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Posted: **Thu Nov 06, 2025 11:12 pm**

DEAD KIDS (aka STRANGE BEHAVIOR)
(Michael Laughlin, 1981, 102/100 mins)
Release date: 23 March 2026
Limited Edition 4K UHD (World premiere)

UNCUT IN THE UK FOR THE FIRST TIME

Pre-orders: UK 4K UHD/US 4K UHD/UK BD/US BD (all region-free)

Michael Murphy (Tanner ’88), Louise Fletcher (One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest), Dan Shor (Wise Blood), and Fiona Lewis (A Day at the Beach) head the impressive cast of Dead Kids (also known as Strange Behavior), a darkly comic blend of horror and science fiction from director Michael Laughlin (Strange Invaders).

In a small midwestern town, police chief John Brady (Murphy) investigates a bizarre series of murders. As the corpses pile up, all signs point to the hellish mind-control experiments of a twisted scientist...

Co-written by Bill Condon (Gods and Monsters), with a soundtrack by Tangerine Dream (Sorcerer), and produced in New Zealand by the legendary Australian producer Antony I Ginnane (Snapshot).

INDICATOR LIMITED EDITION 4K UHD SPECIAL FEATURES

• Brand-new 4K HDR restoration from the original negative by Powerhouse Films
4K (2160p) UHD presentation in Dolby Vision (HDR10 compatible)
• Two presentations of the film: the original Australian theatrical version, Dead Kids (102 mins); and the US theatrical version, Strange Behavior (100 mins)
• Original mono audio
• Audio commentary with director and co-writer Michael Laughlin, and filmmaker David Gregory (2014)
• Audio commentary with co-writer Bill Condon and actors Dan Shor and Dey Young (2008)
• Interview with actor Michael Murphy (2026)
• Lasting Bonds (2026): actor Fiona Lewis fondly looks back on the film’s production
• An Actor’s Dream (2026): interview with actor Dey Young
• The Effects of ‘Strange Behavior’ (2014): interview with special make-up effects artist Craig Reardon
• A Very Delicious Conversation with Dan Shor[/i] (2016): extensive interview with the actor, filmed in Central Park, New York
• Podcasting After Dark: Dan Shor[/i] (2024): excerpts from a career-spanning audio interview
• ‘Not Quite Hollywood’: Antony I Ginnane[/i] (2008): interview with the legendary producer, filmed for Mark Hartley’s acclaimed documentary on Australian cinema
• Lightning Strikes (2026): new presentation of a 2004 interview with Ginnane about the film
• Perfect Strangers (2026): appreciation by the academic and Australian cinema specialist Stephen Morgan
• Isolated score
• Original theatrical trailers
• Patton Oswalt trailer commentary (2023, 4 mins): short critical appreciation
• Image galleries: promotional and publicity material, and behind the scenes
• Limited edition exclusive 80-page book with a new essay by Paul Duane, an exclusive extract from producer Antony I Ginnane’s unpublished memoirs, archival interviews with director Michael Laughlin, actor Michael Murphy, and composers Tangerine Dream, and full film credits
• World premiere on 4K UHD
• Limited edition of 10,000 individually numbered units (6,000 4K UHDs and 4,000 Blu-rays) for the UK and US
• All features subject to change

#PHILE434U
BBFC cert: 18
REGION FREE
EAN: 5060697923742

Posted: **Thu Nov 06, 2025 11:43 pm**

Finch wrote: Thu Nov 06, 2025 11:12 pm Someone at BR's Indicator thread identified the newsletter clue as being from Strange Behavior (1981) aka Dead Kids.

Not a title I would have expected from Indicator. Though NZ made and filmed, it’s set in the states and has an American cast and is on par with other 80s slashers with the main differentiation being a (very bad) Michael Murphy lead perf and the odd choice of being shot in Scope

Posted: **Fri Nov 07, 2025 12:30 am**

Makes sense as a continuation of their series of Antony Ginnane-produced Ozploitation films (Patrick, Snapshot, Thirst, Harlequin). Ginnane temporarily shifted many of his productions to NZ in the early '80s after running into union trouble during pre-production of Race for the Yankee Zephyr; unfortunately his NZ-shot films are forgettable at best. Strange Behavior is mainly notable for being one of the earliest examples of a filmmaker attempting to make New Zealand pass for leafy suburban America, the inauspicious writing debut of future Oscar winner Bill Condon, and a total waste of Louise Fletcher.

Director Michael Laughlin returned to NZ a few years later to make Mesmerized, a truly odd and lifeless drama starring Jodie Foster and John Lithgow (doing one of the worst New Zealand accents ever put to celluloid) that takes a script treatment from Jerzy Skolimowski(!) based on a real 1886 British murder case and relocates it down under. I will be shocked if anyone bothers to put that one out.

Posted: **Fri Nov 07, 2025 4:23 am**

I actually like Mesmerized which is just weird enough for me to excuse the weaknesses of.

