Zontar: Thing From Venus - DVD problem??

A question for any of the B-movie fans here on the forums....

I recently picked up the Retromedia DVD of Zontar: Thing From Venus (it's a 2-disc double-feature with The Eye Creatures). When I tried to watch the movie, it wouldn't play.... the disc loaded up properly, complete with the usual copyright warnings and Retromedia logo, but when it got to the main menu, I couldn't start the film. Pressing "play" on my remote didn't work, and it wouldn't let me select "play" on the menu screen either... it's almost as if there was no "cursor" on the menu screen at all, like there normally is on a DVD menu. I took the disc out and tried playing it in my PS2, but it didn't work there either. The same thing happened when I tried the Eye Creatures disc as well.

I've picked up several other Retromedia DVDs in the past and have never experienced this problem before.... could the discs just be defective? (If so, it seems like a pretty crazy coincidence that both DVDs in the set have the same defect...) Or was there a known problem with this particular release that I didn't hear about?

 

If this were a Blu Ray release I would just suggest a firmware update for your machine, but being a standard DVD I have no idea what the problem could be.

 

I think I vaguely remember playing a bit of mine a few weeks ago. I'll pop it in later and get back to you.

 

Rocker... sorry to tell you mine plays just fine on the Zontar side. Now there really isn't much of a menu, all I saw is "PLAY MOVIE" and "WEBSITE". You have to cursor up or down to highlight "PLAY MOVIE" in green which is hard to see. FWIW, I'm playing on a silver Sony SACD/DVD player that's probably less than 10 years old. I'll flip the bad boy over tomorrow to check out the "Eye Creatures" side. Good luck,man!

 

My disc plays just fine. Long live Zontar! Larry Buchanan was a trash master.

Don't forget to pick up Retro Media's "Night of the Blood Beast" while your at it.

 

The Eye Creatures side is fine too. Nice little extra bonus on Mr. Ashley too. Those flipper discs can be a pain in the butt sometimes...

 

My favorite part is when Zontar demands a nine-show cycle and three best-ofs

 

It's an awkward menu for sure. You can't see anything highlighted.

 

Hmmm... weird. I'll give it another try today and see if I can get it to work. Maybe I just couldn't see the "cursor" properly and didn't realize that the "play" option was highlighted after all? I've had other discs like that where the menu options are only a very slightly different color when they're highlighted, so it's barely noticeable. Why they would design them that way, I have no idea....

So your copy is a flipper? On mine, each of the films is on a separate disc. I expected it to be a flipper when I bought it, so I was surprised to find 2 discs inside when I got it home.

 

Already got that one

Considering the relative low-quality of their discs, and how awful most of the films are they release, I sure do seem to have plenty of Retromedia DVDs in my collection....
http://www.dvdaf.com/search.html?pu...=d&init_form=str0_pub_Retromedia*rgn_us*med_d

 

I bought the same DVD about 5 or more years ago and had the same issue, but never got around to taking it back. I'll have to pull it out and try it again.

 

Tried it again yesterday and miraculously both discs worked fine. I guess there was either just a fluke the first time that caused a temporary loading problem, or else it was like H-Man suggested and the cursor was just really difficult to see.

Anyway, thanks for the help!