Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides is a 2011 American fantasy adventure film with macabre undertones represented by the living dead. It is the fourth installment in the Pirates of the Caribbean series. Gore Verbinski, who had directed the three previous films, was replaced by Rob Marshall, while Jerry Bruckheimer (Cat People, 1982) again served as producer.

In the film, which draws inspiration from the novel On Stranger Tides by Tim Powers, Captain Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp) is joined by Angelica (Penélope Cruz) in his search for the Fountain of Youth, confronting the infamous pirate Blackbeard (Ian McShane) who practices voodoo magic, has an army of undead seamen and wields a magical sword that controls his ship…

Wikipedia | IMDb | Rotten Tomatoes | Wikia (zombies) | Related: Captain Clegg | Jolly Roger: Massacre at Cutter’s Cove

“The emphasis here is on age and weatherbeaten experience. Of course, it is difficult to discern this or anything else clearly, given that the plot itself is so chaotic. There is sometimes a sense that what you are watching is a kaleidoscopic, two-hour-plus trailer.” Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian

“While there is fun to be had in On Stranger Tides and it’s exciting (for a moment) to see Captain Jack Sparrow on the big screen again, the entire production seems to suffer from exhaustion. The actors don’t carry the same enthusiasm for their roles, the once creative fight scenes have faded into ordinary action clichés, and the story focuses entirely on moving the plot forward without developing any of the characters or the larger fantastical “pirate’s life” world.” Ben Kendrick, Screen Rant

“For some, this may be a step up from the wilful psychedelic idiocy of ‘At World’s End’, the previous film in the series. But at least that had imagination: ‘On Stranger Tides’ is simply lifeless, a reductive, insulting moneymaking exercise with as much charm and depth as a slot machine.” Tom Huddleston, Time Out

Baron Samedi (the slightly less impressive Baron Saturday in English, also Baron Samdi, Bawon Samedi, or Bawon Sanmdi) is one of the Loa of Haitian vodou, the spirits of the dead. Samedi is a Loa of the dead, along with Baron’s numerous other incarnations Baron Cimetière, Baron La Croix, and Baron Kriminel. He is the head of the Guédé (or Ghede) family of Loa, or an aspect of them, or possibly their spiritual father. His wife is the Loa Maman Brigitte.

Haitian Vodou, also written as Voodoo is a syncretic religion practiced chiefly in Haiti and the Haitian diaspora. Practitioners are called “vodouists” or “servants of the spirits”. The word is first documented in 1658 and is distinct, though very similar, to the practices of Voodoo in Louisiana, hence the differing spelling.

Vodouists believe in a distant and unknowable creator god, Bondye (Bon Dieu, literally ‘Good God’). As Bondye does not intercede in human affairs, vodouists direct their worship toward spirits subservient to Bondye, called loa. Every loa is responsible for a particular aspect of life, with the dynamic and changing personalities of each loa reflecting the many possibilities inherent to the aspects of life over which they preside. In order to navigate daily life, vodouists cultivate personal relationships with the loa through the presentation of offerings, the creation of personal altars and devotional objects, and participation in elaborate ceremonies of music, dance, and spirit possession.

Vodou originated in the French slave colony of Saint-Domingue in the 18th century, when African religious practice was actively suppressed, and enslaved Africans were forced to convert to Christianity. Religious practices of contemporary Vodou are descended from, and closely related to, West African Vodun as practiced by the Fon and Ewe. Vodou also incorporates elements and symbolism from other African peoples including the Yorùbá and Bakongo; as well as Taíno religious beliefs, and European spirituality including Roman Catholic Christianity, European mysticism, Freemasonry, and other influences.

Those in the Haitian Vodou practices that serve the loa are the Bokor. The Bokor are the Vodou priest/priestesses who can be hired to perform various sorcery. The Bokor practice both light and dark forms of magic. The Dark magic that they practice revolves mainly around the creation of zombies through the use of a mixture of poisons. These poisons are derived mainly from puffer fish and other poisonous substances.

The Ghede are the largest family of Loa in vodou embody the power of death and fertility. They are traditionally led by the Barons (La Croix, Samedi, Cimitière, Kriminel), and Maman Brigitte. The Ghede as a family are loud, rude (although rarely to the point of real insult), sexual, and usually a lot of fun. As those who have lived already, they have nothing to fear, and frequently will display how far past consequence and feeling they are when they come through in a service – eating glass, raw chillis, and anointing their sensitive areas with chilli rum for example. Their traditional colours are black and purple.

Samedi is often pictured as a tall, handsome black man, wearing a top hat (white or black), a black tuxedo and dark glasses. He carries a cane and smokes cigarettes or cigars and is sometimes shown with cotton plugs in each nostril, reflecting the practice of Haitian burials. Other representations show him with a more skeletal appearance. He is regularly seen swigging alcohol (usually rum) and is known for dancing, disruption, obscenity and debauchery, none of which get in the way of his actual duties of healing those near or approaching death, as it is only Baron who can accept an individual into the realm of the dead. Baron Samedi spends most of his time in the invisible realm of spirits. He is notorious for his outrageous behaviour, swearing continuously and making filthy jokes to the other spirits. He is married to another powerful spirit known as Maman Brigitte. Baron Samedi can usually be found at the crossroads between the worlds of the living and the dead. When someone dies, he digs their grave and greets their soul after they have been buried, leading them to the underworld.

Maman Brigitte is similarly crazed and drinks rum infused with hot peppers and is symbolized by a black rooster. Like Baron and the Ghede, she uses obscenities, protecting gravestones in cemeteries if they are properly marked with a cross. Baron La Croix (The Cross) is the ultimate suave and sophisticated spirit of Death – quite cultured and debonair. He has an existential philosophy about death, finding death’s reason for being both humorous and absurd. Baron La Croix is the extreme expression of individuality, and offers to you the reminder of delighting in life’s pleasures.

Baron Cimitière is said to be the male guardian of the cemetery, protecting its graves. His horses wear a tuxedo or tails and a top hat. They have expensive tastes, smoking cigars and drinking wine or fine liquor. They are just as crass as the other Ghede, but ape polite manners and upper-class airs while doing so.

Baron Kriminel is a much feared spirit or Loa in the Haitian Vodou religion. He is envisioned as a murderer who has been condemned to death, and is invoked to pronounce swift judgment. When a person becomes possessed by Baron Kriminel they shout obscenities, spit and try to stab surrounding people. If, during possession, Baron Kriminel is presented with food he does not like, he will bite chunks out of the arms of the possessed person. He sometimes calls for sacrifices of black chickens to be doused in petrol and set alight. The shrieking of the chickens when being burned alive is said to appeal to the cruel nature of Baron Kriminel and appease him. Baron Kriminel is said to be one of Baron Samedi’s many aspects. Baron Kriminel will often grant requests in lieu, he is said to return on Fete Ghede, the Voduns’ “Festival of the Dead” (November 2nd), to claim payment. Baron Kriminel is often represented by Saint Martin de Porres, perhaps because his feast day is November 3rd, the day after Fete Ghede. His colours include black, purple, white and deep blood.

Samedi ensures all corpses rot in the ground to stop any soul from being brought back as a brainless zombie. What he demands in return depends on his mood. Sometimes he is content with his followers wearing black, white or purple clothes or using sacred objects; he may simply ask for a small gift of cigars, rum, black coffee, grilled peanuts or bread.

The most well-known representation of Baron Samedi in film is undoubtedly in the James Bond film, Live and Let Die. Played by Geoffrey Holder, the film is somewhat ambiguous as to whether the character is a mortal man playing the Baron or is indeed the Baron of vodou lore. Perhaps a more successful representation of the Baron is in the 1974 film Sugar Hill where he is played by Don Pedro Colley, a film far more soaked in the traditions and practices.

Horror films have long used vodou or voodoo as inspiration, from early efforts likes White Zombie, I Walked With a Zombie, King of the Zombies and Voodoo Man to Hammer’s take on walking slaves, The Plague of the Zombies, Umberto Lenzi’s Black Demons, cinematic outrage Zombie Nightmare and Wes Craven’s The Serpent and the Rainbow. The latter is one of the bolder attempts to capture the essence of the Haitian’s beliefs and is loosely based on the non-fiction book of the same name by ethnobotanist Wade Davis, wherein Davis recounted his experiences in Haiti investigating the story of Clairvius Narcisse, who was allegedly poisoned, buried alive, and revived with a herbal brew which produced what was called a zombie.

Daz Lawrence, Horrorpedia

With thanks to http://satanicmojo.blogspot.co.uk for some of the pics.

Birth of the Living Dead – original title: Year of the Living Dead – is a 2013 US documentary by Rob Kuhns about how filmmaker George A. Romero developed and directed the  seminal horror film Night of the Living Dead in Pittsburgh in 1968. THe film is released by Glass Eye Pix on October 18th.

