Guyana: Cult of the Damned (1979)

[BijouMan]

Code Red has confirmed that its upcoming Blu-ray release of Guyana: Cult of The Damned Blu-ray of René Cardona Jr.'s Guyana: Cult of the Damned (1979) will be sourced from a brand new 2K master. The release, which will be distributed by Kino Lorber, will arrived on the market later this year.

[Nosferatu31]

I was going to pre order this until i found out it's cut down 25 minutes. Mexican edition is 115 minutes, U.S. edition is 90 minutes.

[DukeTogo84]

I know nothing of this film and the cuts. My question is was the uncut Mexican version ever released in the US? If so, is the film in English or Spanish? Was it filmed in English? Just wondering what the deal is here.

[DukeTogo84]

From what I can find out, most of the files for the film online are 1 hour and 48 minutes. So 18 minutes cut. Why is this version 18 minutes shorter?

[Nosferatu31]

Originally Posted by DukeTogo84

I know nothing of this film and the cuts. My question is was the uncut Mexican version ever released in the US? If so, is the film in English or Spanish? Was it filmed in English? Just wondering what the deal is here.

It was filmed in Mexico in English but as far as i know the Mexican version was never released in the U.S. The 90 minute cut was released on DVD back in 2005.

Originally Posted by DukeTogo84

From what I can find out, most of the files for the film online are 1 hour and 48 minutes. So 18 minutes cut. Why is this version 18 minutes shorter?

I don't know why it's cut in the U.S. and U.K. but the 108 minute version is the U.K. cut of the film.

[DukeTogo84]

Originally Posted by Nosferatu31

It was filmed in Mexico in English but as far as i know the Mexican version was never released in the U.S. The 90 minute cut was released on DVD back in 2005.



I don't know why it's cut in the U.S. and U.K. but the 108 minute version is the U.K. cut of the film. Mexican version is 115 and U.S. is 90.

Was planning on getting this and was looking forward to it, but now that it's been revealed that it's heavily cut, I'm not so sure anymore.

[Horse_Hockey]

IMDB (under "Alternate Versions): "The original Mexican cut runs 115 minutes. The USA cut of the film was reedited by Universal down to 90 minutes. This USA cut, although tamer as far as violence and sexual situations go, has a tighter pace and a more documentary-style feel to it by adding some informative narration from an unseen male 'survivor.'

"Previously released DVD only has a running time of 107 mins. The punishment of the kids is shortened, the male rape scene is shortened and many other violent scenes seem to be abridged."

Personal experience: I've chased down multiple DVDs of this film over the years, and the only uncut version I ever found was a Japanese "grey market" DVD that presented it as part of a BDSM series (!!!). Why was it cut? Most likely because of the "punishment of the kids" mentioned above; it includes a teenager being bound naked (full rear nudity) and his genitals being subjected to electric shocks, followed by a scene of three naked kids groveling at "the Reverend's" feet. Once Universal decided they had to cut that, they probably figured it would be wise to prune other nasty scenes as well.

The Japanese DVD transfer is meh, but far better than the European DVDs I've seen; the Italian "Cult70" edition has a larger, brighter image but the print is heavily damaged (and again, cut). I imagine they're all out of print, and the Japanese DVD is definitely OOP. It was only by luck that I got a hold of it at a price which didn't break my bank. (There's one used copy currently available at Amazon Japan, but it's about ninety bucks and probably won't even ship to the States; a couple of used ones on Yahoo Auctions Japan run between forty and sixty bucks but you'd likely need an auction agent like ZenMarket to get one.)

[phoenixandrew]

Ordered it last night, although I hope someday “Guyana: Crime of the Century” also gets released on Blu-ray. That the longer Mexican version of “Damned” that doesn’t look like a documentary.

[silverlakephil]

I'm only familiar with the Powers Boothe version. I don't think I've seen it since it first aired on CBS back in 1980.

[phoenixandrew]

WalMart just dropped the price to $10.03. Don’t know how long that will stay.

[Subgeniusguy]

I hope it's not cut down so severely. Even the crappy VCI edition was 107 minutes although it incorrectly says 115 minutes on the back cover. A 90 minute cut would make it the shortest cut of this film in print to date. I tried asking Bill with Code Red if he could confirm the length on another thread but he never responded. I'm hoping it's a mistake. I had hoped that Vinegar Syndrome would publish it as part of their Cardona collection.

[iamnoone]

We have to remember, most or many of Cardona Sr. and Jr. movies were considered way too long in their Mexican versions, and were cut down by various distributors especially in the US. Geesh, movies like Survive, Tintorera, Guyana, Night of 1,000 Cats, were just super bloated in their Mexican variants, some of them almost 2 hours for such exploitation material. "Cats" is the shortest in the US at about an hour long, missing 30 minutes of helicopter flying footage and other nonsense. :-P

That said, I love the long versions, they are the legit versions and should be preserved, and in things like Tintorera, the long version is sort of a soap opera three-some love nudity drama! But the alternate cuts of that time were also legit variant versions and had changes made or narration or different scores added, and sometimes seriously improved on the longer cuts. So don't dismiss shorter cuts right away. They were legit alternate version back in the day. Collect them all!!!

[QU Hectic]

I'm Guyanese and heard so much stories about Jim Jones. Will be picking this up for sure.

[DukeTogo84]

Just watched this. While it's the shorter version, I thought it actually worked really well and was entertained from start to finish. This was much better than I expected it to be. One of the better Cardona films.

[Pondosinatra]

Sounds hilarious...how does it end?

[DukeTogo84]

Originally Posted by Pondosinatra

Sounds hilarious...how does it end?

With a lot of spiked punch.

[chriskl99]

Has anyone received this yet? I pre-ordered on Amazon sometime in July, and this supposedly came out in late August, but Amazon has yet to ship. Is it delayed? Do other retailers have it?

[parallax1]

Originally Posted by chriskl99

Has anyone received this yet? I pre-ordered on Amazon sometime in July, and this supposedly came out in late August, but Amazon has yet to ship. Is it delayed? Do other retailers have it?

Got mine off Walmart.com

[Sopranogl]

Originally Posted by parallax1

Got mine off Walmart.com

How's the image quality?

[parallax1]

Sad to say I haven't watched it yet.