That ’70s Zombie, Sleepy Zombies, Rural Werewolves

When it came out in 1979 (1978 in Italy), Dawn of the Dead, in eye-bursting color, featured unflinchingly graphic flesh-eating zombies, skyrocketing the genre into mainstream pop culture status. And it also butt-birthed generations of walking dead movies/TV shows, which continues to this day over 40 years later. Thanks to technology and all its science magic, you can now see Dawn of the Dead…in 3-D!

You read the words correctly — from October 28 through October 31, Regal Cinemas is showing the 3-D conversion of the groundbreaking splat masterpiece in 250 Regal venues. (Click HERE for tix) Warning: the first three rows will get wet.

In case it slipped your mind, here’s the original plot: “Following an ever-growing epidemic of zombies that have risen from the dead, two Philadelphia S.W.A.T. team members, a traffic reporter, and his television executive girlfriend seek refuge in a secluded shopping mall.” That won’t win any marketing awards, but just know that Dawn of the Dead explodes with glisten-y chewed flesh and previously-owned body parts.

While we look for some stain-proof pants to wear to the premier, here are few upcoming horror/sci-fi movies that may or may not be as essential as previously-owned body parts…

DEAD BRIDE / Out now (iTunes™, Amazon Prime Video™, Google Play™, Xbox™, Vudu™)

“After her father’s death, Alyson, her partner Richard and their baby return to her childhood home. Following a few shocking supernatural events, Alyson discovers that she and her family have been living with a terrible curse, unleashed in the past by a bride killed by Alyson’s grandfather. Soon after Alyson’s child disappears and she has no choice but to embark on a frightening journey into the underworld to free herself from the bride’s curse and to look for her daughter.”

Note to Alyson: the entrance to the Underworld is the Tug Tavern’s bathroom, or “Portal Potty.” P.S. Wash your hands. 

SLEEP. WALK. KILL. / November 4, 2022 (VOD/Digital platforms)

“If you sleep, you become one of them. News reports tell of an Earth-shattering sound heard along the entire East Coast. Nobody knows where it came from. Nobody knows what it means. That night, people start walking in their sleep. And killing in their sleep. When the screaming stops and the blood dries, those left have to work together to stay alive. Heads will roll, eyeballs will fly, but for Edgar, Hell is still just other people. His ex-wife, his parents and all his neighbors are hiding out at his house. And they’re even worse than the flesh-eating sleepwalkers.”

Flesh-eating sleepwalkers. Does that mean the night-snackers are wearing pajamas? Do they snore? It’d be nice to get some clarification on this matter of high import. 

IN SEARCH OF DARKNESS: PART III / November, 2022 (Digital) / January, 2023 (DVD/Blu-ray)

“In Search of Darkness: Part III — the ultimate ’80s horror documentary series — is a five-plus-hour exploration of the undiscovered treasures of the VHS era. Featuring interviews with 70 horror luminaries, including such icons as John Carpenter, Robert Englund, Caroline Munro, and Cassandra Peterson, In Search of Darkness: Part III is presented in a compelling year-by-year format that examines horror in the context of the decade’s touchstone moments and movements such as the rise of indie horror during the home video boom, the backlash of the Satanic panic, the genre’s relationship with heavy metal music, horror’s marginalization by the mainstream, the influence of Mexican, European, Canadian and Asian horror, and more.”

I’ve seen In Search of Darkness: Part I (2019) and Part II (2020). And now, with the release of In Search of Darkness: Part III, that’s over 14 hours of more ’80s horror than you should be legally able to wrap your eyeballs around. Get all three in a massive-yet-tidy bundle HERE, and plan on spending the entire weekend on your couch. You can thank me on Monday…if you make it that far.

WOLF HOLLOW / Spring, 2023

“A group of young filmmakers venture out on a location scout in rural Pennsylvania. Deep into the back country, it quickly becomes apparent they’ve stumbled onto a family of werewolves and must now survive the night.”

Werewolves live in Pennsylvania? I would’ve thought…Gnashville. Heh.

