More Regional Horror Flicks Coming to DVD

New DVD announcements have been piling up, but I've been too busy to parse through all of them. Here's a quick rundown:

First, Code Red continues to blow our minds with God's Bloody Acre and Tomcats due out in July, along with The Witchmaker, a runaway production filmed in Louisiana by L.Q. Jones.

The company will also release a bonanza of low-budget oddities under its "Maria's B Movie Mayhem" banner, with former WWE eye candy and Playboy model Maria Kanellis hosting. Regional titles in the series slated for September will include Mardi Gras Massacre from Louisiana and the Arizona film Haunted, along with double bills of Scream/Barn of the Naked Dead and Love Me Deadly/Curious Case of the Campus Corpse.


Future titles in the series will include the killer bigfoot flick Night of the Demon, Vampire at Midnight, and a double bill of Teenage Hitchhikers/Teenage Tramp.


Scorpion Releasing (which you may recall is run by Code Red honcho Bill Olsen's brother Walter), meanwhile, has announced its own line of low-budget horror films hosted by a former half-naked WWE/TNA starlet, "Katarina's Nightmare Theater." Katarina Leigh Waters will introduce films like the North Carolina slasher flick Final Exam, along with The Incubus, Humongous, House on Sorority Row, The Carpenter, the promisingly titled American Nightmare (sadly, it's really Canadian), and the ludicrous killer baby film The Devil Within Her.


Something Weird will release its first Blu-Ray offerings via Image Entertainment: Basket Case, the H.G. Lewis "Blood Trilogy" (Blood Feast, Two Thousand Maniacs, Color Me Blood Red), and Frank Henenlotter's recent H.G. Lewis documentary Godfather of Gore. Basket Case will be sourced from the original (previously lost) 16mm negative, so it will look even better than when it was first released to theaters as a 35mm blow up.

Over at VCI, the 12-film Scream Theater package was finally released after being held up by "rights issues." Not sure what those problems were, since the one title that is definitely no longer public domain, the New Jersey film Alice, Sweet Alice, is still on the set. S.F. Brownrigg's Don't Open the Door is also included.

Finally, Synapse Films has announced DVD/Blu-Ray combo packs of Frank Henenlotter's Frankenhooker (New York), Maniac Cop (not technically a regional, but filmed partly in New York), and the James Glickenhaus film The Exterminator.

Trailer of the Week: Terror at Tenkiller (1986)

More cheap slasher antics from Oklahoma in Ken Meyer's Terror at Tenkiller.

Trailer of the Week: The Last Slumber Party (1988)

Continuing with our trailer tribute to the VCI/United Home Video family, another slasher film from Oklahoma. They JUST wanted to have a slumber party...

Trailer of the Week: Revenge (1986)

If you couldn't get enough of Blood Cult, VCI/United unleashed a sequel the following year.

Trailer of the Week: Blood Cult (1985)

Shot on video grue from the VCI/United Home Video team.

August Odds and Ends

Summer is almost over, the book is almost complete, and it's time to clear out the inbox.

First, we'd like to thank fan and Texas resident Eric E., who provided the lovely color transfer of the Weird Ones one-sheet above. As I reported a few months ago, Pat Boyette's oddball sci-fi picture was lost, along with almost all of the promotional materials, in a garage fire. Eric, however, is the proud owner of an original one-sheet, which he obtained from someone in San Antonio. The owner of a local magic store had apparently silk screened the one-sheets and sold a few before the rest were lost in yet another fire. Eric also provides us with the tidbit that Mr. Boyette and his crew would wear monster masks and run through the theater during showings of the film.

Another thoughtful reader, Thomas D., turned me on to two rarities, Tainted Image (1991) and the peculiar biker flick A Dozen Ways to Die, along with the Florida film The Disturbance (1989), a title I'd missed during my initial research.

Then Chris Poggiali hit me with yet another film I'd missed, The Dead Come Home (a.k.a. Dead Dudes in the House, 1988), from New York. As soon as I think I've turned up every possible oddball indie flick from the sticks, another one pops up.

In DVD news, Tim Ritter's Truth or Dare? A Critical Madness (1986) was released on a special edition DVD from SRS Cinema in June. Likewise, The Prowler arrived on Blu-Ray from Blue Underground in July. The Evil Dead (again?) is also coming on Blu-Ray from Anchor Bay.


VCI, meanwhile, has announced a slate of Halloween releases that should be of interest to regional horror film fans, including a re-release of the Children Shouldn't Play with Dead Things special edition, a double feature of Swamp of the Ravens and Del Tenney's Zombies/I Eat Your Skin, and another twofer featuring Curtis Harrington's Ruby and the Georgia-lensed Kiss of the Tarantula. They're all scheduled for release on Oct. 19.