Gary Dretzka
Noah Forrest
Leonard Klady
David Poland
Douglas Pratt
Ray Pride

Isn't it about time someone designated October as Zombie Awareness Month, or, if that's a tad too perverse, Vampire History Month, or, at the very least, encourage Take Your Werewolf to Work days? Horror fans could pin black ribbons to their lapels, reminding friends and office mates to donate freely of their blood.

Anyway, it's a thought.

As someone who's required to pay attention to cinematic trends, I think it's reasonable to assume that studios and other purveyors of film and video products now anticipate the weeks leading up to Halloween with same drooling relish they once reserved for the period between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Each year, it seems, the number of spinetinglers that reach my cobweb-encrusted mailbox rises exponentially.

Although there's never been a drought in the supply of fresh horror flicks, the quantity, quality and diversity of niche titles has never been greater. Neither are the films limited to any one culture's apprehensions over things that go bump in the night. Ghouls, ghosts and goblins, of one sort or another, know no national borders, even if they make their presences known in vastly different ways.

Today, maybe always, the horror genre is broad enough to include titles that appeal to audiences of all ages, genders, IQ's and parole status. Universal's catalogue of classic monster movies now seems tame enough to qualify as being appropriate for family viewing.
Alfred Hitchcock's once-shocking Psycho has been copied so often that it, too, could be considered entry-level fare for genre geeks.

Most parents, though, probably would defer to someone like the creator of the Goosebumps franchise. Universal's R.L. Stine's Haunting Hour: Don't Think About It is targeted directly at those kids who get their kicks on the Disney Channel. The cast includes actors from Hannah Montana and The Suite Life of Zack & Cody, as well as genre icon, Tobin Bell, of the R-rated Saw series and new-to-DVD, Buried Alive.

For 32 years, Facet Multimedia has been the go-to place for Chicago-area cinephiles in pursuit of obscure foreign, indie, documentary and cult titles. It has since become the go-to place for Halloween rentals, as well. A new Facets Features blog offers an eclectic list of personal favorites for debate. Its 31 Days of Horror offers clips, brief reviews and a comments platform.

Of the 20 or so movies already spotlighted on the blog, only a handful would be considered obvious. They include such staples as Psycho, the 1925 Phantom of the Opera, Frankenstein Meets the Wolfman, Dawn of the Dead and several of Ed Woods Jr's lesser-known opuses. The majority, however, might even be unfamiliar to the Fangoria crowd: Lucio Fulci's Zombie; the Japanese, Evil Dead Trap (the grandfather of the 'torture porn' genre); James Whale's The Old Dark House; and Brazilian filmmaker Jose Mojica Marins' Coffin Joe trilogy. There's even a nod to Disney's animated The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, for which Bing Crosby served as narrator.

Certainly, Disney's never shied away from introducing kids to subject matter that might raise a goosebump or two. Bambi is a perfect example of a G-rated movie the MPAA has refused to re-categorize PG, even though several generation of animal-rights activists have been traumatized by it. The Disney Channel's TV-to-DVD franchise, Halloweentown, is in its fourth incarnation, while the 3-D re-release of Tim Burton's Nightmare Before Christmas is emerging as a holiday tradition in malls.

Just as DreamWorks' Disturbia was described as being a Rear Window for the MTV crowd, Buena Vista's The Invisible was packaged as The Sixth Sense for teenagers. There are ghosts, a murder investigation and a bad-ass high school shylock. This is one PG-13 thriller that's unlikely to be re-packaged in a R-rated or uncensored director's cut edition.

On the other extreme is Spice Studio's XXX The Taunting, a hardcore film for trick-or-treaters who don't always wait for Halloween to don their S&M regalia. Like most other contemporary adult films, Taunting wastes little time on establishing a narrative, but, for the record, it involves a pair of inquisitive college students in pursuit of a succubus spirit. Apart from her feline eyes, the little booger is a dead ringer for every schoolgirl ghost in Japanese horror movies. In one of the bonus features, director Zenova Braedon engages in some hardcore action of her own … a service more filmmakers just provide for their fans.

