At the beginning of this endeavour, I presented a list of the rarer, harder-to-find titles that I knew would present a problem in acquisition. I am pleased to say that this list is now much shorter. My personal collection of Nasties has grown to include twenty-one films, nearly a third of the list. But there remain nineteen titles that are either:
A) Unavailable for rental.
B) Out of print and rare.
and in at least one case
C) Never released uncut in the United States.
And there are whispers. Whispers of a film intended for the list that fell through the DPP's fingers because of the thing that plagued low-budget exploitation from its' humble beginnings: alternate titles. I'll get back to this in a minute.
Here are the nineteen films that have thus far eluded me. Some are quite easy to obtain. Why don't I list those first:
Blood Rites aka The Ghastly Ones
Love Camp 7
and Night Of The Bloody Apes are on DVD from Something Weird video and are still in print.
The Driller Killer is available on DVD from several companies, because the film lies in the public domain.
Forest Of Fear, aka Bloodeaters is on DVD from Televista (as Toxic Zombies) and it isn't too tough to track down.
Island Of Death is on DVD from Image and, while I believe it is now out of print, it isn't too hard to find, although (like Love Camp 7) the price is inexplicably higher than other similar films.
Pranks aka The Dorm The Dripped Blood is also available on DVD from Jef Films and not too hard to locate.
SS Experiment Camp is available on DVD from Shriek Show (as SS Experiment Love Camp).
The Witch Who Came From The Sea is on DVD from Subversive Cinema and again, is relatively easy to track down.
These nine films are cake. Relatively low pricetags, copies in abundance. I'm not worried about locating these. (Although having written that, at least one of them will almost assuredly elude me.)
Then there are the out-of-print, VHS-if-you're-lucky films. Most of these forgotten relics haven't received a DVD release and may never. If I can track these down, I'll feel like I've won something:
Delirium aka Psycho Puppet. Out of print, VHS only, Paragon Video.
Human Experiments. Out of print, VHS only, VidAmerica.
Night Of The Demon. Out of print, DVD and VHS, Miracle Pictures.
Nightmare Maker aka Night Warning. Out of print, VHS only, Thorn/EMI/HBO Video.
Nightmares In A Damaged Brain aka Nightmare aka Blood Splash. Out of print, VHS only, Continental Video (as Nightmare). (Code Red is working on releasing an uncut DVD, but so far it has not appeared.)
Possession. Out of print, DVD and VHS, Anchor Bay.
The Slayer. Out of print, VHS only, Marquis Video. (The double-feature cassette that pairs The Slayer with Scalps is edited to make both films fit. The Marquis release is the whole film and it is extremely rare.)
Terror Eyes aka Night School. Out of print, VHS only, Warner/Key Video.
These eight are diamonds buried in coal, and it may take some work to bring them home. One more and we're all caught up with Nasties:
Expose`. Released in the US as The House On Straw Hill in an edited version, the only homegrown British Nasty is tough to track down. Televista is said to have released a Region 1 DVD, but it has never materialized. As far as I know, the ONLY uncut release is the original VHS Nasty released by Intervision in the UK in 1979. My goal: Track down that tape, get it transferred to NTSC, Enjoy.
Expose` is the Holy Grail of Video Nasties. So that's eighteen and that completes the list. Every other title is available for rental or already in my personal collection. So what is the nineteenth film? This is where the rumors and confusion, the whispers of the ether, the film geek's paranoia comes into play.
It all begins in the 1970s. Made in 1973, a low-budget pseudo-snuff film titled The Last House On Dead End Street hit grindhouse theatres four year later. The credits were packed with pseudonyms, the origins of the film questionable. No one seemed to know who had made the film and whether or not the deaths it depicted were real or staged. Legend has it that the original running time was three hours...and that this long cut, titled The Cuckoo Clocks Of Hell, is still housed in a New York film lab waiting to be paid for. Its other alternate title: The Fun House, incredibly close to the 1981 Tobe Hooper film The Funhouse, which was seized but not successfully prosecuted.
So this is the rumor: The Last House On Dead End Street was intended to be on the Nasties list but was confused with The Funhouse and escaped being targeted. I have no substantial evidence to back this up (that's what makes it a rumor, derp), but the idea is certainly attractive. Dead End (shortening it to Last House would cause too much confusion with the Craven/Cunningham classic that did indeed make the list) would fit nicely on the list: a low-budget American horror film trading on shock value and pseudo-snuff promotion techniques that was controversial in its' own right. Whether or not the rumor is true, this is a film I must get my hands on. There were at least four VHS releases (some censored, some not), but the definitive version is the out of print Barrel Entertainment 2-Disc DVD set released in 2002. As expected, this is a pricey item, but I am so intrigued I will probably end up shelling out when I finally get some folding money.
So there you have it: The 19 Movies that plague my thoughts. It's like an itch that costs money to scratch, but is slightly more legal than crack and smack.
So scour your local video store, flea market and (dare I say it) antiques mall. I sure will. One never knows where they might find a lost treasure, so my eyes will always be peeled. Because my name's Justin. JustinCase.
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