According to entertainment.ie, one of Lost’s creators, Damon Lindelof , is set to write the recently announced Alien Prequel.  The film is set to be directed by original Alien director Ridley Scott.  Recent reports have said that the film is to take place 30 years before the original Alien Film and will be filmed 3D. 

I think after those two terrible Alien Vs. Predator films, both franchises were in need of a revamp.  The new Predators sequel has had mixed reviews but I thought it was a blast.  Hopefully this new Alien prequel will remind us all why we fell in love with the franchise to begin with.

Word comes from NME that Guillermo Del Toro’s next project will be a 3D adaptation of the H.P. Lovecraft Classic At the Mountain of Madness and is to be in colaboration with powerhouse director James Cameron.  This comes on the heals of Del Toro announcing that he will direct a scary 3D called the Haunted Mansion, which is based on the popular Disney ride of the same name. 

Is it just my imagination or has Del Toro been talking about doing this for years now?  With him being attached to a slew of other projects( including an adaptation of Frankenstein) and having yet to make an official announcement in regard to Madness, I would take this story with a grain of salt…

Fresh out of SDCC, the guys over at /Film have reported that Guillermo Del Toro is working on another version of the popular Disney movie and attraction “The Haunted Mansion”.  Del Toro was asked about upcoming projects were he stated that he just started working on the project with and they have goals of the films being a live action 3D movie with a darker tone than the previous film.  Read on…

I am a huge fan of the attraction it’s self and I actually enjoyed the movie that was made 2003 starring Eddie Murphy. It was a film that was intended for younger audiences and I thought they did a great job stepping outside of the attraction to bring some sort of story to life for the mansion. Del Toro states that this film with mainly center around a tale for the popular “Hatbox Ghost” attraction which has always been labeled one of the scariest parts of the ride. I for one am excited for anything related to ghosts and spirits that Del Toro is working on after I thought he did a remarkable job with the haunting tale “The Orphanage” The film is also be written by Matthew Robbins (Mimic) who is also helping Del Toro on the “Don’t Be Afraid of The Dark” remake. The guys of at MTV also got statement from Del Toro: “The movie I see in my head of ‘Haunted Mansion’ is not what I believe anyone is imagining it would be. It’s not just a regular world with a haunted mansion plopped in the middle. I’m really thinking of a movie with a heightened reality, which is super designed, incredibly innovative, narratively and visually. When people think of ‘The Haunted Mansion,’ they think they know [what it's about]. But I really want to push a lot of stuff that they have not seen ever.” … “We are taking sort of the core mythology [of the ride] that you can tap into and saying that there are many mansions around the world and they’re all part of a sort of web. The spider sitting at the center of the web is what the fans of ‘The Haunted Mansion’ would know by the nickname the Hatbox Ghost, which is a beautiful creature that was created but there’s a legend that it was discarded on the first day of the ride’s operation because it was too scary. I like that legend, but the reality is that the imagineers could not make the illusion work, so they took it out.”

It’s got me excited and I can’t to see how it all plays out.

Editor’s Note: I have been a huge fan of Fright Rags.  I believe that 80% of my shirts are from Fright Rags.  Best Customer Service, Best Quality and awesome designs make Fright Rags the best in the business.  Meli writes in to let y’all know about some new shirts available now!  Read on…

There is definitely no rest for the wicked at Fright Rags central this summer. The best horror t-shirt company staffed by some of the nicest horror hounds in the community just released six new t-shirts yesterday and a reprint of their wildly popular Team David tee.

The six new tees include Killdozer, Boggy Creek, Prince of Darkness, Demons, and 2 official Monsters Of Filmland t-shirts. Rue Morgue’s own Ghoulish Gary Pullin captures the Father of all horror fiends, Forrest J. Ackerman, in a gorgeously colorful design and the Monster Fight tee design is by the legendary Ray Frenden!

Go to the Fright Rags website and sign up for their newsletter if you are not already a member. Not only will you be the first to know about specials and exclusives, but you get great discounts too! The staff at Fright Rags are true horror fans who give the people what they wat.

Ok so this film jumps right into a young man giving a tour of a house to some new prospective tenants, and you see someone walking in after them (only their feet) and they jump in a closet close the door. Cue credits and you officially have my attention. This film is directed by the real brother of “Sookie Stackhouse”, Mr. Andrew Paquin. Anna Paquin and her on screen and in real life lover Stephen Moyer also make brief appearances in this film. I will have to say from the moment this feature started I was intrigued and I was asking for more!

A young woman named Alice played by Rachel Blanchard (Are You Afraid of The Dark/Roadtrip) is going through a terrible split with her beloved. After the house is shown she comes back to complete the move out with her husband and get her life back on track but what she doesn’t know is there is someone lurking in the house with other plans. One night she decides to invite some friends over and her best friend Jennie decides to stay and hang out with her because she can tell Alice feels alone. Alice tired from all the preparation for the evening falls asleep and wakes up to Jennie missing.  After many calls to Jennie in the house she soon finds her body in the basement of the house and she is immediately snatched and pulled into the darkness. The next scene starts with a view of our lead actresses tied and gagged in the middle of a storage closet. We come to find out that our assailant is Brian Geraghty (Cruel world/Jarhead) and he is clean cut with a Norman Bates type of appeal and he is intent on telling Alice he does not want to hurt her, but he also is not alone. Geraghty’s character named “David” has an estranged relationship with his partner in crime a women named Lila, Tricia Helfer (Battlestar Galactica/ Spiral) who is even deadlier than he is. She takes a quick glance at the house says it will do and immediately starts ordering David around in a very dark demeaning way. David has locked Alice back in the closet and has warned her that if Lila finds out about her then she will kill her. Lila also kills Alice’s husband while seducing him in the outdoor hot tub, all of which is videotaped by David who seems to have a fascination with lives on film as he watches all of the couple’s home movies before retiring each night. The interaction between Lila and David is what makes the film because Helfer does a great job of establishing that she in the one in charge in a kind a Bonnie and Clyde role reversal kind of way. To be honest this film gave of a feeling of Natural Born Killers  meets  Funny Games appeal because the couple was so ruthless with each kill and yet so gentle and assuring before they preyed on their victims. Lila was out right mean to David whenever she could be and that’s what kept him in his place. Alice devises a scheme to try and gain the trust of David because she knows he likes her and that’s why he is keeping her alive.

All the while there is some concern from Lila because they have killed over 5 people in the house and she is ready to move on to the next one. David is of course reluctant to go and wants no part of Lila finding out about Alice because he intends on staying and starting a new life with her. Lila starts to suspect something from David so she sends him on a bunch of errands to get him out of the house and she conducts a thorough check of the house to make sure no trails are left behind. Helfer does a great job of carrying parts of the film she is so intense in every scene ready to stab you in any moment. The body count was low but the film was still bloody enough to keep me involved and I thought the voyeurism and overall weirdness by Geraghty gave the film a Hitchcock touch and in my opinion was very satisfying in the end, The final scene was very predictable but I had no problems with it. It’s nothing new by any means but a straight to DVD release this good should not go unnoticed. It hits the shelves August 3^rd so I would say grab it at a Redbox near you!

Open House on Netflix

You would be hard pressed to find a horror fan who is not excited about the return of John Carpenter.  The master of horror returns on September 24th, 2010 with his latest release “The Ward.”  The official website opened it’s doors this morning and can be found at this location.

Official Synopsis from Premiere Pictures:

In JOHN CARPENTER’S THE WARD, Kristen, a beautiful but troubled young woman, finds herself bruised, cut, drugged, and held against her will in a remote ward of a Psychiatric Hospital.  She is completely disoriented, with no idea why she was brought to this place and no memory of her life before being admitted. All she knows is that she isn’t safe.

The other patients in the ward, four equally disturbed young women, offer no answers, and Kristen quickly realizes things are not as they seem. The air is heavy with secrets, and at night, when the hospital is dark and foreboding, she hears strange and frightening sounds.  It appears they are not alone.

One-by-one the other girls begin to disappear and Kristen must find a way out of this hellish place before she, too, becomes a victim.  As she struggles to escape, she will uncover a truth far more dangerous and horrifying than anyone could have imagined.

Hey Fiends!  This week’s releases we have Fruit Chan’s Don’t Look Up remake, a Blu-Ray release of The Prowler, the new Puppet Master and more. Click below to see all the details!

All film descriptions are taken from Amazon.com unless otherwise noted.  Unfortunately, the Netflix widgets are out again, so I haven’t included those.

Don’t Look Up

2009
Starring: Henry Thomas, Kevin Corrigan
d. Fruit Chan
Rated: Unrated
Format: DVD | Blu-Ray

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While filming in Transylvania, a crew unearths celluloid images of a woman’s murder and unleashes the wrath of evil spirits. Based on the story by Hideo Nakata (the creator of “The Ring”) and directed by Fruit Chan. Starring Henry Thomas, Kevin Corrigan, Lothaire Bluteau and Eli Roth.

Lights Camera Dead

2007
Starring: Amy Lollo, J.C. Lira, Monica Moehring, Coldon Martin and Richard Christy
d. Tim Reaper
Rated: Unrated
Format: DVD
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How far would you go to make a movie?