Come to think of it … maybe not.

Every day I'm working is Halloween, quips B-movie scream-queen Tiffany Shepis, one of the most recognizable faces (and torsos) in the genre. I grew up as a fan of horror movies, and I love appearing in them. My first job was on 'Tromeo and Juliet,' when I was 15, so a lot of the fans I meet at conventions have watched me grow up in the genre.

Shepis has since appeared in more than 50 movies and television productions, very few of which would be confused with mainstream fare. Traditionally, horror pictures have been the province of fledgling filmmakers looking to make a name and reputation for themselves, as was the case with Francis Ford Coppola (Dementia 13), Monte Hellman (Beast From Haunted Cave), Peter Bogdanovich (Voyage to the Planet of Prehistoric Women) and Joe Dante and John Sayles (Piranha). They learned their chops from Roger Corman and those who toiled for such thrifty companies as American International Pictures, Crown International Pictures and William Castle Productions. The formula has endured.

In Roger Corman's films, scenes with skin, violence and chases would occur every 15 minutes, or so, Shepis adds. Today, the budgets don't even allow for car chases, so we add more gore. That seems to satisfy the generation of boys who grew up with ADD.

I'm really excited that my next film, Nowhere Man, is opening in November on 359 screens. For someone whose movies normally debut on DVD, that's a really big deal.

Just as purveyors of pulp novels used lurid sexual imagery to sell mysteries, the posters and packaging for horror videos and DVDs emphasize cutlery, actresses in jeopardy, unattached limbs and faces disfigured by screams or power tools. The art freaks out parents and other squares, but aficionados have little trouble separating the wheat from the chafe.

In a pinch, they can always take advantage of such dedicated fansites as Fangoria, Splasherpool, FilmThreat, Horrorwatch and TerrorHook, whose opinions on such fare are more trusted than those found in the Los Angeles Times, New York Times, Boston Globe and USA Today. And, yes, mainstream critics now are required to review movies -- Hostel II, Saw II, The Devil's Rejects -- they wouldn't have touched with rubber gloves, a decade ago.

The larger studios see what happens when a movie like Blair Witch or Scream catches fire, but they really haven't a clue about how to do it themselves, observes Rolfe Kanefsky, who wrote, directed and produced Nightmare Man. The genre isn't respected in Hollywood. What they do know is that the horror crowd is intelligent, knowledgeable and loyal … fans attend conventions and connect through the Internet..

The people making horror movies today have been watching and collecting these films since they were kids, and didn't get their start making music videos. You don't need big stars or big budgets, anymore … just a bunch of kids and a cabin.

Finding distribution is another thing entirely. The majors are reluctant to pay the freight for marketing movies lacking in star power, and are generally too impatient to wait for buzz from festivals, conventions and the Internet to go into high gear.

Several of the major studios have arthouse and genre divisions, which are only slightly less selective than their parents. Filling the gap are such busy-beaver distributors as Lionsgate, Anchor Bay, Dark Sky/MPI, MVD, Tartan Video, Tartan Asia Extreme, Dimension Extreme, Fox Atomic, LifeSize, Magnet, Starz, Think, First Look, HBO, Showtime, Allumination, Echo Bridge, Red Envelope and Facets Video. These companies tend to be far more willing to test the DVD market for subtitled horror from countries as far afield as New Zealand, Thailand, Sweden, Spain and Eastern Europe.

Their willingness to throw lots of strands of spaghetti at the wall, to see what sticks, helps explain the large number of screeners received each month by reviewers of DVDs. Get your product advanced and reviewed on a fansite -- alongside inexpensive banner ads or promotions -- and you're half-way there. Why waste money on newspapers that ignore your films and are read by people old enough to remember Orson Welles' original The War of the Worlds broadcast?

This isn't to say the industry couldn't benefit from self-imposed restraint, however.

The horror genre collapsed in early '90s, because there was a glut of straight-to-video films, and it didn't come back until Scream, which had fun with genre clichés and conventions, Kanefsky points out. We may be hitting a new glut, because the technology allows almost anyone to make a movie, without any training or college.

