If you're looking for more horror outside of the mainstream, look no further than
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and part of the Someone's Favorite Productions podcast network. Hello there, everyone,
and welcome back to the disc connected here with Def Crocles, Dennis Bartak and
Craig Rogers and a mysterious third party Jesse from Cauldron Films and Diabolic. Welcome
everyone. Hello Ryan Well, we are here primarily to say what is going
on in the immediate future with Def Crocodile. So, Craig, you want
to break the news to everybody of what's happening at the moment. Well,
it probably isn't, like I said, a huge surprise, but with Rucelane
and Ludmella being released, which was actually going to complete our contract with UCN
and we did not renew with them. So after Bruceline and Ludmello will be
releasing solo with Jesse as a partner with our Our new limited editions will be
exclusive through Diabolic and He's and to also be handling the fulfillment for for all
our orders, whether it's through Diabolic or through our own shop. And we're
pretty excited because we're going to be doing lots of fool fun stuff. The
the limited editions will be uh more than a slipcover, so you know,
they're they're going to be very nice. We'll have some we'll have some image
images for you for that you can show people. And yeah, we're just
very excited that we're we're moving onward and upward. We're getting into the Jesse
Nelson Diabolic business. Yeah, I'm really happy to have you guys. You
know, I I recommend things to people all the time, and I always
say, you know, not everything's for me, but there's certain labels that
that really are that speak to me and def crocodile is definitely one of those.
I think the other one if if Mondo Macabra came to the and said,
can you guys help me out with fulfillment too, I think I'd be
pretty thrilled. That would be, uh, two of the big ones for
me. Yeah, and it's up to the the fulfillment end of things.
You were the first person I thought of, because I think I've told you
personally before. I kind of pride myself on how we pack and ship orders
and it's all based on I've bought from you, and the stuff comes packed
properly and safely and securely, and like like that's that's how it should be
done. So it's like, you know, if we're going to hand our
baby over to somebody else to deliver, I feel safe with it in your
hands. That means the world to me. So I'm so glad to hear
it. Like we've spent so many years changing and evolving our package into the
way it is now and uh, and I'm glad to hear that. It's
that it's that it makes people happy that the we send things out well as
you could. As you can probably tell, I'm a little bit of a
of a vinyl buff And when I lived in New York City in the eighties,
I used to go into record stores and I would look around and they
would have all these rare you know, like fifties douop and sixties psych and
garage albums on the wall, and I would just go, oh my god,
you know how you know, it's like Aladdin's Cave and going to the
Diabolic Site. It's the same experience. I'm like to get this, let
me get that. You gotta get this, this and this, and I'm
sure, like I speak for many many film fans out there, that's kind
of become the the you know, Aladdin's treasure cave of wonder around Literally there's
nowhere else you're going to find. I think I just bought was it,
Playgirls of Frankfurt? Yeah, an import from you, Like I hear,
that's great to It's in my pile of things to watch. I have not
watched it yet, but like like you, I have a bit of a
pile of things to watch. But yeah, I had to move some piles
out so they just weren't toppling over here behind me. Yeah, you've got
the uh, you log into your account and you can have a want list
feature, because every time I go to your site to buy one thing,
I see like five others and I'm like, I can't buy all this,
but like it's easy to just throw it in the want list, you know,
and then you know, I can just pick up that pile every time
I log it. Yeah. You know. It's funny is because when what
I always think about, Oh I need to watch that movie is someone recommended
to me the Ryan Gosling movie Lost River. Today I was like, you
know, I I totally forgot that movie existed. I'm going to put that
on my on my list and if I don't, if I don't pick that
up or buy it soon, I'm going to forget all about it again.
If it's not in a pile in my office here, it's going to go
right out of my brain. And of course it's out a print on Blu
ray already. No it's not. I don't think so. Oh that's right.
I tried looking today. I couldn't find it anywhere. Yeah, wait,
you were looking for that today? True, because that that tweet went
fairly like semi viral media fans. Yeah, yeah, looks all over Amazon.
I looked on your side. I looked on Orbit, looked everywhere,
could not find it anywhere. I'm gonna go. I'm smiley, order it
here on my phone from where I did find it earlier. Do you happen
to find two copies? Let me know, what is it that they say
about drug dealers is you're not supposed to use your own supply. You're all
drug dealers who have their own supply here because all we all we do is
talk about like a yeah, and I gotta buy this and I gotta get
that. Well, the big thing I'm excited for with theF crocodile with Diabolic
is everybody. And this is not meant as like a kiss up fest for
Jesse or anything like that. But as I've been working with more of these
labels behind the scenes with my production company, there's really only like two or
three names that everybody says, Yeah, they're they're amazing people. I trust
them wholeheartedly, and Jesse's kind of the first one everybody always recommends for that.
So this is really into a love fest. What I love most about
Jesse or when he's posts messages he's received from irate customers names sort of not
really on social media and they're just fantastic. I just some weird expectations.
Yeah, yeah, indeed, Well to go back to deaf crocodile. First,
congrats on the Kickstarter. I mean, I'd love to hear you react
some of that, because you're at almost four and a half times the goal
is almost eighty five thousand. Now I think I look less and it's it's
definitely in that period in the middle where we just get a few few pledges
trickle in. We'll get another little bump towards the end, but it's yeah,
it's with Kickstarter, it's in all or nothing, Like if you don't
meet your goal, you don't get anything. So I tend to try and
figure out, like how much is all this stuff going to cost, you
know, to make the box and then new slips and all that, and
then try to go a little above that because you know they're going to take
their cut, and then hope you know, it's like, really, I
hope we get that. And yeah, when we reached our gold under two
hours, I was like, oh, that was that was surprising. Most
of the people would just be buying the empty box. Yeah, totally thought
that our target market was really people who had the other three Potushko films we've
already put out Ilia Murrametz, Sampo and The Tale of Zarsaltan, and that
some people might want to get it with Rustling and Ludmilla, but basically that
would be it, and it wasn't until fairly late in the game before we
launched that we started talking about, well, maybe we should offer the option
of having all four films, and that by far has driven the kickstarter.
So there's a ton of people out there who clearly didn't buy any of the
previous part films that are like, oh okay, now that I can get
him as a box set of four. Also a different groups of people that
were reaching that didn't know we existed or that we had released these films,
which is, you know, that's pretty exciting that you know, we were
banking on, Like you said that we wanted to offer the box by itself
if we want to know, over the box plus the fourth film, because
we essentially thought that's who's going to buy it is people that already have the
other films. So yes, it's super exciting, especially on the the eve
of us you know, kind of leaving Ocen's Nests, like we were like,
oh, there are other people out there. Yeah, that's this is
a little off topic, but you guys just reminded me of back back in
the early days of Diabolic, all of these films were available. These Russian
films were available from rusk Eko and we carried them on the site and they
were they were big for us, you know. We we mostly were carrying
like Hong Kong stuff and some horror stuff, and then these Russian fairy tale
movies did so well for us, especially the which is you know, animal.
But we got them from a shop in Brighton Beach that was Russian owned
and we had to fax them only there was no email. We couldn't call
them. We had to send them a fax and let them know what we
wanted with our credit card written on there, and like a week later they
would just show up. It's really crazy to think that we did that,
and we're probably indebted to some mobster somewhere that I don't even know about.
It's gonna be some weird guy richie movie in my life real soon. I
you know, I had to say, I really wish Alexander Patushka were still
around to see the like amazing response I hope. You know, wherever his
spirit is bouncing around up in the cosmos, he's smiling. You know.
