Event Calendar

In case it's not already abundantly clear, we kind of love film festivals around these parts. We wish we could go to all of them, but, sadly, we are (mostly) bound to our home towns by a general lack of sufficient funds to go to all the fests we wish we could. So instead of being able to afford to hop on a plane and fly to Toronto for the week of August 13-20, I'll have to settle for looking at the below lineup for Toronto After Dark and wish I could either A) teleport or B) not be poor. If you do live in or around Toronto, though, please go so I can watch vicariously through you.

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.

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]

If you ask any devotee of horror who the best directors of the genre are, I guarantee you every single one of them will include John Carpenter. Although his repertoire is bound to no specific genre, films such as The Thing, Halloween and In the Mouth of Madness have cemented the auteur's status as a master of horror. Sure he's had some stinkers (Ghosts of Mars, anyone?), but when compared to his hits you're compelled to forgive him. Now, during the 5th annual Freak Show Horror Film Festival in Orlando, Florida, one of the world's greatest genre badasses will be recognized with the Lifetime Achievement "Freaky" Award.

As Dread Central informs us, the ceremony honoring Carpenter will take place on October 10th at 5 PM at the Wyndham Resort in Orlando. Given that the festival is a haven for independent filmmaking, it is no wonder that Carpenter is being awarded this honor. Robert Massetti, who founded the film festival and serves as its director, had this to say about Carpenter's role as an independent filmmaker:

"We are honored to have Mr. Carpenter be this years recipient of our Lifetime Achievement Award. He is a master filmmaker and embodies the true independent filmmaking spirit, which has been an inspiration to me and to all independent horror filmmakers."

In addition to honoring Carpenter, the Freak Show Horror Film Festival is "a showcase of some of the most talented, up and coming horror filmmakers in the world," and just one aspect of the Spooky Empire Ultimate Horror Weekend. As Florida's largest horror convention, Spooky Empire's annual gathering of upwards of 12,000 horror fans features live music, celebrity guests and even a tattoo room. Like all conventions, there will be after parties, which are held at the Wyndham Resort's pool.

So if you plan on going to Halloween Horror Nights, time it for that weekend so you can completely OD on horror.

Film4 Frightfest, the most prominent horror festival in the United Kingdom, has just announced its full roster for this year's festival and the line-up is pretty impressive. If you're a festival hopper, you may have already seen a number of titles in this year's selection, but fret not for about a third of their films are world premieres. And if that's not enough to entice you to the event, many of the film's on this list are UK premieres as well.

From the Frightfest website: "The line-up this year is deliberately stronger, bolder, pioneering and more relevant to you, our core genre followers, than ever before. With the Hollywood mindset focused on safe bets and creative bankruptcy, Team FrightFest has gone back to the independent roots of what true horror fantasy should be about. And that's exploring daring ideas with an innovative flair, using fresh avenues of shock, and highlighting major new exciting talent. There's something for everyone in Film4 FrightFest 2010, if you dare to look. Our jam-packed programme has it all and fearlessness will be a major requirement."

Check out the impressive full list of films, in order of their appearance at the festival, which runs from August 27th to the 30th, below.

If most people suddenly came into millions of dollars they would buy big houses and expensive cars. Not me. I'd like to just squirrel away my newly flush funds so that every year I could make the pilgrimage to a few select film festivals. Sure, Cannes and Sundance are two of the most talked about film festivals in the world, but for me the "wish I had enough money to go" fests are Fantasia, Sitges and Fantastic Fest. Fortunately I live in the home town of the latter, so I do get to attend that glorious week of genre programming, but it's Fantasia that currently has me longing for disposal income thanks to its initial line-up announcement.

