Closing Time for Tartan Films
Employees of the London based film company Tartan arrived to work yesterday only to learn the true meaning of the lyrics to Semisonic?s seminal 1998 pop anthem "Closing Time". Yes that?s right, Variety is reporting that the people who have brought us so many blood soaked titles via their Tartan Asia Extreme and Tartan Terror banners have been shut down forever. The livelihood of the company has been hanging in the balance for several months now and it seems that the guillotine has finally fallen. The company was first believed to be in talks for buyout by ThinkFilm chief David Bergstein but negotiations subsequently broke down. Last October a breath of fresh was injected into Tartan in the form of a 6.2 million dollar convertible loan from a private investor but the distributor?s lung collapsed once more when last month at the Cannes Film Festival they announced the foreclosure of their North American arm, Tartan USA. This is pretty sad for horror fans in my opinion. Tartan has brought some of the best foreign cinema to the states including Infernal Affairs (remade as the Departed), Oldboy (currently being remade), A Tale of Two Sisters (already remade, awaiting a distribution date), and many other films that are going to be remade into American variations. So why?d they close again?? Anyone wanna remake Tartan? Anyone?
Getting nostalgic about other terrible moments in horror history? Check out our own Giaco Furino's Famous Faces in Horror Retrospective.
