Tim Anderson is back from the SXSW Film Festival with his latest edition of Horror In Your House, which features all of the DVD/Blu-ray releases for Tuesday, March 23. The highlight of the week is Lionsgate’s release of After Dark Horrorfest IV, which features a whole new batch of “8 Films to Die For”. Read on for the full list.
Horror in your House
March 23, 2010

AFTER DARK HORRORFEST 2010 – 8 FILM TO DIE FOR (Box Set): Lionsgate (TEX’S PICK OF THE WEEK)

Lionsgate presents the fourth installment of the After Dark Horrorfest 8 Films to Die For with a new horrifying collection of DVDs from the popular national film festival. The DVDs included are Lake Mungo, The Graves, Dread, Zombies of Mass Destruction, Hidden, The Final, Kill Theory and The Reeds. These films will be released theatrically nationwide in top markets around the country the week of January 29. Each year, the collection brings together some of the best in independent horror filmmaking.

TEX SAYS: Look, I don’t love–or in some cases even like–all the movies in every edition of Lionsgate’s strange theatrical Horrorfest concept. In fact this year the Horrorfest didn’t play within 90 miles of my house, so I didn’t even go. But as an annual tradition, I always marathon the DVDs when they come out–you should too!

BANSHEE: Synthic Cinema

A group of college friends on a spring break camping trip are stalked and slashed by an unknown creature with the ability to make them hallucinate through sound waves. The survivors hold up refuge in an isolated farmhouse, cut off from all communication. Now, they have to come up with a plan to kill this unrelenting creature before it kills them.

CARNY: Genius

When a traveling carnival comes to a rural Nebraska town, the caged attraction everyone is talking about is the alleged Jersey Devil. When the beast escapes, tearing the citizens to shreds, local sheriff Sam Atlas steps up to form a tracking team. But the carnivorous fugitive is only one of Sam’s problems. The local pastor, enraged by the death of his son at the hands of the beast, has plans for igniting his own brand of hellfire and revenge.

DEAD LETTERS: Leo Films

When a blocked and frustrated writer, C. Thomas Howell, decides to take an isolated cabin in the mountains outside LA, little does he expect that his solitude will be splintered by the appearance of a beautiful young girl, who lives next door. Besieged as the “writer from LA” by a mélange of colorful local characters, and taken advantage of at every turn by the crafty locals, he soon learns more about life than he ever did writing. Now, when the girl’s jealous trucker husband returns home and discovers the affair, he is captured and forced to write a novel or suffer the consequences. Nothing focuses the mind like the threat of death.

DREAD: Lionsgate

Stephen and Cheryl are college students making a documentary about what people dread in life. But they have no idea that their partner, Quaid, witnessed his parents being murdered by an axe-wielding lunatic and wants to make others experience his own personal horror.

THE FINAL: Lionsgate

Dane, an awkward student with a deadly vendetta, leads a group of outcasts who plot to avenge the years of humiliation they faced from the popular students at Hohn High School. The outcasts turn the tables on the popular students who made sport of them and prepare for a single night that will leave their tormentors scarred for life.

THE GRAVES: Lionsgate

On their last weekend together, Megan and Abby Graves are lost in a remote part of the Arizona desert where they are lured to Skull City Mine, an abandoned mine town. But they soon learn Skull City is anything but abandoned – and there’s no way out. The sisters are now prey, forced to unleash their most primitive instincts in a desperate, all-out battle for survival against unspeakable horrors – both human and supernatural. Can they unlock the terrifying secrets of Skull City in time to save themselves, or will they become the latest in a long line of victims?

HIDDEN: Lionsgate

With his mother’s passing, KK returns home after nineteen years to settle her estate. But with his heritage come dark and deadly secrets. Having spent the last two decades trying to forget his cruel mother and his past life in the creepy house in the woods, KK finds that there are some things you just can’t run from.

KILL THEORY: Lionsgate

Seven college students visit a secluded vacation home to celebrate graduation and become trapped in a deadly game by a mysterious killer. Forced to kill one another by 6 A.M. the following morning, only one of them can remain alive. Whoever remains will be allowed to walk away with his or her life. However, if morning comes and more than one are still breathing, everyone dies. Friends and couples must test their trust, as the clock ticks away. Some will fight for love, some to survive; but all will change, because deep down…we’re all killers.

LAKE MUNGO: Lionsgate

In Lake Mungo, sixteen-year-old Alice Palmer drowns while swimming in the local dam. When her body is recovered and a verdict of accidental death returned, her grieving family buries her. The family then experiences a series of strange and inexplicable events centered in and around their home. Profoundly unsettled, the Palmers seek the help of psychic and parapsychologist Ray Kemeny. Ray discovers that Alice led a secret, double life. A series of clues lead the family to Lake Mungo, where Alice’s secret past emerges.

THE LEGEND OF THE SANDSQUATCH: Terra Entertainment

When a young woman’s grandfather goes suddenly missing in the desert, she starts searching for clues as to where he might have been going. What she finds, though, is a secret he’s been hiding from her; his quest to track and destroy the mysterious desert monster, Sandsquatch, which killed his friends. Determined to find him before it s too late she puts together a search party and heads into the dunes for a hunt to the death.

THE REEDS: Lionsgate

A weekend boating party turns into a nightmare for a group of young Londoners when they stumble upon a terrifying secret hidden in the reeds.

ZOMBIES OF MASS DESTRUCTION: Lionsgate

A conservative island community is under attack! Port Gamble, Washington is being overrun with brain-eaters, and the people seem powerless to stave them off. A ragtag band of rebels led by Frida, an Iranian college student suspected of being an Iraqi terrorist, and Tom, a gay businessman who has returned to town with his partner to come out to his mother, tries to turn the tide and push the invading hordes of undead back.