By: Sean Brickley
We have a pretty good list for you this week, fiends. There are no television series or collections to mention, but there are 18 total movies ready this week just in time for whatever holiday you choose to celebrate. You could pick up a copy of 1973’s Don’t Look In The Basement. Or maybe you might be looking for the Collector’s Edition Blu-ray of Lord Of Illusions. You might want to be dazzled by Ashley Rickards in At The Devil’s Door. You have plenty of options and I’d say get that shopping in now because next week’s list is not nearly as impressive as this week’s. Pleasant viewing, folks.
MOVIES
At The Devil’s Door (2014)
Starring:
Ashley Rickards, Catalina Sandino Moreno, Naya Rivera, Kent Faulcon, Arshad Aslam, Tara Buck
Synopsis:
When ambitious young real estate agent Leigh is asked to sell a house with a checkered past, she crosses paths with a disturbed girl whom she learns is the runaway daughter of the couple selling the property. When Leigh tries to intervene and help her, she becomes entangled with a supernatural force that soon pulls Leigh’s artist sister Vera into its web and has sinister plans for both of them.
Purchase:
DVD
Blu-ray
Atrophy (2014)
Starring:
James Ray, Katherine Stewart, Shane Dean, Tiffany Shepis
Synopsis:
Alaina (Katherine Stewart) seemed to have it all. A perfect life with her husband. But soon it appears that all is not as right with her life as she had thought. Her husband, Mark (Shane Dean) seems distant. Is he cheating on her? Her friend, Sherry (scream queen, Tiffany Shepis) tries to comfort her but, Alaina’s paranoia becomes an obsession for finding out the truth.
Purchase:
DVD
Bodies (2014)
Starring:
Damon Bonetti, Johnnie Hobbs Jr., Kirk Wendell Brown
Synopsis:
A young writer becomes curious, then intrigued, and finally obsessed with the strange behavior of the woman next door. A police photographer who shows work in galleries, this woman has been spying on a seemingly unimportant man for reasons the writer cannot fathom. When she tries to frame her quarry for a brutal murder, the writer determines to solve the mystery he’s stumbled upon. Motivated by curiosity and a hunch that his neighbor is on a self-destructive path, he also has been drawn to her for more primal reasons. The more he discovers about the woman’s past and the identity of the man she has targeted, the clearer it becomes that she harbors a painful, potentially deadly secret.
Purchase:
DVD
Cam2cam (2014)
Starring:
Ben Wiggins, Russell Geoffrey Banks
Synopsis:
Bangkok tourists have been beheaded after making online contact with an unknown party. Newly-arrived Allie Westbrook (Tammin Sursok) meets a pair of ex-pats, Michael and Marit, who perform on a provocative interactive website called “Cam2Cam.” The dark menace beneath Michael’s easy charm and the strange sexual magnetism of the group’s leader, Marit, drive Allie to the brink of madness. In a city where foreigners come to re-invent themselves, Allie learns, too late, that nothing is what it seems.
Purchase:
DVD
Coyote (2014)
Starring:
Victoria Mullen, Joe Hammerstone, Heather Schlitt, Bill Finkbiner, Bill Oberst Jr.
Synopsis:
An aspiring writer with insomnia descends into a world of madness and violence as he is torn between what is real and what has crawled from the darkest recesses of his mind – making him a threat to everyone around him, and most of all himself. A nightmarish, psychological horror that blends Taxi Driver with Videodrome, and features a career-making performance from horror favorite Bill Oberst Jr.
Purchase:
DVD
Dark Mountain (2014)
Starring:
Andrew Simpson, Shelby Stehlin, Sage Howard
Synopsis:
Somewhere deep within Arizona’s Superstition Mountains lies the most famous lost gold mine in the world–the Lost Dutchman Mine. Its estimated worth is around 200 million dollars. Since the turn of the twentieth century, thousands of people have scoured the mountains in search of it, hundreds have lost their lives in the process, but not one has returned with an ounce of gold. Legend has it the mine is cursed. In March of 2011, three Los Angeles filmmakers set out to find the mine and document their entire search. They never made it out of the Superstitions. Eight months later, their camera and cell phones were recovered along the western edge of LaBarge Canyon. No sign of the filmmakers themselves has been found to date. Dark Mountain is the chilling reconstruction of their last days. Inspired by actual events.
Purchase:
DVD
The Device (2014)
Starring:
Angela DiMarco, David S. Hogan, Kate Alden
Synopsis:
What if the rumors and urban legends are real that aliens walk among us, abducting people for unthinkable experiments? Sisters Abby and Rebecca are about to discover the horrifying truth when they find a harmless looking object in the woods near their familys cabin. The small black sphere is the key to a shocking mystery that will change the course of human destiny. The Device has plans for us, and this world is no longer ours.