Posted: **Fri Nov 07, 2025 4:28 am**

Finch wrote: Thu Nov 06, 2025 11:12 pm Someone at BR's Indicator thread identified the newsletter clue as being from Strange Behavior (1981) aka Dead Kids.

As I've said there, hopefully Indicator can get the film through the BBFC uncut. It seems to have been uncut in the UK on VHS in 1986 (as Small Town Massacre) and pre-cert VHS but has been cut since 1993. It's possible that in 1986 the transfer panned and scanned away from the material in question, but that's speculation and it's been long enough since I saw the film (uncut) that I don't remember how it was framed. The cuts were due to

Spoiler

an imitable suicide method, i.e. vertical wrist-cutting

.

Posted: **Sun Nov 09, 2025 2:21 am**

GaryC wrote: Fri Nov 07, 2025 4:28 am As I've said there, hopefully Indicator can get the film through the BBFC uncut. It seems to have been uncut in the UK on VHS in 1986 (as Small Town Massacre) and pre-cert VHS but has been cut since 1993. It's possible that in 1986 the transfer panned and scanned away from the material in question, but that's speculation and it's been long enough since I saw the film (uncut) that I don't remember how it was framed. The cuts were due to
Spoiler
an imitable suicide method, i.e. vertical wrist-cutting
.

What a dumb reason to censor a movie. Does the BBFC also demand cuts for Allen's Interiors because of the woman who walks into the sea to drown herself, and do they demand cuts for all shots of balconies and cliffs because you can jump off them and die?

Posted: **Sun Nov 09, 2025 6:50 am**

BoltzmannBrain wrote: Sun Nov 09, 2025 2:21 am
GaryC wrote: Fri Nov 07, 2025 4:28 am As I've said there, hopefully Indicator can get the film through the BBFC uncut. It seems to have been uncut in the UK on VHS in 1986 (as Small Town Massacre) and pre-cert VHS but has been cut since 1993. It's possible that in 1986 the transfer panned and scanned away from the material in question, but that's speculation and it's been long enough since I saw the film (uncut) that I don't remember how it was framed. The cuts were due to
Spoiler
an imitable suicide method, i.e. vertical wrist-cutting
.
What a dumb reason to censor a movie. Does the BBFC also demand cuts for Allen's Interiors because of the woman who walks into the sea to drown herself, and do they demand cuts for all shots of balconies and cliffs because you can jump off them and die?

Spoiler

No. The BBFC is sensitive about suicide themes and depictions as it's a well-known issue amongst teenagers in particular. You would be unlikely now to find any such thing in a film rated below 12. For example, the 1937 A Star is Born was recently raised from U to 12 (originally A with cuts in the cinema) because of this. Depending on how graphic the depiction is, whether the person concerned is sympathetic and even if their suicide is seemingly endorsed, such material could get you a 15 or 18. Strange Behavior isn't the only time they've cut a depiction of vertical wrist-cutting. The Rules of Attraction (2002) is another and the reason they gave there was that "the technique used is not widely known and is potentially more likely to result in death than the more common method." The "more common method" being horizontal wrist-cutting, of course.

Posted: **Mon Nov 10, 2025 9:26 pm**

That is part of the reason why I imported the DVD of The Rules of Attraction from the US back in the day, and luckily so since that scene, despite coming in the middle of the film, is the Irreversible-style fulcrum point about which all of the entire film pivots. Which ironically none of the other characters ever recognise, only we in the audience are given the opportunity of understanding the reasons behind that girl's actions.

Posted: **Thu Dec 11, 2025 4:22 pm**

I saw this on the Channel a while ago. It has such a bizarre atmosphere (partially from passing New Zealand off as a small town in Illinois), and I'm very interested in revisiting it.

I hope the extras cover the aborted third film in the unfinished trilogy it's a part of. I have yet to see Strange Invaders.

Posted: **Thu Dec 11, 2025 5:04 pm**

Just a quick note to emphasise that Indicator's Dead Kids is completely uncut on both sides of the Atlantic - I know it's mentioned in the first post, but the others were written prior to that and have been ported across from the Indicator speculation thread.

Fingers were tightly crossed when we submitted it to the BBFC, but I assume they felt that there's little point policing 44-year-old films when anyone minded to commit suicide has so many other points of reference via the the interwebtubes.

Posted: **Mon Apr 13, 2026 1:14 pm**

Posted: **Mon Apr 13, 2026 7:45 pm**

MichaelB wrote: Thu Dec 11, 2025 5:04 pm Just a quick note to emphasise that Indicator's Dead Kids is completely uncut on both sides of the Atlantic

Having pre-ordered the US edition before this was confirmed, I find myself wondering if Indicator bothers to tweak spelling & colloquialisms for their US editions, outside of external packaging (ie. booklets, subtitles etc)? I’m hoping not.

Posted: **Mon Apr 13, 2026 7:58 pm**

The machine-readable side of the discs is absolutely identical regardless of where it's purchased, as is the booklet text*—the only differences are very minor cosmetic ones on the sleeve and on-disc artwork (localised barcodes, no BBFC info in the US versions).