The film features interviews with George A. Romero, Larry Fessenden (who also executive produced – director of Habit and Wendigo), Gale Anne Hurd (Aliens, The Walking Dead), Elvis Mitchell, Samuel D. Pollard (Night of the Zombies), Chiz Schultz (Ganja & Hess) and Jason Zinoman.

“There is nothing overtly wrong with Birth other than that it adds only minor points to what has already been a very long discussion. One of the better sections recounts Roger Ebert’s infamous reaction to the film, and the effect it had on an audience of children at a late ’60s matinee, and then shows how kids view the picture now. In the age of The Walking Dead and with ultra violent horror as practically the genre’s de-facto standard, Night cannot help but seem quaint.” John Charles

“Part biography, part history lesson and part time capsule, Birth of the Living Dead is not just the best Romero documentary to date, but a love letter to a bye gone era when friends got together to make movies that people actually saw. A love letter to the independent spirit…” Christopher Jimenez, Shock Till You Drop

“Kuhns is a veteran editor, and he expertly stitches together TV and newsreel footage from the era, Romero’s recollections, clips and stills from NLD, and plaudits from today’s zombie masters (including Walking Dead producer Gale Anne Hurd). However, these encomiums pile up like cordwood, and Kuhns gets sidetracked by a visit to a Bronx middle school where the teacher uses NLD as a teaching aid…” B. Miller, Seattle Weekly

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The British Horror Film Festival – held on 18th and 19th October – is an annual celebration of British filmmaking with an obvious focus on horror! The festival showcases mainly shorts but also new features. This year’s event is being held at the Empire cinema, in London’s Leicester Square, culminates in a number of awards and is being sponsored by Haunted Digital Magazine: After Dark. Tickets can be bought at the official website

The features being shown this year are Henri Li’s Fortune Cookie Prophecies, In the House of Flies (starring Henry Rollins) and Entity.

The shorts are:

Spira by Jon James Smith - This psychological horror thriller follows Eric, a psychologist appointed to determine the mental state of a dangerous psychiatric resident. As their sessions develop, Eric falls into an unsettling world of mental and physical disarray.

Tumbling After by Nicholas Humphries - Jack and Jill went up the hill to fetch a pail of water. Jack fell down and broke his crown, but Jill would not tumble after…A dark, disturbing take on the popular nursery rhyme Jack and Jill.

Left Hand Billy in the Second Solution by Gabriele Zuccarini - n a dusty Arizona motel, Pete awaits Bokor priest ‘Left Hand’ Billy who holds a dark, magical answer to his terrible problem. Voodoo, tequila and undying love collide with violent consequences in this twisted tale.

82 by Calum Macdiarmid - A postman lets us into his dark world in quiet suburbia.

Honeymoon Suite by Zao Wang - A hotel manager in Beijing, China must tame an American guest who may not even be human…

The Meeting by Karen Lam - In a weekly church meet-up, four serial killers confess their darkest sins, hoping to cure themselves of their homocidal tendencies. When pretty blonde Harriet joins them, the men are torn between wanting her to stay and claiming her as another victim. But then Harriet reveals her darkest secret…

Moment of Clarity by James Fisher - A contemporary thriller about a man who wakes up after a night out, not knowing where he is, who he’s laying next to and what dangers lurk in the room.

Belly of the Wolf by Mark Fisher – Tells the story of a young boy, Daniel Parker, who finds himself wandering alone on an old, abandoned army airbase. When Daniel stumbles across a blood stained jacket it triggers a chain of events he could never have imagined.

Dia De Los Muertos by Gigi Saul Guerrero - In a run down strip club in Northern Mexico, a group of abused women are forced together under the command of Madame Dona Luz. On the celebratory night of ‘Dia de Los Muertos’ the strip club welcome all men who enter. Unbeknownst that this is no ordinary club, the men face much more than a show…

Vengeance Rhythym by Christopher Ullens – The story of a very, very angry teddy bear.

Sleep Now in the Fire by Sean Pollaro & Elliot Pollaro - Based in the 1940s, an American soldier is forced to face his own nightmare.

Happy Birthday Mr. Zombie by David Leclercq - Mr. Zombie comes back home after a hard day’s work. He opens the door, the light goes on and…surprise!

Lonely Hearts by Leon Chambers - Serial killer Henrik may have found a kindred spirit. But the course of true crime never did run smooth.

Decapoda Shock by Javier Chillon – An astronaut returns to Earth after an accident on a different planet. When he discovers he has been the victim of a sinister plot, he decides to take revenge on those responsible.

Lot 254 by Toby Meakins - A collector repairs a vintage cine camera unlocking the hidden terror of Lot 254.

Buy Entity on DVD from Amazon.co.uk

Battle of the Damned is a 2013 American action/sci-fi/horror film directed by Christopher Hatton, and starring Dolph Lundgren.

Following a deadly viral outbreak, private military soldier Max Gatling leads a handful of survivors and a ragtag band of robots against an army of the infected…

Buy Battle of the Damned on Blu-ray | DVD from  Amazon.co.uk

“There is a lot of energetic fun to be had here, not least of which is witnessing Lundgren gouge eyes, slit throats and bury his hatchet in the skulls of the undead. The special effects are adequate for this production level, with surprising detail paid to the robot hunter/killers.” Movie Mavericks

“Overall, Battle of the Damned is a disappointing film with terribly shot action scenes but it’s redeemed by Dolph’s awesome badass and the odd one-liner. It’s a shame because the idea of robots vs. zombies is cool, but the execution just didn’t live up to it.” The Action Lite

Wikipedia | IMDb

Fabio Frizzi (born July 2, 1951) is an Italian musician and composer.

Born in Bologna, Emilia-Romagna, Frizzi is best known for his film scores and work for television. A frequent collaborator with the director Lucio Fulci, his scores have become some of the most widely known in the genre.

Frizzi’s early years saw him as a guitarist in a succession of ever-louder bands, despite the protestations of his father who saw him as a future lawyer. A chance meeting with the music publisher, Carlo Bixio, saw the formation of his first ‘professional’ group in his early twenties, alongside the composer and conductor, Carlo’s brother, Franco, and Vince Tempera. As a group, known as Bixio-Frizzi-Tempera, they shared composition duties and Frizzi concentrated on the guitars, with Tempera covering keyboards.

With Bixio’s publishing contacts, soundtrack work came easily, beginning with the western, And Now… Make Your Peace With God (Ed ora… raccomanda l’anima a Dio! 1968) and continuing successfully across nearly twenty further films, with Sella d’argento (Silver Saddle, 1978) and Sette note in nero (Seven Notes in Black/The Psychic 1977) being of particular interest. The first fully-fledged work by Frizzi and Fulci bore fruit in the violent western, Four of the Apocalypse (I Quattro Dell’Apocalisse). The close harmonies and gentle acoustics may be jarringly unexpected to those more familiar with Frizzi’s later scores.

As time progressed, the group began to work apart from each other, the Laura Gemser softcore frolic, Amore Libero (Free Love, 1979) saw only Frizzi and Tempera at work.

Perhaps the most influential aspect of Frizzi’s work for film is his use of vintage synthesizers and mellotrons, employed in such a way that they take on the qualities usually found with orchestras or more intimate instruments such as guitar or piano. They instill a disconcerting feeling in the viewer/listener, the sound being familiar but neither old nor modern. They also made it possible to use simple, repeated keyboard refrains whilst feeding in deep bass sounds and faux Gothic choirs.

The close-knit nature of the Italian soundtrack community was such that members of prog rock band Goblin played on several of Frizzi’s works. Frizzi and Fulci worked together throughout the late 1970′s and through to the death of the director in 1996. The key works in this period are Zombie Flesh Eaters (Zombi 2, 1979) and The Beyond (1981) both featuring grand, outrageous set-pieces onscreen, but matched by the richly textured sounds of Frizzi, which nevertheless featured simple and memorable melodies.

Frizzi continues to write for film and television (occasionally using the name Andrew Barrymore) and was recently fêted with a sold-out Halloween show at London’s Union Chapel (see review below). As well as influencing countless soundtrack composers his work has also been an influence on bands and artists such as Umberto, Zombi and Boards of Canada. His music has recently been reissued on vinyl by several labels, including Death Waltz Recordings.