He started in the Russian film industry. I think like maybe three years after
Moss film itself started around like nineteen twenty four, So he started in the
late twenties, made his first feature movies in the early thirties, and his
career kind of paralleled, you know, the development of Soviet cinema for decades
from the late Silent era up through the early seventies. Rustland and Lidmella was
his last feature, and for me, is kind of like a it's like
his Beatles Red and Blue album. It's it's like a Greatest Hits package.
It's two and a half hours long. It's two parts, and he kind
of threw everything that he knew and loved about fantasy filmmaking and visual effects and
production design and kind of fairy tale folk tale filmmaking into it. So like,
if you're going to start with a single Petushko film Verslan and Lidmello is
a great one to sort of explain why he was such a wonderful fantasy filmmaker.
And you know, I organized a retrospective and his movies in around two
thousand and two thousand and one with Oliver Latsky at Seagull Films, who's are
kind of partnering crime on releasing these Russian films. And we screened it out
here in la at the American Cinematack, and then we toured it around to
a number of cinematacks and film museums around the US. But there were a
couple of titles that we weren't able to get, and amazingly it's been some
of the ones that we've now been able to release on Blu Ray, like
Ilia, Murometz and Sampo, and I mean, there's still a bunch of
other ones that we would love to see restored and put out, so we're
working on those. But the fact that we've actually put out four patishco movies
on Blu Ray in the past like two years, to me is kind of
mind blowing because I love his work so much, and and again we're just
lucky enough to be able to sort of shine light on it and offer beautiful
Blu Ray additions. But he was he, He and all his collaborators,
the actors, the writers, the cinematography, everything, they were the ones
who created these beautiful, beautiful movies. Yeah, the analogue, in camera
effects, Yeah, whether they're you know, camera tricks or or just insane
set pieces, it's just kind of mind blowing. Like the visuals. Some
of the stuff you see, you're like they really did that. That's just
it blows your mind. Like the fire be the breathing dragon, it's it's
really breathing, like fifty flamed, like it's like spitting nap. I think
it's like a Soviet Army flame throw. These people got incinerated making this movie.
It's it's absolutely incredible. I swear when the kickstartered launched, there was
the second wave of people remembering that they had seen ilia Murmtz or the alternate
cut I don't remember the title right now, but the dragon right sort on
the dragons, so they remember seeing that as a kid and then going,
oh my god, I forgot all about this, And it was like as
big as when Iliu Murmitz was at first announced on Blue and now I swear
this kickstarter exploded right after that, and it seems like all kinds of people
discovered it just seemingly out of nowhere. I'm still blown away at the success
you guys have had with this round. Yeah, we're pretty darn happy.
And and like I said, the biggest thing gets meucided is is less the
the you know, amount of money. It's raising that it's that most of
these people are didn't know who Deaf Crocodile was. Like, that's super exciting
for me. Like, this is a whole new audience that's you know,
excited to get these films. They didn't realize that they were available. And
yeah, and if they dig that stuff, they're probably gonna dig a lot
of the other stuff we do. Yeah, well, well we put out
the first two Ilia MURRIMMTZ and Stampo. We were very fortunate to get permission
from Tim Lucas and his late wife, sadly late wife Donna Lucas, who
published Video Watchdog magazine for years, which really was so far ahead of the
curve on a lot of these incredible kind of inherited filmmakers and film genres around
the world, and they early on published really two part article by the film
scholar Alan Upchurch, who I knew briefly towards the end of his life.
He sadly died of AIDS in the early mid nineties. But Alan was an
early champion of the work of Mario Bava and Ricardo Freeda and these great Italian
Gothic horror directors and in fact collected prints of a lot of their movies.
And then he was also a huge champion and did some of the first and
still to this day best research into Alexander Patushko's work. So we were able
to reprint with Tim and Donna Lucas's kind permission, this long, like thirty
seven thirty eight page article that Alan had written before he passed away, And
that also is really lovely that his sort of pioneering scholarship and awareness trying to
trying to build awareness for Patushka's work as a major fantasy filmmaker finally kind of
gets it's due because he's been gone for so long now, I mean it's
really it's it's thirty years. But you can appreciate how far ahead of the
curve Alan Upchurch was and as far as being ahead of the curve is.
You know, he's writing this scholarly appreciation of the films, you know,
at the same time it's being mocked on Mystery science theater. Right, one
of them was right, we were talking about that the other day about Mystery
Science Theater and how sometimes they really I like the show and it's funny,
but sometimes they really get into things making fun of movies that I love,
and I'm like, I don't know how to feel about this. Too often
I remember, it's actually my wife now wife Maria, and I just started
dating, and they did an opera production of Hercules in the Haunted World.
Can you guys remember hearing about this. They mounted it here in La I
think at the Music Center or the Amen Center, and we went to see
it because I love Hercules in the Hunted World. It's one of my very
favorite AVA films. I think it's one of the great fantasy movies. Just
this incredible bejeweled like color phantasmagoria. Just love it everything about it. So
we go down to see it, and essentially they were kind of mocking the
film, making fun of it throughout. They showed an edited version of it
that was cropped from didn't even have the correct aspect ratio, and they chopped
like twenty five minutes out of the movie. So the whole experience was look
at how dumb and hokey and ridiculous this Italian muscleman movie is and I'm and
you know, people were laughing and enjoying themselves, and I'm like, yeah,
but you're actually not seeing Hercules in the Haunted World. And this is
a fucking great film, and this is really a kind of a you know,
a travesty. And I remember a couple of days later, I got
a call out of the blue from Barbara Steele, who I knew from the
cinematack. She was asking me for some help possibly finding rights contacts overseas for
some of the movies she made, you know, many years ago, and
she said, did you go see Hercules in the Herded World? And I
said I said yes, I thought it was pretty awful, and she says,
I'm god, I thought so too. And then she took a pause
and she goes, you don't think they're going to do that to Black Sunday,
do you? And I was like, no, no, I hope
they don't do it to Black Sunday. But I knew what she was talking
about. She's like, you know, these it's almost like you're still fighting
the fight to convince people that genre cinema should be taken as seriously. Well,
anything put in a different context, you can completely change what it is.
I mean, there's there's a it's really funny, but there's a trailer
floating around the internet for the Shining, which makes it look like a family
comedy, and the trailer completely works. If you didn't know the film at
all, you would think this was like some Jack Nicholson comedy from the eighties.
It's like, yeah, I mean, it's it's it's kind of cheating,
especially if in that case is you know, everyone knows what they're doing,
but like you know, going to an opera, but a film and
they just completely turn it into something else without you know, it seems like
you should at least have a something in the play bill. It's like,
you know, this movie isn't stupid, right, We're just having fun.
They've also done the film Mystery Science Theater, So did they not? Yeah,
is in the Hard Word Theater as well. So I love and I
love Mystery Science Theory. We had, you know, one of the the
guys is one of the you know creators of the show did a wonderful interview
that we included on the Sampo release. It was great. I mean,
I actually love watching this. The daily earth froze and the sort of the
Dragon episodes and a lot of their things is brilliant. But I also want
to go watch the movie separate so that I can actually see in the correct
aspect ratio. It's funny reminds me years ago. Also Mario Bavas like all
things Mario bob all roads lead to Mario Bava. Eventually, we were doing
one of our Bava retrospectives at the Cinematech and we were screening The Whip in
the Body his you know, his wonderful sort of s and m tinged Gothic
horror with Christopher Lee dubbed unfortunately and Dalia Lavi and uh, somebody came out
into the lobby and raged, saying, people are laughing in there and you
need to stop them because this is a really wonderful, beautiful movie and people
shouldn't be laughing at it. And I said, you know, I am
not the behavior police, Like I'm not going to go in there and tell
people that they shouldn't laugh or cry or groan like like they're going to They're
going to respond how they respond. Yeah, so I'll be the police,
stop talking police. But that's how you make somebody stop laughing. And you
know, we've had experiences where when we're showing things that your part of the
appeal is just how wild things get and how enjoyable it is. That everybody's
getting into it. But things like Your Burial Ground and Patrick Still Lives and
that are just so outrageous that people are laughing and carrying on, and I
wouldn't want that any other way. Those movies are best enjoyed with that kind
of audience. Jesse, since you're here, I want to know, how
how did you start Diabolic? How did how did it get? You know?
