Trailers of the Dead

Here is where you'll find all the latest horror/sci-fi movie trailers, and even some old ones. (Like a good pair of pants, it's hard to throw 'em away.) More added practically all the time...

THREE MEN AND A BABE
Last of the Living takes zombies to a new low
Even though the world has been zombified, it's a wonderland for three slackers who do nothing but go from one vacant mansion to another, hanging out in their underwear, playing video and drinking beer. I would like this job and want know where to apply. Today if possible.

They happen across a gal who has the potential to reverse the plague and return civilization to normality. I'm thinkin' if it's not broken, why fix it?

Last of the Living is Shaun of the Dead type horror from New Zealand (there's a new Zealand?) with lots 'o laughs, blood and underwear. OK, blood and underwear should never be used in the same sentence.




HORROR IS GOING TO POT
Bong of the Dead smokes out zombies
When meteorites play pinball with the Earth, zombies arise and blah, blah, blah. A couple of hippie stoners use zombies as fertilizer to grow ultra-high potency weed to get ultra-high. Then they run out after smoking it all. So they have to go find more zombies for more fertilizer to grow more pot. Who knew zombies would be a gateway drug?

Lots 'o gore and comedy and meat-eating zombies.

P.S. Don't do drugs.



DOGGY STYLE
A werewolf gets a booty call in Nature of the Beast
So this gal and guy are engaged and are gonna be married. Hope their honeymoon isn't a full moon because he's a werewolf. So much for safe sex.

Yeah, this one came out in 2007, but it was on TV and you missed it because you were playing with your Wii™. But I just found it on DVD, so stop fooling around with your Wii™ and watch Nature of the Beast as it's funny (yep, a horror comedy) and the werewolf looks cool.

If I was a werewolf I'd never get married. I'd party ALL the time and, like, bite stuff.




COOL TATTOO — WHERE'D YOU GET IT, HELL?
Necromentia is more than just a neat movie title
Here's a good idea -- tattoo a Oujia board on your body. That way you can communicate with the dead without using up all your cell phone minutes.

Three people, three stories, three unhappy endings. Some guy thinks he can bring his wife back from the dead. Another guy has a dead brother and wants to be just like him. A bartender, used to pouring spirits, becomes a spirit and pours a tall glass of revenge. And there's a creature that looks better than any Cenobite I've seen lately.

Color me intrigued.



PLEASE PASS THE SALT
Bajo la Sal is Spanish horror with a little seasoning
The highly-touted Bajo la Sal is a Spanish horror flick in some sort of foreign language. Probably Japanese. Translated, it means "Beneath the Salt."

Here's how the film studio describes it: "A series of grisly murders leads commander Trujillo to Santa Rosa de la Sal, where he meets Victor, a lonely teenager, who works in his father's funeral home and spends his free time making crude, animated horror films and whose strange behavior seems to point to him as the culprit of the crimes."

Here's how I describe it: "A giant monster comes out of Tokyo Bay and destroys the city before another giant monster shows up and kicks its ass and the city is once again safe." OK, so my Spanish is not that good. But the movie looks good. So yeah, I'll go see it.



THAT RUBBER SUIT LOOKS GOOD — ON TOKYO
Monster X Strikes Back: Attack the G8 Summit. Why not?
Monster X is actually Guilala. I'm surprised the fleeing citizens of Sapporo didn't know that. Guilala has a UFO-shaped head (unidentified facial object), shoots fireballs out of his smack-talkin' mouth and wants to bring his new dance moves (Stomp) to town. It's up to the G8 Summit to stop him. But seriously, can they?

Guilala came to Earth as a spore attached to an improperly landed space ship. (Note to astronauts: Downtown Sapporo is NOT a landing strip.) After being exposed to our grimy atmosphere, the spore grows into Monster X (Y and Z were already taken).

Every country in the world is enlisted to fight MX, each with its own secret weapon. Fortunately, two Japanese journalists found a more practical solution: awaken the "as tall, if not taller" legendary spray-paint gold god, Take-Majin. Then run like hell.

Watch Guilala make some sweet moves -- then go buy the DVD. Or not.




