31 days of horror Year 3 day 15

Nightmares in a Damaged Brain

1981
Code Red 30th anniversary edition first print DVD

Here's another film I have heard about for close to a 2 decades.First I heard about the controversy over if Tom Savini did the special effects work or not. He claims he didn't . But some of the production staff claims he did.Plus a behind the scenes photo has shown up that clearly shows Tom on the set. For years I have wanted to see it. But the VHS was going for way more than I am willing to pay for VHS. And sure plenty of people have a bootleg DVD for sale. But they are all ripped from VHS and every time I saw one the dealer wanted $20. Plus 4 or 5 years ago Code Red had announced they were gonna release it. Well earlier this year it finally came out. And plenty of message board "tough guys" started to complain. Saying it took too long for Code Red to get it out. And various other bullshit. Now since I know most of the Code Red DVDs have a very limited print run I ordered one as soon as it came out. I got lucky and got the first print. You can tell a first print from a later printing by looking at the bottom of the front cover. The first print has "Limited Edition:No more than 100,000 will be pressed" on it. The later printings drop this. I really doubt that the first print run was 100,000. Mainly cause the lead guy at Code Red has said how most of their releases are lucky to sell 3000 copies.

George Tatum is a very damaged man. He suffers from all kinds of mental illnesses. But a experimental new treatment is used on him. And he is declared safe to leave the mental hospital.

He starts off by wandering around the 42nd street area of NYC. He goes inside one of the many adult bookstores and goes back to the peepshow booths. He puts in his money and sees a nude woman masturbating. This triggers his violent tendencies and he goes out and starts killing people.

He gets a car and starts heading for Florida. It seems there is a mother who has a few kids down there that George has some kind of connection with. He finally makes it down there and goes on a killing rampage. But in the end good triumphs.

Now the story and acting in this film aren't anything special. But the gore FX are amazing for the time period it was done it. We get all kinds of bloody violence. The DVD is loaded with extras. It has two discs. The first disc has a 16X9 print created from the 2 best 35mm prints they could find. An audio commentary with the make up artist Cleve Hall and the main star Baird Stafford.We also get a full frame color corrected telecine approved by the directer.Then we get two featurettes. One is a interview with Baird,Cleve and the distributor Tom Ward. The other is an interview with the FX artist for the parts send in NYC. The second disc has a brand new telecine that is 16X9 from a better looking 35mm print. 2 different trailers. Plus some trailers for other films either out already or coming from Code Red. Then there is the one extra that has caught a bunch of shit online. It is a 95 minute interview with the directer Romano Scavolini. It is in Italian and has no sub titles at all. One of the movie forums I go to a guy has explained why this is. It seems he was sent the interview and was creating subtitles for it. But the first copy of the interview he was sent had a almost 20 minute segment that was wouldn't play. He got back in touch with Code Red and months later they sent him a DVD with just that part. But the 2 DVDs with the interview were encoded differently. And it would have taken a bunch of work and time to create subtitles for it. So he just gave up. But I bet soon someone will post a subtitle file so that we can watch the interview and find out what Romano is saying. Well if you are a slasher fan,ignore all the idiots online that are hating on this release without never seeing it and give it look. I would say rent it first. But Netflix isn't carrying it. I serious doubt you would find this in Blockbuster. I found it for around $18 on amazon. Nightmare in a damaged brain gets a A-.