What was the genesis? The short version is we do these screenings for
Zoom films here in the Philadelphia area. And when we started doing them,
it was right in the dying days of video stores, and I would go
around to video stores and collect all the horror tapes that they were getting rid
of. I'd go to flea markets and the video stores and they were just
trying to get rid of them. People would people would cry if they knew
how many copies of Full g Zombie I had in the big box that I
sold for next to nothing back in the day. So anyway, we would
bring them to the shows and put them out on a table and they would
all sell. I mean I hardly ever went home with anything. And you
know, as as that market started drying up, we were looking for something
else to sell in the lobby of our shows and turned into DVDs, which
was the next evolution of of home video. And then here we are,
so many years later. That's an amazing story. Yeah, yeah, you
know, Jesse, you're gonna love this. I meant to take a screenshot
and send it to There was a couple of weeks ago somebody was talking about
the most recent aerow sale and how the prices weren't super appealing for the US
Aero titles, and somebody had said, back in the old day of Diabolic,
prices were so much better, And somebody asked them a question and they
responded that they were referring to twenty nineteen. Yeah, okay, back in
the indies. Yeah, so in the long ago, in the far far
away, prices were much different, older than that. Well, I mean
I think we started I think we started chasing this savage out of king Stack
earlier than twenty nineteen. I did actually think we first negotiating with them,
like we have deals that they're older than we are now seeing multiple labels that
have been with the OCN now partnering with Diabolics. So obviously people are trusting
Jesse and everything that you've been doing. Is there what's the best way to
ask this without getting a very specific response. Is this something that people can
expect? There is there more to come? Because obviously the appeal behind OCEN
was you can get everything in one place, and for many of us all
worldwide, you're already to go into Diabolics. They ship worldwide. You're getting
good service, and now you've got the appeal of you know, exclusives from
Deaf, Crocodile, from Altered Innocence, from Cauldron. There's a lot to
offer here. It's true. I don't have any other news at this time
and Altered Innocence, to be fair, we're just kind of doing their limited
audition for them. They're good at they're partnering with somebody else for their normal
retail editions. But you know, it's not something I set out to do.
You know, when Dennison Craig came to me with this idea and they
were they were just shopping around too. You know, it felt like a
good fit. So you know, there may be more in the future.
But but right now, I'm not actively pursuing anything. Well, one of
the things that the partnership helps with is now def Crocodile has the opportunity to
do bigger and better things that they've been hoping to do for quite some time.
Can you guys share what kind of releases we can expect, not necessarily
titles, but what what kind of changes we will see. We've got a
bunch of stuff. I mean, we can tell you what some of the
titles are. So our first official release with Jesse limited edition slipcase and a
new kind of longer sixty page booklet is just mentioned. The Savage Hunt of
King Stack. It's just this amazing Belarusian folk horror movie that I literally first
heard about over thirty almost thirty five years ago when I first came to work
at the Cinema Tech and was on this little list that I kind of keep
in the back of my head of really rare, obscure titles. It's a
large list. Yeah, largely all have that list, right library. It's
you know that I'm not to interrupt you, but man, sometimes I just
cry when those things get crossed off my list. But not by Knae yeah,
yeah, yeah, there's been a couple of those already, just since
we've started Deaf Crocodile. That's a couple of titles that I've had on my
wish lists since our So Delicious days. And then i hear something announced and
I'm just like, dah, at least happy it's coming out. At least
yeah, you know, That's what I always say to him. I always
say, I wish it was me, but you know, at least I'm
going to get this great version of it. Yeah, yeah, Yeah.
There's a wonderful Italian film shot in the early sixties in La called Smog that
was recently restored by the CLA Film Archive of working with Warner Brothers, and
we had chased it down for years because it's got all this incredible shots of
mid century La architecture. It was all shot on location, and it's this
incredible time capsule kind of document of what La looked at looked like at that
moment and now is of course almost entirely gone. And then found out that
it was being restored and now is going to be released by someone else,
and part of me was like, ah, damn. But then I'm also
like, well, people are going to get to see this great great right
so so Savage and of Kingstack is going to come out in July. After
that, in no particular order, we're putting out our second Old rich Lipski
Yurie Burdechka cech kind of fantasy horror sci fi film, which is Adela has
not had Supper yet. This is their wonderful kind of detective man eating plant
comedy. It has this incredible carnivorous plant like Audrey and Little Shop of Horrors.
Uh. That was created by Jan Schwankmeyer. Uh. And weirdly it's
the it's the third film. We haven't been able to put out any schunk
Meyer movies, which we love to do and have actually tried to. But
we've put out three films that he did creature effects or or or monster you
know makeup for, uh, The Visitors from the Arcanic Galaxy, The Dusk
Croatian sci fi fantasy film, The Mysterious Castle and the Carpathians, which which
was also an old rich Lipsky Uri Burdechica collaboration. And now Adela has not
had Supper yet. And and we actually tried he tried to get schunk Meyer
to talk to us about them, and the response we got was no,
he's not in he he did that. He did that to pay the bills.
She doesn't want to talk about It was like, oh, yeah,
that has got some really cool like steampunk gadget tree through throughout. It's really
cool. Yeah, it's super inventive. Let's see we are putting out God
after that is they I I mean, I guess we could. Well that
was one of the other benefits of is we can talk about whatever we want
whenever we want. So. Yeah, the Karen shachnas Off who did Assassin
of Bazaar and Zero Brad that to both people seem to really like. It's
his his new film that'll be coming out. That's a based on a Sherlock
Holmes What was the do you remember? That? Based on The Sign of
Four, which is very famous Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle story, but
does not have Sherlock Holmes or doctor Watson. It's kind of amazing and in
instead he took two actual characters from Russian history in the late eighteen hundred early
nineteen hundreds. One of them, Konstantine Stanislavsky, is very famous for his
acting his work as an acting teacher. The Stanislavsky method you've probably probably heard
of. It was a theater director, and the other was a journalist named
Giliarovsky who wrote about the slums of Moscow, and in particular an area called
Kotrovka, which was sort of like Moscow's White Chapel or like the moss Isley
Spaceport. It was like a hive of common villainy and it was so bad
that after after the Communist Revolution, I had to clean it out and couldn't,
and so they had the Communist army surround the neighborhood with like ten thousand
soldiers and they told everyone in the district, you have like three days to
leave. They literally just cleared it out till it was a ghost town.
