By Todd Garbarini
Horror films are a hot commodity. Some of the most well-known slasher films of
the 1980’s have been re-issued on DVD and Blu-ray by companies looking to
cash-in on audiences’ seemingly insatiable appetite for murder and mayhem while
also introducing them to a whole new generation of fans with disposable income. Two titles that fans want on DVD and Blu-ray
in the way of special editions are Paul Lynch’s Prom Night (1980) and Richard Ciupka’s Curtains (1983), both Canadian productions through Simcom, the
former having fared far better on home video than the latter.
Prom
Night was originally
released theatrically by Avco Embassy Pictures in July 1980. It was distributed on VHS by MCA Home Video in
1981 and again by Virgin Vision, Inc. in 1988. MCA also released a laserdisc pan-and-scan version on their laser
rot-prone DiscoVision line in 1981 (curiously, the film bypassed the RCA
Select-A-Vision Capacitance Electronic Disc (CED) stylus-based format of the
early 1980’s, the direct competitor to laserdisc). The film fared better when a widescreen
laserdisc sourced from a 35mm interpositive followed in 1997 courtesy of Elite
Entertainment. In February 1998, Anchor
Bay Entertainment released a widescreen DVD that included the original
theatrical trailer (1.85:1 presentation is a must for this title as a boom mike
is clearly visible in several shots in the full frame format). After the rights lapsed the film was picked
up by Echo Bridge Entertainment and reissued in October 2007, this time
dispensing with said trailer. Overall, Prom Night has been released on home
video in three different formats no less than six times in the United States
alone, not counting the international, non-Region 1 releases around the globe. All of these U.S. versions contain only the
film without any additional extras that are practically a requirement to home
video now: running commentaries, on-set interviews, behind-the-scenes footage,
isolated musical scores, comments from contemporaries, stills galleries,
etc.
Curtains, on the other hand, is a thriller that
has suffered indignities far too numerous to list. Plagued from the outset by a problematic
production, the financing ran out and put the cast and crew on hiatus for over
one year. Much of the crew was replaced,
and despite having been released theatrically in April 1983 to many respectable
movie theaters by the long-defunct Jensen Farley Pictures, Curtains has only appeared on home video twice in the United States:
in December 1983 Vestron Video released it on VHS, and in October 2010 Echo
Bridge Entertainment released it as part of The
Midnight Horror Collection: Bloody Slashers set which also includes Hoboken Hollow (2006), Secrets of the Clown (2007), and Room 33 (2009). In a maneuver regarded as perfunctory by
those not in the know, Curtains
appears to be lumped in with these three contemporary tales for no better
reason than to “round out†the other titles – the original ad slick for Curtains was jettisoned and replaced
with an image of a hand parting a curtain.
Curtains was also released in April 2007 on
Region 2 DVD in the UK by Black Horse Entertainment. As with the Echo Bridge Entertainment release,
the original poster artwork was not used. Again, an uninspired makeshift cover image that fails to represent the
film in any way adorns the case. Curtains can be found at horror film
conventions on DVD-R sporting its beautiful and atmospheric original one-sheet
artwork, but the DVD transfer is sourced from the Vestron VHS cassette and is
therefore in dire need of color correction; a 2K/4K high definition upgrade is
long overdue.
Prom
Night has a creepy
score by Paul Zaza and Carl Zittrer (he scored a handful of films for Bob
Clark, including the classic 1974 film Black
Christmas and was also a musical consultant on “Act II†of Curtains). Mr. Zaza also scored Curtains, which might have been a rejected score for Prom Night as several cues that appear
in Prom Night also made their way
into Curtains. Director Ciupka’s name was also removed from
the credits to Curtains; whether or
not this has any bearing on the lack of a DVD release is a mystery.
Fans can ponder why these titles are
not available in full-blown special editions, and there are probably many
legitimate reasons why the current DVDs turn up in Walmart discount bins. The original 35mm film negatives to each
respective film may not be available as the whereabouts may be in question, or
they may no longer even exist; management might feel that an insufficient
number of fans willing to pay for the films exists and there is a fear of
losing money on these titles; both films were made as Canadian tax shelter projects and this may also pose a problem. With the glut of far lesser quality horror
thrillers available in beautifully designed special editions, the mind reels as
to why these two films in particular have been marginalized and seem to be
anathema to the royal treatment.
Echo Bridge Entertainment, a DVD
company that uses the slogan “The Entertainment Alternative for What the World Wants to
See†(not sure where that came from or what it is based upon), is now being approached
by fans on an online petition website respectfully asking them
to release the rights for these two films to Scream Factory, the Shout! Factory
subsidiary that is making a name for itself with beautiful deluxe versions of
genre favorites Terror Train (1980), The Funhouse (1981), Halloween II (1981), Halloween
III: Season of the Witch (1982), and the upcoming Deadly Blessing (1981) to name a few. This company would be an ideal organization
to release these films as their work thus far has proven that they will spend
the time and provide just the proper amount of TLC that these films
deserve.
As
of this writing, the petition has 300 signatures and is looking for a total of
1200, which is not an impossible number to reach. Click here to sign the petition
on Petition Buzz requesting licensing of Prom
Night and Curtains.