DVD News

Well . . . apparently they remade Night of the Demons. I'm not complaining, of course. The original is far from sacrosanct, but this just slipped right by me. I'm not surprised by any means, but it says something that such a notable (to me) film can go unnoticed amid the onslaught of remakes. It's all just noise at this point. The official Facebook page has a whole slew of information about it, including news of the October 15th premier screening in NYC.

On Halloween night, Maddie Curtis and her friends attend a decadent party at the notorious Broussard mansion – a place where 80 years ago the owner hung herself and six people disappeared without a trace. After the police shut down the party and chase away the guests, Maddie and her friends stay behind and discover a horrifying secret – that the mansion is home to a group of vengeful, blood-thirsty demons.

From what I can tell, it looks like it strays only slightly from the original film, but this time it has Edward Furlong. You can keep your doughy John Connor. I'll be watching it for Diora Baird. Probably more than once. The first one was an entertaining 80's splatter fest. It was low on scares, but high on schlock. I can't imagine that this one is going to be terribly different. Director Adam Gierasch doesn't have much experience behind the camera aside from this, so I'm not sure what to expect. His writing credits are somewhat lengthy and of . . . questionable quality.

The DVD hits retail on October 19th.

In other news, Edward Furlong is still alive.

Oh, The Lost Boys. Joel Schumacher's 1987 vampire film has become a bit of classic, and, sadly, someone over at Warner Brothers finally picked up on that fact. Why major studios decide that 20 years later, fans of the original film will be salivating over the idea of a direct-to-video sequel is beyond me. But apparently someone at Warner thought differently, and they released Lost Boys: The Tribe on DVD and Blu-ray in 2008.

Flashforward to the present. It's 2010 and despite a relatively poor reception for The Tribe, we're being graced with the presence of yet another sequel, bypassing theaters to hit DVD and Blu-ray this October. According to Blu-ray.com, Corey Feldman is back in Lost Boys: The Thirst, reprising his role as Edgar Frog. Peter Hall clued us in to the plot synopsis as well as the trailer back in May. Corey Haim was reportedly on board to do a potential fourth Lost Boys outing, but died before that could become a reality. So the burden of the Lost Boys sequels falls squarely on Feldman shoulders, with the possibility of another sequel supposedly still looming. Fans will get a chance to see if Lost Boys: The Thirst fares any better than the The Tribe when it hits DVD and Blu-ray on October 12th.

While looking around for information on the release of Lucio Fulci's City of the Living Dead on Blu-ray, I stumbled upon some interesting tidbits. It appears that Arrow Films, the company responsible for releasing the Fulci classic in the UK, has a whole slew of Argento films planned for UK Blu-ray!

The info comes by way of both pre-order pages on UK online stores as well as from what appears to be Arrow sources posting confirmations and updates on cult movie forums. Titles that are floating around include Deep Red, Tenebrae, Inferno, Phenomena and The Cat o' Nine Tails. It looks like Tenebrae and Phenomena are on the docket but have been pushed until next year. Arrow has apparently done 3 new interviews to be included on the Tenebrae release. Deep Red is definitely happening as a DVD with 5 new featurettes created for the release and a Blu-ray is under "serious consideration" if it can be done well. Inferno looks to be the one closest to release. Arrow announced that it was pushing the title from August to a September release date, though most retailers are still listing the August 2nd date of release. Inferno looks to be just as feature-packed as the Arrow City of the Living Dead release! Head past the jump to check out all of the proposed special features.

October is historically the best month of the year for horror movies. Not only are the theaters progressively filled with genre-friendly fare, but retail shelves grow fat with new releases. And now that we've entered the wave of Blu-ray discs where it's affordable for studios to start dipping into their back catalogs for films to re-issue for the HD format, you can expect this October to be even fuller than normal. Or, at the very least, the first Tuesday of the month will be stacked with horror Blus.

Bloody-Disgusting tells us that on October 5th Americans will be able to go out and grab Blu-ray copies of The Blair Witch Project, Open Water, Open Water 2: Adrift, 2001 Maniacs, High Tension, Hardy Candy and Wolf Creek. I'm not a big fan of a few titles on that list, but the prospect of High Tension and Hard Candy on Blu-ray is a happy enough one to overcome any sour memories of 2001 Maniacs.

Mark your calendars.

At long last, fans of Nobuhiko Obayashi's insane cult film House aka Hausu will be able to add the film to their DVD collection thanks to the fine folks at Criterion. That's not exactly news, since we've known Criterion was going to release a special DVD edition for awhile now. What is news is that they've finally given the film an official release date.

That's right, mark your calendars for October 26th -- because that's when the crazy cult flick will be in stores and ready for purchase according to the Criterion website. I'd tell you a bit about Hausu, but honestly it's just one of those films you have to see for yourself. Descriptions really don't do it justice. What I can describe is the list of what Criterion's planning for the new release. Check it out.

• New, restored high-definition digital transfer (with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray edition)
• Constructing a House, a new video piece featuring interviews with director Nobuhiko Obayashi, story scenarist and daughter of the director Chigumi Obayashi, and screenwriter Chiho Katsura
• Emotion, a 1966 experimental film by Obayashi
• New video appreciation by director Ti West (House of the Devil)
• Theatrical trailer
• New and improved English subtitle translation
• PLUS: An essay by Chuck Stephens

Jump past the break to check out a trailer for the film.

