A bonanza of low budget horror heads your way in this week’s releases. Two more After Dark Originals, Scream of the Banshee and The Task along with several festival films that are seeing their (release) day in the sun, including the Ghost From The Machine and the mucho hyped We Are What We Are. Check out the rest below and have a great week.
Horror In Your House
July 26th, 2011

BIO-DEAD – E1 Entertainment

After a devastating biological disaster kills twelve million people, a hazmat team searches the contaminated wasteland for survivors. But what they find is a vicious predator hungry for human flesh.

THE DEAD AND THE DAMNED – Inception Media Group

Hot on the trail of a renegade Apache warrior, gun-slinging bounty hunter Mortimer passes through an 1849 California gold rush town, where local miners direct him into the mountains to track his prey. While he is gone, the miners unearth a meteor that has landed in their sleepy town. As they crack it open, an explosion releases toxic spores, which quickly infect the entire population, transforming them into blood-thirsty, mutant zombies. Following a ferocious battle, Mortimer triumphantly returns to town with his Indian captive in shackles only to find them surrounded by a ravenous horde of the undead. Now the two enemies must band together if they are to escape the horrors of The Dead and the Damned!

DEATH ANGEL DECEMBER: VENGEANCE KILLS – Chemical Burn Entertainment

December’s innocence was stolen from her when she witnessed the brutal murder of her family. After years of trying to leave the tragedy behind, a violent assault brings her face to face with the demons that have haunted her. Something triggers within December’s psyche, an internal switch that fuels her to become a carefully trained, highly skilled assassin, a vigilante by night and a police investigator by day. She lives solely to inflict vengeance for the death of her family. When a weapon surfaces that may prove to be the last piece to her past, December commits to the bloody road ahead.

DEVIL DOG: HOUND OF HELL – Shriek Show

This eerie 70s horror gem pits a suburban family against a demonically possessed German shepherd whose hunger for human souls far exceeds that of the normal household pet. Although not above resorting to the usual throat mauling, the satanic psycho-pup s preferred method of attack is to supernaturally cause the deaths of various friends and neighbors, in a style reminiscent of The Omen.

MICAH SAYS: Watch the trailer, it should sell you on this flick immediately. It’s awesomely bad in a fun TV Movie of the Week kinda way. Easily the best Satanic German Shepard movie I’ve ever seen. Think there is a coincidence with the release of this film and the similarly named next film in this list?

DYLAN DOG: DEAD OF NIGHT (Blu-ray / DVD) – Fox Home Entertainment

Brandon Routh stars as Dylan Dog, world famous private investigator specializing in affairs of the undead. His PI business card reads “No Pulse? No Problem.” Armed with an edgy wit and carrying an arsenal of silver and wood-tipped bullets, Dylan must track down a dangerous artifact before a war ensues between his werewolf, vampire and zombie clients living undercover in the monster infested backstreets of New Orleans.

MICAH SAYS: This film was boring. Really. Really. Boring. Which would seem to be pretty hard to accomplish given the body of work (the comic) that the creators had to pull from. And the jokes…Man oh man are they flat and UNFUNNY.

FAST ZOMBIES WITH GUNS – Chemical Burn Entertainment

Collateral Damage. Sometimes, it’s unavoidable. Mobster Kingpin Paul Varlo’s (Charles Ramsey) attempt to kill a potential rat by poisoning his personal water supply leads to something he never saw coming an outbreak of zombie carnage! To make matters worse, these zombies are different; they’re faster, meaner and they’re armed. With the town being overrun by fast zombies with guns, one resilient band of people are left to attempt an escape to the nearest undead-free zone and survival. Will the group survive? Will the zombies run out of bullets??? The answers are in Fast Zombies with Guns.

GHOST FROM THE MACHINE – Screen Media Films

A young man named Cody plunges himself into the murky science of the supernatural, inventing a machine he intends to be a conduit to the other side. In his pursuit to build the device he befriends an affable electrical engineer named Tom who has his own tale of love and loss. Cody eventually reaches an unintended level of success that not only threatens his safety, but also the well-being of his younger brother James and his new friend Tom. He quickly learns that the supernatural isn’t all that super and human nature can even be worse.

MICAH SAYS: Good Sci-fi horror is pretty hard to come by. This Fantasia Festival winner has been garnering some good vibes. Certainly worth seeking out if you like low-budget genre mixing indie flicks.

GOBLIN – Lionsgate

In 1831, on the eve of Halloween, the villagers of Hollow Glen engage in an annual festival where they toss their diseased crops into a blazing fire, in hopes of blessing them with an abundant field for the next year. But when one couple takes the ritual too far and throws their sickly, deformed child into the inferno, their murderous action results in something far more horrific than they could have imagined. Out of the ashes and smoke rises something so evil, so monstrous, that the town is forever cursed. This creature is known as THE GOBLIN…and he waits for the moments when he can seek his revenge!

