| Scary Movies on DVD - Are you ready for Halloween? | |
| Deep In The Woods (2000) |
Rated: R Not for sale to persons under age 18. Reviewer: M Hicks from texas United States Its about 5 young adults 3 females and 2 males and they were paid to go to a urban old house out in the middle of the woods to entertain a little kid on a act/play. Things start to get worse when there were rumors there was a rapest in the near area, and not to mention they were on the hit list. One by one the young adults gets killed. You will not believe who the killer is,, but then again... it sure did confuse me ..., This movie kinda lagged bad detail to information. its an ok movie... got some good scares but not so freaky. ALso it is dubbed in english, this movie was done by French actors. ... From what I gather people generally like the story but they didn't like the way the film was either directed or edited. |
| Fright Night (1985) |
Rated: Not for sale to persons under age 18. Reviewer: Jim Woehr from LongIsland, NY USA I actually have never seen Fright Night until recently on American Movie Classics and I must say I was pleasantly surprised. Although Roddy McDowell looks pretty silly with his hair and eyebrews being covered in white powder he still brings a lot of charm and humor to the film. He has a lot of fun scenes as a Horror film star/vampire slayer. Chris Sarandon (Child's Play) is very good as well as the head vampire. If you liked other modern vampire flicks like The Lost Boys and From Dusk Till Dawn check out Fright Night. It is funny, sexxy and even sometimes pretty damn scary. Reviewer: Michael R Gates from Nampa, ID United States Young Charley Brewster discovers that a murderous vampire has moved in next door, but his mom, his girlfriend Amy, and his kooky friend Evil Ed don't believe him. To convince Charley that he is in error, Amy and Evil Ed hire the late-night TV horror host, Peter Vincent, to subject the purported vampire to "the test." But once the motley troupe enter the vampire's lair, the FRIGHT NIGHT truly begins. Despite a predominately youthful cast, this is definitely not the average cookie-cutter teen horror flick. Writer-Director Tom Holland's boy-who-cried-wolf script is both humorous and scary, and he has ingeniously employed all the typical conventions of the vampire sub-genre in fresh and interesting ways that sidestep the cliche. This, combined with outstanding special effects and top-notch performances, helps rank FRIGHT NIGHT among the cinematic vampire classics. |
| Gothic (1987) |
Rated: R Not for sale to persons under age 18. Lurid, kitschy, over the top--what more does one expect from Ken Russell, director of The Devils, Tommy, and Altered States? Gothic purports to tell the story of a night that Lord Byron, Percy Shelley, and the future Mary Shelley spent at a country estate and decided to write ghost stories--a night that ultimately resulted in Mary writing the novel Frankenstein. These three and a couple of friends romp around the mansion, freaking out at shadows and the sounds of a storm, getting increasingly hysterical and hallucinatory as the night progresses. Thrown into the mix are a mechanical belly dancer, nudity, walking suits of armor, an orgy, séances, grotesque masks, leeches, a pig's head, stigmata, snakes, and God-awful dialogue like "We are the gods now--we have dared to call ourselves creators!" Gabriel Byrne (Byron), Julian Sands (Shelley), and Natasha Richardson (Mary) are all terrible; it's a miracle any of their careers survived. But good or bad isn't really the point with Ken Russell, who aspires to a kind of visual delirium. Gothic isn't the masterpiece of excess that The Lair of the White Worm is, but towards the last half-hour it does achieve a creepy state of disorientation entirely suited to its subject matter. Russell isn't afraid to be trashy in the pursuit of unfettered cinematic symbolism. It's a dirty job, but somebody's got to do it. --Bret Fetzer -- Very few people admit to liking this movie. At the time of linking there were only three movies left. |
| Head of the Family (1996) |
Rated: Not for sale to persons under age 18. This movie is about people backmailling a family of freaks who do brain operations on people. These poor blackmailers do not know what they got themselves in for. If you like B horror movies then you will like this one. No one in this movie is normal. The reviewers gave this movie anywhere from one star to five stars. |
| Idle Hands (1999) |
