Severin Pick Up Sledgehammer (Updated: VHS?!)

Sledgehammer new VHS edition - courtesy blog.mondotees.com

UPDATE MAY 9: Mondo, the collectible art boutique arm of Alamo Drafthouse Cinema, is pleased to announce a partnership with Intervision Picture Corporation to release 1983’s SLEDGEHAMMER on VHS. SLEDGEHAMMER, the first shot-on-tape slasher movie for the home video market, will be the first video release of Mondo Video, a label created to release rare genre films in a collectible VHS format. The VHS release will coincide with the film’s first release on DVD and a Terror Tuesday screening on Tuesday, May 10, 2011 at Alamo Drafthouse in Austin, TX. Mondo Video’s SLEDGEHAMMER includes the original box art and copy from the 1983 VHS release and will be available for purchase only at MondoTees.com on Wednesday, May 11, 2011. The Intervision DVD will also be available for purchase on Tuesday, May 10, 2011 at Amazon.

Mondo creative director Justin Ishmael says, “I am downright crazy about VHS, so it gives me great pride that we get to make SLEDGEHAMMER the first release on our new Mondo Video label. There has been a major resurgence in VHS collecting the last few years after it was announced that the tapes would stop being made, so being fans ourselves, we jumped at the opportunity to actually resurrect the format and release some of our favorite movies on VHS. People thought they killed the video tape back in 2008, but like a phoenix, it is rising from the ashes! Never Forget!”

“Either by way of budget constraints, warped vision or both,” says Intervision marketing director Evan Husney, “SLEDGEHAMMER is a piece of a cinematic underbelly from a universe all its own. This is the new cult canon: Buried in obscurity and ripe for reintroduction, it delivers top-shelf bizarro derangement, gonzo action, transcendental fever dreams and beyond.”

Alamo Drafthouse’s Terror Tuesday programmer Zack Carlson, says “1940s scientists put years of study into creating the nuclear bomb, but it wasn’t until the first tests at Los Alamos that they realized its inhuman powers of absolute destruction. Four decades later, filmmaker David Prior similarly unveiled SLEDGEHAMMER, a shot-on-VHS masterstroke of anti-intellectual decimation. On that day, cinema quietly crumbled into dust. Ted Prior (star of Deadly Prey; brother of the director) leads a cast of self-loathing alcoholics who face off against a shape-shifting, dimension-crossing spectre with a penchant for blunt object trauma. By the end, brains, bowels and Budweiser will be smeared across every inch of the walls. A rewardingly lethal collision of ‘80s slasher video-vomit, suburban legend and unintentional surrealist art, Prior’s supernaturally disabled death opera is the most visionary migraine to ever pummel its way into your skull. If you survive it, you’ll never ever forget it.” Get tickets here.

SLEDGEHAMMER DVD Cover (click for hi-res)

Follow up to our older news item. Read on for final Sledgehammer DVD special features:

Severin Films announced an agreement with the estate of Larry Gold, Sr. to handle all future production and marketing for Intervision Picture Corporation. The arrangement commences with the 5/10 release of 1983’s SLEDGEHAMMER, notorious as the first shot-on-tape ‘slasher’ thriller for the then-exploding home video market. Gold, a pioneer of ‘70s film distribution and ‘80s genre VHS, died in March following a massive coronary at his home in Thailand. Severin’s Evan Husney will supervise all production and marketing for the label. Intervision product will continue to be distributed in the United States by CAV Distributing Corporation.

Intervision was reactivated in January 2011 with the DVD releases of recent Goya Award Winner Jess Franco’s 1973 rarity SINISTER EYES OF DR. ORLOFF and his acclaimed 2010 ‘audio-visual experience’ PAULA-PAULA. The 5/10 release of SLEDGEHAMMER marks the return of director David A. Prior’s bizarre video shocker, which was celebrated as part of Los Angeles’ Cinefamily ‘Homemade Horror’ series and will be screened on street-date at Austin’s Alamo Drafthouse. Future Intervision releases include the 1989 ‘Canuxploitaion’ oddity THINGS and 1993’s disturbing THE SECRET LIFE: JEFFREY DAHMER.

“Either by way of budget constraints or warped vision,” says Intervision marketing director Evan Husney, “each release will represent a piece of a cinematic underbelly from a universe all its own. Buried in obscurity and ripe for reintroduction, the films in Intervision’s new cult canon assure top-shelf bizarro derangement, gonzo action, transcendental fever dreams and beyond.”

“From the days of plastic clamshell VHS through the rise of Blu-ray, Intervision has been dedicated to everything fascinating and extraordinary about obscure genre works,” says Carl Daft, co-founder and CEO of Severin Films. “We are proud to carry on this commitment to rare and unique genre films under the Intervision banner, as well as its new website launching soon at www.IntervisionPictureCorp.com.”

Severin Films, founded in 2006 with offices in Los Angeles and London, has been called “well on its way to becoming the greatest indie label of all time” by BlogCritics.org. Their DVD and Blu-ray releases include Alejandro Jodorowsky’s SANTA SANGRE, Jess Franco’s MACUMBA SEXUAL and BLOODY MOON, Walerian Borowczyk’s IMMORAL WOMEN, the unrated Director’s Cut of Just Jaeckin’s GWENDOLINE, Richard Stanley’s restored HARDWARE, Enzo Castellari’s original INGLORIOUS BASTARDS, Oscar®-nominee Patrice Leconte’s THE HAIRDRESSER’S HUSBAND, Don Sharp’s PSYCHOMANIA and Roman Polanski’s WHAT? Severin’s upcoming HD restorations include Ted Post’s THE BABY, Eugenio Martín’s HORROR EXPRESS and Peter Duffell’s THE HOUSE THAT DRIPPED BLOOD. The company’s theatrical releases include BIRDEMIC, DEVOLVED, and the forthcoming horror anthology THE THEATRE BIZARRE.

Intervision is proud to present the return of the first shot-on-tape slasher movie for the home video market as well as one of the rarest genre films of all! The plot is familiar: A group of friends comes to party at a backwoods house where a legacy of brutality awaits. But within this minimalist ’80s mélange of food fights, feathered hair and abusive slow-motion lurks a relentless synth score, bizarre sexual subtexts and a disturbing shape-shifting behemoth killer. The result is 85 minutes of fever-dream depravity, now loaded with brand-new Bonus Features that put it all in skull-shattering perspective. Former Playgirl centerfold Ted Prior (RAW NERVE, DEADLY PREY) stars in this nightmare-logic shocker from writer/director David A. Prior (KILLER WORKOUT) where the lines between twisted horror and historic gore are  pounded to a pulp…by SLEDGEHAMMER.

Extras:

• Audio Commentary With Director David A. Prior
• Audio Commentary With Bleeding Skull Creators Joseph A. Ziemba And Dan Budnik
• Hammertime: Featurette With Destroy All Movies!!! Author Zack Carlson
• SledgehammerLand: Featurette With Cinefamily Programmers Hadrian Belove And Tom Fitzgerald
• Interview With Director David A. Prior.