Comments on: Walmart and Horror Fans: We’re Friends, Not Enemies

By: Adam

Adam — Sat, 13 Feb 2016 04:42:00 +0000

It is a little hard to distinguish some movies especially “Deathgasm” because they put the new slipcover picture on the actual dvd cover unlike Christmas Horror Story but still may become a collector’s item except for the fact that you mentioned and that’s most stores don’t carry these titles so the Wal-Mart version may actually have more prints sold but who actually knows. Also FYE still sells alot of the newer and older re-releases of the more uncommon Horror movies especially mostly all of the SCREAM FACTORY releases even the old films which I’ve never seen anywhere else except maybe a couple exceptions like the Halloween Bluray Set. Anyway all this Horror Movie title switching that Wal-Mart does actually makes me want to go through there dvd aisles or maybe even throughout the store and see how many Politically Incorrect things they do sell and complain about that stuff as well.

By: Walker

Walker — Thu, 07 Jan 2016 17:01:00 +0000

i also like that your getting a sort of “variant” cover with out having to pay anything more.

By: joshua pannelli

joshua pannelli — Wed, 06 Jan 2016 01:25:00 +0000

To add to your point, allow me to write the movies I’ve bought from Wal-Mart: Starry Eyes, Animal, Babadook, Ex Machina, It Follows, We Are Still Here, Late Phases, A “Holiday” Horror Story, Dark Summer, The Town That Dreaded Sundown, and so many more. So God bless Wal-Mart for carrying independent horror. I will continue to get my horror from them.

By: Tyler Doupe'

Tyler Doupe' — Tue, 05 Jan 2016 22:55:00 +0000

Interesting commentary, John. I hadn’t looked at it from that perspective. I also didn’t realize that it was slip covers in most cases. That makes me slightly less perturbed.

I believe this has completely ceased but, interestingly enough, Wal-Mart did require certain edits to films in the early ’00s. I believe it led to a court case that set a precedent that doing so warranted some form of copyright infringement or some such shit. There’s a doc that details the entire situation floating around somewhere. But I can’t remember the name of it. Blockbuster had similar protocols at one point, as well. And it is also discussed a little bit here: https://forum.dvdtalk.com/dvd-talk/475075-edited-wal-mart.html

Not mentioning this to be argumentative. You are completely right in everything you said. Just thinking back on when that wasn’t always the case.

By: @SBofSelfAbuse

@SBofSelfAbuse — Tue, 05 Jan 2016 19:02:00 +0000

I’d go one step further and say that these covers may even help get these movies into young horror fans’ hands that otherwise wouldn’t have gotten them. I remember my mom refusing to buy me a Slayer tape when I was a kid because of what she saw on the cover (who doesn’t want their young child to listen to The Antichrist?). And my parents weren’t even strict when it came to horror movies. A lot of parents are.

What’s happening here is kind of like the opposite of censorship in that way. If you ARE a strict parent, on the other hand, you might be displeased when you find out what THEY’RE REALLY WATCHING when they get home from the store. If you’re a kid, it’s a helping hand from Walmart.