Scream Factory Celebrates Its 5 Year Anniversary
Scream Factory™, the horror brand that answered the call of fans for dream-worthy releases of the most crucial films in the genre (such as Halloween, Carrie, Child’s Play, The Return of the Living Dead, Mad Max, Army of Darkness, The Howling, The Amityville Horror and Black Christmas) as well as some of the deserving cult-favorites that might not have been made available otherwise (e.g. Cat People, Lifeforce and Tales from the Hood) is now celebrating its 5th anniversary!
To celebrate, Scream Factory™ is offering three limited-edition steelbook versions of John Carpenter classics Escape from New York, The Fog and They Live in August, and in addition, Scream Factory will be slashing prices this summer through a brand-wide sale, starting today, June 12.
Scream is also celebrating by hosting a special screening event titled 5 Nights of Fear, airing on Shout! Factory TV, presenting 5 nightly screenings of the cult favorite films Nightbreed, Bad Moon, The Exorcist III, Hellhole and Rabid. 5 Nights of Fear will air from Monday, June 12 through Friday, June 16 each evening at 10 p.m. ET/7 p.m. PT at ShoutFactoryTV.com and on Pluto TV Channel 512.
Additional exciting announcements regarding 5th Anniversary celebrations will be made throughout the year.
Launched in 2012, Scream Factory’s mission has been to deliver fans what they want most – titles that have been long unreleased or underserved that cater to collectors, served up with inconceivable detail – new and original art, extensive interviews, beautiful transfers, lost footage, and much more. Scream Factory has gained thousands of loyal and active followers by offering these consistently superb releases and super-serving fans with offers of collectibles, posters, and early shipping.
Five years later, with nearly 300 releases under its belt, the brand has also been the recipient of several Rondo, Reaper and Home Media Magazine Awards for their excellence in presentation. With love and detailed attention from its stewards, Senior Marketing Director Jeff Nelson and Blu-ray Producer Cliff MacMillan, Scream Factory has developed key relationships along the way, working closely with film legends like John Carpenter (Prince of Darkness, Assault on Precinct 13), Wes Craven (Deadly Blessing, Shocker, The People under the Stairs), John Waters (Serial Mom), Brian De Palma (Phantom of the Paradise), James Gunn (Slither), Clive Barker (Nightbreed, Lord of Illusions) and Tobe Hooper (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2, The Funhouse) to present their work in the best light possible.
While also becoming known for releasing classic slasher films like Sleepaway Camp, The Funhouse, Terror Train, Final Exam, The Burning, and The Slumber Party Massacre, to the lesser known films that had never received a prior proper home entertainment release, such as Without Warning, Blood and Lace and The Boy Who Cried Werewolf, Scream Factory has often tackled many complicated projects. Through an unprecedented partnership with Anchor Bay, Scream Factory was able to secure all 10 Halloween films, despite the rights being spread across multiple home entertainment studios, to release Halloween [The Complete Collection] – the first time all 10 Halloween films were packaged together. As icing on the cake, the deluxe edition was outfitted with several discs worth of extras.
Scream Factory has since continued to go to great lengths to issue other complex releases that otherwise may not have seen the light of day, including Nightbreed: The Director’s Cut, and Raising Cain [Collector’s Edition], and The Exorcist III [Collector’s Edition].
In 1990, Nightbreed was released theatrically nationwide. However, the movie studio edited the film extensively and several scenes were excised or rearranged – much to Clive Barker’s disappointment. Scream Factory, in conjunction with Warner Bros. and Morgan Creek, was able to find the long-thought-missing original film elements and combed through over 600 boxes to locate not only the lost scenes but a treasure trove of never-before-seen footage as well, for Nightbreed: The Director’s Cut. With lost footage meticulously restored, the result is not only a more faithful adaptation of Clive Barker’s book Cabal, but also what he originally intended Nightbreed to be. Barker spoke about the release, saying “This is film history and beyond my wildest dreams of realization. When Scream Factory told me that they found the Nightbreed film footage I was gob-smacked!”
Brian De Palma’s (Carrie, Phantom of the Paradise) thriller Raising Cain [Collector’s Edition] was released by Scream Factory with a never-before-seen director’s cut of the film featuring scenes reordered as originally intended – a painstaking process that was years in the making. It was also loaded with impressive bonus features including new interviews with actors John Lithgow, Steven Bauer, Gregg Henry, Tom Bower, Mel Harris and editor Paul Hirsch.
William Peter Blatty’s cult favorite The Exorcist III [Collector’s Edition] boasted the first ever home entertainment release of the director’s cut – a brand-new, alternate version of The Exorcist III, reflecting William Peter Blatty’s original vision of his novel Legion, along with a new 2K transfer from the inter-positive, and over 4 hours of special features. In speaking to the process of creating the director’s cut for this release, Blu-ray producer Cliff MacMillan explained “We conducted an exhaustive search through a pallet of film assets from the original shoot to re-create William Peter Blatty’s intended vision. Unfortunately, that footage has been lost to time. To that end, we turned to VHS tapes of the film’s dailies to assemble the director’s cut. However, even some of that footage was incomplete, so scenes from the theatrical re-shoot were used to fill in the gaps. The director’s cut is a composite of varying footage quality from the best available sources.”
Recently Scream Factory has delved into new films as well, releasing several through a lucrative partnership with IFC Midnight, including hit films The Hallow, Backcountry and The Autopsy of Jane Doe, as well as the critically acclaimed feature and hugely-successful The Babadook called “deeply disturbing and highly recommended” by Stephen King, and “one of the scariest horror movies in years” by Noel Murray of The Los Angeles Times. In 2016, in a partnership with Chiller, Scream Factory released their first original horror film, Fender Bender, written by writer/director Mark Pavia (Stephen King’s The Night Flier). Other notable contemporary releases in that roster include Bloodsucking Bastards, The Editor, The Funhouse Massacre, Bite, Cockneys vs Zombies, The Battery and the newly-acquired thriller Jackals (out this Fall).
Scream Factory is as committed to its fans as it is to exalting and showcasing the best in horror, and its team looks forward to growing this relationship for years to come.