YOU ARE ABOUT TO EXPERIENCE A RARE HAPPENING.
FIRST TIME EVER ON HOME VIDEO!
Grindhouse Releasing proudly presents
Palmer Rockey’s SCARLET WARNING 666
Be forewarned: You have never seen anything like SCARLET WARNING 666, the long-lost, made-in-Dallas masterpiece of outsider cinema written, produced, directed by, and starring weird music legend
PALMER ROCKEY!
Never released on home video and not seen in 40 years, SCARLET WARNING 666 is coming to Blu-ray in a limited collector’s edition, newly restored from the original 35mm negative and available for preorder at GrindhouseReleasing.com.
The deluxe 3-disc (2 Blu-rays + CD) release includes Palmer Rockey's SCARLET LOVE 'Movie Album' in a new CD remaster with bonus tracks from the original 1980 ROCKEY'S STYLE pressing of the rare cult classic LP.
Palmer Rockey boasted of playing 7 different roles on screen and 47 different roles behind the scenes in what is reputed to be the worst movie ever made. He expected Academy Award recognition for his efforts.
SCARLET WARNING 666 stars Rockey as twin brothers in a story of Satanic skullduggery, bizarre occult rituals and “demonic assassination” on a country estate. The execution of this premise was so bewildering, insane, and incompetent that the film was laughed off the screen at its Dallas premiere in 1974.
After audiences mocked his naive ineptitude, Rockey said, "You know what I think the meaning of this whole thing - the movie - is? Don't give anybody the right to make you unhappy, because, man, they will. People can laugh at what I do, but they can't laugh at me. I mean, man, I'm satisfied. I'm smiling inside."
Rockey spent decades obsessively laboring over his magnum opus, shooting new scenes and piling layer upon layer of cringe in a doomed effort to explain the incomprehensible plot. He distributed the movie himself, four-walling theaters to show his epic in various incarnations as IT HAPPENED ON SUNDAY, SCARLET LOVE, ROCKEY’S STYLE, LOVE IS DEEP INSIDE, and SCARLET WARNING 666.
In 1980 he released the film as SCARLET LOVE, with an original soundtrack album featuring his own vocal stylings. When this too met with audience mockery, Rockey attempted to frame the unintended laughs as “keen satire.” Rockey was still restitching his Frankenstein’s monster of a movie with new material at the time of his death in 1996.
"It seems to me that the real story is in the mental and to some extent moral decline of Palmer Rockey which is exhibited in the final version of the film," said Dr. Ron DiSalvo, who played opposite Rockey in scenes filmed decades apart.
The Rockey legend grew when Rev. Ivan Stang (The Church of the SubGenius) evangelized about the film in THE BOOK OF THE SUBGENIUS and Jello Biafra wrote about the SCARLET LOVE “Movie Album” in the popular RE/Search book series INCREDIBLY STRANGE MUSIC.
The ultra-rare LP became an obsession for record collectors, leading to a sold-out 2013 reissue in the UK. Carl Broemel (My Morning Jacket) covered one of Rockey’s songs and Broadway World called the soundtrack “a rare cult classic of oddball music.” Yet the movie remained missing for more than 40 years. Until now!
Although he never nabbed his Oscar, Rockey ended up Oscar-adjacent: his final cut of SCARLET WARNING 666 was found in the Academy vault and restored by Academy Award-winning film editor Bob Murawski, whose credits include THE HURT LOCKER, THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WIND, and Sam Raimi’s SEND HELP.
Grindhouse Releasing has painstakingly restored SCARLET WARNING 666 from the original camera negative, going beyond the limits of sanity to preserve every agonizing frame of Rockey’s cinematic tribulation and to document the bizarre story behind it.
SPECIAL FEATURES
- Beautiful new master, lovingly restored in 4K from the original 35mm camera negative
- Provocative, in-depth interviews with producer Cookie Rockey, and co-star Dr. Ron DiSalvo
- Additional interviews with punk rock icon Jello Biafra and legendary rare record connoisseurs Paul Major and Jonny Trunk
- Audio commentary by Reverend Ivan Stang (Church of the SubGenius)
- Original theatrical trailer and extensive still galleries
- Glossy illustrated booklet with liner notes by exploitation historian Chris Poggiali
- Beautiful embossed slipcover with new art by esteemed painter Jerry Martinez
- Blu-ray cover painting by cult artist Dave Lebow
- BONUS CD - SCARLET LOVE MOVIE ALBUM by Palmer Rockey, newly remastered in stunning 24-bit/192Khz sound
-AND OTHER SURPRISES!
REVIEWS
“THE GREATEST WORST MOVIE EVER MADE…Palmer Rockey makes Ed Wood and Tommy Wiseau look like Stanley Kubrick and Martin Scorsese.” - Rev. Ivan Stang, Church of the SubGenius
“Mr. Rockey extracted a promise from us to not review the film, which was no great sacrifice, since it is, in some essential way, beyond judgment.” - C.W. Smith, Dallas Times Herald
“One of the most fascinating underground characters ever”
- Forced Exposure
"As exploitation holy grails go, few are more coveted than the lost outrage SCARLET WARNING 666…This is Palmer Rockey's song poem, and the ghosts of Rodd Keith and Fletcher Hanks howl in the bones of his face. Proceed at your own risk, America. And rock, rock, ROCK!" - Jimmy McDonough, author of BIG BOSOMS AND SQUARE JAWS and THE GHASTLY ONE
About Grindhouse Releasing
Founded in 1996 by Sage Stallone and Academy Award-winning film editor Bob Murawski (THE HURT LOCKER, Sam Raimi’s SEND HELP), Grindhouse Releasing has been called “the Criterion of cult cinema.” The company is dedicated to restoring and preserving exploitation films held in historically low regard.
In addition to Italian horror classics like THE BEYOND and CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST, Grindhouse has also released CORRUPTION, starring Peter Cushing; the spaghetti western THE BIG GUNDOWN, starring Lee Van Cleef; Duke Mitchell's GONE WITH THE POPE; and Frank Perry’s THE SWIMMER, starring Burt Lancaster, which received the 2015 Satellite Award from the International Press Academy for Outstanding Overall Blu-ray/DVD.
More recent Grindhouse Releasing Blu-rays include Peter S. Traynor's DEATH GAME, starring Sondra Locke and Colleen Camp; William Grefe's IMPULSE, starring William Shatner; and Christina Hornisher's HOLLYWOOD 90028, which won critical acclaim at international festivals including Sitges and Fantasia; and the 4K UHD release of Lucio Fulci's THE BEYOND, named the #1 physical media release of 2025 (The Movie Den).
Grindhouse Releasing’s film restorations have screened at theaters and drive-ins throughout the U.S. and Canada, and at film festivals around the world. For more information visit GrindhouseReleasing.com.
