See No Evil

I have this, I’ll re-up it later on today.

I never normally sell my fanmade DVD projects, only trade. If you’re interested in trading, drop me a PM.

See No Evil said:

TripleHBK said:

With that said, I understand how the pay to play game works and how only by sharing “rarez” a person can then themselves get access to other unreleased content. The project sounds quite fantastic and is a testament to being patient and vigilant in the hunt to locate things.

Ordinarily yes I might share it freely online, but I run BookOfTheDead.ws, which uses masses of Evil Dead Trilogy material on the goodwill that it isn’t slapped with a copyright suit. Up to now that’s never been an issue (and I know other ED sites have had one or more issues). Online sharing of this DVD would be outright piracy on a grand scale and indeed pushing my luck with the site which comes first.

Plus only trading it as a physical DVD set between collectors means I retain control over the quality. I can properly print off the cover & disc arts as I designed them (on the right type of paper, cropped accurately), use decent Verbatim DVD-DL discs that will last and put them in a proper DVD case. You know, give someone a complete package. I’ve taken a good amount of time to craft this DVD, been waiting years for some of the items there. I want this DVD to be as special to the person who wants it as it is to me. Not just another disposable download among millions others that you click>watch>delete just because it’s there & free. Sounds a silly thing to be bothered about but there you go.

benduwan said:

some news from your edition?

I’m not sure what you mean?

The news is the same today as it was when I posted this project. This DVD is complete and here are all the details. There can be no further news?

Also, if anyone wants a detailed run-down of the additional/lost material available in the TV version over the standard US theatrical version, check out this page on my website; http://www.bookofthedead.ws/website/evil_dead_2_versions.html

TripleHBK said:

With that said, I understand how the pay to play game works and how only by sharing “rarez” a person can then themselves get access to other unreleased content. The project sounds quite fantastic and is a testament to being patient and vigilant in the hunt to locate things.

Ordinarily yes I might share it freely online, but I run BookOfTheDead.ws, which uses masses of Evil Dead Trilogy material on the goodwill that it isn’t slapped with a copyright suit. Up to now that’s never been an issue (and I know other ED sites have had one or more issues). Online sharing of this DVD would be outright piracy on a grand scale and indeed pushing my luck with the site which comes first.

Plus only trading it as a physical DVD set between collectors means I retain control over the quality. I can properly print off the cover & disc arts as I designed them (on the right type of paper, cropped accurately), use decent Verbatim DVD-DL discs that will last and put them in a proper DVD case. You know, give someone a complete package. I’ve taken a good amount of time to craft this DVD, been waiting years for some of the items there. I want this DVD to be as special to the person who wants it as it is to me. Not just another disposable download among millions others that you click>watch>delete just because it’s there & free. Sounds a silly thing to be bothered about but there you go.

benduwan said:

wow,fantastic.
will this be only with english tracks?
i can send you german tracks,if it is need.
thanks

Yes, it’s English only. I do actually have the German audio on one or other DVDs in my collection but the audio editing was tricky enough in a language I speak, let alone one I don’t!

This DVD is a followup to my 2012 Evil Dead fanmade DVD called Book Of The Dead DVD

As mentioned in Bruce Campbell’s book If Chins Could Kill, there exists a TV version of Evil Dead II with the subtitle; “Severely Edited For Television”. While never screened in the US, it was shown on Mexican television throughout the 1990s, under the title El Despertar Del Diablo: Part 2.

In 2009 YouTube user ‘drwhoreturns’ uploaded the whole movie in eight 10min sections, Seemingly having been recorded from Canal 5 circa 1999, the image size was small, the quality poor, and it was dubbed into Latin American Spanish, but it was the previously unseen TV version non-the-less, with many new shots and whole scenes replacing some of the more violent moments in the theatrical version.

It was at that point that I first thought about creating a follow-up to my 2012 fanmade Book Of The Dead DVD; creating a composite edit of Evil Dead II, and collecting together all the rarest related video material I had. I could have worked from the YouTube version in some fashion, but I thought I’d hold out until something better quality surfaced. That turned out to be a four year wait.

In the mean time, I got a friend to do a DVD transfer of the Japanese Evil Dead II Shochiku Home Video laserdisc (Catalogue Number: SF078-5254), to use for the main portion of the film in a composite edit. In addition to being open-matte, I knew that particular Laserdisc had far more vibrant colours than the more recent DVD & Blu-Ray transfers. On properly comparing the Laserdisc transfer to the open-matte transfer from the 2000 R1 US Anchor Bay Evil Dead II DVD, I changed my mind. The picture was a little too soft and grainy, as well as Japanese subtitles throughout, so I opted to use the DVD transfer as the base version instead.

In August 2016, a friend in the US said she was in contact with a fan in Mexico; Rogelio Matamoros, who had a VHS to DVD transfer of the TV version, recorded from Mexican TV during the 90’s. She got a DVD-R copy from him on August 17th, and passed a copy on to me, which I received on September 2nd. I started editing it the same day with Adobe Premiere CS5, using the the DVD transfer for the main portion of the film, editing in the VHS version where needed. Even though it’s lower quality than various newer Blu-Ray transfers, I decided to use this specific DVD transfer to edit with as it’s the only open-matte version released on either DVD or Blu-Ray to date, and edits together perfectly in terms of framing/frame-size with the 4:3 TV version (rather than switching back & fourth between full-frame and widescreen, or cropping the TV version into widescreen). I also used the theatrical mono audio track from the Elite Entertainment Evil Dead II Blood Red Special Edition Laserdisc. The mono track phased in and out of sync with the DVD transfer, so fairly extensive editing was required.

