A micro-budget British horror film that was premiered yesterday has not only left the audience with shattered nerves. Cinema bosses, too, will have been watching in a cold sweat.
Mum & Dad, a suburban slasher film made for just £100,000, has plunged the film business into civil war by coming out on the same day in cinemas, on DVD, as a legal download and on video-on-demand television – the first film to do so in Britain.
The strategy represents a direct challenge to the fiercely guarded conventions that specify how much time should elapse between a film arriving on the big screen and in the home. “There’s a huge argument going on,” a leading industry player told The Times
