“Take a little piece of my heart”—Still from “Bride of Reanimator”
 
My primary job here at Dangerous Minds is to essentially say “Here, look at this cool thing”—a job I’m well-suited for because it’s something I generally find myself doing anyway. Lately, I find that when I’m telling friends about whatever cool new thing that’s fascinating me at the moment, more and more often it’s some cool new thing that came down the pike from Arrow Films.

The U.K.‘s Arrow Films has been making a name for itself the past few years with their tricked-out DVD and Blu-Ray issues of cult horror films, westerns, science fiction, sex comedies, yakuza epics and neo-noirs.  Arrow sits alongside Grindhouse Releasing and Mondo Macabro as the holy trinity of digital video companies specializing in genre films. All three companies go above and beyond the call of duty with attention to detail in their transfers and bonus materials. Arrow has very quickly become my favorite, though, and I recently described them in conversation as “The Criterion of Shit Movies.”

To be perfectly honest, some of their packages put Criterion’s fine work to shame.

I wrote here recently about one of my favorite ‘80s slasher movies, The Mutilator, which just got the deluxe treatment from Arrow. For a relatively unknown (outside of cult horror-fan circles) low-budget splatter film, Arrow went totally balls-out on the double-disc release with a beautiful 2K restoration of the unrated version of the film (from the only surviving intact print that they managed to track down at the Library of Congress) and a slew of extras, including a feature-length documentary on the making of the film. The amount of love poured into this single release is remarkable when you consider that fans of the film (which had been previously unreleased on a digital format) would have bought the thing whether or not they had produced a documentary or recorded audio commentaries, or loaded it up with behind-the-scenes footage. They didn’t have to go the extra-mile, but they DID.
 

Cover art for “The Mutilator”—It’s about a guy who mutilates people.
 
Arrow’s recent release of Bride of Reanimator is a three disc set containing both “R” and “unrated” cuts of the film, housed in a slick, embossed box that contains a sizeable perfect-bound comic book—and of course the discs contain a completely insane amount of bonus features from multiple commentary tracks to multiple making-of featurettes and other extras. This kind of package is the treatment you’d expect for Citizen Kane or Gone With the Wind—not Bride of fucking Reanimator... yet, here we are, and bless you for it, Arrow.
 

Arrow’s bonkers “Bride of Reanimator” set
 
Arrow has also just released an exquisite 247 page hardcover coffee-table book titled Cult Cinema: An Arrow Video Companion which is jam-packed with photos and scholarly essays related to dozens of cult movies, directors, actors,  and genres. The Cult Cinema book is absolutely gorgeous and required reading for film obsessives.
 

The info-packed “Cult Cinema” book.
 
I recently had the opportunity to dump my wallet out on Arrow’s table at the 2016 Mad Monster Convention and was able to pick up several of their releases, most notably the delightfully weird Spider Baby (one of my favorite all-time films!), the gruesome witchfinder epic Mark of the Devil, the Thanksgiving slasher flick Blood Rage, and the ridiculous Alien-ripoff: Contamination. These releases and their accompanying bonus features and eye-popping packaging are beyond compare.
 

Early scene from “Blood Rage”—That’s gonna leave a mark.
 
Arrow’s release schedule is kind of nuts and lately they’re putting out deluxe DVD/BD packages faster than I can buy them. I’m beyond stoked that they’re getting ready to put out an eight-disc limited edition box set of what is one of my favorite film series out of Japan: The Female Prisoner Scorpion series which includes Female Prisoner #701: Scorpion, Female Prisoner Scorpion: Jailhouse 41, Beast Stable and #701’s Grudge Song). This ‘70s-era Japanese women-in-prison series starring the stunning Meiko Kaji works simultaneously as both exploitation and art cinema. If you’ve never seen any of them,  find a way to see Female Prisoner Scorpion: Jailhouse 41. It’s absolutely one of my favorite films, and just a gorgeous example of low-budget exploitation film-making that elevates itself to high visual art. It’s not to be missed.
 

Meiko Kaji as “Scorpion.”
 
Arrow’s Francesco Simeoni was kind enough to take time out from his busy schedule of releasing kick-ass cult movies to answer a few questions about the company and the films they preserve:

DM: First off, can you give me a short history of how you came into this business, how Arrow built up its reputation in the UK, and then how Arrow branched over the pond into doing US releases.

Francesco Simeoni: I started my career in theatrical exhibition for an arthouse focused cinema chain which was a great education. The company had previously distributed films but wasn’t particularly successful because they acquired films ahead of their time, stuff that failed on release but became big cult hits later. So it was interesting and educational trawling through their archives, which included a diverse selection of cult films from Eraserhead and The Loveless to Grey Gardens and Over the Edge, and I was exposed to films I might have otherwise never heard of so in a funny way it was a good grounding for my job now. I love the theatrical business but was always passionate about home entertainment and I knew of Arrow and thought it would be a great place to work, as it so happened a position became available which I was lucky enough to fill.

I took on the Arrow Video label in 2010, then still in its infancy and refined its approach. It was then a bit of a mix and unsure of itself, it was Arrow Video but also Masters of Gialli but also released Caligula. The first thing I did was to say let’s make this a cult film label not just a horror label because once we release all the A grade horror titles we’ll be scraping the barrel and the quality will drop. Horror fans also like other films, and horror can be defined in many ways—it’s not just gore, or slashers or zombies but you can incorporate psychological horror, which might really be a melodrama but if it’s a really amazing film should we not release it purely because it doesn’t fit the rigid horror brief? These kinds of questions become really disabling if you have tight parameters like this and furthermore there are plenty of horror directors who have worked in other genres that fans would like to see the films of. So it made sense to expand our horizons and be more than just horror, which is what it already said on the box – “the art of cult films is back” and we stick true to that today.

