This is the narrative that emerges through the jam-packed special features lineup on Ignite Films’ new 4K remaster of Bride of Re-Animator, a gnarly and glisteningly gory movie even by the standards of the classic original. It almost didn’t happen; it took a long time to get going, and by the time it was going, it wasn’t exactly a well-oiled machine with a massive budget to play with. But it happened, and now it’s got the box set release it deserves. 

I first came upon Bride of Re-Animator in the VHS era, so on the surface level it’s just great to see a Yuzna-approved 4K version of this thing out in the world, where you can see every hand-sculpted vein, every wild gag, every beam of light rendered not just with detail, but with an eye toward preserving the kind of intimate zaniness of the film.

So much of Bride of Re-Animator takes place in a basement, as Herbert West (Jeffrey Combs) and Dan Cain (Bruce Abbot) try to wield a new and improved version of their glowing green re-animator serum to take things beyond simple restoration and into the realm of creation. It’s dingy, it’s dark, and it’s cramped, and yet cinematographer Rick Fichter finds so many places to put unexpected light, from the stained glass windows around the house to the strategically placed bulbs around the lab, that the film just crackles with a quirky sci-fi glow. It looks gorgeous, and the 4K never lets go of the Gothic shadows in service to bringing in even more light, so it still looks balanced and intentional.

Throw in solid audio, including that witty Richard Band score, and even the more affordable standard edition (Bloody Disgusting was sent the Deluxe Edition Box Set, which includes everything except the new finger creature collectible phone holder) will be a welcome addition to your collection. 

But then we get into the new features, headlined by Till Death Do Us Part: Making Bride of Re-Animator, a 60-minute documentary featuring Yuzna, Combs, Abbott, Fichter, Band, makeup effects legend Howard Berger, and more. As making-of docs go, it’s pretty standard fare, but the interviews are gold, as the cast and crew discuss the more comedic tone, the troubled production, the gore, and more, covering everything from the influence of The Bride of Frankenstein to Yuzna’s house fire and the stress that added to a movie that basically never shows the stress of making it in any shot.

Other new features, like lobby cards and a commentary track from Sarah Sherman, feel like you’re watching a movie with your cool horror-comedy friend, and it’s a blast to explore all the new wrinkles in this film’s still-expanding legacy. I would have loved more new deep dives, particularly devoted to the makeup effects, but this certainly doesn’t feel incomplete. 

One of the reasons those of us who went crazy for the golden age of DVD bonus features 25 years ago long for box sets like this one, with new commentaries and documentaries and other treats, is because when they’re done properly, they tell a story unto themselves. There’s the narrative of the film, but there’s also the narrative of the people who made it, what they were thinking and feeling and fighting to achieve in that moment in their lives, and how it makes them feel now.

Mere weeks before this box set arrived at my door, we found out we’d lost makeup effects legend Screaming Mad George, who developed the look of Herbert West’s many orphaned mutant creations in the film. His absence adds weight to this release, lends more meaning to how hard all of these young, crazy, creative people worked, and accentuates the power of the kind of raw imaginative energy that went into this movie.

That’s the narrative here. Bride of Re-Animator is the story of a scientist breaking all the rules, but it’s also the story of a group of horror luminaries somehow finding a way to make one of the best horror sequels of all time, and this box set not only points to that; it expounds on it. It gives us more of the story, with all the heart and chaos and humor that it implies, and that makes it a delight from slipcase to essay, lobby cards to commentaries. It’s about as complete as a release like this can get.

Bride of Re-Animator is now available in 4K from Ignite Films.

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Re-Animator producer Brian Yuzna steps into the director’s chair for the 1990 sequel, written by his Society collaborators Zeph E. Daniel and Rick Fry.

The unrated cut of film has been newly restored in 4K Ultra HD, approved by Yuzna, with HDR.

Priced at $129.95, the Ultimate Limited Edition box set comes with additional collectibles — including a finger creature that doubles as a phone holder!

Newly special features:

• Till Death Do Us Part: Making Bride of Re-Animator — 60-minute documentary
• Extended interviews with Director Brian Yuzna and Actors Bruce Abbott, Fabiana Udenio, Jeffrey Combs, and Kathleen Kinmont
• 4K release trailer

Legacy special features:

• HD restoration of the Rated version
• Audio Commentary by Director Brian Yuzna
• Audio Commentary by Director Brian Yuzna, Actor Jeffrey Combs, and Special Effects Artists Tom Rainone, Howard Berger, Robert Kurtzman, Mike Deak, Screaming Mad George, John Buechler
• Audio Commentary by Actors Jeffrey Combs and Bruce Abbott
• Brian Yuzna Remembers Bride of Re-Animator 
• Splatter Masters — Interviews with special effects artists Robert Kurtzman, Screaming Mad George, Tony Doublin, and John Buechler.
• Getting Ahead of Horror — Making-of featurette
• Meg is Re-Animated — Deleted scene with behind-the-scenes footage
• Carnival Sequence — Cast and crew discuss excised sequence

Ultimate Limited Edition contents:

• Finger Creature Collectible/Phone Holder
• Hardcover Book with Introduction by Director Brian Yuzna and New Interviews with Actors Jeffrey Combs, Bruce Abbott, Kathleen Kinmont, and Fabiana Udenio
• 5 Collector Art Cards
• Deluxe Digipack Housed in a Rigid Box with J-card packaging

Taking place eight months after the Miskatonic massacre, Doctors West and Cain are experimenting again. But this time, instead of reanimating corpses, they’ve decided to create new life — in the form of a beautiful companion (from spare body parts, of course) for Dr. West.

Jeffrey Combs returns to star as Herbert West alongside Bruce Abbott, Claude Earl Jones, Fabiana Udenio, David Gale, and Kathleen Kinmont.

“We went big with Bride of Re-Animator — bigger effects, bigger madness,” said Yuzna. “This 4K UHD restoration really lets all of that shine. It’s alive, and it’s never looked better!”

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The Darkside of Society will be released digitally May 13 from Uncork’d Entertainment.

Society‘s surreal and grotesque portrayal of elite depravity stunned audiences and secured its place as a horror essential. But while the film’s infamous “shunting” scene left an indelible mark on genre fans, its writer was enduring a very real psychological unraveling behind the scenes.

A raw, unfiltered examination of art, memory, and the dark corners of the creative process, the doc explores Daniel’s revelation that the film’s twisted plot was more autobiographical than he ever intended — a subconscious manifestation of repressed childhood trauma.

It features interviews with Yuzna, Society special effects designer Screaming Mad George, Color Out of Space director Richard Stanley, Warlock actor Julian Sands, former Fangoria editor Tony Timpone, Severin Films founder David Gregory, FrightFest co-director Alan Jones, and more.

“With built-in appeal for horror fans, cult movie lovers, and documentary audiences alike, The Darkside of Society delivers shocking revelations and a fresh perspective on a beloved genre classic,” says Uncork’d President Keith Leopard. “Zeph E. Daniel’s story is as unsettling as the film itself — a fascinating and deeply personal look at the creation of one of horror’s most unforgettable cult films. We’re excited to bring this revealing documentary to audiences everywhere.”

The Darkside of Society is directed by Larry Wade Carrell, Daniel’s producing partner at Crazed House. The duo recently collaborated on the horror films Girl Next and The Quantum Devil.

The post ‘Society’ Writer Peels Back the Layers of His ’80s Cult Classic in ‘The Darkside of Society’ Documentary appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

As a genre, horror has long offered filmmakers the perfect conduit to interrogate and explore issues of greed, capitalism, systemic inequality, and the often ruthless nature of the elite. With the ability to provide visceral storytelling baked into its very DNA, horror can reflect society’s darkest anxieties about corporate greed and extreme wealth in a powerfully unique way. By amplifying our deepest fears, horror films offer a provocative space where filmmakers can dissect the sins of the 1% and serve up a critical dish of cathartic cinematic justice for the remaining 99% of us.

If Death of a Unicorn has merely whet your appetite and left you hungry for even more satisfying falls from grace — then get your tickets; it’s now playing — here are seven more selections to check out. So pull up a chair and get ready to sink your teeth into some delectably wicked cinematic offerings where the rich and mighty get their just desserts. 

The Skulls (2000)

At its core, Rob Cohen’s teen horror-thriller The Skulls is a classic fish-out-of-water story. As the aforementioned fish, Joshua Jackson stars as Luke McNamara, a local normie with a rough background who scores big when he lands a rowing scholarship to a prestigious Ivy League college. While the prominence of extreme wealth initially makes Luke and his friends feel like total outsiders, things shift when Luke unexpectedly gets invited to join a secret society called The Skulls.

Though initially hesitant, Luke quickly bonds with his privileged and reckless classmate Caleb (played to perfection by Paul Walker) and starts to think The Skulls aren’t so bad after all. Heck, even Caleb’s dad, Litten (Craig T. Nelson) and his partner, Senator Ames Levritt (William Petersen), seem okay. That is until Luke’s best friend Will (Hill Harper) gets murdered. Seeking answers, Luke soon finds himself rowing upstream against a powerful current of wealth, lies, power, and greed. Lucky for Luke (and bad for The Skulls), the school didn’t make him rowing team captain for nothing.

The Masque of the Red Death (1964)

Directed by Roger Corman, this gothic reimagining of Edgar Allan Poe’s tale serves as a biting allegory against the excesses of the elite, who are often oblivious to the suffering of the masses. As an unstoppable plague sweeps the land, Prince Prospero (Vincent Price), a wealthy Satanist, summons the area’s rich and powerful to his castle—attempting to cheat death by indulging in hedonistic excess and downright cruelty. At the same time, the outside world crumbles under the weight of neglect, disease, and poverty. Then, as a mysterious red-cloaked figure appears at Prospero’s masked ball, the wealthy’s illusion of safety and superiority begins to shatter as their fellow elite begin to drop dead. Not only does this fate beautifully underscore the story’s comment on the futility of wealth and privilege in the face of nature’s indiscriminate wrath, it’s just so darn satisfying to watch.

Frogs (1972)

Like Death of a Unicorn, George McCowan’s eco-horror wonder Frogs transforms a pretty setting into a bloody battleground where nature exacts brutal retribution on a greedy family. In the film, wildlife photographer Pickett Smith (Sam Elliott) literally runs into the wealthy Crockett family kids while canoeing around their island estate. With Smith understandably grumpy about getting dumped into the swamp thanks to some drunk rich kids, the Crocketts seek to make amends by inviting him back to their family’s island mansion for a change of clothes and their annual summer party. Once there, Smith discovers just how ugly the family really is and watches in horror as their blatant disregard for the environment around them upends the natural order, transforming innocent amphibians into agents of vengeance. With its visceral imagery and hopping pace, Frogs delivers a stark indictment, reminding us that the devastation wrought by greed may ultimately awaken the wild forces of nature.

The Hunt (2020)

With a strong roster of familiar faces, The Hunt stars Betty Gilpin (GLOW), Emma Roberts (American Horror Story), Hilary Swank (Million Dollar Baby), and Glenn Howerton (The Strangers) and follows a group of ordinary citizens who find themselves prey in a sadistic sport orchestrated by a secretive cadre of ultra-wealthy elites. Unfolding as a darkly satirical commentary on class warfare and capitalism, the rich commodify the lives of 12 strangers for their twisted amusement, reflecting a society in which power and privilege perpetuate structural exploitation. As the hunted rally together and fight back, the story morphs into a visceral power dynamic reversal that’s as bloody and cynical and satisfying as one can possibly imagine.

Society (1989)

Few films embrace the idea of “eat the rich” as brazenly and humorously as Brian Yuzna’s dark, body horror comedy, Society. Like many angsty teenagers, Bill Whitney (Billy Warlock) finds himself becoming increasingly disillusioned by the world and his family’s constant facade of elite sophistication. However, this disillusionment soon gives way to something far more unsettling when Bill discovers his one-percenter parents and their affluent friends are harboring a mind-blowing secret—they literally (and metaphorically) feed off the less fortunate. As the boundaries between class, morality, and physical bodies melt away, Society delivers a visceral critique, laying bare the grotesque reality behind wealth and power. A savage fable like you’ve never seen, Society turns high society into an unappetizing macabre organism feeding on its own corruption like the disgusting creature that it is.

The Purge franchise

Even though every installation of The Purge franchise approaches Purge Night a little differently, each still makes sure to center the brutal mechanics of class warfare and the insidious underpinnings of a capitalist society driven by class oppression. Here, the wealthy and powerful create and encourage the annual night of anything goes (including murder) in a not-so-secret effort to reinforce social hierarchies and cull the lower classes.

Yet, as the night of sanctioned chaos unfolds, the films also showcase the resilience and uprising of the marginalized, who use the chaos as a catalyst to resist and fight back against the elite. In this way, The Purge becomes a bit of a poisoned chalice. Though initially created to suppress dissent and reinforce wealth and power, The Purge typically leads to the lower classes banding together, punishing the predatory, and demanding a radical reordering of societal norms. They’re also fun as hell and an entertaining way to question the legitimacy of a system constructed to thrive on inequality and exploitation.

They Live (1988)

Any way one slices it, John Carpenter’s They Live kicks ass. For one, it stars “Rowdy” Roddy Piper as Nada, a construction worker who stumbles across some sweet sunglasses. Then we find out that these sunglasses not only look cool, but they also reveal messages hidden in various media in an attempt to control the masses. Oh, and they also reveal that those behind this diabolical plan are actually super wealthy, super powerful, super ugly aliens masquerading as human beings. And before one can pop a piece of bubblegum, Nada sets out to burn the whole dang system down while simultaneously exploring the parasitic nature of elite power and the veneer of consumer culture that is nothing more than a façade masking culturally ingrained inequality.

Honorable Mentions:

• Ready or Not (2019)

• Hostel (2005)

• The Menu (2022)

• Gremlins 2: The New Batch (1990)

• Happy Birthday to Me (1981)
• The People Under the Stairs (1991)

Death of a Unicorn is now playing in theaters everywhere. Get your tickets today!

