DVD Release List: Night of the Manitou
Johnny Butane
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Discs that are on the chopping block for March 6th, 2007 include…
A Brush With Death (2007)
Directed by Brad Wiebe
They’re getting a bit convoluted with the histories of some of the madman featured in low budgeters these days. For example, in A Brush With Death a boy kills his brother and paints a portrait using the boy’s blood (get the title? Brush? Now that is wit!). Forty years later five cheerleaders decide it’d be a great idea to spend the night in the farmhouse where it all went down, which would make sense if they were going there for some lesbian orgy, you want some privacy when you’re doing such things, but I bet it’s to prove there’s no ghost there. But there is! Click here for Melissa’s review. Buy it here!
Cult (2007)
Directed by Joe Knee
Rachel Miner of Penny Dreadful stars in this very strange sounding tale about a trio of college girls who are doing some research for one of their classes about a local cult and find out that said cult’s power comes from a jade amulet, which of course they find. Now the sect leader for the cult is on their trails to try and make it work, something he was unable to do before. And, you know, souls are at stake or something. In her review Melissa makes it sound like a bit of fun. Buy it here!
Death Row (2006)
Directed by Kevin VanHook
A long-abandoned prison is the setting for the latest opus from Slayer director Kevin VanHook, one of the last remaining directors who sees any career potential in working with Casper Van Dein. No friendly ghost in this one, though, just a story about a group of bank robbers who seek refuge from the law behind the prison walls (ironic, no?) at the same time a documentary crew shows up to do a story about it. Hilarity ensues. Check out our review of the film under its original title, Haunted Prison, for more! Buy it here!
Decoys: The Second Seduction (2007)
Directed by Jeffrey Scott Lando
You didn’t actually think they could only make one movie about body-sucking aliens in the guise of hot chicks taking over a small college town, did you? Fool! There will always be room for Decoys movies! This time out we follow the trials and tribulations of Sam, who is given the task of hooking up with the most beautiful co-ed by the end of the semester or lose a contest. But when said alien is a body-sucking alien, no one wins really… Buy it here!
Delirium (2007)
Directed by Mark Allen
Kids. Seriously, why is it always fucking kids in these low-budget films? Why can’t, just once, someone make a horror movie with the elderly as the stars? Seriously, think of the tension as an old woman with a walker is slowly, very slowly, stalked by a serial killer down a long hallway. I get shivers just thinking about it! Delirium, though, is about kids who have car troubles in the desert and begin being picked off one-by-one as they walk to the next town. Buy it here!
Dracula (2007)
Directed by Bill Eagles
Now this is kind of strange. I live in Boston, watch PBS way more often than I should if I want to remain “cool”, but I never heard of this adaptation of Bram Stoker’s over-adapted novel. Which is too bad cause I probably would’ve checked it out. Presented as a co-production between WGBH Boston and the BBC, this is a Masterpiece Theater vision of Dracula so expect the drama to be high and the budget to be low. Though I will admit, it doesn’t look as cheap as it should. Buy it here!
Ed Gein: The Butcher of Plainfield (2007)
Directed by Michael Feifer
So someone had the brilliant idea of taking the story of Ed Gein, the serial killer who butchered victims and made furniture from their parts, and make the title character a big, hulking monster instead of the quiet, non-descript man he actually was. If they keep it as gritty as it looks by the cover, perhaps we’ll be on to something here, but since this is a DTV Lionsgate title, I won’t hold my breath. You know you’re going to see it anyway because Kane Hodder’s in it so you may as well just resign yourself to it. Buy it here!
The Great American Snuff Film (2007)
Directed by Sean Tretta
Just in case the dramatic re-enactments of Ed Gein’s personal life as told by Kane Hodder weren’t enough for your serial killer fix this week, Brain Damage has The Great American Snuff Film ready for you. Essentially this is the life and times of killer William Allen Grone, who tortured and murdered women for many years, some of them on-camera. Sounds like an uplifting, feel-good drama that’s fun for the whole family, especially when you factor in the fact that the end of the film features actual footage from this supposed snuff film. Buy it here!
