Movies
Palisades Media Acquires Tartan Catalog of Titles
Tartan Video U.S.A., the domestic division of U.K.-based arthouse distributor Tartan Films, shuttered operations on June 1 and auctioned its approximately 100-film library, including OldBoy, Lady Vengeance and A Tale of Two Sisters. Film print and advertising financing company Palisades Media Corp. bought the U.S. rights to the catalog, according to Video Business. Read on for full details.
Palisades created Palisades Tartan Film Acquisitions to house its new library. The unit intends to redistribute titles into the North American marketplace shortly, and is considering former Tartan U.S.A. employees to staff its operations. No hires have been made yet, but the unit expects to have a team in place by July 1, executives said.
Tartan Films owner Hamish McAlpine decided to close the U.S. unit because of financial struggles within the company, according to sources. Spokesman Paul Smith confirmed the U.S. division’s closure, but he declined to specify underlying reasons.
About 10 Tartan U.S.A. employees lost their jobs as the division was dismantled.
Ken Burns, Palisades co-manager, said the company wants to improve the promotion of Tartan titles.
Tartan films are distributed through Genius Products, which juggles many distributed DVD lines, most notably The Weinstein Company’s theatrical films.
“We want to get Tartan back to where it was a few years ago,” said Burns. Titles “have not being properly marketed or presented for a significant amount of time.”
Tartan U.S.A. has not launched new products in 2008. Its last 2007 titles were the Nov. 6 releases of OldBoy on Blu-ray Disc and Johnnie To-directed Election on standard DVD.
At this point, certain Tartan titles are still available at retail, including standard DVD and Blu-ray versions of OldBoy at Amazon.com.
Tartan Films continues to control the U.K. distribution rights for several titles in the U.S. library, including OldBoy, Lady Vengeance and A Tale of Two Sisters.
A contemporary reimagining of H.P. Lovecraft’s short story Herbert West: Reanimator is on the way, and Deadline has unveiled the first look at the new Herbert West and the pathologist drawn to his orbit.
Adam Simon (The Haunting in Connecticut, “Salem”) and Tim Metcalfe (The Haunting in Connecticut, Kalifornia) penned the script. The original screenplay and storyline come from Jade Sandberg Wallace.
Michael Grossman (“The Originals”, “Pretty Little Liars”) directs.
The new images introduce star Joseph Morgan (“Vampire Diaries“), who plays “brilliant surgeon and scientist Herbert West, who is obsessed with creating a serum to reanimate the dead.” Katie Cassidy (Speed Demon) stars opposite as the pathologist with a troubled past who joins his efforts.
Together, they prove that conquering death may be the ultimate sin against life itself.
The film’s official synopsis: “As a child, Herbert West watches his father Peter reanimate his dead mother Judith in a secret basement lab — only for Judith to mortally wound Peter and nearly kill Herbert before Peter shoots her. The trauma leaves its mark on Herbert, but so does one final image: his mother’s finger, twitching after death. Thirty years later, Herbert West is a brilliant, secretive surgeon still chasing his father’s obsession.
“Pathologist Kate Locke arrives in town and is drawn into his orbit — first through a spark at a hospital fundraiser, then through his secret lab, where he reveals a serum capable of reanimating severed tissue. Kate, hiding a dark past of her own, is thrilled rather than horrified, and moves into West’s mansion to work alongside him. Their early experiments on a cadaver succeed only briefly. West concludes that dead tissue is the problem — they need something fresher.”
Supporting cast includes Scott Aiello, Ira J Amyx, Randall Newsome, Emma Reinagal, James D. Bryce, Kathryn A Bentley, Jack Lancaster, Amy Holland Pennell, John Pierson, Mindy Shaw, Eric Dean White, Tristan Wilder Hallet, Adrienne Lamping, Aaron Crippen, and Drew Patterson.
Makeup artist Jeff Lewis (“Star Trek: Voyager,” “Star Trek: Enterprise”) and cousin Roger Lewis are heading the production via their newly established Woodlake Entertainment.
Lovecraft’s short story, first serialized in Home Brew magazine in 1922, is the first among his works to mention the fictional Miskatonic University. It was most famously adapted into a 1985 horror movie from Stuart Gordon, starring Jeffrey Combs as Herbert West.
Herbert West: Reanimator is set in Alton, Illinois, where production is now underway.
Herbert West: Reanimator. Photo credit: Matt Lief Anderson
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