Partial Discography:

• Carambola (1974)
  
• Carambola’s Philosophy: In the Right Pocket (1975)
• Dracula in the Provinces (1975)
  
• Four of the Apocalypse (1976)
  
• Get Mean (1976)
  
• Sette note in nero aka The Psychic (1977)
  
• Silver Saddle (1978)
  
• Cindy’s Love Games (1979)
• Zombi 2 (Giorgio Cascio) (1979)
  
• Contraband (1980)
• City of the Living Dead (1980)
  
• The Beyond (1981)
• Manhattan Baby (1982)
• Blastfighter (1984)
• Super Fanta Genio (1986)
• Cat in the Brain (1990)

Fabio Frizzi – Union Chapel, London, 31/10/2013

As Bernard Herrmann is to Alfred Hitchcock, Ennio Morricone is to Sergio Leone and Bruno Nicolai to Jess Franco, so Fabio Frizzi is to Lucio Fulci – one and all, to some extent, unlikely muses to directors whom, whilst prone to genius, were just as likely to bite your head off. Remarkably, it’s now the meatier end of twenty years since Lucio Fulci died and in that time there has been something of a shift to reappraising the director’s work. In fairness, it’s a barely perceptible shift, but The Beyond and Zombie Flesh Eaters have come to be regarded as bona fide classics, the latter now not only spoken about in the same breath as George Romero’s Dawn of the Dead but sometimes held aloft as the supreme imagining of the dead returning to life, an assertion that would have earned you 20 lashes in years past. Likewise, the much overlooked likes of Contraband and Four of the Apocalypse have finally received the praise they always deserved but rarely received.

As Halloween evenings go, an appearance in the beautiful and atmospheric  setting of Islington’s Union Chapel by Maestro Frizzi, a UK debut no less, is the stuff of dreams (or enjoyable nightmares), heightened by the projection of images from the films the composer duly reproduces the music from. Billed as Frizzi 2 Fulci, Frizzi is joined by violinists, guitars, bass, keyboards, percussion and a chanteuse, with the composer dividing his own duties between conducting, singing and playing acoustic guitar and keyboard. The show was a sell-out, the pews populated by those in fancy dress and those who had taken a more vanilla approach. Regardless, there was genuine excitement as showtime approached.

Now here’s the thing. The championing of Frizzi’s work is not kitsch or ironic – it’s because it’s brilliant music. As the lights dim, an initial projected sequence introduces us to some of the familiar set-pieces of Fulci and Frizzi’s partnership. The show proper begins with a somewhat plaintive rendition of “Silver Saddle” from the 1978 film of the same title. Whilst the film version was all jaunty elbows and playful pop, the reading here is reflective, even mournful, immediately a confirmation of the composer’s depth. Though his voice is somewhat fragile and the Italian twang of the pronunciation of the lyrics noticeable (rather like many of Guido and Maurizio De Angelis’ songs), this adds to the humanity and emotion of the song. Though listeners will be used to the vintage synths and mellotrons of his work, it’s still a surprise to hear the actual soul of the musician coming through.

An early comment from Frizzi referring to the time “music and cinema were better than today” is telling, the pride of the composer in his work matched only by his humility and infectious joy at his reception. The monstrous cascading, chiming chords to 1977’s The Psychic (Sette Note In Nero) are a real revelation, possibly because, on a personal level, I’ve never cared much for the film. Presented as a suite of music, strident keyboard and guitar more than hold their own against impressive military-like thumps from the drums, indeed in a live setting it’s not only stirring but thrilling. As the band begin to hit their stride, it’s Frizzi’s chanteuse, who really sparkles, the wordless, soaring notes echoing around the church’s mercifully yielding acoustics.

If there was one piece of music destined to suffer in translation, it was surely the faux Caribbean ‘gonk’ of Zombie Flesh Eater’s “Leaving Hell” – again, fears are quickly dispelled as a spritely Frizzi leads the musicians in livening up proceedings, the tropical images and the sight of Auretta Gay in that bikini brightening even a late October evening. The pace slows to a heartbeat of a drum signally perhaps his most recognisable theme, the main theme to Zombi 2.  It doesn’t disappoint and probably gets the biggest cheer of the night, the composer clearly both astounded and delighted by the reaction to a piece he wrote in his 20’s well over 30 years ago.

Frizzi and Fulci first worked together on the 1976 Western, Four of the Apocalypse (I Quattro dell’apocalisse) and the sequence of sound and image for this section of the show was particularly moving – the images of Tomas Milian terrorising all around him, see cast, director and composer all at the height of their game. It is, whisper it, Fulci’s best film and the tender rendition of “Movin’ On” should be enough to convince even the most stubborn viewer to investigate the film. From the period Frizzi was working alongside Vince Tempera and Fabio Bixio, the pre-synth acoustic performance is a reminder of how important Frizzi was and still is, the melody as strong as it ever was, a shameful slap to the chops for every hack churning out bombastic flotsam under the phoney guise of musicianship. Yes, I’m looking at you, Hans Zimmer. By the time a reprise of “Silver Saddle” concludes, I’m fairly certain someone’s chopping onions nearby.

By the time Frizzi’s female singer’s voice enters the stratosphere during the suite accompanying  1980’s City of the Living Dead, I’m fairly certain I stopped breathing, an annoying habit. For a film which, never less than enjoyable, is still hokey old nonsense, the reworking by Frizzi and his musicians is almost magical. By this stage, the urge to watch all Fulci’s films in one go is almost unbearable. Two much newer pieces of work, Beware of Darkness and The Weeping Woman show he has lost none of his deft touch. If ever you needed proof of the importance of a musical score to a film, this show was it. A composer largely ignored and unloved for the majority of his career has not reinvented himself. He and his talent were always there. Shame on all of us.

A pounding rendition of Contraband nearly raises the roof (and it was a substantial one), the cracks of Frizzi’s wooden blocks attracting audience participation, it not mattering much that I imagine a few were unfamiliar with the source. As the event reaches its old age, an inspired performance of Nino Rota’s theme to Fellini’s Amacord essentially seals Frizzi’s place in the elite of 20^th Century composers for film, let alone in the horror genre. His understanding of the medium he works in is something to be admired and cherished.

Frizzi wonders aloud if there is something missing from the set as he returns for an encore, the crowd readying themselves for the score to The Beyond, a film of such grand ambition and outlandish set-pieces that it was only right that it should take the final bow. It doesn’t disappoint, a clearly elated Frizzi soaking up the moment. If the show makes only a few people take his canon of work more seriously, it will have been a success for the punters but the happiest person here is still without question il maestro himself. A kindly uncle-looking man, he is clearly moved by both the turn-out and reception. Whilst Fulci was always callous with the lesser organs and viscera it was always Frizzi who had the heart.

Daz Lawrence, Horrorpedia

Mulberry Street is a 2006 horror film co-written and directed by Jim Mickle (Stake Land). It was released by After Dark Films as a part of their 8 Films to Die For 2007. It was released on DVD in the United States on March 18, 2008. The United Kingdom DVD was retitled Zombie Virus on Mulberry Street.

A deadly infection breaks out on Mulberry Street in downtown Manhattan, causing humans to devolve into blood-thirsty monstrosities. Six recently evicted tenants must survive the night and protect their downtown apartment building as the city quickly spirals out of control.

Initially emergency services and city authorities attempt to contain the spread by shutting down public transportation, and closing roads, but soon hospitals are inundated with the wounded, and the virus begins to spread island wide. By the time the characters realise the severity of the situation, the infected have overrun much of the city and the streets are highly dangerous, with police seemingly overwhelmed and unable to respond. The survivors barricade themselves in their apartments as the news of the outbreak and subsequent quarantine of Manhattan breaks on TV and radio, waiting on promised rescue from the military, which the government promises will begin to restore order in Manhattan soon…

“Mulberry Street never quite comfortably makes the transition from a more realistic, believable form of horror (the rat attacks seem exaggerated in detail but not really impossible) into George Romero territory (with the obvious exception that the neighbors are turning into rats rather than zombies). As if sensing this, the director keeps the camera shaking and the cinematographer keeps the images dark, so that you cannot clearly see the “f-cking rat people” (as one character calls them). The technique ultimately grows irritating because it becomes almost impossible to follow most of the action.” Steve Biodrowski, Cinefantastique

“An amazingly cool take on Night of the Living Dead (1968) as well as being the precursor for [REC] (2007), Mulberry Street is a taught, contemporized story with uptown rat zombies and people locking themselves in the run-down building to fight off the hordes of skin-chewers. Amazingly, none of this is corny or goofy; The horror is as gritty as the underpants of the New Yorkers trying to stay alive (best of luck to you), and an ending that’s anything but upbeat.” Jeff Gilbert, Drinkin’ & Drive-In

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Zombie Hunter Rika aka Zombie Killer Rika and High School Girl Rika: Zombie Hunter (original title: Saikyô heiki joshikôsei: Rika – zonbi hantâ vs saikyô zonbi Gurorian) is a 2008 Japanese comedy horror splatter movie directed by Ken’ichi Fujiwara and co-written with Takeyuki Morikaku.It stars Lisa Kudô (as Risa Kudô playing Rika), Mina Arai, Lemon Hanazawa, Chris Ryô Kaihara, Kôtarô Kamijô, Ryûnosuke Kawai and Eiichi Kikuchi.

