Potentially Positive News About Let's Scare Jessica To Death (1 Viewer)

[Paul_Scott]

i was in the bookstore tonight and happend across a book called something like Fangorias 101 best horror films you've never seen, and sure enough, they had a listing for LSJTD.

for people that aren't familiar with this one, it is a nicely atmospheric thriller set in a rural rustic setting with a young lady who has just been released from an sanitarium.
its right up at the top of films i would love to see on DVD, but it doesn't have an all star cast to exploit.

but at the end of the books very positive write-up of the film, it does mention that a remake is being planned.
the book has a copyright of 2003, so hopefully the remake is still on course.

if so, a dvd release for the original would be almost a given.
i really hope this comes to pass.
i doubt i would care much about the new film, but if it brings the original to disc, thats good enough for me.

anyone else have any more concrete news on this?

 

[Paul_Scott]

once again my butterfingers get the best of me- can someone please correct the spellng of 'positive' in the thread title.








:b

 

[EricSchulz]

I sure hope this gets released...I remember seeing it in the theater as a kid and it scared the crap outta me! BUt give it a decent treatment, not a quickie release with no extras.

 

[Paul_Scott]

i'd take it any way i could get it, as long as it was OAR and looked decent.

this movie used to get played regularly on late saturday night 'shock theater' out of Athens, Ga (i think) when i was a kid.
caught up with it years later and was surprised to see how well made it actually was, and how well it held up.

 

[GregoryMesh]

Let's Scare Jessica to Death is being released on DVD by Paramount on August 29!!!

 

[SteveJKo]

Just the poster used to give me the creeps as a kid. And it had that great tag line:

"Something is after Jessica, something very cold, very wet, and very dead."

 

[Gordon McMurphy]

What's your source for that info, Gregory?

 

[RoyM]

Fantastic news, if accurate. This is one of my most eagerly awaited DVD's. One of the eeriest, most atmospheric horror films of the 1970's.

As for the remake, here are some details from Variety:

According to Variety, Paramount has tapped the writing team of Bennett Yellin and James Johnston to pen the horror screenplay Let's Scare Jessica for Christine Peters' CFP Prods.

Story centers on a fearless young man at a college in Colorado who, while pledging a frat, must prove his allegiance to the house by scaring his girlfriend into believing the college is haunted. The prank then takes on a life of its own.

Title's taken from the 1971 chiller Let's Scare Jessica to Death, in which a woman just released from a mental hospital tries to start over by moving into an old New England farmhouse.

Yellin's writing credits include Dumb And Dumber and Stuck on You.

The remake sounds pretty awful to me. And the choice of screenwriter confirms it. But hey, if it gets the original out on DVD, I won't complain.

 

[GregoryMesh]

this. But this is Paramount so they may cancel it at the last minute.

 

[Gordon McMurphy]

That'll do! UPC and SRP. Great to see Paramount taking an interest in this title. Thier VHS was released - when? Early 90s? I hope that we see The Conformist; Ace in the Hole; Reds; The Naked Prey; If....; and many more, also, this year.

Thanks, Gregory.

 

[Dave Mack]

gregory, you ROCK!

sweeeeet!

 

[Claude North]

Coincidence: News of the DVD release was posted to this thread on May 13, which is Zohra Lampert's birthday.

Very good news indeed!

 

[Paul_Scott]

great catch Gregory!
I had a feeling this was coming this year, although end of August was a bit earlier than I was expecting.
There was a Parmount thread going around a couple months ago where an insider mentioned this one was on tap.
Unfortunately he couldn'tsay the same thing about Ace In the Hole or several others some of us were looking forward to as well.

Still, this is great news. Can't wait to see this one again.

 

[Kevin M]

Hey, that's great news!
I (among many others) have been singing this film's praises for quite a few years here at HTF, good to see that this is finally getting out there for people to judge for themselves whether it deserves said praise or not....(I know it deserves MY praise anyway....Remember how quite a few folks around here were less than agreeable with our years of praise for Suspiria after that finally got a DVD release....different strokes and all that.)

 

[Dick]

I hope, as this title really does not promise a huge commercial success for Paramount, that other catalog titles we've been asking for for years will begin to surface.

NAKED PREY
ROBINSON CRUSOE ON MARS
PHASE IV
etc.

 

[Justin_S]

I definitely look forward to finally owning this one. My first order of business upon purchasing this disc will be to set myself down for a nice Let's Scare Jessica to Death/Carnival of Souls double feature.

 

[PaulP]

Anyone know if there'll be any extras?

 

[Mark Zimmer]

The original is creepy, creepy. I still have the poster, which I finagled out of the theater owner back in 1971.

 

[PaulP]

Can't find any details anywhere...

 

[Paul_Scott]

we'd be lucky to get a trailer. As long as its OAR and the transfer is good (no EE) etc- I'll consider that a major accomplishment since Paramount has all but abandoned general catalog releases (save for the Batjac films and the re-releases).