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As author Jim Harper notes in his introduction to Legacy of Blood: A Comprehensive Guide to Slasher Movies, “in the eyes of many mainstream film critics, the slasher movie is roughly neck-and-neck with hardcore pornography in the race to be the most execrable type of film”. Why, though? Why is it that even genre-friendly critics tend to find the slasher film to be so awful? Sure, they appeal to a lowest common denominator audience, and they rarely feature great actors or directors, but most other horror films don’t either. What’s even more troubling is that while the subgenre gets so much flack, there’s no denying that some of the most important horror films made in the past 25 years have been slasher films. Halloween, A Nightmare on Elm Street, and Scream are all essentially viewed as horror classics-and each of them falls clearly into the category of slasher film.

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I’m not holding out a lot of hope for Rogue Pictures remake of Wes Craven’s Last House on the Left, but just in case anyone else is, here are two new stills from the production–courtesy of the good folks at Blairwitch.de

The film is slated for a release sometime in February. It tells the same tale as the original, which finds a group of killers stranded in the house of their victims’ parents.

Variety is reporting that Crank writers/directors Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor have left the cinematic adaptation of DC comic’s Jonah Hex. The duo (who wrote the screenplay and were set to direct the film) departed the production over the ubiquitous “creative differences”.

This leaves the studio scrambling for a new director so that the film can begin shooting this spring (in order to keep star Josh Brolin in the title role). At the moment, it seems likely that Neveldine and Taylor’s script will still be used (starting from scratch would certainly push back the start date).

This is pretty disappointing news–I think Neveldine and Taylor were a very interesting choice for Jonah Hex, and it’s arguably the one comic book film left that I’m really looking forward to. I can’t imagine who they might get to take over the production, but I have a hard time imagining whoever it is being as an intriguing a choice as these two were.

Magnolia Pictures is set to release Toby Wilkins’ monster movie Splinter on January 27th of next year. Yesterday, the DVD version’s cover turned up online courtesy of DVD Active. Apparently the older cover that was released with the DVD date announcement wasn’t quite what they wanted…but this isn’t really any better (in fact, it’s almost the same).

They say you can’t judge a book by its cover, and hopefully that’s the case here. Splinter had some really cool looking posters for its limited theatrical release, which makes it all the more disappointing that the DVD is getting such a generic looking front. The picture doesn’t give you a clue as to what kind of movie you’re picking up–which is rarely a good thing for a movie whose only advertising has been word-of-mouth.

Nothing all that newsworthy about this, but if you’re like me and have been eagerly anticipating His Name Was Jason (the huge documentary about the Friday the 13th films), then this is something you’ll want to know.

Amazon now has the two disc set up for pre-order. Click the link below and secure your copy now.

His Name Is Jason (2pc)
Price: USD 17.99

1 used & new available from USD 17.99

I meant to post this yesterday, but World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King was calling to me like crack to Pookie (is it too early in the morning for a New Jack City reference? I hope not…) and I forgot all about it. So here it is now, a day late but still good news.

Paramount Home Entertainment is releasing the first season of Tales From the Darkside on February 10th (February is gonna be a rough month on horror fans’ wallets–there’s more stuff coming out in February than there is at Halloween…)

George Romero executive produced the half hour long anthology program–which ran from 1984 to 1988. The program looks absolutely antiquated today (re-runs have been airing on Chiller and Sci-Fi for some time), but it’s still good for a bit of nostalgia. Plus, the program featured episodes based on work by some of horror’s biggest names–including Stephen King, Harlan Ellison, and Clive Barker (although Barker’s The Yattering and Jack isn’t one of the series’ high points).

No word on extras yet (or details about the technical specs), but the news that the show is finally hitting DVD (along with Friday the 13th: The Series) is good news for horror fans.

ShockTillYouDrop has the exclusive premiere of the one-sheet for the new Underworld flick, Underworld: Rise of the Lycans. It looks pretty moody and atmsopheric (as well as very blue–which seems to be these films’ visual trademark), but I have to wonder why they went with the Bill Nighy picture instead of Rhona Mitra in a skimpy outfit.

The third film in the series, Rise of the Lycans is a prequel that chronicles the werewolves’ rebellion against their vampire overlords. Naturally, there’s a forbidden love between Mitra’s vampire Sonja and Lucian, the leader of the Lycans. The film hits theaters on January 23rd of next year.

Click here to check out the full version of the one-sheet.

Another day, another zombie flick announced–only this one sounds interesting.

Velvet Hammer Films and ArsonCuff Entertainment are set to begin principal photography this December on Silent Night, Zombie Night, a gory comedy focusing on a love triangle and the zombie apocalypse.

The film, which stars Lew Temple, Felissa Rose, and Vernon Wells, sets up the situation wherein an LAPD cop named Frank Talbot is trapped with his soon to be ex-wife and ex-partner (who’re having an affair) by hordes of the living dead.

Silent Night, Zombie Night is prepping for an early 2009 release date. You can find more info, as well as the press release, at ArsonCuff Entertainment’s Myspace page.

I’m not really surprised by the news in today’s Variety that the Korean monster movie The Host is getting a US remake–I’m more suprised that it’s taken this long to happen. In a world where Hollywood swoops in and snatches up foreign movies for remakes before they’ve ever even appeared on domestic shores, taking this long to grab what was a gigantic hit overseas (and garnered cult praise when it played in limited runs here domestically) seems to indicate someone was asleep at the switch.

According to the article, Gore Verbinski will be producing the project for Universal, with first time feature film director Frederik Bond helming.

There’s little doubt that a major Hollywood studio can make a good looking CGI monster (the antagonist of the original film) but I’m much more concerned as to whether or not they can recreate the subtle relationships and interactions between the family of main characters. I’m leaning toward no, because I know how the studios think–they see The Host as a Cloverfield-esque monster movie. That’s only half of the equation though, because what really made The Host so intriguing were the characters and their family dynamic. Somehow, I imagine that’s going to get lost in the shuffle of a giant CGI monster and people getting killed. I hope I’m wrong.

It’s an interesting week for horror DVD releases–we’ve got a lot of new titles, but most of them are sort of ho-hum movies with limited appeal.

What’s probably the biggest release of the week is the long-awaited domestic DVD debut of the British living dead flick, The Zombie Diaries. This one follows the same sort of narrative paradigm as Romero’s Diary of the Dead and Cloverfield (meaning it goes for the faux documentary angle) as several different groups of survivors (armed with camcorders) attempt to survive a zombie outbreak in England.

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