Dark Country (2009)

Dark Country (2009)
Director: Thomas Jane
Writer: Tab Murphy
Cast: Ron Perlman, Thomas Jane, Lauren German
A couple en route from Las Vegas are forced to deal with a body out in the desert making their honeymoon one hellish ride.

(Not Yet Rated)

Hell House The Book of Samiel (2008)

Hell House The Book of Samiel (2008)
Director: Jason D. Morris
Writer: Michael Anthony Carlisi, Sheila Kraics, Geof Libby, Jessica Marie
Cast: Jennifer Brugman, William Martin
Before the beginning of time demons covered the darkness. After humans took possession of the earths several books came into existence.

(Not Yet Rated)

Kill Theory (2009)

Kill Theory (2009)
aka Last Resort, Killers
Director: Chris Moore
Writer: Kelly C. Palmer
Cast: Don McManus, Ryanne Duzich, Teddy Dunn
Whilst celebrating a graduation at a secluded vacation home, a group of college students find themselves targeted by a sadistic killer who forces them to play a deadly game of killing one another in order to survive.

(Not Yet Rated)

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Trick 'r Treat (2008)

Trick 'r Treat (2008)
Director: Michael Dougherty
Writer: Michael Dougherty
Cast: Quinn Lord, Brian Cox, Dylan Baker, Anna Paquin
Four interwoven stories that occur on Halloween: An everyday high school principal has a secret life as a serial killer; a college virgin might have just met the one guy for her; a group of teenagers pull a mean prank; a woman who loathes the night has to contend with her holiday-obsessed husband.

(Not Yet Rated)

The Hills Run Red (2009)

The Hills Run Red (2009)
Director: Dave Parker
Writer: John Carchietta, John Dombrow
Cast: William Sadler, Sophie Monk, Tad Hilgenbrink, Janet Montgomery
The movie tells the story about a film fanatic who heads into the deep woods with some friends, to find a print of a lost slasher film 'The Hills Run Red', in which production mysteriously stopped and the crew went missing. However, the friends find more than they bargained for when they realized production never ended.

Hugely entertaining slasher about film student Tyler's attempts to track down a print and information about a 20 year old lost horror movie called The Hills Run Red. Apparently it was withdrawn from theatres due to being too scary, now the only thing left in public circulation is a trailer and a few posters/stills. Tylers only lead is the directors daughter Alexa whom also had a role in the movie. Tyler helps her free herself of a life of lap dancing and drug abusing in the hope she can help him track down the movie. Does lose itself slightly towards the end, and sure its slightly reminiscent of a cross between John Carpenters Masters of Horror story Cigarette Burns and Texas Chainsaw Massacre & Friday the 13th, but I think it rises above just being a copy by delivering a true love for its genre (best scene is the original 70's feeling trailer). The reason I think this'll go down a storm with genre fans is because come on lets face it who hasn't had that thrill of a hidden gem turning up they never thought would surface as it was presumed lost. Touch sad they didn't give it the ending it deserved but otherwise great entertaining gore fest well worth hunting down .

(7½ out of 10)

Tormented (2009)

Tormented (2009)
Director: Jon Wright
Writer: Stephen Prentice
Cast: Alex Pettyfer, April Pearson, Dimitri Leonidas, Calvin Dean
The best days of your life become your worst nightmare in TORMENTED, a high school comedy with a very sinister twist. At the exclusive Fairview High grammar school all is not what it seems, although you wouldn't tell from its seemingly normal veneer. With a budding romance between head girl Justine Fielding and popular hunk Alexis blossoming for the whole school to see, a sinister undercurrent begins to sweep through the halls. Alexis is a part of a group of friends headed by Bradley; a clique who victimise the weaker kids for sadistic pleasure. One such victim was poor Darren Mullett bullied so badly during the previous summer, he took his own life in order to escape their diabolical onslaught. Now, with a newfound confidence and absolutely nothing left to lose, Darren is back from the dead to take hisp revenge in the most bloody and inventive ways.

Light school based slasher about suicide victim Darren Mullet, who returns from the dead to take revenge out on the gang who bullied him. A few amusing moments and death scenes rolled around a bland been there done it to death story, which frustratingly doesn't even try to give a reason why Mullet came back from the dead. Best suited for the teen crowd.

