Obsession - Official Announcement
 

Obsession DVD (ArrowDrome)

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THE LOVE STORY THAT WILL SCARE THE LIFE OUT OF YOU

High melodrama, creeping insanity and barely contained delirium abound in this dizzying tribute to the high tension thrillers of Alfred Hitchcock from director Brian De Palma (Carrie, Scarface, Dressed to Kill)

Michael Courtland is a Southern gentleman who seems to have everything - A successful business, a beautiful wife and an adoring young daughter – until a botched kidnapping tears his world apart leaving him widowed, bereaved and bereft. Years later on a trip to Italy, he meets a woman with an uncanny resemblance to his late wife but all is not how it appears as a twisted conspiracy threatens to unhinge his mental shackles, sending him to the knife edge of MADNESS!

A master class in mounting unease and clammy palmed claustrophobia, Obsession is a classic 70s thriller with an evil twist that will leave you speechless.

ARROWDROME IS A FLEAPIT SELECTED LIBRARY OF CULT FILMS; VIOLENT, HORRIFIC, SLEAZY, EXPLOITATIVE. TO EXPLORE STEP IN TO THE CULT ARENA! EVERY ARROWDROME RELEASE INCLUDES A REVERSIBLE SLEEVE OF ORIGINAL ARTWORK AND A COLLECTOR’S BOOKLET!

ALSO INCLUDES INTERVIEWS WITH DIRECTOR BRIAN DE PALMA, STARS CLIFF ROBERTSON AND GENEVIEVE BUJOLD AND MORE, ORIGINAL TRAILER + A NEW BOOKLET BY AUTHOR BRAD STEVENS!

96 mins approx
English Language
English subtitles for the hard of hearing
RRP £9.99
Released 30 January 2012

You can Pre-Order Arrowdrome's Obsession here...

- Amazon

- HMV

- Play

I imagine this is great news for those who haven't made the jump to Blu-ray yet. Also, I may end up buying this to keep my ArrowDrome collection going!

Shortage of extras... no buy.

Hoo-Ray!!!! ArrowDrome is really coming along nicely:)

I'd love to see this (and have a Blu-ray player) but haven't yet ordered the (current) Blu-ray. Is the consensus that this is still likely to be the better bet - that the extras and the film quality make the Blu-ray worth the extra cost?

I haven't seen Obsession on DVD, but Blu-ray has such great storage capacity that, whether it's a small or massive improvement, a BD will always have better picture and sound quality than a DVD.

Seen very few De Palma films aside from the obvious. Might give this one a go . . .

If you are not sure about a film and you have the choice of buying the Arrow Video BD for around £19.99 or the ArrowDrome DVD for about £7.99, I'd go for the latter and, if you really like it, upgrade to the BD!

As I'm a DePalma fan and also think Bernard Herrmann was a great composer, I've ordered the Blu-ray anyway, along with a DVD of Body Double, which I've seen and enjoyed. I was confused initially by the fact that the Blu-ray of Obsession has come out before the DVD.

On further checking I see that the current Blu-ray and the DVD being released in December are from the same company, so it's unlikely that there'll be a cheaper Blu-ray edition, and there's only about £6 difference in the prices anyway.

I got the Obsession Blu-ray and have to admit I was disappointed in the film. The disc was OK (satisfactory picture and sound) but the whole thing looks dated and rather clumsy, and Herrmann's music comes across as heavy-handed. Not a patch on Carrie in any respect, and not as good as Body Double or Blowout.

I disagree there, I think OBSESSION is a lot better than BODY DOUBLE.

I agree - I also prefer it to Blow Out.

That's just crazy talk! I prefer it to Body Double but in my eyes Blow Out is DePalma's thriller masterpiece. Blow Out is such an incredible film.

This is one of those posts that needs to be suffixed with the old "each to their own" comment isn't it? :)

I'm of the same opinion (Body Double is a DVD I really should own), but also think Blow Out is a better film than Obsession. As it's been a while since I saw the film inspired by The Conversation, I may change my opinion as to where it stands against De Palma's Vertigo homage. (Is it just me, or is there a theme here?!)

