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Amazon is Having a Way Better Halloween Than Netflix

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Netflix has done nothing for us horror fans this fall, basically throwing us scraps of peanuts and a few new seasons of shows already on Hulu. They’re a huge company that’s destroying the streaming space, so it’s utterly disappointing to see such a weak lineup leading up to Halloween.

Amazon, on the other hand, is set to drop all sorts of genre titles on October 1st. It’s not enough to make you jump on the service if you don’t have, but those who do will be pleasantly surprised with the new additions (most of which comes courtesy of Magnolia Pictures).


Let the Right One in (English Subtitled)

A fragile, anxious boy, 12-year-old Oskar is regularly bullied by his stronger classmates but never strikes back. The lonely boys wish for a friend seems to comes true when he meets Eli, also 12, who moves in next door to him. But Elis arrival coincides with a series of gruesome deaths and attacks. Though Oskar realizes that she’s a vampire, his friendship with her is stronger than his fear… Swedish filmmaker Tomas Alfredson weaves friendship, rejection and loyalty into a disturbing, darkly atmospheric, yet unexpectedly tender tableau of adolescence. The feature is based on the best-selling novel by John Ajvide Lindqvist, which the U.K. press qualified as “reminiscent of Stephen King at his best.”


Deep Impact (1998)

What would you do if you knew that in a handful of days an enormous comet would collide with Earth and all humanity could be annihilated? The countdown to doomsday is underway in this “gut-wrenching, eye-opening blast of a movie experience” (Jeff Craig, Sixty Second Preview). Mimi Leder (The Peacemaker) directs, guiding an all-star cast featuring Robert Duvall, Tea Leoni, Elijah Wood, Vanessa Redgrave, Maximilian Schell and Morgan Freeman. With the film’s dynamic fusion of large-scale excitement and touching, human-scale storylines, Deep Impact makes its impact felt in a big and unforgettable way.


The Devil’s Advocate (1997)

Kevin Lomax (Keanu Reeves), an ambitious, talented young district attorney, joins a powerful New York law firm headed by the mysterious and charismatic John Milton (Al Pacino). as Lomax faces the intense seduction of success and money, he is increasingly tempted.


Dreamcatcher (2003)

Academy Award-nominee and Golden Globe-winner Morgan Freeman (“The Sum of All Fears,” “Along Came A Spider”) stars in this supernatural thriller from the master of horror, Stephen King, with a screenplay by Academy Award-winner William Goldman (“Absolute Power,” “All The President’s Men”). Tom Sizemore (“Saving Private Ryan,” “Heat”) and Donnie Wahlberg (“The Sixth Sense,” “Band of Brothers,” TV’s “Boomtown”) also star in the film directed by Academy Award-nominee Lawrence Kasdan, who co-wrote the screenplays for “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” “The Empire Strikes Back” and “Return of the Jedi.” Four friends, tied together through a telepathic bond they gained as children, reunite as adults to fight an invading alien force that controls human beings like helpless puppets and threaten to take over the earth. Also starring Thomas Jane (“Deep Blue Sea,” “Face/Off”), Jason Lee (“Vanilla Sky,” “Enemy of the State”) and Timothy Olyphant (“Gone in Sixty Seconds,” “Go”).


Final Destination (2000)

His entire high-school class is going to Paris, but Alex Browning (Devon Sawa) can’t seem to shake his fear of flying. Once aboard the plane, he has a violently disruptive premonition which gets him and five of his classmates including Clear Rivers (Ali Larter) and Carter Horton (Kerr Smith) kicked off the plane. As the students watch the plane depart, they witness the horrifying disaster that proves the deadly premonition true. Now having dodged death once, the terror begins in full as fate hunts them down one-by-one. Soon the five survivors will discover you can’t cheat death.


The Gift

Simon (Jason Bateman) and Robyn (Rebecca Hall) are a young married couple whose life is going just as planned until a chance encounter with an acquaintance from Simon’s high school sends their world into a harrowing tailspin. Simon doesn’t recognize Gordo (Joel Edgerton) at first, but after a seemingly coincidental series of encounters proves troubling, a horrifying secret from their past is uncovered after nearly 20 years. As Robyn learns the unsettling truth about what happened between Simon and Gordo, she starts to question: how well do we really know the people closest to us, and are past bygones ever really bygones?