When typical Japanese high school student Rika skips school to visit her grandfather, she fails to take into account the fact that his remote village is infested with the living dead. What happens next isn’t pretty, but fortunately, Grandpa Ryuhei just happens to be the greatest surgeon ever! Picking up what’s left of Rika, he dusts her off and rebuilds her, better than she was, into the ultimate zombie fighter! Now, together with her friends Takashi and Yuji, Rika must take on the monstrous master of carnivorous cadavers: the grand-high lowest of the low, Zombie Boss Glorian.

“Modern Japanese zombie flicks tend to boast cheap budgets, extreme gore, gonzo comedy, illogical plotting, and are sometimes peppered with an unsettling degree of sleaziness in regards to the treatment of women. You get most of that here, too. Although those looking for an abundance of naked Japanese schoolgirl flesh won’t get nearly as much as they’d like, and while the action and gore effects deliver what you’d expect, some viewers accustomed to truly over-the-top Japanese zombie mayhem might be underwhelmed.” Dread Central

” … this film goes for fun over titillation. Sure, there are some great sleazy moments (3 maids arguing over who has the biggest norks but whipping them out and comparing them) but the overriding essence of this movie is just crazy gory nonsense. Oh yes there is some nice gore going on here – loads of rubbery flesh ripping and head decapitation, blood a plenty and some great makeup too (particularly the suspiciously friendly zombie with the disgusting googly eye!)” Devouring the Zombie Films of the Living

“There were a fair few interesting and uncomfortable moments of gore, lots of blood and there’s plenty of flesh-eating, but I’m scrambling for many positive things to say. An amateur script that felt like it was being made up as it went along, dry lacklustre acting performances from people who genuinely looked like they didn’t want to be there, and shot capture and direction that looked cheap and harried as if Ed Wood with his one take what-ever happens approach was in charge; it’s bad film.” Watching the Dead

“There is not much style to the Ken’ichi Fujiwara’s direction, and the film tends to lack a certain snap, but Tak Sakaguchi’s action choreography adds an occasional burst of liveliness (e.g., a zombie fight featuring a guy flopping around, kicking zombies, and bouncing off cars is fun). The HD cinematography definitely looks like video with an image that skews green. As expected, there is plenty of viscera (practical and CG) and nakedness.” Rodney Perkins, Twitch Film

IMDb

Night of the Comet is a 1984 horror/science fiction film written and directed by Thom Eberhardt and starring Catherine Mary Stewart, Robert Beltran, Kelli Maroney (Chopping Mall), Sharon Farrell (It’s Alive!, Sweet 16),  Geoffrey Lewis and Mary Woronov.

A Blu-ray + DVD Collector’s Edition is being released by Shout! Factory on November 19, 2013.

The Earth is passing through the tail of a comet, an event which has not occurred in 65 million years, the last time coinciding with the extinction event that wiped out the dinosaurs. On the night of the comet’s passage, large crowds gather outside to watch and celebrate.

18-year-old Regina “Reggie” Belmont (Catherine Mary Stewart) works at a movie theater in southern California. She is annoyed to find the initials DMK have the sixth highest score on the theater’s arcade game, all the other scores being hers. She stays after the theater closes to become number one again and have sex with her boyfriend, the theater projectionist, in the steel-lined projection booth. Meanwhile, Reggie’s 16-year-old sister Samantha “Sam” (Kelli Maroney) argues with their stepmother (Sharon Farrell), who punches her in the face. The next morning, a reddish haze covers everything, and there are no signs of life, only piles of red dust surrounding heaps of clothing. Unaware that anything strange has happened, Larry (Michael Bowen) goes outside and is killed by a zombie…

“a successful pastiche of numerous science fiction films, executed with an entertaining, tongue-in-cheek flair that compensates for its absence in originality.” Variety

“What really makes Night of the Comet such a joy isn’t the nostalgia rush it provides, but the two central characters. These girls just get on with it, dealing with the apocalypse with resourcefulness, crackerjack wit, and machine guns.” Ian Berriman, SFX

Buy Night of the Comet on Blu-ray + DVD combo from Amazon.com

Blu-ray bonus features:

Audio Commentary with Writer/Director Thom Eberhardt

Audio Commentary with Stars Kelli Maroney and Catherine Mary Stewart

Audio Commentary with Production Designer John Muto

Valley Girls At The End Of The World – Interviews with Stars Kelli Maroney and Catherine Mary Stewart

The Last Man On Earth? – An Interview with Actor Robert Beltran

Curse of the Comet – An Interview with Special Make-Up Effects Creator David B. Miller

Still Galleries (Behind the Scenes and Official Stills)

Theatrical Trailer

“Thom Eberhardt does a great job at directing with an equal balance of suspense and comic levity and even interjected a lot of horror for a PG-13 movie. The two funniest scenes in the film involve a shopping montage which turns into a new wave zombie shoot’m up at a nearby mall (scored with a boot-leg version of Cyndi Lauper’s hit, Girls Just Want to Have Fun) and the other is when Hector battles a zombie child in his mom’s East LA home. Beyond that, there are plenty of funny lines… ” Strange Kids Club

“moves quickly enough, but is filled with hilariously cheesy lines, non sequiturs, and cardboard characters.  There’s some decent plotting, a nice twist towards the end, and an attempt at a commentary, but the real fun of Night of the Comet comes in a few montage sequences.” dcp film

Wikipedia | IMDb

Volcano Zombies is a 2014 American horror film directed by Rene Perez (The Dead and the Damned) and written and produced by Jeff Miller and Jason Ancona (co-writers and producers of Axe Giant: The Wrath of Paul Bunyan). It stars Danny Trejo (Machete, Machete Kills, Dead in Tombstone), Tom Downey (Axe Giant, The Beast of Bray Road), Moniqua Plante, Robert F. Lyons (Dark Night of the Scarecrow, 10 To Midnight), Nicole Cummins, Kevin Norman, Kyle T. Heffner, Julia Lehman (Cheerleader Massacre 2), Tom Nagel (Hillside Cannibals) and Jenny Lin (Piranhaconda).

The plot concerns a sheriff and an estranged family who must escape not only the impending eruption of what was thought to be a dormant volcano but also a horde of zombies brought to life by the cursed mountain.

The film is in post-production…

Zombie Pirates is a 2014 American horror film directed by Steve Sessions. It is due for release on DVD on January 21, 2014.

A dangerous young woman (Sarah French) offers up human sacrifices to a ghost ship of the dead in return for an ancient treasure. When she comes up one sacrifice short, her zombie masters exact their bloody revenge in this gory tribute to Spain’s popular Blind Dead Euro Horror series.

Christmas is generally seen as a jolly old time for the whole family – if you are to believe the TV commercials, everyone gets together for huge communal feasts while excited urchins unwrap whatever godawful new toy has been hyped as the must-have gift of the year. It is not, generally speaking, seen as a time of horror.

And yet horror has a long tradition of being part of the festive season. Admittedly, the horror in question was traditionally the ghost story, ideally suited for cold winter nights, where people gather around the fire to hear some spine chilling tale of ghostly terror – a scenario recreated in the BBC’s 2000 series Ghost Stories for Christmas, with Christopher Lee reading MR James tales to a room full of public school boys. That series was part of a tradition that included a similar series in 1986 with Robert Powell and the children’s series Spine Chillers from 1980, as well as the unofficially titled annual series Ghost Stories for Christmas than ran for much of the 1970s and is occasionally revived to this day.

A Christmas Carol

The idea of the traditional Christmas ghost story can be traced back to Charles Dickens and A Christmas Carol, where miserly Ebenezer Scrooge is visited by three ghosts in an effort to make him change his ways. It’s more a sentimental morality tale than a horror story, though in the original book and one or two adaptations, the ghosts are capable of causing the odd shudder. Sadly, the story has been ill-served by cinematic adaptations – the best version is probably the 1951 adaptation, though by then there had already been several earlier attempts, going back to 1910. A few attempts have been made at straight retellings since then, but all to often the story is bastardised (a musical version is 1970, various cartoons) or modernised – the best known versions are probably Scrooged and The Muppet Christmas Carol, both of which are inexplicably popular. A 1999 TV movie tried to give the story a sense of creepiness once again, but the problem now is that the story is so familiar that it seems cliched even when played straight. The idea of a curmudgeon being made to see the true meaning of Christmas is now an easy go-to for anyone grinding out anonymous TV movies that end up on Christmas-only TV channels and gathering dust on DVD.