Night of the Living Dead: Reanimated

2009
Starring: Duane Jones, Judith O’Dea
d. Mike Schneider
Rated: Unrated
Format: DVD
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The classic NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD told through animation and other mediums by multiple artists.

The Prowler

1981
Starring: Vicky Dawson, Christopher Goutman, Lawrence Tierney, Farley Granger, Cindy Weintraub
d. Joseph Zito
Rated: Not Rated
Format: Blu-Ray

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Avalon Bay, 1945: On the night of her graduation dance, young Rosemary and her date are brutally murdered by a prowler thought to be a jilted soldier home from the war. The killer was never found. Thirty years later, the dance is held again for the first time since that horrific evening – but something else may have also returned… Tonight, the teens of this sleepy town will meet their grisly ends at the hands – and pitchfork, blade and more – of THE PROWLER!

Also known as ROSEMARY’S KILLER, this gruesome shocker is one of the cruelest “body-count” movies of the 1980s, thanks to razor-sharp direction by Joseph Zito (FRIDAY THE 13TH: THE FINAL CHAPTER) and graphic gore effects by Tom Savini (DAWN OF THE DEAD, MANIAC). Hollywood legends Farley Granger (STRANGERS ON A TRAIN) and Lawrence Tierney (RESERVOIR DOGS) star in this rarely-seen sleeper from the golden age of slasher films – now presented completely uncut and uncensored in grisly High Definition!

EXTRAS:
Audio Commentary with Producer/Director Joseph Zito and Special Make-up Effects Artist Tom Savini
Tom Savini’s Behind-the-Scenes Gore Footage
Theatrical Trailer

Puppet Master Axis Of Evil

2010
Starring: Levi Fiehler, Jenna Gallaher
d. David DeCoteau
Rated: Not Rated
Format: DVD | Blu-Ray
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In a Stateside hotel during the height of World War II, young Danny Coogan dreams of joining the war effort. Following the murder of hotel guest Mr. Toulon by Nazi assassins, Danny finds the old man’s crate of mysterious puppets and is suddenly thrust into a battle all his own. He discovers that Nazis Max and Klaus, along with beautiful Japanese saboteur Ozu, plan to attack a secret American manufacturing plant. After his family is attacked and his girlfriend Beth is kidnapped, it is up to Danny and the living deadly Puppets to stop this Axis of Evil.-imdb.com

The Uninvited

2008
Starring: Marguerite Moreau, Brittany Curran, Colin Hay
d. Bob Badway
Rated: Not Rated
Format: DVD
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Don’t turn around.

In the tradition of Rosemary s Baby, psychological horror film The Uninvited reveals a new wife who may become a mother whether she wants to or not. Lee (Marguerite Moreau of the new NBC hit Parenthood) has finally recovered from a rare illness akin to agoraphobia. Instead of fearing open spaces, Lee has been frightened by any too-great distance between herself and other objects. So the warm embrace of documentary filmmaker and husband Nick (Colin Hay of the Grammy-winning band Men At Work) has proven the perfect cure. But their fresh start in a quiet, isolated home is shattered by intense visions from Lee s past, an unhinged former assistant of Nick s, Satanists and Lee s growing realization that the forces of evil she senses around her aren t so uninvited after all. Writer-director Bob Badway s film debut offers horror fans the chance to catch a bold new talent in the making. Consider yourself…invited.

The tag-line told us, “I warned you not to go out tonight.” Well, now we have a reason to stay in. Being released in an amazing 30th Anniversary Edition package, is the cult film, “Maniac”! Filled to the brim with features, Blue Underground is releasing the William Lustig film on October 26 on standard DVD as well as on Blu-Ray.   Read on for more details…

Among the features are two commentaries with the cast and crew and interviews with Caroline Munro, Tom Savini, the composer Jay Chattaway, and more. If you don’t already own this 1980’s treasure, the price of the film is worth it alone just to witness a classic scene involving Tom Savini at the wrong end of a shotgun.  To add to the ever growing popularity of this title, Alexander Aja announced this past weekend  at Comic- Con that he wants to “be involved” in a remake of the original film.  Maybe this announcement will open the door to a whole group of new fans that can discover the film on DVD.   With the recent announcements concerning the release of other classic horror films like “The Evil Dead”, “The Exorcist”, “Se7en”, and “Psycho”, horror fans will be able to re-live these masterpieces of the macabre in glorious Blu-Ray sound and picture. Make sure to mark your calendars and pre-order this cult classic from Amazon today.

Liquid Comics (Virgin Comics before a buyout almost 2 years ago) announced Friday that they would be teaming up with iconic horror director Wes Craven (Last House On The Left, A Nightmare On Elm Street) to develop a graphic novel that will eventually be adapted for film. Liquid Comics specializes in original stories of mythology, especially Indian and Asian mythos, for an international audience by collaborating with artists from various fields. There is no official press release on Liquid Comic’s website at this time and no details about the project have been revealed, but the prospect of the legendary director creating an original comic and subsequent film should be welcomed news with an endless stream of remakes, re-imaginings, and never-ending sequels to Hollywood’s cash cows.

To find out more about Liquid Comics and get the latest updates on Craven’s project visit their website http://www.liquidcomics.com/

Reviews are still coming in from Fantasia Film Festival.  Again, thanks to Nightmare Revue for allowing us to republish the coverage of the festival and thanks again to Michael Mitchell for his writeups.  Read on for the reviews…

By Michael Mitchell

Compared to filming a movie, one benefit of mounting a stageplay is that you can debut it in front of an audience, and then it can still be reworked and reworked time and again—in front of audience after audience—until the weaker elements are stripped out and you’ve got a more polished creation. And sometimes it’s only an audience that can show you what the defects in the work are. Which is the function test audiences perform for major movie releases. They don’t like the ending to “Fatal Attraction” so the studio gets all the talent back together for a weekend and they film the home-wrecking bitch getting shot in the bathtub. Great! Done! Ship it out! But that’s if you have the budget for it, and if the script is strong enough that all that is required is a touched up scene to send it out into the merry world. Sadly, you usually don’t have the luxury of reworking an entire movie if the whole thing is a bit off the mark. I think the standard course of action is you either live with it and try to make what money back you can, or, to use the same word in another capacity, you simply can it.

That said, Dominque Adams’ TWISTED SEDUCTION has the potential of being a really great stageplay. About a woman abducted by a man (they have names but with the way the characters are presented to us as the embodiment of the sexes, they can just as readily be termed “Man” and “Woman”) in the belief that she will eventually come to love him as if they had embarked on a series of conventional dates, Adams’ movie looks really good, with intelligent and interesting camera work and a number of well-directed scenes. But, ultimately, as the main conceit doesn’t hold up from scene to scene, there isn’t much that makes sense in the end.

Right after being abducted (and while bound to a chair), Woman is told that, as long as she follows the rules, she won’t be hurt and she will be fed. She ignores the advice and spends the next half day without food or drink. We know it’s been a half day not only because Man comes in and tells us it’s been a half day, but there are also interstitial titles that are projected in blackouts, complete with day and time, between the “scenes.” I write scenes in quotations because sometimes we get the title cards, sometimes we don’t—and it’s never quite clear why they’re absent sometimes. Actually, it’s never quite clear why they’re there sometimes. Also, we sometimes go from one scene to the next for no apparent reason (other than possibly the filming schedule), when it could have worked just as well or better to simply extend the current scene. For a scene to indeed be a new scene something has to have changed or progressed in a story. But we don’t get that all the time in TWISTED SEDUCTION. Sometimes we get a blackout that involves only a minute or two’s passing on screen. Now, if this were a Michael Haneke movie (he of “Funny Games”, “Hidden”, “The White Ribbon,” etc., fame) I would assume that the inconsistent use blackouts and title cards was intentional, but I can’t be sure it is with Adams. And I couldn’t quite figure out why we were given the exact same exterior shot of the loft numerous times, either. (I wouldn’t have even questioned it if not for the scene with the bird, which seems written in due to there being a bird trapped in the loft they were filming in.) Perhaps Adams is an auteur of great depth, but that’ll only be shown once she’s got a few more films under her belt.

Woman’s reactions to Man’s requests just never seems entirely valid. Trapped and locked inside a practically barren loft we find her either practicing yoga or calmly reading a book on a couch. And then all it takes for her to salsa dance with Man at one point is for him to produce a pair of red shoes. There just doesn’t seem to be anything at stake for her, no reason to go along with Man’s wishes. The only time she was deprived of food it was supposed to be for 24 hours, but Man relents and makes it only 12. So we see that she has some power over him from the beginning, but that is never explored. But that threat of withheld food seems to be what forces her to go along with the candlelit dinners, the salsa dancing, the fully-clothed bathing. On one of the “dates” Woman even asks Man, “What is this supposed to accomplish? What is the point of this?” Funny, I was asking myself the same thing. At one point she even bashes him in the head with a golf club and all he does is write a message on his shirt asking her not to do it again. So, is he afraid of some types of violence but not others, and is that something she should have explored as well?