The untouched TV version ran at 1h 30m 39s, and the 2000 R1 US Anchor Bay DVD ran at 1h 24m 18s. As some of the footage from the theatrical version was duplicated using alternate takes in the TV version, 2m 11s of footage was edited out of the theatrical version, and every last frame of of alternate takes & additional footage running at 16m 10s from the TV version was edited in. That gave a final composite running time of 1h 37m 18s, which is 13m 01s longer than the standard theatrical version, with 16m 10s of new footage. Some little new sections do play in Spanish language, but the vast majority of the composite version plays in its original English.

You can see a full list of all the TV version footage added into the standard theatrical version, to create the composite version. Just to explain the below terms; a ‘repeated shot’ is one which seems to have been borrowed from elsewhere to use as a cutaway from something violent or to pad out the running time. ‘further shots’ are new shots building on an existing sequence, and ‘extended shots’ are extended versions of shots already in the Theatrical version. An ‘alternate sequence’ uses alternate shots from the Theatrical version but showing the same action, and a ‘new sequence’ is an entirely new sequence. The timecode listed references the composite version’s running time.

00:01:05:07 to 00:02:23:09 - Replaced opening credits
00:03:33:14 to 00:03:33:14 - New sequence; Ash & Linda embracing & dancing
00:07:30:15 to 00:07:33:10 - Repeated shot; trees outside
00:07:39:07 to 00:07:44:00 - Repeated shot; trees outside
00:08:42:23 to 00:10:28:01 - New sequence; Ash returns to cabin, burns book, and cries for Linda
00:11:04:10 to 00:11:14:17 - Further shots of Ash flying through the trees
00:14:43:25 to 00:15:19:29 - New sequence; Ash driving to the bridge, eating cereal & choking
00:18:13:21 to 00:18:16:21 - Repeated shot; wall clock
00:19:44:14 to 00:20:13:05 - New sequence; force POV, Ash dreaming and shots looking round the cabin
00:21:42:10 to 00:21:47:03 - Further shot of piano playing itself
00:21:51:12 to 00:22:00:02 - Further shots of Ash’s reaction, and steam coming out of piano
00:24:01:24 to 00:24:02:20 - Repeated shot; Ash’s POV through the window
00:26:01:16 to 00:26:07:07 - Repeated shot; force POV shot
00:26:55:01 to 00:26:56:29 - Further shot of possessed Linda’s head
00:27:28:22 to 00:27:30:28 - Further shot of workshed interior
00:27:34:11 to 00:28:20:06 - New sequence; Ash flips out in the workshed having killed Linda
00:28:45:17 to 00:30:21:09 - Alternate sequence; Ash re-enters cabin, looks round, gets gun and goes to chair
00:30:25:05 to 00:30:28:09 - Alternate Ash reaction shot
00:30:44:25 to 00:30:53:27 - Alternate Ash reaction shot, and rocking chair
00:37:36:01 to 00:37:41:12 - Repeated shot; cabin from hillside
00:39:18:23 to 00:39:20:25 - Repeated shot; mounted deer head on wall
00:42:09:01 to 00:42:22:21 - Further shots of items laughing in the cabin & Ash’s reactions
00:42:47:11 to 00:42:50:15 - Further shot of items laughing in the cabin
00:42:52:18 to 00:43:12:05 - Further shots of items laughing in the cabin & Ash’s reactions
00:50:10:03 to 00:50:31:20 - Further shot of Henrietta’s attack aftermath
00:53:14:24 to 00:53:20:25 - Further shot of Jake’s reaction to Evil Ed
00:54:36:24 to 00:54:39:18 - Repeated shot; dark sky with moon
00:54:43:14 to 00:54:46:21 - Repeated shot; trees outside
00:57:57:27 to 00:58:46:12 - Alternate & further shots, Ash & Annie look round side room
01:01:07:16 to 01:01:07:16 - Further shots of Bobby Jo running through forest
01:02:22:19 to 01:02:35:00 - Further shot of Bobby Jo being dragged through forest
01:04:52:04 to 01:05:00:02 - Further shots of Ash, Annie & Jake’s conversation
01:07:59:26 to 01:08:04:21 - Further shot of Jake hitting the tree
01:09:35:10 to 01:10:22:25 - New sequence; Annie looks round cabin rear, then outside seeing Ash
01:10:37:29 to 01:10:38:18 - Further quick shot of Annie stabbing Jake
01:11:28:20 to 01:11:36:26 - Further shots of Ash pounding on door while Annie screams
01:12:29:09 to 01:12:33:14 - New shot; possessed Ash in the forest eating a squirrel
01:13:57:12 to 01:14:07:10 - Further shot of Annie screaming with Jake’s blood on hands
01:14:54:03 to 01:15:24:26 - New sequence; possessed Ash remembers dancing with Linda
01:19:17:01 to 01:20:34:13 - Further shots looking round the first cellar room
01:29:25:07 to 01:29:28:07 - Further shot of Ash fighting Rotten Apple Head
01:30:59:14 to 01:31:13:26 - New sequence; images flash as Ash travels back in time
01:31:22:09 to 01:31:54:13 - New sequence; more images flash as Ash travels back in time
01:33:32:10 to 01:34:01:11 - Extended shot, pullback on Ash freezes with title

The remaining space on the two discs was filled with all the rarest Evil Dead II video material I had. You can see a detailed list of what was included below;

• Evil Dead II Mexican TV Version Composite Edit - A composite edit of the “Severely Edited For Television” TV version as recorded from Mexican TV during the 90’s, and the open-matte transfer from the 2000 R1 US Anchor Bay Evil Dead II DVD, along with the The mono audio track from the Elite Entertainment Evil Dead II Blood Red Special Edition Laserdisc, giving a composite edit with 16mins of alternate takes & additional footage running around 13mins longer than the theatrical version.