Nightmare Travel Host, Evil Easter, Heartless Operation

Freddy Krueger on The Travel Channel™? Book me a seat! Actually, it’s Freddy Krueger actor, Robert Englund. But Clark Kent is still Superman, no matter if he’s wearin’ the cape or not.

Shadows of History, the six episode series, premiers sometime in 2019, which, unless you frequently time-travel, is this year. From the press release: “In each episode, the Nightmare on Elm Street star will track down the story behind a bizarre or mysterious account printed in an American newspaper in the past. He will enlist historians and scholars to get to the truth behind the reports.” You can hear Englund in his best Freddy voice intro each show — “I’m your travel agent now!”

While we wait for Robert Englund to appear on Expedia.com commercials, here are a few upcoming horror movies that may or may not be as terrifying as The Travel Channel™…

MADE ME DO IT (April 12, 2019)
“After a lifetime of abuse and rejection, a man finds unconditional love when he dons a mask called Barbara. But Barbara has an all-consuming taste for murder, as a college student and her little brother are about to discover.”

Most lonely guys would find unconditional love with an inflatable sex doll. Doesn’t seem like a mask would fulfill all his…needs. Whatever — love the one your with.

CHAMBERS (April 26, 2019/Netflix™)
“Nancy is the mother of the heart donor who forges a hesitant relationship with the young recipient only to find out her daughter may not be as dead as she thought.”

That’s pretty heartless. Okay, that came out wrong. So am I reading into this correctly — mom gave away her daughter’s heart before said daughter was done using it? She could get cardiac arrested for that. C’mon, that was funny. Geez…

ROTTENTAIL (April 12, 2019 |Theatrical | April 26, 2019 | DVD)
“Adapted from the graphic novel, Rottentail is the story of geeky fertility researcher Peter Cotton who, when bitten by a mutant rabbit, transforms into a vengeance-seeking half-man/half-bunny. What’s a boy to do? Why, take a hippity, hoppity trip home of course! Peter begins a bloody killing spree that culminates in his childhood hometown of Easter Falls.”

There have been an overflowing basket full of horror Easter movies (including the documentaries) before this one: Easter Bunny Bloodbath (2004), Kottentails (2004), Peter Rottentail (2004), Serial Rabbit (2005), Easter Bunny Kill Kill (2006), Serial Rabbit 3: Splitting Hares (2009), Bunnyman (2011), Easter Casket (2013), Easter Sunday (2014), Beasterday: Here Comes Peter Cottonhell (2014), Serial Rabbit V: The Epic Hunt (2017), and Bunnyman Vengeance (2017). There’s probably more, but you’ll have to…hunt…for them. Heh.

ACHOURA (2019)
“Four kids have fun at frightening one another and decide to go explore a condemned and probably haunted house. One of them disappears in mysterious circumstances. The three survivors try to forget, until Samir reappears 25 years later. The group will eventually have to confront the past.”

I didn’t know what Achoura was, so I clicked it up. It’s a Moroccan religious celebration where children splash water on each other. Way to ruin playtime in a backyard pool with religion, Morocco. 

Hell in the Cell

Described as “John Carpenter’s Assault on Precinct 13 but with a supernatural twist,” Last Shift is a feel-good horror movie pitting a chick cop against a demonic ghost. I know what you’re thinking – is the chick cop gonna drop top? We’ll have to wait and see when Last Shift is finally released on DVD sometime during the day on October 6, 2015.

Here’s what they’re telling us/me/you: “Officer Jessica Loren has been assigned to wait for a Hazmat team to pick up bio-hazardous waste from the station’s armory. But unbeknown to Jessica, cult Leader John Michael Paymon has haunted the department ever since he and two of this followers committed suicide a year ago to date. And now, Jessica is about to find out how dangerous they can be when she’s left alone on this…last shift.”

This one was originally titled Paymon: The King of Hell. I like that a hell of a lot more than The Last Shift, which left me with a “gum didn’t come out of the machine” look on my face. Why someone actually thought Last Shift is a better title is supreme bafflement of the highest order.

There have been other horror movies with a similar theme. The one that burps to the surface of my mind is 2011’s Inkubus, starring Freddy Krueger (or “Robert Englund”) as the title character.