While watching the individual scenes it was easy to forget that Woman had been abducted against her will as they interacted like two old acquaintances most of the time; albeit the standard boy has a crush on girl but girl thinks he’s a dweeb kind. At one point, Woman shoots Man the finger, but there’s nothing in story that suggests she should be so cavalier and brash, nothing that says he won’t cut that finger off. When Paul Sheldon gave Annie the finger in “Misery” she had already broken both his ankles and told him there was no way he was ever leaving, so he had nothing to lose really. But Woman still seems like she still has too much to lose in TWISTED to be acting the way she does. Where Annie showed us how disturbed she was, Man never does anything. Was that the point? Then, an interesting line of inquiry may have been why he never reacted to any of her provocations. As it was, the scenes kept playing like Man and Woman were two people shipwrecked on an island. And was a way-too willing participant most of the time. And a way, way-too willing concubine at the end, never once questioning her lack of freedom—or choice in the matter.

There’s a lot of material that doesn’t get mined that could have been. For one, Man is British. This seems to be important, as he talks of his heritage and his education, but I’m just not sure why it is important. We’re told the action takes place in Montreal, Canada as well. Man chose Montreal to conduct his experiment in gender relations as it’s a cosmopolitan city. But then Man goes ahead and abducts a white bread Caucasian Woman, which he could have done almost anywhere. So, does it have something to do with colonialism? Old world meets new world? The set, as well-thought out as it is, seems underused as well. There’s a clock on the wall that as the potential of tormenting Woman but she never seems to even so much as glance at it once. Again, were this a stageplay, the clock could have a decidedly dramatic effect.

If I could give Adams any advice, it would be to rewrite the movie into a stageplay and have it play across the country. At two characters it’s sure to be an easy sell, and, if the subtext were played out more effectively, it’d be sure to be a hit.

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PHASMA EX MACHINA is metaphysical meditation of sorts by Matt Osterman, that, possibly owing to the long stretches of dialogue that are meant to connect us to the characters more than to the plot, doesn’t entirely cohere. The story involves something about a machine that makes it easier for some dead people to come back but not necessarily the dead people you were expecting and it also works for some people that have been in contact with you or something but it won’t work with everyone you know but only some people and a dead wife will come back to do the dishes and sleep in the bed and the husband will send his new girlfriend away without explaining that the dead wife he mentioned has come back to life and there’s something about an older brother potentially losing the custody of his younger brother (the folks are dead, but there’s insurance money so no one has to work-phew!) and then living people get angry and knock other people out with shovels and some neighbours can see some dead and some people can’t and stuff like that and has events occurring that may owe a wee bit to “The Sixth Sense” and “Solaris”. Nonetheless, it’s a pretty strong debut and should garner Osterman some deserved attention.

After last season’s finale, tons of Dexter fans’ jaws dropped to the floor.  If you are not caught up with DEXTER you might want to leave this post here now.  Fresh out of San Diego Comic Con, Showtime has released a teaser trailer for the fifth season of Dexter.  Many are curious onto what will happen with Dexter.  Questions will be raised with Rita’s death as into why the Trinity Killer would kill her when it was against his signature.  We see a lot of that in this teaser.  Dexter is one of the best shows on television and I can’t wait to see what will happen this season.

Feast your eyes on the Teaser Trailer for Season 5.

Source: Dread Central

  We got another review from a member of the staff from Nightmare Revue, Michael Mitchell.  This review is being republished by permission from Jeremy Webster and Nightmare Revue.  Again, mucho kudos. 

Jo Satana comes back with reviews on The Revenant, Birdemic, A Serbian Film and more.  Hit the break for all the manic happenings.

by Jo Satana

Playing catch up here, and the line between sleep and slumber is getting thin indeed. Week three just kicked off and I’ll take this brief opportunity to catch up, recount, and mend my wounds. This is the week that was… 

 Vampire zombie (aka: the undead) buddy flick The Revenant, directed Kerry Prior, by was touted as being the sleeper hit of the summer. “Cheech and Chong with zombies!” some would say. “No dude, it’s like Re-Animator meets The Punisher!” others would answer. In either case, it’s more like Swingers meets Mall Rats as it passes through Day of the Dead. The relationship between two buddies is put to the test as one of them returns from a tour of duty in a casket. Obviously, the lives of everyone around the fallen soldier are forever changed and, as everybody knows, the dead only stay dead if they are not destined to be undead. Everyone always says they would like the chance to have just one last moment with someone before they pass, but it looks like these kids got more than they bargained for with the return of their fallen bro, who, incidentally, is otherwise perfectly normal aside from the fact that he only revives at night and needs to sup on human blood to avoid decaying. One can only imagine how this will affect the group’s social dynamics.A study in friendship and balance, I found the film to be more held back than the positive reactions from the audience suggested. As everyone in the crowd was slapping their foreheads silly at the gags and so on (at one point, the film turns vigilante: the buddies decide to hunt down the scum of society as a source of blood – two birds, one stone), I was intrigued by the inner message of conformism and segregation; one by one, the entourage is either killed off or turned into blood sucking fiends themselves, and I can’t help but ask myself: was this movie a subtext for America’s melting pot? Join us or bubble away? The last reel is revelatory, I’ll tell you that much. 

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This one will be fairly quick: witches, warlocks and demons… in the projects…and with drama! Interesting but flawed UK/Irish movie directed by Colm McCarthy, Outcast gives us a sneak peak into the inner turmoils of a society of magic makers who need to deal with a small situation; as it turns out, a quick tryst in the bushes resulted in the birth of a demonic spawn from hell who, 17 years later, starts to wreak havoc on a small project community. The mother of said spawn is trying her best to hide and protect her progeny. Her boy (who can shift between a monstrous demon and a monstrously horny teenager) is discovering the realities of his condition and, against his mother’s wishes, begins a relationship with a neighborhood hottie who is just as broken. If that’s not enough, the paternal half of said beast is on the hunt, and guess for who?   

Outcast sort of suffers from the same pitfalls as the great John Constantine of Hellblazer fame: too much going on. The audience is quickly jolted from right to left of what seems to be the conclusion of a story that we should have been introduced to earlier. Narrative issues and technical limitations prohibit us from truly getting to the crux of the matter, and basically what you end up with is a nice, vanilla monster movie. Well, one with natural vanilla extracts at least. *           *           *  

As I entered the Hall building for the Canadian premiere of A Serbian Film, I though only one thing: holy fuck is this crowd electric. Anticipation is the only thing written on the faces of everyone waiting to be herded into the cinema like cattle – anticipation to be subsequently slaughtered one by one by the slow, sawing motion of the serrated blade that is A Serbian Film. Since director Srdjan Spasojevic and producer Nikola Pantelic have decidedly not taken the subtle approach to convey their perception of the Serbian condition in this film, I will take the same road:FAMILY, PORNO, FUCKING, ANAL, ORAL, RAPING, MUTILATING, NECROPHILIA, INCEST, PEDOPHILIA, DESTRUCTIVE, DEVASTATING, DEMORALISING, ROCKING SOUNDTRACK, AND MULTIPLE CAMERAS.   

A retired porno actor takes a “gig he could not refuse,” but quickly learns he should have taken the high road and left the cash on the table. Things quickly turn to snuff… and I’m going to spare you the details. Yes, the notorious newborn scene is real, and yes, it is not near as effective as the last reel, which is, in my book, one of the bleakest things I’ve seen in a long time: a negativity orgasm of the blackest kind, everything is onscreen for you to ogle and chew on, no stones are unturned, there is no room for inference here. 

As the lights went on after the screening, the crowd’s faces spoke for itself. A quick smile followed by a nervous frown. Not feeling too good now are we people? A brief and insightful Q& A with the crew followed and – not that I demanded an explanation from anyone – it was still comforting to have them graze academics about their film with us. I felt… better somehow. Must-see viewing for those willing to take the red pill and kick things up a notch. Amazed. 

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This one needs NO explanation here. One of my favourite elements of the FanTasia fest is the focus on midnight screenings, and the fact that they keep doing them year after year. If you haven’t been to one, you aren’t getting it are you? In the middle of the long tradition of midnight movies lies Re-Animator, which is celebrating a well-deserved 25th anniversary. As such, audiences were treated to a 35mm projection of this classic with Stuart Gordon and Jeffrey Combs in tow. Every gorehound and splatterfiend in the audience cuddled closely together with one another to what can only be described as the flickering light equivalent of comforting hot chocolate. Wish you could have been there. *           *           * 

Keeping with the Jeffrey Combs theme, his one man manifesto paying tribute to the late Edgar Allen Poe (he’s not dead!), Nevermore, was booked for two nights at Montreal’s Mile End theatre house, the Rialto.   

This crowd was a bit of a departure from what we are used to with FanTasia: gone were the rockin’ and rollickin’ crowds to be replaced with hushed tones, veils, and hand-held fans. Given the swanky’ness of the setting, I should have at least brought my dinner jacket.Jeffrey Combs man…. what the fuck? There has been much speculation as to why Combs has not risen to the character actor elite of Hollywood and Nevermore is a brutal reminder of this: this man was Poe personified. A spellbinding 90 minute monologue with the audience in which Combs potrayed Poe with such clarity that the softly candlelit stage was as bright as can be. Bleeding atmosphere, this loving tribute brought us from the plague, through the alcoholism, to the despair… all intertwined with live readings of Poe’s work. Those familiar with Combs’s previous portrayal of Poe during the shortly-lived Master’s of Horror series will find familiar ground here: a rapping, a tapping… and much, much more.  

