I was trying to get my hands on the dvd as the last time I watched this film it was from my laser disc version. (yep, it's been awhile and my LD player is dead.)

Is there a future US release coming? I can find Suspiria, Deep Red, etc, but Tenebre is OOP and if you do find it the cost for a used disc is about double the price.

I heard that Anchor Bay has renewed their licenses on TENEBRAE, PHENOMENA, DEMONS, and DEMONS 2 and is planning on doing new High-Definition remasters of all four films sometime next year. Hopefully what I heard is true. There was even a news break a while back on the Italian-language website for Argento's store in Rome, Profondo Rosso, mentioning that region 1 would be seeing new S.E.s of these films before too long.

If you have a region free player and can't wait, the Dutch A-Film release of TENEBRE is pretty good. It's not only uncut (restoring the missing bits from the current Anchor Bay version), but anamorphic widescreen as well and can be had pretty cheaply. The downside is that the color timing gets kind of wonky in the second half of the film, with some shots looking fine, and other shots in the same scene too dark, or too blue, etc. It's like they were stuck using an untimed one-light print for the second half of the film.

Vincent

I've always considered the famous "reveal" at the end of TENEBRAE one of Argento's greatest moments (and I recall on the release of MISSION TO MARS people accused De Palma of ripping it off), and it still is a great moment in a great film, but watching FRENZY again last weekend I was surprised to see that the idea actually came from Hitchcock. I'd seen FRENZY a few times before so I don't know why that shot, which is well-known enough to be discussed in the accompanying docu on the DVD, hadn't registered with me.

FRENZY is talked of as being a return to form and a success for its maker, but when my interest in film dawned in the mid~late 70's the film's reputation was pretty low, and I was unaware that it had done well at the BO. Its status has grown over the years though, and justifiably so. It's a terrific film for so many reasons. I'm guessing we'll never see the deleted scenes, but does anyone know if a script exists and if it contains the dinner finale?

I'd be careful about buying a used copy of the Anchor Bay disc...I bought two copies and both of them had an aggravating audio problem pop up. A high-pitched whine or something...it's been a while.

I didn't try for a third attempt.

I know you know this, but the TENEBRAE/FRENZY rip is perpetrated in RAISING CAIN, not MISSION TO MARS (unless DePalma committed the same crime twice).

By the way, would you care to elaborate on the unused FRENZY ending? I like that film very much, too, and any word of additional scenes would be v.much appreciated...

HD version huh? Which means get a new HD TV, HD DVD Player and updating your dvd collection to HD DVDs... $20,000+???
or I can get myself an all region player. hmmm. Dutch Version it is.

"Remastered in High Definition" is what I meant. There will be a standard-def DVD version I'm sure.

Vincent

SUSPIRIA, DEEP RED, and OPERA are still in print so they can still be found cheaply. TENEBRAE and PHENOMENA are OOP and do seem to be going for a high price unlike the similarly OOP DEMONS and DEMONS 2 which can be found (along with a lot of other AB stuff in bins for around $9.99 (that's how I finally got DEMONS).

Yeah, but the reveal in RAISING CAIN was so corny and not even remotely scary.

I saw RAISING CAIN a couple of times way back when, and enjoyed it quite a lot (terrific central performance) but I don't recall the "reveal"; I guess I need to watch it once more! De Palma used it (again) in MTM a film which I have no plans to see even for a second time, though I though the "reveal" quite effective.

As for FRENZY, if you recall when the detective and his wife are talking, she suggests after Finch is set free they should invite him round for dinner, to which he remarks something along the lines of "after that prison food..." Well, it appears this scene may have been shot, as a still has been found from it and other scenes not present in the final cut (a love-making scene, and one involving a semi-naked girl fleeing from the killer). I'm wondering if these were present in Shaffer's screenplay. Or maybe someone could ask Finch about at least two of the scenes.

Was FRENZY the film that started out as KALEIDOSCOPE, Hitchcock's proposed film inspired by Antonioni's BLOW UP?

He used it again in MISSION TO MARS, eh? Amazing what the memory discards...mind you, since I was clinically dead for nine-tenths of MTM's running time, perhaps it's not surprising.

Not quite. In the late sixties I believe Hitchcock was inspired by Antonioni and envisioned KALEIDOSCOPE to be a very different film from what he had made so far. Unfortunately the studio Universal rejected the project since they considered the sex and violence involved would be unacceptable to the censors.

A few years later the times, of course, had changed and with the onslaught of sexual and violent films emerging from Hollywood Hitchcock made FRENZY. Although the intentions of the two movies, to show rather than imply what many of his earlier pictures had done, were the same I don't think they were linked in any direct way.