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Hosted by Scare You to Sleep creator Shelby Novak and Halloweenies executive producer Michael Roffman, the hour-long panel featured Barbara Crampton, Jeffrey Combs, Bruce Abbott, Brian Yuzna, and Richard Band. Together, they shared stories from the set, how certain elements came to fruition, and why it remains a cult classic.

Stream the episode below or subscribe via Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify, RadioPublic, Acast, Google Podcasts, and RSS. New to the Halloweenies? Catch up with the gang by revisiting their essential episodes on past franchises such as Halloween, A Nightmare on Elm Street, Friday the 13th, Scream, The Evil Dead, Child’s Play/Chucky, and Alien!

This year? Universal Monsters!

You can also become a member of their Patreon, The Rewind, for hilariously irreverent commentaries (e.g. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Gremlins, Darkman), one-off deep dives on your favorite rentals (e.g. Phantasm, Prince of Darkness, Manhunter), and even topical spinoffs like last year’s incredible Fortune & Glory: An Indiana Jones Podcast.

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At the top of the frightful festivities is a 40th anniversary reunion panel for Re-Animator featuring Barbara Crampton, Jeffrey Combs, Bruce Abbott, Brian Yuzna, and Richard Band. In anticipation of the new 4K release, they’ll discuss the legacy of the Stuart Gordon classic with Scare You to Sleep host Shelby Novak and Halloweenies co-host Michael Roffman.

Look to the skies, grab that garlic, and snatch that stereo off the shelf because The Lost Boys will also be reassembling for an exclusive panel, specifically stars Jason Patric, Alex Winter, Billy Wirth, Jamison Newlander, and Chance Michael Corbitt. Scare You to Sleep and Halloweenies will also be moderating. Leather jackets optional.

And that’s just the tip of the blood-dripping icicle! The Boo Crew and Creepy will unwrap more stories behind Terrifier 3 with Alexa Blair Robertson, Mason Mecartea, Antonella Rose, Krsy Fox, and Margaret Anne Florence; Halloweenies and Creepy will return to Woodsboro with Scream stars Roger L. Jackson and Marley Shelton; Scare You to Sleep and Halloweenies will enter the paranormal ring with Vampiro; and The Boo Crew and Creepy will break bread with Alex Armbruster and Karen Cliche to talk Thanksgiving.

To kick off the weekend’s panels, BloodyFM’s own Jon Grilz of Creepy, Pacific Obadiah of SCP Archives, and Shelby Novak of Scare You to Sleep will gather early Saturday afternoon to share timeless urban legends and shed a light on what else may go bump in the night. Join them… if you dare… or, you know, you like good ol’ fashioned oogie boogie content.

Beyond the panels, Creep IE Con 2025 will also host Cassandra Peterson, Tobin Bell, Shawnee Smith, Jon Bernthal, Tom Holland, Ken Foree, Barbara Hershey, Scott Ian, Wednesday 13, and more. It all goes down next weekend — from Friday, January 31st to Sunday, February 2nd — at the Ontario Convention Center in Ontario, California. 

Secure your tickets now!

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Dark Arts Entertainment will release Terror Firma on Blu-ray August 27, 2024.

Spinning a modern-day allegory of the turbulent times we’re living in, Terror Firma is described as a sci-fi thriller and debut film from writer-director Jake Macpherson. “It weaves a dark, out-of-this-world mystery of family, betrayal, and deadly flora,” Dark Arts previews.

In the film, “When struggling artist Lola has nowhere else to go, she uncomfortably leans on her older brother Louis for help. They haven’t seen each other in over a year and the awkwardness is hard to hide as he welcomes her to stay with him in his run-down East Hollywood home. There’s one catch though… Lou has a strange roommate named Cage whose instant interest in Lola is made agonizingly clear. Within minutes of Lola’s arrival, the city of LA goes into a vague, mysterious lockdown with not much information for anyone other than the occasional police message from a circling helicopter. As the city keeps everyone inside, a packet of seeds arrives from the outside with no label and no answers.

“Curiosity gets the best of a locked down Lola so she plants the seeds and waits. What follows is a hypnotic journey down a psychedelic-juice-covered rabbit hole as reality bends and the three must grapple with the ever-changing landscape. While Lou is warped out of this world and Cage is turning violent, Lola is trapped in the middle.”

Faye Tamasa, Robert Brettenaugh, Burt Thakur, and Max Carpenter star.

Watch the official trailer for Terror Firma below.

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To add to the pure mayhem of its anniversary celebration, Popcorn Frights 2024’s in-theater experience will be offered free and open to the public, as a gift back to the community for ten years of their dedicated support and moviegoing love. Popcorn Frights’ free festival is made possible by the generous support of Nightmare Weekend Miami.

Highlights include the 35th anniversary presentation of Brian Yuzna’s spectacularly insane masterpiece Society, one of the ickiest, sweatiest, gloopiest, horniest, and most original body horror shockers of all time. The master of horror will also attend the first screening of the “Lost First Cut” of Return of the Living Dead 3, featuring ten minutes of uncovered footage that Brian Yuzna himself hasn’t seen! This exclusive screening event is made possible by filmmakers Dustin Ferguson and Chris MacGibbon, who unearthed this previously unknown cut of the film — a testament to their efforts in uncovering this hidden gem of horror cinema. Legendary directors William Lustig and Adam Rifkin are set to join Popcorn Frights for two special double-bill events.

Brimming with encroaching dread, the festival is also unleashing the supernatural horror film The Grudge with a special 20th anniversary screening attended by writer Stephen Susco. Before the screening, a Masters of Horror Panel will be moderated by Bloody Disgusting and will feature Brian Yuzna, William Lustig, Adam Rifkin, and Stephen Susco. That doesn’t even touch on the brand new premieres and virtual screenings, including a special presentation of IFC Films’ beauty revenge thriller Skincare starring Elizabeth Banks.

The fun doesn’t stop there; a second wave of Popcorn Frights 2024 titles with more than two dozen additional feature film premieres for in-theater and virtual programming will be announced next week.

In the meantime, read on for the packed first wave of Popcorn Frights 2024 programming:

IN THEATER FEATURE FILM LINEUP

OPENING NIGHT DOUBLE-BILL

Beezel

World Premiere

United States | 2024 | 81 Min. | Dir. Aaron Fradkin

A horrifying incident involving a child reveals the malevolent presence of an ancient witch residing within the basement walls.

OPENING NIGHT DOUBLE-BILL

Strange Darling

Florida Premiere

United States | 2023 | 96 Min. | Dir. JT Mollner

Willa Fitzgerald, Kyle Gallner, and Barbara Hershey star in this acclaimed cat-and-mouse thriller where nothing is what it seems when a twisted one-night stand spirals into a serial killer’s vicious murder spree.

Birthrite

World Premiere

United States | 2024 | 100 Min. | Dir. Ross Partridge

*Director Ross Partridge and actress Jennifer Lafleur expected in person

When a pregnant woman inherits a home from an estranged aunt, she and her girlfriend leave the city to start anew, only to face a karmic debt that endangers their unborn child and reveals their link to the town’s cursed history.

The Bunker

World Premiere
United States | 2024 | 91 Min. | Dir. Brian Hanson

*Director Brian Hanson expected in person

 When mysterious alien ships appear in the sky, a scientist is sealed in an underground bunker and must create a bio-weapon to stop the unknown visitors, but paranoia and isolation cause her to question the true intention of her mission. Starring Chelsea Edmundson, Tony Todd, and Tobin Bell.

The Demon Disorder

International Premiere

Australia | 2024 | 85 Min. | Dir. Steven Boyle

Three estranged brothers discover a family secret that transforms their deceased father’s garage into a site of supernatural revenge.

Drive Back

World Premiere

United States | 2024 | 94 Min. | Dir. Cody Ashford

*Director Cody Ashford, actors Whit Kunschik and Madonna Magee, producer Orlando J. Gomez, and composer Richard Breakspear expected in person

A couple returning from their engagement party must escape a sinister and seemingly endless road.

The Funeral

East Coast Premiere

Turkey | 2023 | 109 Min. | Dir. Orcun Behram

A hearse driver is secretly tasked with transporting a young girl’s body, only to hear eerie groans from the back of the truck despite her lack of a pulse.

Lizzie Lazarus

World Premiere

United States | 2024 | 91 Min. | Dir. Aviv Rubinstien

*Director Aviv Rubinstien and actors Omar Maskati and Lianne O’Shea expected in person

On the Summer Solstice in 1990, two strangers carry a corpse through the woods in search of a mythical zone they believe can resurrect the dead, only to uncover hidden secrets.

Scared to Death

World Premiere

United States | 2024 | 98 Min. | Dir. Paul Boyd

*Director Paul Boyd, producer Eric Barrett, and actor Kurt Deimer expected in person

A group of filmmakers attend a seance at an abandoned children’s orphanage in order to do research for a movie… that’s their first mistake. Starring Lin Shaye, Bill Moseley, and Kurt Deimer.

Skincare

Special Presentation

United States | 2024 | 97 Min. | Dir. Austin Peters

Famed aesthetician Hope Goldman’s skincare business faces sabotage when rival Angel Vergara opens a boutique across the street. Aided by friend Jordan, Hope seeks to uncover who’s trying to ruin her reputation. Starring Elizabeth Banks and Nathan Fillion.

Voidcaller

World Premiere

Sweden | 2024 | 85 Min. | Dir. Nils Alatalo

A woman waking up with amnesia realizes she may have been involved in something sinister on a cosmic scale.

VIRTUAL FEATURE FILM LINEUP

Chateau

World Premiere

United States | 2024 | 83 Min. | Dir. Luke Genton

While on a French vacation funded by odd jobs, an aspiring influencer covertly films a vlog in a reportedly haunted chateau she’s been hired to clean.

The Darkside of Society

North American Premiere

United States | 2023 | 85 Min. | Dir. Larry Wade Carrell

Screenwriter Zeph E. Daniel, formerly known as Woody Keith, steps out of his closet-of-dark-secrets and tells the incredible story behind the subversive oddity of his cult film, SOCIETY.

The Night Is Young

World Premiere

United States | 2024 | 76 Min. | Dir. Patrick Rea

An influencer filming her failed dates with her brother finds herself on a date with a vampire, leading them to become targets of murderous vampire hunters.

There’s A Zombie Outside

World Premiere

United States | 2024 | 74 Min. | Dir. Michael Varrati

A struggling artist becomes entangled in the world of cult cinema, blurring his identity with his dark creations as the monster from his films invades his reality, leaving him unable to distinguish fact from fiction.

Videoteka

World Premiere

United States | 2024 | 112 Min. | Dir. Luka Bursac

Running from the police, a small-time thief finds refuge in an abandoned video store and, forced to spend the night there, decides to watch three horror films.

IN THEATER RETRO LINEUP

Bringing Out the Dead

25th Anniversary Presentation

United States | 1999 | 121 Min. | Dir. Martin Scorsese

Haunted by the patients he failed to save, a monumentally burned-out Manhattan ambulance paramedic fights to maintain his sanity over three increasingly turbulent nights.

The Grudge

20th Anniversary Presentation

United States | 2004 | 91 Min. | Dir. Takashi Shimizu

*Writer Stephen Susco expected in person

An American nurse living and working in Tokyo is exposed to a mysterious supernatural curse, one that locks a person in a powerful rage before claiming their life and spreading to another victim.

The Invisible Maniac

The Big Sleaze Double-Bill Event

United States | 1990 | 86 Min. | Dir. Adam Rifkin

*Director Adam Rifkin expected in person

An invisible scientist escapes from an asylum and teaches high-school physics to nubile teens.

Maniac

The Big Sleaze Double-Bill Event

United States | 1980 | 87 Min. | Dir. William Lustig

*Director William Lustig expected in person

A psychopathic man goes on a killing and mutilation spree in New York City.

Maniac Cop 2

Right “2” Remain Silent Double-Bill Event

United States | 1990 | 90 Min. | Dir. William Lustig

*Director William Lustig expected in person

A supernatural, maniac killer cop teams up with a Times Square serial killer.

Psycho Cop Returns

Right “2” Remain Silent Double-Bill Event

United States | 1993 | 80 Min. | Dir. Adam Rifkin

*Director Adam Rifkin expected in person

A psychopath cop decides to kill everyone who he thinks has broken the law.

Return of the Living Dead 3

“Lost First Cut”

United States | 1993 | 105 Min. | Dir. Brian Yuzna

*Director Brian Yuzna expected in person

 Having recently witnessed the horrific results of a top secret project to bring the dead back to life, a distraught youth performs the operation on his girlfriend after she’s killed in a motorcycle accident.

Society

35th Anniversary Presentation

United States | 1989 | 99 Min. | Dir. Brian Yuzna

*Director Brian Yuzna expected in person

 An ordinary teenage boy discovers his family is part of a gruesome orgy cult for the social elite.

Access to the in-theater experience is free and open to the public on a first come first served basis, but a limited number of In-Theater All-Access VIP Badges will be available for guests who would like an all-inclusive experience with reserved seating for all films and special events hosted at the Savor Cinema Fort Lauderdale and Paradigm Cinema’s Gateway Theater, Popcorn Frights’ official host venues. Separate virtual passes are also available and will provide access to every film streaming in the festival’s virtual program. To order an In-Theater All-Access VIP Badge, click here, to order a Virtual All-Access Pass, click here.

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Filmmaker Dustin Ferguson (Spider Baby, or the Maddest Story Ever Told) revealed on Facebook that he’s acquired the “lost” first cut of Yuzna’s film, containing 8 minutes of never before seen footage. 

He writes, “Return of The Living Dead 3 fans! We have acquired the ‘lost’ 1st cut of ‘Return of The Living Dead 3’! It features almost 8 minutes of additional, never-before-seen footage not in the Unrated version! No information exists anyDwhere about this! More details soon!”