A Christmas CAROL (1999)

Outside of A Christmas Carol, horror cinema tended to avoid festive-themed stories for a long time. While fantasies like The Bishop’s Wife, It’s a Wonderful Life and Bell, Book and Candle played with the supernatural, these were light, feel-good dramas and comedies on the whole, designed to warm the heart rather than stop it dead. TV shows like The Twilight Zone would sometimes have a Christmas themed tale, but again these tended to be the more sentimental stories.

The only film to really hint at Christmas creepiness was 1945 British portmanteau film Dead of Night, though even here, the Christmas themed tale, featuring a ghostly encounter at a children’s party, is more sentimental than terrifying. Meanwhile, the Mexican children’s film Santa Claus vs The Devil (1959) might see Santa in battle with Satan, but it’s all played for wholesome laughs rather than scares.

Santa Claus vs The Devil

It wasn’t until the 1970s that the darker side of Christmas began to be explored, and it was another British portmanteau film that began it all. The Amicus film Tales from the Crypt (1972) opened with a tale in which murderous Joan Collins finds herself terrorised by an escaped psycho on Christmas Eve, unable to call the police because of her recently deceased hubby lying on the carpet. The looney is dressed as Santa, and her young daughter has been eagerly awaiting his arrival, leading to a suitably mean-spirited twist. The story was subsequently retold in a 1989 episode of the Tales from the Crypt TV series.

Tales from the Crypt

This film would lead the way towards decades of Christmas horror. Of course, lots of films had an incidental Christmas connection, taking place in the festive season (or ‘winter’, as it used to be known). Movies like Night Train Murders, Rabid and even the misleadingly named Silent Night Bloody Night have a Christmas connection, but it’s incidental to the story. Those are not the movies we are discussing here. No, to REALLY count as a Christmas film, then the festive celebrations need to be at the heart of events.

Two distinct types of Christmas horror developed. There was the Mad Santa films, like Tales from the Crypt on the one hand, and the ‘bad things happening at Christmas’ movie on the other. The pioneer of the latter was Bob Clark’s 1974 film Black Christmas, which not only pioneered the Christmas horror movie but also was an early template for the seasonal slasher film. Some critics have argued, with good cause, that this is the movie that laid the foundations for Halloween a few years later – a psycho film (with a possibly supernatural slant) set during a holiday, where young women are terrorised by an unseen force. But while John Carpenter’s film would be a smash hit and effectively reinvent the genre, Black Christmas went more or less unnoticed, its reputation only building years later. In 2006, the movie was remade by Glen Morgan in a gorier but less effective loose retelling of the original story.

Black Christmas

Preceding Black Christmas was TV movie Home for the Holidays, in which four girls are picked off over Christmas by a yellow rain coated killer who may or may not be their wicked stepmother. A decent if unremarkable psycho killer story, the film was directed by TV movie veteran John Llewellyn Moxey.

Also made for TV, this time in Britain, The Exorcism was the opening episode of TV series Dead of Night (no connection to the film of that name) broadcast in 1972. One of the few surviving episodes of the series, The Exorcism is a powerful mix of horror and social commentary, as a group of champagne socialists celebrating Christmas in the country cottage that one couple have bought as a holiday home find themselves haunted by the ghosts of the peasants who had starved to death there during a famine. While theatrical in style and poorly shot, the show is nevertheless creepily effective.

Christmas Evil

1980 saw Christmas Evil (aka You Better Watch Out), a low budget oddity by Lewis Jackson that has since gained cult status. In this film, a put-upon toy factory employee decided to become a vengeful Santa, putting on the red suit and setting out to sort the naughty from the nice. It’s a strange film, mixing pathos, horror and black comedy, but it oddly works, making it one of the more interesting Christmas horrors out there.

Also made in 1980, but rather less successful, was To All a Goodnight, the only film directed by Last House on the Left star David Hess and written by The Incredible Melting Man himself, Alex Rebar. This is a generic slasher, with a house full of horny sorority girls and their boyfriends being picked off by a psycho in a Santa outfit, is too slow and poorly made to be effective.

To All A Goodnight

The most notorious Christmas horror film hit cinemas in 1984. Silent Night Deadly Night was, in most ways, a fairly generic slasher, with a Santa-suited maniac on the loose taking revenge against the people who have been deemed ‘naughty’. The film itself was nothing special It’s essentially the same premise as Christmas Evil without the intelligence), and might have gone unnoticed if it wasn’t for a provocative advertising campaign that emphasised the Santa-suited psycho and caused such outrage that the film was rapidly pulled from theatres.

Silent Night Deadly Night

Nevertheless, it had made a small fortune in the couple of weeks it played, and continued to be popular when reissued with a less contentious campaign. The film is almost certainly directly responsible for most ‘psycho Santa’ films since – all hoping to cash in on the publicity that comes with public outrage – and spawned four sequels.

Silent Night Deadly Night Pt. 2

Silent Night Deadly Night Pt 2 is notorious for the amount of footage from the first film that is reused to pad out the story, and was banned in the UK (where the first film was unreleased until 2009). Part 3 was directed, surprisingly, by Monte Hellman and adds a psychic element to the story. Part 4, directed by Brian Yuzna, drops the killer Santa story entirely and has no connection to the other films beyond the title, telling a story of witchcraft and cockroaches, while Part 5 – The Toymaker – is also unconnected to the other movies.

Also made in 1984, but attracting less attention, Don’t Open Till Christmas was that rarest of things, a 1980s British horror film – and one of the sleaziest ever made to boot. Starring and directed by Edmund Purdom from a screenplay by exploitation veterans Derek Ford and Alan Birkinshaw, the film sees a psycho killer, traumatised by a childhood experience at Christmas, who begins offing Santas – or more accurately, anyone he sees dressed as Santa, which in this case includes a porn model, a man at a peepshow and people having sex. With excessive gore, nudity and an overwhelming atmosphere of grubbiness, the film was become a cult favourite with fans of bad taste cinema.

Don’t Open Till Christmas

The third Christmas horror of 1984 was the most wholesome and the most successful. Joe Dante’s Gremlins is all too often overlooked when people talk about festive horror, but from the opening credits, with Darlene Love’s Christmas (Baby Please Come Home) belting out over the soundtrack, to the carol singing Gremlins and Phoebe Cates’ story of why she hates Christmas, the festive season is at the very heart of the film. Gremlins remains the most fun Christmas movie ever made, a heady mix of EC-comics ghoulishness, sentiment, slapsick and action with some of the best monsters ever put on film.

Gremlins

Gremlins would spawn many knock offs – Ghoulies, Munchies, Critters and more – but only Elves, made in 1989, had a similar Christmas theme. This oddball effort, which proposes that Hitler’s REAL plan for the Master Race was human/elf hybrids. When the elves are revived in a pagan ritual at Christmas, only an alcoholic ex-cop played by Dan Haggerty can stop them. It’s not as much fun as that makes it sound.

Family horror returned in 1993 stop-motion film A Nightmare Before Christmas, directed by Henry Selick and produced / co-written by Tim Burton. This chirpy musical see Pumpkin King Jack Skellington, leader of Halloween Town, stumbling upon Christmas Town and deciding to take it over. It’s a charming and visually lush movie that has unsurprisingly become a festive family favourite over the last twenty years.

Santa Claws

Rather less fun is 1996′s Santa Claws, a typically rotten effort by John Russo, with Debbie Rochon as a Scream Queen being stalked by a murderous fan in a Santa outfit. This low rent affair was pretty forgettable. It is one of several low/no budget video quickies that aimed to cash in on the Christmas horror market with tales of killer Santas – others include Satan Claus (1996), Christmas Season Massacre (2001) and Psycho Santa (2003).

1997 saw the release of Jack Frost (not to be confused with the family film from a year later of the same name). Here, a condemned serial killer is involved in a crash with a truck carrying genetic material, which – of course – causes him to mutate into a killer snowman. Inspired by the Child’s Play movie, Jack Frost is pretty poor, but the outlandish concept and mix of comedy and horror made it popular enough to spawn a sequel in 2000, Jack Frost 2 – Revenge of the Mutant Killer Snowman.

That might seem as ludicrous as Christmas horror goes, but 1998 saw Feeders 2: Slay Bells, in which the alien invaders of the title are fought off by Santa and his elves. Shot on video with no money, it’s a film you might struggle to get through.

Rather better was the 2000 League of Gentlemen Christmas Special, which mixes the regular characters of the series into a series of stories that are even darker than usual. Mixing vampires, family curses and voodoo into a trilogy of stories that are linked, Amicus style, it’s as creepy as it is funny, and it’s perhaps unsurprising that Mark Gatiss would graduate to writing the more recent BBC Christmas ghost stories.

The League of Gentlemen

Two poplar video franchises collided in 2004′s Puppet Master vs Demonic Toys, with the great-nephew of the original Puppet Master battling an evil organisation that wants his formula to help bring killer toys to life on Christmas Eve. Like most of the films in the series, this is cheap but cheerful, throwaway stuff.

