I just finished watching this for the first time. I'm so excited right now. This is one of the greatest so bad it's good movies I've seen in my entire life. I've had so much fun with this. How is this not a beloved cult film? Anybody? Can we make this a thing, please?
shareIt's gradually been building a cult following. It's never had an American home video release prior to today but the movie aired in heavy rotation on Turner Classic Movies for four years... until around three years ago when I contacted the network, citing a 1973 interview with the director, and pointed out that their copy was framed in an improper aspect ratio, featured mono sound and there were a few big video glitches. The movie abruptly vanished from TV and has yet to return (I never received a response from TCM but I find that a bit too coincidental to be coincidence). About a year later, it was announced that WB was working on a full restoration, which was finally released today through Warner Archive. I would expect that the remastered print should debut on TCM in 2015 and, with DVD sales, the cult following will continue to snowball.
As for the film itself, I'd done a lot of research on director Brian DePalma, who did extensive work with split-screen, and "Wicked, Wicked" came up numerous times in my research -- each time cited as a horrible movie that didn't work. As a result, I had no expectations whatsoever for the film when I first saw it, but I quickly became smitten. As a straight-ahead horror movie (which is how it was originally marketed) it doesn't work at all, but as a campy horror sendup it's pure gold. I extoll the virtues of the film whenever possible and hope I played a small role in helping it to attain a full-fledged cult movie status.