Good news for lovers of the late and sorely missed Godfather of Gore, Lucio Fulci. My Horror Squad colleague Scott Weinberg spotted a listing for a Blu-ray version of City of the Living Dead over at DVD Active.
Blue Underground is the company responsible for this new version of the intestine-spewing, drill bit-to-the-head Italian splatter epic. The film–also commonly known as The Gates of Hell–will be available on regular DVD, but the new Blu-ray is the version you’re going to want to grab. Extras for the Blu-ray disc include three brand new goodies: “Acting Among the Living Dead – Interview with Star Catriona MacColl”, “Entering the Gates of Hell – Interview with Star Giovanni Lombardo Radice”, “Memories of the Maestro”. I’d be all over that for those three things alone–if I owned a Blu-ray player.
The discs are scheduled to be in stores on May 25th. Check out the new cover art above.
Psych 9, a new British horror film from Andrew Shortell and starring Cary Elwes and Michael Biehn, has sort of flown under the radar–but that’s about to change with today’s unveiling of the official trailer. After watching this clip, I’m definitely more interested in checking out the full feature.
Our friends in England will get their chance to see what Shortell and company have come up with on April 9th, when the film hits theaters. Plans are currently in the works for a limited theatrical release here in the States as well, but the official release dates haven’t been hammered out yet.
If you’re interested in learning more about the film, my Horror Squad colleague Alison Nastasi recently posted a lengthy interview with Shortell over at her Screamstress blog. I highly recommend checking it out.
As always, here’s the plot breakdown:
A young woman with a troubled past takes a job at a recently closed hospital to collate the hard copy patient records. Working alone in the building after dark, she experiences a series of unsettling events that lead her to believe the hospital may be connected to a number of recent murders in the area. To uncover the truth, she has to solve the mystery of her own disturbing past.
Everyone keeps talking about how Twilight has made vampires popular again and a vampire movie renaissance is happening all around us, but I’ll be honest–I don’t see it. It should be pretty obvious to anyone who covers the genre or follows it closely that horror is still all about zombies. I remember lamenting years ago that I’d die happy if zombie films made a comeback–and there are now days where I regret making that wish. I get up and post news every day (well, almost every day–the past few weeks have been rough since my college courses are killing me this semester…) and there’s always something about a new zombie flick. The walking dead are everywhere.
Unfortunately, most of these films are of the “me too!” variety, or even worse, low budget crap that’s barely watchable. However, occasionally I stumble upon something that actually looks promising. Such is the case with this trailer for Chilean zombie film Blind Death.
The guys over at B-D brought this clip to my attention, and I’m sharing it with you, my zombie loving brothers and sisters. I don’t think the film, directed by Cristian Toledo and Lucian Rojas looks to be groundbreakingly original, but military guys blasting the holy hell out of zombies is something I can always get behind. The story is the usual “strange virus turns people into monsters and the military goes in later to find out what happened” deal, but it looks well shot and features lots of shooting.
No word on when we might get a look at the full version of Blind Death, but in the meantime you can check out this trailer–which even features English subtitles–to get you in the mood.
I posted news and some still photos for a film entitled In the Mouth of Ubaldo Terzani a few weeks ago–and today I bring you the first trailer.
As a hardcore fan of Italian horror, I’m hoping that Gabriele Albanesei’s film might help get the country back into the horror business. Granted, I wasn’t blown away by the director’s last film, The Last House in the Woods, but it did have its moments. This trailer looks interesting enough, even if the whole thing feels like an Italian version of Carpenter’s In the Mouth of Madness. That’s not a negative as far as I’m concerned–I love Carpenter’s film, and some of the best Italian horror films were rip-offs of other western movies.
Anyway, here’s the plot breakdown:
Alessio Rinaldi, a 25 years old director, is hired by a producer to write the script for his first movie with Ubaldo Terzani, a well known writer of horror novels. Alessio moves into Terzani’s house to start this collaboration and a strange relationship of psychological dependence grows between them: Ubaldo Terzani unveils his dark side and Alessio falls into a desperate depth of craziness and nightmares.
There is a reason why Terzani’s bestsellers are so frightening…Alessio will discover that reality can be unexpectedly more terrifying than every brainchild and he will have to fight hard to break free of Ubaldo Terzani’s jaws.
If you were to walk up to the average man on the street and ask him what he knew about Lucio Fulci, you’d undoubtedly be greeted by blank stares and a resounding round of ‘who?’. If you asked the average horror fan what he knew about Lucio Fulci, he’d most likely tell you about how Fulci was revered by fans of demented cinema and christened the ‘godfather of gore’. You’d no doubt here about his film Zombi, and how it ushered in an immensely popular (and long lived) cycle of Italian zombie flicks. And while this answer is a good one, it really only illuminates one facet of Fulci’s career. Prior to the success of Zombi, Fulci had made literally dozens of films—working in whatever genre was hot at the moment…be it the gialli, the western, or even comedy. In fact, many of his early films eschew the gore elements almost entirely—showing that the late director could make films that were successful for reasons other than because they piled on buckets of blood.
