SILENT SCREAM on DVD

There is no greater paradox, both in title and product, than Silent Scream. A title like Gentle Mutilation would have made about as much sense, but that didn’t stop moviegoers in 1980 from flocking to the film. The other paradox is that the film found great success as a slasher, since when it was released in early 1980 there were really no other slashers in competition. Of course the flood gates would be dropped later on in the year with the genre-affirming success of Friday the 13th, but at this point there was a demand without supply. Aside from a few bloody kills, though, it’s not a slasher. It’s indebted to Psycho more than it is Halloween¸ but the success of Carpenter’s flick is what made it its money and is why the film is still bunched into slasher lists still today. It was initially announced as a Code Red title, but upstart Scorpion Releasing has instead made Silent Scream its inaugural release. Is this a new studio worth screaming about, or one better left in silence? Take a deep breath and get ready to clear your lungs.

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MY BLOODY VALENTINE on Blu-ray

“Oh the legend, they say, on a Valentine’s Day,
Is a curse that’ll live on and on;
And no one will know as the years come and go,
Of the horror from long time ago.”

For twenty eight years it did seem as if My Bloody Valentine was doomed to a curse by censorship. Forgotten, though, it wasn’t. Everyone knew of the horrors the MPAA inflicted upon this little Canadian cash in on Paramount’s past success with Friday the 13th. So revered were the death scenes that were all but excluded from the finished film that I’m sure, if you were to tally the threads, Valentine received more uncut requests than even the Friday films that spawned it. All the petitions, posts and emails, though, couldn’t escape the fact that the film remained a property of Paramount, and not only was the film too small a fish to fry, but they don’t even go unrated for their biggest properties. All that changed earlier this year when, gasp, Lionsgate of all companies got a hold of the DVD rights. It seemed like some fanboy had hacked into the Lionsgate email, but reports were coming out first that the deleted footage had been found, and then later that it would actually be seamlessly branched into the feature film. Seemed too good to be true, and now it’s gotten even better – it’s on blu-ray. Let’s cut to the heart of this slasher favorite.

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HARPER'S ISLAND DVD

Whodunit television as we know it today was probably conceived when pop culture the world over wondered just who shot J.R. on popular nighttime soap Dallas. After that cliffhanger, they coddled the mystery for another four episodes, leaving people guessing, in suspense and just generally frantic to figure out how it would all come together. It took about ten years, but Twin Peaks finally took that Dallas plot thread and pushed it to the center, where the entire series was solely about discovering who wrapped young Laura Palmer in plastic. Of course with David Lynch behind it it ended up becoming so much more and less all at the same time, but regardless of how surreal it got, fans still demanded an answer. Special Agent Cooper’s appraisal of pie certainly had its followers, but quickly pop culture tired of Twin Peaks when it strayed away from the formula that brought it first into the mainstream.

While there were certainly shows since inspired by the Twin Peaks mold, like Push, Nevada, it proved more to be a creative one-off than the lasting genre that showed so much promise in the Dallas days. Along came Harper’s Island earlier this year to change all that, though, with the simple premise of a murder an episode as a killer stalks an island wedding party. No season cliffhangers, just a slasher whodunit spread lightly over 13 episodes. The formula seemed to work for TV, but how does it transition to home video. Does it become the most long-winded slasher in history with redundant recaps from episode to episode, or does the guaranteed quota of grisly deaths it still translate to good entertainment? Let the island lighthouse shine light on the truth!

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