forms initially, they’ll go with it. But if it’s a marginal film, which is what most films are, that’s where you’re going to be fucked if you’re an independent. A1P is more concerned in push­ ing their own marginal films. And most of their films are marginal. If they have an open spot for FUTUREWORLD or SEIZURE, it’s going to be FUTUREWORLD that plays.
S o how did SEIZURE perform at the boxoffice, under the circumstances? It opened in Detroit the week of November 12
in 19 theatres. VARIETY claimed we did an “Excel­ lent $50,000.” Cinerama corrected that later as $65,000. In one week in Detroit! It played one week and was pulled out. Cinerama told me on the phone that they were encouraged by the results in Detroit. Then, as a single bill, it played Los Ange­ les—a disaster. We opened the same week as THE TRIAL OF BILLY JACK. Tom Laughlin really pushed that film; he got 100 theatres, something like 600- 1,000 prints nationwide, it was the big film in LA. Also opening that week was EARTHQUAKE. Some­ where down the list was SEIZURE. You could hardly find the goddamn film, it was playing in wretched ghetto theatres. No one went. The film died in one week in LA. Since Cinerama/AIP pushed the film in every
conceivable way and it still died, they shifted their strategy by placing it on a double-bill with another of their recent pickups, THE BEAST MUST DIE— English, not a very good film. BEAST went to the top of the bill with a black advertising slant; it starred Calvin Lockhart. AIP’s argument was that it was the black audience that came to the horror films and that this was the way it should be sold. The black giant in SEIZURE was also accentuated in the ad. I hated the advertising. They took a silly drawing of the three figures, made them look like characters in a puppet show. It did well in Chicago, Minneapolis, and then
it came to New York, where it played in the worst theatres imaginable. The most respectable the­ atre I could find, that I could send my friends to, was on 42nd Street. It played for one week and then they pulled it. Reviews were good, but we couldn’t get them to take any special care with the picture. Financially, it was not so good. The film
grossed, in rental, something close to $ 100,000, against which they deducted cooperative adver­ tising of almost 85% of that amount. 15% came off in various deductions of another nature and were remitted to the Executive producer in Canada—something like $1,500 to date. That’s
the total of American release to date. Neither Kapelman, Glenn, or myself—the associate part­ ners—have seen one dime from the film.
Has SEIZURE been released in other countries? Yes, the film has been sold for Great Britain,
Indonesia, various countries in South America, Norway. These are the countries that have paid, you know, because a lot of these countries over at the Cannes Film Festival sign contracts but they never pay you. They sign and get a delivery date and then something or other happens, and most of these companies are busted anyway. For example, we sold to an unknown last year—
$80,000 for Spain, Italy, Germany, France and England. None of that contract was fulfilled and it was abrogated after one year. We’re very hopeful about England engagements, because the dis­ tributor there is a young guy who loves the film a lot, he cares about it, he doesn’t have too many other films to worry with, and I think he’ll make a good and honest effort. If it does well in London, it’ll get more exposure and perhaps, one day, it may be seen in France or Italy. Canada, inciden­ tally, was sold through the Canadian group under the title La Tango Macabre; as usual, we didn’t receive any money though it played all of Canada. They charged us something like $16,000 for the French dubbing. Japan didn’t pick the film up because, the word was, it wasn’t violent enough.
SEIZURE received a PG rating from the MPAA. IVs really not a film of violent ac­ tion, but a work of violent thought. You could say that the theme of the film is
that the world is only as limited as your imagina­ tion. You are what you think, feel, dream. Or, in the words of Don Juan in Carlos Casteneda’s four books from Mexico (which I read after making the film): “Your idea of the world is everything. When your idea changes, the world changes.” In THE EXORCIST, as you know, the horror was visited on the victim from the outside at random. The devil in Iraq chooses to prey on a girl in Georgetown. In THE OMEN, which I found very entertaining as well, the Anti-Christ is reborn in Gregory Peck’s adopted kid. THE EX­ ORCIST and THE OMEN made a great deal of money by hypothesizing an external force rather than an interior one. In SEIZURE, we’re in a different league because
the real horror of life is never visited on you from the outside; it comes from within. It comes from your idea of the world.
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