Friday, November 18, 2011

Horror Hospital – 1973: NEW 2010 DVD release!


Isn’t this where I came in? Yep, HH was the first movie I reviewed here, and it just may be the last. :( Although I’ll keep looking, I may have come to the end of finding the Robin movies/appearances that are available.

I was very excited to hear that HH was re-released in June of 2010, in HD transfer from the original 35mm camra negative. Wow! And it definitely was noticeably crisper and brighter. You can see everything in the previously too-dark rock club at the beginning of the film. But now you also see that the “blood” on Robin’s nose in that scene is WAY too bright to look like blood and looks laughingly like paint. Someone online mentioned that this release has 2 extra minutes but I couldn’t tell if and where this was true. There’s no extra scenes that I’d not seen before, so perhaps it’s just a few seconds here and there interspersed throughout the whole thing.

There’s a very interesting commentary by producer Richard Gordon.(RIP 2011- see here for info) Why Robin never does DVD commentaries, I have no idea! He apparently thought quite a lot of Robin and talked highly of his work ethic. I loved hearing how Horror Hospital came to be and some of the behind-the-scenes goings-on. Also talked about are some scenes that were in the original screenplay but never got filmed due to one reason or another. You also find out about Director Antony Balch’s uncredited surprise cameo in HH, rare because he did not like to appear on film! It is even a talking part. I’ll keep that a secret just so you’ll have to buy this! Richard Gordon seemed like a fun, smart, likeable guy and I’m glad he did this insightful commentary!

Not a lot of “extras” though. Oooh, what I would’ve given for some “deleted scenes” or “bloopers” but alas, no. There is a slideshow of publicity photos and posters, but not a lot have Robin in them. Weird how you rarely see him in photos from HH, even though he’s the main star!

What more can I say that hundreds of movie reviewers haven’t already said about this extraordinary film, so I won’t rehash the storyline yet again. I must say I did notice a “continuity” issue I hadn’t in the past. Robin’s shirt gets pretty torn up in the fight scene with the bike boys…yet in later scenes the shirt will sometimes be torn, but sometimes not. Hehe.

I’m proud to say this was a DVD I was able to easily and legally purchase, brand new. I can only hope Robin receives big royalties from this new release!

Well, that’s it. I have no more appearances lined up to review. I’ve exhausted almost all possibilities. There’s some stuff I will probably never get to see. But I’m amazed at how much I WAS able to get my hands on! Wow! There’s a couple of things out there I’m still waiting for the price to come down on, so perhaps half a year to a year from now I’ll finally have something else to comment on. From now on I’m just going to write about things that I’m still searching for, things indirectly related to Robin, or any current news about him that I hear of. Please feel free to let me know ANY news or stories you may have! And if you know Robin, casually mention that there’s a whole blog dedicated to his body of work, will you? :)

1 comment:

  1. You have shared this article in a very interesting way. I liked the review. Great.

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