EXCUSE ME, BUT YOUR TEETH ARE STUCK IN MY NECK
Bled takes blood to a whole new dimension
Meeting an exciting and potentially sexy art type at her first gallery showing, Val is intrigued enough with the stranger to try a new drug. This one, the smoke from the bark sap of a rare European stink tree, takes her into a different realm where she has impure sexual relations with this lucky guy. At first. Then she starts having impure relations with vampiric demon after getting high again and going back to the dream realm. Then she starts craving blood in real life.

Why can't I meet girls like this?




PLEASED TO EAT YOU, NICE GNAWING YOU
The Offspring sets the table with modern day cannibals
Best-selling horror writer Jack Ketchum finally gets a decent movie based on his novel, The Offspring. Fortunately, the book doesn't have pictures as the thing is pretty dang gruesome. Fortunately, the movie is all pictures as it's pretty dang gruesome.

The sequel to The Off Season (book only), the story picks up 10 years later where a clan of cannibals are invited to dinner -- and dinner is you. These people-eaters have their own language and own set of table manners. Say what you will, at least they clean their plates. No leftovers here.

Read some of Jack's horror novels then see if Hollywood was able to capture his grisly prose on film without flinching. Then go floss -- you look like you have something stuck in your teeth.




ITS TEETHING WILL KILL YOU
It's Alive is a baby shower of blood
In the 1974 schlock horror movie It's Alive (which spawned several much-needed sequels), the Davis baby was born with Jiffy Pop™ cranium, bulging eyes, three-fingered claws and pronounced fangs (to tear into those strained peas and neighbors).

It's Alive, the 2009 remake, looks to up the crib carnage factor with more destruction-filled diapers. The trick is to not scare the kid. Once riled he goes all death rattle on you. So, like, be quiet.

Can't tell whether the kid takes after his mother or father since they keep it in the dark most of the time. All I know is it's your turn to change him.




WHY CAN'T THEY ALL JUST GET ALONG?
The Titans are clashing again in the Clash of the Titans remake
Of all the movies needing an upgrade, 1981's horror/fantasy hit The Clash of the Titans wasn't one of 'em, mostly because it was near-to-perfect out of the gate. Oh sure, it had cool Ray Harryhausen stop-motion monsters that look a little clunky three decades later. But then so do YOU.

I'm a bit peeved they didn't ask me to play Calibos, son of the Sea Goddess. I know the proper method of how to unleash the Kraken, a giant man-creature that lives under the sea. (If you do it wrong, you're gonna make the Kraken mad.)

Clash of the Titans comes out in March of 2010. If I don't unleash the Kraken before then. Just sayin'.




IT'S PROBABLY A TEN-STORY WIG
Gehara, The Long-Haired Monster gives Tokyo a bad hair day
With Godzilla retired and Gamera hiding out at the bottom of some ocean (no doubt pouting), the playing field is wide open for a new giant monster to turn Japan into a demolition derby. And that nominee is Gehara, The Long-Haired Monster.

Looking more heavy metal than hippie, Gehara has hair three city blocks long and is seemingly impervious to heavy artillery and split ends. Just released on Blue-Ray™ overseas, Gehera, The Long-Haired Monster may look ridiculous, but who cares? We need giant monsters to wreck stuff for our entertainment. Whether they use conditioner or not.




A GUY GOES TO THE DOCTOR AND...
Sick Nurses aren't care-givers -- they're care-takers!
Asian supermodel-worthy nurses and a handsome doctor have been taking organs (Wurlitzers mostly) from bodies and selling 'em on the Black Market for money of all things. One of the highly-trained models, uh, nurses threatens to rat the plan out and ends up on the slab herself. Even though dead and her body stuffed in a car trunk for a week, she'll be back with a whole new unhealth plan for those responsible.

Sick Nurses is like a rectal thermometer: cold, uncomfortable and just plain wrong.




I DON'T WANT TO BELIEVE
The Book of Eli says we're all doomed. Again.
From the movie's website: "A lone hero must fight his way across the wasteland of post-apocalyptic America to protect a sacred book that holds the key to saving the future."

If America is a post-apocalyptic wasteland, what future is it we're supposed to be saving? Seems that book got here a little late in the mail. And what book is this exactly? Probably the new Harry Potter.

With the end of the world coming soon, expect to see more movies like this. I'm hoping to star in one before someone tries to save my future after the fact.




GOT A WILD HAIR UP YOUR A**
Exte: Hair Extenstions will make you wig out
There's something not quite right about that bald female corpse. She's missing her internal organs. She's packed in a freight container full of human hair. And she's suddenly growing miles of black hair out of everywhere fluids normally leak from.

