Note:TO WIKIA CONTRIBUTERS: DO NOT CHANGE THIS PAGE WITH THE EMPIRE INTERACTIVE THING!!!!
1st (known) Logo (November 1980-1989)
Nicknames: "Haunted Castle", "The Neon Castle of Doom", "That's... A Mountain?", "NOOOOOOO!!!!", "Why? Germany, WHY?", "WGBH 2001's German Brother", "The Personification of All That Is Suddenly Evil" "The Palace Video Ripoff"
Logo: We start off in a black background. Suddenly, a green laser comes from the left, goes up and the camera zooms out following it. When the camera zooms out, we see that the black background is a silhouette of a mountain (which doesn't look like one at all) on a black-red background. When the laser is reached to the mountain, thunder strikes the mountain making the screen to go black and white. When the screen returned back to normal, we see that the mountain is a castle with 12 windows and TV tubes and a skyline on it's top. The camera then zooms in to the castle and the lights in the windows turn on. "EMPIRE VIDEO" in a neon font appears on one of the towers. While the camera is going up, "PRESENTS" in the same font appears. A high strobe effect then plays.
Variants: • Sometimes when the high strobe effect plays, the screen would go black and the rating screen would appear. • On 1986, the animation was redone to look realistic.
FX/SFX: Everything.
Cheesy Factor: Early computer effects, also the mountain at the beginning doesn't look like one at all, just like the nickname on Nicknames, it looks more like a volcano with it's bit on the top extended. Besides, this logo makes NO sense!
Music/Sounds: An calming tune followed by the sounds of the laser, then the calming tune jarringly changes into a dramatic sting.
Availability: Empire well distributed horror films, B-movies and cartoons to video. Check on eBay to see if there was every tapes that had this logo.
Scare Factor: NIGHTMARE, with the jarring transition of the music and the use of the strobe effect if you are not expecting it. The castle doesn't look too friendly, either. It's lower for those who are used to seeing it. Medium for the redone variant.
2nd Logo (1989-1994)
TBA
Final Note: In 1994, Empire was folded into Cute Kitten Home Video.