesser
seen, lesser known, you know, but if it's like amazing, you
know, or if it's really good and people haven't seen it, like we're
like, oh, we'd really like to showcase this. How can we showcase
this? And you know, yeah, we just want to do the best
we can. I think, like my background, like I was always interested
in film festivals, programming for film festivals. So this kind of like utilizes
that a little bit, you know, so we can like kind of hone
in. It's a much longer and it's one movie, you know, and
you're putting all into the one movie, but you know, you get the
same kind of like excitement, you know. And then the Christmas Day morning
when you know, everybody gets to order it, or or when everybody receives
it and we start reposting on Instagram, you know, and everybody's like washing
tonight. You know, I'm excited. You know, it's really it's a
fun. It's like a communal thing, you know, we're all together,
so it feels really good. So for anybody that hasn't been excited enough to
dive into these two new titles, can one of you sell Centipede Horror on
why this is Somebody something that collectors might love if they've never seen it.
You wrote the synopsis, Man Jesus, I think ceni feed horr is quintessential
Hong Kong Samuel Lloyd insanity. I think that if you want the definition of
a the probably one of the holy trinity of like gross up films. I
think centiped Horror has to be there. I think that anyone who likes kind
of supernatural like black magic horror has to be there for this movie. I
think again, like just horror fans in general will get a kick out of
this. I even think there are some fans of like Italian cinema, like
Italian zombie cinema, maybe even Lucia Fulci. A lot of that rotting imagery,
nastiness like faces like boils, bugs everywhere, maggots everywhere with Centipedes.
So I think you have to see it. It's like one of those movies
you have to see to believe it's an experience. And again, fans of
horror like they're gonna feel at home. And I think it'll be a new
favorite, new found favorite for many people and a good taste of for those
who haven't yet completely gone through the door of like Hong Kong horror exploitation cinema.
This is gonna be, I think, a gateway for a lot of
people. So yeah, I think also there's a famous quote from Tom Savigni
and he said at the time like it was the grossest film he's ever seen
or something like that, So I think that also sums it up a little
bit for fans. Quote out of what about Red Spell, Red Spells Great?
Red Spell is the lesser scene, lesser known of the two for sure,
because ADFA released that that print thing online and so some people were able
to see Centipede at the time. But the subs were burned in and it
was really washed out because they added late to it, so because there was
like a color burn and the print, so they added like a like a
flash like light to it. So it was really washed out. And so
the subtitles were kind of bad already, but then there were kind of a
little extra back and the daytime scenes they kind of blended in. But Red
Spells a lot of people don't know, but it is really really good.
It's really fun, it's insane. It also has like a bug centric kind
of villain like of the film, but it's also just it tries a little
bit of everything, you know. There's like there's some possession stuff. There's
like death death by film reel or film stock, and like trees and leaves
and there's like there's just all kinds of stuff. It's pretty fun. Yeah,
I don't know, I'm not good at it. No, that was
good. That was good. I know, I'm excited for it. You
you both have mentioned that you are already going to be releasing pretty much what
was your grail? Is there now a new grill title for each of you?
Oh, a new one? Huh? Yeah, yeah, that one
was right. I mean I think there definitely is. I can't think of
something off the top. I mean for me, it's definitely like I it
has to be from Hong Kong. For me, it has to be For
me, it will probably be either it's there's a Anthony Wong Category three movie
that is not obviously not ontold story and it's not a Bullus indro. But
I personally think it's the third It should be the third one. It's not
a lot of people know, but it should be like if if the Holy
Trinity of Anthony Wong's like just disgusting, you know, nasty psychopath performances.
