CODE RED DVD Updates Horror and Cult Nation with TERMINAL ISLAND, HORROR HIGH and NIGHTMARE

The CODE RED blog has been quiet the past few months with exception of the past couple of weeks.  Three titles have been announced with news about one of my exploitation favorites Nightmare (a.k.a. Nightmares in a Damaged Brain).  Read on!

HORROR HIGH

A series of grisly murders wreaks havoc at a small Texas high school! A no-nonsense cop is assigned to find out the identity of the mad devious killer who roams the corridors of the high school. A mild mannered student has been drinking a mysterious potion that turns himself into Vernon, a genetic freak. Terrorizing students and teachers alike, Vernon spreads his web of violence and terror to all who have mocked or laughed at him. Vernon also plays a deadly game of cat & mouse with the cop who is trying to stop him. Can the cop beat the killer at his own game, or will he become the final victim at Horror High?

SPECIAL FEATURES

• Brand New 16×9 (1.85:1) Mastered from HiDef from the original 35mm dupe negatives from Crown International’s vault
• Uncut for the first time on home video!
• on-camera interview with Lead star Austin Stoker
• comedy commentary with TV’s “Beat the Geeks” J. Keith Van Straaten, Marc Edward Heuck, and Paul Goebel
• Bonus footage shot for TV on the TWISTED BRAIN release
• Original Theatrical Trailer
• Code Red trailers

MSRP 24.98

TERMINAL ISLAND

TOM SELLECK and his MAGNUM P.I co-star ROGER MOSLEY along with PHYLLIS DAVIS stars in this drive in classic! In the wake of a Supreme Court decision to outlaw the death penalty, California passes an initiative that designates TERMINAL ISLAND as a dumping spot for first-degree murder convicts, 40 men and 4 women, free to do what they like…….except leave! The main camp of convicts is controlled by the tyrannical Bobby (Sean Kenney, STAR TREK, CORPSE GRINDER), who along with Monk (Roger Mosley) rules with an iron hand, and the women are used as sex slaves. On the other side of the island, A.J. (Don Marshall, LAND OF THE GIANTS) and a group of more free-minded murderers have escaped and gone into hiding. When A.J. and his men liberate the women (including Phyllis Davis, drive-in star of SWEET SUGAR, and Marta Kristen, LOST IN SPACE) from Bobby’s custody, tensions mount to an all-out confrontation for control of the island!

Special Features

• Brand New 16×9 widescreen master from UCLA/the director’s archieved print
• Play with inmates: audio commentary with Sean Kenney and Don Marshall modorated by Scott Spiegel and Bill Olsen.
• Introduction by Mickey Zide, of Dimension Pictures
• On camera interview with Sean Kenney
• On camera interview with Don Marshall
• Phone interview with star Phyllis Davis

MSRP 22.98

Also on their blog, they have a Choose a Cover vote for Joe Spinell’s THE UNDERTAKER which you can view here.  The Undertaker will be released in October.

Finally, Romano Scavolini’s Nightmare will finally see the light of day sometime later this year.  For fans of the film, we have been hearing this for a long time.  I was one of the very first people to ask Lee Christian, who works for Code Red DVD, what was going on with this release 2 years ago (!) on a podcast episode.  Lee told DTB about the original negative being ruined beyond restoration.  Also, if any title has opened up consumers to what it is like running a DVD company, Nightmare is that title for Code Red.  I pulled some quotes from the blog.

Our long awaited and most troubled title, NIGHTMARE, will finally be released on DVD in late 2010. This over budgeted project has been plagued with problems from the beginning: the damaged negative was unusable, four 35mm prints that had been claimed to be “pristine” were covered in white dots and emulsion scratches, and there were 3 botched telecine jobs on the transfer. Then there was the overpriced money pit extra of the Romano Scavolini interview that was supposed to have been shot in English, but was conducted in Italian. Anyway, it is not just translating the interview from Italian to English – that is fairly easy. The main issue is that every line of the translation needs to be timed to when Scavolini is talking so that it can be matched to when he’s speaking. It’s not as easy as using a dialog list for a feature film where you have various characters conversing and it’s easy to put the subtitles where/when they belong. This Scavolini interview is basically a 95-minute one man talking feature-length film and requires much more than a translator just writing down what he’s saying on a piece of paper. In case you are not aware, a 95-minute interview is much more dialog driven than an average feature film – and that is why the subtitling houses wanted more money for this project than subtitling an actual movie. The budget of this release is already way beyond the estimated sales and I simply do not have the money to put anything more into it. DVD sales have been extremely poor for the last 14 months and breaking even in this business is becoming a pipe dream.

To fix the best out of the 3 telecines we did, it is costing $42,000 to do it right (or more like passable). CODE RED does not recoup $42,000 in sales on any title. Overseas sales could be one way of recouping, but the film is already being bootleged in most countries even though it has a valid copyright. There is no way of stopping these thieves and no way of us getting some overseas funds to fix the film.

Goldmine Productions wants NIGHTMARE out and the fans want it out, so the most we can do is put out what we have done and move on. For the extras, we do have the participation of Baird Stafford and also main special effects man (Florida scenes) Cleve Hall. This is all we can deliver as far as extras at this time. There is a remote chance the Scavolini interview may be worked out in time for the release, but at this moment, that is not confirmed or finalized so as it stands now we have to say it won’t be included. Also, this may be hard to believe to fans of NIGHTMARE, but most of the people who worked on the film do not like the film, were never fully paid, and have nothing but bad memories working on it. 90% of the people we asked turned us down for an interview. One even said he wished the film would go away and he was happy that the negative was destroyed. Of course, we know the fans absolutely LOVE the film and that’s what really counts.

NIGHTMARE received twice the amount of email requests as our recently released SLITHIS, and that movie only sold 489 copies. NIGHTMARE has to sell 4,200 copies just to break even. That amount is practically impossible in today’s market for a niche title as this. Simply put, the funds coming in from my second business and freelance work are currently paying for CODE RED’s losses.

So, for those of you anxiously awaiting Nightmare, please purchase this title.  For all the hard work that they have put into this, we need to really need to eat up these copies when they put it out.  Nightmare has been a special pet project of mine as some of the images from that film were burned into my retina as a teenager.  Stay tuned to hear more things about Nightmare.  I promise you, you will dig it.