The announcement comes with a photo of the T-120 VHS Master containing the cut, with Ferguson teasing that plans are underway for a physical and/or digital release and an announcement forthcoming.

The third entry in this zombie franchise presents a gory Romeo and Juliet story only director Brian Yuzna could deliver. Curt Reynolds (J. Trevor Edmund) is madly in love with his girlfriend Julie (Melinda Clarke) and can’t bear to live without her. So much so that when a motorcycle accident claims her life, he takes her to his father’s military compound and exposes her to 2-4-5 Trioxin gas. Julie is successfully reanimated but must battle an overwhelming hunger for human flesh. As the lovers flee from the military, Julie leaves a trail of devastation and undead corpses. 

This threequel shakes up the franchise in just about every way. Yuzna’s ability to balance extreme viscera with tender moments makes this entry soar.

Return of the Living Dead 3, written by John Penney, was released unrated on VHS in addition to the R-rated theatrical cut in 1993. Yuzna had to trim down some of the unrated VHS to achieve the R-rating, which makes 8-minutes worth of footage all the more enticing.

Yuzna isn’t afraid to bring the pain and gore in Return of the Living Dead 3, so it’s extra curious what footage the lost cut could contain.

Stay tuned for additional details as they arrive. In the meantime, you can stream this goopy gem on freevee, Tubi, and the Roku Channel.

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In 2000, Brian Yuzna and Julio Fernández launched the Spanish production company Fantastic Factory. The Filmax banner’s objective was to create modestly budgeted genre films for international distribution. And while they achieved their goal — a total of nine English-language films were produced and shipped all across the globe — Fantastic Factory ultimately closed up shop after only five years. Arachnid, directed by Jack Sholder (Alone in the Dark, A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge, The Hidden) and based on a script by Mark Sevi, was the second project from the short-lived genre house. Yuzna was drawn to the concept largely because of its universal appeal; a monster was marketable in any region, regardless of cultural preferences or restrictions. There was also the fact that spiders give everyone a case of the heebie-jeebies.

By having extraterrestrial forces be the cause of the spiders’ mutism and immensity as well as other urgent problems within the story, Arachnid incidentally pays respect to Hollywood’s golden age of schlock filmmaking. The opening sequence indeed shows a stealth plane’s pilot (Jesús Cabrero) trailing a UFO and its translucent passenger to an island in the South Pacific, but the alien business is kept to a minimum going forward. There is no time to process this seismic revelation of life beyond Earth before moving on to the film’s central plot. 

Several months since the E.T. was last sighted — and after being snuffed out by one of its own accidental creations — a medical team from Guam heads to Celebes (better known as Sulawesi nowadays), in search of whatever is behind a new illness. The doctors (played by José Sancho and Neus Asensi) already suspected a spider bite, although they failed to consider the biter could be the size of a tank. With The Descent’s Alex Reid as the snarky pilot of this doomed expedition, one who has ulterior motives for accepting the job, the film’s core characters go off in search of a spider and, hopefully, a cure.

The title makes it seem as if there is only the one arachnid in the story, but once Chris Potter and Reid’s characters plus their team step foot on the island, they encounter other altered arthropods. Yuzna felt Sevi’s script needed more creatures along the way, especially before the spider showed up in full view. The bug horror commences as one gunsman succumbs to a burrowing breed of crab-sized ticks, and random characters fend off a horrific centipede with reptilian qualities. These are just the appetizers before the greatest arachnid of them all arrives. The late Ravil Isyanov, here playing a zealous but sympathetic arachnologist, becomes a human Lunchable for the spider’s eggs. And one of the doctors gets a face full of corrosive spider spew. So, there is no shortage of grisly predation in the film, with a few bits of the monsters’ handiwork possessing a haunting quality to them.

Shot quickly and cheaply, Arachnid is fast-food horror. It’s convenient and designed for immediate consumption, and will likely not linger on the palate. Usually there is not a lot worth remembering with these slapdash genre productions, however, this is one case of spider horror where the extra effort made a difference. Apart from the egregious use of digital imagery in the outset, Jack Sholder’s film primarily employs practical effects. And these are not rubber spiders dangling from strings or being flung at the actors, either. Fantastic Factory aimed much higher by securing DDTSFX (Pan’s Labyrinth, Hellboy II: The Golden Army) and creature designer and makeup artist Steve Johnson (Species, Blade II).

Arachnid, while far from flawless, somewhat redeems itself by having chosen practical effects and animatronics over CGI, which had become the new normal in these kinds of films. And this class of creature-feature was definitely not getting the sort of advanced VFX found in the likes of Eight Legged Freaks. Steve Johnson’s spider was not the easiest prop to work with, and it lacks the movement and versatility of a digital depiction. However, there is no beating that sense of weight and occupation of space that makes a tangible monster more intimidating. Viewers will have trouble recalling the human characters long after watching Arachnid, yet the humongous headliner remains the stuff of nightmares.

Over the years, the director has spoken critically of the film. He originally held off on agreeing to the offer to direct in hopes that another project, a Steven Seagal picture, would finally manifest. No such luck, and Sholder accepted Arachnid only on account of his needing the work. He said of the film: “I thought I could […] make it halfway decent, but I discovered there wasn’t a whole lot I could do.” Nevertheless, Sholder’s experience as a director of not exactly high-brow yet still rather entertaining horror is evident in what he has since called a “dud.” While there is no denying the reality and outcome of Arachnid, even the most mediocre films have their strokes of brilliance, small as they may be.

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In the back half of the 1980s, the American suburbs experienced a resurgence in popularity. As global instabilities stabilized and economies began to boom, moving to the suburbs became a sign of financial and professional success. Primarily populated by young families, the suburbs also became associated with traditional family values, safety, and community. However, as any true crime enthusiast knows, some things (and some people) are not always as innocent as they appear.

With Hollywood quick to hop on this trend train, what resulted was a wealth of interesting Frankenstein-style film ideas that simultaneously displayed the absurd excess and nostalgic conservatism the decade would soon be defined by. While movies like Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, and Adventures in Babysitting captured the lighter lifestyle vibes for more mainstream audiences, horror played up the dark potential lurking behind white picket fences. Reaching a near-critical mass peak in 1989, the year’s suburban horror offerings cover every dark possibility imaginable and then some.

Here are some of the best suburban screams that 1989 had to offer, curated for your enjoyment.

Phantom of the Mall: Eric’s Revenge

Ah, the mall. Though now often regarded as quaint, half-vacant relics of a bygone era, these brick-and-mortar behemoths once stood as physical symbols of prosperity and limitless possibilities for many suburban communities in the 80s and 90s. Before anything and everything was available with free next-day delivery, the mall was a central hub to commune and explore the endless capitalism-fueled wonders on display.

Tapping into this timely trend, director Richard Friedman delivers one of the wildest mall-themed horror films out there. After the new town mall is built on the site of a tragic house fire that killed a teen named Eric (Derek Rydall), strange thefts, murders, and occurrences begin to happen on the premises. Before long, Eric’s former girlfriend Melody (Kari Whitman) and Peter (Rob Estes), an intrepid young reporter, begin to connect the dots between the mall, the fire, and Eric. Part bonkers spin on The Phantom of the Opera, part small-town teen thriller, this flick really does have it all. Including an amazing early performance from Pauly Shore!

The ‘Burbs

Rarely has suburban ennui been captured so perfectly as in director Joe Dante’s pitch-black horror comedy, The ‘Burbs. Despite claiming to want a simple stay-cation at home, Ray (Tom Hanks) just can’t help but involve himself in the latest neighborhood drama. Everyone keeps tabs on everyone, and that goes double for the new neighbors who have yet to mow their lawn or be seen in daylight. Further exasperated by sheer boredom, Ray and the many colorful personalities that live in his cul-de-sac let their imaginations run wild. As their paranoia takes over and begins to dictate their actions, what ensues is a hilarious portrait of privileged suburban life as only Joe Dante can paint it.

Death Spa

With the increased availability of funds for many in the 80s came a corresponding interest in health and wellbeing. Gyms began to pop up in every neighborhood strip mall, and Jane Fonda workout VHS tapes invaded millions of suburban homes across America. So, naturally, it was only a matter of time before films like Killer Workout, Linnea Quigley’s Horror Workout, Murder-Rock and Death Spa came to fruition.

In gorgeous 80s fashion, director Michael Fischa’s Death Spa (also known as Witch Bitch) went direct from Cannes to VHS in 1989. The film centers around the tragic family drama of a small-time, high-tech gym owner named Michael (William Bumiller). After Michael’s wife Catherine commits suicide, a series of terrible accidents and spa technology malfunctions occur, killing multiple gym patrons. On top of that, Michael’s brother-in-law continues to blame Michael for Catherine’s death. However, before Michael can master his grief and guilt, he has to stop his paying customers from getting killed, or he soon won’t have any left.

Pet Sematary

When first introduced to Dr. Louis Creed (Dale Midkiff) in director Mary Lambert’s adaptation of Stephen King’s Pet Sematary, it would appear as though the Creeds were living a perfect American dream. After landing a new job and a beautiful new home, Louis and his wife Rachel (Denise Crosby) were set to give their two young children a picturesque place to grow up. You know, minus that creepy pet cemetery lurking on the back half of their property. However, things quickly turn dark and complicated when the Creed’s young son, Gage, gets tragically killed in front of their home.

What makes this film version of Pet Sematary so terrifying and haunting is how the story explores every parent’s worst nightmare and the buried feelings it digs up in both Louis and Rachel. The horror of losing a child is unimaginable, but it’s a horror that becomes further amplified when Louis learns of a way to bring Gage back. Despite ample warnings that “sometimes dead is better,” rational decision-making holds no sway over a force as powerful as grief.

Stepfather II

There’s something extra scary about a dangerous threat coming from within one’s own home. Whether it’s a phone call or a person, this level of violation carries an extra chilling weight. In the case of The Stepfather and 1989’s Stepfather II, this bad news starter kit gets cranked up a whole other notch by mixing in an additional layer of deception and obsessive mental illness.

Once again starring Terry O’Quinn as the titular stepfather, Jerry has inexplicably survived his last family squabble and been committed to a psychiatric facility. However, there is simply no containing (or rehabilitating) this bad daddy and Jerry quickly escapes and becomes Dr. Gene Clifford. Soon setting his sights on the newly separated Carol (Meg Foster) and her son Todd (Jonathan Brandis), Gene weasels his way into Carol’s heart and home, putting the traditional marital vow of “for better or for worse” to the ultimate test.

Blades

There are some movie ideas so ridiculous that one can’t help but admire the sheer nerve and creativity. Director Thomas R. Rondinella’s film Blades just so happens to fall into this category. In the movie, the Tall Grass Country Club becomes the hunting grounds for a bloodthirsty lawnmower. After (literally) mowing down multiple guests and children, two golf pros and a grumpy landscaper decide to take the matter into their own hands and stop the killer beast once and for all. With blatant nods to movies like Jaws and Caddyshack, Blades is a surprisingly delightful summer scream that is truly a cut above the rest.

Society

Like an excellent wine pairing, director Brian Yuzna’s Society works as a perfect complementing partner to The ‘Burbs and its strong emphasis on suburban life. Leaning a bit harder into the economics of the 80s gluttonous excess, Society examines this ravenous hunger for wealth and power through the lens of one very interesting gated community.

Despite countless therapy sessions, Bill (Billy Whitlock) can’t shake the feeling that he doesn’t belong. With the issue cutting deeper than a simple lack of party invitations, Bill begins to question everything he knows, even his genetics. Further fueled by a shocking recording made by his sister’s ex-boyfriend, Bill’s deepest fears soon spiral into a reveal that once seen can never be forgotten. A masterwork of body-horror, dark comedy, and scathing social commentary, Society remains as pleasurable and relevant as ever.

Still hungry for more? Here are a few extra 1989 honorable mentions of varying “quality” that will still absolutely scratch that suburb horror sub-genre itch:

• Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers

• Things

• A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child

• The Cellar

• C.H.U.D. II: Bud the Chud

• Intruder

Lisa Frankenstein is Now Playing Only in Theaters. Get Tickets Now!

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In fact, Yuzna knew he could sell the movie based on the title alone, so he solicited writers to pitch him on the concept. It was his old pals Stuart Gordon and Dennis Paoli — for whom Yuzna had produced Re-Animator and From Beyond — that cracked the script. Charles Finch (who went on to executive produce David Cronenberg’s Spider) was later brought in to punch it up.

Continuing the underlying social commentary Yuzna explored with Society, the film centers on hot-headed dentist Alan Feinstone (Corbin Bernsen, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang). After catching his wife (Linda Hoffman) going down on the pool boy on their anniversary of all days, the mad doctor experiences a mental break that sends him on a killing spree, all while continuing to work at his dental practice.

Low budget but high energy, The Dentist is often lumped into the slasher genre, but don’t expect a toothy Dr. Giggles rehash. Told from the killer’s point of view, the film shares more in common with American Psycho, Maniac, and The Stepfather. Bernsen delivers sanctimonious inner monologues as his mask of sanity slips, yet there’s a cartoony pull to the proceedings.

The idiosyncratic combination is interesting — a Yuzna production is nothing if not interesting — but it ultimately works to the film’s detriment. Since it’s unable to fully commit to either a psychological character study or an absurd slasher, the movie doesn’t quite succeed as either. That’s not to say The Dentist is without its merits; those lie in the casting and the practical effects.

Seeking a different kind of role after eight years on L.A. Law, Bernsen found just that with The Dentist. Much to his credit, he seems to be on the same wavelength as Yuzna, walking a tightrope between cerebral and over-the-top. His adversaries include Dawn of the Dead star Ken Foree as a detective on the case and The Terminator‘s Earl Boen as a corrupt IRS agent. Future Avenger Mark Ruffalo pops up as a beauty queen manager.

I can stomach all kinds of gore, but The Dentist‘s close-ups on teeth being drilled and extracted make my skin crawl. Although not quite as convincing under the scrutiny of high definition, the work by Kevin Yagher (Child’s Play, A Nightmare on Elm Street 2-4) remains effective. The special effects department also included artist Christopher Nelson (Halloween 2018, Suicide Squad) and future Sharknado director Anthony C. Ferrante as supervisor.