I think the third one should be Loved to Kill, which came out in
the nineties as well. It came out, if I'm not mistaken, following
on the heels of Untold Story. So he's like, it's almost like he
stumbled off the set of Until Story and he's like, Okay, what do
I do? Like who do I? Who do I kill? Like,
you know, it's kind of like that's literally how he's acting and Love to
Kill. So I think people who love Ebolle Syndrome and Until Story will also
love Love to Kill. That's that's a big grail of mine. But I
I mean, right now, I can't say anything about that because unfortunately there's
nothing to say. But that's a grail of mine for sure. Yeah,
I don't know, Logan, what about you. I have a whole list
on Betterboxed, like our Dream releases. It's like Dream Releases and I adam
in, you know, like I'm like, oh, this one, all
this one, you know, and we've hit up a bunch a bunch of
these we've up and we were able to find some and we're still working on
some which is cool. I don't know. I mean, like, I'm
really excited about some that we're that we're like working on right now, that
that we're pursuing right now that we have, but I don't have any like
I don't have a title in my head that I'm like, Oh, this
one is the new grail. But it's kind of like some of the ones
we're working on now is kind of a grail. And we were talking earlier
today about interviewing an actress and how she's in the US and how we're gonna
we're thinking about traveling and meeting her and interviewing her and how how that's you
know, another another new kind of thing for us. So we'd be really
excited to do that. So that's kind of like that's my grail right now.
I think meeting her with a new grail. And I think it'll be
a grail for Sam too. I know he's excited if it does come to
cruision. So that's really cool. Actually, yeah, oh it works out.
The other major difference so far is with Centipede whoorr and spell. You
guys are putting out an animal cruelty free version. Is there a reason you
made that choice or did something cold for that. I'm glad. I'm glad
you brought that up, because I actually I wanted to bring that up a
little bit. No, yeah, I mean we kind of took a page
out of Grindhouse Releasing and we I love Cannibal Holocaust and I love Cannibal Fairrox.
I love a lot of Italian horror films, and I something that thought
was really neat was that even though I'm also the type of viewer to view
the original version of the film Cannibal Holocaust, even our repeat viewings, for
example, is still a film you have to be mentally prepared to watch each
time you watch it. So and I've seen it multiple times, so it's
like I still have to be in a space on my state to watch it.
So it's nice to have that option because if I don't feel like having,
you know, these these animals killed in front of me, but I
don't have to, I can watch a different version of it. So that
was something we thought of because Red Spell in particular, out of these two,
has a lot Unfortunately it's regrettable, and that's also but it's it's good
to address it because people have to realize the time. This is coming from
the eighties, and in Cannibal Holocaust was fucking oh my gosh, it's horrible,
And forgetting it's it's eighties as well, right or seventies. Sorry,
it might be late seventies. It might be late seventies. I can't believe
forgetting it's been it's been an ages since I've since I've watched Cannibal Holocaust.
But with exploitation cinema and grindhouse cinema starting like around like the late sixties and
moving into the eighties, that was a way to put butts in seats.
Unfortunately, with exploitation cinema it was like animal cruelty was a cheap shock tactic.
So yeah, yeah, that's like it was. It was nineteen eighty
by the way, I just checked. There we go right on the cusp.
Yes, So yeah, so you know that was a part of it.
And and there's a lot of people who are i mean instead of that
understandably, So so you know, we felt the need to do that as
just as just an extra feature, an extra option. So yeah, we're
not trying to like change the films. We're just trying to alter or like
offer an alternate cut. For those who don't necessarily want to see an animal
get murdered in front of them and hear the squeels or whatever it is.
You know, so it and for these films, my opinion, the animal
violence, they don't really change the plot or anything like that they're trying.
They're kind of just in there just for shock value or whatever. So I
mean, if you want to watch it with you can. You don't want
to watch it with that, you don't have to. So that's all it
is. We're just trying to give the best viewing experience for everyone, and
like you know, give people like no excuse to watch these films. You
know, we want to. We want to be able to share them with
you, no matter what. I'd almost say for most films around that time,
they didn't ever really affect the plot all that much. I mean canniballl
Holocaust obviously it sort of does, but for the most part, like when
a bullet syndrome came out, I first of all, I watch every single
movie with my wife, and my wife is sensitive to the animal killing,
and a bullets in Droome opens with the frog killing. I totally forgot and
she was like, that's not real. Is it, I went, well,
actually, so now and I'm sure you guys have heard of it.
There's a website called Doesthdogdie dot com, so I'm more, Yeah, it
tells you, like basically, it's a list of trigger warnings for every single
film. For like, that's awesome, and there's an actual assault, if
there's an animal that's killed, certain phobias, if there's something else. Wow.
