House of Death (1982, aka Death Screams) is an obscure slasher films from the 1980s, and thus many people might not notice if a distributor butchers it. But I own eight different copies of the film: a Beta cassette, a DVD, and six MP4 files.
That House of Death has never enjoyed a digital restoration released on blu-ray is not entirely logical, because many horror films that are both worse and more obscure have been released on blu-ray.
I was initially pleased to see the film's version on Tubi, because its visual quality is improved in some ways. Colors are more vibrant, and images are sharper than most (but not all) versions found YouTube, which seem to be transfers from old video cassettes (VHS, I assume). In terms of color and resolution, the Tubi version is superior even to my DVD version (which also seems taken from an old video cassette).
But the problems with the Tubi version are twofold. (I call it the Tubi version, but I've found an identical version on YouTube, so I doubt that Tubi is responsible for the film's "restoration".)
First, the Tubi version employs what I call "double cropping." This is when a distributor takes a widescreen film whose sides have been cropped to create a full screen (for old TV sets), then crops this full screen's top and bottom to create a new widescreen.
Thus, a widescreen film has been cropped twice, leaving little of the original image. Enough to be watchable, but the director's original compositions are gone. Wide shots become medium shots, medium shots become closeups, closeups become extreme closeups.
Observe the two below images from House of Death. The top image is a video cassette's full screen image (the original widescreen already cropped at the sides.) The second image (take from Tubi) has cropped the image for a second time, this time its top and bottom, to create a widescreen. Yet we have lost the film's original widescreen image, which had additional material on all four sides.
You'll notice the Tubi version's improved colors and resolution. I assume the restoration was done on a version found on an old video cassette. The original widescreen version (probably 35mm film stock) is probably lost.
But that's no excuse for the double cropping. If only a full screen version remains, let's watch House of Death in full screen. Cropping additional material to create a new widescreen only makes things worse.
I suppose distributors think the public wants widescreen and won't realize they're watching a badly butchered version rather than the original image.
But Tubi's version of House of Death has additional problems. It's missing two key sequences.
IMDB lists House of Death with a running time of 1.28 (an hour and 28 minutes). Tubi's version runs at 1.28.06. My MP4 versions range from 1.25.30 to 1.31.33. Clearly, House of Death has suffered many distributors and re-edits.
Here are the sequences missing in Tubi's version, which appear on my Beta tape and the 1.31.33 MP4 version on YouTube:
1. The scene wherein Romana sneaks into the coach's house is longer (and includes a topless shot of actress Jennifer Chase). That this scene is excised from the 1.28 versions is obvious from the crudely abrupt cut from the bathroom to the bedroom, the characters' whole demeanors having changed. Something had obviously occurred between them, but what? In the longer version, we see that the coach rebuffed Romona's advances, and tossed her into the shower to "cool off."
2. In the penultimate scene, when the coach attacks Lily with a machete, there is a brief flashback that depicts the coach as a young boy in the bordello in which his mother worked. This flashback explains why he hates and kills "slutty" women (and their men). This flashback is missing entirely from the shorter 1.28 versions.
In the final scene (in both long and short versions) Sandy asks "Why?" She and everyone else is baffled as to why the coach went on a murder spree. Viewers of the shorter version are equally baffled. But those of us lucky to have seen the longer version, know the answer.
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For more information on composition and editing in horror films, see Horror Film Aesthetics: Creating the Visual Language of Fear. This blog represents a continuing discussion of my views on horror, picking up from where the book left off.