Vinegar Syndrome Targets Mar. 29 For Restored Blu-ray/DVD Combo Pack Editions Of Marc Lawrence's Pigs And Norman Thaddeus Vane’s Frightmare

Vinegar Syndrome goes hog wild on Mar. 29 with a Blu-ray/DVD Combo Pack featuring a new 2K restoration of director Marc Lawrence’s 1972 horror tale, Pigs.   

If you’ve seen this guilty pleasure in its various forms over the years — on VHS and DVD — then the news that Vinegar Syndrome has restored director Marc Lawrence’s slasher flick — an early entry into the cycle — from the original 35mm interpositive is very good news.   Most of what is out there is pretty bad.

The film itself, an indie production (with a checkered distribution history) from tough guy character actor Marc Lawrence (The Asphalt Jungle, Key Largo, Dillinger, etc.) was produced, written and directed by Lawrence, and, as legend has it, was designed as a star vehicle for his daughter, Toni Lawrence (M.A.D.D.: Mothers Against Drunk Drivers) — who does share a bit of matrimonial trivia history with none other than Angelina Jolie.  

The star vehicle part didn’t work out so well and, if you think about it, the whole concept of the film is kind of creepy in that Marc Lawrence co-stars as a former circus performer who becomes enamored with the deranged young woman (Toni) and abets her murder spree by feeding her sliced and diced victims to his pigs.   But, then again, that’s part of the charm of Pigs.

Bonus goodies include a pair of featurettes — one featuring Toni Lawrence and the second with the film’s composer, Charles Bernstein — a video session with cinematographer Glenn Roland and two alternate opening sequences (from the film’s different release incarnations over the years) and one alternate ending sequence.

Also getting a Mar. 29 Blu-ray/DVD Combo Pack release date from Vinegar Syndrome is writer/director Norman Thaddeus Vane’s 1983 supernatural horror thriller, Frightmare.

Restored from the original 35mm film elements, Frightmare is always worth a look-see for the casting of Ferdy Mayne as the risen-from-the-dead hambone actor Conrad Razkoff.   Along with Christopher Lee and Lugosi, Ferdy Mayne will be long remembered as one of the great screen vampire personas of all time for his performance as Count von Krolock in Roman Polanski’s 1967 film release of The Fearless Vampire Killers.

Frightmare is his film — one of those great scene stealing treasures — in that his “larger than life” character has a seven-strong victim pool of sex starved “drama” students to eviscerate one by one … by one!

Bonus features include a vintage commentary option and video sessions with filmmaker Norman Thaddeus Vane and cinematographer Joel King.