There's only 6 horror films coming out this week, but it's not about quantity. This week it's about quality... and by that, I mean quality puppets. Absolutely loving the whole "Puppet Master" series, "Child's Play" and even "Dollman", there's always been a soft spot in my heart for killer puppets. This week, there's two killer puppet films out... and that alone makes this a good week for horror.From the genius mind behind the "Leprechaun" series, comes "Triloquist
"... about a killer ventriliquist doll... I think, anyhow. The original poster is a big puppet holding a bloody knife, so they certainly insinuate that it's about a killer puppet. Regardless, the plot is about a down and out ventriloquist with a creepy looking dummy (see poster), who kills herself via drug overdose as her two young children watch. It was written and directed by Mark Jones, who wrote all the "Leprechaun" movies, as well as directed "Rumpelstiltskin". It's distributed through Dimension Extreme... and, although the plot description doesn't mention killer puppets, it must have killer puppets. "Puppet Show"
comes from Monsters of Extinction, which I think is a props, make up and special effects house. It's only 65 minutes long and I can't find out that much about it, but... it's got nudity, gore, creative kills and a live action puppet. So, I'm positive that there's a killer puppet in this one. Further, check out the plot: "Ringmaster Rick rose to success with his children s show, Circus Town, by making a deal with a demon to bring his marionette, Charlie Chowderhead, to life! As tends to happen when people make a deal with an evil specter, Rick mysteriously turns up dead. The doll gets passed down to his granddaughter, Casey, who has no idea the doll is alive, let alone a killer." Killer puppet! Sold!I don't usually cover collections, as they're usually rereleases or just an attempt to clear out some old DVD's from the warehouse, but I'm going to mention "The Zombie Apocalypse Collection
" because it features "Scream Farm", which comes from friend of Dead Harvey, Jim O'Rear. Here's a link to a post we did on "Scream Farm" a few months ago... the other films in the set are "In The Event of a Zombie Attack", "Ghouls Gone Wild", "White Zombie" and "Brains w/ The Living Dead Girlz". To be honest, I haven't heard of those other films, so they may be previously unreleased. Either way, with over 4hrs of the undead in this collection, you can't go wrong."Dead and Gone
" comes from first time director Yossi Sasson and it was written by Harry Shannon, who's a first time writer. It comes from Lionsgate and it's got Kyle Gass from Tenacious D, Zack Ward from Titus (who seems to be popping up in a lot of low-budget horrors lately), Chris Bruno from Dead Zone and scream queen Felissa Rose in it. The plot summary is a little long winded, so I'll try to summarize it... Guy takes comatose wife to a cabin where a man murdered his whole family, the guy turns into a bit of a freak and he starts to imagine that his wife is up and moving around, as well as being rude and taunting him, so he decides to kill her... and then, she won't die."Summer of the Massacre
" is a British film from first time director Bryn Hammond, who also produced and wrote the script. It looks as though it was based on a novel, even though it's supposedly based on true events. So...? Is it real or not? It's about four teenagers who take a shortcut across the countryside on their way home from college. They arrive in an obscure town named Blackwood where they are terrorized by notorious serial killer, Hammerhead, who hunts humans and devours flesh... his favored tool of death is, of course, a large hammer."Unborn Sins
" comes from Grey Ghost Film and was previously released with the "Tomb of Terrors" 50-Pack of films. It was written, directed and produced by Elliott Eddie... and I have to say, the plot seems very "Basket Case"-esque, which is awesome, of course. It's about a soon-to-not-be-pregnant woman who becomes the target of an assassin more terrifying than she could ever imagine... the very child she aborts! A demonic spell gives flesh and blood to a twisted, murderous version on the child she once carried. Basket not included...
We've received a pile of horror shorts for review lately (which we love, thanks!) and the bulk of them are absolutely amazing. As the industry progresses, I think we're going to see a bigger demand for short films in the near future, as there's a lot they have going for them. First off, from the filmmaker's perspective, shorts take less time to make, they're easier to put together and they're also easier to get into festivals and, therefore, win awards and build up your resume. Now, from the viewers perspective, our rotted MTV/Youtube minds can only process so much and we all have A.D.D. So, the short film is easily consumed and doesn't waste much of that valuable time. Further to all that, there are more and more ways to distribute your short film now, especially if all you're looking for is an audience and some recognition. So, if I've convinced you to go out and make a horror short and you want to know what to do now, let's take a look at what Alex Masterson did with "Mr. Video".
