Horror Squad, Horror Movies, News, Trailers, and More

Platinum Dunes apparently hasn't met a horror flick that it wouldn't remake. Having already tackled genre heavyweights like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Friday the 13th, and A Nightmare on Elm Street, the company is now poised to move in a slightly different direction--taking on a re-imagining of Fred Dekker's cult classic The Monster Squad.

Deadline Hollywood is reporting that the production company will produce the re-telling for Paramount. The 1987 original focused on Dracula, Frankenstein's Monster, The Mummy, The Wolfman, and Gillman and their quest to find an amulet that will grant them the power to rule the world. Standing in their way? The kids who make up The Monster Squad.

No word yet on who will direct or star (though original Monster Squad producer Rob Cohen is keen to direct, it seems), but rest assured you'll be reading about those details here at Horror Squad when they're announced.

Jump past the break for a look at the film's DVD release trailer. Now let's all just cross our fingers and hope that no one decides to remake Dekker's other cult favorite, Night of the Creeps.

Whenever lists of horror movies that should be on DVD turns up, Frank De Felitta's Dark Night of the Scarecrow is invariably mentioned. That's pretty impressive considering it was a made-for-television flick. We've heard various rumblings about the title finally coming to DVD, but none of them have panned out. The latest rumor, which was first reported over at Horror Yearbook, has the title finally coming to DVD players everywhere courtesy of VCI.

Writer J.D. Feigelson tells the site that we should expect the disc sometime around Halloween. If this turns out to be true, it's very good news indeed.

Originally airing back in 1981, Dark Night of the Scarecrow starred Larry Drake as a retarded man wrongly accused of raping a young girl. Charles Durning is so convinced that Drake's character has committed the crime that he rounds up a posse of vigilantes and dispenses his own brand of justice. When the men avoid prison for their crime, a malevolent scarecrow begins picking them off one by one...

This simple tale of supernatural revenge benefited from a genuinely spooky atmosphere and a frightening scarecrow costume. I was roughly nine years old the first time I saw Dark Night and it creeped me out so bad that I still remember some of the scenes almost thirty years later. I do wonder if it will hold up when compared to my childhood memories, but word from various folks who've seen it on bootlegs over the past few years indicate that it's as good as we remembered. No word on extras yet, but I'd settle for a bare bones disc just to have this movie in my collection at this point.

Until all the hullabaloo about A Serbian Film (check out Luke's review) hit earlier this week, there were only two films that I had on my "must see in 2010 list". The First, Takeshi Kitano's return to Yakuza cinema Outrage, isn't even a horror film. The second would be Tom Six's messed up The Human Centipede. We brought you news that IFC had acquired the US distribution rights for the film not too long ago and now comes the official release date.

IFC has decided that The Human Centipede will make its theatrical debut on April 28th (thanks to Shock Till You Drop for clarifying the date), two days before Platinum Dunes' remake of A Nightmare on Elm Street. All the buzz over the potential showdown between the two films is pointless, because The Human Centipede is going to open on a very limited number of screens and then slowly expand as time passes. A Nightmare on Elm Street, on the other hand, will open wide on the 30th.

As proof that there is truth in advertising, The Human Centipede is exactly what it sounds like. A crazed doctor (Dieter Laser) captures unsuspecting victims, removes their knees, sews them together mouth-to-anus, and forms the title creation. Interestingly enough, this is only part one of a planned trilogy.

Jump past the break to check out the trailer.

I've been keeping my eye on the cinematic adaptation of TokyoPop's manga Priest for a long time now--from back in the days when Gerard Butler was attached to star in it. Since then, the film's had casting changes (Butler out, Paul Bettany in), landed a new director, and been bumped on its release schedule. However, as last night's Entertainment Tonight proves, the film is still coming.

ET scored an exclusive first look at the title, which finds Bettany playing a warrior priest who defies the church when vampires kidnap his niece. Cam Gigandet and Stephen Moyer co-star.

The clip finds the three stars talking a bit about their experience shooting the film and highlights some of the wire-work used to pull off the elaborately choreographed fight scenes. Moyer goes so far as to say he thinks Priest's vamps are stronger than the ones on his other foray into the land of bloodsuckers, True Blood.

Priest is set to kick off the human/vampire war on January 14th, 2011 Jump past the break to check out ET's early look at the film.

Cloverfield 2 is starting to remind a lot of Evil Dead 4--it's a movie that comes up in every interview with principles of the first film (Matt Reeves and JJ Abrams) and the answers are always tantalizingly vague, but just intriguing enough to keep everyone talking about it.

MTV caught up with Reeves at SXSW this weekend, and naturally the topic of a sequel to the duo's hugely successful monster movie came up. True to form, Reeves' responses were cryptic but guaranteed to get the fans buzzing about a follow-up yet again.

