Thursday, July 03, 2014

Eli Roth Gets Free Movies - Horror Fans Lose Their Shit

I don't know how many of you are following Scream Factory's Facebook page, but there's a pretty fascinating comment war going on over a picture of Eli Roth posted here.

Basically, Eli Roth offered to participate in some of the bonus features for the upcoming Hemlock Grove release for free. Scream Factory decided it was a hell of a nice thing for Eli to do so to reciprocate his kind deed they sent him over a care package of about 20 of their Blu-ray releases. This completely innocent picture was taken of Eli going apeshit with excitement over his new Blu-rays:



Then, much to their surprise, many of Scream's fans became super pissed about this and started leaving hilariously over the top and hate filled comments like a bunch of goddamn lunatics. A few highlights:

"We spend our hard earned money on your blu rays...and this motherfucker who is rich gets all those for free???"

"That's awesome send shit to a dude that can afford to buy it whenever he wants. Hook us poor people instead of kissing famous peoples balls"

"One of the few guys that could afford to buy all those SF releases. laughing his ass off because you literally GAVE them to him."

Jesus, these are adults, with jobs? What right does anyone have to be upset with who a company decides to give freebies to? And more importantly, who cares? I recall seeing a picture of Guillermo Del Toro with a stack of free Criterions back when they put out Cronos, this is a completely harmless thing these companies do sometimes, how is this something worth wasting even a second of your life being angry about?

I gotta say, it must be awful running one of these companies sometimes. These horror companies like Scream, Synapse, Scorpion and Arrow track down film elements, and retired actors, and deal with rights issues to put out all of these great movies, usually great releases with excellent A/V quality and plenty of extras and movie fans just find something, anything to bitch about.

Scream and Arrow will typically load their discs up with new features, but then they have new cover art done (and knowing a lot of fans love original artwork they still make sure to keep the original artwork on the flipside, doubling their printing cost.) But never mind how good the movie might look, or how interesting the bonus features might be the fans will always still find something stupid to bitch about. Having to flip the cover art over. Or that some releases have slipcovers, while others don't. Or that the movie is only being released on Blu-ray and not DVD. Or that Eli Roth didn't have to pay for his copy of Ninja III. I'm not saying we shouldn't be upset if they botch the release or fuck up the transfer, but if you're gonna bitch, bitch about something that matters, not that a rich guy got some free movies.

We should be thankful companies like these give enough of a shit about our movies to even bother releasing them, because the big label guys are certainly in no hurry to put these movies out.

2 comments:

  1. That's some sad ass shit. He did them a favor as a fan of the genre and they gave him a nice present. This is the reason I rarely read comments anymore, too often some jerk ruins the conversation. I'm always happy to get free stuff and I'm not jealous someone else got something for free, especially in a case like this.
    I alway enjoy seeing your listings on what's coming out. A few of those releases show up at our regular Friday Night Movie get togethers.

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  2. Jealousy is so pitiful.

    Eli Roth didn't find his money in the street. He's a fanboy who made good through hard work and chutzpah. How many of the complainers have ever completed a feature film themselves, I wonder?

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