And it's still like Kotrovka Square is still there in Moscow, but of course
the neighborhood itself is long gone. But he sort of melded the stories of
the Kotrovka slums with the Sign of Four. And if you're a fan of
like the recent Kenneth Brannock, Hercule Poirot films or the old you know,
Jeremy Brett Sherlock Holm series, it's like a period detective. It's great,
it's super fun, beautiful to look at. Full production design, cinematography and
costumes and cinematography are gorgeous. Yeah, it's a it's a it's a fun
period piece detective, you know, mystery. Yeah, yeah, that's so
yeah. And we don't put out a whole lot of new films, but
that's that's a new one. Uh there is, Okay, I don't think
we we haven't announced this yet anywhere, but because we're super excited and it's
a film that we've been working on for a little while now. There's this
amazing Irish folk tale, folk horror movie, witchcraft film that we're going to
be putting out towards the end of the year called The Outcasts in a beautiful
new restoration from the Irish Film Institute Film Archive, and it was written and
directed by a British filmmaker who lived in Ireland at the time. This is
the early nineteen eighties, was one of the earliest Irish Film Board productions and
his name is Robert Wynn Simmons and folk horror fans will know him because he
wrote Blood on Satan's Claw And while there are some connections and similarities, and
this is the Outcast is it's a witchcraft movie, it's a ghost story,
it is a folk horror film. But it's also this really beautiful, haunting
and poetic film about just how brutal and miserable life was like if you were
a poor farmer in Ireland in the early eighteen hundreds. And it's about a
young woman who's kind of odd and you know, she is really an outcast
who is accused of witchcraft by people in her the local community. And it
is really remarkable. And when Simmons is, you know, thank God is
still alive. He lives overseas in Germany now and delighted that we're going to
be putting the film out here for the first time in the US. And
is also it turns out, was an incredibly prolific, like teenage filmmaker,
Like when he was like fourteen, he went out and made these like twenty
thirty minute kind of occult fantasy movies. One he shot in a house that
was owned by Mary Shelley of Frankenstein fame. Another, I Kid You Not
features a young Peter O'Toole and Charlton Heston. I did not believe it until
we saw it. And then another is this incredible like twenty five minute kind
of eerie fantasy sci fi called The Scrolls that is almost like an episode of
The Avengers meets the Prisoner. The old Patrick macgowin and he was like fifteen
years old making these like in whales and this eerie, beautiful cinematography of the
Welsh landscape. And tell him about the reels in a shoe box. Yeah,
they're eight militers. Because he had sent us he had had this stuff
like tell us and he ages ago and he had like this little DVD and
so we saw him in a pretty rough condition, but he said that,
you know, that's all he had. The film was gone. And then
about a month or two later he emailed us He's like, I found I
found the film, the eight milimeter film. Wow. So we heard like,
it looks a lot better than an old you know, telesiny from thirty
forty years ago. But the wild thing is is it's all eight millimeter.
He shot it all when he was a teen, so they're all silent,
but they're not completely silent because he then went with a tape recorder and then
he he edited in and tried just to live sync it some dialogue, sound
effects, all music like, so we've got we've got the audio from the
original telesiny and it's it's not you know, it's not hard sync anyway,
so we'll be able to get the sound that he put together with his like
tape recorder to sync with the pieces that he has. Yeah, he's got
this one short it's maybe seven eight minutes long, where there's somebody trying to
get rid of this bomb and everywhere he puts it, he can't leave it
there or someone takes it, and so it's just like this comedy trying to
get rid of this bomb. And at one point I'm watching it and I'm
like, wait a second, and I pause it and I go back and
I was like, there's a three second quick shot of Sammy Davis. I'm
like, what if this kid? Like, yeah, Peter O'Toole and Sammy
Davis junior, Michael Redgrave and Anthony Ovale. Apparently one of his best friends
at boarding school was the son of the guy that shot Doctor Strangelove. Oh,
he's a big cinematographer, so apparently he had access to a camera and
they would go hang out at the stage doors of London theaters and wait for
you're a tool Charlton Heston, who I think was doing Shakespeare whoever, and
you know, say, hey, making a movie, will you be in
it? And I guess these famous actors were so charmed they were like sure.
And to me, this is like, what's part of what's super cool
about what we do with Jesse Ryan. What you do is that you're able
to preserve these little ephemeral bits of film history that would have disappeared. Was
just like slip through the cracks. It's often, you know, we get
so excited about the features, but I have to say we're almost equally excited
about about a lot of the short contents or the interviews or things that we
do that helped document these movies, especially when the filmmaker is still around.
And can you know, going back to what I said about fish Go wishing
he were still here, you know, Robert Win Simmons is still alive,
and it's great that he's going to be able to see this. Truly,
I mean, The Outcast is a truly remarkable movie that combines several different genres
and is a is a major kind of It's it's not lost because it's being
restored right now. But has kind of been unseen major Irish film for many,
many years. So that's that's one that we're really excited about. And
it's the first time we've ever we haven't talked about it in public, So
yeah, just weird coincidences like I play with a I played tennis every weekend
with a guy from Ireland and I mentioned, like when we're going to do
the Outcast and he's like, I know the guy who did the soundtrack for
that, so he put us in touch with the with the guy who did
the music for the film. Sooney, Yeah, Australian musician who moved to
Ireland and is a famous He's played with like the Chieftains. There's a clip
of him playing in like a pub in Ireland and Dolly Parton comes in and
he backs her up and it's one of the sweetest, most amazing things.
Like thirty years ago. Yeah, my friend was saying, he's like,
yeah, I remember going out with him and he was recording. He's like,
we climbed up on this hill and he was just recording the sound of
the wind to like incorporate into like his music, and he was just like
yeah, He's like I think I can I can get you in touch with
him. I'm like, yeah, that is That is one of the things
I appreciate most about Deaf Crocodile and funny enough about Caldron too. I mean
the amount of people that you all have been able to track down that are
Party's original productions, like with Cauldron with Agenio or Kalani on the ground in
Italy, getting the most random ass interviews that are like, yeah, I
four of us dated at the time and we're all just involved in the production.
You're like, how how do you get all this? And Augenue just
knows everybody. It seems like he knows everybody. It's crazy. And then
Craig just plays tennis and it happens together. Oh man, I can't wait
to see some of those shorts. That sounds remarkable. Yeah, the shorts
are wild. But yeah, we're also coming up, Dennis, you should
you should tell them about the the October film because that's your Okay, So
we haven't we haven't. We haven't talked about this either, but we're going
to be uh putting out for the first time on Blu Ray. The first
film that I made that I produced and wrote, Trapped Ashes with segments directed
by Joe Dante, Ken Russell, Monte Hellman, John Gata, and Sean
Cunningham. We actually had to we had I had to license my own film,
and it was actually not an easy It's not an easy It was kind
of ridiculous. We've had many contracts that were much quicker to get done than
the one for Dennis's own film. I have partners, so I had to.
Yeah, it wasn't Dennis's fault I did. It was starting to drag
on, and there's some deals that we've done and it like happens in like
three four months, and this was going on and on and on, and
I was like, Okay, this would be ridiculous. If I can't actually
license my own movie, I can't track down the rights. What happened?
So that the film materials are stored here in LA at the Academy Film Archive.
I have them on deposit there. So we're going to do a brand
new scan and new interviews and it'll look, you know, kind of better
than it ever did unless you you know, screened a thirty five millimeter print
of it. So that's super exciting. We're going to put that out in
October for Halloween that's awesome for a film, you know. Of course,
the bittersweet thing is that number of the people that we made the film with.
