Synapse Films

[X-human]

Fangoria scored some big scoops on what's coming up from Synapse films, in two articles:

French chiller RÉSONNANCES to DVD via Synapse

Fango spoke recently to Don May Jr. of Synapse Films, who revealed that the DVD company has picked up the French horror film RÉSONNANCES for U.S. release later this year. “We were at the Fantasia film festival in Montreal when it played there last July, and Jerry Chandler, my business partner, just fell in love with the movie right away,” May tells Fango. “I was seeing something else when he saw that, and he came out of the theater and said, ‘Look, we’ve got to figure out who owns this thing, we’ve gotta know who these people are’; he just loved it.”

Describing RÉSONNANCES, directed by Philippe Robert, as “a cross between ALIEN, TREMORS and THE HITCHER,” May demurs from revealing much more about the plot, but does say, “On the surface—or below the surface, as it were—it’s about a bunch of people who are attacked by these creatures that burrow up from under the ground and attack them. That’s all I want to say, because there are all these elements that kind of tie in together, and if you pay close attention. there’s a really interesting twist at the end of the movie. It’s a DIY, low-budget movie, but it’s very ambitious; I believe it has close to 500 digital effects shots, with helicopters and ghosts and all kinds of crazy things, like a sequence with this thing ripping through a lot with cars flying up in the air.

“What appealed to us about it the most,” he continues, “was that these guys didn’t have any money at all, and what we saw on screen was a labor of love. These guys just went out and made the movie they wanted to make, and busted their butts to get these digital effects to work; it’s just unbelievable what these guys did. It’s a lot of fun; it’s a perfect popcorn movie for a Saturday afternoon, and it just impressed us very, very much. We don’t know exactly when the movie is coming out; we’re working on that right now and only finalized the deal in the last few weeks, so as more items come in, we’ll have a better idea what’s going to be on the disc.”

As for Robert’s personal contributions, May reveals, “We e-mailed him last week and said, ‘Whatever you’ve got, let’s get it together.’ We’re going to shoot for a audio commentary—his English isn’t so hot, so we might have to do that subtitled—and we’re going to try to put as much on this disc as we can. We believe this is one of the cooler horror movies to come out in quite a while; we spent two weeks at Fantasia last year, and this was one of the first films we saw that we really wanted for Synapse.” For a taste of what to expect, click here to go to the RÉSONNANCES page at Robert’s website, which is in French but contains a very cool trailer and a photo gallery.

http://www.fangoria.com/news_article.php?id=4106

And the rest of their slate:

After giving Fango the scoop yesterday about Synapse Films’ acquisition of the French creature feature RÉSONNANCES, the company’s Don May Jr. filled Fango in on what’s up with some of its previously announced titles and shared a couple more surprises. Regarding the special edition of Frank Henenlotter’s BASKET CASE 2 (pictured), May tells us, “We’re waiting for [FX creator] Gabe Bartalos to turn in the making-of featurette. The HD mastering is done and it’s ready to go, and once the featurette is done we’ll be officially announcing it. I don’t know how long the documentary is going to be, but its gonna be like a substitute for not having an audio commentary. Frank is commentaried out at this point; he told us he hates to do them because he doesn’t like to listen to himself talk, and I can respect that.”

Synapse is also wrapping up work on John Fasano’s heavy-metal horror flick BLACK ROSES, to follow up its release of Fasano’s ROCK ’N’ ROLL NIGHTMARE last year. “We’ve got a commentary on that one, and the newly remastered picture from the negative is insane,” May says. “Vinnie Pastore is going to hate us when he sees how beautiful he looks when he’s sucked into the demonically possessed woofer.” In addition, the finishing touches are being put on a re-edit of Adam Wingard’s HOME SICK, starring fright fave Bill Moseley. “We’re adding opening and closing credit designs to the movie right now, and maybe a few more sound effects. We just submitted it to the Fantasia film festival two days ago, and are hoping we’ll get programmed there. If that happens, then we may have HOME SICK out in October for Halloween.”

