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Seizure (film)

1974 film by Oliver Stone

Manuscripts, fine bindings, an engraving plate and preserved performance ephemera
Arts and lettersInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJun 23, 2026
Entity authorityQ2084054
Source-derived summary

Seizure is a 1974 horror film. It is the feature film directorial debut of Oliver Stone, who also co-wrote the screenplay.

Plot

Horror writer Edmund Blackstone sees his recurring nightmare come to chilling life one weekend as one by one, his friends and family are killed by three villains: the Queen of Evil, a dwarf named Spider, and a giant scar-faced strongman called Jackal.

Cast

Jonathan Frid as Edmund Blackstone

Martine Beswick as Queen of Evil

Joseph Sirola as Charlie

Hervé Villechaize as Spider

Anne Meacham as Eunice Kahn

Roger De Koven as Serge Kahn

Christina Pickles as Nicole Blackstone

Troy Donahue as Mark Frost

Mary Woronov as Mikki Hughes

Richard Cox as Gerald

Henry Judd Baker as Jackal

Alexis Kirk as Arris

Production

Seizure is the directorial debut of Oliver Stone, who also co-wrote the screenplay. Star Mary Woronov would later claim that gangster Michael Thevis was one of the film's producers. He apparently partially bankrolled the film in an attempt to launder money, as he was under investigation by the FBI.

Release

The film had a limited release theatrically in the United States by Cinerama Releasing Corporation, playing on New York's 42nd street in 1974.

The film was released on VHS by various video companies in the 1980s including Prism Entertainment. A transfer to DVD and Blu-ray was released on September 9, 2014, by Scorpion Releasing.

See also

List of American films of 1974

References

Vatnsdal, Caelum (2004). They Came From Within : A History of Canadian Horror Cinema.

Editorial summary

“Seizure (film)” enters the record as 1974 film by Oliver Stone. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Seizure, film and Oliver can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewA useful identification and reception guide that helps separate the work itself from editions, performances, ownership and later interpretation. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1974, 2014, 2004—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1974-01-01. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Seizure, film and Oliver.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“Seizure (film)” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Seizure, film and Oliver provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

Reception evidence should be dated and situated: later canonical status may differ sharply from the work’s initial circulation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 23, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2084054. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1974, 2014 and 2004.

Critical limits

Rights, attribution and provenance may remain disputed even when a general reference summary presents a stable account. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.

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  • Identifying works and editions
  • Tracing reception history
  • Finding collection records
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The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Seizure (film)”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Seizure (film) primary sources, Seizure (film) archive and Seizure research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

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  2. How did later circulation or interpretation alter the work’s reception?
  3. Where is authorship, date or provenance documented?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Seizure (film)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.