New Horror out on DVD this week and what you missed when Mickey Rourke didn't win Best Actor

I just want to say it's a shame that Sean Penn won best actor last night over Mickey Rourke... and I can't help but think that Mickey's acceptance speech at the Spirit Awards had something to do with it - check out the video at the bottom and you'll see what I mean. Anyhow, lots of movies out this week and I don't have much time, so lets get to them. As usual, you can click on the titles to go to their page on Amazon and you can go to our Youtube page to see all the trailers.

"Haunting of Molly Hartley" did get a theatrical release, although I don't really remember it coming out. It's written by John Travis and Rebecca Sonnenshine and was directed by Mickey Liddell... Lidell's served as a producer on various projects and this is his directorial debut. The film has striking similarities to the 1976 film, "To the Devil a Daughter", as it's about parents who make a pact with the devil to save their child after the mother had a miscarriage. The film focuses on the child, Molly, and her stresses of being a new student and recurring nightmares of when her Mom tried to kill her... but she later figures out that her mother was just trying to save her from her preordained life as a servant of the devil.

I wasn't exactly sure why Mickey Rourke had such a hard-on for Eric Roberts in his Spirit Awards speech (once again, scroll to the bottom to see the speech) and it's with much coincidence that an Eric Roberts film, "Cyclops", comes out this week. So, if you don't know who Eric Roberts is, he's Julia Roberts' brother... but, he also had a good career going, having been nominated for Academy Awards and Golden Globes in the late 70's and early 80's with movies like "Runaway Train" and "King of the Gypsies". Then, something happened... and he spend forever toiling in TV and B-Movies. Now, that's good for guys like us, especially if you liked movies like "Raptor", "Purgatory" or "Wolves of Wall Street". Not so good if you're Eric Roberts and your sister is Julia. Christmas must get awkward. "Hey, how was working with Clooney, Pitt and Hanks, Julia?" "Not too bad, Eric. How did the sci-fi original "Cyclops" work out for ya?" "You mean the film where play a Roman emperor and imprison a cyclops to fight people? Fuck you."

"Red Sands" stars Shane West and J.K. Simmons, best recognized as J Jonah Jameson from the "Spiderman" movies. It's directed by Alex Turner and written by Simon Barrett, who are the guys behind "Dead Birds", which came out a few years ago and has become a bit of a cult classic. This is about a group of US soldiers in present-day Afghanistan who unknowingly release a vengeful supernatural force that wages upon them a deadly war. If I remember, this was supposed to be a pretty good movie... and the trailer does look awesome. Not sure if it ever got a theatrical release.

"Scourge" is an award winning horror from Jonas Quastel, who's made a few low-budget horrors, including: "The Untold", "Ripper 2: Letter from Within" and "Premonition". "Scourge" is about an ancient pestilence called, what else?.. The Scourge. And it's set free in a small town after being entombed in a church's masonry for 150 years. Bodies pile up and the job of stopping it falls on Scott and Jessie, who rediscover their love for each other in the process.

"Epitaph" is an award winning Korean film from the Jung Brothers, Jeong Beom-sik and Jeong Sik. The film is set in a small Korean hospital, which has become a labyrinth of haunted corridors... where a medical student is inexplicably drawn to a beautiful dead girl; a troubled child is tortured by bloody visions of her dead parents; and a married couple find themselves investigating a series of gory murders.

"Succubus: The Demon" is the first US release from the Finnish film company, Blood Ceremony and it follows Henri, a widower so feverishly obsessed in searching for answers to his wife's death that he turns to the occult for clues, with diabolical consequences.

"Green Eyed Monster" comes from writer/director Gabriel Barboza and it's about a group of friends who travel to South Texas to uncover the truth about a local legend of buried money. Instead, they uncover something buried within us all... and one by one, they mysteriously disappear. This is the first film from Barboza and he served as writer, director, producer and editor on the film. Looks well done and definitely has some budget behind it.