And in a fresh bit of exciting news, May reveals, “We’re doing new remastered special editions of THOU SHALT NOT KILL…EXCEPT and RUNNING TIME with [writer/director] Josh Becker, Sam Raimi, Bruce Campbell and all those guys,” May says of the killer-cult bloodbath and real-time crime thriller. “And right now—fingers crossed—we want to put some of their famous early short films that you never get to see on these discs.” One of them may be STRYKER’S WAR, an early 45-minute version of THOU SHALT NOT KILL. “We did transfer that,” May reveals, “and how we’re going to use it is still up in the air; it’s got some music issues we have to figure out first. You know, when these kids were making these movies, they didn’t care where they got their music, and sometimes it came from real composers with real songs that may or may not be usable. But we’ll look into that and see what we can come up with. We’re going to do new transfers on the two features, and Josh is working with us on putting extras together. As a matter of fact, Bruce is being filmed right now in Oregon for them.”

In the meantime, you can look for HORROR OF MALFORMED MEN and SNAKE WOMAN’S CURSE (see previous item here), the first two of several Asian shockers in Synapse’s future, to street August 28. The company has also been serving as the U.S. conduit for Impulse Pictures, releasing a series of softcore titles that will include 12 of the German SCHOOLGIRL REPORT films and 1973’s ANITA, starring THRILLER: THEY CALL HER ONE EYE’s Christina Lindberg and a young Stellan Skarsgard. In a more explicit vein, the company recently put out 42ND STREET FOREVER: XXX-TREME SPECIAL EDITION, a collection of vintage adult-film trailers. And finally, May reports that you can definitely expect a follow-up to SMALL GAUGE TRAUMA, last year’s collection of short genre films from the Fantasia festival. “We’re working on that right now,” he says, “and I can let you know that Robert [THE SEPARATION] Morgan’s THE CAT WITH HANDS is going to be on it, along with [Luis Berdejo and Jorge C. Dorado’s] LA GUERRA and maybe, maybe, maybe something from Nacho Cerdà.” —Michael Gingold

http://www.fangoria.com/news_article.php?id=4116

Not sure if I'm going to pick up the single disk versions of Schoolgirl Report because I'm wondering if there's going to be an eventual boxset. Not sure how long I can hold out once the 4th entry of the series is released.

[MorallySound]

I cannot wait for Basket Case 2!!!!!!!! And I'll also be picking up Thou Shalt Not Kill... Except as well. And we'll see about that Running Time DVD and whats on it to replace the original Anchor Bay disc I own.

[ekent]

Don announced he was working on BLACK ROSES on his DEADPIT interview a couple of months ago. I know this because I creamed my jeans upon his mentioning it.

Thou Shalt Not Kill... Except, I think my current DVD will hold me over for eternity Crap movie, but that's what makes the commentary so fun. A remastered Stryker's War (which is actually better than Thou...) may be tempting. I already have a copy of Stryker's War in Crap-O-Vision.

Where is Maniac Cop 2 & 3?

[DrHerbertWest]

Originally Posted by Notoriousaurus

Where is Maniac Cop 2 & 3?

AGREED.

[Lucio Romero]

Originally Posted by Notoriousaurus

Where is Maniac Cop 2 & 3?

Not only that, but the brand new Document of the Dead with a bunch of new extras is a long time coming as well. It was supposed to be out over a year ago

LUCIO!!!!

[KamuiX]

Horror of Malformed Men and Snake Woman's Curse in August!!!

Can't wait for more Small Gauge Trauma and a re-release for Thou Shalt Not Kill as well!

[Katatonia]

I eagerly await the DVD of Black Roses!!!

I do own the old DVD of Thou Shalt Not Kill , but I'm sure I'll rebuy it. I'm sure with Synapse that the video/audio quality will be greatly improved.

[KillerCannabis]

I eagerly await EVERYTHING. Synapse constantly proves time and again that they are one of the best producers of DVDs period. Don May knows what fans want and always delivers.

Do they own any rights to release any 80s slashers?

Originally Posted by Katatonia

I eagerly await the DVD of Black Roses!!!

Same here

[X-human]

I guess this is as good of place as any to post some updates from Don May:

- The website redesign is almost there... the webcart/shopping section is still a bit buggy. Once it is fixed 100%, we'll continue to add the rest of our product (and other studios product) to the site for sale.