2005′s Santa’s Slay sees Santa reinvented as a demon who is forced to be nice and give toys to children.Released from this demand, he reverts to his murderous ways. Given that Santa is played by fearsome looking wrestler Bill Goldberg, you have to wonder how anyone ever trusted him to come down their chimney and NOT kill them.

Santa’s Slay

Also in 2005 came The Christmas Tale, part of the Spanish Films to Keep You Awake series, in which a group of children find a woman dressed as Santa at the bottom of a well. It turns out that she’s a bank robber and the kids decide to starve her into handing over the stolen cash. But things take a darker turn when she escapes and the kids think she is a zombie. It’s a witty, inventive little tale.

A Christmas Tale

2006 saw Two Front Teeth, where Santa is a vampire assisted by zombie elves in a rather ludicrous effort. Equally silly, Treevenge is a 2008 short film by Jason Eisener, who would go on to shoot Hobo with a Shotgun. It’s the story of sentient Christmas trees who have enough of being cut down and displayed in people’s home and set out to take their revenge.

Treevenge

Recently, the Christmas horror has become more international, with two European films in 2010 offering an insight into different festive traditions. Dick Maas’ Sint (aka Saint) is a lively Dutch comedy horror which features a vengeful Sinterklaas (similar to, but not the same as, Santa Claus) coming back on December 5^th in years when that date coincides with a full moon, to carry out mass slaughter. It’s a fun, fast-paced movie that also offers a rare glimpse into festive traditions that are rather different to anything seen outside the local culture (including the notorious Black Peters).

Finnish film Rare Exports, on the other hand, sees the original (and malevolent) Santa unearthed during an excavation, leading to the discovery of a whole race of Santas, who are then captured and sold around the world. Witty and atmospheric, the film was inspired by Jalmari Helander’s original short film Rare Exports, Inc, a spoof commercial for the company selling the wild Santas.

Rare Exports

But these two high quality, entertaining Christmas horrors were very much the exception to the rule by this stage. The genre was more accurately represented by the likes of 2010′s Yule Die, another Santa suited slasher, or 2011′s Slaughter Claus, a plotless, pretty unwatchable amateur effort from Charles E. Cullen featuring Santa and the Bi-Polar Elf on an unexplained and uninteresting killing spree.

Slaughter Claus

Bloody Christmas (2012) sees a former movie star going crazy as he plays Santa on a TV show. 2009 film Deadly Little Christmas is a ham-fisted retread of slashers like Silent Night Deadly Night and 2002′s One Hell of a Christmas is a Danish Satanic horror comedy. Bikini Bloodbath Christmas (2009) is the third in a series of pointless tits ‘n’ gore satires that fail as horror, soft porn or comedy.

And of course the festive horror movie can’t escape the low budget zombie onslaught – 2009 saw Silent Night, Zombie Night, in 2010 there was Santa Claus Versus the Zombie, 2011 brought us A Cadaver Christmas, in 2012 we had Christmas with the Dead and Silent Night of the Living Dead is currently in pre-production. None of these films are likely to fill you with the spirit of the season.

So although we can hardly say that the Christmas horror film is at full strength, it is at least as prolific as ever. With a remake of Silent Night Deadly Night, now just called Silent Night, playing theatres in 2012, it seems that filmmaker’s fascination with the dark side of the season isn’t going away anytime soon.

Silent Night

Article by David Flint

Little Reaper is a 2013 American horror comedy short written, directed and produced by Peter Dukes for Dream Seekers Productions. It stars Athena Baumeister and John Paul Ouvrier, with John Michael Herndon, Katharine Stapleton, Allisyn Ashley Arm, Katy Townsend and Sorsha Morava.

The Grim Reaper has a difficult teenage daughter who professes to be constantly bored and yearns to be a wailing banshee. Having been grounded for not taking her deathly responsibilities seriously, her exasperated father allows her to take over his duties as reaper for one day. She spends her time on her mobile instead and chaos ensues…

‘Crisp black and white cinematography, deft editing and an impressive performance by Athena Baumeister elevate this comedy horror short above others of its ilk. The twist in the tale is nicely handled and who can resist the amusing notion of a petulant future grim reaper who’d rather be a cool banshee? Compared to Peter Dukes’ earnestly serious werewolf short The Beast – which didn’t gel for this particular viewer – Little Reaper suggests that his future may lie in comedy.’

Adrian J Smith, Horrorpedia

‘Athena Baumeister in the lead role is one to watch, with a charming screen presence she carries the film well, John Paul Ouvrier as Reaper plays his part straight as the strict father type which results in hilarity. Guaranteed to bring a smile to your face, there is nothing not to like aboutLittle Reaper. For being adorable, good-humoured and entertaining, I’d go as far as saying this has to be one of my favourite short films of 2013.’ Hayley’s Horror Reviews

‘Horror comedies are the hardest type of film to pull off especially as a short film, but Little Reaper was done magnificently with just the right amount of camp.  This short film is only a little over 10 minutes long, but it may be one of the best shorts I have ever viewed.  Many people try to pack way too much into a short and end up making it run too muddy, but Little Reaper has just enough to make it pretty much perfect, nothing is missing, but nothing feels as though it was forced in.’ Melissa Thomas, Little Blog of Horror

‘It may sway more to the younger female audience who have an appetite for all things handbags and boys as opposed to the hardcore horror fans but its rather humorous take on how the households of the otherworld would look like raises a few chuckles and its 10 minute running time manages to capture some death, flesh eating and a whole bunch of girl talk.’ Blood Guts

IMDb | Dreamseekers official site | Facebook | Twitter

Nightmare City (aka City of the Walking Dead, Italian title: Incubo Sulla Cittá Contaminata) is a 1980 Italian-Spanish zombie film directed by Umberto Lenzi. The film stars Hugo Stiglitz, Laura Trotter, Maria Rosaria Omaggio, Francisco Rabal, Sonia Viviani, Eduardo Fajardo and Mel Ferrer. Director Lenzi felt the film was not as much as zombie film but a “radiation sickness movie” with hints of an anti-nuclear and anti-military message.

American TV news reporter Dean Miller (Hugo Stiglitz) waits at an unnamed European airport for the arrival of a scientist that he is about to interview regarding a recent nuclear accident. An unmarked military plane makes an emergency landing. The plane doors open and dozens of zombies burst out and begin stabbing and shooting the military personnel outside. Miller tries to let the people know of this event, but General Murchison of Civil Defense (Mel Ferrer) will not allow it. Miller tries to find his wife Anna who works at a hospital as the zombies begin to overrun the city.

Miller and his wife escape to an abandoned amusement park that is also overrun with zombies. The two climb to the top of a roller coaster and are about to be rescued by a military helicopter. Miller then wakes up revealing the whole situation to be a dream. Miller also learns that today he is about to meet a scientist at the airport. When he arrives a military plane makes an emergency landing.

“Nightmare City might be the very first “running zombie” film, long before 28 Days Later and Zack Snyder’s Dawn of the Dead made this the new standard. The film is extremely violent, has quite a bit of gore, and some unintended humor. In other words it’s a cheesy “B” grade horror film, that horror collector’s should have in their collections.’” Eddie Scarito, This is Infamous

” … a wild and bloody exercise in excess. The movie has its fans as well as its fair share of detractors. I think it’s an odd amalgamation of themes and ideas given a much larger scope than normally afforded these movies. It’s neither Lenzi’s best and far from his worst. It’s a favorite of mine and sports a great deal of ultra violent entertainment value for shock seekers and gore mongers alike.” Cool Ass Cinema

“Nightmare City also accomplishes what it set out to do with respect to nudity and gore. The zombies have a amusingly shameless compulsion to rip open the shirts of women before they kill them as well as a weird breast-stabbing (and on one occasion, breast-lopping off) fetish.” John Shelton, Bloody Good Horror

“It’s probably fair to say that Nightmare City will always be known for its particular tics (its militaristic, running weapon-wielding zombies), but Lenzi fully exploits them. His movie might be dumb, but it’s rarely boring, and there’s something to be said for any movie that can transcend its tone-deafness as well as this one. It’s probably the only film that considers the plight of aerobic dancers during a zombie apocalypse.” Oh, the Horror!

