CONFESSIONS OF A GEN-X PREMIUM CABLE JUNKIE: THE SHOUT (1978)
By Bob Ignizio
THE MEMORIES
It may seem odd to begin a series of blog posts aboutnostalgic movie memories with a film I didn’t actually see until just a few
days ago, but allow me to explain. When my family first got Star Channel, the
trailer for THE SHOUT seemed to be played almost constantly. I wasn’t
entirely sure what was going on in this trailer, but it sure looked freaky. Must
have looked freaky to my parents, too, as they made it clear I would not be
watching this movie. And since I hadn’t quite yet worked out how to “sneak
watch” movies I wasn’t supposed to see (that would come soon), I was out of
luck.
Nonetheless, the trailer made an impression.
Given this fact, you’d think I would have rented the movie
on VHS at some point in the eighties. But while Columbia did release the film
on tape at some point, I don’t recall ever seeing it on the shelves of any of
my local video stores. As for DVD, I don’t believe the film ever had an
official release in the U.S. on that format. Across the pond, England got a DVD
in 2003, and again in 2007, and there was a Blu Ray release in 2014. But aside from
the fact that these releases just weren’t on my radar, they were all region
coded, and I don’t have a region free player.
Thankfully, THE SHOUT is (for the moment, at least)
available to stream in the U.S. on Amazon Prime, which is how I finally got
around to seeing it.
