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  #1  
Old 6th December 2007, 02:30 PM
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Time to give our DVDs away again and we're onto SHAM003 aka Killer Nun! I first encountered this little gem back in the 90s (thanks to Redemption!) as a 'random' purchase in the sadly defunct Tower Records (back in the day when you could have lavish genre sections stocked with cool movies). This was the Tower just round the corner from the then Cannon porn cinema!

Redemption are of course still very much with us but cool brands like Tower, Cannon all seemed to have slipped away to be replaced by a sea of slick uniformity and as you know we prefer things to be a bit sick!

So in this comp we just want you to wax lyrical about your favourite long-lost brands - they could be video labels like Avco Embassy, Thorn EMI etc or film companies like New World, Empire Pictures - whatever. You can include as many as you like but you need to pick one out and tell us what it was about it you loved. The best three win a copy of Killer Nun - now out on Shameless! (ahem)

Comp closes Midnight GMT Sunday 23rd December 2007.
  #2  
Old 6th December 2007, 03:55 PM
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Shows my age - I wouldn't have a clue!?

(Got Killer Nun already )
  #3  
Old 6th December 2007, 05:42 PM
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Well, times change, eras end and life goes on - but for many of us lucky souls/poor fools (delete where applicable) who grew up in the 80's we have our memories. Pot Noodles, Stock/Aitken & Waterman, The Smiths, Phonecards, Betamax videos.... and Vipco.

Yes. Vipco. The name today brings smiles, smirks, knowing looks of contempt (in the realisation that the person who said the word 'Vipco' is, in fact, a prat). However, excluding the latter DVD days of the 'Digitally Remastered Screamtime Collection' (which meant putting a VHS on a disc), we easily forget how Vipco were once one of the greatest horror labels in the UK.

Just the original cover of The Driller Killer (that notorious sleeve that caused white foam to dribble from the mouths of Ferman & Whitehouse) should be enough to get Vipco permanently ensconsed in the Video Hall Of Fame. However they also gave us THAT cover for Zombie Flesh Eaters (hired by many a young teen including moi - several times), plus Shogun Assassin, The Bogey Man, The Deadly Spawn and oh so many others. They also entertained us with lesser known horrors such as The Nesting and Massacre Mansion, as well as the British-filmed gem The Legacy.

Did Rex Harrison ever adorn the cover of a Vipco VHS? He certainly did with A Time To Die. How about the legendary trumping epic King Frat, a young Chevy Chase in The Groove Tube or Caroline Munro getting all galactic in Starcrash. Barbara Bach met some hideous creatures (excluding hubby Ringo) in Island Of Mutations. A young Helen Mirren showed her long good fridays in Hussy. Kung Fu fans were (sort of) treated to titles such as Big Boss 2 and Breaker Breaker, and action fans could see Telly Savalas snarling his way through The Diamond Mercenaries (though keeping his sunglasses on at all times) plus Lee Majors pretending to be Gary Cooper in High Noon Part II (Coop didn't appear owing to his being slightly dead at the time).

Where else could you get a label that released titles such as Hot Sex In Bangkok and an Italian kiddie cartoon of The Three Musketeers? Vipco of course. Ah they were glorious times.

Then came DVD - and Vipco went a bit on the tits-up side. Although they gave us rare & uncut titles on DVD (The Beyond, Death Trap, The Last Hunter and, of course The Burning) the DVD age was not for them really. Mainly owing to a slight misunderstanding as to what Digitally Mastered really meant.

However in the days of the 80's they were among the greatest. Let's not forget that. VIPCO - Gone but not forgotten.
  #4  
Old 6th December 2007, 06:06 PM
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Mine would be the Exploited label. Before David Gregory was shipped off to the states by Bill Lustig to work for Blue Underground (who has now gone on to form his own Severin Films), he had Exploited with Carl Deft.

I remember seeing titles from time to time in Virgin and HMV like Californian Axe Massacre, Deathdream and the like, crying to myself inside for be too damn young to walk in a buy 'em. Also for being to ashamed to ask my ma' to buy them, as she was not keen on this kind of Grindhouse, she was a Squirm sort of gal.

They also faught the law and got screenings of Texas Chainsaw Massacre in local theatres, much to the dismay of the BBFC. They also made the awesome documentary Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Shocking Truth.

Exploited is dead and buried now, and I'll never get the chance to buy one of those yummy looking VHS tapes, but thanks to the internet I can get everything else he puts out over in the Us and A! Whoop!
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  #5  
Old 7th December 2007, 05:38 PM
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Bugger. I didn't really get into sick horror until the DVD age had started so I don't know any of the old video labels. Guess I'll have to sit this one out...
  #6  
Old 10th December 2007, 05:24 PM
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No you don't - it doesn't have to be a film brand per se - just a brand you love for whatever infectious qualities it has for you - it could be defunct or current - whatever - it's the reasons why that count. At this rate simply by entering you'd win a copy! We need to get some more members here!
  #7  
Old 14th December 2007, 12:06 PM
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I suppose in that case one of my faves is Prism Leisure. I don't know much about them as a company or what they did before the dawn of the DVD age but I adore them for releasing complete dross at budget prices. I used to work for a big, well known department store that I absolutely hated. Because it was so hideous there I used to escape on my lunch break, rather than sitting in the staff canteen with the cast of The Witches.

As a result, I usually ended up wandering around Music Zone (now defunct... Boohoo ) spending my hard earned cash on Prism Leisure titles, ranging from 99p to a whopping £3!

Titles in my collection include, Cult Kids Classics, Cult Kids Classics 2, Humanoids From The Deep (unfortunately, the TV remake from the 1990s, not the older theatrical version), Scream Bloody Murder (alternately known as Bloody Murder, it's sequel, Bloody Murder 2: Closing Camp is know as Halloween Camp in the UK), Halloween 2, Clive Barker's Rawhead Rex, Safe, Dead Man's Curve and Shadow Of The Vampire.

I can't even find a website for them so I don't even know if they're still going or if they're operating under a different name these days. The print quality of their films was never amazing but for the price, who could complain. They always seemed to have an unusual mix of crap (Scream Bloody Murder) and arthouse (Safe) which intrigued me. But the main reason I love them is because buying one of their DVDs for £1.99 used to really brighten my day when I was working in a horrible horrible place!
  #8  
Old 14th December 2007, 12:12 PM
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I know technically I'm not fulfilling the brief there, but that's the nearest someone who didn't have her own TV in her room until she was 18 is going to get!
  #9  
Old 14th December 2007, 12:39 PM
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Prism also distributed Cronenberg's Shivers and Rabid, and rare horror titles such as Hell Night, Witchfinder General, The Sorcerers, Doomwatch, Bloodsuckers (aka Incense For The Damned) and Brimstone & Treacle - as well as the first uncut UK release of Kentucky Fried Movie.

Alas they ceased trading a short while ago. I miss them.

Last edited by vincenzo; 2nd April 2009 at 04:03 PM.
  #10  
Old 14th December 2007, 01:50 PM
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I'll miss their prices... Who cares if you have no special features when the DVD costs less than fish and chips?!
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