Back in two thousand and five, two thousand and six, Monti Hellman,
who's kind of the reason the movie got made because it had been so
many years since he had been able to make a film. We used to
go out, like almost every other Friday night, would go out to dinner
Mexican restaurant, and I would hear him talking about all these film projects that
were almost going to happen and then fell through or they happened with someone else,
like he was going to direct Buffalo sixty six and then Vincent Gallo wound
up directing himself in and there were all these projects, and I said,
Jesus, Monty is such a great filmmaker. I'm going to make a movie
with him, and I'm not going to say to him, this isn't going
to happen like that. I failed. I let you down. And that
literally was what actually motivated me to get the movie done. I was like,
I can't go to money and let him down because I've seen it happen
so many many times. And we got to make the movie and you got
to direct again, and then went on to do his last feature film,
Road to Nowhere, with our friend Steve Gatos and his daughter Melissa. But
you know, Moni's gone, Ken Russell's gone. Henry Gibson is in the
film, is gone. John Saxon. You know, I was super lucky
to work with you know these people. I mean John Saxon, my younger
brother who's in the film as well. He is an actor. Literally after
every take, he would just come over to me in mouth, I'm working
with Johnson John and I felt the same way. I was like and I
had to say, John wasn't the sweetest guy. Oh my god. He
would actually come over to me because I was also the writer and one of
the producers, and after every take he'd go, do you think do you
think that my you know, my performance was okay? Because I was thinking
this, he was like, He's like he was a young actor starting out.
He's like, maybe I should do it this way. What do you
think Is that really what you meant when you wrote this? And I'd say,
I was so one, I was in awe that I was actually sitting
there talking to John Saxon, But two, he was so committed to his
craft. He was clearly such a dedicated actor and you would think, oh
my god. At that point he literally made one hundred and fifty maybe two
hundred films and TV performances, and he could literally phone it. He could
text his performance, and he was a complete opposite. It was so involved
and so dedicated. So to me, it's like, it's great to be
able to kind of watch it again. It is. It is bittersweet to
see absent friends, but that's that's going to be really fun to put out.
It's amazing Saxon. Saxon worked with Bava and or Gento and Wes Craven.
It's kind of amazing art. I'll tell you a really funny thing because
of course, Joe Dante being a walking encyclopedia of film history, we were
shooting at Universal for the the scenes that are kind of the wrap around that
Joe Dante was directing on the movie studio tour, ironically on some outdoor sets
that were destroyed and the disastrous fire that also happened to without Universal telling anyone
burn up all of the like original audio masters for well, I don't know,
like you know, Ella Fitzgerald and Billie Holiday and like Tom Petty and
Nirvana, you remember that came out a couple of years ago. So there
was a fire that destroyed these sets and then burned up a warehouse filled with
thousands of master recording You remember when that happened. They didn't tell anybody,
of course, not yeah yeah, so so and by like every famous musician
and band of like the past forty fifty years. But so we shot on
some of those those unfortunately now now destroyed outdoor sets. What John was walking
up a flight of stairs and Joe Dante stopped him and he said, hey,
John, you walked up that exact same set of stairs in nineteen fifty
eight, and it's like universal romantic comedy. Really, just like yeah,
yeah, yeah, I went back and I checked it and then those act
same flight of steps. Okay, this is insane, all right. That's
kind of why you love the movie industry is that it has so much,
so many layers of history and memory. All these future titles will be available
through Diabolic for the limited edition. With those, you're gonna have longer books.
You're gonna have I think you said a hard box too, right,
It's gonna be the limited editions now are going to have a hard box slipcase
and then a book that minimum sixty page, perfect bound book with we're trying
to get to like longer essays in each one, you know, obviously photos
and extra bits, so it'll be it'll be a nice thick book that comes
with every every one of the limited editions, and then the box art will
be commissioning new art for for those nice so that it's it's uh, it's
difficult to wrangle artists. I did it for years prior to Deaf Crocodile,
and so I come to expect it, but it could be difficult to to
uh be like give an artist a deadline. They don't like those. But
it's working out. We've got we've got some some very cool new artwork coming
for the limited editions. Well and one more thing. Uh, you know,
we got all these future titles we're talking about, but also we just
got a brand new title announced with O C N and I I'm dying to
hear how Dennis explains what Kinzutza is. Can you tell everybody about kin Zatza?
Kens Asa is like Andre Tarkovsky directing Douglas Adams Hitchhiker's Guide to the guy.
Yeah, it's the Samuel Beckett of Soviets sci fi films. It is
like waiting for goodo On like on a set on Tatooine from the original Star
Wars. It's a couple average Moscow residents, a construction foreman and a and
a poor Georgian student who just happens to be carrying a violin case, so
he's called the violinist, but he's like, I can't play a note of
violin and it becomes a running gag, and they meet a homeless man who's
got this weird gizmo, and in a flash, they're transported across the galaxy
to an alien planet called Plup, which is kind of completely barren, sort
of post apocalyptic in a kind of road warrior way, but it's visuals that
are ted George Miller esque visual as well. Yeah, it's it's it's quite
a film that it's great and and where things like common household matches are like
the most valuable commodity, and clearly it's the entire film was was a kind
of satire or parable for the dysfunction of the Soviet state at that time,
and it's kind of it's sort of like one of the last films of the
Soviet Union. It was made a couple of years before the Soviet Union collapsed,
but it clearly is is a kind of metaphor for how disfunctional things were
at that time. And it's really famous in Russia where people are constantly quote
literally quoting the lines. They know all the dialogue off by heart, and
they had they invent there's an invented language for the film. And it's a
really amazing, amazing movie. And I have to say, the thing that
I am so excited about with this movie, besides the fact that we're putting
it out because it's a great film, is that we tracked down one of
the leads in the film, Leo Gabriadze no Way, who is the son
of the writer of the film, Raiso Gabriadze, and Leo himself went on
later to become a director and now is the creative director of his father's puppet
theater Into Bill a c. Georgia. And as far as I know,
I don't think Leo has ever given an interview. He's about working on Kinza's
eyes incredibly shy. It's one of the few acting roles that he ever did
and I have to say it was incredibly difficult to convince him talk to us,
and when he did, it was a lovely conversation, like you talked
for over an hour and shared Also it's a wonderful stories. But the fact
that we were able to actually like get to him and it's so difficult to
convince him, and then he finally said, okay, I'll do this and
told all these wonderful stories about the making of kins as Ah. So so
yeah, we're really excited that that's going to come out and people will will
get to see it. So yeah, it's a super super cool film and
that will be out by the time this airs, right, yep, yeah,
yeah it is. Yes, yes, that will be up. I'm
so excited for Abils to see this. While I was working on the visual
essay for my wife kept checking in because I was trying to get the timing
of the coup sound and one of the songs that they do just perfect.
And she's like, I've heard you say that like forty times. What is
this movie? And I laughed because obviously she's never seen it, and I
said, don't worry, it's a dry movie, and then just kind of
laughed knowing that that's like an inside joke and she has no clue what I'm
saying about that. In regards to the film, Yeah, this movie's amazing.
I really hope people check it out because it is gorgeous and steampunk and
just interesting visually on every level and so so odd like what they did to
make choices to just to make everything work, and they really went for it.
There's nothing about this that isn't earnest. It's it's a super fun movie.
Yeah. I seen clips from it and night scene steals from it,
and then so then when I finally like did like sit down and watch it,
some of the visuals really blew me away. I was like, that
is absolutely gorgeous, Like just some incredible visuals that are that for whatever reason,
when you see clips from the film, those aren't the clips they show,
right, which is nice. At least it gives people something to look
forward to. Well, one of the things I learned from speaking with Lee
is that so they shot it way out in the desert where there's only like
oil drilling going on, so there was some like like abandoned or you know,
wrecked machinery they were able to incorporate. But pretty much. They had
to fly everything else in and he said that the main spacecrafts and the film
were created. They bought an old Soviet bomber in Moscow and then they cut
it up and welded it together to make these rusted you know, kind of
post apocalyptic vehicles and then ship them many many hours out into the desert for
this film, which is kind of amazing. There's a Fairess wheel in the
movie and so I said, there wasn't a Fairest wheel in the middle of
the desert. Did you us make it there that He said, no,
no, they bought it, disassembled it and flew they'd fly cargo plane as
fair as we Also that was great. Yeah, Like it's amazing what filmmakers
were able to do before CGI. Right, A lot of this stuff can
be done well. And the earnestness behind like every film and the Deaf Crocodile
catalog is I think something that really ties it all together. From the first
couple of titles to what's been announced. There's I don't know, there's something
special about it and it's it's one of those rare, uh you know,
one of the OC and partner labels where it seems like a lot of people
that buy one or two seem to go all in for pretty much every title.