This one was not only special from a film festival perspective; it was special from a performing arts perspective. If this show is booked in your town (I have no info with respect to a touring schedule) go and see it. It’s as simple as that.   

*           *           *   

Complete utter buffoonery. Another midnight screening, and I have the impression we all had our leg pulled a little bit. The story behind Birdemic: Shock and Terror is fascinating in that the movie has been propelled forward from festival booking to festival booking for one sole reason: to share how bad it really is with everyone. A festival….. books a film… to show how bad it is. What the hell.   

Contrary to Troll 2, which is an honest film and the definitive worst movie ever, Birdemic is clouded in doubt with respect to its sincerity. Is it intentionally this bad? Or was it an honest attempt to make something meaningful, overshadowed by crazy editing mistakes, dubbing problems, tracking problems, painful acting, terrible effects, insulting narrative inconsistencies, nonexistent pacing and so on?   

Yes, this film is a BLAST with a midnight crowd and god bless the FanTasia audience for adopting this bastard of a movie and making it their own: clapping, cheering, laughing, chanting – there were even coat hangers given away at the beginning that were shaken at the screen everytime the titular birds shook a nasty wing at us.   

Specifics for the story are useless here: a community is suddenly attacked (and by suddenly, I mean, 1 hour into the film) by mutant birds who are seeking revenge on humans for global warming. These birds can explode and are apparently so organised that they repeat the same kill and fly patterns in every scene.   

An interview with the director, James Nguyen, really muddles things further as he refers to himself as a famous Hollywood star and as to his film as a successful romantic thriller. Is he that in the dark, is he sick in the head, or is he pulling our legs? I dunno man, this is a mystery I’m eager for someone to solve, but don’t count on me to waste any more energy with it.   

See for yourself, as some mad sadist will surely book a screening in a town near you.   

So see you next week!   

Annnnd I’m not even caught up with that. You want blood? don’t waste my time. You want guts? Go rent a Fulci flick. You want to get your mind so completely fucked that you’ll be crying on the bathroom floor, pissing yourself? You aroused yet? Then stay tuned my perverse pretties for another week of horror and terror, brought to you live from the FanTasia film festival, 2010.   

So long sunshine,   

I’m out!   

- Jo Satana

We got another review from a member of the staff from Nightmare Revue, Michael Mitchell.  This review is being republished by permission from Jeremy Webster and Nightmare Revue.  Again, mucho kudos.

By Michael Mitchell

To get it out of the way, EVE’S NECKLACE, by Daniel Erickson, features the use of department store mannequins in place of actual actors…

The story, such as it is, centers around the happily married – though underfinanced – William and Eva as they prepare for the joyful arrival of an addition to their family. Enter: Ramon, a dangerous, dangerous man intimately connected to Eva and her sordid (that is, pornographic!) past, a past that she has kept secret from her husband… until now. To make it worse, Ramon is a dangerous, dangerous man who is demanding money – money that Eva just doesn’t have – to remain silent.

Erickson has been quoted stating that the use of mannequins over live actors arose out of economic necessity, that the production simply couldn’t afford a human cast, and that, after he had decided to go with the dummies he determined he would make no alterations to the script whatsoever. Pity. Perhaps the production couldn’t afford not to alter the script a little, in light of the limitations and limitless potential of the new cast. The limitations being that they are mannequins. The limitless potential being what the use of mannequins or masks or puppets has done since the beginnings of drama the world over: the ability to reflect us to us, through an imitation of what we are, all the while allowing us to constantly recognize that what we are witnessing is total illusion. Which is not done much better than in the first 3 ½ minutes of the 2004 film “Strings.” (“Strings” is a mythic fantasy that uses marionettes, with the fact that they are marionettes incorporated into the movie’s fictional universe. That is, the characters know they are puppets.) In those first 3 ½ minutes, we get to see human puppeteers in the rafters above the sound stage manipulating the puppet’s strings, one of the puppets commit suicide by severing his head-string and see puppet statues with their strings hanging useless and unusable towards the ground. In short: a vision of a complete alternate world.) But there be no strings attached in EVE’S NECKLACE.

One rule of thumb when creating a fantastical tale (and I’m not saying that there isn’t a race of talking mannequins on our fine planet somewhere) is that the crazier your set-up is, the more exact with the parameters you need to be. So, if you make a movie about mannequins and some of them can move their fingers but others can’t, that might be a problem. And we end up asking ourselves questions like “How did he get his car keys out of his pocket anyway?” or “How does she even open a bag of chips?” instead of following the narrative. Likewise, if you have a mannequin kid in a playground, there needs to be a very good reason why a real dog runs by him — which is exactly what happens in EVE’S NECKLACE. And once the questions start, you end up asking each other things like: “Why are the people plastic but their pets and food and clothes aren’t?”; “Why do some have real hair and others plastic hair?”; “Why do mannequins cry but not blink?” Drinking games are built on less.

Again, what the use of mannequins offers is a chance to explore limits not possible with real people. (That love scene in “Team America: World Police” comes to mind…) But what I watched seemed to me like something that could safely air at 9:00pm on a Sunday on a major network in the conservative heartland of America. Erickson has the camera cut away from any graphic details during the sex scenes (need I remind you that this is a movie about a former porn actress!) yet will show a head cracked open and mannequin brains all over the parking lot. We watch Eva lather her mannequin breasts with soap suds in one shower scene, but we dare not linger over her mannequin vagina. Dear Lord, and what would the consequences of a naked Barbie doll left on the floor be? An NC-17 rating? Are there even Barbies in mannequin world? Are they considered eerily life-like? I now know what mannequin blood and tears look like, just not any of their other fluids. (The nameless protagonist has sex, complete with bodily fluids, with a life-sized, animate wooden doll in Jan Švankmajer’s 1994 Czech film “Faust”—a truly unsettling view of Western society if ever there was one.)

Erickson also notes that he made sure to use mannequins with neutral expressions, so that they could convey a range of different emotions. Really? Like Ben Affleck does with his one expression? (The ancient Greeks, eschewing concerns over things like emotions, wore expressionless masks on stage so that they would not get caught up in the petty humans performing on stage, but stay focused on the grand religious myths that were being enacted before them. This way, they felt they were able to more readily participate in the performance, understand it, and integrate any illuminations generated by it into their daily lives.) And maybe Erickson’s plan sounds sound in theory, but in practice it ended up simply confusing the story. No one at the screening I attended could tell what anyone—sorry, anyquin was “feeling”—“Is Eva sad? Happy? Where’s Ramon looking? Is he looking?” With total lack of expression, the only way to tell what a character is feeling is by way of the vocal delivery of the voice actor. Which, to work, requires the best possible acting talent one can assemble. Sadly, I can’t say that Erickson has done that. The performers are definitely game and seem to have given themselves to the project, but I didn’t get the impression all of them were the best choices possible. When the physical component to acting is added in, a weaker talent can add anything from a personal tic or flourish or nuance and forge a stunning career regardless of any deficiencies in skill; but when all you have to go by is the voice, weaknesses are usually more pronounced. Specifically when the weaknesses are script related. Which is part of the problem with EVE’S NECKLACE. It would take a lot of talent to rise above the dialogue and script given to them. (Any commentary on the acting excludes John Hawkes, whose vocal performance, even more remarkable considering most of his lines sounded like they were written by a teenager, proves once and for all that he can act his way out of a plastic mannequin.) The dialogue is on a level where I wasn’t sure if it was bad on purpose or not. When hoary cliches are piled on top of even more cliches, you wonder if they’re intentional or not. And if not, why didn’t a kind soul point them out earlier in the process?

Using expressionless mannequins as a default comment on the superficial and empty lifestyle of suburban America doesn’t seem like enough, not when you see how scarily funny and scathing using mannequins with perma-grins can be, as is done in “The Fuccon Family.” And if your story wasn’t a comment on a soulless suburban existence before you decided to use mannequins, it won’t be after you do. (For instance, 1979’s “Tourist Trap” would not have worked at all without the use of dummies, as what they stood for was the point of the film from conception. Which can be efficiently summed up in a line from the classic Pulp song, “Common People”: “Cause everybody hates a tourist, especially one who thinks it’s all such a laugh.”) If using mannequins doesn’t add anything to the story, then they probably shouldn’t be because once the novelty wears off all they will eventually end up doing is taking away from it. The story, always, is all. And with EVE’S NECKLACE, the narrative just isn’t up to the challenge. The “woman with a past” storyline may not be as tired as the “husband thinks his best friend and wife are having an affair but they’re really just organizing a surprise birthday party” storyline, but it’s a very, very close second. We’re talking hundreths of a second second. A two-man bobsled second.

If this movie is indeed a comment on the soullessness of the suburbs (not that that even exists anymore), then where’s the anger and the desperation that such ennui can breed? What would it have meant if Eva’s woefully undersexed—but still holding out hope that her hubby will reignite one day—neighbour, Janis, had willingly – and expressionlessly! – taken a killer like Ramon to bed? After she had seen him kill someone, no less? Now that might have been a comment on the suburbs that I could get behind. (Actually, to give him all credit due, the young mannequin punk who Ramon killed took his impending death with total equanimity. Steeled, he was. Or stoned. Or confused. Or something else.)