(5½ out of 10)

Call Back (2009)

Call Back (2009)
Director: Ben Ross
Writer: Ben Ross
Cast: Chantelle Barry, Rob Benedict, Elisangela, Monica Gambee
After trying to seduce a naïve young actress, an overly cocky young horror director has the tables turned on him when the actress and her girlfriend restrain him and proceed to torture him in the same manner he had tortured people in the film that made him famous.

(Not Yet Rated)

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The Haunted World of El Superbeasto (2009)

The Haunted World of El Superbeasto (2009)
Director: Rob Zombie
Writer: Joe Ekers, Tom Papa
Cast: Rosario Dawson, Danny Trejo, Sheri Moon Zombie, Bill Moseley, Sid Haig
The story follows the adventures of El Superbeasto, a washed-up Mexican luchador, and his sultry sidekick and sister Suzi-X as they confront an evil villain by the name of Dr. Satan. The adventure, set in the mythic world of Monsterland, also has a character named Murray the robot.

What's good on paper (this is based on an original Rob Zombie penned comic) doesn't always transfer to features. Mr Zombie gets all his old mainstays in on the act but sadly Haunted World of El Superbeasto doesn't really work. For starters it doesn't really have a flowing story its more a series of segments joined together in the hope it'll amuse the cult movie crowd. Zombie knows his horror so pretty obviously Its packed with horror in-jokes, its fun to see characters like Nicholsons The Shinning & The Fly turn up. The downside is it tries to be hip, retro & sexy like a Ralph Bakshi film only it comes across as just crude, maybe throwing in tits if a live action movie blows helps, but repeatedly doing in an animation just gets dull quick. It may of worked better cut up into 20 minute Adult Swim styled cartoons, and even though I didn't really enjoy the main character of El Superheat I loved the teen nazi loving Suzi X.

(4½ out of 10)

Drag Me to Hell (2009)

Drag Me to Hell (2009)
Director: Sam Raimi
Writer: Sam Raimi, Ivan Raimi
Cast: Alison Lohman, Justin Long, Lorna Raver, Dileep Rao
Christine Brown is responsible for loans in a bank and expects to be promoted to the open position of assistant manager after dealing a big contract. However, the new hire Stu Rubin is a collusive coworker that scheming against Christine to be selected by the manager Mr. Jacks to the position. When Mrs. Ganush, an old gypsy with appearance of witch that has been evicted by the bank, requests a third extension of her mortgage, Mr. Jacks tells Christine that it is her call. Christine denies the loan to prove her boss that she can take tough decisions. Mrs. Ganush begs for the loan but Christine shames the woman calling the security. In the night, Christine is stalked by Mrs. Ganush in the parking lot and they struggle. Out of the blue, Mrs, Ganush removes a button from Christine's coat, curses it, returns the button to her and vanishes. Later, while going home with her psychologist boy-friend Clay Dalton, they pass by the fortune teller Rham Jas, and Christine decides to consult him. He advises her that Christine has the fiend Lamia, the Black Goat, upon her. When Christine is haunted by the dark spirit during the night, at home, she tries to fix the situation releasing the loan of Mrs. Ganush.

Hokey plot and a few intentional/unintentional laughs aside, Raimi deliverers a horror movie for the masses that while not exactly groundbreaking does exactly what it sets out to do and make the crowd jump. Plots about Christine Brown a bank loans clerk who while trying to pursue a management vacancy she forecloses on a house loan of an elderly gypsy woman. The woman then places a curse on Christine which involves a goat demon and trying to save her soul within an allotted 3 day period. I'm sure the fanboys among our genre (me included) would of liked to have seen Raimi back doing horror more in keeping with his earlier ballsy evil dead period, what we get is pretty much a perfect take a date teen horror movie. Take it for what it is and sit back and enjoy.

(7½ out of 10)

Transition (2008)

Transition (2008)
aka Prehod
Director: Boris Palcic
Writer: Vladimir Nardin, Boris Palcic
Cast: Jure Ivanusic, Iva Krajnc, Anita Kravos, Matjaz Tribuson
An innocent affair with a mysterious woman takes an artist into the dark world of corporate conspiracy and mind control games.

(Not Yet Rated)

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Giallo (2009)

Giallo (2009)
Director: Dario Argento
Writer: Jim Agnew, Dario Argento
Cast: Adrien Brody, Elsa Pataky, Emmanuelle Seigner, Robert Miano
In Italy, a woman fears her sister may have been kidnapped. Inspector Enzo Avolfi fears it's worse. They team up to rescue her from a sadistic killer known only as Yellow.