Yuzna and Bernsen re-teamed for The Dentist 2, this time working from a script by Richard Dana Smith (The Stepdaughter). It’s not as strong without a Gordon/Paoli foundation to build upon, ultimately delivering more of the same in a new location — and requiring even more suspension of disbelief — but, even with a smaller budget, the worthy successor displays a bit more scope.

After escaping from the mental institution via a blade hidden in his skin(!), Feinstone finds refuge in the idyllic small town of Paradise, Missouri, under the pseudonym Larry Caine. It’s not long before his predilection for dentistry lures him back in, with his affinity for murder in tow. Smith devises a number of outlandish scenarios for the doctor to collect more victims.

The Dentist 2 is more of a traditional slasher than its predecessor, yet it still doesn’t fit neatly into all of the subgenre’s conventions. Feinstone’s descent into madness is more gradual, with the doctor actively trying to fight against it, akin to Psycho 2. The material veers further into bonkers territory, and Bernsen embraces it wholeheartedly.

Hoffman reprises her role as Feinstone’s wife, now a mute due to her tongue being cut out, but Jillian McWhirter plays the part of the doctor’s new object of obsession. Jeff Doucette (Alien Nation) has a supporting role as a trusting local bank manager who introduces the two of them. What the sequel lacks in Foree it makes up for with Wendy Robie (Twin Peaks) and Clint Howard (Evilspeak).

The Dentist offers some inventive camerawork by cinematographer Levie Isaacks (Leprechaun, Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation). The sequel, shot by Jürgen Baum (Slumber Party Massacre III), is less visually stimulating but still competent. Alan Howarth (Halloween 2-6) composed the electronic scores for both films.

The Dentist Collection collects both movies on Blu-ray together as part of Lionsgate’s Vestron Video Collector’s Series. Both features are presented in high definition with English 2.0 DTS-HD Master Audio. Although the transfer specs aren’t detailed, The Dentist features some minor flecks of dust and grain (perhaps sourced from a film print rather than an original negative), but nothing too distracting. Both films are accompanied by a mouthful of new extras.

The Dentist features a commentary by Yuzna and Ferrante (whose microphone is, unfortunately, at a significantly lower volume), in which Yuzna reveals that Chevy Chase and Bruce Campbell were both considered for the titular role. A second track features audio interviews with Isaacks and Howarth along with isolated score selections. Isaacks’ chat focuses on his background in horror before digging into The Dentist, while Howarth dissects his process (including sampling real dentist instruments) and how it has evolved over the years.

Bernsen discusses both films in a new, 16-minute interview, in which he describes himself as “whacked out” while making the first movie. He also shares a sentimental story about his late mother. Paoli explains his and Stuart’s original vision for the script and how/why Yuzna opted to take it in a different direction. Ferrante and makeup effects artist J.M. Logan (Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation) break down several of the effects sequences. The trailer and a still gallery are included.

Yuzna and Ferrante also recorded a commentary for The Dentist 2, which Ferrante describes as the Empire Strikes Back of The Dentist franchise. They briefly confer about a potential third installment, among a variety of other topics. A second track features audio interviews with editor Christopher Roth (Killer Klowns from Outer Space, Hatchet) and Howarth along with isolated score selections. Roth discusses working on both movies and the discipline required to cut film in the pre-digital days, while Howarth talks about his approach to sequels, something with which he has ample experience.

The Dentist 2 also features interviews with McWhirter, who reflects on the experience with an infectiously positive attitude, and producer Pierre David (Videodrome, Wishmaster), who lays out his hard stance on producing his vision rather than taking orders from the financier. A trailer and a still gallery are also included for each film.

Between the films, the talent involved, the presentations, the special features, and the low retail price, The Dentist Collection is well worth sinking your teeth into. Given the timeless concept — as Paoli notes in his interview, dentistry is one medical need that can’t be replaced by telehealth — I suspect it’s only a matter of time before someone makes an appointment for a remake.

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Issued on VHS in late 1991, The Toymaker, the screenplay for which was penned by Kitrosser and Brian Yuzna (the man behind Society, Bride of Re-Animator, The Dentist, and a slew of other schlocky ‘90s horror gems), adapts the magical Pinocchio fable into a perverse tale about childhood trauma. Kitrosser weaves themes of abuse and hunger for love into the fabric of the story through the use of the absolute fantastic as a framework. Naturally, as a then-five-year-old kid, I was far more hooked into the grisly violence when toys, seemingly innocent inanimate objects, came to life and killed. In adulthood, I have come to appreciate the dysfunctional, splintered household, something I also experienced, and how one boy’s imagination is completely destroyed after witnessing the murder of his step-father.

It’s Christmas Eve, and there’s a knock at the door. Too naïve for his own good, an angel-faced boy named Derek (William Thorne) answers and discovers a perfectly wrapped package on the front steps. His stepfather Tom (Van Quattro) lashes out, demonstrating his own harbored fears, and orders him upstairs to bed. His curiosity to know what’s inside the package gets the better of him, of course. When he tears away the glistening holiday paper, he finds a musical orb inside, its bright red curves not unlike that of Santa Claus himself. The tinker toy plays the sweetest of melodies before morphing into a devilish creature with sharp fangs and go-go Inspector Gadget rubber arms, which latch onto Tom’s face, seemingly sucking the life from him. In a tussle to break free, Tom stumbles and impales himself on a fireplace poker 一 and poor Derek, hidden on the stairs, bears witness to it all.

What a horrifying experience. It’s certainly, unequivocally etched into his memory, no doubt. This opening scene primes the viewer for a wonderful level of camp; the set-ups are typically ridiculous, but Kitrosser dexterously walks a fine line between serious and goofy. As a franchise, Silent Night, Deadly Night relied on the audience’s willingness to suspend their disbelief to the same level you would for the Child’s Play and Puppet Master movies. But these horror stories work because it banks hard into one of the greatest fears I had as a kid, and probably most people did: bloodthirsty toys wrecking utter bedlam. I was also terrified of Sid and his mangled playthings in 1994’s Toy Story, so what do I know.

Two weeks later, Derek’s mother Sarah (Jane Higginson) laments that he still hasn’t recovered. And how could he? It’s way too soon. “On top of everything, he won’t go into his room now,” she expresses to her best friend Kim (Neith Hunter), noting how he hasn’t spoken a word since the accident. Derek barricades himself from the world, as much as he does from the land of make believe. Toys only represent the greatest horror of his young life, and even a Christmas commercial jingle, hocking the exact toy that killed Tom, triggers him.

“Derek, I know you’re angry and you’re scared, and you have every right to be 一 but you also have to remember that you’re not alone,” consoles Sarah later that morning. To perhaps entice him out of his self-imposed shell, she takes him on a shopping trip to Petto’s Toys, founded by jolly proprietor Joe Petto, an erratic but fascinating performance from Mickey Rooney. “Fate plays some cruel tricks on us all,” Joe says, offering his best condolences. After his son Pino (Brian Bremer) tries to force them to purchase a Larry the Larvae toy, Sarah and Derek abruptly flee the store, much to Joe’s annoyance. “A real son would help his father!” he huffs in anger.

Joe tends to erupt into blind rages when Pino doesn’t quite live up to his expectations and blames him for the store’s financial ruin. His personal tragedy (the death of his first son before birth) fuels his suffering and he puts it all squarely on Pino’s shoulders. Perhaps in an attempt to reclaim a sense of purpose in his existence, Pino later breaks into Sarah’s house, where he used to live in 1975. Upon discovery, Joe unleashes all his pent-up resentment, seething acidic words and chasing him into the store basement. Joe’s pain has become Pino’s punishment, embodying the cyclical nature of human existence. As they say, hurt people hurt people 一 and all Pino wants is to love and be loved.

In his desperation for the unconditional kindness Joe refuses, and more importantly, can’t give to him, Pino rewires many of the shop’s toys to possess an unnatural hunger for human flesh. He frequently leaves anonymous Christmas packages on Sarah’s doorstep in the hope that Derek will die and he can finally have the family he always wanted. His unpredictable behavior frames many of the best, most memorable images the film has to offer, including a set of roller blades that spark and emit smoke like cryogenic boosters.

“It’s human nature to want nice, neat answers to everything, but life doesn’t work that way,” Kim expresses to Sarah moments before her son Lonnie loots a pair of roller blades and is nearly killed by a car. This simple, almost throwaway scene becomes the crux of the entire film. From the toys going haywire to the appearance of Derek’s real father Noah (Tracy Fraim), who spends the entirety of the film tracking down and buying all the damaged toys, the brutality of the real world appears ornamental but in truth, it throbs at the center.

Presented as an expected red herring, Noah has only the best intentions. His subplot comes into clear focus mid-way through in a touching scene with Sarah. As it turns out, she never told Noah about her pregnancy, and he ran off nearly six years ago. “I wanted to tell you,” she says, almost in tears. But he was never “ready to settle down,” she says. “I wanted to finish college. I wanted a career. I needed security, and you couldn’t give me that. Tom could.”

Her words sting, but his feelings remain unchanged. “I want to spend the rest of my life with you,” he vows. The two then engage in a hatchback romp, and Kitrosser juxtaposes this rekindling of romance against a murderous, blood-soaked backdrop. Back home, babysitter Merideth (Amy L. Taylor) and her punk boyfriend Buck (Eric Welch) get freaky in the sheets with their own sexual exploits, as an army of toys (including a T-Rex and a wayward animatronic hand, planted by Joe) stalk and then attack in the goriest setpiece of the film. In Buck’s struggle to disentangle a rubber snake from around his throat, a remote control car, decked out with razor-sharp blades and spikes, launches into his chest and slices deep into his jugular. 

Amidst the mayhem, Joe abducts Derek and takes him away to his toy shop to set up for one of the most peculiar showdowns in horror. Sarah dashes through the snow and confronts Joe down in the bunker, a makeshift factory beneath the store. It’s quickly revealed that Joe isn’t Joe after all. It’s Pino, who killed his father in a fit of rage. “He always broke me. I had to be sure this time that he didn’t hurt me any more,” says Pino, exposing his true form as a robot. The revelation is disturbing enough, but his delusional thinking, that killing his father finally set him free, plops the outlandish picture in a vat of cold, hard truth.

Many people have suffered trauma during the Christmas season, and it can be incredibly difficult to navigate reopened wounds and a flood of emotions. The Toymaker does a surprising job with planting this thematic seed inside such an exaggerated premise, and it only gets more distressing from there. Pino proceeds to strip out of his Santa suit 一 don’t worry, he’s not anatomically correct 一 and mimics only what he’s seen from Merideth and Buck’s sexy rendezvous earlier. “All I ever wanted to be was a good son,” he says. He inches closer and grabs Sarah, assaulting her as he continues expressing his lustful desires, “Derek has to die so you can be my mommy. I can be your son now. I can love you like a real son. I can. I can. I can. I love you, mommy!”

Pino does eventually get defeated (Noah and Sarah both take turns hacking him into pieces with an axe), but it’s this assault scene that’s given me shuddering nightmares over the years. It’s a level of creep that makes me think Pino must have watched Black Christmas at some point; an aggressive, possessive attitude toward women is omnipresent in both films. Now, imagine a five-year-old huddled beneath his homemade blanket in terror. There’s no way I would come away unscathed.

Silent Night, Deadly Night 5: The Toymaker holds up remarkably well. As much as I hate the word, the film is underrated. In conversations about haunted or demonic toys, the 1991 feature is largely ignored. Kitrosser cakes on mounds of gore, tension, and social commentary with a way that feels organic and serves the plot. Where Disney’s animated adventure Pinocchio (1940) instills a message of moral integrity, The Toymaker digs way deeper into the darkest crevices of human existence, from death to sexual assault, to present the realities of the world in the harshest light possible. Beneath these layers, it still remains a damn entertaining horror film thirty years later.

Editor’s Note: This article was originally published on December 10, 2021.

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Here’s where things get weird with this wacky franchise…

After the release of solid but quickly forgotten entry Silent Night, Deadly Night III: Better Watch Out, it was decided the series needed a shake up. Something to keep audiences interested in the franchise. The solution was to revisit a rejected pitch for the third entry with an absolutely bonkers story and execution. Where the first three Silent Night, Deadly Night films follow a killer of some sort, Silent Night, Deadly Night 4: Initiation follows occult worshippers, bugs, Clint Howard eating burgers out of the trash, bugs, secular cults and… did I mention bugs?

Hailing from the mind of Brian Yuzna, hot off his success with Society and Bride of Re-Animator, Silent Night, Deadly Night 4: Initiation provides a wholly different experience from the rest of the entire series. This wasn’t your average Christmas Horror film. This time around things would get more abstract. And more sinister than your usual brand of Christmas Horror.

The film follows Kim Levitt (Neith Hunter) in her first but not final appearance in the franchise (more on that later). A Los Angeles-based reporter, she begins to investigate a mysterious death that happens in the beginning of the film, involving spontaneous combustion no less. Using this as a springboard she begins to navigate her investigation which leads her to a bookstore owned by Fima (Maud Adams), where she is given a book having to do with the occult. It’s here where she is also harassed by Ricky (Clint Howard), a character named so as a nod to the first two installments of the franchise. What follows is gross, sinister, and flat out one of the most unforgettable horror movies that I’ve seen.

Without diving into spoiler territory, it should be obvious by now that this is a Silent Night, Deadly Night sequel in name only. Yuzna instead crafts an occult-based horror story around what is most traditionally viewed as a Christian holiday; but also at the same time, whether it was intentional or not, to some level a feminist horror film. Kim throughout the film proves numerous times to be entirely capable and a strong protagonist, from jumping headstrong into a murder investigation to surviving a wiccan cult ritual. It’s honestly quite the paradigm shift from how most women were treated in this franchise. She’s a protagonist that can stand up with some of horror’s best and deserves to have a second look at. What’s great is that this wasn’t her only appearance, as she later reappears in Silent Night, Deadly Night 5: The Toy Maker (another underrated sequel)!

