HELP best versions to buy

[Vampix]

The Something Weird R0 DVD of Basket Case is probably the best version of that film out at the moment.

[Rob Strange]

It's great. The Synapse R1 release of Brain Damage is also excellent.

[Pete]

Second Sight also put out a decent uk disc of Brain Damage.

[Daemonia]

Basket case = Hands down the best version is the R1 Something Weird release.

Blade
Blade 2
Blade 3
I think the UK EiV are probably as good as anything else - except for the first one, which was slightly trimmed here in the UK.

Class of 84 - The R1 Anchor Bay release is probably the best one to go for.
Class of 1999 - The UK Columbia release was pretty good - and restored and uncut, too!

Evil dead ..anchor bay ..uncut
Evil dead 2 ...momentum
Evil dead 3 ..anchor bay
All of those are okay, except for Army of Darkness. As someone else said, the R3 release by MGM was the full, uncut version and fully remastered (ie: no poor quality inserts of the cut footage). If MGM could do it, why couldn't Anchor Bay??

House ...Anchor bay
That's the best version - and the UK AB versions of parts 2 and 4 are also the ones to go for. The only exception is part 3, which Digital Entertainment (who later became AB UK) released back about 10 years ago uncut, but fullscreen and poor quality. When AB UK revisited it, they gave it a better presentation, but was a heavily cut version.

Hellraiser....cinema club
Hellraiser 2 Cinema club
Hellraiser 3 Cinema club
The AB UK boxset is the one to get. The Cinema Club DVD of Hellraiser 2 is butchered beyond belief. It's about 7 minutes shorter than the uncut AB UK release, which was the fully uncensored version.

[Stephen@Cult Labs]

Blade was cut in the UK? I can't find any info on that.

[Daemonia]

I'd have to dig it out - but in an old issue of Dark Side they claimed the UK release was slightly cut. Did they report wrong, then? I think it was when they reviewed the UK DVD and recommended getting the R1 as the UK one was slightly trimmed.

[Stephen@Cult Labs]

I think they might have been wrong.There doesn't seem to be any cuts on the BBFC website listing or dvd compare.

[Daemonia]

I know, I just checked there myself. Maybe they were aware of some pre-cuts? Who knows. Well, let's just say that in the absence of any hard data, the UK release must be uncut!

[Rob Strange]

Originally Posted by Daemonia

Evil dead ..anchor bay ..uncut
Evil dead 2 ...momentum
Evil dead 3 ..anchor bay
All of those are okay, except for Army of Darkness. As someone else said, the R3 release by MGM was the full, uncut version and fully remastered (ie: no poor quality inserts of the cut footage). If MGM could do it, why couldn't Anchor Bay??

I still think the OOP Elite R0 release of The Evil Dead has the best image and sound quality. Too much edge enhancement, but with much more natural colours than the Anchor Bay versions. Also it's the full screen ratio version - which AB only included on their late Ultimate Edition.

The AB THX Evil Dead 2 is slightly better in terms of PQ than the Momentum, but there's not much in it (sourced from the same master). And it's definitely better than the blu ray.

Shame the long cut of Army Of Darkness isn't on blu ray yet. But the Optimum release of the theatrical cut looks pretty good for HD, again despite the edge enhancement. It's actually better than the recent US disc, which has been sharpened and digitally tweaked even more.

[Daemonia]

Which Anchor Bay release are we talking about here? The first US Anchor Bay release which came out in '98/'99 (which I still have) was fullscreen and looked pretty damn good. I think it's probably comparable to the Elite release and the transfer was supervised by Raimi himself.