Fortunately, I have the Criterion Collection BD so it won't be long until I next see Blow Out!

Definitely, De Palma is, in a lot of peoples eyes, a lazy thief. A third rate Hitchcock. A complete hack.

I used to think that way, I'm kind of on the fence. Some of his stuff is great, but a lot of it is a derivative mess (especially Body Double and Dressed To Kill).

Blow Out though? Cracking.

Crazy talk indeed! I think BLOW OUT is wonderful but DRESSED TO KILL just edges it for me. It’s a very close call though.

Both BLOW OUT and THE COVERSATION owe a lot to Antonioni’s BLOW-UP too. Another great film that’s long overdue a release on Blu-ray. :nod:

That’s just snobbery and nothing more. I love getting into arguments with people who write De Palma off as a Hitchcock-aping hack. Some people just like to flex their intellect and it’s all too easy to accuse De Palma of ripping off Hitchcock’s aesthetic and thematic content. In my eyes De Palma was the successor to Hitch, continuing to dabble with many of the techniques pioneered by the older master and paying homage to the plots of many of his films: OBSESSION/VERTIGO; RAISING CAIN/PSYCHO; BODY DOUBLE/REAR WINDOW, and so on.

It always amazes me when De Palma’s critics accuse him of indulging the explicit sex and violence that Hitchcock “stayed away from” and that “Hitchcock never had to resort to cheap tricks to shock his audience” – again, rubbish. Hitchcock, great director that he was, was confined to make films during the heavily censored era of the Hays Code – anyone who’s seen FRENZY will tell you that Hitchcock didn’t have a problem with material that was more extreme in nature it was that he was unable to bring it to the screen before making FRENZY. De Palma’s thrillers are all great fun (though do vary between good and excellent) and a showcase for incredible technical expertise. I think he deserves a lot more respect. :clap:

Funny enough, I was thinking the same thing when I wrote my post. Blowup really needs a new HD encoding and extras package for a bells and whistles Blu-ray release.

I completely agree about Hitchcock being far from restrained. Just take Psycho for example. It begins with a scene with Janet Leigh wearing a bra, features what must have been an extraordinarily shocking murder scene (and one which is still extremely effective), a narrative device which causes you to empathise with the killer and a reveal which Hitch designed for maximum terror by repeatedly scaring Janet Leigh.

Give me a Blu-Ray of Sisters or the puppy gets it!

Indeed!

Dressed to Kill and Obsession are favourites; Blow Out would be a close third, though.

I hadn't seen Obsession for a long while, so watching the Arrow BD made me fall in love with the film. It could be a case of me looking at it with rose-tinted/nostalgic eyes, and it may not hold up as well on a further repeat viewing, but for now, I prefer Obsession to Blow Out. Travolta annoys me slightly in Blow Out.

I really like Sisters.

[QUOTE=Nosferatu@Cult Labs;216969]I'm of the same opinion (Body Double is a DVD I really should own),

BODY DOUBLE is a very underrated film from De Palma
Craig Wasson and Melanie Griffith are excellent, shame Wasson (I know he was in Elm Street 3), wasn't in a lot of big films later, because he is an underrated actor

I have the excellent Criterion Collection Sisters DVD so, as Criterion have the rights and are reassuring plenty of DVD titles in HD, hopefully a Blu-ray release will come sooner rather than later. It's a really good film which I watch far too infrequently.

As I haven't watched the Dressed to Kill BD yet, this has put me in the right mood to watch it this afternoon/evening.

DRESSED TO KILL looks very nice in HD, still haven't watched my BLOW OUT, must give that one a spin soon.

I watched Dressed to Kill yesterday and Blow Out on Wednesday, and both have superb AV quality, something which is particularly important to Blow Out.

I must get round to watching mine soon.