Get ready for tomorrow as this is one of the best Horror In Your House lists this year. Not only will you be able to pick up Showtime’s second season of DEXTER (why aren’t you watching yet!!!), but you can also score the long-delayed AN AMERICAN CRIME, which stars Ellen Page, and THE WIZARD OF GORE remake. If you want to be daring, you can check out PROM NIGHT. If you want to score big, you can go grab Lionsgate’s 6 FILMS TO KEEP YOU AWAKE, which is one of the best bangs for your buck ever.

Horror in Your House
August 19, 2008
By: Tex Massacre

AN AMERICAN CRIME: First Look

Based on a true story that shocked the nation in 1965 the film recounts one of the most shocking crimes ever committed against a single victim. Sylvia and Jennie Fae Likens the two daughters of traveling carnival workers are left for an extended stay at the Indianapolis home of single mother Gertrude Baniszewski and her seven children. Times are tough and Gertrude’s financial needs cause her to make this arrangement before realizing how the burden will push her unstable nature to a breaking point. What transpires in the next three months is both riveting and horrific leaving one child dead and the rest scarred for life.

TEX SAYS: Anticipate a less graphic description that the one provided in the Jack Ketchum adaptation THE GIRL NEXT DOOR as JUNO Star Ellen Page journey into this suburban nightmare.

DEXTER: The Second Season: Paramount

Dexter Morgan leads a double life as an incredibly likeable forensics expert for the Miami Police Department and as an emotionless vigilante serial killer. Taught by his foster father to harness his lust for blood and killing Dexter lives by his own strict moral code – he only kills murderers who can’t otherwise be brought to justice. Dexter is a killer who grapples with fitting into society while at the same time he struggles with his inability to feel emotion. The irony of Dexter’s life is that he works closely as a blood splatter analyst with the very people who hunt his kind – the homicide department.

TEX SAYS: It pains me not to make this my PICK OF THE WEEK so you better go out right now and buy it–to clear my conscience. Almost inarguably the best show on television, Season Two is even better than the stellar Season One.

EVIL: Asylum

Based on the classic legend of a cynical journalist who discovers that the power of faith can defeat the forces of unspeakable darkness.

EVIL AWAKENING: X Posse Prods./Tempe

A vicious serial killer once terrorized the small town of Ludlow. The axe-wielding murderer was brought to justice, but according to legend, he would one day return for vengeance! For years, the people of Ludlow felt safe… but the bloodbath is about to begin again!

THE MAN IN THE GARAGE: Ship to Shore

The Man in the Garage is a micro-budget indie film about a couple who inheret a new home but don’t know that their daughter has befriended a homicidal maniac living in their garage.

MANEATER SERIES COLLECTION Vol. 2 (CROC, EYE OF THE BEAST, GRIZZLY RAGE; 3-disc): Genius

Land and sea will never be the same again when Genius Products and RHI Entertainment debut the MANEATER SERIES COLLECTION: VOLUME 2. Featuring three of the popular titles from the hit “Maneater” series, the films include a killer crocodile, a giant squid, and a blood thirsty Grizzly bear.

CROC: On the outskirts of a beach resort in Thailand is Jack’s Croc Farm where American born Jack McQuade features his star attraction, Delilah. Jack finds himself in financial trouble when business slows down and the bills start to pile up. His main competitor, Andy Kongsong’s Croc World, will do anything to put Jack out of business – including croc snatching. When things take a turn for the worse and Delilah goes missing, bodies start popping up in swamps. A five-thousand-dollar reward for the capture of Delilah draws every croc hunter within earshot, including the great Croc Hawkins. Up to his knees in bad publicity, Jack and his team know they must find Delilah quickly before more people turn up missing and their body parts start to surface.

EYE OF THE BEAST: In a small fishing village, panic and fear are spreading as the legend of a giant killer squid grows. When government scientist Dan Leland is sent to investigate the murky waters, he soon uncovers a sea monster beyond anything he could have ever imagined. A terrifying, pulse-pounding thriller, Eye of the Beast delivers the most ravenous beast of them all – complete with massive tentacles, angry red eyes…and a taste for human flesh!

GRIZZLY RAGE: When a group of high school grads accidentally hit a bear cub with their car, they soon come face-to-face with their worst nightmare: a massive mother Grizzly hell-bent on revenge. With no cell phones, no weapons, no light and only tension mounting, all the students have are their wits, a prayer, and each other. Directed by horror-master David DeCoteau and including fierce shocks and slashing surprises, Grizzly Rage is a lean and uncompromising fear-match between man and nature.