So I I checked that out for my wife before every single film now
and just say, hey, this this might be in here, just awarding,
and if she's not filing that that night, I choose something else that's
awesome. That's awesome, I mean, because me, the old fashion way
feels like you go to IMDb and then there's like the parents wal you know,
you know what I mean, you get into sometimes I'd read them for
fun movie. I'm like, let me see how they wrote it, you
know, Like some of these, I mean, I've got a five year
old, well an almost six year old and a seven year old, and
some of these movies like Little Monsters, I'll look up something to show them
and I'm like, well, this doesn't sound too bad, and I watch
them like, well maybe that was a little a little rougher than I remember.
So it is nice to have a website like that that you can go
to. Yeah, let's see. I mean this this release has been huge
for you guys that you announced a couple other things coming soon. Do you
happen to have a timeline on the next wave maybe, I know you're in
the middle of this one, so that's a little intimidating, probably, but
well, Sam and I have been just discussing it worth I mean, we'd
like to get two more out before the end of the year. We'd like
to get two more out before just the end of December. That would be
great. Yeah, we have we have like different avenues we can take with
that, two of which have already been announced running Killing Red, Read to
Kill Right, and then we have other ones that were kind of like disgusting.
Maybe these will be faster, maybe we can get them out sooner,
but we also don't want to jeopardize like the quality of the release. You
know they are working all that, because you know, it does take time.
I mean, from the moment we announced Centipede and Red Spells, it
was a year to now, you know, to actually get it out,
So it takes time. You have to be willing to, like, you
know, hold your breath and work through it. But I mean, you
know, the wheels are turning and we're we're going to try to get them
out. We're not the biggest label, but if we can, if we
can make sure, if everything looks good to us and we're we're satisfied with
everything, I think it could be by the end of this year, you'll
see too at least two more titles from us. Yeah. Nice. Uh.
There's not a lot of stuff on the internet about Air forty four or
forty four yet, because there's only been a handful of releases. Is there
anything that the public doesn't know about you that you'd like them to know?
Sam, You're left handed, right, I wish I wish I could do
both. I wish I was ambidex to know about the label or about us.
Yes, either way. Oh m hmm, your deepest, darkest secret
about the label. I mean, I think I wrote a nice new bio
on the on the website. Yeah, I did see that. Did you
see that? That's pretty good? Right? Yeah it is. I've literally
got it all right here, named after the unlucky nature of the number four.
Yeah, everything, it sounds great. I'm really excited for somebody sci
fi films because a lot of those have never had releases anywhere. Yeah,
I feel like those are vastly underrepresented from the Asian side. M hm,
yeah, it's intriguing. Yeah, I guess I was gonna say the only
the only thing I guess I can say to people is kind of like we
were, we want to go bigger in the sense of like we want our
releases to kind of also embody our growth. We want to do more experimental
stuff with our releases, and maybe like this is way in the future though,
this is like goals of ours. Like I always joke with Logan,
I would love to have steel books of some of these crazy he wants to
do steel books, but he won't do like what is that thing, metal
packs, because there's a difference. There's like a metal packs. Yeah,
there's a big, big difference. It's a difference because you know, metal
packs are weird with the spine, weird, and then steel books is like
nice looking, you know. It's like so that's why I heavy we are
always arguing about that, but I think metal packs are cheaper or something like
around though I don't expect us to really do metal packs. I just I'm
just talking with them, just like I'm just like texting on this and he's
getting all acci, that's a pipe dream. Steel books are pipe dreamingline cool,
well the hard part and a lot of people that are just a part
of this hobby don't understand that if steel books you usually have to print like
at least three or four thousand with somebody sprinters, which is crazy. Yeah,
and that's the reason why we haven't done it yet because it's like a
lot of numbers. But then like also per unit, it's it's more expensive
than you know, a blue ray case and a slipcase or whatever. It
is. Absolutely, but trust me, like trust us like we I was.
There were times where I start I was like, maybe we could do
uh what if we did the steel book of Red Spell but the tie art
and like imagine how gorgeous that was. You know, it's kind of like
having those conversations and knowing it's not going to happen, but just daydreaming.
