Trailers/Clips

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

The extended trailer for Full Moon Direct's Puppet Master: Axis of Evil is available after the jump and features some wicked little puppets, a few Nazis and Geisha saboteur -- huzzah! The film is directed by Puppet Master veteran David DeCoteau, with a script by August White (my favorite title of his is Evil Bong, though I've never seen the movie) and stars newbie Levi Fiehler.

The setting for evil puppet shenanigans takes place in a Stateside hotel during World War II, where young Danny Coogan dreams of joining the war effort. After a hotel guest is murdered by a few pesky Nazi assassins, Danny discovers the victims crate of puppets and then stuff gets really real. Nazis Max and Klaus (of course those are their names) and a Japanese saboteur (I'm assuming she's the Geisha from the trailer) plan to attack an American manufacturing plant and now it's up to Danny and his gaggle of blood-thirsty puppets to stop the AXIS OF EVIL!

Check out the trailer after the jump. Looks like Blade, Tunneler and Leech Woman are back!

Last Call will allow you to interact with the protagonist via your cell phone by way of a language recognition software. The movie's main actress frantically calls you for help (numbers are chosen at random after participating audience members submit their number to a speed dial code) and instead of screaming obscenities at the screen, you can actually interact with the character and tell her what to do ("Go left," "Keep going," etc.). This means that every film's outcome will be different -- how neat.

The trailer after the jump explains things in further detail. So, what do you make of this whole gimmick -- annoying or fun? I'm curious how many possible outcomes there are for this thing and what yuk yuk's people will try to elicit from the interaction: "Get me a beer," and "Let's make out," seem like possibilities with the right kind of crowd.

"People are for loving not for eating," says Ben O'Mara's horror-comedy short, Primal Urges -- a smart play on the well worn zombie trope that flips conventional ideas about the masculine and feminine and toys with the insecurities of its lead characters. O'Mara is a writer and academic in addition to making award-winning films, which have been screened at festivals across Australia. You can check out some of O'Mara's other work on his website.


Jeremy Lanni's Tell-Tale Art boasts a dark soundtrack, which is reminiscent of all the Italo-horror flicks I'm lusty for. I guess it helps that guitarist Dick Wagner of Lou Reed and Alice Cooper fame wrote the score. Lanni describes the film as "a surreal black comedy inspired by Edgar Allan Poe's classic story The Tell-Tale Heart." You'll see why after you watch it, genius. Find out more about Lanni and his other films on his website.

Check out both short films after the jump and leave the filmmakers some love in the comments section. DO IT.

Raging Sharks' title would indicate that this is a film about killer sharks, but sharks are only the subplot in this disastrous but fun film where aliens and a rescue mission are at the heart of the story. That is, if you can call it a story because I still don't think I know what the film was really about after watching it. If you're a fan of B level shark flicks then you know this doesn't matter.

The movie isn't quite sure what it wants to be, so there are a whole lot of cooks in the kitchen. And continuing in the tradition of shark movies, there are a lot of other movies being referenced: Jaws (duh), The Thing, Aliens, Leviathan, The Abyss and the list goes on and on. You would think a film that uses few (I think I counted one?) CGI sharks would be better than most, but it's not. The film is hastily edited with stock footage inter-cut with the actors looking pensive, blank, or running for their lives on a beach screaming.

[After the jump, feel more rage ... ]

Buried, actor Ryan Reynolds' latest feature film, debuted at Sundance back in January. Early response seems to have been largely positive, with one reviewer claiming it's "an ingenious exercise in sustained tension that would make Alfred Hitchcock turn over in his grave." That may be slightly hyperbolic, but the film has gotten good marks over at RottenTomatoes.

The film was clearly impressive enough that Lionsgate snatched it up for distribution during its festival run--and now they've announced their release plans for Rodrigo Cortes' film. Mark your calendars for September 24th--because that's the day the film gets its official theatrical release.