When locks of said horror hair gets weaved into the hair of unsuspecting salon clients, it becomes a hair-raising experience. (OK, I have at least twelve more hair puns...but you get the idea).

Exte: Hair Extensions is one of those horror movies that'll choke you up. Literally.




FARMHOUSE
Your barn door's open
Another one 'o those "car breaks down in the middle of nowhere" flicks. And of course, only one house around for one million miles. And in that house is a seemingly nice couple who invite you to stay for dinner and torture.

While the premise may be cookie-cutter, the reason this is happening to the young couple who recently lost a child is not. Flashbacks help piece together the story...and it's grim delicious.

Now let's see if you can sit through the cheese grater-to-the-knee scene with a minimum of flinching.




ZOMBIE SELF-DEFENSE FORCE
Enlist today and have the government foot your medical bills
All it took was a crashed UFO to unleash space juice to create one million zombies, all of whom wish to neck with you. Now it's up to a team of zombie self-defense'rs to save the world. Or at least their own butt fillets.

Ultra splattery, ultra gorey (I guess you can't one without the other) and highly entertaining inner organ eating scenes. Once again the Japanese come through with more quality viewing.




SMOKE 'EM IF YOU GOT 'EM
Evil Weed takes getting high to a new low
Here's what we need -- a movie about marijuana that makes you go crazy when you smoke it. I thought that was the point?

This plays out like an MTV reality show: spoiled rich girls hosting a party in their parent's house in the Hamptons. Someone brings a bag of weed, everyone smokes it, then suffers the consequences of being party lightweights. Oh, I'm sorry -- did I just yawn again?

Just once I'd like to see a horror movie about Jagermeister.



ICE TO MEET YOU
The Thaw will kick you in the ice hole
No more worries about alien virus/Predator threats from outer space -- we have our own right here on whatever planet this is. An Arctic student research expedition (funded hippies) discover a woolly mammoth (hippie elephant) thawing out in the snow. (And who said global-warming wasn't good for anything?) Inside the "belongs in an over-priced museum" beast is a prehistoric parasite. And what have we learned about prehistoric parasites over the years? They get inside unprotected orifices and do illegal things to working organs.

This, to me anyway, is another re-telling of The Thing in that the research hippies come to the same conclusion those in the previous movie did: the parasites can't get back to civilization.

The Thaw stars Val Kilmer. I often lay awake at night wondering where he went.



AN ICK FACTOR OF 10
Slither is one of horror's campiest, goriest, funniest movies in the history of ever
Yeah, Slither came out in 2006, but it's quite likely you never saw it. Too bad, because they don't make 'em like this anymore. Thousands of leeches overtake a small town and turn the residents into things only a poet could describe.

Rent it today (or tomorrow). But don't blame me if you lose your taste for wiggling slugs.




IN THE DOGHOUSE
Doghouse's chick zombies would love to have you for dinner
If you only see one zombie movie this year, make it Doghouse, a brilliantly hilarious British zombie movie about six guys heading out for a weekend of male-bonding only to end up in a village overrun with female zombies. And they don't like men.

If you liked Shaun of the Dead and Severance, Doghouse will give your knickers a right jolly twist.



HELL OF A HOME
Hell on Earth is a place you pay rent
A bunch of teens in a house that is actually a portal to Hell. At midnight hell's finest stop by for a booty call. And you're the party snacks. Lots of gore, an unabridged Book of the Dead, cartoon lightning bolts shooting out of hands, plenty of swearing... Low-budget fun if not entirely original.

Hell on Earth may not have the biggest budget to work with, but I'm always up for any movie that shows me where the portal to Hell actually is. (I thought it was a downtown bus station because of the flesh-eaters that hang out there. It's not a YMCA bathroom, either, though pretty darn close.)




WORK YOURSELF TO DEATH
Zombie Dearest takes the wage out of minimum
This guy is out of work for five and a half years (his wife says six), and he's not doing a whole lot around the house. You can guess that the wife is about ready to lay down some new rules before she lays down. So he goes outside to dig and unearths a zombie, whom he trains to do the work for him. Always on time, never complains, gets the job done and... Lunch break, though, is a whole different scenario.