So I'm hoping people understand there's no loss of quality that's going to be
happening. In fact, it seems like it's going to be a step up.
One of the big things. Is it going to be one title a
month or are we planning something different than that. We're hoping to be able
to do more than one. I don't want to put too much on your
plate there, Craig. I saw I saw your eyes glaze over there.
I'll allow it if we can. If we can, we'll do more than
one. But no, no promises, because there's only twenty four hours in
a day, and and uh, you're looking at all of that crocodile right
now, the big brain Trust. Uh so, yeah, we want,
we want to be able to work work the schedule and and maybe you know,
find some films that that don't need full restorations from from us that that'll
be easier to fill in, and so we can, so we can try
and work out more than one a month. But it's it's a hope,
it's not a guarantee, right See, Craig is our secret weapon because he
really is a wizard at restoration. And so when people see the Pied Pipe,
when they see a lot of these releases that have come out, you
know, visitors from the Arcanic Galaxy, you're seeing hundreds and hundreds of incredible
hours of restoration wizardry on his part. Like we honestly, we could not
release most of what we've put out without Craig's artistry and expertise. Solomon King
could not have done I mean, so that's such a huge ace up our
sleeve that Craig is able to restore these films so beautifully and is a perfectionist.
So he's usually tweaking things right before we send them to David McKenzie Fidelity
in Motion. He's like, oh, yeah, David has got incredible patience.
I'm like, yeah, I'm working on it and I'll get to you
as soon as i can. Although we needed to, Tyler Fegerstrom needs a
shout out. He he does a lot of our color work, and Solomon
King couldn't happened without Tyler's He's just amazing with what he can do with with
color grading. And you know, through through some Delicious and then through through
the years working with him. It wasn't uh he didn't start off with the
color grading restoration. Uh you know he was. He was color grading you
know, new features and commercials, and we just kept throwing stuff at him
and saying, hey, can you fix this? And uh, he's become
quite the expert at it now. And yeah, I'd be lost without him,
I have to say, man, and hopefully you can tell let we
get really excited because we're film lovers. And I think the great thing about
Jesse is as long as you know, we've we've known him, is that
clearly, Jesse, you still love movies. You haven't gotten like jaded or
burnt out on films. And we can feel the same way. Yeah.
Yeah, I'm always I'm so excited all the time to discover new things.
There's always there's there is such a wealth of films that have yet to be
discovered. And I think that that's one of the great things about Deaf Crocodile
is that the curation is just so great. There's there's all these gems you
guys have unearthed that that finally are finding an audience here in the States.
I have to say that is one of the super exciting things because you think,
Okay, you know, you know, we think we've exhausted this.
You know, you know this vein, you know, it's like it's like
a vein of silver gold or and then somebody will email into us and like
suggest fifteen titles that's actually worth worth mentioning. Yeah, we get we get
emails, not daily but almost daily at this point from somebody, either emails
or message messages on social media, like, oh, if you looked at
this film, if you checked out this film, like I love all these
other films you did, you probably would like these. And there's some gems
in there that we've never like, stuff Dennis hasn't even heard of, which
is that's not easy to do, right, We'll look at it. We're
like, hey, that looks kind of cool. We should look into that.
So yeah, keep the suggestions coming everyone. It's it's it's really helpful
because yeah, no nobody knows everything. So yeah, he's in the he's
a the hive mind to find stuff is really important. I hope you give
us more. Bill Plimpton, it sounds like he's into it. We hope,
So we hope. So for sure, I was very happy. Jill
interviewed him, where he seemed open to the idea as well, so like,
yes, please, we floated it to him, he's We're like,
we would love to continue putting out Bill Plimpton movies. So I think he
was so busy with finishing Slide Slide was Clyde was really taking up one hundred
percent, Like he was completely focused on getting that wrapped up. And I
was lucky they screened it in LA and I got to see it. It's
it's a fun movie. It's still out there winning awards right now. It's
it's fun. But I say, like we were saying before, like sometimes
as much as we love to feature, some of the extras that we have
on the discs are just as good. And I've watched Guard Dog. I
could watch that thing just in a loop. It's so good. And I
mean, you know, I'm a I'm a cat person, but I do
I do love dogs, and that is so funny and cute and and it's
got the dark sense of humor, which is just I like I said,
I could put that on a loop and just watch it over and over and
over. Agreed, Jesse. I was gonna ask, is there anything that
you've watched on disc recently that really blew you away that really I saw this
odd movie called The Mysterious Castle and the Carpathians that I really like. That's
actually true, that it is really odd. It's like a goth It's sort
of like a goth steampunk Benny Hill episode or something. Yeah, it's so
bizarre it shouldn't work, but it does. It's really really wonderful. Yeah,
yeah, I liked it a lot. You know what else I watched
recently that I really liked was The Lady Killers, which is kind of out
of what I would normally watch. I don't know what made me put it
on, but it's the Alliginnis movie where they were running a boarding house from
this sweet old lady and and kind of nothing goes right with this heist that
they've got planned, and mostly because she's so into their business. But I
really liked it. It's so charming. Was Alec Gannis ever young thirty years
before Star Wars and I was I think he looks older in the movie than
he does as Obi Wan, which was odd. If you see him in
Great I think he is he in Great Expectations. And the Oliver twist that
David Lean version. Technically he was young. I don't think he looked he's
the oldest pip in all of all time. Yes, I love The Lady
Kellers. That's a great movie. Yeah, it was really great. That
four K looked pretty excellent. I don't know if that's what the one you
watch that Studio Canal four K is pretty remarkable. Yeah. I have so
much of my collection is things that arrive to me in a condition that I
can't sell, but I can still watch them. So, you know,
I have so many scratching dent things sitting on my shelf that I'm like,
well, I don't know what to do with this, but I'm I guess
I'm gonna watch it at some point. But answer that one. I h
One of the ones that really stuck out for me is I watched Richard Lester's
Juggernaut with Richard Harris and Omar Shariff and a young Anthony Hopkins. You ever
seen It's it's kind of it's mid seventies. Technically, it's a disaster film
because it's about someone who plants seven canisters of explosives on a luxury liner at
sea, and of course blackmails the British government or they'll set off these canisters.
And Richard Harris is a bomb disposal expert who with his team, including
David Hemmings, is helicoptered onto the boat. But it's much closer in tone
to something like the Taking of Pelham one, two three. It's really kind
of lean and dark. Uh, it's really impressive. I mean I love
some of these films. I love you know, the Towering Inferno and the
Side Adventure, and you know about the Bucks, the the disaster films Bucks
that they came out, was it last year? Yeah? I bought that
from my brother for Christmas. You know, all the Arwin Allen ones,
right, Yerno and those are great. You know, when I was a
kid, I was I was kind of obsessed with the airport movies. I
don't know what it was about them, but I just was, and they
frightened me and I hated getting on an airplane. After watching this, I'm
gonna be at the bottom of the ocean. I mean, I'm flying from
here to Texas, but somehow I'm gonna be on the bottom of what's your
favorite I you know, honestly, it has been so long since I watched
any of those, but the one where they where they go where they crash
into the ocean is the favorite too. I think it's seventy seven. Yeah,
Lee, And oh that one, said Jimmy Stewart, And that one's
pop notch. If you want to get terrified at getting on a plane again.