Yuzna brings the gross factor in full force here. Rather than focus solely on gore (don’t worry, there’s still plenty of that), this entry focuses on bugs and gross out creature designs. With the creature effects done by none other than Screaming Mad George! Perhaps best known for his work in Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors and the aforementioned Society, he brings his unique vision to life featuring some of the best practical effects of the 90s that have held up to this day. Squeamish viewers need not apply. It’s the signature Yuzna/Screaming George combo that reinvigorates this beloved series after a lackluster previous installment.

While Silent Night, Deadly Night 4: Initiation saw a release Holiday 1990 during the boom of the late 1980s/early 1990s direct-to-video horror scene, it never quite took off. This could be for any number of reasons: burnout from fans who were disappointed with the series’ third installment, this one being the first to be released directly to video, or the departure from a “Santa Claus” killer that the series was most famous for. Perhaps its biggest reason though is that at the time of this writing, the film hasn’t seen a home media release since December 2009 when Lionsgate released it in a collection including Silent Night, Deadly Night 3-5. With over 10 years since the last proper release, the time is primed for a reprisal of this little known Christmas Horror gem. Who knows, maybe if more people can learn to appreciate Initiation, à la Halloween 3: Season of the Witch, we can finally see an HD home media release of this bonkers little gem.

I highly implore you to seek SNDN 4 out. As far as I’m concerned, it’s right up there with Society, another Brian Yuzna gem that seemingly has 10x the fan following of this one.

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Welcome to Phantom Limbs, a recurring feature which will take a look at intended yet unproduced horror sequels and remakes – extensions to genre films we love, appendages to horror franchises that we adore – that were sadly lopped off before making it beyond the planning stages. Here, we will be chatting with the creators of these unmade extremities to gain their unique insight into these follow-ups that never were, with the discussions standing as hopefully illuminating but undoubtedly painful reminders of what might have been.

With this entry, we’ll be looking at House of Re-Animator, the intended fourth installment of the Re-Animator franchise. According to what fans could occasionally glean from various horror websites in the mid- to late-aughts, House would have found both Herbert West and his reluctant friend/partner-in-crime Dan Cain working in the White House (!), resurrecting then-President George W. Bush (!!), who was at the time was rumored to be portrayed by William H. Macy (!!!). Scuttlebutt abounded for years, though the movie sadly never materialized.

With the recent, all too untimely passing of horror master and intended House director Stuart Gordon, Bloody Disgusting thought it was high time to get the lowdown on one of the most fascinating sequels-that-never-was. Joining us for this talk is screenwriter Dennis Paoli – House co-writer, longtime Gordon friend and collaborator, and a writer known for such films as the original Re-Animator, From Beyond, Castle Freak, The Dentist and Dagon.

For those who haven’t yet seen the three Re-Animator films, a quick recap: Herbert West (Jeffrey Combs) is a brilliant but egotistical young medical student devoted to defeating death itself with a reagent serum that reanimates the dead…albeit with horrific side effects (namely, the resurrected mostly become mindless, violent, zombie-like creatures). West eventually befriends Dan Cain (Bruce Abbott), a fellow student who becomes a reluctant assistant to West. As they attempt to experiment with and refine the reagent, the duo find themselves embroiled in a number of different gory, violent scenarios, until Herbert is eventually imprisoned for his crimes. Years pass, with West continuing his work behind bars, until a new assistant and a series of horrific events lead to a prison riot which sees West go free, escaping into the night to continue his research elsewhere.

So how did the House of Re-Animator project originate? With yourself, Stuart Gordon, or Re-Animator franchise producer Brian Yuzna? “My recollection is that it was Brian’s idea. He had been responsible to a great degree for the original Re-Animator. He was the original producer who got in touch with Stuart, and he was a producer of a number of Stuart’s other movies. Brian is a great producer to work with. Of the three of us – Stuart, Brian and I – I would say the real true believer in the genre is Brian. Stuart and I have loved horror films since [the time we’d met] in high school. But Brian was the real prime mover, and significantly dedicated himself to the genre – to the extent that he recognized that the genre is full of not just sequels, but franchises. The Frankenstein franchise, the Dracula franchise, the [Universal] Monsters franchises. But also Corman’s Poe franchise, the work Corman did in developing Poe’s work into film. Brian really saw that as a model that appealed to him, and that he was really built for. He’s very, very good at developing not only those kinds of projects, but franchises – not just a sequel, but a series of films. He was responsible for developing the Re-Animator series, the franchise including Bride of Re-Animator [and Beyond Re-Animator]. I was only involved in the original Re-Animator. Re-Animator co-writer Bill Norris and I did a treatment for Bride, but Brian decided to go in another direction. And frankly, Stuart and I were never really that interested in working on sequels, including sequels to our own work.

“But Brian came to us with this idea – and it was Brian’s original idea, we thought it was pretty good. Especially at the time that Brian first proposed it, which was back during the first Iraq War – probably about 2004. So Brian came to us pretty early in the millennium with this idea – House of Re-Animator. Notice how he’s using the Frankenstein titles – Frankenstein, Bride of Frankenstein and House of Frankenstein. It immediately struck a chord with Stuart. If you look at Stuart’s films, and he doesn’t always get credit for this, [but] from a particular perspective they have a political stance. While he was never about doing political films, he was a political person. He had strong political beliefs. And since he put so much of himself into his films, and he demanded so much of the selves of everybody else who worked on his films, including me, our politics were always going to be at least in the background of those films. This film was an opportunity to put politics in the foreground.

“Especially when Brian came to us and said ‘I have an idea – House of Re-Animator. And the House is the White House.’ And that sold us. We were not only happy, but anxious to get to work on the project. We were not particular fans of the Iraq War, we were not particular fans of the Bush Administration, or of certain particularly right wing political structures that have subsequently, over the course of the first couple of decades of this millennium (and going back a number of decades into the previous one), have been developing in such a way as to take control of a large wedge of American politics in a particular way. That way being [having] billionaire-backed funding to buy certain political agendas and institute them in the government. We thought that sounded like something we could use to write a Re-Animator story. Because if the House of Re-Animator is the White House, that means you have to be reanimating…well, hmm, let’s see – who would you re-animate, given that particular storyline? Of course, you’re going to be reanimating the Executive Branch. You’re going to be reanimating the President, eventually.”

This film would have been Stuart Gordon’s return to the character that began his film career, as producer Brian Yuzna had helmed the second and third films. Would House have accounted for the previous two movies, or would it have acted as more of a direct follow-up to his original film? “In the sense that Herbert was a criminal. If I’m putting the various Re-Animator stories together correctly, Herbert had become a convict, and had a criminal record, and we used that. We did wind it back to the original film, too. The dynamic of House of Re-Animator was going to be the renewed and developed relationship between Herbert West and Dan Cain. So that was going to take us back to the original Re-Animator as well.”

So – what exactly was the story of House of Re-Animator? “There are at least twelve treatments that span seven to eight years, [covering] two different administrations, and two really different approaches to what the story could be. They all have some things in common, but the original idea for the story from the early 2000s is, to some degree, quite different from the developed idea from the early part of the second decade of the 2000s, for a couple of reasons: one reason was, Stuart was really attracted to the project at the beginning because the Bush Administration looked so ripe for being characters in this particular Re-Animator story. If you remember, Bush’s Vice President Dick Cheney had heart problems. So the original treatment starts with him in a meeting with the billionaire backers of the Bush Administration and a number of oil billionaires from the petroleum industry, which turns into a celebratory party because they have gamed the system and gotten almost carte blanche backing from that administration, as oil companies have from multiple administrations. During the party, he overdoes it, and has a heart attack and dies. That was our hook.

“Brian, although he very much respected Stuart’s work and my work, and was willing to go with us in any direction we wanted to go, always had the idea and perspective that the characters should not necessarily be recognizable political figures. That the idea [should be] that the President of the United States would be reanimated. That idea alone was central to the movie, and the President (like the President in a lot of American films in which the President is a character), isn’t necessarily recognizable as any particular other President. It’s usually some generic kind of President. It’s Michael Douglas or Morgan Freeman. It’s ‘a’ President.

“We were specifically interested at the beginning of the project in making it about the Bush Presidency. We developed the story from that particular hook, with Dick Cheney dying and necessarily having to be reanimated to keep that administration stable, especially in the middle of a war. But then, as the war dragged on and as the administration changed, we would go back and revise the story. Until the last version story that we did was more generic, in the sense that it was a more generic President of the United States, and it isn’t specifically the Bush Administration or any recognizable figures from it. But the idea that the government is still at the beck and call of billionaires and power brokers was still part of the story.

“So the story developed through several different models, and eventually several different structures, but the core element of course is that the President of the United States becomes a reanimated zombie. Which, if that isn’t fundamental satire, I don’t think it exists.”

So how does West find himself in the White House? “Once the Vice President dies (and in the later versions, it’s actually the President – there’s an assassination attempt and he’s killed), there is a great pressure among the functionaries in the administration to keep power. So there is a figure or two behind the scenes in the administration that wants to keep it in power. They have, as you would imagine, an extensive knowledge of the backgrounds of important people throughout the country. When it’s reported to one of the power brokers in the administration by a functionary that the Vice President is dead, the power broker processes the news and then replies ‘No, he’s not.’ In the later version [it’s the President whose death is reported, and then denied]. Since it’s in their interest to keep the [Vice Pres or Pres] alive, and they’re aware of Herbert West and his reanimation serum, they decide to seek him out.

“But in our story, he’s disappeared. He’s on the run, and has fallen off the map. No one knows where he is. So they have to contact the next best thing – Dan Cain. So they go and essentially kidnap Dan Cain, because he’d worked with Herbert West, and have him try to redevelop and reconstitute West’s reanimating serum. He doesn’t want to do it, he’s sworn all of that off and has tried to rebuild his life. It’s taken him decades to try and put all of the terrible things that happened behind him. He’s the same idealist he was in the original Re-Animator. He wants to do what all doctors want to do – defeat death. But that idealism, in a political modality, makes him not want to support any administration that would consider putting a zombie in charge of the Executive Branch of our government! So he refuses at first, but in one of the versions [of the treatment], we have him have a family. So they threaten his family, [and] he tries to work on it, but he can’t quite get it right. There are, of course, consequences to that, and a certain amount of mayhem goes on [resulting from] his reanimating fluid which leads to certain, let’s say, unfortunate, bloody circumstances.

“When push comes to shove and they threaten Dan’s family, he says ‘I’m sorry, I don’t seem to be able to reestablish the reanimating fluid, but I do think I know how to bring Herbert West back.’ And so he has them release a press release that he, Dan Cain, is in the process of developing a serum to extend the six to twelve minute brain death, in hopes that would eventually allow for the reanimation of the dead. He knows that – one, Herbert will hear about this, and two, if we remember from the original Re-Animator, Herbert cannot stand the idea that somebody else will get credit for his work. So of course Herbert shows up to take credit, and to accost and assault Dan for taking credit for his work. Because he’s the same old egotistical narcissist that we remember Herbert was, besides being a great genius. So that’s how they get Herbert, because he injects himself into the story because of his ego.

“Once Herbert’s in the story and he’s recruited to reanimate the Vice President, there are certain story developments wherein the First Lady is killed, the President is killed, and so eventually everybody who shows for a presidential press conference or at the Kennedy Center Honors is essentially a reanimated corpse. But they’re able to recruit Herbert because they give him a great lab. They give him the best laboratory he’s ever had, and carte blanche to do what he wants. Therefore Herbert and Dan are reunited, they’re given the laboratory of their dreams, and complete power to reanimate the most powerful figures in the free world. And that’s essentially Act One of the very first version, and the better part of Act One for subsequent versions of this story.”

Though Mr. Paoli was a tad hesitant to reveal too much detail beyond this initial set up, he did give a bit of insight into where the story would have gone beyond the first act. “Several of the versions, especially during the Iraq War, focused on the cost of war. And we developed the idea of ‘zombie soldiers’. Because the war was going on much longer than they had anticipated, and there were more casualties, and they wanted to keep the casualties low because it was costing them political capital. They decided, since they had Herbert West, that they wanted him to reanimate soldiers and develop a zombie army. So they would take casualties from Iraq and Afghanistan, and bring them back, have them reanimated so they didn’t look like casualties, and they could send them back into the field. That’s a powerful and quite easy to grasp satiric perspective on the war in Iraq. The idea of the dead casualties from that war coming back [as zombies] has been done a couple of times, as in that Master of Horror episode [Joe Dante’s Homecoming], so we eventually couldn’t do that.

“That was one direction we were going to go in. The other direction being – once you’ve got a zombie President and a zombie Vice President…well, if you remember from the previous Re-Animator films, the dead reanimate pretty angrily. It’s pretty much the reptile brain that reanimates. Then you get to the power brokers. What they want is control over the politicians. Their money usually buys them control. Well, money doesn’t buy you control of a zombie. There aren’t zombie dollars. So they had to find another way to control the politicians that they had reanimated. So we looked at possibilities for developing [that idea for the second act].

“The other thing that developed over the story was this new relationship between Dan and Herbert. Herbert only sees what’s in front of him. Herbert is only moving forward, because science only moves forward. He only wants to make his reanimating fluid work better, and to reanimate more perfectly, and to develop a better serum. He’s just a mad scientist. Dan looks back. He understands that their history together wreaked havoc and ruined lives, especially the life of the woman that he loved. So he carries guilt around with him, and blames himself primarily. But when Herbert returns to the scene, he understands that he’s now responsible for making this madman even more powerful.