TEX SAYS: Despite its many detractors, I love these terrible films! Just because you and I don’t share the same sick humor that one would need to enjoy these bargain basement, made-for-TV monster movies, doesn’t make me wrong…does it?

PROM NIGHT: Sony Pictures

Donna’s senior prom is supposed to be the best night of her life, one of magic, beauty, and love. Surrounded by her best friends, she should be safe from the horrors of her past. But when the night turns from magic to murder there is only one man who could be responsible…the man she thought was gone forever. Now, Donna and her friends must find a way to escape the sadistic rampage of an obsessed killer, and survive their Prom Night.

TEX SAYS: Alright, roll call…how many of you bashed this film on premise along but never bothered to see it? Thought so! How bad is PROM NIGHT? The brave will find out on Tuesday.

6 FILMS TO KEEP YOU AWAKE (3-disc set): Lionsgate (TEX’S PICK OF THE WEEK)

Six chilling tales from the best horror directors from Spain arrive in this 3-disc DVD set featuring:

THE BABY’S ROOM: A couple and their newborn arrive at their new home, a wonderful old house that has been renovated to meet their every need. However, something is living in the baby’s room, something whose presence they can feel each night right there beside their child. It is watching and waiting.

THE CHRISTMAS TALE: A group of children playing in the woods find a woman dressed as Santa Claus who has fallen to the bottom of a well. They discover she is a thief on the run with a substantial haul. They decide to make a deal – her freedom for the money. When the money is in hand, the children’s greed changes their plans, and they decide to keep her captive. Then, one day they unexpectedly find the well is empty. Santa knows who’s been naughty this year and is coming with a sack of deadly gifts!

A REAL FRIEND: Ten-year-old Estrella spends a lot of time alone at home…or so it appears to everyone else. Like many children, she has imaginary friends, but hers are a bit different. Her friends are monsters. One day, Estrella makes friends with a new monster, a vampire that seems to be more real than the others.

TO LET: Carolina and Tony have looked at dozens of potential apartments, and none of them have worked. When their realtor assures them that a newly refurbished and renovated apartment will be a perfect fit, they decide to check it out. Upon arrival, they find an abandoned looking building without any residents or people in sight. They go up to the 3rd floor and enter the apartment, which is something they should never have done.

SPECTRE: An elderly writer visits the small coastal village where he was born and raised. He reminisces of his childhood and a beautiful, mysterious woman he has been unable to forget. As he walks through his old village he catches a glimpse of the same woman he fell in love with in his youth. However, she has not aged since the day he saw her. He follows her but is not ready for what he finds.

BLAME: Ana, a gynecologist, invites Gloria, a nurse and friend from the hospital, and Gloria’s daughter Vicky, to come and live with her so Gloria can be her new assistant. The house, a section of which is used as a private clinic, is light, cheerful and peaceful. However, something sinister is alive in there. Once Gloria has moved in, Ana reveals that her private practice is in fact an abortion clinic. It is a clinic where truth, pain, life and death all intermingle and where the patients and doctors are never truly alone.

TEX SAYS: Run…don’t walk…to the store right now and see what the best of Spanish Horror has to offer!!!

THINGS YOU DON’T TELL: Anthem Pictures

A psychological thriller about three people caught in a web of deceit and lies. Everything is contained on the surface until a chance meeting triggers a series of tragic events that rips their worlds apart. As the truth unravels, their very survival is at stake.

THE UNSEEN: Code Red/BCI

A television reporter and her two friends head to Solvang California to cover a Danish festival. When there is a mix-up at the hotel and they are left without hotel rooms the girls accept the invitation of a friendly museum owner to board at his large farmhouse because the rest of the motels in and around town are sold out. But unknown to the women something is living in the basement of the house. Their stay soon becomes a horrific nightmare when one by one they encounter the ‘unseen’.

THE WIZARD OF GORE: Dimension Extreme/Genius

Magic, madness and mayhem join in this diabolical remake of the 1970 horror cult classic. Crispin Glover stars as a master illusionist whose female audience participants are hideously murdered onstage, only to miraculously reappear untouched. But when a smart reporter finds they re later turning up dead with the same wounds as those inflicted during the performance, his investigation leads to unimaginable terror.

TEX SAYS: Crispin Glover is the world greatest creepy actor and so far–thanks to Tim Sullivan’s great 2001 MANIACS–the H.G. Lewis remakes has been pretty good. So, hope is high that this film delivers on that promise.