Info & Offer: Bizarro 35mm Reels That Would Have Cursed My Cellar Had I Had One

Years ago, the stepdad of an ex of mine was the landlord of a small apartment complex in my region. One day, he dropped by my work and dropped off a number of 35mm reels someone had left behind. Along with three reels from THE AFTERMATH was - to my shock - a mostly complete ANH. And I use the word “mostly” because as I skimmed through the film (I have no hand rewinder or equipment to really give this thing the once over), I noticed someone had spliced in blank (brown) leaders and footage from other titles. I know darn well for a FACT there was no PRIEST onboard the Death Star! o_O

Now, this may be the dumbest question to be posted here since the beginning of time itself (please, let’s play nice), but do you think anyone would be interested in purchasing it?

I have a decent HP scanner that has an adapter for slides and 35mm film, so I can give everyone a look at the beginnings of the reels (along with photos of the reels themselves). I just need to get the reels out and then try to remember where I put the film adapter for my computer scanner (along with how the thing works).

Yes, please contact me. I would be interested.

Priest? Could you elaborate? :O

And by ANH do you mean version with 1981 crawl?

I won an auction for an odd faded 35mm reel of SW once, and it turned out to be a print that was chopped up as sound fill for the workprint of a totally different film! The description of these reels sounds similar, if only on the surface.

http://www.filmconnection.com/reference-library/film-industry-glossary/film-industry-glossary-f/

Hmm, upon reading those last two comments and after digging out the box of reels and looking at them, I am less certain than what I have now is an incomplete cut of ANH and perhaps a wacky B-grade horror flick instead. Most of the reels are marked "Evil Night", and since there were several reels of Steve Barkett's THE AFTERMATH, this may very well be his other film EMPIRE OF THE DARK (which has to do with a satanic cult, aliens, and...ninjas!?) under an alias. And since the fellow who used to live in the apartment these came from had told me he was a friend of Barkett's, it starts to make a little sense.

Could it be possible that someone used filler from ANH as leaders for these reels? It certainly seems possible.

Call me a cretin, but now I'm even more curious as to what this is!

Oh man, you still might end up wanting to send it to poita.

Right? This is a win either way!

Well, I count 15 reels for this one. Sadly, reels one and two appear to be missing, while six are labeled as duplicates with the exception of them being marked "Music B" instead of "Music A". So who knows what I have here. The mystery deepens. I shot off an email to Steve Barkett and Fred Olen Ray, the latter of whom purportedly co-produced. We'll see if they can give me any info on the title itself. I'm not "publicly announcing" my possession of this ditty as yet. :/

15 full sized reels? Most two hour films are 6 reels, most horror flicks are 5 or less.

Interesting, I wonder if it is some kind of workprint where they were testing out different audio options?

This gets more intriguing by the minute.

They're ten-inch reels (roughly).

Ah, itty bitty reels.

Rough guide for 35mm

Reel Diameter   Footage Length   Running Time 
       4 in                   100 ft             1 min
    6.5 in                   400 ft             4 min
   10.5 in                 1000 ft           11 min
   11.5 in                 1200 ft           13 min
      13 in                 1600 ft           17 min
   14.5 in                 2000 ft           22 min
      16 in                 3000 ft           33 min

OK, get ready for the really weird part: a lot of the film looks like it's undeveloped. I unraveled a reel a bit and saw that it's just simply blank: no soundtrack, no frames, nothing. o_O

Maybe it is cursed, and the creatures have left the celluloid and have taken up residence under your bed, and in your cellar.....

Well, then, the joke's on them: I don't have a cellar. :P

You didn't have a cellar....until now.

Might want to go to the first post, hit advanced edit and change the thread title now that you have a better idea of what it is.

poita said:

Might want to go to the first post, hit advanced edit and change the thread title now that you have a better idea of what it is.

 Done deal. I'm sure you'll approve. :P