• Evil Dead II Workprint - Originally transferred from VHS, this is a truncated workprint of Evil Dead II, consisting of the first twenty and last ten minutes of the film. It’s copied from a workprint DVD obtained from The Asylum Of Oblivion bootleg website in 2008. It features temp music, original production audio (pre-ADR) and a small selection of short deleted scenes. The quality of the version included here is better and plays far more smoothly, than the more widespread Workprint transfer which has numerous screen-drop-outs and is virtually unwatchable.

• Attack Of The Helping Hand - Copied from the German 2002 Dragon Films Entertainment special edition PAL Region 2 DVD of Intruder (under the title Night Of The Intruder). This was an unofficial release which was mastered from a bootleg VHS tape, probably sourced from a high-generation version of the original leaked bootleg compilation, without Scotty Speigel’s involvement.

• Torro, Torro, Torro - Copied from the German 2002 Dragon Films Entertainment special edition PAL Region 2 DVD of Intruder (under the title Night Of The Intruder). This was an unofficial release which was mastered from a bootleg VHS tape, probably sourced from a high-generation version of the original leaked bootleg compilation, without Scotty Speigel’s involvement.

• The Evil Dead US Theatrical Trailer 2K 4-3 Open-Matte - This was transferred from a personally owned 35mm film version in May of 2015 by a company in London called ‘i-dailies’. It’s completely Open-Matte right up to the edge of the frame, showing more image than any previously released version of the trailer.

• Evil Dead II US Theatrical Trailer 2K 4-3 Open-Matte - This was transferred from a personally owned 35mm film version in March of 2016 by a company in London called ‘i-dailies’. It’s completely Open-Matte right up to the edge of the frame, showing more image than any previously released version of the trailer.

• Army Of Darkness US Theatrical Trailer 2K 4-3 Open-Matte - This was transferred from a personally owned 35mm film version in March of 2016 by a company in London called ‘i-dailies’. It’s completely Open-Matte right up to the edge of the frame, showing more image than any previously released version of the trailer.

• Evil Dead II Palace UK TV Spot (longer & shorter versions) - Taken from the UK 2003 Anchor Bay Evil Dead Trilogy 4-Disc DVD Box Set, this UK Evil Dead II TV spot was edited from the Dead Good Marketing featurette on disc 4, into a standalone video. There are two slightly different edits shown; longer and shorter versions.

• Evil Dead II Intro Channel 4 Censored Weekend - When Evil Dead II was shown uncut on UK TV Channel 4 on February 20th, 1999 as part of the channel’s Banned Season, it was introduced by Mark Kermode who gave a brief history of the movie’s UK censorship problems. Don’t Look Now, Zombie Flesh Eaters, Bad Lieutenant, and Salon Kitty were also shown, along with a number of related documentaries and featurettes.

• Evil Dead II Movie BBFC Edits Compilation Sequence - Evil Dead II was passed by the BBFC on May 22nd of 1987 for release on UK home video, with 2 seconds of cuts; to two sequences where Ash was kicked in the face by Jake. This is a side-by-side comparison sequence of both those cuts.

• Evil Dead II Trailer BBFC Edits Compilation Sequence - Evil Dead II’s UK trailer was pre-cut by the distributor Palace Pictures to obtain a ‘U’ (suitable for all) rating. This censored trailer appeared on the 1990 Palace VHS UK re-release of The Evil Dead, among other releases. This is a side-by-side comparison sequence of the censored version, next to the standard US theatrical trailer.

• Jason Goes To Hell Workprint Excerpt - This is a short poor quality excerpt from the Jason Goes To Hell Workprint, showing the original Evil Dead II Book Of The Dead & Kandarian Dagger props, which were featured as an in-joke without Tom Sullivan’s permission.

• Book Of The Dead Evil Dead Fanfilm Trailer - This is a short sequence shot in 2016, used as ‘trailer’ to raise funding to make the full film via the crowdfunding platform Indiegogo. It tells little snippets of the story of the ‘Book Of The Dead’, how it was first found, Professor Knowby translating it at the cabin, and skimming over the events of The Evil Dead, leading into to what will be the start of the main film. It was shot using three actors (myself included) over four locations using seven mini-sets taking nine weeks from start to finish, including all the prop/set purchase & construction work. This includes sets of an archaeological dig, the Professor’s desk & fireplace in the cabin, as well as little sections of the cellar and workshed too.

• Evil Dead II: Behind The Screams - Not to be confused with the DVD featurette of the same name, this Laserdisc extra is a compilation of the camcorder footage Greg Nicotero shot on the set of Evil Dead II, transferred from the 1998 US Elite Entertainment ‘Blood Red’ laserdisc. While some of the same footage was recycled into later The Gore The Merrier DVD featurette, much of it is still unavailable on any retail DVD.