Hell Hath No Fury (2007)
Directed by Vince D’Amato & Rob Carpenter
All right, another anthology film full of scorned women and their bloody revenge on us piggish men. Why is it when women go for all-out mad revenge on whoever wronged them it’s cool and sexy and when men do it it’s “illegal”? Damn double standards. Though I’m sure most of the girls in this anthology, which calls itself a generous mix of erotica and gore, are pretty much batshit from the get-go anyway, right? And I wonder why our female readership is so low. Buy it here!
The Hitchhiker (2007)
Directed by Leigh Scott
All right, free stuffed Scooby to the person who can tell me what big budget remake this low budget rip-off is ripping off. No one? Really? All right, fine I’ll tell you; it’s Black Christmas! Nah, I kid, it’s The Hitcher, though this new Asylum cheapy is about a group of women instead of a guy and his girlfriend on their way to Las Vegas and the stupid mistakes they make, starting with picking up a hitchhiker on their way there. I wonder if one of them gets pulled apart by a truck. That’d be neat. Buy it here!
The Manitou (1978)
Directed by William Girdler
Based on the book of the same name by Graham Masterton, this fucking strange story starts when a woman named Karen checks herself into the hospital with a tumor on her back. The doctors seem to think there is something growing inside this tumor, and after consulting with a psychic or two and some mysterious deaths going on around her, it’s determined that the tumor is actually the 400-year old spirit of an Indian demon getting ready to be reborn in our world. Sheesh, I could’ve told her that. Check out our DVD review of The Manitou for more! Buy it here!
Marcus (2006)
Directed by Bob Hadison
Ah, Christmas. A time when families get together to celebrate the birth of Santa Claus (that’s right, isn’t it?) and see if they can prove to one another how much more they spent on their loved ones than the other. Yeah, I miss Christmas. This story takes place during Christmastime when a girl’s family shows up to meet her at her home but are instead greeted by her supposed boyfriend. Meanwhile the girl is all tied up and gagged upstairs. Hilarity ensues. Buy it here!
Night of the Comet (1984)
Directed by Thom Eberhardt
Finally, this bizarre horror/sci-fi/comedy hybrid finds its way to DVD, just too bad they apparently had a first-year graphic arts student put that cover together. My God, could it look any more distorted? Luckily the movie makes up for it, telling of two materialistic girls who manage to survive a comet wiping out most of the Earth and their adventures trying to escape from mutated zombies and exposing themselves to more neon than has to be healthy. Check our DVD review of Night of the Comet for more! Buy it here!
Pony Trouble (2007)
Directed by Warren Lynch
And I though The Manitou was a strange name for a horror film. Shows what the fuck I know. Here we have a story about a brand-new live action role playing game (LARP) called The Pony Game. Sounds kinky so far. Anyway, the story is about a group of friends who win a contest and are chosen to be the subject of a documentary about the game, which they soon realize is more than just a reason to dress up and act weird for a few hours. Soon all of reality as we know it is at stake. Yeah, I’ll stick to Monopoly, thanks. Buy it here!
Strange Circus (2005)
Directed by Sion Sono
From the same man who proved that poppy boy bands are evil incarnate in Suicide Club comes this new mind-bender of oddity and depravity. Wheelchair-bound novelist Taeko is preparing to write a terrifying story of rape, incest and murder, but her assistant Yuji is determined to find out just how much truth there is to the novel. His explorations of the author’s past and what he finds behind the locked door in her apartment, however, may prove too much reality for him to bear. Check out our review of Strange Circus from last summer’s Fantasia for more! Buy it here!
Toe Tags (2007)
Directed by Darla Enlow
A terribly generic title, don’t you think? With a title like that shouldn’t it take place in a morgue or something? Instead it’s apparently set in a very high-rent district called Valley Creek, where the apartment costs have just skyrocketed from a few thousand a month to your very soul! Of course it doesn’t say that in the brochure, at least I hope not. So anyway, people move in, die for some reason, then the apartment is empty and ready for its next victim. Good gig if you can get it! Buy it here!
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