Blood Money, Vol. 25
By on Jun 27, 2012
Apparently, the studios have decided that with people getting crazy off of bath salts and eating homeless people and the government cannibalizing itself as the economy descends into the flames of hell, there’s enough horror in the real world that consumers don’t need much of it for entertainment. But Chiller TV has made a solemn vow to always, always bring you at least a handful of horror releases in some form of consumable media, even if we have to throw an Asian girl with stringy hair down a well, record it on VHS and send it to you ourselves. Thankfully, it hasn’t come to that just yet, but keep an open mind in the weeks to come as we plunder the libraries and release calendars of a variety of companies to find you the best, or at least the latest entertainment that horror filmmakers have to offer.
While there are no new theatrical horror releases (unless Madea’s Witness Protection counts), there are a handful of interesting home video releases, starting with the 1973 anthology film Tales That Witness Madness. Starring such esteemed actors as Donald Pleasence, Freddie Francis, Joan Collins and Kim Novak, the film focuses on patients in a mental asylum who regale their caretakers with stories about their afflictions, including a young man who befriends a tiger in response to his constantly-fighting parents, and a literary agent who courts a client only to discover that he’s more interested in her daughter – albeit with intentions more nefarious than romantic.
Don’t Fall Asleep is the latest in what has become its own cottage industry, film about cottages which are haunted or otherwise possessed of a troubling or terrifying history. After a woman flies into a jealous rage and kills her husband, a new couple moves into the house where the murder was committed. Soon, the wife begins experiencing weird visions, and sleepwalking, although she can’t remember what happens while she’s asleep – which is a shame, because people start getting murdered again. At a running time of 71 minutes, this bad boy is only barely feature-length, but with “Emmy nominee Brent Roske” at in the director’s chair (or so the synopsis proclaims), this just might have enough polish to keep you up nights after you watch it.
From Warner Brothers, there’s 4 Film Favorites: Twisted Terror Collection, which features Deadly Friend, Eyes Of A Stranger, The Hand and Someone's Watching Me. I’m not entirely sure whose favorites these films are – Deadly Friend, even by director Wes Craven’s standards, is strictly third-tier stuff – but then again, The Hand is an early Oliver Stone movie, Eyes of a Stranger features a young Jennifer Jason Leigh, and Someone’s Watching Me was written and directed by John Carpenter. In which case, the Twisted Terror Collection has an unusual pedigree for one of these compilation releases, and it’s precisely that small detail that makes it worth checking out – especially since you might not have seen these entries in each contributor’s body of work.
Zombiefied, on the other hand, takes a perfectly good zombie movie and adds a superfluous serial killer story on top. Written and directed by newcomer Todd Jason Cook, the film seems destined for chocolate-in-your-peanut butter greatness at absolute best, but it might have a few odd charms to keep the audience interested.
Finally, Sector 7 is a 3D film that follows in the footsteps of such genre classics as Deepstar Six and Leviathan, a sci-fi thriller in which an oil rig crew is forced to battle a deadly sea creature. Being in 3D, this is the unlikely pick of the week, especially since it’s not just horror but Asian horror, but with so much random and interesting other stuff to choose from, there’s certainly worse you can do than watching this weird adventure film.