“So there’s a great conflict between Dan and Herbert, as there always sort of was. That’s what we bring from the first movie into this one. So we worked that out in the story as well. If that conflict is what this film is about, then one of them has to die at the end. And, of course, if one of them dies at the end, what does that mean?” Whoever survives will reanimate the other? “Yes, you have imagined correctly. And we of course investigated both of those endings [one with Herbert dying and being reanimated, the other with Dan being the one to die and get brought back]. We were willing to try both of those endings, whichever one fit the story that we eventually wrote. But even if it’s Herbert who dies – it’s a Re-Animator film! It doesn’t mean he’s dead. Let’s put it this way – it doesn’t mean it’s the end of the series.

“I think there was an Island of Re-Animator in the works at one point. Just as there was with the original Frankenstein franchise, or with the Hammer Dracula franchise, there are dozens of ways to keep the franchise going. [But] it had to be the right ending for this particular story. You want it to really function as a powerful ending. And if those two guys became the main adversaries, it would have a certain amount of character-driven story value. That, of course, would have been the ending. But it wouldn’t necessarily mean the ending of the series, of course, because it’s the Re-Animator series.”

Potentially killing off Herbert West, the titular character – that would have been one hell of a surprise! “One of Stuart’s rules was always ‘Go all the way.’ It was one of my script rules, too. ‘Go all the way.’ If you looked at some of the memorials to Stuart, one of the things that a number of people said, be they actors, people who worked on special effects, people who wrote for him (myself included)…we all had the same experience with Stuart. You’d write something if you were a writer, or you would act a scene if you were an actor, and then he would come to you and say ‘That was great, but can you give me more? More of this, or more of that?’ And you’re going ‘Well, I was going to build to this more. You were going to get that later in the script, in the scene, etc.’ And he would always say ‘No. Do it now. We’ll find something better later.’ And, you know, you always did. So the idea was to go all the way, right away. And just go all the way, every chance you got, and you would eventually find the way to top yourself. It always took the story in a new and even more mad direction. That’s what was great about working with Stuart. Especially in this genre, where you can go all the way, and you’re expected to go all the way, and to be as mad as you possibly can. It was Stuart’s style. It was the culture Stuart developed on the set, among his collaborators. You never worried about that. You never worried about ‘Oh my gosh, we’ll do something, and then we can’t undo it.’ Well, no. It’s not that you can’t undo it, it’s that you can then do it better. You can then do more. You can be more entertaining, you can be more outrageous. And that’s the principle of our work.”

Had any tentative casting been done beyond the expected return of Jeffrey Combs as Herbert West? Was Bruce Abbott up for returning as Dan Cain? And, of course, there were those rumors that William H. Macy [from Gordon’s David Mamet adaptation Edmond] would have played George W. Bush. “Bill Macy would have been George Bush in the original version! He actually even sorta looks like him a little bit. I thought he’d be great. That fit perfectly. And we had the President do some spectacularly awful things. We [also] would have of course asked Bruce to return as Dan Cain.”

So why did the project ultimately not come to fruition? “[It would have had] a larger budget than the other Re-Animator films. You’re doing a mockup of the Oval Office, you’re doing a mockup of the Rose Garden, you’re doing a highly equipped science lab. In a couple of the versions, there was a cryogenics lab where they could keep bodies fresh-frozen. There was more production value, so you were going to need a bigger budget. So it was probably a harder film to put together, [budget-wise]. Plus, it’s got political content. A lot of people don’t want to touch that. You know, you killed the President of the United States! I have an idea that, if we had made the film, we would’ve gotten on some political list some place!

“So I don’t know what the ultimate problem [really was], but it’s my experience the problem is always funding. If you get some money, you didn’t get enough. And you only have enough when you have enough, and when you have enough [you get] to make the movie. I don’t know why it didn’t get produced, but if I had to guess – it’s because they didn’t raise the money.”

Is there a possibility that the screenplay could be rewritten to account for another President in office? What does the future of Re-Animator look like? “No idea! Would I do it? In a heartbeat! Would I work with those guys again? In a minute. Now, whether it’s this project or some other project, I don’t know. But we did develop a more generic version of House of Re-Animator, which is still [possible to develop]. The danger now is that you would go back to the very specific version, that it would be a very recognizable President and Vice President you would be reanimating. But there’s a generic version too, which would work as well. But I’d love to work with those guys again.”

Very special thanks to Dennis Paoli for his time and insights.

The post ‘House of Re-Animator’: Writer Dennis Paoli Remembers the Sequel That Never Was [Phantom Limbs] appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

“Well son, I guess you’re right; I am a butthead!”

Until this moment, which sees Billy’s dad Jim emerge from beneath the bedsheets with his face emerging from his own butt and giggling at his joke, in Brian Yuzna’s memorable entry in ‘80s horror, most of teen Billy’s story had been steeped in paranoia. He begins Society as popular high schooler from an affluent family, but that changes when he’s handed a recording that implicates his parents as members of a murderous club. The more he tries to solve the mystery of his family, the stranger things become. But is there a larger conspiracy at play, or is Billy just going crazy? The grand finale, dubbed The Shunting, puts any ambiguity to rest with a head first dive into the ooey, gooey surreal that’s wholly unlike anything else ever committed to celluloid before.

Yuzna already had a string of celebrated horror movies under his belt as producer, with films like Re-Animator, From Beyond, and Dolls. But after a few projects falling through after failing to secure a director, he decided to transition into directing. Enter Society, a script written by Rick Fry and Woody Keith (Bride of Re-Animator). The original script had the wealthy as members of a cult, though, which culminated in a sacrificial bloodbath. That was boring to Yuzna, or rather he felt it’d been done before. He wanted something far more surreal and weirder, inspired by his nightmares. He swapped out the cult for an alien race. Once he was introduced to special effects artist Screaming Mad George, who reveled in surreal, the film really started to take shape.

Screaming Mad George had already established himself a talented artist with a penchant for weird thanks to his work on Big Trouble in Little China, Predator, A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors, and A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master. In the latter, it was Mad George who handled the grotesque transformation and subsequent death of Brooke Theiss’ Debbie, a weight lifter with a fear of bugs. Freddy horrifically turns her into the very thing she fears most, a cockroach, before squashing her. It’s an outlandish and memorable death that’s also perfectly on brand for Screaming Mad George. So, his collaboration with Yuzna on Society and, more memorably, the Shunting became a match made in heaven.

Mad George recalled a formative influence when designing and creating the surreal makeup effects; the surrealist master artist Salvador Dali. There are a few paintings that served as inspiration behind the makeup effects, but the biggest source of inspiration for the Shunting came from Dali’s painting Autumnal Cannibalism. He nailed it.

The actual Shunting required massive sculptures and open spaces in the flooring that would allow the crew to puppeteer the amorphous alien blob to writhe and move from below. Which in turn made it a little tricky to shoot; if an actor missed their mark they might fall into one of the holes. And that slime? An insane amount of food thickener gel. Things got messy. There’s a small moment that sees a body get turned inside out, and the insides are squirming with slugs and creepy crawlies. Ironically, Screaming Mad George was repulsed by it and wouldn’t go anywhere near it. Even artists who dabble in the grotesquely surreal get unnerved.

Because the Shunting is essentially one massive, albeit gross, orgy, Society wound up sitting on the shelves for years before finally getting released stateside in 1992. Never mind its hugely successful run in Europe in 1989. Now it’s a celebrated cult classic, making Society yet another horror film released ahead of its time. Screaming Mad George was already an established artist, but his work as surrealistic makeup designer and creator brought it to a whole new level. For horror fans, simply seeing his name in the credits is the only tip-off you need to know that whatever comes next, it’s likely going to get really weird. And slimy.

The post [It Came From the ‘80s] The Gooey Grand Surreal Shunting of ‘Society’ appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

Inspired to come up with a new take on Frankenstein in a world inundated with vampire stories, a friend of Stuart Gordon suggested he read Herbert West-Reanimator. Thus, the idea for Re-Animator was born. Gordon, with his background in theater, initially thought to adapt the story for the stage, which soon gave way to adapting the story for the small screen with co-writers Dennis Paoli and William Norris. It wasn’t until Gordon was introduced to Yuzna that Re-Animator came together, with Yuzna making a solid case for the special effects that would be needed for the project. Most impressive of all was that this film was a first for both; Re-Animator was the first feature film that Yuzna produced and the first that Gordon ever directed.

The last piece of the puzzle was Herbert West himself, a blond-haired, blue-eyed scientific automaton according to the original story. Neither of which fits the description of actor Jeffrey Combs. When Combs read for the role, though, it didn’t matter. Combs was Herbert West, and no one else came close. Though Bruce Abbott’s Dan Cain may have been the everyman, it was Combs’ West that audiences gravitated toward with his dry humor and unflappable demeanor. It was Combs’ delivery of lines like, “Who’s going to believe a talking head? Get a job in a sideshow,” along with the clever writing that solidified Combs’ status in the horror genre.

It wasn’t just the dialogue and clever writing that made Re-Animator such an enduring favorite, either. The unapologetic blood and gore, pushing the boundaries of nudity and gore on screen to the point that it had to be cut to attain an R-rating for theatrical release. The uncut, unrated version made it to home release, which was Gordon’s preferred and intended vision for the film. Who can blame him? West getting choked by intestines, a severed head getting inappropriately deviant with Barbara Crampton’s Meg Halsey, and at least 25 gallons worth of blood meant that the horror and comedy were in equal balance.

The gore and comedy delivered in spades, but it was Barbara Crampton as Meg Halsey that really made you care. Tasked with both being the fixation, and then victim, of Dr. Hill’s desire, Crampton had the unenviable task of portraying Halsey as the exposed damsel as well as the straight man counter to the madness around her. Like Combs, it was a breakthrough role for Crampton.

Upon release, even hard-to-please critics like Pauline Kael and Roger Ebert couldn’t help but fall for Re-Animator’s charms, despite the way it really went for broke in gore and sexual humor at poor Meg Halsey’s expense. The practical effects, the over-the-top humor, and Jeffrey Combs’ legendary performance makes Re-Animator a classic, even 32-years later.

The post ‘Re-Animator’ Still Conquering Brain Death 32 Years Later appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

Stewart told the podcast Scream Addicts back in February…

“I am writing a sequel to Beyond the Gates, which will definitely take some cues from A Nightmare on Elm Street 4. It’s a little bit of a different story and kind of changes up some things. It’s definitely bigger scale, and a little bit more in the vein of the ’80s paranoia horror movies like The Stuff and Society, and even the ’70s Invasion of the Body Snatchers.”

It’s interesting that Stewart compared his Beyond the Gates sequel to Society, because we’ve just learned that the film’s director, Brian Yuzna, is on board to produce!

“I’ve been working with Brian [Yuzna] pretty closely on the story for that, and it’s just been absolutely delightful,” Stewart told the Pure Cinema podcast. “Basically I would be back directing it and Barbara [Crampton] and Jesse [Merlin] would be in it, but it would be like a period piece so there probably wouldn’t be any other carry-over from the other cast [except for] maybe like an end credits tag or something.”

Brian Yuzna’s other directorial efforts include Bride of Re-Animator, Return of the Living Dead III, The Dentist and Beyond Re-Animator.

Thanks to Modern Horrors for the heads up!

The post Brian Yuzna is Producing ‘Beyond the Gates’ Sequel appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

On occasion, though, a filmmaker will make an entry in an already established horror franchise that is somehow both a sequel to the previous series in some way while distinctively being separate because of its originality, style, or just plain strangeness. In those cases, horror fans’ reactions can vary from appreciative to confused to furious.

This is a list of ten films that belong to horror franchises, but they are so strange and specific that they stand alone as either great works, interesting failures, or generally despised departures from a beloved franchise…

HALLOWEEN III: SEASON OF THE WITCH

JASON GOES TO HELL: THE FINAL FRIDAY

EXORCIST II: THE HERETIC

HELLRAISER: HELLWORLD

SURVIVAL OF THE DEAD

PARANORMAL ACTIVITY: THE GHOST DIMENSION

BLAIR WITCH 2: BOOK OF SHADOWS

RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD 3

WISHMASTER 4: THE PROPHECY FULFILLED

SLEEPAWAY CAMP IV: THE SURVIVOR

The post 10 Most Unconventional Horror Sequels Ever Made appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

On July 25th, the enduring splatter-comedy classic from 1985 returns to Blu-ray in a stunning restoration jam packed with special features. Arrow Video’s 2-disc limited edition set, a US-only release, contains 2K restorations of both the Unrated and “Integral” versions of the film. The must-own release, housed in digipack packaging with brand new art by Justin Erickson, also includes a collector’s booklet featuring new writing on the film by writer Michael Gingold and the original 1991 comic book adaptation of Re-Animator, reprinted in its entirety.

Check out the full roster of bonus content below.

DISC 1 – UNRATED VERSION

• Unrated version [86 mins] • Audio commentary with director Stuart Gordon
• Audio commentary with producer Brian Yuzna, actors Jeffrey Combs, Barbara Crampton, Bruce Abbott, and Robert Sampson
• Re-Animator Resurrectus – documentary on the making of the film, featuring extensive interviews with cats and crew
• Interview with director Stuart Gordon and producer Brian Yuzna
• Interview with writer Dennis Paoli
• Interview with composer Richard Band
• Music Discussion with composer Richard Band
• Interview with former Fangoria editor Tony Timpone
• Barbara Crampton In Conversation – the Re-Animator star sits down with journalist Alan Jones for this career-spanning discussion
• Deleted and Extended Scenes
• Trailer & TV Spots

DISC 2 – INTEGRAL VERSION – LIMITED EDITION EXCLUSIVE

• Integral version [105 mins] • A Guide to Lovecraftian Cinema – brand new featurette looking at the many various cinematic incarnations of writer H.P. Lovecraft’s work

More features will be announced soon. Take a sneak peek at the set below!

The post Check Out Arrow’s Crazy ‘Re-Animator’ Blu-ray Set; Coming in July appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

If you’re not familiar with the name Brian Yuzna, you should be. Yuzna got his start working as a producer on the Stuart Gordon-directed films Re-Animator, From Beyond and Dolls, but he quickly branched out on his own with a series of gems that I consider personal favorites. From the late ’80s into the ’90s, Yuzna directed Society, Bride of Re-Animator, the underrated Silent Night Deadly Night 4, Return of the Living Dead 3 and The Dentist, and he later returned to the franchise that gave him his start when he directed Beyond Re-Animator in 2003.

