Lolcow Bill Norton Olsen Code Red DVD - Plus David DeFalco Dark Force Entertainment.

[BrunoMattei]

Edit: Bill has died as of 11/7/2022. This thread is now about the shenanigans of Dave Defalco of Dark Force Entertainment.

2nd edit: as of 5/24/2023 Bill's brother Walter of Scorpion Releasing has now passed away.

This guy has been flying under the radar for too long now. Bill is the owner of Code Red (no affiliation with the Mountain Dew drink or any other product) a label that puts out cult films on DVD/Blu. Bill has mentioned many times that he does not like the movies he puts out but does so just for the money. He's horrible at PR and is very confrontational with fellow cult movie cinephiles. I don't even know if my summary can do this justice.

So what is Bill's deal? Well, for one he whines constantly on Twitter/facebook/Blu-ray.com about titles that under-perform. He constantly whines about other niche DVD/Blu labels that do better than him and aren't horrible to their customers. He also releases the films in a very aggressive "fuck you" way.

Take for example the cover art and synopsis for Nightmares in a Damaged Brain AKA Nightmare.

Note the "limited to 100,000 units!" banner. In case anyone might be curious, niche DVD labels do not press 100K copies of a title. Not even during the DVD boom of the early/mid 00's. The vast majority of companies press about 1-5K copies of a title.

Take note of the synopsis on the back. Nightmares in a Damaged Brain has a relatively big fan base and a proper DVD release had been long in the making. So a lot of fans would ask Bill about the status of the release and Bill decides to release it like this, with an interview with a director that didn't have subtitles because he didn't want to pay for them.

So you're like: "Okay, the guy is an asshole to customers. What else is there?"

Behold

This is Bill in question BTW:

So Bill decided to "troll" the fans of the movies he puts out by donning a banana costume and doing interviews and skits with the people involved with these movies on the special features while wearing the costume. He's even made little "banana man" skits unskipable at the start of the movies he puts out. Most recently Bill has decided to put out a porno/horror flick called Erotic Nights of the Living Dead and has added a host, a gay porn star.

And in case you're curious, the movies are not gay. They're zombie pornos. And Bill knows that people hate the titles he put out with a host and did this (obviously) to spite people. Visit the links below for more insanity. Blu-Ray.com has a TON of sycophants who worship the ground Bill walks on. And some of them have good reason because Bill is known to pull titles if enough people bitch about the titles being cut or having a lackluster presentation.

Links:

Interview with Bill clearly showing his disdain for the products he releases:

https://twitter.com/codereddvd

https://www.facebook.com/codereddvdbananaman/ (this is where he posts with his Banana Man persona)

https://www.facebook.com/CodeRedDvd/ (safe space)

http://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread.php?t=208746 (another safe space)

http://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread.php?t=215078 (Another safe space Bill posts in a lot)

https://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread.php?t=300598 (Dark Force Entertainment where DeFalco posts)

https://www.facebook.com/Dark-Force-Entertainment-158542421434304/ (Bill and DeFalco post here a lot)

Edit: Bill created a second company called Dark Force Entertainment. Much of the same bullshit he did under Code Red continues. He formed the label with David "Demon" DeFalco. The guy who directed the Last House on the Left ripoff Chaos.

Bill has a brother Walt that owns Scorpion Releasing.

Welcome to Scorpion Releasing

Walt is considered sane and cordial with customers unlike his brother. Scorpion has had some controversy with the QA of their releases much like Code Red/Dark Force. The brothers like to trade films they've licensed to each other's respective companies. So sometimes Bill announces he acquired so and so movie only for the movie to be released under Walt's company.

 

[Zvantastika]

He trolls people and gets money out of it?. We should make him our PR guy stat.

 

[UrbanDecayLover]

Wait...zombie pornos? That's a thing?

 

[MG 620]

Why not? There are clown pornos out there and it can hardly get any more twisted than that.

 

[From The Uncanny Valley]

Wait...zombie pornos? That's a thing?

Rule 34.

 

[UrbanDecayLover]

I have lost faith in the world.

 

[Scampers]

Why don't people buy a single copy and then pirate it for everyone?

 

[BrunoMattei]

Why don't people buy a single copy and then pirate it for everyone?

The market for cult films on DVD/Blu buy the physical movies because they're collectors and the discs have a very high chance of appreciating in value because of the low print run.

