Lifeforce Pulled from Release... Again

It pains me to report that Tobe Hooper's totally nutty '80s cult space vampire flick Lifeforce has received another blow for a possible NZ home video release. Triton had this movie on their DVD schedule a couple years ago but it was yanked, and now the Blu-ray, which was due to come out last week from Shock, has suffered a similar fate. Shock cited "rating issues" as the reason. Other Blu-rays from the same Cinema Cult line were also withdrawn, including City of the Living Dead, Lisa and the Devil/House of Exorcism and Vampyres. Bummer news for genre fans.... anywho here's the Lifeforce trailer to remind you of its awesomeness:

"So um, why do you have Spooks - Season 6 and not Season 5?"

Very good question. One of the reasons why a lot of films aren't available in New Zealand simply comes down to this: it's too bloody expensive to rate them. The basic gist of how the NZ Films, Videos, and Publications Classification Act works at the moment is that material rated G, PG and M in Britain and Australia can be cross-rated here relatively cheaply, but if something is RESTRICTED, distributors have to fork out thousands of dollars to get it rated. Hence you have ridiculous cases like the missing Season 5 of Spooks, or the absence of the rest of the L Word series because suppliers can't justify spending that much to get them released.

However, one hopes things will change soon with the start of a new campaign to review the current legislation so that more films can be made available. Click here to read about it and register your support for the cause - it's a really interesting read if you've ever wondered how that side of business works, and how it affects you as a DVD consumer. Or if you don't like reading, watch this Nightline piece on the topic.