• Evil Dead II Vern Hyde’s Behind The Scenes Camcorder Footage - Not to be confused with Greg’s footage, this Evil Dead II behind the scenes camcorder raw footage seems to be taken from tapes shot by Vern Hyde and his effects crew, which leans towards more general on set footage, rather than special effects. It was originally copied from a Behind The Scenes Collection DVD obtained from The Asylum Of Oblivion bootleg website in 2008

• Evil Dead II Talent Show Camcorder Footage - A 1:1 copy from a DVD bought from Ebay in 2011, which contains 65m 53s of camcorder footage covering the Evil Dead II talent show which took place as shooting wrapped. This seems to be taken from tapes shot by Vern Hyde and his effects crew.

• The Evil Dead & Evil Dead II: A Location Odyssey - This is personally shot The Evil Dead & Evil Dead II 2012 locations camcorder footage as seen on the BookOftheDead.ws The Evil Dead - Locations page and the Evil Dead II - Locations page respectively. Contained here is the neatly edited single disc version. Running at 49 minutes, it was edited from the raw footage. it’s basically what’s shown on BookOftheDead.ws with a few extra minutes.

While this is just about all the Evil Dead II unreleased material I own, some of you make know, I also own the first two out of the total six hours of Greg Nicotero’s Evil Dead II behind the scenes raw camcorder footage, but I was given this on condition that I don’t publicly share it, so it’s not included here. Hopefully Greg may release this himself at some point. Both he and Tom Savini have what amounts to probably hundreds of hours of behind the scenes special effects material shot on a long list of productions back as far as Creepshow in 1982, and only a small amount of that complete raw VHS footage has leaked out so far.

While the Book Of The Dead DVD took five months from start to finish to create, I wanted this project to be much quicker & simpler. The obvious release artwork on which to draw, would have been the Evil Dead II UK quad poster by Graham Humpreys, following on from the previous Book Of The Dead DVD which also used its UK quad poster, also by Graham Humpreys. While I did toy with the artwork to see what might be possible, it had been used on so many official & unofficial releases, I decided to take things in a completely different direction.

I always liked the photocopied hand-drawn artwork & layout of 90s UK horror fanzine; Killing Moon (created by Alex J. Low), so borrowing from issue 2’s front cover (drawn by Ross Collins), I produced a black & white poor-quality-photocopy effect DVD cover. This involved creating an initial ‘clean’ version of the artwork in GIMP 2.8.18, printing it off, photocopying it, scanning it back in, then manipulating that back in GIMP; overlaying a number of textures and effects to make it look like a really bad photocopy. This cover can be printed off on white matte photo paper and looks pretty convincing as a fake photocopy. The same process was used for the disc menus. The still menus were tweaked and overlaid with various effects in Adobe Premiere CS6 to make them look like they’d been transferred from VHS. I did try properly transferring these menus to and back from VHS tape, but the results were a little too soft making the smaller text unreadable. The final DVDs were assembled in Adobe Encore CS6.

There were a number of designs for the DVD disc art, including sticky labels, and a proper home-recorded VHS label, but the final design was created to look like two rough pieces of masking tape stuck on the discs and written up in black marker, adding to the rough bootleg feel.

It’s worth saying that I’m a massive fan of the trilogy, and this project was never intended to rip anyone involved in the movie off. I wanted my DVD to be a companion to bought retail releases, not a ‘free’ bootleg replacement. In that spirit, any sharing of this DVD is being kept strictly offline for physical trades only.

This news just in that regards the u.k. channel 4 screening on sunday 25th of January. Evil Dead fan John Dowding emailed channel 4 about it and this was his reply......

Dear John,

Thank you for contacting Channel 4 Viewer Enquiries regarding Evil Dead.

We apologise for the delay in responding to you, after investigating with our distributor it seems that the incorrect version of the film was supplied, and subsequently broadcast. Unfortunately this means we have had to send the version back and we will not be able to broadcast it again, nor do we have any further information regarding the incorrect copy.

I'm in the UK, but have a friend in Japan I order stuff through from time to time. Many people don't ship internationally, quite apart from the language barrier. Laserdiscs & VHS tapes are far more common than VHDs. You're far more likely to find a really decent quality Laserdisc out of the three. Most older VHS tapes you'll find have been around a bit and show it.

PM me with what you want and I'll see what I can do?

UPDATE ADDED TO FIRST POST (03/09/13)

UPDATE ADDED TO FIRST POST (03/09/13)

Cheers for this mate, much appreciated!

Just un-shared this, needed the space in my dropbox folder. Hopefully someone who downloaded it from me will upload it somewhere and keep it online?

Here is the DropBox link for anyone else who wants to grab this, I'll keep it in my DropBox folder for a few more days. If someone wants to upload it somewhere else and add the link to this thread, that's fine too.

The Evil Dead - 1985 Herald Videogram Japanese Laserdisc Audio (16Bit 48000kHz 768kbps Mono).wav
https://www.dropbox.com/s/g2lk0gnf5bku0dw/The%20Evil%20Dead%20-%201985%20Herald%20Videogram%20Japanese%20Laserdisc%20Audio%20%2816Bit%2048000kHz%20768kbps%20Mono%29.wav

NeonBible said:

Hi See No Evil. Was there a reason why you didn't use the PCM audio on your Evil Dead Treasures DVD? Was it to free space for better video compression?

To save space, both my Evil Dead - The Treasures collection and Book Of The Dead DVDs were both packed with stuff

I have it, PM me

EDIT: Here is the DropBox link for anyone else who wants to grab this, I'll keep it in my DropBox folder for a few more days. If someone wants to upload it somewhere else and add the link to this thread, that's fine too.