Just a quick note here. If you’ve been waiting to check out the French horror film Mutants, IFC has good news for you.
The film, directed by David Morlet, will make it’s IFC Direct On Demand debut on February 10th. I haven’t seen the film yet, but I’ve heard enough to have my curiosity piqued.
Here’s the plot blurb:
“In a world devastated by a pandemic virus that turns human beings into primitive and bloodthirsty creatures, Marco and Sonia set off to find a secret base to escape from the ‘mutants’. When the latter attack them, Marco is infected. Little by little, he undergoes the same changes. Sonia, who is expecting a baby, is then forced to fight her worst enemy, the man she loves.”
La Casa Muda is another horror film that may not have appeared on your radar. The Latin American production is supposedly “inspired by true events”, but more interesting is that it’s shot with a professional photo camera, was made for roughly $6,000, and was filmed in one long continuous 72-minute take. That last part is what sets my inner film geek off. I nerd out over five minute shots with no cuts in them–hearing something’s going to run for 72 minutes is crazy. I can’t think of another horror film that’s attempted something similar.
A new subtitled teaser trailer for the film turned up online this week. You can find it below. According to the Dread Central gang, the film is currently in post-production and should meet its March 2010 completion date. No info on a release date yet, but here’s the plot synopsis:
Laura (Florencia Colucci) and her father Wilson (Gustavo Alonso) settle down in a cottage that seems to be off the beaten track in order to update it since its owner (Abel Tripaldi) will soon put the house up for sale. They will spend the night there in order to start the repairs the following morning. Everything seems to go smoothly until Laura hears a sound that comes from outside and gets louder and louder on the upper floor of the house. Wilson goes up to see what is going on while she remains downstairs on her own, waiting for her father to come down. The plot is based on a true story that happened some time ago in a small village in Uruguay. La Casa Muda focuses on the last seventy-eight minutes, second by second, while Laura attempts to leave the house, which hides an obscure secret, unharmed.
REAL FEAR IN REAL TIME is the most remarkable underlying feature of the film, which will not go unnoticed by all those who may be willing to experience this different and disturbing filming experience.
Perhaps the greatest disservice that can be done to Michele Soavi’s super cool 1988 horror film The Church is to refer to it as Demons 3. Sure, the first Demons flick is great, and the second is, well… not bad, but this film is something entirely different from its predecessors. Where the first two Lamberto Bava-helmed films relied on gore, action, and frenetic pacing, Soavi’s film takes a much more atmospheric approach–with some interesting results.
In the beginning, a group of Teutonic Knights destroy a village of witches, burying their remains and building a large gothic church on the gravesite to hold the evil in. Jump to the present day, where the cathedral still stands. A new librarian arrives (Tomas Arana) and meets a woman doing restoration work within the church (Barbara Cupisti). After workers find cracks in the building’s foundation, the two discover an ancient scroll, telling of the church’s secret–and setting in motion events that will unleash an ancient evil.
Over the course of the past few years, I’ve been pretty vocal when it comes to just how tired I am of Asian horror films. It’s not xenophobia, but instead an ever-present feeling of “been there, done that” when I sit down to watch one of these films. Invariably, they all have some convoluted giallo-esque tale about someone who died (usually a young woman with long straight hair) from being wronged by someone else. Unable to rest in peace, these angry girl ghosts always come back (with their long dark hair framing their pasty ghost faces) and haunt those who did them wrong–or in some cases, those who might set things right–and we eventually arrive at a big twist conclusion. This usually occurs after numerous scenes where this undead specter appears out of nowhere and creates countless “cat through the window” moments to make everyone jump. Then the films almost always provide a mundane explanation for why these supernatural events are happening. As far as genre templates go, the Asian horror film is the new slasher: it adheres rigidly to a formula, the films have become almost interchangeable, and the pissed off girl ghosts with hair in their face are as ubiquitous as the masked killers of countless ‘80s stalk-and-kill flicks. It’s just too bad that the Asian horror films are so goreless and devoid of sleaze—that’s what kept me watching slashers long after everyone else had grown tired of them.
There’s not much left to say about After Dark’s 4th annual Horrorfest–it starts later this month, features another 8 Films to Die For, and here’s yet another trailer.
Bloody-Disgusting scored the exclusive to this one, which is for the Norwegian film Hidden. I’m phoning this one in completely, in case you were wondering. Here’s the synopsis and trailer. The film will be in theaters on January 29th.
Kai Koss, upon the death of his cruel mother, unwillingly returns to the small town he ran away from 19 years ago. He is left in charge of the family home and the dark secrets that come with it. Kai soon finds himself tangled up in a series of murderous events that are beyond anyone’s control and his troubles begin to overwhelm him. He has spent the past two decades trying to forget a tortured past only to find that there are some things you just can’t run from.