The Host (English Subtitled; 2006)

In this crossover Korean horror hit, a giant mutant sea monster terrorizes Seoul. But the ferocious creature known as “The Host” is no lumbering beast like Godzilla. It selects what it wants carefully, and what it wants is the Hyun-seo, who it drags back to it’s deep, dark hideout. Now it’s up to Hyun-seo’s father Gang-du, a food-stand worker who’s anything but a traditional hero, to infiltrate the forbidden zone and rescue his daughter from the clutches of the horrifying creature. Cahiers du Cinema named THE HOST the fourth best film of the entire 2000s.


I Saw the Devil (English Subtitled)

On a freezing, snowy night, his latest victim is the beautiful Ju-yeon, daughter of a retired police chief and pregnant fiancée of elite special agent Dae-hoon (The Good, The Bad, The Weird’s LEE Byung-hyun). Obsessed with revenge, Dae-hoon decides to track down the murderer, even if doing so means becoming a monster himself. And when he finds Kyung-chul, turning him in to the authorities is the last thing on his mind.


Monsters (2010)

Six years ago NASA discovered the possibility of alien life within our solar system. A probe was launched to collect samples, but crashed upon reentry over Central America. Soon after, new life forms began to appear and half of Mexico was quarantined as an infected. Today, the American and Mexican military still struggle to contain “the creatures”… Our story begins when a U.S. journalist agrees to escort a shaken American tourist through the infected zone to the safety of the U.S. border.


Sleepaway Camp II: Unhappy Campers (1988)

Five years after the horrific slaughter at Camp Arawak, Angela (Pamela Springsteen, Fast Times at Ridgemont High) has created a new position for herself as a counselor at Camp Rolling Hills. Angela is about to teach “bad campers” a brutal lesson in survival when they are sliced, stabbed, drilled… and much worse. Renée Estevez (Heathers, Intruder) and Walter Gotell (The Spy Who Loved Me) co-star in this outrageous sequel to the original cult classic.


Sleepaway Camp III: Teenage Wasteland (1988)

Welcome to Camp New Horizons, where an autumn retreat brings together a group of obnoxious rich kids and surly city thugs for an “experiment in sharing.” Under new inept management, this is the ideal setting for notorious psychopath Angela Baker (Pamela Springsteen, Sleepaway Camp II: Unhappy Campers) to join the camp and do what she does best – eliminating “immoral” teenagers with everything from a knife to a lawnmower. Michael J. Pollard (House of 1000 Corpses, Bonnie & Clyde), Tracy Griffith (Fear City, The First Power) and Jill Terashita (Night of the Demons) co-star in this third installment of the cult series.


Splinter (2008)

A young couple retreats to the wilderness for a romantic camping weekend, but their idyll is shattered when they are car-jacked by an escaped convict and his girlfriend on the run from the police.

As the foursome travel the back roads together, each plotting their next move, they find themselves in deeper trouble than any of them could have imagined — a blood-crazed, parasitic creature that absorbs the corpses of its victims has laid claim to the woods, and the two couples are now in its sights.

Finding shelter at an abandoned gas station, they must use their wits and every weapon at their disposal to stave off the onslaught, not only from the insatiable creature, but also each other.


Stigmata (1999)

Frankie Paige (Arquette) has absolutely no faith in God. All of that changes when she suddenly begins to suffer the stigmata — the living wounds of the crucified Christ. Frankie’s miraculous bleeding comes to the attention of the Vatican’s top investigator, Father Kiernan (Byrne). But when Cardinal Houseman (Jonathan Pryce, Brazil, Ronin), discovers that Frankie is actually channeling an extraordinary and provocative message that could destroy the Church, he’s convinced that she — and the force possessing her — must be forever silenced. Determined to stop this deadly conspiracy, Kiernan risks his faith and his life to save her and the message that will change the destiny of mankind forever. Also starring Portia de Rossi (TV’s Arrested Development), Nia Long (Big Momma’s House) and Rade Sherbedgia (Taken 2, X-Men: First Class), Stigmata is a riveting supernatural thriller that’ll leave you breathless.