The Evil Dead - 1985 Herald Videogram Japanese Laserdisc Audio (16Bit 48000kHz 768kbps Mono).wav
https://www.dropbox.com/s/g2lk0gnf5bku0dw/The%20Evil%20Dead%20-%201985%20Herald%20Videogram%20Japanese%20Laserdisc%20Audio%20%2816Bit%2048000kHz%20768kbps%20Mono%29.wav

UPDATE - 03/09/13

If you’re interested in my Clive Barker’s A-Z Of Horror DVD Box-Set DVD it’s complete**, see the following website page first, which has a proper writeup of the completed DVD project;
**

http://www.bookofthedead.ws/online_portfolio/dvd_clive_barkers_a-z_of_horror.html

This is a project I’ve been wanting to do for a while now, but I’ve only recently got hold of source footage of sufficient quality as to make it worth doing.

I remembered Clive Barker’s A-Z Of Horror fondly when it was on TV in 1997. I recorded it at the time, but didn’t keep the recording for too long, and regretted it. Around 2005, I found a US bootleg DVD website selling copies of the complete series and I bought a copy. The quality wasn’t great with the 4h 59m 49s of NTSC VHS source footage compressed in to 4.8GB over two discs (Disc 1 was 2h 15m 38s @ 2.2GB and Disc 2 was 2h 44m 11s @ 2.6GB). If that wasn’t enough, the source footage itself looked 3rd generation VHS, and the credits for some of the episodes were truncated. This set did however have around 40mins of the Exorcist documentary ‘The Fear of God: 25 Years from The Exorcist’ which played after Episode 2, although it abruptly ends mid-way though (presumably at the end of the source VHS tape).

Some years later on the 18th of July 2012, I got in touch with an US IMDB forum posted who mentioned having a copy of the series. I set up a trade, and received a copy from him on the 29th of August 2012. The quality of this set was far better. Not only did it look like it was taken from first generation source footage with every episode playing complete from start to finish including credits, with the 4h 19m 14s of PAL source footage compressed in to 17.5GB, split across six single layer DVD-Rs. It was only after getting it, that I realized that this set was transferred by Meedermow (small world!).

Anyway, after getting Meedermow’s okay to re-package his set with proper artwork, I’ve designed a DVD cover and disc art. I’m still tweaking it, but this is the artwork I’m working on.

Clive Barker’s A-Z Of Horror DVD Artwork - DVD Cover (6462px by 4352px - 600dpi)

Clive Barker’s A-Z Of Horror Disc Art (2741px by 2734px - 600dpi)

As with my previous project; The Mary Whitehouse Experience Box-Set, I will also be adding in BBC2 idents to play before each episode to add to the nostalgia factor (I’ll have to see if between the old set and this new set, I can salvage enough of the BBC2 intro-voiceover to put one on each episode), and maybe a few other promos and bit & pieces too. I’ll have to see what I can find.

If anyone has anything they think would be useful as a little extra to add to this set (late-90s BBC2 promos for horror films or cult shows maybe?) then please get in touch.

* FIRST POST UPDATED  & PROJECT COMPLETE (18/07/12) *

* FIRST POST UPDATED (26/04/12) *

Moth3r said:

Oh, and it looks like your signature is breaking the forum formatting...

Thanks, I think I've repaired that now.

My original post is below. I first posted this project back in 2012 and it didn’t really get going until 2019 when I made a real effort to find people on the Pre-Cert.co.uk forums and a couple of Pre-Cert groups on Facebook, with original VHS recordings of the Forbidden Weekend.

The 4-disc blu-ray preservation, also includes much of Channel 4’s 1999 Censored Weekend, and BBC2’s 1997 series’ Clive Barker’s A-Z Of Horror. You can read up on that project here;

http://www.bookofthedead.ws/online_portfolio/br_bbc2_may_1995_forbidden_weekend.html

BBC2’s 27th May to 2nd June 1995 Forbidden Weekend

http://www.bookofthedead.ws/private_dump/forbidden.png

The BBC’s 1995 Forbidden Weekend was one of my earliest experiences into horror when I was 14, that and seeing The Evil Dead on VHS a few months or so before, and Clive Barker’s A-Z of Horror in 1997; some of my fondest teenage memories. My interest in this sort of thing, lead on to an interest in Special Effects, and I’ve now worked in the UK Film & TV Special Effects industry for 10 years now.

So, the BBC’s 1995 Forbidden Weekend was various material on the theme of horror, video nasties and censorship, shown over a few evenings on BBC2, with each film preceded by introduction from Alex Cox, and the BBC even giving the weekend it’s own special idents. All the films shown are now easily available on DVD (minus Alex’s intros, obviously) although both the versions of The Devils and Bad Taste shown, differ from the retail release versions, and these are just the two which I know of. Also a few specific documentaries are also around on the internet as VHS to AVI transfers, although proper VHS to DVD transfers would be higher in quality. My aim is to produce a complete DVD box-set of everything shown, which hinges on finding someone who recorded everything. You might roll your eyes that and say ‘oh yeah, that ain’t gonna be no easy 30 minute DVD’, but I created & run the Gamesmaster S1-7 DVD Box-set project, which currently runs at around 50 (!) hours footage over the 24 discs from the 7 series’, and probably 3-4 times that amount of VHS footage was transferred in creating the project, before editing began (see my signature for more info on that, and other previous projects).

Incidentally, Bad Taste was shown here before it was released on VHS in the UK. I taped it and watched in a good few times over a couple of years. Later I binned that recording when I got the retail VHS tape, then I the DVD, but there was a little bit I remember from the TV version that I’ve never seen in any retail version. It’s when they’re all getting ready to storm the alien house, you see Ozzy filing down the tips on his bullets. I remember Frank asking him what he was doing, he replied that the bullets create more damage that way. I can see why this would have been removed, but I’ve never found anyone else who remembers this?