Reeves tells MTV, "I can tell you nothing, [but] there are these spikes in activity. There are things that we keep talking about and things spike up. It very well may happen."

Yeah, there's your big Cloverfield 2 update. Spikes in activity and "it very well may happen." Not exactly Earth-shattering stuff.

Reeves then goes on to talk about his schedule and Abrams' schedule, and when you read it, it's easy to get the impression that we won't be seeing Cloverfield 2 anytime soon.

What do you think? Still interested in a Cloverfield sequel, or has so much time passed that you just don't care anymore?

SXSW wasn't the only exciting thing going on in the world of geekdom this weekend. If you live in the Pacific Northwest, you could have headed out for the Emerald City ComiCon and got your comic geek on.

Amidst all the cosplaying and back-issue-buying came a pretty big announcement (thanks to Shock Till You Drop for spreading the news) for horror fans. Tim Seely's indie comic Hack/Slash is making the jump to Image. A new four issue miniseries entitled Hack/Slash: My First Maniac will introduce my Ms. Hack and her giant guardian Vlad to readers who might have missed her on other publisher's imprints.

My First Maniac will take readers through Cassie's first case and fill everyone in on the backstory of how she had to kill her own mother (a notorious serial killer known as The Lunch Lady) and her current struggles regarding whether she should continue to use her slasher-killing skills to save other innocent people from the monsters all around us, or just try to live a normal life (well, as normal as you can when you've murdered your own serial killer mother...). You don't need a doctorate in English Lit to guess which way this is gonna go...

Hack/Slash: My First Maniac will debut this June. Seely assures fans that the new version will appeal to longtime fans since his entire creative team is making the move with him. Plans for a Hack/Slash film are still in the works as well.

Shaun Robert Smith's new Nazi zombie flick, The 4th Reich, is moving full speed ahead. Today, Dread Central brings us some exciting casting news--although maybe not quite as exciting as the last announcement involving Doug Bradley playing an SS officer.

Jason Flemyng has been officially cast in the role of Corporal Callow. The actor may not be a household name, but his body of work is impressive and includes appearances in The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Mirrors, and The Curious Case of Benjamin Buttons. He joins a cast that includes the aforementioned Bradley, Tom Savini, Sean Pertwee, and Axelle Carolyn.

The film's tale finds the soldiers of a small brigade of the 3rd Infantry Division fighting through the French countryside. Events get stranger with each step of their journey--and eventually they wind up at an abandoned research facility. There, they encounter some of Dr. Joseph Mengele's experimental army of invincible super soldiers.

I was cautiously optimistic about this project when it was first announced, but I'm getting more interested with each bit of casting news. If nothing else, Smith is lining up an impressive cast. If he delivers a compelling story and gory Nazi action, we could be witnessing the birth of a cult classic.

We're still over a month away from The Descent Part 2's American DVD debut (brought to you by the folks at Lionsgate), but that doesn't mean it's too early to make audience's aware of the title. The New York Post's PopWrap blog got dibs on the first trailer for the film--and it looks like it should please fans of the original.

The sequel picks up where Neil Marshall's film left off. Lone survivor Sarah (Shauna MacDonald) escapes from the caves but is forced to return with a rescue team. Naturally, this new group runs afoul of the subterranean mutants that populated the first film. It's like going back for a second helping at the human buffet! The creatures appear to be a little more feral and savage this time out.

This film is bypassing theaters in favor of a direct to DVD release on April 27th. Extras haven't been officially confirmed yet, but I posted the tentative list almost a month ago. You can peruse that article by clicking here.

Jump past the break to check out the official trailer for The Descent Part 2

Dinoshark isn't SyFy's only "killer mutant shark running amok" movie planned for this year. No, when you've got a concept as full of win as that one, you milk it for all it's worth. If the idea of a killer prehistoric dinosaur shark doesn't get you excited, then perhaps the idea of a shark merged with an octopus will...

Roger Corman (and his brand new honorary Oscar) will produce Sharktopus--which is a very descriptive title and should let anyone who reads it know what they're in for. Declan O'Brien is directing (he also helmed the awful Wrong Turn 3) and news has now emerged (thanks to Uncle Creepy and the Dread Central gang) that Eric Roberts has been cast in the lead role. Yes, Eric Roberts, Oscar winner for Runaway Train will be going mano y Sharktopus with the titular creature. Between Roberts and Corman, this is probably the most Oscar winners to ever work on a SyFy channel movie.

The actor will play a research scientist who creates a top secret weapon--the Sharktopus--to combat pirates. The beast is controlled by some sort of electrical implants. If you guessed they somehow stop working and Sharktopus winds up rampaging near a beach, you too could be a screenwriter.

Early word is that we'll see Sharktopus on SyFy sometime later this year. In the meantime, you can catch Dinoshark on Saturday night at 9 EST/8 CST.