We were pleased as punch to see that a previously "lost" regional oddity, William Grefe's The Devil's Sisters, had been rescued from obscurity. The fine folks at Ballyhoo Motion Pictures worked with Grefe to release the film on DVD using an incomplete print found in Germany, with the film's final eight minutes recreated using stills.
I've posted a few advertising images below. You can see a very nice collection of stills over at Cinema Arcana as well, along with some other pics over Temple of Schlock.
Things have been pretty quiet here so far in 2013, but I did want to alert you to a few interesting posts over on some other blogs that we follow.
First, the always delightful William S. Wilson over at Video Junkie Strikes Back From Beyond the Grave has delivered a lengthy, detailed review of Roberta Findlay's final, unreleased New York horror film, Banned (1989).
As it turns out, it's a pretty awful horror/comedy, but we're still itching to see it. So what gives, Media Blasters? Check out the review, which includes some screen caps and this nifty admat.
While you're at it, head over to Temple of Schlock, where guest reviewer Stephen Bissette has offered up a nice review of the Vermont-lensed film Dark August (1976). There's also some nice coverage there of the Florida film Force of Impulse (1961) and Paul Kener's early film The Streak Car Company (1975).
Not sure what to make of the new Evil Dead reboot, other than my hopes are not exactly high. View trailers for the original and 2013 edition below and draw your own conclusions.
We were as surprised as anyone to see that the new Texas Chain Saw Massacre "sequel" debuted at #1 this weekend, bumping off both Django Unchained and The Hobbit. Designed as a direct sequel to Tobe Hooper's original, the film picks up with a local posse taking down the original Saw clan, then jumps to the present, with a young woman (Alexandra Daddario) heading to Texas to claim an inheritance and running into a still-spry Leatherface. Word is it's not very good, and plays pretty fast and loose with the timeline (for the plot to work, 26-year-old Daddario would need to be about 13 years old or so). On the upside, you get cameos by original Leatherface Gunnar Hansen and by Bill Moseley, here recreating the role of the "Gas Man" (Jim Siedow) from Hooper's original. (Moseley co-starred with Siedow in Hooper's Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2).
So here, for comparison's sake, are the trailer's for the original, and both direct sequels.
The Dead Next Door is a blog about regional or "backyard" horror and science fiction films made from the late 1950s to the earlyl 1990s (and beyond). These films were released during the peak years of independent film production, created by a motley crew of seasoned pros, gifted amateurs, and enthusiastic genre fans, along with dozens of eccentric dreamers -- doctors, lawyers, insurance salesmen, publishers, commercial filmmakers, TV production crews and moonlighting pornographers -- all looking for their big break or a fast buck or both.
