FAKE LETTERBOXING ON troma's stendhal syndrome dvd

I was on a Dario Argento website called Dark Dreams i got some interesting news on the new stendhal syndrome print by Troma. I also read a post the Snapyse's own Don May Jr. posted about how the stendhal syndrom print is a piece of shit.

Here is a copy of the post on a board i saw-

((((((know what happened with this release and why it took so long because I was in constant contact with the Troma folks when I was in TOXIC AVENGER 4 and stayed in contact with them after that.
RJ Wafer (who now no longer works for Troma) was in charge of getting things together for the STENDHAL project. For months, he was calling me and seeing if I could help them in locating a print, Interneg or ANYTHING regarding STENDHAL. The only thing they were provided was the same old master used on various releases around the world (which would explain why Vincent thinks it looks indentical to the Japanese disc, minus subs)...I was told they were not allowed access to the original elements. I gave him some addresses I thought would help and that was the last I heard.


WAAAAAAY back last year, when I went to Troma for a visit, I was given a full screen screener (they told me not to show it to anyone) of STENDHAL (thats how long they've been dealing with this one) and I asked them what happened. They said the master they received was full frame and that, for the DVD, they really wanted to do a new transfer (yes...they felt the title was important, folks. They WANTED it to be a nice disc, okay.). They couldn't get anything (I know how dealing with some licensors can be) and they decided to "mask off" the full frame transfer they had to make it letterboxed.

I do not have the disc and I have not seen it to comment on the quality, but thats the story.))))))




So in other words it means that they cut a big chunk off the top and bottom of the print to make it look like it is widscreen when it really isn't. Because troma was unable to get the original print or a letterboxed print they did their own faking. This needs to stop!



Some while back, as I began watching the Anchor Bay video of SATANIC RITES OF DRACULA, I became struck by the odd framing of the scenes I was watching (even the opening credits). Something seemed missing, particularly from the top. Not far into the film, as foreheads were being cut off, this began to really irritate me, and I decided to check my old full-frame video copy of this film. Sure enough, there was a substantial amount of information missing from the top of the Anchor Bay version, implying overmatting on the part of whoever did the transfer. (I'm aware that full-frame prints themselves can offer "too much" information on the top and bottom, but that's another issue.) I've read that DVD/Video companies, focused on selling "widescreen" titles, will artificially "letterbox" a print that's pretty close to full-frame ratio. I consider this practice duplicitous (a scam) and harmful to an appreciation of a film.

-Bill