So we started introducing films from other genres and what probably got us noticed most was our limited edition of Battle Royale which really opened the floodgates for what Arrow Video is today. When the Blu-ray market matured we found ourselves limited with the material that was being given to us by producers and agents so we took to decision to implement a restoration department in house led by James White who was previously working for the BFI and Studio Canal. James has amazing experience and knowledge of working with original film material and filmmakers so it made a huge difference.

The challenge was to continue doing more of this—there aren’t a lot of people out there willing to go to the lengths we do for the kinds of films we work on and it’s hard to synch up with those who do some of the time so it made the most sense to be more streamlined and efficient to just do it ourselves in more than one territory (film licenses are split between territories, in our case UK/Ireland and United States/Canada). We are really pleased with the feedback and developments of the label so far and we have some super exciting projects coming up later this year.
 

Arrow’s release of the Tinto Brass classic, “Caligula.”
 
DM: What impresses me the most about Arrow’s products is the amount of “extra mile” that goes into each piece. The Mutilator had been one of my “most wanted” films on DVD/BD for YEARS. People like me would have purchased that title no matter what “extras” were on it, but Arrow went above and beyond in producing a nice feature-length documentary to round out all the other bonuses that were loaded onto the package. I’m guessing a lot of what you do is a “labor of love”—how important is that, and how far are you willing to go with hunting down or producing supplemental materials before it becomes “not worth it”?

FS: The label was always intended to be the last word in whatever film we released. It was a slow start but once we got through some key releases like Dawn of the Dead and Battle Royale that became the brief for every release thereafter and so when we expanded our team we found people who not only understood that but were also passionate and knowledgeable about these films. Our team doesn’t all have the same tastes but that’s exactly what we need, so when we have a release like The Mutilator we have the person for that, but we also have the person for Crimes of Passion and someone else for Female Prisoner Scorpion and so on. So yes it’s very much labor of love and we’ll go as far as is realistically possible for each release. The challenges are usually a mixture of two things, budgets and talent availability. Sometimes you have the budget but the talent are no longer with us or simply retired and unwilling to be involved or not the type to want to look back, so you have to get creative. Sometimes you have all the talent but if the film is incredibly niche you might not have the budget. But in both cases we always make things work as best we can!
 

Cover art for Arrow’s release of George A. Romero’s “Dawn of the Dead.”
 
DM: What’s been your favorite release so far?

FS: This is really tough because from one perspective it’s a bit like picking your favorite child—I’ve been involved in one way or another with every release so I have a fondness for everything in a way as I’ve helped them be nurtured from the start! I certainly have some stand out favorites and films I really love like our Cronenberg and De Palma releases I also really like all the Japanese stuff, I was utterly thrilled we have been able to distribute Battles Without Honor and Humanity, that’s probably my favorite in recent memory. But I am always looking to the future, so I always feel the best is yet to come. I think part of our success is always trying to outdo ourselves.

DM: Is there a release you’ve been really excited about that didn’t do as well as expected?

FS: Yes, some of my favorites! Things have certainly become easier but I remember being really disappointed that White of the Eye kind of fell flat. It’s a really stunning film and Donald Cammell was something of a genius but he’s never really got his due and perhaps that’s why the film never connected. I also had really high hopes for Phantom of the Paradise, which is probably my favorite De Palma but unfortunately that one didn’t break out quite like I hoped. Some other things don’t fly off the shelve but are slow burner and pick up eventually. I hope our Japanese stuff continues to build in this way because presenting films for the first time in the west on any home video format is challenging. With our Italian stuff it’s a lot easier because a lot of the time it’s been released before and people are familiar and more comfortable with it so I am always grateful we have this wonderful set of people out there who are cinematically adventurous and willing to try something entirely new.
 

Cover art for Arrow’s release of"White of the Eye”
 
DM: I just saw that you are releasing a box set of the Female Prisoner Scorpion series, which is one of my all-time favorites. This is a UK release, correct? Are the UK releases region-free?

FS: This is a UK/US release! Yes it’s super exciting, the films are going to look better than ever before. It was a challenge putting these releases together as a lot of the cast and crew are not available but I think we did well with who is still around and we’ve got some really interesting critical pieces so fans should leave the set knowing everything there is to know about the series!
 

Arrow’s “Female Prisoner Scorpion” box. Click image to pre-order.
 
DM: Your release schedule seems INSANE to me. How are you able to coordinate putting together such extravagant packages and maintain such a heavy roster of upcoming products?

FS: We work very far in advance so we’re able to juggle effectively when it comes to getting stuff out. But also it’s down to plain old hard work and passion. Everyone on the team is incredibly dedicated and talented so that helps…!

DM: Finally, are there any titles you are dying to release but have just gotten away from you or been elusive in some manner?

FS: David Lynch is one of my favorite directors so I’d love to release anything of his but alas we’ve never had the opportunity. I also love Cronenberg so his other stuff would be great but due to rights we can’t get at certain things. I’ve been really disappointed to have to turn down really great things because they weren’t available in two territories, it’s just economics, the more niche a film the less likely it is we can make it work in just one territory and we have to be careful, this is a declining business though it might seem healthy from outside with sell out limited editions that’s a very small part of the overall story. From within I can say this business is incredibly challenging right now, so to be creating lavish packages for obscure films is very difficult. That said we’re very fortunate to have excellent relationships with key producers and libraries so we have an amazing roster coming up!

For more information on Arrow Films, check their website: http://www.arrowfilms.co.uk/

Previously on Dangerous Minds:
The Mutilator: Long-lost 80s slasher rediscovered, returns bloodier than ever
Uncovering and preserving the wildest and strangest films in the world
‘It’s not cranberry sauce!’: Thanksgiving-themed ‘80s slasher film is gory good fun