I have made up a fairly comprehensive list from internet research, of the TV listing over that weekend, which you can see below, and which footage is already available to me (albeit maybe in a differing version or in low quality).

27th May 1995 22:29 Talking X’s - Hugh Grant & Richard Curtis, Emmanuelle
23:09 Talking X’s - Lily Savage, The Exorcist
00:14 Talking X’s - Phil Davis, The Witchfinder General
00:17 Bad Taste (DVD version available)
01:52 Good Taste: The Making of Bad Taste (DVD version available)
02:18 Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde
28th May 1995 22:06 Talking X’s - Dora Bryan, Women of Twilight
22:08 Empire of the Censors (Part 1) (LQ AVI version available)
23:06 Talking X’s - Jarvis Cocker, The Beast
23:09 The Night Porter (DVD version available)
01:07 Beat Girl (DVD version available)
02:39 Performance (DVD version available)
29th May 1995 09:19 Pastor Hall (DVD version available)
10:55 Talking X’s - Kate Hardie, Saturday Night Fever
20:33 Children of the Video
20:58 Talking X’s - Saskia Reeves, Don’t Look Now
21:00 Empire of the Censors (Part 2) (LQ AVI version available)
21:59 Talking X’s - Helen Chadwick, Zorba The Greek
22:02 Doing Rude Things (LQ AVI version available)
22:48 Talking X’s - John Peel, House of Wax
22:53 The Devils (DVD version available)
00:48 The Silence (DVD version available)
30th May 1995 22:30 Talking X’s - Mary Whitehouse, Never Having Seen One
31st May 1995 22:30 Talking X’s - Molly Parkin, A Streetcar Named Desire
23:15 The Late Show
1st June 1995 22:30 Talking X’s - George Melly, King Kong
2nd June 1995 22:28 Talking X’s - Alexander Walker, Frankenstein

A lot of similar material has been shown on TV over the years, both BBC 2 & Channel 4 have done a number of ‘Banned’ & ‘Censored’ seasons for instance, along with other specials such as Channel 4’s Sci-Fi Weekend around the same time, for which I remember seeing the trailer for Outland & The Man Who Fell to Earth. Anyway, I have compiled as comprehensive a listing as I can, but there are bound to be programmes I’ve missed. You can see that in PDF format here;

Censored - UK Documentaries On Censorship, Horror And Video Nasties-SeeNoEvil.pdf
http://www.bookofthedead.ws/online_portfolio/Censored.-.UK.Documentaries.On.Censorship,.Horror.And.Video.Nasties-SeeNoEvil.pdf

From this list I have already have select items, which have been collected together over the last few years of buying (official retail & bootleg), trading & sharing, although I’ve been a little loose with some specific material (such as Masters Of Horror, which is an excellent US made documentary, but has been shown on UK TV) here is what I have so far, in alphabetical order;

Ban The Sadist Videos (Parts 1 & 2)
Banned In The UK (Parts 1 - 4)
BBC2 Forbidden Season - Alex Cox on Django Kill
BBC2 Forbidden Season - Christopher Frayling on El Topo
BBC2 Forbidden Season - David Cronenberg and the Cinema of the Extreme
BBC2 Forbidden Season - George Romero and Dawn Of The Dead
Bravo TV’s 100 Scariest Movie Moments (S1 - E1) 100 To 76
Bravo TV’s 100 Scariest Movie Moments (S1 - E2) 75 To 51
Bravo TV’s 100 Scariest Movie Moments (S1 - E3) 50 To 31
Bravo TV’s 100 Scariest Movie Moments (S1 - E4) 30 To 14
Bravo TV’s 100 Scariest Movie Moments (S1 - E5) 13 To 1
Channel 4’s Banned Season Tim Roth Introduction - The Evil Dead
Channel 4’s Banned Season Tim Roth Introduction - The Texas Chain Saw Massacre
Channel 4 1999 Censored Weekend - The Last Days of the Board (With Mark Kermode intro)
Channel 4 1999 Censored Weekend - Boogie Nights in Suburbia
Channel 4 1999 Censored Weekend - Censored
Channel 4 1999 Censored Weekend - Don’t Look Now
Channel 4 1999 Censored Weekend - Evil Dead II (Mark Kermode Intro)
Channel 4 1999 Censored Weekend - Eyes Wide Open, A Case Against Film Censorship
Channel 4 1999 Censored Weekend - Zombie Flesh Eaters (Mark Kermode Intro)
Clive Barker’s A - Z Of Horror (S1 - E1) American Psycho
Clive Barker’s A - Z Of Horror (S1 - E2) The Devil You Know
Clive Barker’s A - Z Of Horror (S1 - E3) The Kingdom Of The Dead
Clive Barker’s A - Z Of Horror (S1 - E4) Broken Homes
Clive Barker’s A - Z Of Horror (S1 - E5) A Fate Worse Than Death
Clive Barker’s A - Z Of Horror (S1 - E6) Beyond Good And Evil
Empire Of The Censors (Parts 1 & 2)
Fear In The Dark
Fear, Panic & Censorship
Masters of Horror
Mondo Rosso (S1 - E1) Title unknown
Mondo Rosso (S1 - E2) Mondo Teeno
Mondo Rosso (S1 - E3) Mondo Sexo
Mondo Rosso (S1 - E4) Mondo Drug-o
Mondo Rosso (S1 - E5) Mondo Sci-Fi
Mondo Rosso (S1 - E6) Mondo Freako
Son Of The Incredibly Strange Film Show (S1 - E1) Jackie Chan
Son Of The Incredibly Strange Film Show (S1 - E2) Fred Olen Ray & Doris Wishman
Son Of The Incredibly Strange Film Show (S1 - E3) The Legend of El Santo
Son Of The Incredibly Strange Film Show (S1 - E4) Ed Wood Jr
Son Of The Incredibly Strange Film Show (S1 - E5) Tsui Hark & Stuart Gordon
Son Of The Incredibly Strange Film Show (S1 - E6) George A Romero & Tom Savini
The 100 Greatest Scary Moments (Parts 1 & 2)
The American Nightmare
The Incredibly Strange Film Show (S1 - E1) John Waters
The Incredibly Strange Film Show (S1 - E2) Ray Dennis Steckler
The Incredibly Strange Film Show (S1 - E3) Herschell Gordon Lewis
The Incredibly Strange Film Show (S1 - E4) Ted V Mickels
The Incredibly Strange Film Show (S1 - E5) Sam Raimi
The Incredibly Strange Film Show (S1 - E6) Russ Meyer
The Perfect Scary Movie
The Very Worst… Gore Movies
X Rated - The Top 20 Most Controversial TV Programmes
X-Rated - Ads They Couldn’t Show
X-Rated - Sex Films In Your Living Room
X-Rated - The Films That Shocked Britain
X-Rated - The Pop Videos They Tried To Ban
X-Rated - The Scenes They Tried To Ban
X-Rated - The TV They Tried To Ban</a>