And everything's in British English; given the nationality of the team, we'd be asking for trouble if we tried to Americanise (sorry, Americanize) it!

(*The one exception to date is with The Triple Echo, where the US edition came out after the UK one, and director Michael Apted died in the interim, so the US booklet text was updated to reflect this. But if I remember rightly it was just one line.)

Posted: **Mon Apr 13, 2026 8:01 pm**

In fact, one thing I make a point of doing with the Australian titles is effectively to de-Americanise the subtitles—by which I mean Australianisms in the dialogue are rendered exactly as spoken, not "translated".

That said, this hasn't been much of an issue with the Antony I. Ginnane films, as he was very keen not to make them appear to be too Australian (indeed, Dead Kids is out-and-out pretending to be American!); if I remember rightly, the only film in which I made really significant changes to the subtitles was Mad Dog Morgan, which is full of gloriously vivid 19th-century Australian vernacular, and the supplied subtitles were bland in the extreme. Fortunately, I had a script, so I didn't have to resort to guesswork most of the time; the major recurring challenge was Dennis Hopper improvising off-script in a mad Irish accent.

Posted: **Tue Apr 14, 2026 8:38 am**

Those Antony I Ginnane produced films were looked on with great disdain by the Australian film industry, film critics and audiences too who stayed away in droves.

Patrick (1978) was mildly successful but everything that followed were barely released, at least from a Sydney perspective.

Snapshot played briefly in a tiny independent cinema, Harlequin faired better playing a couple of weeks at the State Theatre, Race For the Yankee Zephyr one week at the Barclay and Dead Kids one week at the Barclay on a double bill with The Hearse (1980) starring George C. Scott.

Personally, I enjoyed Snapshot (which I own and have watched again on Blu Ray) and Harlequin and whilst I went into the cinema with the lowest expectations for Race For the Yankee Zephyr was utterly entertained and charmed by it. I didn't care for Dead Kids but it was way more watchable than The Hearse!

To my knowledge The Survivor never played on the big screen in Sydney (it may have gotten a drive-inn release though) but I did catch up with it on VHS in 1983 and was bored me out of my mind by it.

The Australian film industry was wild back in those days and it is kind of funny and sort of poetic justice for producer Antony I Ginnane - his films are still being seen and rediscovered on physical media whereas lots of acclaimed films from Oz from that area remained unrestored and forgotten. Who would have thought back then!

Also, it's worth noting that Giannane got his start by producing the Fantasm films from the 1970s which were hugely successful. I was very young when these films were made and released and I remember reading some interviews with him and he struck me as colourful and interesting. He may have been looked down within the industry at the time but he has had the last laugh. I've always found Giannane interesting and it's worth adding that he has had his top ten films of the year published along with other people on the Senses of Cinema site. Worth checking out - he has great taste!

A true cinephile.

Posted: **Tue Apr 14, 2026 9:23 am**

Although, as Ginnane repeatedly points out (and somewhat gleefully), while his films may not have done that well in Australia, several of them were huge hits abroad, especially Patrick, which was one of the most internationally successful Australian films made in the 1970s—not up there with the following year's breakout megablockbuster Mad Max, but way ahead of most of its peers.

Posted: **Tue Apr 14, 2026 11:03 am**

MichaelB wrote: Mon Apr 13, 2026 7:58 pm The machine-readable side of the discs is absolutely identical regardless of where it's purchased, as is the booklet text*—the only differences are very minor cosmetic ones on the sleeve and on-disc artwork (localised barcodes, no BBFC info in the US versions).

And everything's in British English; given the nationality of the team, we'd be asking for trouble if we tried to Americanise (sorry, Americanize) it!

Thanks Michael, that’s what I’d hoped. Being Australian, the British version of English is much preferred over the American.

Posted: **Tue Apr 14, 2026 11:44 am**

When Indicator first started producing US releases, we had a discussion about this, and our attitude was "British label, British English subtitles".

That said, I'm sensitive to contextual nuance; for instance, if a film's set in the US, I go for "Mom" rather than "Mum", as the latter looks as weird as it would if I'd subtitled someone British saying "Mum" as "Mom". I don't think this is an issue with Dead Kids, but it definitely is with Macabre, which I'm working on right now, and which is explicitly set in New Orleans even if most of it was filmed in a studio in Rome.

(In one of the extras, co-writer Pupi Avati cheerfully says that there was absolutely no reason for it to be set in New Orleans, but he'd always wanted to go there. Ironically, he didn't make it; the budget was so low that only essential cast and crew got to actually cross the Atlantic!)

Posted: **Fri Apr 17, 2026 11:17 am**

Dead Kids (aka Strange Beaver).

Posted: **Thu Apr 23, 2026 8:55 am**

CineOutsider.

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434 Dead Kids (aka Strange Behavior)

434 Dead Kids (aka Strange Behavior)

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