Zombie Dearest looks like good 'ol zombie fun. This'll teach wives to not boss their husbands around and... Um, I probably shouldn't have said that.



THE PRINCESS AND THE PEE
Samurai Princess equals bladder control loss
A gorgeous Asian android? Check. Hedge trimmer legs? Check. Detachable boobs that clip together and when thrown becomes a grenade? Check. Piles of mix 'n match body parts? Check. Buzz saw coming out of stomach to cause indigestion for someone else? Check. Eleven bloody souls up for trade? Check.

And you haven't seen this why?




AXE AND YE SHALL RECEIVE
Splitting hairs with the Legend of Mary Hatchet
More teens partying where they shouldn't and celebrating the anniversary of LIzzy Borden-type axe murderer, Mary Hatchet. All those t-shirts with Mary's face and corporate logo being sold hand over fist -- no wonder Mary's back from the grave...she wants royalties!

On the surface a patently cliched horror movie with a brain-dead over-used formula of partying teens, revenge from the dead and yet another weak stab at creating a franchise horror icon. Underneath all that, the same thing. I'll wait, though, until I've seen it to ascertain if Mary Hatchet makes the cut. (Hey, that was pretty dang clever!)



FROST BITE
Dead Snow thaws Nazi zombies for winter fun
Take seven Norway med students on break, put 'em in a winter cabin in Øksfjord, add booze and shake well. Serve with a heaping side of undead Nazis and serve immediately.

Back in the days of World Wars (ahem), the Nazis overtook a small Norwegian village, and for three years tortured their citizens, took their Lederhosen and ate all their strudel. Then Germany lost the war. This was all the locals needed: they returned the killing favors and drove those not exterminated into the hills where it is presumed they froze to death. Decades later, these Nazi-pops have thawed out and they're back to eat their human food before it gets cold. Auch du leiber!

Not to be confused with the Nazi undead in Shock Waves (1977). Those guys were underwater zombies. These guys are snow zombies. (Snow, I guess is merely frozen water... BUT THIS IS DIFFERENT.)




MEET THE BEETLES
Infestation will bug the Hell outta you
A sort of Shaun of the Dead of giant insect/human mutation movies, Infestation is played for laughs and overflowing buckets of bug gore, which is just as icky as blood gore, but a different color.

Cooper, a white collar office schlub, just started his new gig. Moments later he's hanging from the ceiling by webbing. Office policy various from job to job.

Cooper and a bunch of "survivors" take on an army of Volkswagon-sized beetles, mosquitoes, ants, spiders...and zombie human mutations. Time to get your Raid™ on.




NIGHT OF THE CREEPS WILL GIVE YOU THE CREEPS
This 1986 camp horror classic finally arrives on DVD
There were a lot of bad horror movies made in the '80s, but the crazy fun/campy/gory Night of the Creeps isn't one of 'em. Throwing in everything from aliens and slugs, to walking corpses and zombie dogs, it covers practically every base.

The slug leeches came from outer space. Their job is to burrow into your body and kill you while they make more slug leeches inside the incubator that is your former self. Oh, you can walk around and stuff, but that's pretty much it. This, logically, ties in to an axe murder thirty years prior. Add sexy college coeds who have about as much time for clothes as they do homework, a grizzled cop who can't get over his girlfriend being axed out on a date by someone other than him thirty years ago (see, I told you it was logical), and zombies in tuxedos, and you have a near-perfect horror movie.

Watch Night of the Creeps -i it won't kill you like those slug leeches or zombies or aliens or axe murderers.



PUTTING THE SHOCK IN YOUR JOCK
Dead Air is 28 Days Later meets Talk Radio. If you say so.
Yep, another stinkin' zombie movie.The living dead are really getting on my nerves. For one thing they stink. Secondly, all they do is eat human brains (there's an oxymoron) and living flesh (the chicken skin of fast food). They don't sleep, have jobs or go to sporting events (wait, I was wrong on that last one). Just brains and flesh.

Which begs the question: why make another zombie movie in an already over-crowded dinner plate? The maker's of Dead Air say it's not "really" a zombie movie because the general population has been turned into flesh-eaters by a government-released toxin aren't really dead, just hopped up on goofers. That's like saying hippies are a productive part of society.

