VIPCO (Video Instant Picture Company)
VIPCO (Video Instant Picture Company) was a UK based home video distribution company that specialized in releasing obscure and cult horror films - in particular, low budget Italian and American films produced during the seventies and eighties. It promoted itself as the leading distributor of video nasties and previously banned films in the UK.
History
In its first incarnation as an independent company founded by Mike Lee in the late seventies, VIPCO was notable for serving the nascent British home video market with early releases for films such as Driller Killer, The Groove Tube, King Frat, The Legacy, Psychic Killer and The Slayer. The company was originally named VIPC, but customers often misread its trademark - the letters VIPC surrounded by a graphic resembling the spools of a video cassette - as 'Vipco', so the company's name was changed soon after their first titles were released.
The company re-emerged in the early 1990s with edited versions of Zombie Flesh Eaters, Horror Hospital uncut and Night of the Demon. Since then, it has released a large number of films on video and DVD including Zombie Flesh Eaters 2, City of the Living Dead, Cannibal Holocaust, The Burning, A Blade in the Dark, Cannibal Ferox, Cannibal Ferox II, The Nostril Picker Uncut Edition, Slime City, The Beyond Uncut, The House by the Cemetery, The Toolbox Murders & The Mountain of the Cannibal God. Many of the titles had previously been cut or rejected by the BBFC, or had never before received a UK release. These films fell under the banner of the "Vipco's Vault of Horror" DVD Collection.
In response to the extreme censorship many of their titles suffered at the hands of the BBFC, Vipco released several titles in Denmark where censorship was not as strict. These imports featured stickers proudly identifying it as the 'STRONG UNCUT VERSION'. In addition to releasing movies which had been censored in the UK they also released titles such as Cannibal Ferox, Cannibal Holocaust, The Driller Killer, I Spit on Your Grave, The New York Ripper, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Toolbox Murders and The Toxic Avenger which (aside from The Toxic Avenger) were banned outright in the UK.
In the early 2000s, Vipco also started a Cult Classic DVD Collection, which featured obscure non-horror films such as Bronx Warriors, The Last Hunter and Gremloids.
With the success of their titles Zombie Flesh Eaters, Cannibal Ferox and Cannibal Holocaust, VIPCO released several unrelated films as sequels. Massacre in Dinosaur Valley was renamed Cannibal Ferox II, After Death was renamed Zombie Flesh Eaters 3 and Antonio Climati's The Green Inferno was released as Cannibal Holocaust 2. Such retitling of films was actually a frequent feature of the company. The previously banned Australian sci-fi movie Turkey Shoot had been released by Vipco in a cut version on VHS as Blood Camp Thatcher before they brought it out uncut on DVD, without extras, bearing the same name. However Gorezone DVD had simultaneously released a cheaper edition bearing extras, and also under its better known real title, and the Vipco release was swiftly pulled.
The company closed in 2007 after 28 years in business.
Criticisms Of VIPCO
Many viewers were disappointed with the low quality of the discs in relation to the relatively high price they sold for.
Many of their DVD's featured the same dated full frame transfers from their earlier VHS releases and no extras,[1][2] in blatant contradiction of the "Digitally Remastered" banners appearing on the company's DVD packaging.[3] In the case of the previously banned The Slayer, the original R rated US version, minus 14 seconds, was the same print that was passed by the BBFC for Vipco's initial video rerelease. Since the film had since been long unavailable in the States, once it was brought out uncut on DVD, a master print was sourced which was older than that of the previous VHS print, and was thus in a poorer condition, without being remastered, than the prior videotape.
They were also criticised for occasionally releasing prints that were transferred in the wrong ratio, most famously with Shogun Assassin's DVD release which had been compressed from 1:85 to 2:45, or with Michele Soavi's Stagefright, which was a 1:85 print compressed at the sides into full frame: and for skirting the edges of false advertising with the notices on their releases. Zombie Flesh Eaters and Shogun Assassin, on video, had been advertised as the uncut cinema versions without informing the purchasers that the UK cinema prints had been heavily censored. The legend 'Uncut Version' appeared on many DVDs of films that had never been censored, and 'Extreme Version' denoted a film that was less cut than the version available beforehand but still cut. The heavily censored versions of some of the films brought out in their budget Screamtime collection were recycled straight from the Vipco VHS prints, without being resubmitted to the BBFC who would have passed them uncut or less cut if resubmitted. Additionally, every DVD release was given an 18 certificate, but misleadingly when the films themselves were passed at 15 or, in the case of one release, Snowbeast, PG. The DVDs were classified at 18 for their trailers, which were the same few they recycled as 'extras' for each release. It is otherwise normally distributor protocol to mention to consumers the proper certificate of a movie on the packaging, if its DVD certificate has been raised on account of its trailers and extras. Zombie Flesh Eaters 2 was ostensibly uncut, but was missing an introductory sequence added back to the film before its release by Vipco. Most famously, some minutes were originally missing from their VHS release of Driller Killer where a reel change had been botched.
External links
- VIPCO home page A replica of the horror video website
- An archive of VIPCO releases and a history of the company