It’s actually more saddening than confusing to see Erickson show as much restraint as he does. EVE’S NECKLACE may work on more than one level, but I suspect the subtext isn’t what Erickson thinks it is. The movie itself is what seems to be as uninspired and soulless as what he purports to be commenting upon. The only thing that stands out is the ending. One year after the fateful encounter, William and Eva are once again shown in their peaceful home, with a hearty, healthy baby in tow . . . and a brand-new spotless white-picket fence outside. Apparently, they have come through their ordeal on the other side; stronger, wealthier, more connected. As a commentary on the soulless, empty suburbs, this movie might be wanting, but as a commentary on the soulless, empty movie business, we might be on to something. All you need do is get past the meddling issue of funding and you’ll be home safe. If only.

But who knows? Maybe Erickson is already plugging away at EVE’S NECKLACE Part II: The Search for Foreign Distribution.

We got another review from a member of the staff from Nightmare Revue, Michael Mitchell.  This review is being republished by permission from Jeremy Webster and Nightmare Revue. 

By Michael Mitchell

Like reading Jack Kerouac’s “On the Road,” or watching early silent films, the best part of experiencing some works is simply being able to say you saw/read them afterwards, because they don’t often offer much else that makes the endeavour an entirely worthwhile use of your time. They carry more social currency than they do artistic.

Such is the case with Djordje Kadijevic’s A HOLY PLACE or, rather, as it was titled in the version I saw, THE SACRED PLACE. (Now, it’s not uncommon for a film that whips around the globe to have a few different titles to it: “Haute Tension”/”Switchblade Romance”/”High Tension”; “Day of the Woman”/”I Spit on Your Grave”, etc., but when the title on the film differs from all the current promotional material associated with it, what kind of omen can it be?)

A HOLY PLACE is based on Nikolai Gogol’s short story, “The Viy,” and pretty much follows the story of a fledgling seminarian who is forced to pray over the course of three consecutive nights for the soul of a dead woman in her crypt beside her. Making the task somewhat more difficult for him is the fact that he — having met the woman earlier in her other incarnation as an overly amorous old hag (and who subsequently rode his shoulders over the entire countryside before he beat her to death) — recognizes her and is fully aware of the dead woman’s witchy leanings. Making the task somewhat more difficult for us is the fact that the movie is drastically underlit and that the subtitles are, at the best of times, almost adequate.

Not knowing any Serbian, I can’t say whether the subtitles were accurate translations of the text or not. What I am sure of is that sometimes they were rather wooden, sometimes they came late, sometimes not at all, and practically every time I heard someone calmly whisper a line I saw an exclamation point at the end of the supposedly corresponding subtitle. Watching the film, I was under the impression that they were done more as a labour of love or as a favour for the filmmaker, so I didn’t take their failings to task like I would a $200 million Hollywood summer blockbuster designed to cater to an international market; but if a work is going to be prepared for any international audience, I have to believe that more care could have been taken with something like the subtitles. If they’re too far off, they almost defeat their purpose by distracting us from the work more than they draw us in. And when the irregularities come at a fairly regular pace, one danger might be that they can become an attraction in and of themselves. A far from exhaustive list of said subtitles includes:

“Enybody home?”

“No devouring gere. The fire is out.”

“No, please . . . you’re mush too old.”

“Hallowed be Thu name.”

“The merciless fate took you.”

“He knew, as they say, every dog’s soul, like his own brother . . . such a dog-keeper to be proud of.”

“Off with you, damned no-goods!”

I don’t know how strict Serbian censors were in 1990, so I can’t comment on the choice of using no makeup or practically any effects at all, but I think it was about as successful as John Malcovich was when he decided on playing Mr. Hyde without any added makeup in “Mary Reilly.” And I can say that, by 1990 (for reference, Terminator 2 was released in 1991), the old “grabbing a very inanimate stuffed animal and shaking it around and pretending it is a live and evil cat/dog/rat was very done. We can suspend disbelief for a lot that happens in a supernatural movie, but stop shaking the stuffed animals already! Try shaking a real cat! They can take it! In a movie that suffered from the use of available light, this was the one scene that cried out for more darkness. The only thing missing from a scene like that is the life-sized dummy, complete with elbowless arms and kneeless legs that flop every which way, that was thrown off a cliff in all those black-and-white detective movies in the 1950s.

Social norms may also be the only way to explain a flashback “lesbian scene” between the (now dead) girl and one of her servants that featured not much more than the two women possibly kissing (the bed’s footboard blocked them). Interestingly however, the tameness of that scene, and the quick cut to the moment right after it, did re-prove that an audience doesn’t need to see any sexual acts played out before it to feel that serious sex has happened. For the less-than-explicit scene might just directly lead to the most revealing and resonant scene in the movie. (And, coincidentally, to the best subtitle and acting in the entire film.) Right after the women have presumably engaged in sapphic Slavic delights, the girl’s father encounters the servant-girl in the hallway. (The best acting in the film had come the very moment before when we see the servant-girl leave the room and adjust her gown with body language and a look on her face that reveals more about what happened than anything seen in any of the “Underworld” films.) We don’t need to have seen what happened in order to be filled with images, and understand his fury, when she tells the father that she simply “was serving the young lady” behind that closed door. Sometimes understatement is too loaded to bear.

Which leads me to my next quibble, if moral constraints are going to require you to substitute a genuine sex scene with one where a woman jumps up and down in the air onto a man’s pelvic area (not even the genitals themselves), you might want to stop and ask yourself if you’re even making the right movie.

And what of the man whom the penile-stomp had been perpetrated upon, you ask? He turns into a drooling idiot, which might, I suppose, be meant to signify lust enflamed and then denied; sort of like falling in love with the wrong hooker, I guess. (In another orange-tinted flashback we find him begging her for more of same.) But I could be reading into things a little too much—or not enough. He doesn’t seem to serve much narrative purpose other than to show us that the woman is capital B bad, yet it is he who, without any foreshadowing at all, comes back at the very end and commits a startlingly brutal act that, again guessing, is done part out of jealousy and part out of indignation. The whole story almost hinges on his act, yet we’re never really shown any sort of escalating duel between him and the priest. In the end, as he’s never shown as anything other than docile and harmless throughout the entire film, that one act stands out as possibly a little too incongruous. Shocking, yes. But not entirely supportable. Of course, we can surmise as to what his motives would be in the situation, but that’s not our job. If we’re going to tell ourselves most of a story, we may as well just stay home. Sticking with the male-bashing (literally, of course), on the third night the priest is praying over the dead woman we’re treated to a moment that appears to be influenced by the famous scene in John Badham’s “Dracula” (which may explain why A HOLY PLACE feels like it was made decades before 1990) where the dead and ghoulish Mina is encountered walking around in a tunnel by Van Helsing and Seward—and then we proceed to get right to the spectre stomping on the priest’s genitals (he seems fine the next morning).

To be fair, there are many interesting avenues that the film attempts to travel down. There’s incest; matricide; rural politics; power struggles between gentry and commoners, between clergy and laity, to name a few. But it feels as if none of it is fully realised or thought out. How else to explain the disparity between an oligarch’s iron-fisted control over an entire country-side and the image of him screaming like a little kid when he sees the, rather insipid, spectre of his dead wife down the hall? Especially since this is never elaborated—or even touched—upon again. But nothing seems less clear than the relationship between the old hag and the young femme fatale. In Gogol’s story, on the third night the priest dies in the chapel and the demons who had been tormenting him alongside the woman imprint themselves on the walls and windows, thereby sealing the evil within the confines of the church. In this version, the two companions who had been travelling with the unlucky priest in the beginning end up back at the hag’s house, and you can guess what happens to one of them. So, what gives? I guess it means that the priest’s efforts were in vain . . . but then, did she hope for release? If so, shouldn’t that have been shown?

For another, more fantastical take on “Viy”, you might want to try the 1967 Russian film, also called “Viy.” In that version we find an ethereally beautiful and wholly beguiling Natalya Varley who looks like the true femme fatale only hinted at in A HOLY PLACE. Although made 23 years before A HOLY PLACE, it sometimes feels like “Viy” were the one made later, and not the other way around.

It’s quite possible that making movies in Serbia (although the Serbian film “Underground” won the Palme d’OR at Cannes in 1995) in the late eighties/early nineties was as difficult as it was in Canada in the seventies, meaning that simply getting a movie made at all was an achievement. But everything else being equal, when HOLY ended I found myself wondering what it could have looked like if it had been placed in Guy Maddin’s hands. Perhaps more like . . . art(!).