MATRIMONY – (Blu-Ray / DVD) – Palisades Tartan

Flash Point’s Fan Bing Bing stars in this ghostly Chinese love story. When Junchu’s girlfriend, Manli, is killed in a car accident, her ghost is determined to be with him forever. However, Junchu is forced to marry another woman, Sansan. Unable to earn his love and affection, Sansan makes a pact with Manli’s ghost, but as their love for Junchu clashes their agreement turns from friendship to terrifying vengeance. Reminiscent of the Alfred Hitchcock classic Rebecca but with a supernatural twist, Matrimony is a beautifully terrifying love story.

MICAH SAYS: From the Tartan Asia Extreme group, famous for releasing Battle Royal, Oldboy, Dumplings, and a ton of other Asian flicks. The trailer makes it looks first sad and depressing followed by creepy and super disturbing.

NIGHTMARE: 30TH Anniversary Edition – Code Red DVD

Escaped mental patient George (Baird Stafford) repeatedly suffers a graphic nightmare that depicts the axe murders of a couple making love. In Florida, a prowler stalks a babysitter – when she is attacked the youngest child she is looking after just sits and laughs… George begins a journey of brutal murder, death and destruction until the final moment of truth when his nightmares come to frightening life! aka Nightmare in a Damaged Brain and Blood Splash.

THE PUPPET MONSTER MASSACRE – MVD Entertainment Group

A group of teens are challenged to spend a night in the Wagner mansion on the edge of town. Little do they know the owner (Dr. Wolfgang Wagner) has concocted a monstrosity in the basement and plans to make the hapless teens the creature’s first big meal. This is The Puppet Monster Massacre, a wild and raucous love letter to the monster films of the glorious 1980’s! Heads will roll and felt will fly in this visually rich splatter-fest. Thrill as an army of over 400 soldiers is helpless against a monstrous menace, Chill as a man collapses from the aroma of a thousand bunny farts, Shriek as puppets make sweet monkey love in a spooky graveyard! This is the low budget film you have been waiting for!

PSYCHOPATHS: SEX WITH HOSTAGES – World Wide Multi Media

Psychopaths: Sex with Hostages follows two demented, perverse sickos on the run from the police for various crimes of rape, torture and murder. In a mad attempt to flee the country, the crazed duo decide to kidnap a sexy woman and take her hostage. The plan turns sour when one of the psychopaths takes it upon himself to have some wicked perverse fun committing one of the most brutal rapes ever committed. This leads to a frenzied breakdown of the madmen and their hostage resulting in deception, murder, and the final showdown from two bent cops who will do anything to get justice.

SCREAM OF THE BANSHEE (After Dark Original) – Lionsgate Home Entertainment

When a college Professor opens up a strange, ornate box discovered in the basement of a University, she and her students hear a horrifying scream belonging to that of a bloodthirsty banshee. They think nothing of it, until that scream begins to haunt all that heard it in strange and surreal ways. According to Irish lore, if you hear a Banshee scream, you will die – which is what starts happening to them one by one, as the creature starts taking their lives…

MICAH SAYS: The poster is better than the movie. Another Lance Henriksen movie that is (un) surprisingly bad, but he’s alright in it, as usual. The CGI looks on par with Asylum films. I wish I had skipped this one.

STRANGE GIRLS – Vanguard Cinema

Dr. Jessica Karp is making a fresh start as the head of the Mayfield Institute of Psychiatric Medicine. She takes over the case of Georgia and Virginia Gruczechy; twin sisters who haven’t spoken to anyone but each other since they were locked up at the age of fourteen. Set for release, Dr. Karp decides to keep them interned for a little while longer – so they kill her. Hence ensues the twin sisters’ wacking anyone who gets in their way. Living in the outside world, the sisters have created their own insular and perverse world in a rundown apartment. Their days are spent in pursuit of their peculiar obsessions; porn, prison pen-paling, and joyriding their 90 year old neighbors car. One day a handsome neighbor accidentally knocks Virginia down igniting a romantic relationship. When Georgia realizes her world is about to come undone, she resorts to all measures to hold on to her sister.

THE TASK (After Dark Original) – Lionsgate Home Entertainment

Something diabolical is taking place on the set of ‘The Task’, a new reality show in which players complete terrifying missions within the confines of an abandoned prison, hoping to win a hefty cash prize. As six young students explore their new environment, malicious spirits make their presence known in the most gruesome ways imaginable. The contestants become unwitting pawns caught at the center of a blood-soaked night of terror.

WE ARE WHAT WE ARE – MPI Home Video

Life would be hard for anyone following the unexpected death of their father. But life is harder for young Adrian, Sheila and Alfredo. Because their family is not normal. There s is a family of cannibals and their father, you see, was the hunter. So not only do they have to cope with their grief, they also have to deal with the hunger. And one of them must learn to kill if any of them are going to survive. Balancing sincere emotion with horrifying violence, Jorge Michel Grau s WE ARE WHAT WE ARE is one of the most striking debut films of recent times, a powerful and unique drama announcing the arrival of a major new talent.

MICAH SAYS: Digging up positive reviews for this flick isn’t hard at all. An engaging Mexican cannibal horror flick that Mr. Disgusting gave a near perfect 9/10. I’m getting this one.