I had a bit of an internal debate about whether or not news regarding the long-awaited Alien Anthology Blu-ray sets was a better fit for Horror Squad or Sci-Fi Squad. Obviously all four films have a smattering of elements of both genres, so the case could be argued either way (and has). I found myself in the midst of a raging argument with myself (I should get out of the house more often), when something occurred to me. It's a slow news day for horror! Ta-da! Decision over.

So what can fans expect from a brand spanking new, six-disc, high definition release of Alien, Aliens, Alien 3 and Alien Resurrection this October 26th? Everything that was on the old Quadrilogy DVD set, which totals over 12 hours of behind-the-scenes material, will be on the Alien Anthology, but Twentieth Century Fox has gone ahead and added a further five-hours of material just for this release. Five hours of what, you ask? Click on to find out. [via Den of Geek]

I remember when Frozen (review), directed by genre-fave Adam Green, started getting a ton of buzz after its premiere at Sundance, with several people calling it one of the scariest thrillers they've ever seen. I found it to have a few tense scenes but overall did nothing more than milk its premise for way too long. Although it had a number of solid, redeeming moments, I found it failed to fully capitalize on its psychological thriller premise. For those who did like the film, Dread Central got their hands on the release date and specs for the DVD/Blu-ray release by Anchor Bay Entertainment.

As is customary, the DVD release, which hits shelves on September 28th, will have less features than the Blu-ray, including audio commentary with the filmmakers and the stars of the film, four, count 'em four behind-the-scenes featurettes (one of which explores the origins of the film), deleted scenes and the trailer, which I've always thought was a weird thing to feature on a DVD. The Blu-ray, being the format of KINGS! will feature all of that as well as a bonus audio commentary with Adam Green, cinematographer Will Barratt and editor Ed Marx.

Frozen follows a trio of snowboarders/skiers whose routine trip to the mountains for a weekend of fun on the slopes turns into the weekend from Hell as a slight misunderstanding results in their getting trapped on the ski lift. As day turns to night the temperature begins to drop, tensions begin to rise and the notion that they might not be rescued leads to drastic measures. The film stars Kevin Zegers, Emma Bell and Shawn Ashmore, the latter of which plays Iceman in the X-Men movies, so you'd think this would be, like, no big deal. The trailer can be found after the jump if you're curious.

Once upon a time, before the days of J.K. Rowling, R.L. Stine was the king of kid's fiction. His wildly popular Goosebumps series was a hit on playgrounds across the country, and between 1992 and 1997 he churned out 62 books that sold over 300 million copies. The horror community was pretty accepting of Stine and Goosebumps -- far more than we are of Stephenie Meyer her Twilight novels. The most optimistic of us thought the books were a good thing because it would make a whole new generation of kids not only comfortable with horror stories, but huge fans. All these new horror geeks would grow up and start reading adult horror and seeing horror films -- which didn't really happen. They liked Goosebumps -- not so much horror as a whole.

If Goosebumps were popular today, it would no doubt spawn a movie franchise with 3D effects and hot young actors. There would be talk of trilogies and ever increasing budgets and movie websites would report breathlessly on each bit of casting speculation. It was a different world back in the '90s, though, and Goosebumps never got the big screen treatment. Instead, it had to settle for a television show instead.

The Goosebumps series has something of a cult following -- and episodes have turned up on VHS and DVD over the years. The good news is, Dread Central says 20th Century Fox is releasing two more Goosebumps collections on DVD this September 7th. You're one step closer to completing your collection.

Jump ahead to read what's going to be featured on the two new sets.

Based on the acclaimed graphic novel about the small town of Barrow, Alaska being overrun by vampires when it's plunged into darkness for thirty days, 30 Days of Night is one of those horror films that you either like or dislike. It's not good enough to love, and it's not bad enough to hate, but for a good portion of horror fans it's a solid little flick that doesn't get enough recognition. For those eager for a follow-up, you only have to wait until October for a chance to see the direct-to-DVD sequel, 30 Days of Night: Dark Days.

As Arrow in the Head has brought to our attention via Blu-ray.com, the sequel, which stars Kiele Sanchez, Rhys Coiro, Mia Kirshner, Harold Perrineau and, of course, the uber sexy Diora Baird, will hit shelves October 5th. It will be released as a two-disc DVD/Blu-ray combo, and will play host to a modicum of special features, including:

-Filmmaker commentary
-PS3 Wallpaper Theme
-Vampires Exist: The Gritty Realism of Dark Days
-Graphic Inspirations: Comic to Film (BD-exclusive)

For those hesitant to give a direct-to-DVD sequel a look, the plot of the film apparently adheres pretty closely to the plot of the second book of the comic series, It was co-written by Ben Ketai, who co-wrote and directed the 30 Days of Night mini-series Dust to Dust, with Steve Niles, who wrote the freakin' comic. The plot takes Stella, survivor of the events of 30 Days of Night, to Los Angeles as she seeks revenge on Lilith, the vampire who orchestrated the assault on Barrow.