Oh man what a brutal, brutal month for DVD/Blu-ray releases. This week’s edition of Horror In Your House is miniscule featuring Lionsgate Home Entertainment’s long delayed release of Blood Creek, Warner Home Video’s Kate Beckinsale thriller Whiteout, Summit’s Pandorum and the Will Shatner classic Kingdom of the Spiders.
Horror in Your House
January 19, 2010
BLOOD CREEK: Lionsgate
Dominic Purcell and Henry Cavill star as brothers on a mission of revenge who become trapped in a harrowing occult experiment that dates back to the Third Reich.
TEX SAYS: Director Joel Schumacher career has veered wildly off course with this meandering supernatural Nazi thriller that offers noting more than a few kills and an overabundance of exposition.
KINGDOM OF THE SPIDERS: Shout! Factory
William Shatner stars as veterinarian Rack Hansen in this cult classic about an Arizona town infested with a horde of arachnids that turn on the humans whose insecticides have depleted their natural food supply.
PANDORUM (DVD & Blu-ray): Anchor Bay (TEX’S PICK OF THE WEEK)
Two crewmen awaken from hyper-sleep aboard a spacecraft. None of their equipment is working, and their memories are incomplete. What was their mission? How much time has passed? Where are they? Who are they? As they try to piece things together, they discover they are not alone, and the ship’s new inhabitants – tribal warriors carrying crudely made weapons – are moving among them, intent on killing all aboard. As the space travelers unravel the frightening and deadly secrets the ship harbors, they realize the survival of mankind hinges on their actions. They must regain control of the ship before PANDORUM takes over.
TEX SAYS: Something of a disappointment when I saw it in the theaters, but after taking a second look on Blu-ray (with expectations in check), PANDORUM offers a few moments of suspense in an ALIEN meets THE DESCENT kind of way. Not the most promising example of great Space-horror film, but probably the best you’ll do this week!
SPIRITS OF THE FALL: R Squared Films
This Halloween, the spirits are restless and things that go bump in the night are closer than they seem for Chris, a widower who is coming to terms with his loss. While living in his hotel, strange things begin to happen. Voices in the night and faces at the window are not uncommon and things are about to get a lot worse when he is forced to face the paranormal and save his wife s soul from the evil spirit of her killer.
WHITEOUT (DVD & Blu-ray): Warner
For U.S. Marshal Carrie Stetko, things are about to get even more dangerous. The only law enforcement in this unforgiving territory, she has just been sent to investigate a body on the ice. Antarctica’s first homicide. A shocking discovery in itself, it will plunge her into an even more bizarre mystery and the revelation of secrets long-buried under the endless ice…secrets that someone believes are still worth killing for. As Stetko races to find the killer before he finds her, winter is already closing in. In the deadly Antarctic whiteout, she won’t see him till he’s a breath away.
TEX SAYS: Warner had a film that could have been a great tense drama on their hands, then they screwed the marketing all to hell…making it look at various times like John Carpenter’s THE THING crossed with a slasher film. I had no idea what this flick was about based on the trailers. I guess the best you can hope for when you make a dull, lifeless, plodding mess that no one wants to see is….mass confusion!