Here’s what that one is all about: “Inkubus tells the story of a skeleton crew working the final shift at a soon to be demolished police station. The night takes a gruesome turn when the demon Inkubus calmly walks into the station holding the severed head of a murdered girl. Inkubus toys with the crew, allowing himself to be restrained, and begins to proudly confess to his litany of crimes, some dating back to the Middle Ages.”

No doubt Inkubus is gonna get a ticket for murder. But to toy with cops? He’s looking at a life sentence.

Classic ’70s Sleaze Horror

Hard to come up with a horror movie title more tantalizing than 1977’s Eaten Alive. Oh sure they tried, even by re-titling this Seventies lurid gem: Death Trap, Horror Hotel and Starlight Slaughter. Meh. Eaten Alive tells you everything you need to know.

And this is why it’s so cool Eaten Alive is being re-issued on Blu-ray™ with a metric ton of extras sometime in July, 2015. So why all this fuss over a low budget sleazy horror movie that barely made it to the drive-in big screens and was left collecting dust in VHS discount bins?

First, look who was involved with this thing: Tobe Hooper directed and did the soundtrack. You may remember him as the director from another forgotten little movie called The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974). Then there was a starring role from Caroline Jones, widely known as Morticia from The Addams Family cult TV series (1964 – 1966) playing a brothel owner. And who is that shirtless redneck hick trying to score with a hooker? None other than Freddy Krueger himself – Robert England. Marilyn Burns, who played the endlessly screaming survivor in The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, stars as an unhappy wife. How can you ever be happy after being tormented by a chain saw?

Eaten Alive has it all – a war-damaged scuzzy hotel owner, some bare boobies, some gory deaths by way of a scythe, and a GIANT CROCODILE. Set in the Louisiana swamp backwoods, Judd, the hotel proprietor, has loose noodles for brains and keeps the aforementioned GIANT CROCODILE as a pet in the stink pond the hotel (more like a shack with several rooms) ’round back. Throw in a beleaguered prostitute, a feisty redneck, some guests who shouldn’t really be there and the GIANT CROCODILE that eats you alive, you have a movie that practically writes itself.

The re-issued Eaten Alive contains so many extras, it would take me away from watching my UFO stories on YouTube™ to list ’em all here. Of the plethora of bonus stuff, I’m visibly shocked they didn’t have an interview with the GIANT CROCODILE itself, reminiscing about what Freddy Krueger tastes like. Then again, it’s not polite to talk with your mouth full.

Hellish Phone Bill

Hoax Wilmoth has worse problems than his  name. As a socially-exorcised teen with a religious freak mom who can make it rain fish and a renegade male cousin whom he feels a certain pant-tingling attraction for, Hoax finds a telephone number that puts him in direct contact with…SATAN. (What’s a “telephone”?)

Thinking it’s one of those horoscope pay numbers, Hoax (yeesh, that name is stupid) calls and gets advice on how to deal with the gang of teen gay guys who beat him up every day and play strip poker together. (Instructions: chop off one guy’s hand, stab another with a neon pitchfork (!), punch through the chest of two others, yank out their black hearts and show it around the room.)

And that chick who scorned him? The evil voice tells him to make a pentagram out of salt and bugs, and the next thing you know, she’s being devoured alive by salty bugs.

Mom gets the phone bill and freaks. Hoax is pretty much up to here with her fire and brimstone, so she’s got to go. Then he writes a bunch of anti-church stuff all over the walls. I’ll give him this, his handwriting is nicely legible.

A final confrontation between Hoax and his dreaded cousin Spike makes the house fall apart to reveal a pit leading straight to Japan. Or Hell. If you’re not evil, go to Japan. If you’re evil, then go to Hell.

Hoax is played by Stephen Geoffrys and is the same character he played as Evil Ed in Fright Night (1985). All of 976-Evil’s (1988) gore and violence is done off-screen, which is surprising given that Robert Englund – Freddy Krueger himself – directed this horror-lite butt toffee. So when evil calls, hang up on it.