", which does not star Gary Busey and was not directed by Charles Band. However, it's got a great title... and hilarious cover art. "Crust" is directed by Silvia St. Croix, who has no other credits to her name and it stars Michelle Bauer, a former porn star and bondage model. So, I'm expecting good things. Anyhow, "Gingerdead Man 2: The Passion of the Crust" is about a "horrifying yet delicious and chewy Gingerdead Man" that goes nuts on the set of a low-budget movie set.
", which was originally called "Zibahkhana", is Pakistan's first ever horror film and, apparently, it's not that bad. In fact, it won best gore at the Austin Fantastic Fest and it's getting decent reviews. It's about a group of teens whose van runs out of gas... then zombies and a "decapitated head-toting screaming banshee-like hitch-hiker" begin to terrorize them... and you'd think that would be enough, but no... there also a "mysterious figure dressed in a blood-drenched burqa, sporting a medieval weapon dripping in gore". Right now, I'm stamping this a 'must see'.
" stars softcore porn star Misty Mundae, who you may remember from "Lord of the G-Strings" and "Play-Mate of the Apes" and it was directed by notorious low-budget horror filmmaker William (Bill) Hellfire, director of such classics as "Bikini Girls on Dinosaur Planet" and "Duck! The Carbine High Massacre"... Mundae and Hellfire are no strangers and have worked on many a project together. "Erotic Werewolf" is about a female werewolf whose metamorphosis into sexual predator is triggered by arousal and, ultimately, orgasm.
" comes from Don Henry and stars an 'international cast', including Swedish cover-model and Playboy Cyber-girl Annika Svedman, #1 chart-topping Spanish pop star Naim Thomas and Albanian action phenom Mike Dusi... all of whom I've never heard of before typing their names in this post. It's about a hapless treasure hunter who digs up more then he expects.
" comes out of New Zealand from Director Peter Burger, whose directed mostly TV prior to this and it stars Jason Behr, who you would know from "Roswell", "Dragon Wars" and lots of other low-budget horrors. It's about "a tattooist (who) unwittingly unleashes a forcible deadly spirit through an ancient Samoan tattoo tool. Now marked for death he will need to uncover the source of the evil in order to save his new love and recover his own soul."
", which was orginally called "Gabal" and came out of Korea, I believe... has some damn wicked cover art. It's from director Shin-yeon Won and it's about a cursed wig.
" is directed by Rich Ambler, it's being released by Lionsgate and the title's a bit misleading. Actually, it's not misleading at all. It's based on the true story of Dahmer, the events within the family behind and leading up to his capture.
" comes from Troma... it's about Joe and his talking axe, who go after the devil and a bunch of demons. It's from Stuart Simpson, who wrote, produced, shot, directed and edited it.
" is the third installment of the original series from the Pang Brothers.
" won best impact of music in a feature film from the Park City Film Music Festival, for what that's worth... and it was written and directed by Benjamin Williams and it's about J-ok'el, the weeping woman who drowned her own babies centuries ago... her spirit's returned to claim more children.
" is another film from Bill Zebub, who sames to make a film every 2 months... he's the guy who brought you such films as "The Worst Horror Movie Ever Made: The Re-Make" and "Assmonster".
" is being released by Lionsgate and it was written, produced, directed, shot and edited by Stephen Goetsch. Looking through Goetsch's credits, it looks like he's spent the bulk of his career as an editor, although he did make "Bleeding Iowa" back in 1999. I haven't seen the movie and I'm having a hell of time finding out any information about it other than that it's about a girl who gets trapped inside a violent killer's mobile torture chamber - a yellow bus - and she becomes the sole pupil in his twisted special needs class. Actually, sounds pretty good...
" is actually "While the Children Sleep", which is from Russell Mulcahy, who isn't really a household name, even though I think he should be. For me, the highlight of his filmography has to be "Highlander", it's a classic... no question. He also went on to do "Highlander II: The Quickening", "Resident Evil: Extinction" and a few other films of note. However, that's not the most interesting thing on his resume. He's made tons of music videos and what was his first? The Buggles - "Video Killed the Radio Star", which also happens to be the first music video that MTV ever aired. Crazy, huh? I thought it was. Oh, by the way, "The Sitter" is about a nanny that goes a little bonkers... you know, by killing people.
". Is "The Dead Pit" a classic? I don't know, I remember absolutely loving it... almost 15 years ago. To be honest, it's one of those films that I saw, once, forever ago and I can't recall much about it, except for the basic plot of the earthquake that releases the undead, who were buried in the basement of an insane asylum. It was originally released in 1989 and it was co-written and directed by Brett Leonard, who also made "The Lawnmower Man", "Virtuosity" and, more recently, "Man-Thing" and "Feed". It was the first film that he wrote and directed and because I've been looking into it, I'm going to make a point of going back and watching it again.