Bill Mosley (House of 1000 Corpses, The Devil's Rejects) plays Logan Burnhardt, a late night shock jock who stays on the air after simultaneous attacks on America (where have I heard that before?) turns people into not-dead zombies, all of whom have their radios dialed to his show. Guess where the zombies are headed?

Bill's cool, so I'll watch Dead Air when it comes out on October 27 (DVD). But I'm really getting fed up (sorry) with zombies.



BUT I'M BIG IN JAPAN
Big Man Japan will knock you over
Every so often a movie comes along that defies categorization and explanation. Big Man Japan is one such movie. To try and describe the monsters that BMJ protects Tokyo from, I'd have to be a haiku poet. Or a scientist with a lab coat of some sort.

Suffice to say, Big Man Japan is dry funny, incredible unique and freaky as all get out. See my take on it in the Horror In Review section after you watch this trailer. Then send me, like, $5 as your way of saying thanks. To which, you're welcome.



VAMPIRE GIRL VS. FRANKENSTEIN GIRL
Why can't they just get along?
Oh, you can look but you're not gonna find a trailer/movie that's as mega-gory as Vampire Girl Vs. Frankenstein Girl. This thing is so funny cool, it almost doesn't matter if the movie sucks. I bide my time until Netflix gets it in by watching the trailer over and over. And yes, it's made in Japan. Who else would be this awesome?



DEAD, YET NOT
The Revenant throws a poignant spin on Zombies
Killed while on a tour of duty in the Middle East, First Class Officer Bart Gregory's body is brought back to the states where it is given a full military burial with honors. You should see the look on everyone's face when Bart shows up, talking and acting like he did before he died, but with wicked autopsy scars, herpes face sores and a taste for living blood (and not that Hollywood stunt blood, either).

Played as dark horror comedy, Bart and Joey, his childhood buddy, cruise around town in a '79 Camaro, looking for homeless people to eat. All this movie has to do is be as good as the trailer.

(Note: There are six or seven movies titled The Revenant. This one is in reference to a folkloric corpse that returns from the grave. See, I did my homework.)



FLIPPING THE BIRD
Thankskilling -- the only time it pays to be a vegetarian
Five college students (why couldn't have been pilgrims?) go on a road trip to the woods, only to be mercilessly attacked by a tough-talkin' turkey (a real one with feathers and a Beak of Doom). Is Thankskilling a serious movie? About as serious as any movie starring a homicidal holiday meal cam be. I have to see this for no other reason than telling people I did. It's all about bragging rights.

Besides being a runner-up for best horror movie title ever, it's nice to give equal time to the happy meal we've been slaughtering in the name of tradition all these years.



IT'S MURDER GOING TO COLLEGE
Transylmania takes the class out of going to class
Why couldn't my school have been more like this? A bunch of college students attend courses abroad at Razvan University (located in upscale Transylvania). The teachers wear leather, the school's dean is just shy of three-feet tall, there's a supermodel hunchback and the female vampires are topless.

Topless vampire chicks? Supermodel hunchbacks? Do NOT attempt to cut in line in front of me.

Releases December 4th.




NOT SO GOOD GRIEF
A couple in mourning get counseling from...SATAN
This is why you need a babysitter -- a married couple are having intimate relations and not keeping an eye on their son, who does a swan dive out of a high-rise apartment window. Um...OOPS!

The deeply grieving couple go to the woods to, uh, grieve. It's here the frayed ends of sanity (points if you know what heavy metal band that was borrowed from) push both to religious, mental and spiritual extremes. Kinda like drinking hot dog water while camping after the beer runs out. Arrives in theaters (or "theatres") October 23rd - same time as Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant and Saw VI. I might as well just move in to the Cineplex.



I OBJECT
You can't handle the truth behind The Objective
Doesn't matter if you're a highly-trained special-ops soldier with cool night vision goggles because something in that Afghanistan desert wants to have a final word with you.

It's two months after the 9/11 attacks and our boys head to Afghanistan with a big can of whoop ass. What they find -- or rather what finds them -- challenges their very training and logic. Is it a UFO with supermodel-thin aliens? Desert ghosts? One of those icky sand worms in Dune? A 7-Eleven that doesn't have beer? Got me. Until the movie comes out, I'll just have to speculate all over myself.



