Sweet Substitute (Blu-ray)

“Larry Kent was very important to me. Those early
films were so ahead of their time.” – Atom Egoyan

Busy navigating his final year of high school, brainy aspiring teacher Tom (Waiting for Caroline’s Robert Howay) is determined to land an elusive scholarship, but his hard work is constantly interrupted by his real obsession: pursuing the opposite sex. Before long, he develops a romance with former classmate Elaine (The Boy Who Could Fly’s Angela Gann), who persistently declines his sexual advances. This inspires Tom to consider other options, including his good-natured study buddy Kathy (Carol Pastinsky). But when they take their friendship to the next level, shocking complications threaten to derail Tom’s future, inspiring his friends to take drastic action.

In the wake of The Bitter Ash and the censorship battles it inspired, director Larry Kent returned with this more playful – but no less provocative – sophomore effort. An intoxicating blend of carefree sex comedy and unsparing coming-of-age drama, Sweet Substitute plays like a hedonistic reimagining of the same year’s Nobody Waved Good-bye aimed at the exploitation film market. A surprise success in the U.S. (under the title Caressed), it set the stage for Kent’s next leap forward with When Tomorrow Dies, the third and final entry in his celebrated Vancouver Trilogy. • Newly scanned and restored in from the original 16mm A/B camera negatives by Canadian International Pictures with sound transferred from the original 16mm magnetic final mix
• New audio commentary featuring Paul Corupe of Canuxploitation.com and film historian Jason Pichonsky
• Archival audio commentary featuring film professor David Douglas
• New introduction to Sweet Substitute by Larry Kent
• Sweet and Sour (2024, 10 min.) – New interview with Kent
• Not Quite Liberated (2024, 17 min.) – New interview with Douglas
• New audio interview with actor Lanny Beckman (2024, 6 min.)
• The Caressed Cut (2024, 6 min.) – All the material added to the American release of Sweet Substitute, including the notorious striptease sequence
• Fantasia artist talk (2023, 81 min.) – Conversation with Kent moderated by Douglas
• Archival audio interview with Kent (1964, 11 min.)
• Booklet featuring a new Motion Picture Purgatory comic strip by Rick Trembles and an interview with graphic artist Sonja Arntzen
• Reversible cover artwork
• English SDH subtitles