Timecrimes (2007)

A man finds himself stuck in a terrifying time loop after witnessing a murder in director Nacho Vigalondo’s (V/H/S VIRAL) critically-acclaimed trip to the Twilight Zone. Hiking up to investigate a nude woman in the woods, Hector is attacked by a sinister figure. Terrified, he takes refuge in a nearby laboratory, where a lone attendant puts him in a peculiar contraption. He emerges what seems to be moments later, only to find that he has traveled back hours in time, setting in motion a brain-twisting, horrifying chain of events when he runs into himself.


Troll (1986)

Lock the doors and pull out the weed-wacker for this house party of horror! One family is about to find out there’s no place like home when a troublesome troll starts taking over their building, transforming each apartment into an overgrown garden of ancient evil and turning tenants into a horde of hairy hobgoblins! Michael Moriarty and Julia Louis-Dreyfus star in this super-slimy scare-fest that’s “a special-effects pig-out” (Daily News)!


Troll 2 (1990)

Those greedy goblins are back and hungrier than ever in this gourmet gross-out! Disguised as friendly country folk, a pugnacious posse of people-eating trolls lures visitors to their town. But a family of four is about to discover this place is a real tourist trap… and now, the no-good gnomes must be destroyed before the family gets flambéed… and the world becomes a buffet in this feeding frenzy of fear!


Trollhunter (English Subtitled)

The government says there’s nothing to worry about – it’s just a problem with bears making trouble in the mountains and forests of Norway. But local hunters don’t believe it and neither do a trio of college students who want to find out the truth. Armed with a video camera, they trail a mysterious poacher, who wants nothing to do with them. However, their persistence lands them straight in the path of the objects of his pursuits: TROLLS!


Tucker & Dale vs Evil

TUCKER & DALE VS EVIL is a hilariously gory, good-spirited horror comedy, doing for killer rednecks what Shaun of the Dead did for zombies. Tucker and Dale are two best friends on vacation at their dilapidated mountain house, who are mistaken for murderous backwoods hillbillies by a group of obnoxious, preppy college kids. When one of the students gets separated from her friends, the boys try to lend a hand, but as the misunderstanding grows, so does the body count. TUCKER AND DALE VS EVIL has been a hit on the festival circuit, debuting at Sundance, and winning the Midnight Audience Award at SXSW, the Jury Prize for First Feature at Fantasia, the Best Director award at Fantaspoa, and the Best Motion Picture Award at Sitges.


V/H/S (2012)

V/H/S is a point-of-view, found-footage horror film from the perspective of America’s top genre filmmakers. A group of misfits are hired by an unknown third party to burglarize a desolate house in the countryside and acquire a rare tape. Upon searching the house, the guys are confronted with a dead body, a hub of old televisions and an endless supply of cryptic footage, each video stranger and more inexplicably terrifying than the last…


The Witches (1990)

Angelica Huston (The Royal Tenenbaums, The Addams Family) stars in this fanciful and exciting story about a nine-year-old and his grandmother who turn the tables on a witch’s plot to turn all the children of Britain into mice.

Horror movie fanatic who co-founded Bloody Disgusting in 2001. Producer on Southbound, V/H/S/2/3/94, SiREN, Under the Bed, and A Horrible Way to Die. Chicago-based. Horror, pizza and basketball connoisseur. Taco Bell daily. Franchise favs: Hellraiser, Child's Play, A Nightmare on Elm Street, Halloween, Scream and Friday the 13th. Horror 365 days a year.

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‘Herencia Diabólica’ – 1993’s “Mexican Child’s Play” Finally Has a Blu-ray Release [Review]

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Did you know that there is a Child’s Play-inspired film from Mexico? If you didn’t, you can thank Vinegar Syndrome’s new label Degausser Video for making 1993’s Herencia Diabólica available for the masses to watch. Or at least for the VS hardcore fanbase, Chucky completists and anyone else who needs something like this in their lives.

Director Alfredo Salazar, known for his writing connection to the 70s Santo film series, also serves as the writer here to bring us a film seemingly inspired from the Child’s Play franchise. While it has been recently labeled as the “Mexican Child’s Play” (there’s a special feature on the disc with that very title), the killer doll concept is where the comparison should start and end. Despite having some seeds planted by that franchise, Salazar delivers a story that blossoms into something unique.

Tony (Roberto Guinar) receives a letter informing him that his aunt has died, and he has inherited her estate in Mexico. He quits his job and uproots his life in New York with his wife Annie (Holda Ramírez) to relocate south of the border and move into his new crib. Now I know what you’re thinking, what person just quits their job and drags their wife to another country without having reliable monetary income? Tony does, everyone, Tony does.