 

[Phil Ken Sebben]

This guy has been flying under the radar for too long now. Bill is the owner of Code Red (no affiliation with the Mountain Dew drink or any other product) a label that puts out cult films on DVD/Blu. Bill has mentioned many times that he does not like the movies he puts out but does so just for the money. He's horrible at PR and is very confrontational with fellow cult movie cinephiles. I don't even know if my summary can do this justice.

So what is Bill's deal? Well, for one he whines constantly on Twitter/facebook/Blu-ray.com about titles that under-perform. He constantly whines about other niche DVD/Blu labels that do better than him and aren't horrible to their customers. He also releases the films in a very aggressive "fuck you" way.

Take for example the cover art and synopsis for Nightmares in a Damaged Brain AKA Nightmare.

Note the "limited to 100,000 units!" banner. In case anyone might be curious, niche DVD labels do not press 100K copies of a title. Not even during the DVD boom of the early/mid 00's. The vast majority of companies press about 1-5K copies of a title.

Take note of the synopsis on the back. Nightmares in a Damaged Brain has a relatively big fan base and a proper DVD release had been long in the making. So a lot of fans would ask Bill about the status of the release and Bill decides to release it like this, with an interview with a director that didn't have subtitles because he didn't want to pay for them.

So you're like: "Okay, the guy is an asshole to customers. What else is there?"

Behold

This is Bill in question BTW:

So Bill decided to "troll" the fans of the movies he puts out by donning a banana costume and doing interviews and skits with the people involved with these movies on the special features while wearing the costume. He's even made little "banana man" skits unskipable at the start of the movies he puts out. Most recently Bill has decided to put out a porno/horror flick called Erotic Nights of the Living Dead and has added a host, a gay porn star.

And in case you're curious, the movies are not gay. They're zombie pornos. And Bill knows that people hate the titles he put out with a host and did this (obviously) to spite people. Visit the links below for more insanity. Blu-Ray.com has a TON of sycophants who worship the ground Bill walks on. And some of them have good reason because Bill is known to pull titles if enough people bitch about the titles being cut or having a lackluster presentation.

Links:

https://twitter.com/codereddvd

https://www.facebook.com/CodeRedDvd/ (safe space)

http://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread.php?t=208746 (another safe space)

I remember hearing about this guy and cruising the website looking for some rare DVDs and 80's cheese that I can't find anywhere else. Didn't purchase anything from him yet but after reading this I don't know if I will. The whole unskippable parts at the start really piss me off.

 

[BrunoMattei]

I remember hearing about this guy and cruising the website looking for some rare DVDs and 80's cheese that I can't find anywhere else. Didn't purchase anything from him yet but after reading this I don't know if I will. The whole unskippable parts at the start really piss me off.

Your best bet is to try to torrent them. Some have been released on torrent sites. Otherwise, check Ebay or Diabolik DVD.

Bill also keeps the store open on his site maybe once or twice a week because reasons. So titles tend to go quick. He also has a bad history of saying such and such title will be limited to 1000 pieces and that's it, no more, and inevitably the title sells and he re-prints it. That pisses off some people for obvious reasons.

 

[XYZpdq]

He also has a bad history of saying such and such title will be limited to 1000 pieces and that's it, no more, and inevitably the title sells and he re-prints it. That pisses off some people for obvious reasons.

Good. Those people must be chumps if they think there's some holy oath of dvd selling he took or some shit. I bet they try to hoard Disney VHS tapes and other dumb crap too.

 

[Phil Ken Sebben]

Your best bet is to try to torrent them. Some have been released on torrent sites. Otherwise, check Ebay or Diabolik DVD.

Bill also keeps the store open on his site maybe once or twice a week because reasons. So titles tend to go quick. He also has a bad history of saying such and such title will be limited to 1000 pieces and that's it, no more, and inevitably the title sells and he re-prints it. That pisses off some people for obvious reasons.

Oh I can torrent just about anything, that's not the problem. I have an actual physical collection of DVDs in the thousands so much so that I need to find a place to store them all. I've taken to stacking them on the floor because my shelves are full.

No I want the actual physical copies of the movies and I'm not talking DVD-Rs, I want the whole shebang. Just recently I picked up a widescreen copy of "Yor: Hunter from the Future" okay it's the German version that actually got a wide screen release on DVD but it's got the English track. Up until now the only way I could get that was a DVD-R burned by Warner Brothers, at least I think it's them. But that would be from a copy and it's full screen. Same with Willy Bogner's "Fire, Ice & Dynamite" which is a really stupid movie with some awesome stunts. Same problem in that you could only get a full screen copy but I tracked down again a German copy with the English track and it's widescreen.