Dread Central has done a great job of culling together all of the various press releases on the matter to put together one great list of reasons you too should be wishing for the coin to travel to Montreal this July 8th to the 27th for Fantasia. If I had to pick just one title to be excited about, it would have to be Christopher Smith's Black Death, but it's certainly got some stiff competition:

Just a quick note about Bitter Feast, the latest film from Glass Eye Pix that a few of us here at Horror Squad have come to be big fans of. Back when I interviewed Joe Maggio prior to the premiere of Bitter Feast at the L.A. Film Festival, the writer-director of this wry chef-gets-revenge-on-his-biggest-critic story thought that distributor MPI Media Group would let the film ease its way around the festival circuit in the fall and then release the film on DVD some time around February. Looks like that has changed.

B-D tells us that MPI will be putting Bitter Feast out on DVD this coming October 26th. While I would have loved to see it build some great word of mouth around the country first, I can't say that I'm sad to have the film readily available far sooner than expected. Oh, and if you've missed out on our past mentions of Maggio's film, give some of these links a try out:

Review: Bitter Feast
Interview: Joe Maggio, Director of Bitter Feast
Watch This: Exclusive Clip From Bitter Feast
Get a Heaping Helping of Revenge in This Bitter Feast Trailer

Nine Inch Nails' Trent Reznor and his wife, Mariqueen Maandig (former vocalist for West Indian Girl), will be releasing their first 6 song EP on June 1 as the newly formed group, How to Destroy Angels. Frequent NIN collaborator Atticus Ross also joins the group whose new video for the track The Space in Between was directed by Rupert Sanders. The video is like a three minute clip from a horror film which is exactly the reason why I'm sharing it with you today.

While the video doesn't feature guts and gore galore, I'd say watching a bloody corpse sing and then burn in an all-consuming fire is still pretty unsettling. It's also strange to see Trent Reznor -- who usually has center stage -- lying dead on the floor. The video feels like a cross between a gritty horror film and a David Lynch flick. The whole scene is beautifully shot by Sanders who made a name for himself in the advertising world -- directing commercials for Nike and the Wolverine videogame.

You can watch the eerie video after the jump. When Mariqueen sings, "All our blood lying on the floor ... " she really means it. Download the free EP off the band's website over here.

As many horror fans are well aware, this week sees the release of Lucio Fulci's City of the Living Dead on Blu-ray. What they may NOT know is that it's also seeing a UK Blu-ray release courtesy of Arrow Video and sadly the two releases are not created equal. Word on the street is that Arrow teamed up with Blue Underground to pay for the high definition transfer, so video and hopefully audio quality should be identical between the two releases. While Blue Undergound has a great reputation for putting a lot of time and effort into releasing genre titles here in the States, it looks like Arrow has really pulled out all the stops on this one.

In addition to including both a Blu-ray and a DVD copy of the film, the Arrow version also includes 4 different sleeve options so you can pick the cover art you like best, a double-sided poster, a collector's booklet and a set of 6 original poster art post cards as well as some special features including an audio commentary that appear to be exclusive to this UK release. Now that's impressive! No word yet on whether the Arrow disc is free or region locked as it just came out yesterday.

Look for a full run-down of both discs (with confirmed region code status) here on Horror Squad soon!

Several months ago genre champions Magnet Releasing announced their acquisition of [REC] 2 for US distribution, though they hadn't clarified how wide of a release they'd be giving the film. Now they have. Starting on June 4th, fans of the Spanish cinema verite franchise will be able to watch the film via On Demand, Xbox Live, Playstation Video Store, Amazon and Vudu. About a month later, Magnet Releasing will then be giving the excellent sequel a limited theatrical run on July 9th. Check out the official synopsis and (British) trailer for [REC] 2 below:

"[REC] 2 is the anticipated sequel to the terrifying cult favorite, [REC]. Directors Jaume Balagueró and Paco Plaza return for [REC] 2, maintaining the same claustrophobic concept or the original while finding new means of delivering scares to the audience. [REC] told the story of a quarantined apartment building infected with a ferocious virus that spread a terrifying form of demonic possession to the trapped inhabitants. [REC] 2 kicks off shortly after the events of the first film, when a medical officer and a SWAT team armed with video cameras are sent into the sealed off apartment building to try and neutralize the situation."