A twisted visionary who has more than earned the right to be called a master of horror, Yuzna’s work has over the years been home to some of the most insane and totally off the wall makeup effects in the entire history of the horror genre. The ’80s were a time of excess, and oh boy did Yuzna embrace that to the fullest extent of the law. His “bizarre monstrosities” are the subject of a new mini-doc we just found over on YouTube, which we wanted to bring to your attention. The video digs into Yuzna’s genre contributions, offering a brief summary of his awesome career.

We’re glad this video exists. Because Yuzna deserves the spotlight.

The post Mini Doc Explores the Bizarre Monstrosities of Brian Yuzna appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

This is also how it goes with movies. Some get big announcements and the community is thrown into a frenzy of excitement. “This movie is getting made? Yes! I’ve been waiting so long!” or “Holy shit, this sounds so good! I can’t wait to see what it looks like!” Alas, those people suffer disappointment when a title gets cancelled, languishes in developmental hell, or simply fades away, never to be heard from again.

I want to talk about a few of these movies today and hear your thoughts on the matter. Have there been movies announced that never came to fruition and you still get upset thinking about it? I know I do as you can see by my suggestions below.

Clive Barker’s The Thief of Always

Many of you know how much love I have for this book. The story of a young boy who fights against an entity that steals away over 30 years that he could’ve spent with his family, the book was supposed to be turned into a movie nearly two decades ago. I’m still waiting for any sort of adaptation, as it was at one point supposed to be an animated feature and then evolved into a live action one. Tick tock…

Richard Raaphorst’s Worst Case Scenario

Remember this really awesome teaser that came out over a decade ago? It basically was another Nazi zombie movie but the monsters looked SO cool! The movie never got the funding necessary for production but Raaphorst would later go on to make Frankenstein’s Army, a movie I was sorely disappointed by. Still, Raaphorst has shown that he can get the look of this kind of movie down, so maybe one day Worst Case Scenario will get made and we’ll get something really special!

David Fincher’s Torso

David Fincher returning to the serial killer thriller/horror world? Yes please! It’s been over 10 years since it was announced? Oh…

The last anyone heard of this project, David Lowery (Ain’t Them bodies Saints) was slated to write and direct. Since then, crickets are chirping.

Guillermo del Toro’s At the Mountains of Madness

What a shame this never got made. I know that many people weren’t into the idea of Tom Cruise being the main character but I thought it was an inspired move. The guy is a box office draw AND he’s genuinely a great actor. But even if we cast that to the side, the thought of del Toro tackling an actual Lovecraft story seemed like a match made in heaven. His other works have shown that he can create the right look, the right atmosphere, for such an endeavor, meaning we’d have gotten a film that could’ve redefined the term “epic”. Such a loss.

The post Which Horror Movies Are You Pissed Never Got Made? appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

See, this wasn’t a case of simply being afraid of the sequel living up to the original, oh no. That is something I don’t have a problem with. Had Stuart Gordon and Jeffrey Combs teamed up for Bride I would have been all over that. Had neither of them been involved I would have been excited. But for some asinine reason the idea that one (Combs) without the other (Gordon) didn’t jive quite right with me. Kill me on this if you must, but remember that I readily admit this is the logic of a fool.

A few years back I finally took the plunge and watched Bride of Re-Animator and it would be an understatement to say I was pleasantly surprised. I liked the movie plenty, dare I say I even loved it. Now that the film is available on Blu-ray I decided to give it another whirl and I can now say without question that I love this movie.

Bride of Re-Animator is weird in that it has a rather simple plot that also manages to be a bit convoluted and messy. On the most basic level this is Frankenstein with Herbert West. The film takes place eight months after the Miskatonic Massacre and the events from the first film. Eight months isn’t really that much time, but a lot has happened. West (Combs) and Dan Cain (Bruce Abbott) are the only two survivors of the Miskatonic Massacre and somehow managed to escape without being arrested or facing any type of legal trouble. The duo now work as medics in the Internal conflict in Peru, which is perfect because this gives them plenty of bodies to experiment with and little people to ask questions. After the tent they operate out of is attacked, they decide to return home to Massachusetts where they resume working as doctors at Miskatonic University Hospital as if nothing has happened.

While working in their hidden morgue lab, West discovers that he can not only re-animate the dead but he can re-animate individual body parts. This gives him the idea to create the perfect woman! Of course he can’t carry out this work alone and most convince Cain to help. Cain is hesitant at first, but West wins him over because he has the heart of Cain’s fiancée (Barbara Crampton’s character from the first film) and his plan is use that as the heart for his perfect woman. So while West will not be bringing Cain’s fiancée back to life, the woman will have her heart so in a way it will be her and Cain is desperate to have her back.

Aside from the typical difficulties one would anticipate from re-animating the dead, a variety of other complications arise along the way. A journalist Cain met in Peru, Francesca Danelli (Fabiana Udenio), shows up in Massachusetts and her and Cain begin to date. Naturally she gets a little freaked when she discovers all the re-animating but things get really heated once the Bride is given life because she instantly falls for Cain because of her heart and thus becomes very jealous of Francesca. Now Cain is in a really tough spot as he’s torn between the living woman he is now dating and this undead monster that has the heart of his fiancée.

If Bride of Re-Animator stopped here in terms of story and plot details we would be good to go. There’s more than enough here to build a good, engaging story, but instead we have a lot more tossed in. A police officer played by Claude Earl Jones begins snooping around the university and the home of West and Cain. The dead body of the officer’s wife was animated during the Miskatonic Massacre and he suspects West and Cain are to blame since they were the only two unaffected. His snooping results he eventually becoming a zombie. That’s not all though as Dr. Carl Hill (David Gale) somehow works his way back into the sequel even though he is just a head. As a head he really can’t do anything, but somehow he’s able to convince folks to do his bidding and he plans on coming after West, but his intentions are never really clear.

Bride of Re-Animator ends up bouncing around quite a bit. On one hand it’s a bizarre love triangle between Cain, the Bride and Francesca. Cain struggles with living behind his fiancée but he knows the Bride isn’t what she seems. Then we have the police officer trying to find justice for his wife and getting in way over his head. Finally there’s Dr. Hill trying to get revenge of some sort on West. Throughout all of this West is just trying to continue his experience in the name of science with what I think is an ultimate goal of playing God.

Personally I’m a little bummed the script wasn’t cleaned up a bit. All the stuff with Hill could have been removed. It serves no purpose and just gets in the way. The police officer could have stayed but been trimmed up a bit. All we needed for a great movie was West and Cain attempting to create the Bride while Cain struggles with the his love ordeal. That would have been great. Instead we have all these unnecessary ingredients that muddy things up a bit.

Flaws and all Bride of Re-Animator is still a ridiculous amount of fun! Combs sells West so hard. West will not be deterred and plans to carry out his experiments come hell or high water. He has a laser focus on his goal and nothing will get in his way. He’s really an asshole but there is something to be appreciated by his dedication to his craft. Herbert West is an absolute icon in the world of horror and Combs rocks it once again. Then you’ve got Cain who is such a conflicted man in pretty much all aspects of life. Cain has the same vision in West in that he can see the light at the end of the tunnel and what their studies can uncover, but unlike West he also sees the various roadblocks along the way that give him pause. Even with his hesitations it never really takes much for Cain to be convinced to go along with West’s experiments because at the end of the day he too is a man of science. The way West and Cain work together is so wonderful. A brilliant pairing perfectly brought to life by the performance of Combs and Abbott.

The real star of this film is the special effects wizardry courtesy of some of the best the special makeup effects world has to offer. If practical effects is your thing then this film is so for you. There are too many great effects people to list them all but when the guys working on your film contain the likes of Robert Kurtzman, Howard Berger and Greg Nicotero of KNB to go along with Screaming Mad George, Tony Doublin and John Buechler, well I think you kind of know you’re in for a treat. The work these masterminds accomplish in this film is amazing. The Bride looks incredible the way she’s pieced together and the way she moves is wonderful. She has these herky-jerky movements as she learns to walk. And she’s just one of many, many creations. Throughout the film we see hints of various creatures and weird designs along with your standard zombies. In the end all of these monsters come together for a finale that is pure mayhem. The car insurance company that has those mayhem commercials should use the final scene of this movie in their next ad campaign because it is complete and utter chaos that few movies are able to match.

So yeah, Bride of Re-Animator is a little overstuffed and clunky, stumbling at times as it tries to move along, sort of like the Bride herself, but it is a very worthy successor to Gordon’s Re-Animator. Much like the Demons and Demons 2 that came before it, Bride of Re-Animator is the perfect party movie.

If you’re wondering how the Arrow Video Blu-ray release holds up, I have one question for you – why would you even wonder such a silly thing? At this point Arrow has a track record you can take to the bank and they once again delivered on a breathtaking release. This limited edition 3-disc set features two Blu-rays and one DVD. You get not only the R-rated version of the film, but also the unrated version. Arrow put a lot of time and effort into this release, searching everywhere for the best possible elements. The booklet that comes with the release goes into great detail about the work Arrow put into this release and it shows. As a whole both versions look great, with the unrated version being the more even transfer. Not all elements available where in the greatest shape so there are a few moments where you see some slight color variations from scene to scene but this is all very minor. This is another gorgeous looking Blu-ray from Arrow.

If bonus features and extra content is your thing you should be more than satisfied:

DIRECTOR-APPROVED 3-DISC LIMITED EDITION CONTENTS

• Brand new 2K restorations of the Unrated and R-Rated versions of the film, approved by director Brian Yuzna
• High Definition Blu-ray (1080p) and Standard Definition DVD presentations
• Original Stereo 2.0 audio (uncompressed PCM on the Blu-rays)
• Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
• Digipak packaging featuring newly commissioned artwork by Gary Pullin
• Collector’s booklet featuring new writing on the film by festival programmer Michael Blyth
• Re-Animator: Dawn of the Re-Animator – the official comic book prequel to the original Re-Animator

DISC 1 [BLU-RAY] & DISC 2 [DVD] – UNRATED VERSION

• Brand new 2K restoration of the Unrated version
• Brand new audio commentary with director Brian Yuzna
• Audio commentary with Brian Yuzna, star Jeffrey Combs, special effects co-ordinator Thomas Rainone and the effects team including John Buechler, Mike Deak, Robert Kurtzman, Howard Berger and Screaming Mad George
• Audio commentary with stars Jeffrey Combs and Bruce Abbott
• Brian Yuzna Remembers Bride of Re-Animator – brand new featurette in which the director looks back at the making of the first Re-Animator sequel
• Splatter Masters: The Special Effects Artists of Bride of Re-Animator – brand new FX featurette with a wealth of behind-the-scenes footage and interviews with Robert Kurtzman of KNB, Screaming Mad George, Tony Doublin and John Buechler
• Getting Ahead in Horror – archive making-of featurette
• Meg is Re-Animated – deleted scene with behind-the-scenes footage
• Carnival Sequence – the cast and crew discuss this excised sequence

DISC 3 [BLU-RAY] – R-RATED VERSION – LIMITED EDITION EXCLUSIVE

• Brand new 2K restoration of the R-Rated version
• Behind-the-Scenes Reel

‘RE-ANIMATOR: DAWN OF THE RE-ANIMATOR’ – LIMITED EDITION EXCLUSIVE

• Perfect-bound booklet containing Re-Animator: Dawn of the Re-Animator, the 1992 comic prequel to Stuart Gordon’s original Re-Animator, reprinted in its entirety

All of the special features are pretty great but I was especially fond of Brian Yuzna Remembers Bride of Re-Animator. This is a short feature, coming in at less than 10 minutes but Yuzna gives a lot of info. Two things he said here in particular stood out to me. One, he talks about how Dr. Hill’s character was basically forced in because David Gale really wanted to return. This makes a lot of sense since as I said above, there really isn’t any purpose for Hill to be here. The real kicker for me though was the original idea which had West performing his experiments under the White House! Apparently they had this idea where West was going to create a super President of sorts by taking the brain of Kennedy and the heart of somewhere and else and so on. How amazing does that sound?! I sincerely hope that is a movie we get some day.

I could blabber on and on about this release. It’s surely a contender for best of the year, right up there with Pieces and The Mutilator. Instead of doing that though, I’m going to tell you to stop reading this and go look for a copy. This is a limited release and could end up being hard to find. At the time of writing this there are still some available on Amazon. Yes, they’re about $50, but it’s worth it. Trust me, better to get this for $50 now than try in a year from now when people are selling it on eBay for an even higher amount.

Bride of Re-Animator is now available on Blu-ray from Arrow Video. To order your copy from Amazon click here!

The post [Blu-ray Review] ‘Bride of Re-Animator’ is Worth Re-Animating Over and Over Again appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

This looks like it could be the Blu-ray release of the year and it is a limited set that is likely to go fast. If you want a copy be sure to pre-order yours today from Amazon.

Synopsis:
The success of Stuart Gordon’s hit horror-comedy Re-Animator meant that a sequel was all but inevitable. The resulting follow-up, Bride of Re-Animator – this time helmed by director Brian Yuzna (Society, Return of the Living Dead III) – would prove that there was a good deal more life (and death) left in the story of Dr Herbert West and his ghoulish exploits.
 
It has been eight months since the bloody massacre at Miskatonic Medical School. Unperturbed by the disastrous outcome of his previous meddling with the dead, Dr West (again played by Jeffrey Combs) continues his research into the phenomenon of re-animation; only this time, he plans to create life – starting with the heart of his young protégé Dan’s dearly deceased, Meg Halsey. Surely nothing could go wrong?
 