It also raises the ante on fright. Hostel and Hostel: Part II recently raised storms of controversy -- among more sensitive observers, anyway -- for their over-the-top depictions of torture for fun and profit. Clips showing Heather Matarazzo hanging naked above a scythe-wielding dominatrix added “torture porn” to the politically incorrect vernacular. While the vast majority of viewers understood the wee lass was never really in danger, doubts remained over those fans who might have difficulty discerning the difference between special effects and real life. Although I wouldn’t recommend it, parents can judge for themselves, simply by watching newly released “unrated director’s cut” versions of both Hostel entries, along with a cornucopia of extras.

“Torture pushes the envelope, but that‘s the way the genre works,” said Shepis, who reportedly named her pet Chihuahuas after Vlad the Impaler and Boris Karloff. “Guys wanna see tits and ass with their blood and gore. Personally, I find the hardcore stuff very hard to watch.”

One of the first big DVD releases of October was Fox Atomic's 28 Weeks Later, Juan Carlos Fresnadillo's high-octane sequel to Danny Boyle's critically lauded zombie epic, 28 Days Later. The first two entries in what appears to be a new franchise -- either in theaters or straight-to-DVD -- represents a merging of genres, as the zombie infestation was caused by a rage virus loosed on England after animal-rights activists liberated some lab monkeys. When the plague returned, 28 weeks Later, the movie quickly became a peddle-to-metal shoot-'em-up, with allusions to the American presence in Iraq. Peace was restored, but the fate of the virus was left unresolved.

If all undead creatures looked as hot as Lucy Liu does in Rise: Blood Hunter, the afterlife would be a far less intimating prospect. Here, she plays a reporter, who, after investigating
Goth cultists, awakens on the other side.

Wrong Turn 2: Dead End offers a grisly spin on the flesh-eater sub-genre, by pitting contestants in a Survivor-like TV show against in-bred hillbilly cannibals. Henry Rollins plays the host of the show, which is supposed to take place in West Virginia but actually was shot in the in-bred hillbilly-cannibal capital of Canada, Vancouver.

Night of the Living Dead 3D is an all-zombies, all the time, re-telling of George Romero classic thriller. It isn't very good, but NOTLD completists probably will want to check it out, if only to see if dead flesh looks cool in 3D. Glasses are part of the package.

Typically, sequels are iffy propositions. The new economics of DVD marketing practically require that every ounce of blood be squeezed from a franchise before it's put on a shelf to hibernate for a few years. Sony hopes Pumpkinhead 4: Blood Feud will re-kindle interest in the series after the poorly received Ashes to Ashes. After a three-year absence, Universal has repackaged all three chapters in Sam Raimi's Darkman series as a Trilogy box. If it does well, there's always the possibility a third sequel could be commissioned. (The first one starred Liam Neeson and Frances McDormand, and was supported by a Danny Elfman score. The second two weren't so lucky.)

The new Saw 4 will enjoy a theatrical run, before hitting the video racks. Only time will tell when future Saw chapters will make their first presence in DVD, where they'll also make a killing. Lionsgate is using the release as an excuse to bundle the first three films in a box loaded with background and making-of extras.

Everyone is looking for the 'golden ticket' … a franchise, Kanefsky said. Making a movie with the intention of it becoming a franchise isn't the best idea, though.

Serious fans have little troubling sniffing out a movie created according to a recipe. Neither are they reluctant to share their disdain with fellow netizens. It's always better to try something new.

In 1973, Spanish horror maestro Amando De Ossorio raised the bar on campy horror with The Night of the Sorcerers. Now available in a high-def transfer, it describes an expedition undertaken by researchers concerned about the disappearance of elephants in an African jungle. Here's the good part: they discover a tribe of voodoo-zombies who rise from the ground, capture the women, whip them and slice their heads off on an altar. They return as vampires in pursuit of other women to kill. Top that.