Rated: Not for sale to persons under age 18 Rodman Flender's comic-horror movie is the story of teenage stoner Anton's ordeal when his right hand becomes posessed by an evil spirit and goes on a murderous rampage, killing anyone and everyone it encounters including his best friends Mick and Pnub. The posessed hand soon sets it's sights on Anton's crush Molly and Mick and Pnub come back from the grave to help their friend save the girl. The movie has a great cast with Devon Sawa (Final Destination) playing Anton, the show stealing Seth Green (TV's Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Rat Race & the Austin Powers movies) as Mick, Jessica Alba (TV's Dark Angel) as Molly as well as a great performance from Vivica A. Fox (Independence Day). To go with the gore and gross out laughs the film also has a kicking soundtrack featuring the likes of Rob Zombie, Static-X, Rancid and of course The Offspring, who make a cameo as the band at the school halloween dance with singer Dexter Holland having his scalp ripped off. The movie pays homage to several cult classics including Night Of The Living Dead, Re-Animator, An American Werewolf in London and the original Halloween (it was filmed in the same neighbourhood). The DVD features commentry tracks from both director Rodman Flender and Seth Green, the movie's original ending and a 'Making-Of' featurette. |
| J.D.'s Revenge (1976) |
Rated: Not for sale to persons under age 18. It's been branded with the "blaxploitation" label, but there is little that's exploitive in J.D.'s Revenge, a film of well-drawn, articulate characters dragged into a supernatural showdown. Glynn Turman (Cooley High) is especially fine as the sensitive and quiet Ike, a determined student moonlighting as a cab driver, so wound up he's on the verge of cracking. Enter (literally) the ghost of J.D., a violent, vengeful gangster murdered in the opening moments. He could be Ike's own Mr. Hyde, a dapper, flamboyant ladykiller with a fiery temper and a straight razor who slowly smothers Ike's easygoing personality. Driven by flashes of memory, he sets his vengeful sights on fire-and-brimstone preacher Reverend Bliss (Louis Gossett Jr.), whose dark past is intricately tied up with J.D.'s murder. Director Arthur Marks (Detroit 9000) sidesteps the usual spooky clichés to stir up a modern New Orleans gumbo of ghost story, gangster tale, and character drama. J.D. is both devilish sadist and avenging angel, while the tortured Ike awakens from J.D.'s violent rampages with a hole in his memory but a sick feeling from his imagined complicity in the crimes. The story gets wrapped up a little too neatly in the end, but the dark character shadings and the evocative mystery at the center of Ike's possession makes J.D.'s Revenge an unexpectedly compelling supernatural thriller. --Sean Axmaker |
| Salem's Lot (1979) |
The DVD contains the 184-minute version of the film. Reviewer: J from NY (see more about me) from ny This is one of the most singularly terrifying, mesmerizing, suspenseful, subtle, and masterfully done films in the history of the horror genre, and you shouldn't expect any Anne Rice-homoerotic-13 year old goth ... from this one, because there isn't any. Having read King's book, I would say that this far exceeds the novel in terms of generating actual fear as opposed to (god forbid) what King wanted, another well spoken Dracula (instead of the absolutely horrifying Nosferatu figure played by Reggie Nalder, which we don't see till the ending sequences of the film.) David Soul does a far more convincing job as Ben Mears than Christopher Walken as the psychic protagonist in the Dead Zone. Mason does the best job I've ever seen as an "aiding the evil" character in a motion picture as Straker, the antiques dealer with an unpleasant agenda, and the soundtrack itself (which I wish they would release on a CD), along with the almost mutant like but not at all campy vampires (livid green skin, glowing, beady eyes, etc), make the film.. The book is great, but this is simply miles ahead of it in terms of mood, atmosphere, and the performances of the actors and actresses in general. The ludicrous thing is that it is generally written off as one of the worse translations of King to film, when in fact it is the best, leaving the book itself in the dust. This still ranks as one of my favorite horror movies, and along with "The Haunting" (1964), is my favorite. The motion picture version doesn't allow, (although it is still excellent), the proverbial vampiric tension to rise as the miniseries version does. There is a horror in this film difficult to articulate. Hooper and King's evaluation of it are simply wrong, based upon a book that, while entertaining, is basically another version of Dracula. This is the real thing. Some people and some people hate this one. |
| StrangeLand (1998) |