And what’s the first thing they do once they arrive in Mexico and check out the estate? They hit the bedroom, naturally. We are treated to a sex scene with an erotica song that feels like a knockoff of “Sadness” by Enigma (remember them?). Sounds fun and all, but the scene takes place completely in the dark and we see absolutely nothing. Maybe that’s why the sexy-time tune was pumping, so we could know what was exactly going down.

While Tony goes on a job interview, Annie explores the estate’s grounds in a tedious chore to experience, going room by room, plodding along. But it does lead us to her discovery of our antagonist—the evil clown doll, Payasito! Of all the things in the house, she decides to bring this monstrosity down to show Tony when he gets home. What an exciting way to celebrate (sic)! Then out of nowhere, she spouts off some exposition about rumors that Tony’s aunt dabbled in the dark arts and now we know where our title Diabolical Inheritance (the English translation for Herencia Diabólica) originates. For those of you who keep score for things like that.

Before proceeding with this review, you really need to visualize what Payasito looks like to truly embrace the rest of the film’s shenanigans. While Chucky resembles a cute ginger child, Payasito resembles a small clown that is much larger in stature than Chucky. That’s because Payasito is performed by an actor (Margarito Esparaza) in clown cosplay whenever he’s on the move (like Mannequin 2), and makes some really horrible facial expressions. Chucky dresses in “Good Guys” overalls and a striped shirt, but Payasito wears a new wave Santa hat while sporting a Sgt. Pepper jacket and Peter Pan tights. As you can now tell, he is quite beautiful.

Back to our story, Payasito begins to spook Annie cerebrally until she becomes unnerved to the point of having a complete mental break down, making her easy prey to eliminate. She dies but the unborn child survives, with Tony believing that her death was caused by her mental instability. Fast forward some years later and the couple’s surviving spawn has grown into child Roy (Alan Fernando), who at this point has already bonded with Payasito to help him over the loss of his mother. Dun-dun-duuunnn!

Meanwhile wealthy Tony remains single, still grieving his late wife, until his blonde assistant Doris encourages him to move on with his life and start seeing other people. And by other people, she naturally means herself. As the old Kanye West song lyric goes, “I ain’t saying she’s a gold digger…”, and it seems that she might be until we learn more about her character. Doris is played by the stunning Lorena Hererra who has an extremely extensive resume in Mexico, and she carries most of the film quite well during the feature’s second half. The singer and former Playboy centerfold for their Mexico edition is by far the most recognizable face in the cast.

Doris and Tony do indeed hookup and she moves into La casa de Herencia, where she does her best to impress Roy and lessen his obsession with the doll. There is a scene where they go to a nearby park without Payasito that is filled with famous fairytale figures, such as Pinocchio, Cinderella and King Kong! What, you didn’t know King Kong is a fairytale? Me neither. But Roy continues to be obsessed with Payasito after their trip, much to Doris’ chagrin.

Her actions to separate him from Roy gets Payasito angry, setting up the film’s most memorable scene. We already know that Payasito is a devil doll like Chucky, but now we learn he also has the power to invade people’s dreams like Freddy Krueger! Does Payasito enter the dream world and concoct a creative way to kill Doris in her sleep? No, he harnesses his power to sexually assault her instead. Yes that actually happens. After she awakens, Doris grabs the doll and tosses him into a lake, only to find him waiting for her by the time she gets back to the house. So now we know he also maintains the ability to “transport” like Jason Voorhees too. This doll is the total package!

More insanity happens before we close out the film with the longest victim chase sequence ever. It makes the previously mentioned painful house search scene seem like an eyeblink. It feels like it’s the film’s entire third act, filled with so much padding that you could soundproof an entire three-story house.

So how’s the transfer? Considering it was created using a mix of VHS and film source elements from 1993, they did one heck of a job! The work they put into it is especially noticeable in the dream invasion sequence, with the pulsing multi-colored psychedelic visuals. Super trippy stuff. Even the film’s score provides a pretty chill vibe, during the times when Payasito isn’t on the prowl.

If anything you read has piqued your interest in the very least, you should give it a shot. But if not, it is best to leave this doll on the shelf.

Herencia Diabólica is now available to purchase at VinegarSyndrome.com.

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