Calling the west coast Destroy The Brain army!  Twisted Twins Productions (Jen & Sylvia Soska) will be screening their film Dead Hooker In A Trunk for one night only in the beautiful city of Vancouver where the film is set. Dead Hooker In A Trunk is quickly becoming one of the most anticipated independent films of the year. It was most recently screened at the Viscera Film Fest in Los Angeles (July 17th) which promotes female horror filmmakers and features films exclusively by female producers and/or directors.  Read on for the synopsis & details on the screening…

“Four friends set out on an everyday errand and end up in a fight for their lives when they discover the body of a dead hooker left in their trunk. Lead by a sexy, impulsive Badass, her distant Geek twin sister, their bible thumping, Jesus loving Goody Two Shoes friend, and a chaotic, rock star Junkie pal, the group has to put aside their differences to dispose of the body before they’re next.” – Twisted Twins Productions

Dead Hooker In A Trunk will screen at 9pm on August Friday the 13th at the Rio Theatre with special guests and most excitingly a sneak preview of what the Soska Sisters have coming up next! Tickets are available for $10 through the Twisted Twins (info@twistedtwinsproductions.com).

“Insanely entertaining punk rock gritty mayhem.” – Hannah Neurotica of Ax Wound Zine

DESTROY THE BRAIN’s LATE NITE GRINDHOUSE is proud to bring [REC]2 to The Hi-Pointe Theatre for a St. Louis Premiere! [REC]2 was released in theatres in the US on July 7th. However, as most St. Louis horror fans know, we never get any independent horror films until months later. Not any longer. This booking is very important as we need to show the studios that St. Louis is full of genre fans and that horror films need to make… …a stop here even though St. Louis isn’t a major market.

[REC]2 is showing July 30th & 31st at Hi-Pointe Theatre (1005 McCausland Ave).  Show starts at MIDNIGHT!

In the acclaimed 2007 Spanish horror film [REC], remade as Quarantine in the U.S., a television reporter and her cameraman, covering the night shift in one of Barcelona’s local fire stations for a documentary TV series, respond to an emergency in which an old woman is reported to be trapped in an apartment building. But the TV crew becomes trapped itself—along with fire fighters and police officers—when the police and military seal off the building due to a virulent disease that is infecting people, causing them to turn into bloodthirsty savages. In [REC] 2, only a few minutes have passed since the authorities lost contact with the people trapped inside the quarantined building. Nobody knows exactly what’s going on inside. Outside, chaos reigns. For the Special Operations Unit this is a seemingly straightforward mission—to enter the building and analyse the situation. But as we know, appearances can be deceiving… Directors Jaume Balagueró and Paco Plaza return to direct [REC] 2, exploring new ways to expand the horror genre. (Spanish language with English Subtitles)

RSVP on FACEBOOK for Friday Night’s Show here

RSVP on FACEBOOK for Saturday Night’s Show here

Hope to see everyone out for this one. Sorry for the short notice, we are already working on the August show.

CONTEST: Wanna attend for free???  DESTROY THE BRAIN is giving away a ADMIT TWO pass to either Friday or Saturday night’s show.  The Catch?  You must follow DTB on Twitter (@destroythebrain) and retweet the following:

St. Louis Premiere of [REC] 2 July 30 & 31 @ Midnight. Info – http://bit.ly/c7e6iE Follow @destroythebrain #lngh

The Contest will end on July 29th at 11:59pm CDT.

While there isn’t much at the box office driving horror fans to beat the heat in their local theaters this summer, there are plenty of killer reads to keep you entertained poolside, or if you’re like me, lakeside. My family has a long standing tradition of a week long camping trip every summer without fail. Everyone spends almost the entire week basking in the shade to catch up on their reading. Of course being the horror hound I always bring books of the macabre variety and this summer I am catching up on all the good reads I missed earlier in the year. One such book is Dweller by Jeff Strand. If it wasn’t for a fellow brother-in-horror, I would have missed Strand altogether, but luckily in the horror community there is a lot of love to share and no one wants to see their fellow fiends miss out on the good stuff. If you too missed Strand the first time around, never fear, there is no time like the present to get acquainted.

 Meet Dweller’s Toby Floren, a typical 8 year old boy seeking adventure and friendship. A social outcast, Toby seeks refuge in the forest and makes a gruesome discovery; a monster dwells in these woods! Forced to run from the beast for fear of being eaten, it isn’t until several years later that Toby reconnects with the monster from his past. But this time Toby doesn’t run away. This time Toby makes friends with the gnarly creature and names him Owen, the moniker of a lost childhood friend and Toby’s last chance for normalcy. Toby can finally have a confidant and perhaps a deadly ally against his enemies. What follows is the epic journey of boy and pet monster, part childhood fantasy, but always deadly serious.

 Toby struggles to balance individual conscience while maintaining allegiance to his friend. Owen is the only friend Toby has ever known, so when the opportunity for human friendship, and even romance, present itself Toby finds that he can’t have both and still remain loyal to his lifelong companion. Intimately twisted into the tangles of this relationship the final act honestly brought me to tears. Perhaps you won’t need to keep the tissue close at hand, but make no mistake Strand will challenge even the most emotionally frigid to warm up to these tragic characters along with enough blood-soaked pages to whet any gore-hound’s palate.

I encourage you to join the Strand army in the fight against sweltering summer heat and boredom and pick up Dweller which is available at any major bookstore. If you end up loving this novel as much as I did get the beautiful hardcover edition at Dark Regions Press (pictured above). Sign up for their newsletter and you can receive notification for fantastic discounts and deals for sci-fi, horror, and fantasy reads. Keep your eyes peeled for his next novel WOLF HUNT due out in December 2010. Visit Jeff Strand at www.jeffstrand.wordpress.com to get updates on his current projects, find out about previous releases and read his humorous blurbs.

Did you hear that?  Yes, it is the sound of the horror community rejoicing in the news that SAW 3D will be the final entry.  Read on for more details…

After seven films Jigsaw is finally hanging it up.  The seventh film will be the series swan song.  SAW 1-7 producer Oren Koules told USA Today that”It’s time to stop. We have told the story we wanted to tell, and this is going to be a great farewell.”  Tobin Bell and series producers are expected to make the announcement on Friday at Comic Con. 

SAW 3D will feature 11 booby traps, nearly double the average for previous films. The film was re-edited and submitted six times to the MPAA to bring it from an NC-17 to an R rating.

Most of you probably saw (pun intended) this coming due to the dissapointing performance of Saw VI. The arguement about the whether the series should end goes beyond beating a dead horse status but what do you guys think?  Can we even comprehend a halloween season without a new Saw release?  Will Paranormal Activity take the crown?

Source: USA Today – which also has some images from the new film.

Canadian Filmmaker Bruce LaBruce, who is probably best known by horror fans for his controversial zombie film OTTO;  Or Up With  Dead People, ( I personally could not get into it)  has had his latest film, “LA Zombie” banned from appearing at the Melbourne International Film Festival.  Australian sensors sacked the film due to  implied sex with corpses by an alien zombie.  Although many of LaBruce’s films feature hardcore pornography, the version of Zombie  featured at the festival was to be the softcore version.

The film will premiere at the Locarno International Film Festival on August 5th.

Hello again fiends!  This week in the Digital Media Dungeon we have maniacs, Corman classics and the scariest thing of all……MOTHER!  Click on the link after the break to add these films to your Netflix queue or make the bold move to purchase them through Amazon!

Just as a reminder, if you don’t have Netflix and have always thought about signing up, sign up through DTB by clicking on the FREE TRIAL to not only get a free trial, but to help out DTB as well.

All Descriptions of the DVD’s and Blu-Ray’s listed are provided by Amazon.com unless otherwise noted.

2001 Maniacs: Field of Screams

2010
starring: Bill Moseley, Kevin ‘Ogre’ Ogilvie
d. Tim Sullivan
Format: DVD (Unrated) | DVD (Rated)
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From director Tim Sullivan comes the eagerly anticipated second installment of the gore-soaked horror-comedy franchise, 2001 MANIACS: FIELD OF SCREAMS! The Southern residents of Pleasant Valley take their cannibalistic Guts N’ Glory Jamboree on the road to Iowa where they encounter spoiled Northern heiresses Rome and Tina Sheraton and the cast and crew of their ”Road Rascals” reality show. Performing ”The Bloodiest Show on Earth,” our Southern Maniacs prove to be more than ratings killers in what John Landis has called ”one of the rare sequels that surpasses the original.”

Being Human: Season 1

2008
starring: Russell Tovey, Lenora Crichlow
d. Various
Format: DVD | Blu-Ray
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Being Human is a witty and extraordinary look into the lives of three twenty-somethings and their secret double-lives – as a werewolf, a vampire and a ghost – as they struggle to live normally despite their strange and dark secrets. George (Russell Tovey) and Mitchell (Aidan Turner) work in anonymous drudgery as hospital porters in Bristol, England. They lead lives of quiet desperation under the burden of a terrible secret – Mitchell’s a vampire and George a werewolf. Deciding to start life afresh and leave behind the dark side, they move into a house, only to find that Annie (Lenora Crichlow), the ghost of a woman killed in mysterious circumstances, haunts it. As the threesome deal with the challenges of their new lives together, they’re united in their desire to blend in with their human neighbors. But with unwelcome intruders into their world, a threatened revolution from the vampire underworld, constant threats of exposure, and the day-to-day issues faced by young people – the only thing they may be able to rely on is each other.

The Bong Joon-ho Collection (The Host / Mother / Barking Dogs Never Bite)

Various Years
starring:Sung-jae Lee and others
d. Bong Joon-Ho
Format: DVD (ALL FILMS ARE AVAILABLE SEPERATELY.  Mother & Barking Dogs Never Bite are in this list as seperate entries)
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A Bong Joon-ho triple feature including Mother, The Host and Barking Dogs Never Bite.