One genre conceit that remains every bit as relevant today, as it was when Frankenstein was released in 1931, is a belief that even the most well-intentioned of scientists can cause great harm when their experiments go haywire. Concerns over vivisection influenced Mary Shelley and H.G. Wells, just as a generation of Japanese filmmakers used the dropping of the atomic bomb to comment on the ethics of nuclear proliferation, and genetic engineering has become a boogeyman for a new generation of screenwriters who specialize in sci-fi and horror.

Billy O'Brien's Isolation is set on a secluded Irish dairy farm populated with cows used in a DNA experiment. A genetically engineered parasite is let loose during the delivery of a calf, which occurs not far from a group of interlopers. Madness, of course, ensues. Genetically altered canines are the villains in The Breed, which is set, natch, on a remote island. The dogs' vicious tendencies are revealed after a group of young people descend on the island for a weekend excursion.

In the New Zealand export, Perfect Creature, the scientific malpractice occurred 300 years ago. Messing around with Mother Nature produced a master race of vampires, who, for centuries, enjoyed a symbiotic relationship with their human blood donors. The poop hits the fan when a vampire infects a human with a killer virus, disrupting the delicate balance between ravenous hunters and their newly endangered prey.

Mutated animals also figure in Ice Spiders, which takes place at a Utah ski resort and stars a bunch of actors from Melrose Place. Things get interesting when giant arachnids get in the way of a bunch of Olympic hopefuls. Emily Blunt stars in Wind Chill, in which a group of college students get trapped by a snowstorm on a haunted mountain road. No spiders, though.

Kaw wants so much for us to recall Hitchcock's masterpiece, The Birds, its makers even found a place for Rod Taylor, once the biggest movie star on the planet and a star in the original.

Writer Jonathan Hensleigh has had his name attached to several high-profile movies, including Die Hard: With a Vengeance, Jumanji, Armageddon and Young Indiana Jones. As a director, he's done The Punisher and Welcome to the Jungle, a little ditty about, Two young couples (who) head into the New Guinea wilderness in an effort to find Michael Rockefeller, the heir to the Rockefeller fortune who disappeared in 1961. Think Heart of Darkness meets The Blair Witch Project. Give it points for originality, but watch as it goes straight-to-video in November.

Recent Tartan releases include the Thai possession-thriller, The Victim; Apartment 1303; Carved: The Slit-Mouthed Woman, from Japan; and the Portuguese cursed- house drama, Bad Blood. Tartan is one of the distributors whose product is always worth considering.

In 1977, Tobe Hooper followed his Texas Chain Saw Massacre with Eaten Alive, a story about an innkeeper who feeds the occasional customer to a crocodile living the backyard bayou. The flick returns in a special two-disc edition, with all sorts of commentary, making-of and behind-the-scenes featurettes. Meanwhile, the urban myth about discarded baby alligators haunting big-city sewers was successfully lampooned in John Sayles and Lewis Teague's Alligator. Teague also directed Cujo, the popular adaptation of Stephen King's monster-dog epic now arriving in a special 25th anniversary edition. (The Stanley Kubrick version of King's The Shining has been released in a two-disc package, as part of Warners' salute to the late director.) Another cult favorite, Monster Squad, arrived recently in two-disc 20th Anniversary Edition with its all-star lineup of classic monsters intact.

Even though big-name stars aren't necessary to sell a picture, some aren't easily ignored.
Adrienne Barbeau (Swamp Thing, The Fog) returns in the paranormal thriller, Unholy; Academy Award-winner Hillary Swank revisits the 10 biblical plagues in The Reaping; Wilmer Vilderrama and Maria Conchita Alonso encounter Aztec gods in The Dead One; Ray Winstone turns up in Disappeared; and Gillian Anderson is in the revenge thriller, Closure.

More often than not, though, it's the title -- the shorter, the better -- and cover art that makes the difference between a rental and a near-miss. This month's selection adds such gems as Antibodies, Murder Party, Night Junkies, Puzzlehead, Gag, The Woods Have Eyes, Beneath and Shadow Puppets. Taking the cake, though, is Reeker, which is about a serial killer who stinks, literally.

Lots of other cult and classic titles also are newly available.