", but I do know that Tokyo Shock came out with "Machine Girl" and it's f'ing awesome. Actually, they usually come out with quite violent films... aside from "Machine Girl", they also released a personal favorite, "Ichi the Killer" from Takashi Miike.
" comes with "Zombie Cop" in it, cool... never heard of the other films included. Also, if you click on it, I love how the title says 5-pack, but when you get down to the product description it's called a 4-disc set with a bonus feature. Really? Wow, I wasn't going to pick it up, but since there's a bonus feature...
, you can go to The Chair's website 
" isn't just one of the best indie-horror's of the year, it's also one of the years biggest indie-horror success stories. Either way you cut it, it's an f'ing good movie, but when you realize that its budget was only $50,000, you'll think it's downright awesome. It was made by three coloborating directors; David Bruckner (this is, pretty much, his directorial debut), Dan Bush (this is definitely his feature length directorial debut and he's now working on the upcoming "FightFuckPray") and Jacob Gentry (whose only other feature length directorial effort is "Last Goodbye"). The film is broken up into three parts, or three transmissions, where a strange signal being transmitted turns people crazy... and they go violent crazy. The three parts are distinctly different, the first part being almost a thriller, the second one is more horror-comedy and the last revolving around a love story. No question, it's a must see.
" comes from Tony Krantz and is the fourth 'Raw Feed' film from Warner Home Video. Now, check this out... Tony Krantz was the head of television packaging at CAA for 15 years and has been nominated for 4 primetime emmys, winning once and is credited as being the executive producer on such big-time tv shows as: 24, Felicity and The PJ's. Then, seemingly out of nowhere, he up and directed the first film for 'Raw Feed', called "Sublime" and now he's come out with "Otis". He's currently working on various projects, including a sequel to "Rest Stop", "Rest Stop: Don't Look Back" and something called "Inhuman". The guy must really dig horror... It may be his pull from working at CAA, but for a direct-to-DVD film, "Otis" has a lot of decent actors, including: Daniel Stern, Kevin Pollak and Jere Burns, among others. It's about a a guy who captures women, locks them up, calls them all "Kim", then when they don't put out on 'prom night'... he does some bad shit.
", which has received very mixed reviews, also comes out tomorrow. By that, I mean just that. Todd Gilchrist called it "unrelenting and brilliant" and Joshua Rothkopf called it "a sour project that defines anti-imaginative". By no means is it an indie film, either... it had a budget of $15Million and it feels like it could've been made for a whole lot less. Distributed by Warner Independent, it premiered at the London Film Festival, while it's US premiere was at Sundance and it finally hit the theaters on March 14th, 2008. ...and get this, it's actually a remake by the exact same writer and director of the first one, which came out in 1997 AND it's a shot-for-shot remake. I don't really know what to say about that...
", but was originally called "Living Hell" when it first aired. It was directed by Richard Jefferies, who's made a bit of a career as a writer, having penned "Cold Creek Manor" and "Man of the House", among others. However, he's only directed one other feature and that's "Blood Tide", which came out in 1982. So, it's been a while since he's helmed anything. "Organizm" is about a mild-mannered teacher and a hazmat specialist who have to figure out how to stop an unstoppable creature, a secret Cold War military project who feeds on light and energy and moves with exponential speed, before it destroys everything in its path. "Salvation" comes from J.A. Steel, who wrote it, directed it, acted in it, produced it, edited it, did stunts in it and was also the sword choreographer. It won't be a surprise, then, when I tell you that she was one of the first women in 1998 to train in the martial art of Muay Thai in Thailand. So, you could probably say this was a work of passion for her. The story has to do with a centuries old battle between the powers of heaven and the forces of hell colliding in a final, modern showdown... where girls swordfight.
" comes from writer/director Ryan Rossell, who also acts in the film. It's an indie-horror that screened at a few festivals, including the Hollywood Film Festival. Rossell wrote the script with intent to sell it, but when he gave it to his friend, Anson Scoville, to read, they decided to go out and make it instead. Scoville ended up producing it with Rossell directing and it had its premiere in 2005. "Black Wine" is about young love gone wrong... Something horrible happens before Trever, a third year law student, has a chance to propose to his longtime girlfriend, which propels them down a dark and twisted path, pitting them against each other and driving them to the point of no return. Wow, that is just vague enough for me to have to check it out...
" and "
". Pretty cool idea...
" puts out a DVD with all the horror shorts from the festival on it and, finally, "The Horror Vault" is a group of filmmakers that went out and made their own anthology.