THE DESCENT WAS DECENT
But will Descent 2 go deeper?
Sarah Carter was the lone survivor of a girls-gone-wild weekend-gone-wrong in The Descent (2005). She and five of her "sistas" went underground cave exploring in the Appalachians (that sounds so made up). Deep in the bowels of "Appalachia" they discover there's no way out. This unfortunate fact made more so by the subterranean creatures that party down below.

All of the girls were eaten alive by those icky things, but not Sarah. She barely makes it out of the hole and can't explain to the cops (or "authorities") what the heck happened and why the blood all over her stylish cave blouse belongs to everyone but her. So it's back in the hole to get some answers.

The Crawlers are standing by to welcome their slippery friend back to the 'hood. Hope this one ends better than the last one. (If you saw it, there's a cop-out Carrie moment that almost wrecked everything.)




GOD HATES ME, I JUST KNOW IT
Legion ain't no church picnic
God is really mad at us. And by us, I mean YOU. So much so, He's sending an entire platoon, or "Legion" to wipe out humanity. (I didn't do anything wrong, so I'm not worried.) And where does this apocalypse now take place? Why, in a roadside diner out in the desert, of course. The coffee's good and the pancakes are fluffy, but the lunch special is to die for.

A bunch of people at the diner at the wrong time (there's an understatement) are trapped with no one to help but...SATAN! (OK, I don't know that for sure, but it'd be a nice twist, yes?)

Speaking of twists, the young waitress at the diner is pregnant...with the MESSIAH! While court papers have yet to identify the father (ahem), an all-out war to save all you stink humans ensues. Legion looks to be a cool ride for people of faith and agnostics alike. Buddhists? Not so much.

Yeah, this mimics the plot of Prophecy 3: The Ascent (2000), but you pretty much have to watch this movie or an Archangel will get you good.



MOM, THE ALIENS ARE BACK
E.T. gets an makeover with The Fourth Kind
The "fourth kind" -- as in "close encounters of the" -- is in reference to a 1972 scale used to determine the nature of your alien encounters. 1: You see a UFO. 2: The UFO leaves physical evidence all over your lawn. 3: Contact is made with the UFO to come clean up their mess. 4: You've been gang probed.

Milla Jovovich (Resident Evil series) stars as a psychologist in Nome, Alaska conducting sessions with patients who've been traumatized by "visitations" and extraterrestrial encounters. The FBI is involved as well due to a disproportionate number of people in that small town who've gone missing (my first theory was that they were eaten by a polar moose).

As with all genre movies coming out these days, the hype hook is that The Fourth Kind uses actual "unseen archival footage" of these patient sessions. As you recall, the same advertising technique was used to sucker us with The Blair Witch Project and as we speak, Paranormal Activity ("The most scariest movie ever made!"). Yeah, right. The scariest movie ever made is the footage of my last proctology exam.

The Fourth Kind releases November 6, 2009 (Hey, that's right around the corner!)




I SAW VI'D WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER
Jigsaw is back, even though he died, like, three movies ago
The Saw franchise is one of the more bankable properties in horror movie history, which is why Lionsgate (is that one word or two?) keeps pumping 'em out.

So what makes Saw must-see TV? The traps, man! Those freakin' things are ingenious. Forget that the storyline is headache-inducing - it's all about the "games" you have no choice but playing when you're caught in one of Jigsaw's wicked contraptions.

If you've been paying attention, Jigsaw -- who doesn't kill people, he gets them to kill themselves -- died a few movies ago. But this is horror...and if there's one thing horror movie fans know is that just because you're dead doesn't mean you're out of the picture.

This trailer looks sweet -- can't wait to see it. I'll probably eat a hot dog, some popcorn, peanut M&Ms, red vines and a large diet coke (caffeine-free, of course) while impatiently sitting through the previews when this thing opens on October 23rd. I'd eat a pizza as well, but I'm trying to watch my weight.




TRICK 'R TREAT, SMELL MY FEET
The Scariest Halloween Movie Since, Um, Halloween
Held up for two years, the rabidly-awaited Trick 'R Treat finally knocks on your door. This movie made headlines when show posters were released with October 5, 2007 bannered across the top. Oct. 5th came and went. No movie. Then Oct. 5, 2008 came. Still no movie. Then Oct. 5, 2009 came and... Horror fans weren't sure if this was a trick or a treat (nice word play - ha!).

