Backtrack (1990) Kino- April 25, 2023

[Vixen of the Night]

Kino is releasing the weird Dennis Hopper movie Backtrack in April, 2023, and it will contain both the directors cut and re-titled "Catchfire" theatrical cut.

https://www.blu-ray.com/news/?id=32103

I haven't seen the movie since the early 1990's on VHS and don't remember much about it. However, one thing that confuses me about that VHS release is the running time. It's listed as 102 minutes and says "1992 Directors Cut by Dennis Hopper". Yet the DC is supposed to be 116 minutes(which the upcoming Kino release will feature).

Does anyone know the exact running time of the vhs release? Was it a misprint and ran 116 minutes or was it 102 minutes?

[mike drumm]

These versions were released on BD in France almost 2 years ago and there is discussion in this thread. There are also some version comparisons at Movie-Censorship. Further trivia about the various cuts at IMDB here and here.

[Protozoid]

Originally Posted by mike drumm

These versions were released on BD in France almost 2 years ago and there is discussion in this thread. There are also some version comparisons at Movie-Censorship. Further trivia about the various cuts at IMDB here and here.

Thanks! That led to me seeing someone's comment over there about seeing the same weird print of the movie on Amazon Prime that I saw:

Originally Posted by AstroChicken

I literally just watched this on Prime Video Canada, but the runtime was only 99m35s so I guess the Blu-ray will be the only way to watch the 116m cut.

...I am a little confused after reading the "Alternative ending (Backtrack)" paragraph on Wikipedia. virtually everything described on there is what I saw in the 98m35s version I watched, which also happened to have the "Backtrack" title card so it didn't seem to be the original "Catchfire" release either. curious what are the actual differences that could add a whopping 16 minutes.

I saw this, too. I was confused so I did a little research. The version I think we both saw is the edited-down theatrical cut known as Catchfire, but for some reason, it had the director's cut title on it. If memory serves correctly, they even changed the font of the Backtrack titles to the Catchfire font, so this wasn't a matter of them simply replacing the titles from Catchfire with the titles of Backtrack. I believe the credit sequences from both films might be edited different, too, so it wouldn't have been possible to make a simple substitution.

Since they used the font from the original theatrical version, and it's the original theatrical cut, my guess is that it was an international print of the movie from an English-speaking country (Canada? UK?), dating back to the original release, where for whatever reason the distributor wanted to use the title Backtrack.

But I can't find anything about it anywhere on the internet so that was entirely conjecture on my part. For a moment I thought it was some kind of elaborate b.s. from the producer trying to trick Hopper fans into watching the butchered version, but I think the international version theory is more likely.

Edit: But wait, they seem to remember this shorter print having the Backtrack ending but having the shorter runtime? Bizarre! Is this some weird home video version, perhaps?

[Vixen of the Night]

Originally Posted by mike drumm

These versions were released on BD in France almost 2 years ago and there is discussion in this thread. There are also some version comparisons at Movie-Censorship. Further trivia about the various cuts at IMDB here and here.

Thanks for the info!

So based on the movie-censorship.com link. The Avid VHS was the 116 minute version. So the 102 minute listing was incorrect and just listing the theatrical time basically. This quote from the link sums up the movie perfectly:


"As a result of that, the film doesn't have any particular direction. It's too conventional for experimental cinema and too experimental for a conventional thriller because there isn't much suspense & thrill in it. The DC doesn't change that."

That was my reaction to the movie when I saw it as a kid. I wanted to "like" it, but was left totally confused by what I just watched.