Blue Underground is an American company specializing in releasing authoritative editions of cult and exploitation movies on
Blu-ray Disc and
DVD
The DVD (common abbreviation for Digital Video Disc or Digital Versatile Disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any kind ...
.
It was originally formed as a
shell company to oversee 'making of' documentaries during founder
William Lustig
William "Bill" Lustig (born February 1, 1955, in The Bronx, New York) is an American film director and producer who has worked primarily in the horror film genre. He is the nephew of former middleweight champion Jake LaMotta.
Film career
As ...
's time at
Anchor Bay Entertainment
Anchor Bay Entertainment (formerly Video Treasures and Starmaker Entertainment) was an American home entertainment and production company. It was a subsidiary of Starz Inc. Anchor Bay Entertainment marketed and sold feature films, television se ...
, but became an independent entity in late 2002. The company has released a broad range of cult movies to disc, but leans toward European (particularly
Italian
Italian(s) may refer to:
* Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries
** Italians, an ethnic group or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom
** Italian language, a Romance language
*** Regional Ita ...
), Asian and Brazilian
horror and exploitation. Blue Underground goes to great lengths to feature restored transfers from original vault elements (a process that occasionally leads to substantial delays with their releases, given the age and obscurity of some of the titles they select), and to include extensive extras (such as commentary tracks and new documentaries) whenever possible. Each title is released unedited and with a choice between the original audio track and usually a
lossless
Lossless compression is a class of data compression that allows the original data to be perfectly reconstructed from the compressed data with no loss of information. Lossless compression is possible because most real-world data exhibits statistic ...
7.1
7.1 surround sound is the common name for an eight-channel surround audio system commonly used in home theatre configurations. It adds two additional speakers to the more conventional six-channel (5.1) audio configuration. As with 5.1 surround sou ...
remix.
As of October 2009, Blue Underground had issued more than 160 DVDs, and in 2008 they started to release films in High Definition on the Blu-ray Disc format. In 2020 they began releasing films in
Ultra HD Blu-ray
Ultra HD Blu-ray (4K Ultra HD, UHD-BD, or 4K Blu-ray) is a digital optical disc data storage format that is an enhanced variant of Blu-ray. Ultra HD Blu-ray discs are incompatible with existing standard Blu-ray players, though a traditional Bl ...
.
External links
Blue Underground
Interview with Bill Lustig (April 13, 2007)
DVD companies of the United States
Home video companies of the United States
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