MOTHER is a unique murder mystery about a mother’s primal love for her son.

THE HOST COLLECTOR’S EDITION is about a monster that the government claims to be a host of an unidentified virus.

BARKING DOGS NEVER BITE is about a man s reaction to a yapping dog and the extreme action he takes to deal with his tormentor, an action that will come to haunt him.

Forbidden World (Roger Corman’s Cult Classics)

1982
starring: Jesse Vint, Dawn Dunlap
d. Allan Holzman
Format: DVD | Blu-Ray
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On the planet Xarbia, an experimental life-form known as Subject 20 has been created by an elite group of scientists in hopes of preventing a major galactic food crisis. However, instead of prolonging life, Subject 20 is destroying it, and the man-eating organism poses a double threat because it constantly changes its genetic structure. Bounty hunter Mike Colby is called in to investigate but soon suspects that the scientists are keeping something from him, and he discovers why . . . Subject 20 is half-human

Bonus Features:
* New Anamorphic Widescreen (1.85:1) Transfer From The Interpositive Film Elements Of The Theatrical Cut
* The Unrated Directors Cut (4:3 – Full Frame)
* Audio Commentary With Director Allan Holzman On The Directors Cut
* Interview With Producer Roger Corman
* Interviews With Cast And Crew Including Director Allan Holzman, Composer Susan Justin And Actor Jesse Vint
* A Look At The Special Effects Of Forbidden World With John Carl Buechler, Robert Skotak, Tony Randel And R. Christopher Biggs
* Poster And Stills Gallery
* Theatrical Trailer

Galaxy Of Terror (Roger Corman’s Cult Classics)

1981
starring: Edward Albert, Ray Walston, Robert Englund, Erin Moran
d. Bruce D. Clark
Format: DVD | Blu-Ray
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The innermost fears of the mind become reality for the crew members of the Quest when they land on the barren planet Morganthus hoping to find the missing crew members of the starship Remus: only to discover something deadly waiting for them. Each member of the rescuing team must come face to face with their darkest fears or perish. The cast onboard the Quest includes Edward Albert (The House Where Evil Dwells), Erin Moran (Happy Days), Ray Walston (My Favorite Martian), Robert Englund (A Nightmare On Elm Street series), Zalman King (Blue Sunshine) and Sid Haig (House Of 1,000 Corpses).

The film also had its share of new and emerging talent behind the camera, including James Cameron (The Terminator, Aliens, Avatar), who did the production design, and Bill Paxton, who worked as a set decorator before later collaborating with Cameron in front of the camera as an actor.

Bonus Features:
* Commentary With Cast And Crew
* New Worlds: Producer Roger Corman, screenwriter Marc Siegler and director Bruce D. Clark discuss the origins of the film
* The Crew Of The Quest: Actors Robert Englund, Sid Haig, Taaffe O Connell and Grace Zabriskie discuss their experiences as crew members of the Quest
* Planet Of Horrors: A detailed look into the creation of the memorable sets of the film and alien landscapes
* Future King: Memories of co-production designer (and future visionary filmmaker) James Cameron from members of the cast and crew
* Old School: A journey into the complicated mechanical and makeup effects with artists Allan A. Apone, Douglas J. White, Alec Gillis and others
* Launch Sequence: Co-editor R.J. Kizer walks us through postproduction and a profile on composer Barry Schrader
* Theatrical Trailers
* Extensive Photo Galleries Including Posters, Production Sketches And Designs
* Theatrical Trailer With Commentary From Writer/Director Joel Olsen, Courtesy Of Trailersfromhell.com
* Original Screenplay (PDF)
* And More . . .

Mother

2009
starring: Hye-ja Kim , Bin Won
d. Bong Joon-Ho
Format: DVD | Blu-Ray
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Just as South Korean director Bong Joon-ho’s previous film, The Host, subverted the traditions of the giant monster movie to examine the effects of a crisis on a unique family, his latest effort, Mother, embraces the tropes of the murder mystery for an unsettling and affecting story of parental love taken to its extreme. Popular South Korean television actress Kim Hye-ja gives a powerful performance as a downtrodden acupuncturist whose mentally challenged son (Korean A-lister Won Bin) is accused of murdering a local schoolgirl. Bullied into a confession by the local police (led by Yoon Je-moon of The Host), the young man faces incarceration at a mental hospital unless his mother can discover the killer’s true identity. Her inquiry leads her into classic noir territory, with perceived truths blown apart at every turn; in typical Joon-ho fashion, these discoveries are marked by moments of shocking violence, dark slapstick humor, and moving familial drama, which come together in a genuinely unique perspective on the nature of truth and commitment. The official South Korean submission for Best Foreign Language Film at the 82nd Academy Awards, Mother is yet another entry on a growing list of exceptional motion pictures from one of the international scene’s most intriguing filmmakers. –Paul Gaita

Sutures

2010
starring: Andrew Prine, Jason London, Carlos Lauchu, Allison Lange, Kate French
d. Tammi Sutton
Format: DVD
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A group of longtime friends converge on a fatal course with destiny when they cross paths with Alexander Tatum, a mercenary surgeon. He is a hunter with the keen skill of one who has also been hunted. Prey turned predator. The victims quickly realize that Alexander is just the beginning of their problems, as they find themselves enmeshed in a fight for survival against a sociopath business man and his demonic staff, who will stop at nothing to prevail in the sale of Black Market Body Parts.

I am proud to present the first game review on DESTROY THE BRAIN! When I saw the preview/trailer for the game LIMBO, I knew that we had to cover it.
It is a stylish game and even though there is no red, or color for that matter, in the game…it can be considered gory enough for you horror fiends to love the hell out of it. Read on for the review…

I’m not a huge gamer. I own a XBOX 360, but I mainly use it to watch Netflix and play multi-player sessions on the small catalog I do own. However, I am a huge fan of PORTAL and other puzzle games. I can play these games in short spurts and not really have to worry about missing a piece of the story if I have long periods of time between playing.

When I initially saw the graphics and the monochromatic look of LIMBO, I was intrigued.  Then, MajorNelson (Larry Hyrb) had a piece on XBOX’s Summer of Arcade and it showed game play from LIMBO.  I was super interested, to the point that I knew I had to get it. I was able to pull some strings and the lovely folks at PlayDead provided me an advance review copy.  While it took me about 3 days (1 hour max) to play the game, I had a huge blast.  One may say that a lot of the Arcade games you buy through the XBOX Game Marketplace are not worth the price for the time you spend playing the game.  To that, I would say that with LIMBO, my friends and I had more fun playing the game than we did with some other games that cost four times that amount.

While LIMBO is a $15 game, don’t write it off as a cakewalk.  You will need to use your brain to it’s full capacity.   You need precise timing to avoid things like beartraps that will decapitate you, giant arachnids that have no problem sticking their dagger-like legs through your body and saws that will….saw you in little pieces.  LIMBO’s environment is unapologetic.

I had a couple of friends over one night and they all got hooked.  One mentioned the game BRAID, which was a game I wasn’t too familiar with.  However, in that mention, they said that LIMBO is waaaaay better than BRAID.  Therefore, I need not to seek after that game.

I’m in love with everything about this game.   The sound and music design is ominous yet has definition.  One puzzle was so frustrating for me, that I had to come back the next day to try it again.  Sure enough, the music was stressful as well.  Everything in the game LIMBO deals with environment and how everything adapts to what you are going through. The only gripe I had with LIMBO was that I didn’t know there was an actual story to the game.  The game doesn’t include it in a prologue or anything, so I found out after I finished the game that it is basically about a boy that is trying to find his sister in this very bleak and, at times, sadistic world.  Knowing that now, makes the ending more poetic – even though at the time when I finished it, I fell in love on how the ending played out and, I have to say, it struck a chord with me.  I was genuinely touched.  For a game to do that, it means something.  I just wish it was longer.  However, I can’t wait to go back and play through it again.

I highly recommend that you buy this game for 1200 MS Points ($15) when it comes out tomorrow, July 21st.  It is well worth the money and definitely a game to show off to your friends.

For more information, visit the LIMBO Game Site at http://www.limbogame.org/.

Listen, before you get your panties in a twist and cry foul because I’m reviewing a non-horror film, let it be known that DESTROY THE BRAIN covers all films of the fantastique (see what I did there?  I’m fancy).  It is also my belief that the majority of horror fans don’t just watch horror films, sometimes like to venture out.  I also think that most of the people who come to DESTROY THE BRAIN do want to see INCEPTION.  So, if you want to know more about the flick, read on…

Christopher Nolan caught my attention plus the attention of many with his film Memento. Ever since that film, I have liked and purchased all of his films on DVD.  When I heard that he had been working on Inception for a decade, I figured this would be his most personal film.  I have seen this before with careers.  Directors/writers will have a commercial success and then their next project will be something personal or be the film they really wanted to make.  Most of the time, that film…the one they really wanted to make, fails.