It wasn't a trick and yes, it's a treat. Buried by the movie studio, Warner Bros. (thanks a lot, you knobs), Trick 'R Treat is five movies in one, with a connecting (or "interwoven") narrative. Keeping with Halloween tradition, if you blow out the candle in a Jack-O-Lantern, the same will happen to YOU. So will a high school principal with a dark past, a college virgin (yeah, like that's believable), a bunch of teens who take a joke well over the finish line and a homeless dude who no doubt smells like everything except soap.

Watch the trailer, then go buy/rent the movie as it's out now (on Blu-Ray, too). You're welcome.




LEMME GO CRAZY OVER YOU
The Crazies Are Out There - Like That's A Surprise
Another George Romero movie gets re-made. I swear, 'ol Geroge is making more off the rights than the originals he made all those years ago.

In 1973, Romero released The Crazies, a tender love story about a military-grade virus getting loose and infecting an entire small town in Pennsylvania, giving the residents permanent road rage. The Army's solution? Scorched earth. (Makes sense when you think about it.)

The same-titled remake, set for release in February 2010, finds a small town's water supply is toxic, turning the residents into maniacal zombies that don't seem to be that neighborly. And of course, the military, in an attempt to contain the "crazies," use deadly force to keep you from crossing zip codes. (Why does the military always have to be so mean?)

Written by Scott Kosar (The Amityville Horror, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre) and Ray Wright (Pulse), the story seems to be a metaphor for the economy meltdown and the Amercian Dream going up in digital smoke. Or it could be just about crazy people trying to eat your neck. Either way, the teaser is tantalizing...




THE MAN OF YOUR SCREAMS
Freddy Krueger Gets A Makeover
Given that Hollywood is fresh out of ideas and seems hell-bent on wringing every last bit of gold out of established franchises, it was only a matter of time before they turned their sights on the 1984 horror classic, A Nightmare on Elm Street.

Michael Bay directs, the guy behind all those vapid, big-budget brain-drainers (Armageddon, both Transformers movies, that god-awful Friday the 13th re-make), and is well known for style over substance. To let him mess with the Elm Street legacy is near blasphemy in horror circles. You might as well ask Tom Cruise to be a vampire.

But I’ll withhold judgment until April 30, 2010, the movie’s release date. I’ll do it out of respect for child killer Freddy Krueger. OK, that didn’t sound right. But if you’ve seen how Bay slaughtered Friday the 13th, you know what I mean.

The trailer looks to stay close to the original’s storyline. Good. Jackie Earle Haley (Maniac Cop 3: Badge of Silence, Watchmen) as Freddy Krueger. Good. Characters that look like the actors in the 1984 version. Meh. Same red and green sweater. Good. Freddy not cracking wicked one-liners/puns. Not good. That’s a key component of the Krueger landscape. I ask you, what is Godzilla without those things on his back but just another 400-foot tall dinosaur?

If it’s good, I’ll say it is. If it isn’t, ditto. Watch the trailer and meet me at the movie’s debut – I’ll be the one wearing the Freddy Krueger official knife glove. (Hard to eat popcorn with those things on).

P.S. The Nightmare on Elm Street CONCEPT teaser looks pretty neat, too. (see below) Do not confuse this with the authorized remake - this was done as a fan project. Those things are usually better than what ends up in theaters. Want to see a killer fan trailer? Go to Youtube and do a search for Green Lantern. That thing kicks ass.





HELL OF A HOME
The view is nice, but the landlords are to die for

The much-talked about House of the Devil arrives just in time for Halloween. What the Devil and Halloween have to do with each other is beyond me.

Needing cash, a pretty college student escapes from an insane asylum and... Oops - getting my story lines mixed up. A college girl answers an ad for a $400 baby-sitting job. (Two things: Since when does anyone pay that much to baby-sit? Secondly, how can I get that gig?)

The girl goes way out in the forest to a spooky mansion owned by an even spookier elderly couple who may or may not get Meals on Wheels to make deliveries that far out in the woods. What the girl doesn't know is that she's tasked with baby-sitting...SATAN. (I made the letters red because, hey, devil stuff.)

Though I have yet to see House of the Devil, I'm pretty sure it's good for several reasons: Cool title and the promise of evil. When you think about it, the story practically writes itself! Don't believe me? Watch the trailer...