Anchor Bay has added a second volume to its terrific Mario Bava Collection. The Italian horror master brought a hip, sexy and decidedly offbeat sensibility to the genre. Among the horror titles collected are Baron Blood, Lisa and the Devil (with Elke Summer and Telly Savalas!) and Bay Of Blood. Lamberto Bava and Dario Argento combined on the Italian gorefests, Demons and Demons 2, which served as Asia Argento's screen debut. The movies featured original songs by Billy Idol, Motley Crue, the Scorpions, the Smiths, the Cult, Art of Noise, Peter Murphy and Dead Can Dance.

Amicus studio competed with Hammer for supremacy of England's horror market in the '60s and '70s. Dark Sky Films has put three of them -- Asylum, And Now the Screaming Starts, The Beast Must Die -- together in The Amicus Collection. Among the stars represented are Patrick Magee, Peter Cushing, Michael Gambon, Stephanie Beacham and Robert Powell. It also is sending out Dan Curtis' 1973 adaptation of Frankenstein, starring Robert Foxworth, Bo Svenson and Susan Strasberg.

In 1968, Jack Hill made Spider Baby, a nasty little ditty about siblings suffering from a genetic abnormality that caused them to regress to a condition of pre-human savagery and cannibalism. It once also was known as The Maddest Story Ever Told, which is as accurate an assessment of a film as I've seen lately. Lon Chaney Jr. played the kids' guardian and chauffeur.

Vampira: The Movie is a documentary about the life and career of Maila Nurmi, the iconic host of late-night horror shows on Los Angeles television in the '50s. The transplanted Finn -- whose uncle was the great long-distance runner Paavo Nurmi -- led a fascinating life on and off the screen. Among other things, she played Bela Lugosi's partner in Edward D. Wood Jr.'s Plan 9 From Outer Space. This one arrived just as Elvira began the search for her successor on Fox's Reality Channel.

The History Channel has made it easy for parents and older kids to learn more about the occult and how different communities have dealt with paranormal activity and superstition. The five-disc Haunted Histories Collection is comprised of Salem Witch Trials, Vampire Secrets, Poltergiest, Hauntings and The Haunted History of Halloween. all presented in an entertaining and informative way.

The Biography Channel gets into the Halloween spirit, with the documentary Satan: Prince of Darkness. And, no it isn't a joke. Scholars, theologians and historians discuss the devil's place in the world of the living over the centuries through art, texts, movie and religious writings. The DVD package adds Hell: The Devil's Domain.

Satan also makes a cameo in Exorcism, Paul Naschy's Castilian response to William Friedkin's The Exorcist. It is similarly profane, but quite a bit naughtier in the skin department (a fully clothed version also is included). Genre geeks will be pleased to learn that the bonus package is very generous and full of commentaries.

Friedkin has had an uneven career since The Exorcist and The French Connection, but critics applauded his return to the macabre, Bug. The play by Tracy Lett, who appears to have learned a thing or two from Sam Shepard, migrated from Chicago's Steppenwolf Theater to New York, before the author adapted it for the screen. Ashley Judd, Harry Connick Jr. and Michael Shannon get on each other's nerves before the bugs get under their skin.

Another worthwhile gift idea is Masters of Horror: Season One Box Set, which represents a great bargain over the episodes previously sold on an a la carte basis. The great thing about the Masters of Horror series was the conceit of asking veteran genre directors to work within the strictures of the one-hour, small-screen format. Originating on premium cable, though, gave the filmmakers far more latitude than they would have been accorded on network television. Tobe Hooper's The Damn Thing and Norio Tsuruta's Dream Cruise are the latest single entries in the off-cable series.

DVDs from the first season's roster of entries in the After Dark Horrorfest have been sent out by Lionsgate, under the banner One of 8 Films to Die For. The 2007 edition of the festival takes place on more than 300 screens in mid-November. Thanks to some clever marketing and the support of key theater chains, the event raised eyebrows last year when its showings cracked the top-10 box-office charts. From there, the movies will join their undead brethren in DVD.


October 28, 2007

- Gary Dretzka

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