The Hills Run Red with the blood from upcoming horror DVD releases.

We're not making a good case for our genre out there, as horror and sci-fi got knocked around AGAIN at the box office this last weekend. There were two major films out, "Surrogates" and "Pandorum", and both were relative disappointments. However, I loosely refer to them as 'major' films. "Surrogates" was more sci-fi and looked somewhat reminiscent of the Michael Bay stinker, "The Island". "Pandorum", on the other hand, looked more like something that should go straight to DVD. "Surrogates" had a decent marketing push behind it, but I didn't see much for "Pandorum", which usually means the studio didn't have much faith in it, anyhow. I expect to be reviewing them for their DVD releases soon enough...

Regardless, it's a monster week in DVD releases and I'll only go in to detail on a few of them. You can check out all the horror that's out by clicking here and thumbing through the entire list on Amazon, but really... I cover off the good stuff and that's all you need to know. You don't need to flip through rereleases and double packs, do you? I'll discuss anything of note and, of course, you can click on the titles to go to their page on Amazon, where you can buy it and/or read more about it. We'll also post most of the trailers over on our Youtube page, which can be found here.

"The Hills Run Red" is not a remake of the 1967 film that's considered to be one of the earliest spaghetti westerns. It's actually a fairly decent looking horror film from Warner Home Video that stars William Sadler. It's definitely theatrical quality and it looks quite gory, although the 'searching for lost footage of an old horror film' storyline seems a bit tired. If slick looking films are your thing, this is going to be your pick of the week. Let's just hope it's not in the theaters because it's too gory.

I had no idea that Adam Sandler was in to horror. You've probably heard of his label Happy Madison (mix of Happy Gilmour and Billy Madison, obviously), which has produced numerous films, including: "You Don't Mess With The Zohan", "I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry" and anything else he's involved in... However, it looks like he just set up a sub-label called Scary Madison and their first horror film is "Shortcut", which is about a creepy old guy who lives at the end of a shortcut that no one's supposed to ever take...

"Bloodwine" is a low-budget indie from writer/director Patrick Keith and the trailer's intriguing, but doesn't reveal much. It's released from R Squared and, after reading about it, is apparently a vampire flick. Trailer doesn't really mention that, though. Although, now, in hindsight... I can see that. Okay, okay, I get it now.

"Flesh, TX" is another low-budget indie, this one from Guy Crawford. It stars the legendary Joe Estevez, which pretty much makes it a must see for indie horror fans or Dead Harvey readers. It looks to be taking a page from the "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" playbook, but let's hope they take it to a new level.

"Farmhouse" is written by Daniel P. Coughlin, directed by George Bessudo and stars "Wings" veteran Steven Weber, who's really turned into somewhat of a psychopath, as far as the roles he's been playing lately. The film's got some budget behind it and it looks pretty, pretty good... I checked out the trailer and, at first, it looked like this was going to be your classic 'oops, my car broke down right in front of a psycho's farm house', but... as the trailer progressed, it looked like there may be something more to this. My interest is definitely piqued.

"Fermat's Room" is a Spanish thriller from Luis Piedrahita and Rodrigo Sopena and it has a really interesting angle. It looks kinda like "Pi" meets "Saw" or something... there's four mathematicians locked in a room and they must solve puzzles in order to escape the slowly closing walls of the room. I'm not sure how much can be done with that plot, but I'm interested to see. Trailer's good, anyhow.

"The Horror Vault, Vols. 1 & 2" are two anthologies of short horror stories and they're quite well received. We've talked with one of the guys behind them, Kim Sonderholm, and we know that they're as indie as it gets. Definitely one for the Dead Harvey crowd.

I do love my gore, but I'm also a fan of fucked up psychological thrillers. You know, stuff like the afore mentioned "Pi", "Eden's Log", "Momento", things like that... That's why the indie, "In a Spiral State", looks particularly interesting to me. I have no idea of what it's about, really, but go check out the trailer and you'll see what I mean. A different consciousness? Hmmm...

At first, the decently budgeted "Haunting of Winchester House" looked shockingly tame and overdone. The title is even more overdone. Let me just go to the horror section and look under 'H', now... which "Haunting of..." film will I be checking out? However, watch the trailer, it picks up at the end with a few cool looking demons and ghosts.

I love my Asian horror, gore films. I really do. Every once in a while, I stock up on them and some booze, then go through them on a drunken mission. Well, they come fast and furious this week. First up, if you want to see Korea's hottest young stars, then "Nightmare" is for you! "Fallen Angels" doesn't really say shit in the trailers, but it looks like a bloody, violent John Woo-esque gangster flick. Then, there's "Screwed", "Blind Beast vs. Killer Dwarf" and "Tokyo Psycho" and I can't differentiate them because I found a trailer that just shows fucked up clips from all of them, mashes them together, then mentions all the titles. Either way, read up on their Amazon pages for something more detailed. Otherwise, just get all of them, a case of beer and call it a night.