“You’ll probably forget the entire movie within a month of watching it, but it’s fun and you’ll get a lot of laughs out of it: terrible acting; zombies standing directly in front of the camera posing; a random dog literally playing with the zombies; the stupidity of the two main characters; the horrible makeup; multiple times people standing still then suddenly jumping into action; woman’s head exploding then in the next shot she’s dead with just a little bloody spot on her forehead; the TV that for no reason explodes into a huge fireball; the completely random harpoon gun and much more.” Dymon Enlow, Happyotter

Raro Video Blu-ray Special Features:

An interview with Umberto Lenzi

Original English trailer

Original Italian trailer

A fully illustrated booklet on the genesis and production of the film

New HD Transfer – Digitally restored

New and improved English subtitle translation

Buy Nightmare City on Raro Video Blu-ray | DVD from Amazon.com

Buy Nightmare City + Hell of the Living Dead bargain zombie double-bill on DVD from Amazon.com

Wikipedia | IMDb | We are grateful to Cool Ass Cinema for a couple of the images above.

WH

Benjamin ‘Bob’ Clark could have been one of the leading lights of the horror genre after making a series of popular and critically acclaimed shockers during the 1970′s. Yet despite being as prolific (often more so) than the likes of Wes Craven, George Romero, Tobe Hooper and David Cronenberg, he never had the same fan following, and was able to leave the genre behind at the end of the decade whilst other directors found themselves pigeon-holed.

Clark made his movie debut in 1967 with the incredibly obscure She-Man, a strange comedy about transvestism which has now vanished without trace. Around the same time, he had been working with writer Alan Ormsby, who he met at the University of Florida. The two of them worked on several plays together, taking it in turn to write and direct, with Ormsby also acting in many of them.

When the two met again in 1971, Clark revealed that he had raised a tiny budget to make a horror film. His story, entitled Children Shouldn’t Play With Dead Things, was an unashamed rip-off of George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead, which had been a major hit a few years before despite having been made on a low budget. Hoping to capitalise on the success of that film, Clark had written a story which took many of the elements which made Night so successful and reworked them into a comedy-flavoured story. Ormsby would add his own contributions to the story, and also took the lead role.

Although Children Shouldn’t Play With Dead Things didn’t match the critical or financial success of Night of the Living Dead, it was popular, and quickly gained a cult following. Noting the popularity of the film, a group of Canadian producers invited Clark and Ormsby to travel North to make another horror movie. This time, Ormsby wrote the screenplay, initially called The Veteran but eventually released in different territories as Deathdream and Dead of Night in 1972.

Deathdream eschewed the comic elements of Children… and instead offered a downbeat, bleak and subtle twist of the old Monkey’s Paw story which illustrated the old adage ‘be careful what you wish for because it might happen’. In this case, a woman who’s son has been killed in Vietnam wishes him to return to life – he does, but as a bloodthirsty zombie. Critically praised, Deathdream remains one of the sleeper classics of Seventies horror cinema.

In 1974, Ormsby and Children Shouldn’t Play With Dead Things co-star Jeff Gillen made the Ed Gein-inspired Deranged. Although not credited, Clark served as a producer on the film.

His next film as director would be the influential Black Christmas, again shot in Canada in 1974. This psycho movie predated Halloween yet had many of the same elements, and boasts a genuinely unnerving ending, where the unidentified killer is still very much at large. It reinforced Clark’s growing reputation as a horror movie director amongst hardcore fans.

In 1976, he had a change of pace with the thriller Breaking Point before helming the popular British/Canadian co-production Murder By Decree in 1979. This moody gothic piece had an all-star cast and successfully combined the fictional character of Sherlock Holmes with the all-too-real serial killer Jack the Ripper. The two characters had met before in 1965′s A Study in Terror, but Clark’s film was in a class of its own. One of the very best Holmes movies (and almost certainly the finest Ripper film) it boasted a fine performance by Christopher Plummer as the great detective, and is unquestionably Clark’s best work.

Clark may have looked set to continue on the path of urban gothic horror during the 1980′s, but his career instead took a very different turn as he directed the huge hit Porkys in 1981. This immature sex comedy was a huge hit, spawning sequels and imitations throughout the decade, and its success propelled Clark very much into the Hollywood establishment. He never made another horror film (although he was an uncredited producer on 1991 movie Popcorn, written – and initially directed – by Alan Ormsby).

Instead, his career varied from comedies like Loose Cannons (1990), action movies (Turk 182 – 1985) and syrupy family films (the perennial favourite A Christmas Story, 1983). These films have had varied levels of critical and commercial success, and few of them suggest the work of an auteur – rather, Clark seems very much like a director for hire, a safe pair of hands who can make all types of movies, even if they are The Karate Dog and Baby Genuises 2 – Return of the Super Babies, his two 2004 productions that would be, tragically, his final films.

Clark intimated in interviews around the time that his early films began to appear on DVD that he planned remakes of Children Shouldn’t Play With Dead Things and Deathdream. Sadly, he was killed, along with his son, in a head-on collision in Los Angeles in April 2007.

Written by David Flint, Horrorpedia

Dead Snow: Red vs. Dead is a 2014 Norwegian sequel to Dead Snow and Dead Snow 2: War of the Dead directed by Tommy Wirkola. It stars Vegar Hoel, Stig Frode Henriksen, Martin Starr, Ørjan Gamst, Monica Haas and Jocelyn DeBoer. The film will be making its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah, in January 2014…

The gruesome Nazi zombies are back to finish their mission, but our hero is not willing to die. He is gathering his own army to give them a final fight.

Outpost: Rise of the Spetsnaz (also known as Outpost III: Rise of the Spetsnaz) is a 2013 British horror film, first shown at the Edinburgh International Film Festival. Directed by Kieran Parker from a screenplay by Rae Brunton (writer of Outpost and Outpost: Black Sun). It stars Bryan Larkin, Iván Kamarás, Michael McKell, Velibor Topic, Laurence Possa, Ben Lambert, Alec Utgoff, Vince Docherty, Gareth Morrison, Leo Horsfield and Vivien Taylor.

In the film, “we discover the horrifying origins of these supernatural soldiers and see them in ferocious gladiatorial battle against the most ruthless and notorious of all military special forces: the Russian Spetsnaz.”

‘With producer and story credits on the first two instalments Kieran Parker makes his directorial debut and you can tell he knows the Outpost films inside and out. This is a plus – in terms of style and pace it slots in seamlessly with the previous movies – and also a minus: the film’s muted, muddy, khaki colour scheme has made the series rather monotonous. However it’s probably the most action packed yet with plenty of claret flowing and multiple zombie fatalities.’ Henry Northmore, The List

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‘The relentless, brutal and lovingly-rendered gore is all done in-camera too – fans of blood spurt will have plenty to delight over. The dialogue is riddled with more than a few action movie clichés, but this is no bar to enjoying the fast-paced, grimly serious character drama and epic bloodletting. For gore fans, this is a treat.’ Bram E. Gieben, The Skinny

‘There’s nothing more worthwhile to say about Outpost: Rise of the Spetsnaz. The story is weak, the script is pathetic, the muck-faced sprinting zombie is embarrassing and the sound design is a mix of gunfire, loud noises and shouting. It’s a shame, as the original film was a distinctly underrated and highly original little piece of work. With the direction it’s headed for this and the preceding entry, consider Outpost: Rise of the Spetsnaz the final nail in the coffin for what began as a promising franchise.’ Dread Central

IMDb

Orror (Italian: ‘horror’) was an Italian ‘adults only’ fumetti comic book published in two different series in the late 1970s. For the first series, publishers Edifumetto issued 21 issues from June 1977 to May /1978; for the second series, 6 issues were issued in 1979.

As was the case with most horror-themed fumetti, the comics and covers often depicted scantily-clad or half-naked young women being terrorised by all manner of predatory ghouls, killers and monsters. Artwork was sometimes based upon images from horror films, such as the first edition’s no.20 which shows a vampire modelled on actor Jon Pertwee from the Amicus movie The House That Dripped Blood (1970) but shows him as Afro-Caribbean, Blacula-style! The cover for number 10 seems to be derived from an image used to promote Blood and Lace (1970), although in this case the hammer murder weapon is replaced with an axe. Second edition, no.6 shows a vampire with a striking resemblance to Jack Palance, who played Dracula for TV director Dan Curtis in 1973.

We are grateful to Comic Vine for the cover images shown here. Visit their site to see more…

Zombeavers is a 2013 American sex comedy horror film co-written (with Al and Jon Kaplan) and directed by Jordan Rubin. It stars Bill Burr, Cortney Palm, Rachel Melvin, Hutch Dano, Jake Weary, Rex Linn, Brent Briscoe, Robert R. Shafer, Peter Gilroy, Lexi Atkins, Phyllis Katz and Chad Anderson.