If I can get a decent version of these movies on my list I will happily buy them from a reputable dealer but if this guy is an asshole about it then he's never getting my money.

 

[BrunoMattei]

No I want the actual physical copies of the movies and I'm not talking DVD-Rs, I want the whole shebang. Just recently I picked up a widescreen copy of "Yor: Hunter from the Future" okay it's the German version that actually got a wide screen release on DVD but it's got the English track.

Fun cheese flick. Most of the movies Bill puts out are released overseas by other companies. Nightmares in a Damaged Brain was put out uncut by 88 Films. And it looks like a German company is going to put out Giallo in Venice.

 

[Phil Ken Sebben]

Fun cheese flick. Most of the movies Bill puts out are released overseas by other companies. Nightmares in a Damaged Brain was put out uncut by 88 Films. And it looks like a German company is going to put out Giallo in Venice.

Reb Brown for the win! I love that movie and not just for that scene or because Reb Brown is so awesome or even the terrible special effects, story, plot and sound design. No, it's got John Steiner as the bad guy "Overlord". This man has brought me so much joy over the years for playing some of the most memorable villains in Italian cinema in the 80's. He was Longinus in "Caligula", Biondo in "Salon Kitty" and my favorite as Jaffar in the Lou Ferrigno version of "Sinbad of the Seven Seas". He's so gloriously over the top, in one scene chewing the scenery and ending his speech with a massive villainous, "HA!" You can't get that kind of acting nowadays. It just comes off as being hokey and fake. He made it work.

 

[BrunoMattei]

Reb Brown for the win! I love that movie and not just for that scene or because Reb Brown is so awesome or even the terrible special effects, story, plot and sound design. No, it's got John Steiner as the bad guy "Overlord". This man has brought me so much joy over the years for playing some of the most memorable villains in Italian cinema in the 80's. He was Longinus in "Caligula", Biondo in "Salon Kitty" and my favorite as Jaffar in the Lou Ferrigno version of "Sinbad of the Seven Seas". He's so gloriously over the top, in one scene chewing the scenery and ending his speech with a massive villainous, "HA!" You can't get that kind of acting nowadays. It just comes off as being hokey and fake. He made it work.

Not too get too off Topic but Steiner is great. He was also in -albeit briefly- Antonio Margheriti's Apocalypse Now/Deer Hunter ripoff The Last Hunter. And he was in Mario Bava's last great horror film Shock.

He works as a Real Estate Agent now. He's probably retired by now.

 

[Scampers]

The market for cult films on DVD/Blu buy the physical movies because they're collectors and the discs have a very high chance of appreciating in value because of the low print run.

I get the appeal of having a rare, collectible DVD, but the dude's nuts. And the dude remains doing things to piss people off because he doesn't care and the fact he's still going to sell DVDs. What I'm getting at is if only one person buys the DVD, cracks it to remove the unskippable intro, and then puts it up on Pirate Bay, it wouldn't take that long for him to maybe get the hint that him being an exceptional individual won't get him anywhere when he has boxes of unsold DVDs.

The best way for customers to speak is with their wallets.

 

[BrunoMattei]

Bill has apparently retired the "Banana Man" character.

 

[GV 998]

Damn. A shame he is so unprofessional and a jerk to his customer base. Because honestly, his company is MY KIND of company. I absolutely adore watching obscure cheesy horror movies from the 70's and 80's (which these appear to be his bread and butter.)

But I'm not going to sit through some dumb skits of a guy in a banana costume, and if you're going to FORCE me to watch them at the start of the movie, that really turns me off to trying to buy one of his products

 

[BrunoMattei]

It looks like Bill didn't kill off the Banana Man character after all:

I'll be editing the OP post with the link to the "Banana Man" Facebook account ran by Bill.

https://www.facebook.com/codereddvdbananaman/

And here's a video interview that's at least a year old with Bill. This is the only on camera interview with Bill without him wearing a retarded costume. He comes off like a real asshole and doesn't care about the movies he puts out.

 

[McGregor]

I'm really torn here... On the one hand, I can't stop laughing at pretty much everything Banana Man does. On the other hand, sticking in clips at the beginning of the movies he sells that you can't skip seems a little dickish. After all presumably his company's fan base is there for the movies not the silly clips at the beginning of them. It is hilarious that he seems to be making a profit trolling his own customers. I guess I'll have to wait till someone posts definite signs of cow or this thread peters out.