Official Anchor Bay Entertainment Press Release for 'Chained' DVD

A twisted tale from the director of

Boxing Helena and Surveillance

ANCHOR BAY FILMS PRESENTS

A FILM BY JENNIFER LYNCH

CHAINED

Blu-ray™Combo Pack and DVD To Include Unrated Deleted Scene;

Unfettered Starting October 2nd

Beverly Hills, CA – Perhaps the most terrifying human relationship is the one between a serial killer and his target. But what if it starts that way, and becomes something...more? From the visionary mind of director Jennifer Lynch (Boxing Helena, Surveillance, Hisss) comes the dark fable Chained, coming to Blu-ray™ Combo Pack and DVD October 2^nd from Anchor Bay Films. 


'With a stellar cast including Vincent D’Onofrio (Full Metal Jacket, Men In Black, “Law and Order: Criminal Intent”), Gina Phillips (Jeepers Creepers, “Ally McBeal”) Conor Leslie (“90210”), Evan Bird (“The Killing”), with Jake Weber (Dawn of the Dead, “Medium”) and Julia Ormand (My Week With Marilyn, “Mad Men,” The Curious Case of Benjamin Button), Chained is an unforgettable ride into the darkness that can reside in the human heart – no matter what your age. The Chained Blu-ray™ Combo Pack and DVD also includes, as a bonus feature, the scene that prompted the MPAA give the film an NC-17 rating! SRP is $26.98 for the DVD, and $29.99 for the Blu-ray™ Combo Pack. Pre-book is September 5^th.


Coming home from a routine trip to the movies, eight-year-old Tim (Bird) and his mother, Sarah (Ormond) are picked up by a psychopathic cab driver named Bob (D’Onofrio). It ends up being their last ride together. Bob murders the young boy’s mother and keeps Tim as his unwilling protégée, making him clean up the mess following each murder he commits. After a couple of aborted escape attempts, Bob chains Tim – now renamed Rabbit -- allowing just enough length to move freely within the house. As the years pass, Bob starts instructing Rabbit, teaching him anatomy and human behavior. Now a teenager, Rabbit (Eamon Farren, X: Night of Vengeance) is slowly being pressed by Bob to start his own homicidal spree. Slowly but surely, he must soon choose whether to follow in Bob’s serial killer footsteps or make one final, desperate attempt to break free...


Bonus features on Chained Blu-ray™ and DVD include feature-length audio commentary by writer/director Jennifer Lynch and actor Vincent D’Onofrio; the alternated unrated version of “Mary’s Murder;” and the original theatrical trailer.

Jennifer Lynch reacts to her NC-17 rating for 'Chained'

THE ENVELOPE


Steven Zeitchik

On Tuesday, the filmmakers behind "Chained," a movie about a serial killer starring Vincent D’Onofrio, saw the Motion Picture Assn. of America deny their appeal of an NC-17 rating by a vote of 9 to 4.

On Wednesday, director Jennifer Lynch told 24 Frames she will recut the scene -- a graphic depiction of a woman having her throat slit open -- that landed the movie the MPAA's harshest rating. But she didn't sound like a filmmaker who understood, or was happy about, the group's decision.

"The one thing they [the appeals board] kept citing was context, that violence in a lot of other films doesn't feel as intense," she said. "I have a lot of compassion for what [the MPAA] does. And they were all very nice and warm in the room. But it doesn't seem fair to me. I feel like we are being punished because the film was done the way it was set out to be done, which was authentically."

The film's distributor, Anchor Bay Entertainment, said it has yet to decide whether it will also release an unrated version to theaters (presumably after the rated version has finished its run, per MPAA rules) or, possibly, release the unrated version on DVD. Lynch's movie centers on a serial-killing cab driver (D’Onofrio) who murders a boy's mother and then attempts to make the boy his protege; the boy must then decide whether he wants to follow in the killer's footsteps. The film has not yet been dated for release.

Kevin Carney, the Anchor Bay executive who argued the appeal alongside Lynch, said that he also was flummoxed by the MPAA's decision. He said he watched a number of movies to prepare for the appeal, including the torture-porn picture "Hostel 3," and didn't understand why that film had got an R rating while "Chained" was given the NC-17.

"There were horrific scenes [in 'Hostel 3'] that I can't get out of my head, but what the [MPAA] kept saying is that it was context, which seems arbitrary," Carney said. "Compare our movie to 'Sweeney Todd,' where 13 or 14 people get their throat slit. There's an equal amount of graphic-ness. It's just a different style."

The MPAA's context argument may elicit skepticism from some of the organization's observers, because the group has often said it strips away those concerns when evaluating a film. In the case of the recent controversy over the R rating for "Bully," for instance, filmmakers said they were told by the organization that it couldn't lower the rating for profane language simply on the basis of the profanities' context.

Lynch, the daughter of director David Lynch and a filmmaker whose movies often contain violent themes, has had her tangles with the MPAA before. She landed an NC-17 nearly 20 years ago for a decapitation scene in her debut picture, "Boxing Helena."

She said she thinks that many other blood-soaked movies get an R because they don't strive for the same intensity as her films -- a false distinction, she believes, that rewards a casual attitude toward violence.

"What you’re doing with the NC-17 is making a very potent statement that no kids should see this movie no matter what, even though kids can see [R-rated] movies where violence is sexy and funny," she said. "And I don't think it should be OK for kids to see violence just because it's sexy and funny."

She added, "As a parent, I don't make the distinction that it's OK for my daughter to see something if it's laughed at as opposed to something that's real and affecting."

The MPAA is sometimes criticized for going too lightly on violence, giving movies with comparable amounts of sex or language a harsher rating. Indeed, the reason offered by the group for the NC-17 on "Chained" was a phrase one doesn't see alongside that rating very often: "some explicit violence."

The group has been more willing to hand out the NC-17 of late. Another film, "Killer Joe," received an NC-17 in March, in that instance for "graphic aberrant content involving violence and sexuality, and a scene of brutality."

Lynch said she knew that the stigma of the NC-17 was too great to risk a commercial release with that rating. But she hopes film-goers check out her uncut version of "Chained," if only for comparison's sake. "Horror fans will see it and be stunned at the NC-17," she said. "They've seen much worse.

'Myriad makes int'l deals for 'Chained''

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