Purchase:
DVD
The Devil’s Hand (2014)
Starring:
Rufus Sewell, Thomas McDonell
Synopsis:
Oscar-nominated director Christian E. Christiansen brings a spine-tingling story of satanic terror. In the small village of New Bethlehem, 6 girls are born on the 6th day of the 6th month, setting in motion an ancient prophecyon their 18th birthday, one of the girls will become the devils hand. As the day nears, the young women begin to disappear. Threatened by the towns religious leader (Colm Meaney), the remaining girls father (Rufus Sewell) races to uncover the chilling truth.
Purchase:
DVD
Don’t Look in the Basement (1973)
Starring:
Bill McGee, Jesse Lee Fulton, Robert Dracup, Rosie Holotik, Annabelle Weenick
Synopsis:
Don’t Look in the Basement, also known as The Forgotten, is one of the best low-budget movies in the horror/thriller genre. With a budget of roughly $100,000, the film is presented in great B-movie style with generally good acting and directing.
The plot revolves around a young psychiatric nurse, Charlotte Beale (Rosie Holotik/Playboy cover girl 1972), who goes to work at the isolated Stephens Sanitarium following the murder of its proprietor, Dr. Stephens (Michael Harvey), by one of the patients. There, she finds her job extremely difficult as the patients torment and harass her in varying degrees while she learns why Dr. Stephens successor, Dr. Geraldine Masters (Annabelle Weenick), is not very willing to take on new staff and so eager to keep outsiders out. The patients are truly frightening and the asylum is horribly understaffed.
There’s no other film quite like this…
Includes closed captioning.
Purchase:
DVD
G-String Horror Demon Cut (2012)
Starring:
Debra Lamb, Natasha Talonz, Genna Darling, Mike Gleason
Synopsis:
First there was The G-string Horror, in which a production company shooting a horror film at the Market Street Cinema in San Francisco, a 100 year old movie palace turned strip club, is attacked by the inhabitants with shocking results.
Then…all hell REALLY breaks loose…The G-string Horror and Ghost Adventures TV series film crews disrupt the normal day to day lives these wraiths enjoy at the strip club one too many times, and the ghosts and shadow beings storm the editing suite. Their bizarre and disturbing *Demon Cut* is the result.
Watch THEM watch YOU as you watch their movie! If they like you, they just may pay you a visit!
Purchase:
DVD
Hi-8 Horror Independent 8 (2014)
Starring:
Alexis Codding, Travis, Hoecker, Wes Reid, Kristine Renee Farley, Brad Westmar, Vanessa Nocera, Billy Garberina, Joel Wynkopp, Baker Chase
Synopsis:
Hi-8 (Horror Independent 8), is a one-of-a-kind, eight-part anthology that brings together some of the most recognized names in shot on video horror from the past 30 years, capturing the creative essence of the golden era of SOV horror filmmaking. Directors including Tim Ritter, Brad Sykes, Donald Farmer, Todd Sheets, Chris Seaver, Ron Bonk, and Marcus Koch were each challenged to go back to their roots, using only analog equipment while tapping into their decades of experience to tell fresh stories with a dark edge. Like the V/H/S series, Hi-8 brings together the leading genre independent filmmakers from across the country to spin tales of terror on tape.
Purchase:
DVD
Holocaust Cannibal (2014)
Starring:
Lauren Babree, Lydia Lael, Nicola Fiore, Rachel Sexton
Synopsis:
Nearing the end of WW2 Nazis realize that they will lose. A handful of them board a plane bound for Argentina, where they plan to live in hiding. During the flight lightning hits the plane and the SS parachute onto an island populated by savages. Atrocities await. Notorious director Bill Zebub has often ridiculed fascism, but he never actually targeted Nazis. This is the first movie in which he outright makes fun of them. He never thought that it was necessary to point out the obvious, but this particular story is fertile ground for new parody.
Purchase:
DVD
Lord Of Illusions (Collector’s Edition) (1995)
Starring:
Scott Bakula, Famke Janssen, Kevin J. O’Connor
Synopsis:
From best-selling author and celebrated director Clive Barker comes a supernatural thriller that rips apart the boundaries between sanity and madness, and between the art of illusion and the terrifying forces of magic.