A group of college kids staying at a riverside cabin are menaced by a horde of deadly zombie beavers. A planned weekend of sex and debauchery soon turns gruesome as the beavers close in on the terrified teens who must fight to save their lives…

‘Horny co-eds, severed feet, the great outdoors, and undead beavers chomping their way toward crotch, Zombeavers is more than just a simple film. It will make you laugh, it will make you cry, it will inspire great interest in mother nature, and it just might teach you something about love. For instance, in one scene a man says, “I’ve never seen a beaver up close.” His girlfriend responds, “You should try going down on me once in a while.” See? Life lessons.’ Lacy Donohue, Defamer at Gawker.com

IMDb

Sphere horror paperbacks were published in the UK during the 1970s and 1980s. They were hugely popular and many – such as Lust for a Vampire, Blind Terror, The Ghoul, Squirm and Dawn of the Dead – were movie tie-ins and novelisations. The initial novels chosen for publication focused on the occult. Sphere published pulp fiction novels by famous authors, such as Richard Matheson, Ray Russell, Colin Wilson, Graham Masterson, Clive Barker and Robert Bloch whilst also providing a vehicle for British career writers such as Guy N. Smith and Peter Tremayne, plus many lesser known writers whose work received a boost by being part of the Sphere publishing machine. Occasionally, they also published compilations of short stories and “non-fiction” titles such as What Witches Do. In the early years, like many other opportunistic publishers, they reprinted the vintage work of writers – such as Sheridan Le Fanu – with lurid cover art.

The listing below provides a celebration of the photography and artwork used to sell horror books by one particular British publishing company. For more information about each book visit the excellent Sordid Spheres web blog.

1970

John Blackburn – Bury Him Darkly

Robert Bloch and Ray Bradbury – Fever Dream

Robert Bloch – The Living Demons

Robert Bloch – Tales in a Jugular Vein

Angus Hall – Madhouse

Sheridan Le Fanu – The Best Horror Stories

Michel Parry - Countess Dracula
Sarban – The Sound of his Horn

Ray Russell – The Case Against Satan
William Seabrook – Witchcraft (non-fiction)
Kurt Singer (ed.) – The Oblong Box

Kurt Singer (ed.) – Plague of the Living Dead

Kurt Singer – (ed.) The House in the Valley
Robert Somerlott – The Inquisitor’s House

1971

Richard Davis (ed.) – The Year’s Best Horror Stories 1
Peter Haining (ed.) – The Wild Night Company
Angus Hall – The Scars of Dracula

Angus Hall – To Play the Devil – Buy on Amazon.co.uk
William Hughes – Blind Terror (Blind Terror film on Horrorpedia)

William Hughes – Lust for a Vampire (Lust for a Vampire film on Horrorpedia)
Ray Russell – Unholy Trinity
E. Spencer Shew – Hands Of The Ripper

Kurt Singer (ed) – The Day of the Dragon

David Sutton (ed.) – New Writings in the Horror and Supernatural 1

Alan Scott – Project Dracula

1972

Richard Davis (ed.) – The Year’s Best Horror Stories 2

Peter Haining (ed.) – The Clans of Darkness

Laurence Moody – What Became Of Jack And Jill?
Ronald Pearsall – The Exorcism

David Sutton (ed.) – New Writings in the Horror and Supernatural 2
Richard Tate – The Dead Travel Fast

Sam Moskowitz (ed.) – A Man Called Poe

1973

Richard Davis (ed.) – The Year’s Best Horror Stories 3
Stewart Farrar – What Witches Do: The Modern Coven Revealed (Non-Fiction)

Brian J. Frost (ed.) – Book of the Werewolf

Melissa Napier – The Haunted Woman
Daniel Farson – Jack The Ripper [non-fiction]
Raymond Rurdoff – The Dracula Archives

1974

Theodore Sturgeon – Caviar

1976

C L Moore – Shambleau
Guy N. Smith – The Ghoul

Robert Black – Legend of the Werewolf

Richard Curtis – Squirm

Ron Goulart – Vampirella 1:Bloodstalk

1977

August Derleth (ed.) – When Evil Wakes
Ron Goulart – Vampirella 2: On Alien Wings

Ron Goulart – Vampirella 3: Deadwalk

Vampirella on Horrorpedia

Ken Johnson – Blue Sunshine

Fritz Leiber - Night’s Black Agents
Robert J Myers – The Slave of Frankenstein

Robert J Myers – The Cross of Frankenstein
Jack Ramsey – The Rage

Ray Russell – Incubus
Andrew Sinclair – Cat

Colin Wilson – Black Room

1978

Ethel Blackledge – The Fire
John Christopher – The Possessors
John Christopher – The Little People
Basil Copper – Here Be Daemons

Basil Copper – The Great White Space
Giles Gordon (ed.) – A Book of Contemporary Nightmares

Peter Haining – Terror! A History Of Horror Illustrations From The Pulp Magazines

Peter Haining (ed) – Weird Tales

Peter Haining (ed) – More Weird Tales
Peter Haining (ed) – Ancient Mysteries Reader 1
Peter Haining (ed) – Ancient Mysteries Reader 2
Richard Matheson – Shock!

Richard Matheson – Shock 2

Richard Matheson – Shock 3

Stephen Marlowe – Translation
Michael Robson – Holocaust 2000
Peter Tremayne – The Ants

Peter Tremayne – The Vengeance Of She

1979

John Clark and Robin Evans – The Experiment
William Hope Hodgson – The Night Land
Robert R. McCammon – Baal

Kirby McCauley – Frights

Kirby McCauley – Frights 2
Jack Finney – Invasion Of The Body Snatchers
Graham Masterton – Charnel House

Graham Masterton – Devils of D-Day
Susan Sparrow – Dawn of the Dead

Gerald Suster – The Devil’s Maze
Peter Tremayne – The Curse of Loch Ness

1980

Les Daniels – The Black Castle
Gerald Suster – The Elect
Jere Cunningham – The Legacy
William Hope Hodgson – The House On The Borderland
Robin Squire – A Portrait Of Barbara

John Cameron – The Astrologer
Robert McCammon – Bethany’s Sin
William H. Hallahan – Keeper Of The Children

Ray Russell – The Devil’s Mirror

Roy Russell – Prince Of Darkness

1981

Basil Copper – Necropolis

M. Jay Livingstone – The Prodigy
Andrew Coburn – The Babysitter
Peter Tremayne – Zombie!

Graham Masterton – The Heirloom
Owen West [Dean R. Koontz] – The Funhouse
William Hope Hodgson – The Ghost Pirates

Graham Masterton - The Wells Of Hell
Graham Masterton – Famine
Marc Alexander – The Devil Hunter [non-fiction]
Guy Lyon Playfair – This House Is Haunted [non-fiction]
Robert R. McCammon – They Thirst

1982

Ronald Patrick – Beyond The Threshold

Peter Tremayne – The Morgow Rises

William Hope Hodgson – The Boats Of The Glen Carrig

Stephen Gallagher – Chimera
Marc Alexander – Haunted Houses You May Visit [non-fiction]
Michelle Smith & Lawrence Pazder – Michelle Remembers [non-fiction]
Dillibe Onyearma – Night Demon
Robert R. McCammon – The Night Boat

Ray Russell – Incubus

1983

James Darke – The Witches 1. The Prisoner

James Darke – The Witches 2. The Trial
James Darke – The Witches 3. The Torture

Basil Copper – Into The Silence
Les Daniels – The Silver Skull

1984

Peter Tremayne – Kiss Of The Cobra

Clive Barker – Books Of Blood 1
Clive Barker - Books Of Blood 2

Clive Barker – Books Of Blood 3
Graham Masterton – Tengu

George R. R. Martin – Fevre Dream
James Darke – Witches 4. The Escape

1985

Peter Tremayne – Swamp!

Peter Tremayne – Angelus!
Stephen Laws – The Ghost Train

Clive Barker – Books Of Blood 4
Clive Barker – Books Of Blood 5
Clive Barker – Books Of Blood 6
Rosalind Ashe – Dark Runner
James Darke – Witches 5. The Meeting
James Darke – Witches 6. The Killing

1986

Christopher Fowler - City Jitters

James Darke – Witches 7. The Feud
James Darke – Witches 8. The Plague

Clive Barker – The Damnation Game
Graham Masterton – Night Warriors
Lisa Tuttle – A Nest Of Nightmares

1987

Peter Tremayne – Nicor!
Peter Tremayne – Trollnight

Lisa Tuttle – Gabriel

1988

Alan Ryan (ed.) – Halloween Horrors

Guy N. Smith – Fiend

Stephen Laws – Spectre
Graham Masterton – Mirror
Eric Sauter – Predators
Robert McCammon – Swan Song

1989

Stephen Laws – Wyrm
Guy N. Smith – The Camp
Guy N. Smith – Mania

Graham Masterton – The Walkers
Graham Masterton – Ritual
Bernard King – Witch Beast

The listing above and many of the cover images are reproduced from the Sordid Spheres web blog. Bar the odd addition and amendment, the list first appeared in Paperback Fanatic 3 (August 2007). For more information about each title, its author and links to reviews, visit Sordid Spheres

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