Although I already own a somewhat poor quality VHS to DVD transfer of Clive Barker’s A-Z of Horror, It’s spread over 2 single layer DVD-Rs with generic menus, and no disc art or covers. This was sourced from a bootleg DVD site in the US, probably around 2005. The quality both in terms of source VHS footage and MPEG-2 compression to fit single-layer DVD-Rs isn’t the best, and the set would benefit from a new VHS to DVD transfer, with proper menus, covers and disc art, so I’m on the lookout for a VHS of that too.

Anyway, if anyone is interested in loaning VHS footage for this project or has any other related material they want to share for this, or just wants to chat, please PM me, Rob.

I first posted this project back in 2012 and it didn’t really get going until this year when I made a real effort to find people on the Pre-Cert.co.uk forums and a couple of Pre-Cert groups on Facebook, with original VHS recordings of the Forbidden Weekend.

The 4-disc blu-ray preservation, also includes much of Channel 4’s 1999 Censored Weekend, and BBC2’s 1997 series’ Clive Barker’s A-Z Of Horror. You can read up on that project here;

http://www.bookofthedead.ws/online_portfolio/br_bbc2_may_1995_forbidden_weekend.html

Hi all, I still get people asking for this from time to time, and I'm still around to provide them as of Feb 2012 (which everyone asks as it's an old thread). Such a shame this one has still not had a better release?

Hi All,

Had this project on my mind for about a year, since I first saw The China Syndrome on DVD, and thought I’d post and get people’s thoughts.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0078966/

From IMDB: While doing a series of reports on alternative energy sources, an opportunistic reporter Kimberly Wells witnesses an accident at a nuclear power plant. Wells is determined to publicise the incident but soon finds herself entangled in a sinister conspiracy to keep the full impact of the incident a secret.

I’ve always felt that the ending is quite a letdown, it really drops off for me. The ending as it is basically lets the bad guys off the hook as the plant doesn’t blow up and everyone is safe except Jack. As with real life, by the time the years of hearings and court cases tail off, and various scapegoats put forward, none of the people higher up who were truly responsible for the plant’s safety, will have faced any sort of justice.

The film would pack far more of a punch if it ended just as Jack Godell dies when SWAT storm the control room and the plant SCRAMs for the second time. Cutting from the control room quaking and going dark, to the silent end credits. This would imply (but not show) that the reactor core went into meltdown, exactly what Jack predicted would happen, and resulting in the title of the film ‘The China Syndrome’.

Starting at 01:50:21, I’d do a little re-editing to shorten the entire ending sequence down, bring jacks death forward as the second SCRAM starts and compress the remainder of the action to make it punchier, removing the miniature shots of the reactor falling apart at 01:53:02 and everything after that, up to the credits at 01:59:32.

Anyone any thoughts?

* Thread updated 30/03/11 *

Cyber City Oedo 808 remains my all time favourite Manga series. It was released in the UK on retail VHS in the mid 90s by Manga Entertainment. It was also shown in 1995 on UK Channel 4 in the Late Licence slot, along with a number of other notable Manga series’ including Legend Of The Four Kings, Doomed Megalopolis, and Devil Man. The three episodes that make up this series were shown over three weeks and were the first programmes I ever recorded with my brand new VCR.

Jump forward ten or so years, and I decided to buy this on DVD. Manga Entertainment’s rights to this title lapsed and they never released this in the UK on DVD, nor did any other company, leaving only the US, Japanese or Australian DVDs as options. I plumped for the R1 US Manga Corps DVD, but was extremely disappointed to discover that the pounding rock score I so loved from the old UK version was gone, replaced by some mediocre to poor soft rock nonsense, which I found out was actually the original Japanese score. A UK specific score had been composed by Rory McFarlane for the Manga Entertainment release, and as such, was only ever been available on that 90s retail VHS release, and a separate score CD released at the same time, which is now incredibly rare.

in 2008 user HairySh*t created 3 custom DVDs (one episode each, just menuless video) with the UK VHS retail soundtrack audio recording synced up & dubbed onto the retail DVD video, basically perfectly recreating the original Manga Entertainment release. He uploaded all three DVDs as torrents to the bittorrent tracker Demonoid. I snapped these up, but was again left slightly disappointed. Somewhere during his process, the video stream had picked up a one frame step every second, which was quite obvious with any camera movement or action, and was really quite annoying to watch.