Rated: Not for sale to persons under age 18. This film was written, co-produced and co-stars Dee Snider, who has to be commended for his efforts. From a distance, this seems like another teen explotation film. But it's not. The teenagers aren't primping bimbo's destined to be slaughtered, the cops aren't bumbling idiots, and the bad guy is neither immortal, or superhuman. Simply a deranged psychopath (well played by a very intimidating Snider). I can't praise this film as much as some others have, but the reviewer who hated this film really missed the point, and probably dislikes most all films of this genre. Virtually no one is killed in this film, any nudity shown is in a cursory manner, not for exploitation. And while Snider is a "co-star", and I imagine many teens found his performance inspiring, only a sick minded individual would aspire to be like his character in this film. The concept is anything but another teen slaughterhouse, and quite original, and well thought out. Bottom line: Fans of the horror genre will be plesantly surprised by this film. And I imagine fans of Snider, Twisted Sister, or Metalheads will probably love it. It's too bad the film didn't reach a larger audience |
| The Brotherhood (2000) |
Not rated Another beefcake horror movie that some people love and some people hate and some say is mainly for teenage girls and others who like looking at beefcake. |
| The Dark Half |
Although it lacks the creepy subtleties of Stephen King's celebrated novel, George Romero's underrated adaptation of The Dark Half ranks among the best films based on King's fiction, with Romero taking care to honor King's central theme while serving up some gruesome gore in the film's much-criticized finale. Inspired by King's own admission that he wrote several novels under the pseudonym Richard Bachman, The Dark Half explores the duality of a writer's impulse, ranging from literary respectability to the viscerally cathartic thrills of exploitative pulp fiction. Author and teacher Thad Beaumont (Timothy Hutton) finds himself torn between those extremes when he "kills" his profitable, pseudonymous alter ego George Stark (the bestselling "dark half" to Thad's light), who then assumes an evil, autonomous form (again played by Hutton) to lethally defend his role in Thad's creative endeavors. Forced to wrestle with this evil manifestation of his own unformed twin, Thad must fight to protect his wife (Amy Madigan), their twin babies, and his own survival as an artist. Romero skillfully develops the twin/duality theme to explore the writer's dilemma, and Hutton is outstanding in his dual roles, playing Stark (in subtly fiendish makeup) as a redneck rebel with a knack for slashing throats. Julie Harris adds class in a supporting role, and horror fans will relish Romero's climactic showdown, in which swarms of sparrows seal Stark's fate. It favors a pulp sensibility with clunky exposition to explain Stark's existence, but The Dark Half is a laudable effort from everyone involved. --Jeff Shannon |
| Voodoo Academy (2000) |
Rated: Not for sale to persons under age 18. Reviewer: A customer from Los Angeles, California USA Notable for being one of the first homoerotic horror films ever made, VOODOO ACADEMY (2000) was shelved for quite some time by Full Moon Entertainment before being released in a heavily edited VHS edition (which you should avoid at all costs) and this expanded "director's cut" with 23 minutes of added footage and risque sequences. Christopher Sawyer, played by Riley Smith ("Lover's Lane," "Not Another Teen Movie") enters an extremely exclusive Bible college for young men -- so exclusive that the school has only admitted several other students (including mega-buffed Huntley Ritter of "Bring it On", Travis Sher, and Kevin Calisher), all of whom look like male models with stunning physiques beneath their strict jacket and tie uniforms. The college is run by a renegade priest (Chad Burris) with some revolutionary ideas about religion, as well as a few unorthodox methods, and a seductive headmistress, Mrs. Bouvier (Debra Mayer). But upon witnessing several strange events, most of which usually include his classmates gyrating and touching themselves during their sleep, our young hero quickly discovers that the boys are being transformed into voodoo dolls to awaken the powers of Satan. There's absolutely no question that VOODOO ACADEMY is a terrible film. Shot in a matter of days (in Pasadena, California) and with a microscopic budget, the acting is extremely stilted (which the actors can't be blamed for considering the time they had to rehearse and the single takes which were often used), the script is dreadful, and the film is shot on 16 MM stock which gives the picture a distracting and grainy look. And yet ... the movie is GREAT. That might seem like a wild contradiction in terms, but VOODOO ACADEMY is the first movie that I've seen since Ed Wood's PLAN NINE FROM OUTER SPACE which is so relentlessly bad that I completely enjoyed myself. Most of the special effects are amateurish enough to cause side-splitting laughter, and Mayer's transformation into a demonic creature (with fake horns, long fingernails, and a ridiculously lowered voice) at the climax of the film is one of the most unintentionally hilarious moments in any horror movie. |