Movies
‘Black Eyed Susan’ – ‘Shatter Dead’ Filmmaker Scooter McCrae Returns With BDSM Sex Doll Horror Movie
The director of cult films Shatter Dead (1994) and Sixteen Tongues (1999), Shooter McCrae has wrapped production on his third feature film, titled Black Eyed Susan.
The film is currently in post-production, Bloody Disgusting has learned.
“The stylishly spare, lo-fi aesthetic erotic science fiction feature was filmed on Super 16 in Brooklyn and other areas of Upstate New York. Its cast includes Damian Maffei (The Strangers: Prey at Night, Wrong Turn), Marc Romeo, and ex-WWE Superstar Scott Fowler. Model Yvonne Emilie Thälker marks her feature film debut as the picture’s titular character.”
Desperate for work, Derek (Maffei) accepts a job replacing his recently-deceased friend at a tech startup. Continuing to develop the company’s innovative project means working intimately with Susan (Thälker), a bleeding-edge BDSM sex doll meant to receive and appreciate punishment as an integral part of her evolving AI.
Derek will soon test the limits of his own desires and explore the nature of man and woman, pleasure and pain, and life and death in a morally uncertain future world.
Known for his previous SOV (shot-on-video) horror and sci-fi features Shatter Dead (1994) and Sixteen Tongues (2003), McCrae was overjoyed to lens his third feature on film stock. Says the director, “My so-called ‘career’ seems to have been built upon shooting on whatever format is least fashionable at the time, hence shooting on analog and digital video when film ruled the Earth, and now shooting film stock while the rest of the world has comfortably settled into digital capture mode. I guess I’m only comfortable when I’m an iconoclast.”
Black Eyed Susan also marks McCrae’s second collaboration with legendary Italian composer Fabio Frizzi, best known for his efforts with fellow countryman Lucio Fulci, the director of such horror classics as Zombie, The Beyond, and City of the Living Dead. McCrae and Frizzi previously collaborated on the award-winning 2015 short film Saint Frankenstein.
“I think the driving force behind wanting to make another movie at all was to have another chance to work with Maestro Frizzi,” says McCrae. “I’m incredibly lucky to count him not only as a friend, but a collaborator, and the music he conjured for Saint Frankenstein was so hauntingly beautiful that I wanted another opportunity to create more sonic magic together.”
Black Eyed Susan is a co-production between Not the Funeral Home (The Last Drive-In with Joe Bob Briggs), Little Cannonballs, and the recently-launched Vinegar Syndrome Pictures (New York Ninja). It is produced by Justin A. Martell (Subspecies V: Bloodrise), Aimee Kuge (the upcoming Cannibal Mukbang), Seager Dixon, and Maureen Costello.
Movies
‘This Is How the World Ends’ – New Movie Claims to Be First Straight-to-VHS Release In 20 Years
A whole bunch of new horror movies have made the leap to VHS in recent years, thanks to fan-run companies including Witter Entertainment and Lunchmeat. Everything from Terrifier 2 & Terrifier 3 to Alien Romulus and Mandy has found itself on VHS as the once-dead format shows new signs of life, but what about a brand new movie that’s ONLY released on VHS?
Low budget sci-fi movie This Is How the World Ends is claiming to be the first straight-to-VHS release in twenty years, according to a new report from Variety this week.
From South African director Robert dos Santos, This Is How the World Ends centers a brother who sets out to find his sister at a hedonistic party deep in the desert.
Here’s the full official synopsis: “When the war between humans and the AI Machine States breaks out, misinformation and confusion reigns supreme. While the government pumps out reports that everything is going to be okay, the underground news reports that this might very well be the end.
“In the midst of this uncertainty, something unique is happening. The party to end all parties, dubbed the last party on earth, is taking place deep in the desert.
“While some are living with blinkers on, Danni Freeman (Frances Shalto-Douglas) knows that this is the end, and she makes the choice to journey deep into the desert to experience what life has to offer for one last time. Believing that this war will blow over, Tom Freeman (Josh Kempen) is sent to track down his sister and bring her back.
“But with a world that is falling apart at the seams, he must overcome a dangerous journey to the end of the world, as well as his own mortality.”
According to Variety’s report, This Is How the World Ends will be released on VHS for National VCR Day on June 7, and the outlet notes that “pre-orders from around the world have already surpassed 1,000 copies.” The company VHS Haven is distributing the release in the U.S.
“What does VHS in 2026 look like and how can this be a new reimagining of what ‘straight-to-VHS’ means,” dos Santos explains. “It used to be proper slander, if someone said ‘straight-to-VHS,’ it meant terrible. But the whole point of this is to reclaim that and say, look, straight-to-VHS is actually saying that this is a well-made film, made with intention for an audience.”
You can pre-order This Is How the World Ends on VHS right now!
Watch the official trailer below.
You must be logged in to post a comment.