Watched this week tonight. His episode last week was about Boeing. Oh
yeah, it's terrifying. I was the idiot when I lived in southern California
when the north Ridge quake happened, and then I don't know if it was
morbid curiosity, but I was stuck on that movie Earthquake for like the four
years following that. I was the only kid in elementary school just rewatching Earthquake.
For some reason. I loved it because because after it's Ava Gardner,
right, I think, so, yeah, it's like his wife that he's
cheating on, and said he dives in and they both drowned together, which
I was like, that's better. The only the only scene I remember from
that film is when they're walking across the dam and it starts to crack.
I just remember that that image vividly. For some reason, you know,
oddly, I've never seen the the Italian is it? I think it's a
Diadado movie. There's the air Airport movie that he whipped off. It's like
the Concorde affair. Oh wow, Yeah, there is an Italian ripoff of
the airport movies that I've never seen. I don't know why. I mean,
it's right in my wheelhouse. I don't know why I've never seen it.
Oh no, I got to check this puppy. Yeah. I also
kind of in that. Uh, it's it's uh. I guess you definitely
called the disaster movie. Is the Cassandra Crossing? Well, George, because
that's a damn good film. Cosmatis was a really good, solid genre filmmaker.
Totally movies he did. I mean, and even if you want to
talk about Tombstone or Leviathan, those movies are great. Lovel Tom says,
Oh my god, good, it's better than it should be. Uh.
How Val Kilmer did not get nominated and win an Oscar It's insane. For
Doc Holliday, he's great. Yeah, I'm not sure that he's a great
actor, but his performance is Doc Holiday is truly brilliant. He's put in
some other really good performances, really can really bring it. I thought he's
really good in Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang. Actually another absolute really good.
He is kind of looking like, yeah, no, Val Kilmer sucks.
No, I was. I was stuck on what Jesse was talking about,
and I just found Concord Affair seventy nine and found out Mimsy Farmer is second
building that. Oh Memsy Farmer Wow from She and Moore. I think the
Barbee Schroeder film, I think so yeah, and four Flies on Gray Velvet.
Yeah, she's definitely into Italian you know, genre films. More More
is a great sort of psychedelic drug movie. Yeah, that's a terrific early
early Barbee Schroeder movie. Yeah. Yeah, Well, it is about to
be midnight for Jesse. Uh, and I know we're discussing Val Kilmer.
Uh after midnight, any any more news that we would like to pass on
about anything? I mean, whoa, Sorry, guys, I was looking
at Memsy Farmer and IMDb played some music going down the Mindsy Farmer Rabbit.
When this When this airs, we'll still have the pre order up for Ninja
Terminator, which is which is our collaboration with uh Jared from Mondo Micabre that
we call that the Neon Eagle label where we're kind of focusing on trashy Asian
cinema and it's due out in April. We just we just watched the check
disc h and you know, honestly, I don't I don't think I've ever
seen the movie before. There's so many of those I f D movies where
they cobble together, you know, some other movie and got some American actors
and and made it a completely different movie. It's it's great, it's so
much fun, and it really has I think an influence on Mortal Kombat because
all the ninjas can you know, shoot smoke out of their swords or fire,
and they're teleporting all over the place and it's it's wild. And the
one guy's always got a suit on, which kind of fascinated me for some
reason. He's always fighting in a suit. Spoiler his suit gets ripped at
one point and he gets really mad. And then we have the Houses of
Doom box set, which was at a television Italian Italian television series where Fulgi
made two movies and and Berto Lenzi made two movies and then they decided they
were too too violent for Italian television and just kind of went into the vaults
and they've been floating around on DVD for a long time. But they told
us that no one had ever gone back and scanned the negatives that they were.
Any release had just been an old video master. So we were really
thrilled to get a crack at those and they were in great condition, except
they were just dusty from sitting around. I don't know how that happens,
how these films get dust, you know, many layers into them, but
it happened. So you know that that box that's coming out hopefully before July,
but July is the projected date, and that's a Cauldron film's proper release.
And I'll give a shout out to my partner Brian Izzy, who much
like Craig, is the whiz here at Cauldron and has brought so many things
back to life here that that we're just so dirty and scratchy and and we
thought they were never going to see the light of day, and spent so
many hours just going frame by frame and cleaning these things up. In fact,
YouTube Craig and Brian should should get together and have have take I'm sure
you'd have lots of talk about. So that's what's going on in the in
the Cauldron, Realm and Diabolic of course, is just chugging along with you
know, we are in such a golden era of everything that's coming out.
It's just really amazing. Every time something gets announced, I'm just thrilled,
not just because I'm going to sell it and make money, but also because
hey, I'm going to see this movie. It's I can't believe that someone's
doing this. It's terrific. Well maybe, you know, just as an
inside thing, that might be a good thing to end this on, because
obviously the last twenty five thirty years has been physical media home videos dying.
But it seems like there is, like for the first time in quite some
time, a little bit of an upswing happening. And I would imagine the
three of you obviously see this, but there are you know, these once
in a lifetime titles that people said would never happen. I mean, even
the House is a doomed thing. Like the fact that we live in a
world where that's not not only getting a release, but a six disc hard
box extravagant. Oh my god, this is incredible release like that wouldn't have
happened ten years ago from the negative and that's something that we don't stress enough
for sure. Yeah, So how do you guys feel about the optimism of
the next few years, because I know, obviously there was an interview with
a couple of people in the last couple of years that said basically a lot
of these companies would be gone in the next handful of years, and it
seems like we're kind of refuting that every day. At the moment, I
think that I think maybe there's a little too many cooks right now. We'll
see what happens with that. But I'm here for it. I mean,
you know, everybody dipping in here and looking for things and finding these movies.
It's it's terrific. And you know, I think back to when we
start art at Diabolic and and how few labels there were doing anything. You
know, Anchor Bay was kind of the big one. And and you know,
in a lot of ways, Anchor Bay is kind of the patron saint
of of everything that's going on right now because if it wasn't for them,
and you know, and and David Gregory and and and Bill Lustig and you
know, kind of saving all these things that that who knows what would be
what there would be without those guys right. I remember when they first started
putting out their Hammer releases. Yeah, and that was so exciting to see
so many of those Hammer films, like you know, Done Justice and you
know, uh this great Clamshell VHS releases. There's a DVD. So yeah,
it was Baker Bay was something. So that's off the fantastic. In
typical fashion, we had four people that like talking about movies and were our
twenty two minutes in and I just realized there's two important things that we forgot
to mention at all. Well, we get sidetracked very easily. We're going
to be offering a subscription. Okay, yeah, that was probably worth mentioning
about an hour ago. So we're gonna have to to u two flavors available
six months and twelve months, and that will guarantee you the the limited edition
of every title for either six months or twelve months or one rather one a
month, guaranteed one a month, because we did talk about hopefully being able
to do more and if we are, those will we'll have like a coupon
code for people to get a good discount on it if there's an extra disc
that month, but it'll guarantee you the the limited edition. You haven't got
to worry about that selling out or anything. And we've been putting you know,
the the movie trading cards and shipments that we send out. So we're
going to create a nice collectible you know, foil stamped or pilot gram or
some some quite a cool, cool trading card, Uh, just for the
subscribers and one of my what am I to make sure I'm not missing anything?