And again that's why that's how you know, like where we're coming from in
our background and how we were collecting physical media. Because we're even talking about
all these dreams of the packaging and stuff, and it's not it's it can't
happen. Now, that's like a goal, you know. That's like kind
of if we could do what Arrow does, where they can do steel books
and they can do this, and they can do that beautiful for all the
same title, they'll they'll do five different versions. That that's maybe not maybe
not that, but you know, I just had a discussion on here with
somebody from Scotland actually about premium releases because I don't collect all of them because
I would be bankrupt tomorrow. But there are so many Asian companies that do
these these massive collectors editions, but nobody in the US is doing it.
And I mean, maybe that's the niche that you guys can can go for
someday because there's a lot of collectors here that are after that. That is
true, we could do something like that. I have the time Sam into
it. I think Sam's would be more on the fence, but you know,
I think in the future. I think definitely in the future, like
once you know, we're more a little stacked up, a little beefier,
like yeah, sure, we've been to the gym a little next year exactly
one veil like something crazy. Yeah, but no, I mean we're familiar
with what you're talking about because I have a handful. I can't. I
can't either, like you said, I literally have five or six exactly exactly
like uh for some of my like favorites. But if you did want the
one clicks, like the one click with like the three slip covers and the
three steel books, like it's ridiculous, you know, I think you've got
to be you have to have money to throw away to do that. So
yeah, but they're they're cool. Like I got to give them props because
they are creative. A lot of their packages, I mean in some ways,
like if you're buying the sink, just the single slip with the steel
book and all the stuff inside, it's kind of worth it, especially if
it's a favorite of yours. They're nice, you know, so like I
wanted to, I guess I could give a shout out to a company because
I love a plain archive. That's the one. They're beautiful. I think
they're one of the like OG's in in the whole thing. I love them.
They're they're packaging to me is like kind of like that's kind of something
I aspire, like I think they're they have beautiful, gorgeous packaging. And
when I remember when uh, we got the prototype for the Funky Forest and
Warped Forest the outer part of the box, it kind of gave me a
little bit of that feeling. I don't I'm not going to compariselves the plain
archive, but it gave me a little bit of that premium field and I
was like, I like this, you know, I like this exist for
us. So when we felt that, we were like, oh that we're
moving in the right ga. Yeah, like we're going up, We're going
up. Yeah, the outer box being embossed, it genuinely does feel a
little bit like that. Yeah, I can see that. Yeah. Yeah,
we're trying. We're trying to already like kind of challenge ourselves to step
up with like like that we want to do a chipboard box before steel books
will dive into chipboard. I think that's the next thing that we've been discussing.
There seems to be a whole bunch of different types of markets in the
US that nobody's addressing. I mean, media books is one of them.
I don't know if either of you collect media books, they would be sweet
for us releases of these. I've discussed this with He's like against it.
I'm trying. I'm like, come on, let's do it, baby,
and he's like it's complicated. Look, I mean like we could get into
this for hours on end because the thing is right. The thing is like
when you offer these types of first off, like yes, people there,
I think a lot of people of media books and people are starting to come
around you. Collectors are starting to catch up to that because I follow groups
on Facebook and stuff that are dedicated to media books, for example, and
there's a lot of us people in those groups, and there's collectors who literally
just buy media books and it's I mean, I love a lot of media
book companies and what they do. The only thing is here. I feel
like media books can get really pricey, you know, and and I don't
think everyone is yet sold on like how it looks. I think like once
once you look at them enough, once you buy a couple and you start
seeing like what the appeal is, Okay, you you get hooked. But
it's I feel like, personally, I feel like it's not yet at a
place where it's like everyone's like everyone's owning media books. I think there's a
lot of Yeah, there's a lot of collectors who I don't think own a
single media book, you know, So that's just my thought. You know.
I get it though, because a lot of them the print on the
insides in German, so that there's unless you're holding up Google lens to it
the whole time. Yeah, yeah, exactly, I've done that. I've
done that. I have as well. I mean I try to read it
every single thing on all these releases, and it's time consuming, especially on
those well, Sam Logan, I genuinely again want to thank you for your
time. I think that this will be very enlightening for a lot of people.
I think that you guys have a long road ahead as long as the
quality of these titles are coming out like this, and seemingly more and more
people are jumping on board. So congrats for that, and here's so many
more. Thank you, Thank you, Roy, Yeah, thank you for
having us. Thank you appreciate it for having us. Hope in the future
you'll be happy to come back and we'll talk then. Oh absolutely, yeah,
let us know on you tell me, you know,