- Today should be the last day of QC for 42ND STREET FOREVER: EXPLOITATION EXPLOSION. A few last minute menu nav fixes (and my SUPER paranoia about things playing correctly, progressive scan, etc.) have dragged this on a bit longer than expected, but it should be going to press by the end of the week. The commentary is so informative and fun, I've listened to it about 4-5 times now. This one is on schedule for the January 29, 2008 release.

- We are finishing up the audio on HOME SICK right now. There was a bit of a problem when the audio mix originally got lost and Adam Wingard had to redo everything. Now, we got the restored audio and the levels are a bit uneven (I noticed this during the July Fantasia screening) and, unfortunately, the audio was mixed in 24fps instead of 29.97... so that's the delay. I had to go back in and re-EQ and re-sync everything. BUT, that being said, it's almost done. I'm a perfectionist and I want some things fixed, so it's taking me longer than expected.

- We are currently in authoring on PARTY 7 and KARAOKE TERROR. They should be done soon. MADAME O is headed to authoring this week. P7 and KARAOKE TERROR should be out April 29, 2008.

- SCHOOLGIRL REPORT #3 is finishing up the subtitling right now... and, yeah... in NTSC it's 95 minutes so this one IS uncut compared to the Japanese 79 minute release. We've checked it against the previous release and it is much longer than the Japanese DVD. So, no fears on this one. It's schedule for a February 26, 2008 release.

- Early next year, if I can get to LA at the end of January, we hope to start our high-definition restoration and mastering on THE KINDRED.

- We have quite a line up ready for SMALL GAUGE TRAUMA 2 and plan on releasing that in June or July '08. The last possible submission just came in on Friday...

- We have to AMAZING film from Argentina in the works right now, too. Look 'em up... ANIMALADA (horror film about a man in love with a sheep... it's insane) and ROSARIGASINOS (GANGS OF ROSARIO... a GOODFELLAS-like crime drama that is pretty amazing). These are getting prepped for release now and will be available in the Spring.

- Besides the SCHOOLGIRL REPORT series, we have some upcoming goodies coming from IMPULSE PICTURES. The one finishing up now, THE SECOND COMING OF EVA, is amazingly sexy!

- As soon as Josh Becker is ready (he's working on a new movie right now), we'll be starting the restorations and HD mastering on our new THOU SHALT NOT KILL... EXCEPT and RUNNING TIME releases. We were able to get some fun stuff from Bruce Campbell for these.

More to come... Jerry and I are hard at work! Right now the DVD market is in the shitter, so we're moving as fast as we can! All I can say is to support all us indie-DVD companies right now. We can use the support.

Our August releases did... ok.... not great, which was a shame. HORRORS OF MALFORMED MEN and SNAKE WOMAN'S CURSE could've done better. Honestly, these are two of the best titles we've ever produced, so it's a shame they didn't catch on as we'd hoped. The November POISONOUS SEDUCTRESS titles did even worse... I know these aren't for everyone, the economy is in the crapper and the DVD market is pretty bad, but we really need your support on these three! There was something in the NY POST about them on Saturday, so maybe this will help the sales somewhat. Eh, ya win some, ya lose some, ya know?

http://www.nypost.com/seven/1209200...icks_638230.htm

We'll keep you posted on any new developments... once the paperwork comes in, I'll have another horror classic to announce (hopefully soon).

Malformed Men, Snake Woman and the Poison Seductress series is what it's all about for me so it's a shame that others aren't picking up on them. I'd like to reiterate that HD remasterings and bountiful extras are a privilege, not a right.

Reading that makes me worried about Mondo Macabro all over again. We've had good news with Panik House / Casa Negra so I'm hoping they're good too.

[zompirejoe]

Personally, I can't wait for THE KINDRED. I love that crazy , corny little monster flick. I seem to remember some time ago that Synapse was going to release THE INCREDIBLE MELTING MAN, but I guess that isn't going to happen. Anybody out there know anything about this ?

[Jeremy]

The producer to MELTING MAN apparently sold the rights to MGM in perpetuity, only to turn around and double-sell them to Synapse. Don May discovered the deception and got his money back.

Hopefully MGM will give us an INCREDIBLE MELTING MAN release in the Midnite Movies line.

[dwatts]

I bought the R2, Incredible Melting Man is a title I'd never upgrade, that's for damn sure. And the R2 version pretty much stinks. It's funny in a Troma way, be enough is enough for me.