Yeah, So that'll uh, once the the goes out, the it'll
be open to enroll for that, and the enrollment will close June thirtieth,
So we've got like about a you know, two months to decide if you
want the six months of the twelve month and then it'll start with the Savage
ton of King Stack would be the first shipment of the subscription. So yeah,
people have been asking about it and and yeah, we're trying to figure
out how we could make sure it could do. And it's a huge part
of it is is being able to have Jesse on board today. Yeah,
there's only so much packing and shipping I can do from home on my own
to be restoring a film. So yeah, we're excited to be able to
offer that coming up. And then we did. Dennis and I did discuss
that that we probably could and or should mentioned the worst kept secret release that
we're going to be doing. Uh so yes, in fact, officially we
are going to be releasing Felly Day. What it will be our first four
K HDR Dolby Vision. We've got gorgeous, beautiful four K scans from the
original negative and I was looking through them. I haven't really dove into the
restoration of it yet, but the the scans look incredible. Uh, it's
going to be a beautiful release. We've it was weird. I was trying
to find somebody who worked on it, because Dennis did interview the director.
But I was trying to find maybe some of the animators, and I was
looking at IMDb and there's a, you know, long list of names,
and I literally just randomly picked one and googled and sent an email and he
got back to me and us in touch with like six other people. So
we've got this incredible Like Dennis conducted like a roundtable discussion with all the animators
talking about the film, which was this year's it's thirtieth anniversaries. It was
kind of this cool little thirty year reunion for all these guys who are now
all around the world getting together and talking about the film, and really really
cool interview with all those guys. I told you we commissioned new artwork for
the special editions. Super exciting about this one, as we've got the characters
designer for the film is going to be doing the cover art. So yeah,
that's amazing. It's you know, I'm an animation geek, crazy cat
person, and a film buff, so you have no idea how excited I
am about this release. Other cat movie, We're actually gonna have three animated
cat features. You have another one. You're thinking about putting out an animated
cat box, but I don't know, little little prayers or something, just
a little cat up in every box. Yeah, it's so weird that we're
going to put out three cartoon cat features. It wasn't wasn't intentional, but
yeah, I'm I'm very excited about Pelly Day and with all the animators we
got in touch with. We've got like this treasure trove of of sketches and
character designs and story boards, and I mean, I don't know yet,
but I mean we have so much stuff that the sixty page book might have
to be more than sixty pages for this because there's so much stuff. So
yeah, four k HDR Dolby Vision Cats, George, the song, oh
yeah, the theme song George, the theme song to Kelly Day the film
that the German film has an English opening title song by boy George. Wow,
it's amazing. I mean one I was I was looking through some of
the sketches that that that he had sent us, and he's got some early
design sketches and he's got a little word balloon around it and it says,
I look a little too much like a Don Bruth blue character, don't I
which because we're talking to the animators and the weird yeah, they all they
all came from Don Bluth. But also there was this weird discord but like
everyone knew like this is a really dark movie. Yeah, like they're trying
like they were trying to get away from the Don Bluth looks. So it's
and then when they they said when the movie came out, like you know,
the poster with the happy little cat and they're like, what are you
do we because they said they had people like you know, parents taking their
kids out of the theater because they're like, this is this is not what
you shold us dissections. There's it's more it's much more like the water,
like an R rated Don Bluth movie. So the the animation style does shift.
So there's there's the the main story, which is very Don Bluth looking,
but there's a series of dream sequences where Francis, the lead cat has
has nightmares and they have a completely different animation style. That's that's really Those
dream sequences are absolutely incredible. I'm very excited about this film. You can
probably tell me too. I tried tracking down the novel recently, and that
thing is hard to get a good copy of. I've seen it pop up
on eBay occasionally, but but yeah, I've I don't know if they're English
translated, yeah, half or half art. That's the hard part. We
even found a I don't even I don't know if it's an official but there
there was a graphic novel, comic book. There's a there's a comic book
adaptation of the book which follows and they and they, and we talked about
it that some of the character designs in the comic are based on the book.
So like Francis Is the lead cat is as like an orange tabby in
the comic because it's he's not in the movie, so there's some some differences
between the two. I was gonna try and try and see you. I
don't think it's official, so it's certainly the English version I think is just
somebody on their own translated it and posted it online. So I don't think
there's an official English version. But yeah, very excited. So we we
are super stoked to be working with Jesse. Yeah, it's mutual. Thanks
guys. Yeah, it's like a whole new, whole new era. You
know. We we've actually really enjoyed working with Ocen and Vinegar syndrome. It
gave us a chance to sort of kind of you know, get established,
start to spread our wings. I think this is you know a good time
for us to be, you know, moving on and trying new things,
and and certainly working with Jesse is like, is super exciting for us.
Yeah, thanks, same. Do we do we forget anything else, Craig
before we wrap the two things I thought of it's like SPUs to mention well,
as as we mentioned during the show, check out def Crocodile through Diabolic.
Check out the subscription you got the next couple of months to look into
that. As Jesse mentioned looking to Neon, Eagle and Cauldron, lots of
cool stuff coming out the rest of the year. I'm sure all three of
you, I really just want to say to everybody watching, support boutiques that
love movies. Support boutiques that love the people that support them. And you
can tell, you know, when you're getting some of these choices made.
It's it's clear that they are passionate about these like we are. So I
appreciate what all three of you do and hope for a very successful immediate future.
Yeah. I just recently greeted I saw I saw and packing up orders
and like just seeing the same names every month. It's just it's just true.
It's just like I was like, that's just awesome. I'm like,
it's it's so cold to see that. You know, there's people and a
lot of people that the online shop allows them to put notes. You know,
sometimes it'll be like ring the doorbell, but a lot of times people
are just writing these like really nice notes thanking us, and it's it's really
nice, Like the ring the doorbell. I'm really loving you guys are doing.
Make sure to ring the doorbell in the box to the left of the
gate behind the hose. There are some that are very specific and they're like,
I'm like, do you think I'm hand delivering this thing? I call
your mail carrier. I let him and give that note. But it's very
nice. It's like the vast majority of people I've interacted with have been super
nice, super supportive, and and I really appreciate it. We we also
have just such great customers, except for the ones I post about sincerely though,
it really is. It's such a great camaraderie of of people. It's
the community of of of collectors and film lovers and uh, it's it's really
great. Well, thank you all. I know everybody needs some sleep,
so thank you all for doing this, staying up for everything you do to
help promote and champion these releases and independent lables and everybody you do an amazing
job. So so much. Thank you, Ryan, Ryan Is, there
was a I think it's been proven to be faked, but there was an
image that came out on the internets of sleeping and everyone knows that that's not
possible. With all the things he's doing to have time to speak, I'm
gonna end the record so there's no more evidence of that. Thank you.
Thank you for listening to the Disconnected podcast. There's one big thing that you
could do to help the show, and that is to leave a rating and
review on the podcast service of your choice. Thank you, Tell me No
Hello. This is Chris Askell from They Live by Film. For those that
don't know us, Adam Zach and I. We built the podcast over the
last two years. That's a combination of film discussion from three very different perspectives,
as well as industry interviews with the leaders in Boutique, Blu Ray,
and four Kid Community. We started with dev Crocodile, but over time we've
been lucky enough to speak with Aero Video, Severn, Mondo, Macabre,
Vinegar Syndrome, Radiant Syndicator, most of the OCN partner labels. It's been
a blast. You can find us wherever you podcast and also actually recently as
part of someone's favorite production podcast network. We hope to see you online.