Over the past few days I decided to do a proper job myself, and have just finished. I used the R1 US Manga Corps DVD as my video source, and HairySh*t’s VHS ripped AC3 audio tracks, as they themselves were perfectly fine and of decent enough quality. I used Adobe Premiere Pro 1.5.1, with the retail audio and VHS ripped tracks on a timeline, which were then split into sections where needed, each sped up or slowed to properly sync everything up, so I could then just mux them back with the untouched retail video streams.

The US R1 US Manga Corps Retail DVD

I also wanted to add in the Manga Entertainment UK Promo Reel which was shown before the main feature on a fair number of their UK VHS releases and brings back some happy memories. This is the thing I’m talking about;

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eCfDxZxTBW4

I searched round for a decent version to use, and only came up with a number of YouTube rips, of which the quality was okay, just okay. I posted on this forum along with a few others in the hope that someone would reply who had a tape they’d be willing to lend out which I could transfer, but nothing, so in the end I bought both Akira and Urotsukidoji - Legend of the Overfiend VHS tapes from an Ebay user for a total of £4 (inc P&P).

I transferred these using a JVC HR-S7600EK S-VHS PAL VCR, connected to a PC with an Asus My Cinema ES2-750 PCI-E 1x TV Tuner Card via an S-Video cable and Left & Right audio phono leads. Captured with VirtualDub 1.9.6 with the Huffyuv 2.1.1 codec and uncompressed WAV audio. While the rest of the proposed DVD would be NTSC, I decided to encode both PAL 25i, 25p & NTSC 24p versions, so others could use them on their projects if they wanted to. I used VirtualDub’s Smart De-interlace filter to deinterlace where needed, then Adobe Premiere Pro 1.5.1 to encode the MPEG2 video streams, and AftenGUI 1.4 to encode the AC3 audio. Because the Akira tape looked a little cleaner, but the Urotsukidoji was sharper, I captured & encoded both. You can download them below;

https://www.mediafire.com/file/v4o43shj6erp8qb/Manga.Entertainment.Trailer.%257E.Akira.VHS.Source.%2528MPEG2.720x480.24p.NTSC.-.AC3.2ch.48kHz.256k%2529.mpg/file
https://www.mediafire.com/file/0pzeh7dokhy2965/Manga.Entertainment.Trailer.%257E.Akira.VHS.Source.%2528MPEG2.720x576.25i.PAL.-.AC3.2ch.48kHz.256k%2529.mpg/file
https://www.mediafire.com/file/yjq3k6qkq71pmsx/Manga.Entertainment.Trailer.%257E.Akira.VHS.Source.%2528MPEG2.720x576.25p.PAL.-.AC3.2ch.48kHz.256k%2529.mpg/file

https://www.mediafire.com/file/kjpxd1i5y5hw5lh/Manga.Entertainment.Trailer.%257E.Urotsukidoji.-.Legend.of.the.Overfiend.VHS.Source.%2528MPEG2.720x480.24p.NTSC.-.AC3.2ch.48kHz.256k%2529.mpg/file
https://www.mediafire.com/file/o9mdffxjkzeexen/Manga.Entertainment.Trailer.%257E.Urotsukidoji.-.Legend.of.the.Overfiend.VHS.Source.%2528MPEG2.720x576.25i.PAL.-.AC3.2ch.48kHz.256k%2529.mpg/file
https://www.mediafire.com/file/mgcvltmpdb5lt7n/Manga.Entertainment.Trailer.%257E.Urotsukidoji.-.Legend.of.the.Overfiend.VHS.Source.%2528MPEG2.720x576.25p.PAL.-.AC3.2ch.48kHz.256k%2529.mpg/file

I went with Urotsukidoji transfer for my DVD. I designed a custom main menu & disc art and the DVD was complete, with all three episodes on one disc at around 7GB with a DVD-ROM folder. I swapped my US R1 US Manga Corps Retail 1-way DVD case for a 2-way case, and kept the retail cover, so only needed disc artwork. The DVD was authored with Adobe Encore 1.5. The 1m 07s promo reel is set to play before the DVD menu, as per the old VHS releases, but it can be skipped.

Now I have the the same pounding rock audio soundtrack I remember, as well as perfectly smooth video!

My DVD Disc Art

My DVD Main Menu Screen

I’m not going to be sharing this online/P2P (or selling it, of course) but I can’t really afford to send out free copies to anyone who asks (one full-face printable dual layer DVD+R disc with printed label + CD slip case + padded envelope + postage, multiplied by a couple of people, it adds up!)

Assuming only a handful of people would ever want this (which may be revised if it’s more than that); we can just work a 1:1 trade or something out. I’ve shied away from asking people to post me discs with a SAE, as on some previous projects I kept getting sent duff discs (either unbranded poor quality or covered in dust/fingerprints/scratches), which left me using my own personal discs to send back to them. Anyway, you can PM me if interested.

Anyone requesting this would obviously need to own one or other of the retail DVD or VHS versions, or I guess the 1995 original Channel 4 recording.