When a woman suspects her model sister has been abducted, she seeks help in loner Inspector Enzo Avolfi. Turns out hes working on a case involving a crazed jaundice taxi driver who abducts attractive women and then slowly kills them. One of the true masters of Italian giallo cinema returns to the genre which any horror fan who knew the 80's still remembers him so fondly for. Trouble is the story and characters are painfully derivative, with the always reliable Adrien Brody being sadly wasted in a role/roles that echoes the TV series Dexter. Another of the flaws is Argento seems to have embraced modern horror movies like 'Hostle' & 'Saw' a little too much with way too much of the film set in the grimly lit dirty factory of the killer. Only segment of the film I did enjoy was the flash backs to Enzo/Brodys childhood. Seems 'Mother of Tears' split horror fans somewhat, I personally liked that as I did with both his Masters of Horror entries 'Pelts' & 'Jenifer' unfortunately as much of a fan of his I am Giallo was a let down.

(6½ out of 10)

The Thaw (2009)

The Thaw (2009)
aka Frozen
Director: Mark A. Lewis
Writer: Mark A. Lewis
Cast: Martha MacIsaac, Val Kilmer, Aaron Ashmore, Kyle Schmid
At a remote Arctic research station, four ecology students discover the real horror of global warming is not the melting ice, but what's frozen within it. A prehistoric parasite is released from the carcass of a Woolly Mammoth upon the unsuspecting students who are forced to quarantine and make necessary sacrifices, or risk infecting the rest of the world.

A small ecological team in the Arctic find the remains of a mammoth only its frozen body contains an uncontrollable bug/virus. Amiable try at pulling off an eco-horror, sadly it failed to sustain my attention due to flat pace, poor acting (damn how big is Val Kilmer looking these days) also the fx/cgi work though not bad or overused is very sci-fi channel movie like. Anyone seeking this type of film but done better I'd recommend last years Larry Fessenden film 'The Last Winter' and avoid this one.

(4½ out of 10)

Colour from the Dark (2008)

Colour from the Dark (2008)
Director: Ivan Zuccon
Writer: HP Lovecraft
Cast: Debbie Rochon, Michael Segal, Marysia Kay, Gerry Shanahan
Pietro and Lucia live on an isolated farm with Alice, Lucia's younger sister. Poor farmers, they live tilling the soil. Pietro is a good worker and a strong man who, unlike his three brothers, is not at war because of a deformed knee. Lucia is a beautiful and reserved woman dedicated to her family. Their life is peaceful and good, in spite of the hard work. One day, while drawing water from the well, Pietro and Alice accidentally free something from Earth's womb. A strange and alien color flashes underwater, at the well's bottom, then disappears. From that moment on, inexplicable events start happening all around the farm, and by night the surrounding vegetation glitters with a sinister glow. The color soon takes hold of the whole farm, and dwelling inside Pietro and his family's minds, it brings them into its sick world of pain, blood and death.

Dull beyond belief version of Lovecrafts The Colour Out of Space, plots about a family who unleash a sinister force when they use their farms well. Yet another failure to bring a Lovecraft film to screen and one that I'm sure is going to test viewers patience.

(3½ out of 10)

The Dark Lurking (2008)

The Dark Lurking (2008)
Director: Greg Connors
Writer: Greg Connors
Cast: Aash Aaron, Philippe Deseck, Ozzie Devrish, Anthony Edwards
Something has gone terribly wrong at research station 320, a secret research facility one mile beneath the earth's surface. All communications are gone, all means of escape destroyed and an extremely dangerous horde of rapidly mutating ancient flesh eating creatures are consuming everything in their path. Eight survivors of the outpost, two research subjects, three mercenaries, two research technicians and a medic barricade themselves inside a remote area of the facility with little food, almost no means of defense and little hope of rescue. Their one possible escape route is through thirteen levels of terror that will lead them to the surface. And one of them is not who they seem to be, but the darkness itself which has taken human form.

(Not Yet Rated)

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The Seamstress (2009)

The Seamstress (2009)
Director: Jesse James Miller
Writer: Mark Garbett, Bob Hume
Cast: Lance Henriksen, Kailin See, David Kopp
The Seamstress was brought into being by the desperate curse of an innocent woman being tortured to death by a vigilante mob. Voracious for blood, the hideously-mutilated specter hunts a small group of friends who become trapped on the island where she died. The friends, led by Allie, are searching for Allie's missing father. As Allie comes to understand that he was one of the vigilantes, her friends begin to die gruesome horrific deaths on the point of The Seamstress' needle. When the last two surviving vigilantes arrive, locked in their own dance of death and revenge, Allie must either preserve her own innocence or be corrupted by vengeance herself.