. By the way, the Horror Vault 2 is already in the works and will be released on December 1, 2008.
", as far as I'm concerned, is the first "must see" film of 2008. Well, must see for horror/gore fans. It's getting comparisons to Robert Rodriguez's "Planet Terror", but that's only because it features a girl who loses a limb and has it replaced by a machine gun, but dammit... the similarities end there. Rodriguez and Tarantino have NOTHING on Noboru Iguchi's "The Machine Girl". It's over the top, it's bloody, it's gory, it crosses every line that there is to be crossed AND it does it all without taking itself seriously. Please, get this film, get some booze, invite friends over, get wasted and take in what is, by far, the most entertaining film I've seen in a long time.
" is the latest American 'interpretation' of a hit Asian film and, as usual, they drag a few quality, foreign filmmakers through shit while making it... In this case, it's The Pang Brothers, as well as Xavier Palud and David Moreau. The Pang Brothers are the writer/directors of the original "The Eye", which spawned two sequels, a Hindi version and this U.S. version and they're credited as the screenwriters here. Xavier Palud and David Moreau are the French filmmakers who recently made the indie-horror, "
", and they were credited as the directors on this. The Pang Brothers, Xavier Palud and David Moreau are all quality filmmakers and should not be judged by this PG-13 rated studio effort. So, uh... yeah. Next.
" was actually picked up by the Hallmark channel and had its premiere there before being released on DVD tomorrow. It goes to show, you never know how you're going to get distribution. One of the cool things about "Shark Swarm" is that one of the writers, David Rosiak, is a regular contributor to Dread Central and frequently shows up on their podcasts... so, if you happen to listen to their podcasts, you may be familiar with the trials and tribulations that he's had with it. It's got a decent cast, with Darryl Hannah (Splash), John Schneider (Dukes of Hazzard), Armand Assante (Judge Dread) and F Murray Abraham (Last Action Hero) and it's about mutant sharks.
" is an award winning indie-horror, having screened at various festivals (some which I didn't know about and will have to look into), including: The Hollywood DV Film Festival, Micro-cinema Festival and The Hauntcon Film Festival, winning a few awards along the way. Written by Jojo Henrickson and Fletcher Rhoden and directed by Jojo Henrickson and William Holmes, "Stump the Band" is about four hot chicks in a punk rock band who, while on tour, get lost in the wilds of Wisconsin and run into a guy with a very serious foot fetish who likes to collect feet like baseball cards. The reviews are awesome and the trailer looks great...
" is being distributed by Brain Damage and it was written, directed, produced and cut by Canadian indie-filmmaker Alexandre Michaud. No stranger to indie-horror, Michaud was also responsible for "Urban Flesh", "Time Enough: The Alien Conspiracy", "GoreGoyles: First Cut", among others. "Clean" is filled with senseless violence and brutality and is about a serial killer on a path of self-destruction, who then gets invited to a private snuff party and decides it's time to finally take action and clean off a little bit of everything he hates... go check out the trailer. Looks like a bit of unchecked aggression being let loose here, huh?
" is an indie-horror from Stuart Brennan, who wrote, directed and produced the 80 minute, shot on miniDV horror. It's about four students who camp overnight at a derelict hotel who soon start hearing more than just the wind... I haven't actually seen the film yet, but in researching it, I came across Stuart Brennan's website. First off, it turns out that "The Innocent" was actually shot in 2003, so it's taken a while to get its North American release and Amazon and imdb are lying to me, but that's besides the point. The point is, you should check out 
" comes from writer/director Aaron Harvey, who we, of course, like because of his last name. This is his first feature film and he's currently working on his second, which has the awesome title, "Catch .44". It's being released by Lionsgate, but I can't find out much more about it. There's a group of teenagers, a desolate area in the woods, they find out about a killer ghost called the "Beer Hunter" who kills ignorant, careless teenagers who litter beer cans. Then, cell phones don't work, surprise slashed tires and dusk is approaching quickly...
". What else can I say about the guy who brought you "Assmonster" and "The Worst Horror Movie Ever Made: The Re-Make" that hasn't already been said? Not much... "Rape is a Circle" has full frontal female nudity, closet homosexuals, deranged women, rape, mutilation and... a lot more stuff like that. It's about two girls who hitch a ride from a woman, only to get kidnapped and then endure humiliating perversions and excruciating pain. Further, their friendship warps as they are forced to perform sexual acts on each other for the twisted amusement of their captor. The film explores the cycle of cruelty involved in these sensless acts of violence, thus "Rape is a Circle".
" is out on DVD, too.