"Night of the Jackals" is an indie horror from writer, director and actor DeWitt Jones. It's about an ex special ops assassin, Kera Moore, who's last target, a crazed former US chemical weapons engineer, survived and comes back for vengeance. Now, Kera is a sort of female "Blade". By that, she's a black girl, fully clothed in spandex, who kicks vampire ass... The engineer brings his final batch of US financed neuro toxin with him, which turns victims into ravenous vampire-like zombies known as Jackals, and then kidnaps Kera's husband. She then gets in her spandex suit and employs the services of a cop, a gangster and a chemist to unleash hell before the Jackals can take over the city. Check out the trailer... you know you want to.

"The Legend Trip" was directed by Jason Satterfield and written by Sara Bulle and Nick Firer. It's about a local legend that turns into a horrifying reality for a group of young grad students seeking to debunk a Wisconsin haunted house. Trailer looks good, definitely an indie-horror with a bit of budget behind it. Looks well done.

Oh yeah... and here's Mickey Rourke's acceptance speech. Awesome. Could you imagine this at The Oscars?

Film Fest Friday, but this is more about The Oscars...

Okay, so it's a lame weekend at the box office because it's the Oscars... and I'm not a big fan of the Oscars, I think it's a big joke... I mean, it was started BY the industry as a way to legitimize what they were doing and now it's just an excuse to give awards to people because they think they deserve them, but I digress...

We're all going to watch The Oscars, so we might as well have some people to root for. First and foremost, Mickey Rourke in "The Wrestler" - as much as a fucking weirdo as he's become (see pic), he's still Marv from "Sin City", Johnny Handsome from "Johnny Handome", Harley Davidson from "Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man" and Harry Angel from, one of my favorite horror films of all time, "Angel Heart". By the way, yes, I liked "Johnny Handsome" and "Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man", so what? I'd also like to see Marisa Tomei get Best Supporting Actress for playing the stripper in "The Wrestler" because, well, I saw a LOT of her in the film. Not only that, it really was a good movie. Go check it out, if you haven't seen it. I'd like to see Heath Ledger get Best Supporting Role for "The Dark Knight", as he kicked ass and so did the movie. I think a lot of people want to see him win it and, guess what, I don't think Robert Downey Jr. will be getting it for "Tropic Thunder". I also hope that "The Dark Knight" wraps up all the other nominal awards, like Sound Editing and all that shit. Otherwise, I only hope for two things... Danny Boyle, who WE all know as the guy behind "28 Days Later", "28 Weeks Later" and "Trainspotting", gets a shit-load of awards for "Slumdog Millionaire" AND for that douche, Sean Penn, to get fuck-all for "Milk".

Okay, what's going on in festival world?

The early bird deadline for the LA Shorts Fest is today and, although that seems like short notice, as long as you have your submission postmarked by today, you're cool. Well, that's still not a lot of time. So, at this point it looks like you're going to have to buck up and pay the extra $10, or whatever it is. Anyhow, the LA Shorts Fest is, obviously, all about short films and they do have a horror category. They're also accredited by the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts & Sciences and 33 filmmakers from the LA Shorts Fest have gone on to earn Academy Award nominations... none of which were horror. Actually, one of the very cool things about the festival is that they have a thing called LA Shorts TV and they'll show some of the shorts on the site... "Seat 29E" was awesome, if you head over there.

I was ABOUT to mention the all new Thrillspy International Thriller & Spy Festival until I read that they "promote all categories of thriller films with the exception of Horror or Shock films". Okay, well then... THAT'S a slap in the face.

And for those horror fans in Chicago, you've got the upcoming Fangoria's Weekend of Horror on March 6 - 8. You're going to get some good guests, too. You've got Tobe Hooper, George Romero, Herschell Gordon Lewis, Tom Savani and the list goes on and on... it'll take place at the Wyndham O'Hare. Weekend of Horror will also be in LA in April and New York in June.

That's it... that's all we got for this week. Go get your drink on and we'll see you next week!