Buried finds Reynolds playing a US contractor in Iraq. He awakens to find himself buried in a coffin with only a cellphone and a flashlight to keep him company. What follows is a race against time to escape his sandy tomb before his air supply runs out.

The film does appear to be a little more "thriller" than out and out "horror", but a tale featuring a guy buried alive in the vastness of the desert still sounds pretty horrific to me.

Jump past the break to check out the trailer.

Thailand's film scene appears to be booming. Seems like I'm reading about some new and exciting project from the country at least once a week--which doesn't put it quite on par with Japan, Hong Kong, or South Korea, but is still impressive when you stop to consider where they were just a few short years ago.

The country's filmmakers seem to have developed a genuine love for horror cinema, which pleases me to no end. I've seen quite a few clips from Thai horror flicks over the past year or so, and while the films look typical of modern Asian horror cinema (meaning lots of ghost stories), they've all been intriguing enough to pique my interest. The latest title to blip onto my radar is Die a Violent Death (AKA Still), an anthology horror film that takes a cue from Law & Order by "ripping its stories straight from the headlines."

Twitch snagged an English subtitled trailer for the film, which showcases the four tales of terror from the movie. The stories involve a haunted hotel room, a prison suicide, a nightclub fire, and a corpse stashed inside an apartment building's water tank (gross). None of the stories sound blazingly original, but the trailer looks good--aside from the poorly done English subtitles--and I imagine fans of Asian ghost stories that feature at least a little blood and gore will find the film worth checking out.

No word yet on an American release, but I'll keep you posted. Jump past the break to view the trailer.

It's been about a month since we got our first look at Srdjan Spasojevic's debut feature, A Serbian Film. Unfortunately, that trailer ran like a slideshow and didn't feature any English subtitles. It's a testament to just how much I love grimy faux snuff films with lots of porn elements that I didn't care and watched the clip several times anyway.

Luckily, the less patient of you can now see this brand new clip for A Serbian Film (courtesy of our good friends at Twitch)--which not only runs at 24 frames per second (or whatever video clips run at), but also features English subtitles. Not that you'd need them--the language of rough sex and snuff cinema are universal.

The film, which is set to be featured at SXSW, is about a retired porn star drawn back into the business with an offer he can't refuse. Part of the deal involves him being completely unaware of what the film's script involves (probably not a big thing for someone used to working in porn...), but as you can no doubt guess, it's really about wild sex and murder.

Without having seen it, I'd venture to guess that the title, A Serbian Film, is a sly play on western audience's expectations. If snuff films were real, I think most Americans could imagine them happening in somewhere like Serbia. This is probably what many people imagine when they hear the phrase "Serbian cinema".

Jump past the break for a look at the new trailer. It's completely Not Safe For Work--unless you work from your house, like I do. If that's the case, have at it.

Growing up Freddy wasn't cheap, but the allure of his sinister voice and pizza face kept us coming back for more. Throughout the years there were some cuckoo products and marketing strategies to promote the five-fingered fiend, some of which you can check out after the jump. Until we can determine if Samuel Bayer's Nightmare on Elm Street remake is a complete disaster or not, enjoy this little stroll down Elm Street.

MySpace Horror and Bloody-Disgusting have a special treat for zombie lovers and Romero fans this morning, a brand new red band trailer for Romero's latest zombie epic Survival of the Dead.

The new clip is more of a teaser than a full-fledged preview, but it does feature lots of walking corpses--and I think we're all pretty interested in that. I'm not going to say anything else about it--just jump past the break and watch it for yourself. Make sure you're of age, though--it's got one of those age-gate deals to keep the young 'uns out.

Survival of the Dead focuses on the inhabitants of an isolated island off the North American coast who find their relatives rising from the dead and eating their kin. The leaders of the island feud over whether or not to kill their reanimated relatives or preserve them in hopes of finding a cure.

Romero's sixth zombie film makes its Video On Demand debut on April 30th. The feature will also have a limited theatrical release beginning May 28th--all courtesy of the good folks at Magnet Releasing.