HIRED, HELP!
Cirque Du Freak: The Vampire’s Assistant, is the horror/fantasy comedy (at least that what it looks like to me) based on those popular series of books by Darren Shan. I don't know how to read, so I'll just have to take everyone's word for it.

The story revolves around Darren, a teenager who, because he's a don't-know-it-all teen, unknowingly breaks a 200-year-old truce between two warring factions of vampires. Smooth. Somehow he gets a job with the Cirque Du Freaks and has to clean out the cages of the Wolfman and trim the bearded lady's facial hair. (OK, not really, but that's what I'd make him do.) And if twelve years of French lessons haven't failed me, I believe the movie's title translates to Circus of Freaks. (Thank you, discount online language courses.)

it's at this "cirque" when the kid is sucked upon by a vampire named Larten Crepsley (John C. Reilly) and makes him one of the undead who snacks on neck-flavored blood. He's also caught between the arguing vampires and comedic results ensue.

The trailer seems entertaining enough, so I'll go see it. I better like it because movies are getting too dang expensive. ($5 for a bag of popcorn? Only if they pour melted gold on it.)




THINGS ARE STARTING TO SUCK AROUND HERE
Movie studio Lionsgate may have come up with the perfect allegory for these resource-draining times in Daybreakers. Set in 2019, everyone's a vampire and humans are hunted and harvested for their blood. Problem is, there's only enough blood left to last until the end of the month. This causes the vampires much distress and the search is on for synthetic oil, uh, I mean blood. But the humans - or what's left of 'em anyway - are fighting back. With the help of one of the vampires. The one who's tasked with finding more blood. The trailer rocks, so click on it and start thinking of ways to hang on to the blood you already have. You know, in case of vampires.



THE GHOST WITH THE MOST
The new Paramount spooker - Paranormal Activity - seeks to give equal time to poltergeists, cashing in with spirits the way zombies, vampires and werewolves have been doing for some time. The trailer, however, is not that convincing (doors opening by themselves, hanging lights swinging as if ridden by invisible monkeys, sheets moving without anyone gettin' busy under 'em...). I'll still go see it, though, because it MIGHT NOT suck. And that's the goal - to find horror movies that do not suck. Good luck with that, right? Watch the trailer and see if you agree/disagree...



BARK AT THE MOON
(Or at least at the cat on the other side of the fence)...
With Hollywood filling their pants with mindless/pointless/plot-less remakes, it comes as hair-sprouting news that Universal – copyright holders of Frankenstein, Dracula, Creature of the Black Saloon, uh, Lagoon, would finally give The Wolf Man a big screen makeover. Always popular with the unshaved leg crowd, this 2010 “updating” stars Benicio Del Toro as the title character. Since Del Toro already looks like a werewolf in real life (those bushy eyebrows of his freaks me out), bringing him on board probably saved the studio a lot of money.



Have you seen the trailer? (Featured below somewhere.) Pretty freakin’ cool, especially for those of us worn around the edges on Vampires, Zombies, Twilights and Potters (OK, I’m not, but you might be.) As far as I can tell, the storyline stays true to the original 1941 plot: Man gets chomped on by a wolf, and much to his wardrobe’s surprise, turns into some sort of man-wolf when the moon is full. This gives him Botox-resistant worry lines, which get covered what looks to be fur.

Judging from the press pictures, Rick Baker, the ape/wolf special effects designer who created the Wolf Man’s new and improved look, has really out mooned himself. He’s kept the classic look (versus the “rabid Lassie” werewolves in Dog Soldiers) and gave it some teeth. Sorry. This is how the Wolf Man looked nearly 70 years ago. A mere hippie by today's standards.



Baker’s the monster designer behind the werewolf makeup in American Werewolf In London and Michael Jackson’s “werecat” in the Thriller video. If you Google him, you’ll find he’s done makeup on one million horror movies, getting his start as an assistant makeup guy on The Exorcist. (I would LOVE to have The Exorcist listed as a character reference on my resume.)

The Wolf Man releases on February 12, 2010. It was supposed to come out in 2009, but the moon wasn’t quite full enough and… Sorry. Co-starring is Sir Anthony Hopkins (Dr. Hannibal Lecter himself, finally letting someone else get in some chewing action), Hugo Weaving (The Matrix’s greasy cool Mr. Smith; Also an Elf in that vaguely familiar movie about Hobbits) and some other people who may or may not get the business end of some fangs.