Scott Bakula (Quantum Leap) portrays Harry D’Amour, a private detective visiting Los Angeles on a routine investigation. Harry gets more than he bargains for when he encounters Philip Swan (Kevin J. O Connor, The Mummy), a performer whose amazing illusions captivate the world. But are they really illusions? Harry isn’t so sure as he is thrust into a nightmare of murder, deception and terrifying assaults from the dark beyond. Famke Janssen (X-Men, Taken, Hemlock Grove) and Daniel von Bargen (Crimson Tide, The Faculty) also star.
Special Features:
DISC ONE: Theatrical Cut of the film
DISC TWO: All NEW High Definition transfer of Clive Barker’s Director’s Cut of the film
Commentary by Director Clive Barker
“A Gathering of Magic” Featurette – Original Behind the Scenes Footage
Unseen Rare Behind the Scenes Footage “Illusion of Reality” – Vintage interviews and UNSEEN On-Set Footage provide a fascinating look into the making of the film
Deleted Scenes with Clive Barker commentary
NEW Interview with Storyboard Artist Martin Mercer
Photo Gallery
Purchase:
Blu-ray
Morris County (2009)
Starring:
Marc D. Donovan, Albie Selznick, Peter Ganim, Pamela Stewart, Darcy Miller
Synopsis:
Award-winning writer/director Matthew Garrett (Beating Hearts) presents a trilogy of thematically connected stories as gruesome as they are tragic and heartfelt. In a performance praised by both Fangoria and Rue Morgue, Darcy Miller is Ellie, a damaged teenage girl harboring a terrible secret. Through the course of one traumatic day we learn what led this innocent girl down a path of self-destruction from which there is no return. In The Family Rubin, an upper middle-class Jewish family struggles to keep up appearances as their seemingly perfect life begins to crack at the seams. Albie Selznick (Ricochet, The Young & The Restless) leads an ensemble cast in this shocking and heartbreaking take on the destruction of the modern American family. Elderly Iris is laid off in Elmer & Iris, forcing her to join her curmudgeonly husband in early retirement. When Elmer suddenly dies, Iris decides to keep his decaying body around out of fear of living – and dying – alone. Pamela Stewart (Hal Hartley’s Trust and Amateur), Erik Fransden (The Colbert Report), and newcomer Alice Cannon star in this melancholy meditation on loss and the inescapable prison of old age.
Purchase:
DVD
Mother’s Milk (2014)
Starring:
Casey Chapman, Mackenzie Wiglesworth, Scott Anderson, Bree Michaels, Vanessa Hughes, Jaden Klein, Dennis Rowe
Synopsis:
Claude is an easily overlooked statistics professor. After a childhood trauma left him motherless, he formed a dysfunctional craving. To satisfy the depraved hunger, he kidnaps Kim from the park and holds her captive in his basement. As the days pass and Claudes truths are revealed, her fear slowly turns to comfort and compassionor does it?
Purchase:
DVD
Stonehearst Asylum (2014)
Starring:
Kate Beckinsale, Michael Caine, Ben Kingsley, Jim Sturgess, Brendan Gleeson
Synopsis:
When young doctor EdwardNewgate (Jim Sturgess) arrives at Stonehearst Asylum in search of an apprenticeship, he is warmly welcomed by superintendent Dr. Lamb (Ben Kingsley) and a mesmerizing woman by the name of Eliza Graves (Kate Beckinsale).Edward is intrigued by Lamb’s modern methodsof treating the insaneuntil a series of unusual events leads him to make a horrifying discovery, exposing Lamb s utopiaand pushing Edward to the limits of his conscience. Inspired by ashort story fromEdgar Allan Poe,Stonehearst Asylumis a tale in whichnobody is who or what they appear to be.
Purchase:
DVD
Blu-ray
Wax (2014)
Starring:
Jack Taylor, Geraldine Chaplin, Paul Naschy Jimmy Shaw
Synopsis:
A modern horror classic filmed in Spain. A young journalist is employed to spend a night at Barcelona’s Wax Museum, where paranormal activities are taking place. He must record everything happening there. In the museum there are many wax figures including Dr. Knox, a sadist cannibal surgeon who dresses up as Vincent Price in House of Wax. Soon, the journalist begins to feel he is not alone…
Purchase:
DVD
Werewolf Woman (1976)
Starring:
Annik Borel, Howard Ross, Dagmar Lassander, Tino Carraro, Elio Zamuto, Osvaldo Ruggieri
Synopsis:
A victim of childhood rape grows up into a woman who has delusions that she is a werewolf, just like one of her ancestors was. She kills men until she falls in love with a man. She is then raped again and goes on a second killing spree against her rapists.