With special effects master Screaming Mad George (the man behind the infamous “shunting” sequence of Society) on hand to contribute a host of characteristically weird and wonderful creations, Bride of Re-Animator is a more than worthy successor to Stuart Gordon’s original cult classic.

DIRECTOR-APPROVED 3-DISC LIMITED EDITION CONTENTS

• Brand new 2K restorations of the Unrated and R-Rated versions of the film, approved by director Brian Yuzna
• High Definition Blu-ray (1080p) and Standard Definition DVD presentations
• Original Stereo 2.0 audio (uncompressed PCM on the Blu-rays)
• Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
• Digipak packaging featuring newly commissioned artwork by Gary Pullin
• Collector’s booklet featuring new writing on the film by festival programmer Michael Blyth
• Re-Animator: Dawn of the Re-Animator – the official comic book prequel to the original Re-Animator

DISC 1 [BLU-RAY] & DISC 2 [DVD] – UNRATED VERSION

• Brand new 2K restoration of the Unrated version
• Brand new audio commentary with director Brian Yuzna
• Audio commentary with Brian Yuzna, star Jeffrey Combs, special effects co-ordinator Thomas Rainone and the effects team including John Buechler, Mike Deak, Robert Kurtzman, Howard Berger and Screaming Mad George
• Audio commentary with stars Jeffrey Combs and Bruce Abbott
• Brian Yuzna Remembers Bride of Re-Animator – brand new featurette in which the director looks back at the making of the first Re-Animator sequel
• Splatter Masters: The Special Effects Artists of Bride of Re-Animator – brand new FX featurette with a wealth of behind-the-scenes footage and interviews with Robert Kurtzman of KNB, Screaming Mad George, Tony Doublin and John Buechler
• Getting Ahead in Horror – archive making-of featurette
• Meg is Re-Animated – deleted scene with behind-the-scenes footage
• Carnival Sequence – the cast and crew discuss this excised sequence

DISC 3 [BLU-RAY] – R-RATED VERSION – LIMITED EDITION EXCLUSIVE

• Brand new 2K restoration of the R-Rated version
• Behind-the-Scenes Reel

‘RE-ANIMATOR: DAWN OF THE RE-ANIMATOR’ – LIMITED EDITION EXCLUSIVE

• Perfect-bound booklet containing Re-Animator: Dawn of the Re-Animator, the 1992 comic prequel to Stuart Gordon’s original Re-Animator, reprinted in its entirety

The post Exclusive Look at Arrow Video’s ‘Bride of Re-Animator’ Blu-ray! appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

Now, how about we Date. Mate. Re-Animate.

Synopsis:
The success of Stuart Gordon’s hit horror-comedy Re-Animator meant that a sequel was all but inevitable. The resulting follow-up, Bride of Re-Animator – this time helmed by director Brian Yuzna (Society, Return of the Living Dead III) – would prove that there was a good deal more life (and death) left in the story of Dr Herbert West and his ghoulish exploits.
 
It has been eight months since the bloody massacre at Miskatonic Medical School. Unperturbed by the disastrous outcome of his previous meddling with the dead, Dr West (again played by Jeffrey Combs) continues his research into the phenomenon of re-animation; only this time, he plans to create life – starting with the heart of his young protégé Dan’s dearly deceased, Meg Halsey. Surely nothing could go wrong?
 
With special effects master Screaming Mad George (the man behind the infamous “shunting” sequence of Society) on hand to contribute a host of characteristically weird and wonderful creations, Bride of Re-Animator is a more than worthy successor to Stuart Gordon’s original cult classic.

DIRECTOR-APPROVED 3-DISC LIMITED EDITION CONTENTS

• Brand new 2K restorations of the Unrated and R-Rated versions of the film, approved by director Brian Yuzna
• High Definition Blu-ray (1080p) and Standard Definition DVD presentations
• Original Stereo 2.0 audio (uncompressed PCM on the Blu-rays)
• Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
• Digipak packaging featuring newly commissioned artwork by Gary Pullin
• Collector’s booklet featuring new writing on the film by festival programmer Michael Blyth
• Re-Animator: Dawn of the Re-Animator – the official comic book prequel to the original Re-Animator

DISC 1 [BLU-RAY] & DISC 2 [DVD] – UNRATED VERSION

• Brand new 2K restoration of the Unrated version
• Brand new audio commentary with director Brian Yuzna
• Audio commentary with Brian Yuzna, star Jeffrey Combs, special effects co-ordinator Thomas Rainone and the effects team including John Buechler, Mike Deak, Robert Kurtzman, Howard Berger and Screaming Mad George
• Audio commentary with stars Jeffrey Combs and Bruce Abbott
• Brian Yuzna Remembers Bride of Re-Animator – brand new featurette in which the director looks back at the making of the first Re-Animator sequel
• Splatter Masters: The Special Effects Artists of Bride of Re-Animator – brand new FX featurette with a wealth of behind-the-scenes footage and interviews with Robert Kurtzman of KNB, Screaming Mad George, Tony Doublin and John Buechler
• Getting Ahead in Horror – archive making-of featurette
• Meg is Re-Animated – deleted scene with behind-the-scenes footage
• Carnival Sequence – the cast and crew discuss this excised sequence

DISC 3 [BLU-RAY] – R-RATED VERSION – LIMITED EDITION EXCLUSIVE

• Brand new 2K restoration of the R-Rated version
• Behind-the-Scenes Reel

‘RE-ANIMATOR: DAWN OF THE RE-ANIMATOR’ – LIMITED EDITION EXCLUSIVE

• Perfect-bound booklet containing Re-Animator: Dawn of the Re-Animator, the 1992 comic prequel to Stuart Gordon’s original Re-Animator, reprinted in its entirety

The post Arrow Video Releases Full Specs on ‘Bride of Re-Animator’ Blu-ray! appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

At this point you probably know what From Beyond is all about. Crawford Tillinghast (Combs) and Dr. Edward Pretorius (Ted Sorel) develop the resonator, a device that allows humans to see beyond what is consider to be the normal perceptible reality. Good news, the resonator works! Bad news, the resonator works! As plenty of movies have taught us over the years, when humans play around with science too much, the results are often disastrous. Such is precisely the case in From Beyond.

Of course I loved this movie. Combs is splendid as always and it’s kind of fun to see how his character of Tillinghast compares to his more famous Herbert West from the Re-Animator films. Despite the two characters playing in the same ballpark, they’re both actually quite different and complex in their own ways. Tillinghast is more about doing the right thing rather than putting science first.

Barbara Crampton’s Dr. Katherine McMichaels on the other hand, was a bit more reminiscent of West. McMichaels is willing to go to great lengths in the name of science. Even when she knows the risks she can’t help but let her curiosity get the best of her. I may have been most impressed with Crampton out of everyone. Perhaps this is partly due to the fact that I’ve always considered her to be the weak link of Re-Animator. I’ve been a huge fan of her in everything else however, and From Beyond is certainly no different.

Stuart Gordon must love to get messy. His films always seem to be oozing with so much goop. As a whole Gordon may be the director with the best use of practical effects and makeup. It’s not that From Beyond or any of his other films would rank as my top choice for use of practical effects, but he may be consistently the best over the course of his career. The whole sucking brains through the eye socket is just awesome. Logically that may just be the best way to get to someone’s brain when you think about it. Going through the skull? Ugh, too hard, too much work. Just rip out the eye and suck through the socket! Works like a charm!

The plus side to waiting so long to see a classic like From Beyond is that I now get to experience it for the first time on Blu-ray which is pretty terrific. The version I watched was the German release from OFDb Filmworks. I know the film did get the Scream Factory special treatment here in the US. From what I can tell both transfers on the US and German release look to be the same, at least as far as the specs are concerned. I can’t speak for sure on behalf of the Scream Factory release, but I am very happy to say the OFDb release looked fantastic. From Beyond is a pretty colorful movie, especially when the resonator is in action and you see a lot of bold, vivid light. This all looks wonderful in HD.

The special features on this release, just like with the Scream Factory release, are loaded. From what I can tell every feature that is on the Scream Factory release is included on the OFDb release, plus there are a few more tossed in. The German release has three commentaries – one with Gordon, Crampton, Combs and producer Brian Yuzna; a second with Dennis Paoli; and then finally a third in German with Kai Naumann and Marcus Stiglegger. The extra bonus materials included on the German release are an additional 20 minute feature on the special effects (Monsters & Slime), an additional interview with Crampton (The Doctor is In), an interview with Paoli (Gothic Adaptation), an additional interview with Gordon and storyboards. These extra features could be included on the Scream Factory release, but I’m just going by what I was able to find online.

I may have been late to the party on From Beyond, but I think I can safely say most horror fans are going to want this one in their collection. Fortunately there looks to be a couple of good options out there to choose from. It doesn’t matter what region player you have or where you’re located in the world, you’ll be able to find at least one good version of From Beyond and that’s a very good thing.

From Beyond is now available on Blu-ray from Scream Factory in the US and Canada, OFDb Filmworks in German, Second Sight in the UK, Sidonis in France and Happinet in Japan.

The post [Blu-ray Review] ‘From Beyond’ Gets Messy! appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

Society makes its Blu-ray debut in the UK as an exclusive digipak featuring Blu-ray, DVD and “Society: Party Animal,” the official comic book sequel. This exclusive set will be limited to a run of only 3000 copies only and comes with a full colour 24-page booklet, alongside a host of bonus features.

This director-approved digipak comes loaded with exclusive features including a brand new audio commentary by director Brian Yuzna, alongside a new interview with the director and a filmed 2014 Q&A with Yuzna, recorded at Celluloid Screams Festival.

The bonus content will also include brand new featurettes, including interviews with stars Billy Warlock, Devin DeVasquez, Ben Meyerson and Tim Bartell and interviews with FX artists Screaming Mad George, David Grasso and Nick Benson. Alongside this, the disc will also feature Brian Yuzna in conversation backstage at the Society world premiere and a Screaming Mad George music video.

The packaging features newly-commissioned artwork by Nick Percival and a collector’s booklet featuring new writing on the film by critic Alan Jones, illustrated with original archive stills and posters.

To round this limited-edition release off, the set will also include “Society: Party Animal,” the official comic sequel to Society, reproduced in its entirety in a perfect-bound book.

“After producing Stuart Gordon’s hit Re-Animator, Brian Yuzna (Bride of Re-Animator, Return of the Living Dead III) turned his hand to directing with 1989’s Society, and gave birth to one of the ickiest, most original body horror shockers of all time.

Teenager Bill Whitney (Billy Warlock) has always felt like the odd one out in his wealthy, upper-class Beverly Hills family. For some reason, he just doesn’t seem to fit in. But his sense of alienation takes a sinister turn when he hears an audio recording of his sister’s coming-out party, which seems to implicate his family and others in a bizarre, ritualistic orgy. And then there are the strange things he’s been seeing – glimpses of people with their bodies contorted impossibly out of shape… Is Bill going mad or is there something seriously amiss in his neighbourhood?

Packing stomach-churning gore and thought-provoking social commentary in equal measure, Society is a biting horror satire which culminates in one of the most gag-inducing “climaxes”’ in all of horror history.”

Special Features:

· Newly remastered 2K digital transfer of the film, approved by director Brian Yuzna
· High Definition Blu-ray (1080p) and Standard Definition DVD presentation
· Original Stereo 2.0 audio (uncompressed PCM on the Blu-ray)
· Optional English SDH subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
· Brand new audio commentary by Yuzna
· Governor of Society – a brand new interview with Yuzna
· The Masters of the Hunt – a brand new featurette including interviews with stars Billy Warlock, Devin DeVasquez, Ben Meyerson and Tim Bartell
· The Champion of the Shunt – new featurette with FX artists Screaming Mad George, David Grasso and Nick Benson
· 2014 Q&A with Yuzna, recorded at Celluloid Screams Festival
· Brian Yuzna in conversation backstage at the Society world premiere
· ‘Persecution Mania’ – Screaming Mad George music video
· Limited Edition Digipak packaging featuring newly-commissioned artwork by Nick Percival
· Collector’s booklet featuring new writing on the film by critic Alan Jones, illustrated with original archive stills and posters
· Society: Party Animal [Limited Edition Exclusive] – the official comic sequel to Society, reproduced in its entirety in a perfect-bound book

The post Brian Yuzna’s ‘Society’ Gets Mutated Blu-ray Release! appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

I’ve also been told that the rest of the album is heavily inspired by the works of H.P. Lovecraft, so fans of that style of metal may very well have found their next big release to pay attention to!

Re-Animator producer Brian Yuzna, who went on to direct the film’s sequels, even gave it his thumbs up, stating that the song, “…is very tongue in cheek.”

The album Inhabitants Of Carcosa was mixed by Nikita Kamprad and mastered by Dan Swanö (Evergrey, Nasum, Opeth). It will will be released on May 15 and can be pre-ordered via Bandcamp.

“Re-Animator” lyrics:
LIFE

I keep working on my cure for longer life
Day and night – NIGHT
And even if the failures became rife
Back to life – LIFE

The post This “Re-Animator” Inspired Metal Track Gets Brian Yuzna’s Two Thumbs Up! appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

“I am actively working on it,” he reveals. “Once again it is all about the financing.

“My idea for a sequel is to have it take place in these super exclusive late night clubs that they have in Hollywood. Once you get in there is always a VIP room or a VVIP room that is off limits…“

Clearly, financing is an issue when you have people like Stuart Gordon taking to Kickstarter. So, we’ll keep you updated with any positive developments.

In the first film that stars Billy Warlock, Connie Danese, Ben Slack, Evan Richards, and Patrice Jennings, 17 year-old Billy Whitney feels alienated from his upper-class Beverly Hills family. He hears a tape recording that seems to indicate that his entire family are having secret orgies. People appear dead one moment but are alive the next, while Billy’s girlfriend’s body appears to twist into abnormal positions. His parents insist that Billy is imagining everything and try to commit him to an institution. Billy slowly discovers the truth – that his parents and the people around him belong to a different breed of people, a secret in-bred society who are capable of melding and shifting their bodies…

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