Christopher Nolan weaves a story that demands your attention.  Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio) is a dream extractor.  He basically will go into a dream and try to extract your deepest secrets to use for financial or corporate gain.  When contacted by a corporate giant named Saito (Ken Watanabe) to try to plant an idea in a competor’s brain so that person would sabotage their company and Saito can dominate it.

Honestly, to tell you more about the film will ruin it.  So, I’m going to try my best to not do that.  This review is purposely vague as I want everyone to experience this film with a blank slate.  If you saw the teaser, trailer, or even some of the TV Spots, that is fine.  But please, don’t read too many reviews.

I saw this Tuesday night and I’m still processing it.  Remember the advertising campaign for Memento?  I believe the quote was “SEE IT TWICE”.  A lot of Nolan’s films build and solidify during their second viewing.  Yes, you get the basic idea of if you liked the film or not the first go around, but sometimes you might want some questions answered.  With Memento, you wanted to watch it again to see if the filmmaker missed anything only to find out that he meticulously put visual hints throughout the film.  Nolan was always a step ahead of the viewer.  Not just because he made the film and knows it beginning to end but he knows the people who will go back and view the film to nitpick and try to find a flaw.

Based off of the teaser trailer and the recent trailers, I kept hearing from the general public that this was going to be like The Matrix.  It’s not.  It’s better.  Even though I don’t think they should be lumped in the same sentence, for those of you who do, here is a comparison.  The Matrix is a McDonald’s Happy Meal purchased for an adult.  The toy is cool, but the overall feeling afterwards makes you want more, like you were not fed enough.  Inception is that steak dinner that you salivate for and pat your belly afterwards.

The cinematography by Wally Pfister is magnificent.  The cast is great, even Ellen Page does a decent job.  Everyone plays it straight and is restrained.  Tom Hardy’s Eames is humorous but doesn’t steal the show, which was something I worried about after seeing the trailer.

Let it be known that giving the rating that I’m about to give made me sit down and think hours and hours on how to knock it down a bit more, but I simply can’t.

Inception is amazing.
Inception is a must see.

It is the best film of the year so far and I just don’t think another film will come around like this one in a long time, especially this year.

I will be in the theater as soon as possible to see it again.  Believe the hype.

Depp and Burton.  Ham and Cheese.  Some things just go together.  A few years back, Tim Burton announced that Johnny Depp would be joining him in his adaptation of the TV series DARK SHADOWS.  While months laid quiet, now some news has sprung about.

According to Variety, Warner Bros. has signed on Seth Grahame-Smith to write the script for the adaptation.  Name sound familiar?

Seth Grahame-Smith wrote the history-horror hybrid book Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter. Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter details Lincoln’s secret battle with the undead, hit shelves in March and portrays the 16th president as a highly trained vampire assassin. Scribe also wrote the book “Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.”, which is also being adapted to film.

Depp obtained feature rights to “Dark Shadows” from the estate of Dan Curtis, the producer-director who created the vampire soap opera that aired weekdays on ABC from 1966 to 1971 with 1,225 episodes.

Studio hasn’t set a release date for the bigscreen project, but it was included in a deal, announced in late April, between Imax and WB to release up to 20 WB films in Imax format through 2013.

I grew up renting out VHS’s from his local video store’s horror section around the age of 10. Most of the time I would rent 6 VHS tapes each Saturday night specifically out of the horror section. So, I have seen a lot of horror. While the beginning of this video renting period, the first movies I rented were the classics. Then, I moved on to the eye catching covers. Then, it was the awesomely named titles and films that had ultra cool tag lines.

I’ve always been a slasher/supernatural guy myself. Monsters are always tons of fun, but to me, if it ain’t a Krite – monsters from the film CRITTERS – it didn’t scare me. Something about those teeth always got to me. I remember passing by TROLL as a kid with some trepidation. It wasn’t because I was scared to rent it, it was because it looked silly and childish. It just looked like a kids movie. As a pre-teen looking to progress in his horror film history, I didn’t want to take a step backwards.I actually didn’t end up seeing TROLL until I was 19 years old. At that point of time, I had seen a lot of horror flicks. A lot of those films were bad, cheesy horror films. Some had their novelties, but most of them didn’t fulfill the promises they made on the cover.

As a video renting rule, I usually didn’t see any sequels if they were based on a movie I didn’t like. Therefore, I didn’t give TROLL 2 a chance. While the tagline “THE ORIGINAL BOOGEYMAN IS BACK” and it’s green misty cover tempted me, the fact that there was what looked to be a treasure troll, which were popular at the time the movie came out, and a shadowy monster figure that always reminded me of Gossamer from Bugs Bunny with an axe, horns and glowing eyes…well, that description should tell you why I didn’t pick this one up immediately.

When I heard about BEST WORST MOVIE a couple of years back and knowing it was based on TROLL 2, I decided it was time to go and rent the damn flick. At the stage of my life now, and not the pessimistic teenager I was in the past, I know when a flick is bad, but entertaining. In fact, there are few bad films, in the true sense of the word. A bad film to me is one that has no value whatsoever. It was so bad, that I wanted to either:

A) Slice my damn wrists open.
B) Destroy the DVD or VHS copy so this evil entity cannot tarnish another person’s time.
C) Systematically hunt the filmmakers down and question them endlessly on why they made the film.

I digress. BEST WORST MOVIE is a documentary that is made by the child star of TROLL 2, Michael Paul Stephenson. It follows George Hardy, who played the father of Michael Paul Stephenson’s character Joshua, as he encounters friends, family and total strangers via phone calls, emails or Myspace messages that know about his only film role in TROLL 2. Since he saw the film on VHS, which seems to be how all the crew saw it – not even knowing that the film was out – he just wanted to forget about it. He knew it was a bad film and that there was no benefit to it at all for him. However, as time progresses and more people contact him, he learns of the cult following of TROLL 2. Other cast members chime in about the film and how TROLL 2 has been a black mark on their acting resumes. Most of the cast has moved away from acting. Hardy was practicing dentistry when he starred in TROLL 2 (What is the damn tie-in with dentists & bad movies by the way??), so his life wasn’t as affected by it – with the exception of friends calling him to say they had seen him on HBO late at night.

We mainly follow Hardy as he is flown out to late night screenings across the US celebrating the bad movie known as TROLL 2. It starts to become a fun thing for Hardy. Soon, after getting some recognition, you can see it start to plant a seed in his brain that maybe he should get into acting again.

Hardy is a very charasmatic guy. He is funny, cheerful, and talks with a fun loving Alabama accent. He is looked highly up to by his town for the charity work he has been involved in and just his personality. Honestly, while watching the film, he will put a smile on your face – he is that damn charming.

After following Hardy and the sold out midnight shows, we travel back to Utah where the film was made and meet the man who played a crazy storekeeper and realize that he really wasn’t acting much at all. We also meet the mother character of the film and realize that she isn’t all mentally there as well. These are interesting follow-ups to these people because TROLL 2 didn’t have professional actors. They casted local people.

One of the most unusual characters of BEST WORST MOVIE is the director, Claudio Fragasso. Fragasso genuinely thinks he made a good movie about family and the struggles they go through. If you don’t know the plot of TROLL 2, it sums up like this:

Joshua and his family go on a road trip to the town of NILBOG which is inhabited by goblins (not Trolls. Yeah, that’s in the documentary) who turn humans into vegetables to eat them. With the help of his dead (!) grandpa via apparitions, Joshua does everything he can to save his family from this veggie-cum-carnivore carnage.

Yeah…..

For the most part the documentary is a lot of fun. You will laugh frequently, even if you haven’t seen TROLL 2 (which can be rectified at the bottom of this post). There are also some cringe worthy scenes with the cast and even Hardy himself. Stephenson may not be a great actor, but he spins a cohesive tale about the cult following of TROLL 2 which can also doubles as a tale on how some films gather a cult following.

St. Louis, TROLL 2 is showing at the Tivoli Theater at midnight on July 16th & 17th and BEST WORST MOVIE is also playing at the Tivoli for one week only starting today!

For those of you that can’t make the TROLL 2 screening this weekend, you can view it via Hulu.com for free. I have embeded it below…enjoy.

There were rumors the past couple of weeks, but I like to wait until there is more solid proof or confirmation before I post it.

Blu-Ray.com reports that GRINDHOUSE Special Edition will be out on Blu-Ray on October 5, 2010.

Read on for more details…

From their site:

An early announcement to retailers indicates that, confirming earlier rumors, Vivendi Visual Entertainment is set to release the Weinstein Company production Grindhouse on a Special Edition Blu-ray on October 5 (perfect for a Halloween viewing party with friends). No release details are available at this moment, other than it will be a two-disc edition and that list price has been set at a very affordable $19.97

I still don’t own a Blu-Ray player, but I can see me getting one very shortly.  I do know that October would be a very expensive month between this, House, and the Alien Anthology.

While the press release states $19.97, Amazon.com has a pre-order price of $13.99.  Hop on that now by clicking below.

Grindhouse (Special Edition) [Blu-ray] (Blu-ray) Director: Quentin Tarantino;Robert Rodriguez Starring: Rose McGowan, Bruce Willis, Freddy Rodriguez, Kurt Russell, Rosario Dawson Rating: R (Restricted) List Price: $39.95 USD New From: $24.99 In Stock This title will be released on October 5, 2010.