(Not Yet Rated)

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Chicago Massacre: Richard Speck (2007)

Chicago Massacre: Richard Speck (2007)
Director: Michael Feifer
Writer: Michael Feifer
Cast: Corin Nemec, Andrew Divoff, Tony Todd, Debbie Rochon
A horror film based on a real-life mass murder that took place in 1966.

(Not Yet Rated)

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Master Key (2009)

Master Key (2009)
aka Grande ourse - La clé des possibles
Director: Patrice Sauvé
Writer: Frédéric Ouellet
Cast: Fanny Cournoyer, Mylène Cournoyer, Normand Daneau
To save his best friend, Louis-Bernard Lapointe has to transport himself to a parallel world to find the 'Key of Possibilities', a magical and legendary object that allow his user to visit an infinite numbers of universes where everything is possible.

(Not Yet Rated)

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Pig Hunt (2008)

Pig Hunt (2008)
Director: James Isaac
Writer: Robert Mailer Anderson, Zack Anderson
Cast: Travis Aaron Wade, Tina Huang, Howard Johnson Jr., Trevor Bullock
When John takes his San Francisco friends to his deceased uncle's remote ranch to hunt wild pigs, it seems like a typical guys weekend with guns - despite the presence of John's sexy girlfriend Brooks. But as John and his crew trek deeper into the forest, they begin tracking the awful truth about his uncle's demise and the legend of The Ripper -- a murderous three-thousand-pound black boar! Their pursuit leads them through fields of marijuana and into the muddy landscape of Big Wallow, involving high-powered weaponry, the violent and unpredictable Tibbs Brothers, massacred emus, a machete-toting Hippie Stranger, vengeful rednecks, and throat-slitting Cult Girls who grow dope by day and worship a Giant Killer Pig by night. By the time the pig hunt is done, no one is innocent - or unscathed. Not for the faint of heart, PIG HUNT is a darkly comic horror film that combines the best of DELIVERANCE, JAWS, and DINER, but remains uniquely Nor-Cal in its tone and scope. It is cinematic punkabilly - fresh, shocking, unforgettable!

(Not Yet Rated)

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Edges of Darkness (2009)

Edges of Darkness (2009)
Director: Blaine Cade, Jason Horton
Writer: Blaine Cade, Jason Horton
Cast: Alonzo F. Jones, Shamika Ann Franklin, Annemarie Pazmino, Lee Perkins
Three interconnected tales of terror set against the backdrop of a zombie apocalypse.

(Not Yet Rated)

Vampitheatre (2009)

Vampitheatre (2009)
Director: Christopher Forbes
Cast: Linnea Quigley, Dana Cheshire, Joel Hodges
“Vampitheatre” is about a touring band whose members happen to be of the vampire variety. The band moves town to town, “harvesting” members of their audience to satisfy their bloodlust. Unknown to the band, they are being pursued by an fbi agent intent on finding out why fans of a certain band called “Theatre Peace” keep disappearing.

(Not Yet Rated)

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High Plains Invaders (2009)

High Plains Invaders (2009)
Director: Kristoffer Tabori
Writer: Richard Beattie
Cast: Constantin Barbulescu, Dan Bordeianu, Adriana Butoi, Antony Byrne
It’s the early 20th century, and this small western mining town is invaded by giant insectoid alien creatures whose only mission is to mine uranium to fuel their spaceship – but they’ll kill anyone or anything that gets in their way. Who can save them? Only a ” retired outlaw” who was about to be hanged, so he’s got nothing left to lose.

(Not Yet Rated)

Rise of the Gargoyles (2009)

(Need updating)

Lightning Strikes (2009)

(Need updating)

Dismal (2009)

(Need updating)

School Cursed (2009)

(Need updating)

Theodore (2009)

Theodore (2009)
Director: David Sherbrook
Writer: David Sherbrook
Cast: Lloyd Kaufman, Jonathan Lewis
Theodore is the story of a bar that may not be what it seems on the surface, because when the sun goes down, you just never know what you're walking into and who you might meet. That's what happened to Stuart and Will, two yuppies who thought they were going out for another round of drinks but instead got the surprise of a lifetime!

(Not Yet Rated)

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