With only weeks left before Fantastic Fest gets underway in Austin, the final wave of films has been announced. Check out the goodies below, and visit FantasticFest.com for the complete schedule and to get your tickets.

ALL THE BOYS LOVE MANDY LANE (USA, 2006)
Special Screening
Director - Jonathon Levine, 98 min
All the boys love Mandy Lane and all the girls want to be her. There's at least one person, though, that wants Mandy and her friends dead.

CHANTHALY (Lao People's Democratic Republic, 2013)
North American Premiere
Director - Mattie Do, 98 min
A sickly young woman experiences visions of her dead mother. Is the apparition simply a side effect of her daily medication, or her mother actually reaching out to her from beyond the grave?

CONFESSION OF MURDER (Korea, 2012)
U.S. Premiere
Director - Jeong Byeong-Gil, 119 min
After the statute of limitations expires on a series of high profile murders, a man writes a book claiming to be the killer, setting off a firestorm of media attention as the families of the dead and the cop in charge of the case hunt for justice.

DETECTIVE DOWNS (Norway, 2013)
World Premiere
Director - Bård Breien, 90 min
What makes Robert a unique P.I. isn't that he has Down Syndrome; it's that he uses empathy to solve his cases. And empathy will come in handy as he investigates a complicated, conspiracy-laden disappearance.

THE DIRTIES (Canada, 2013)
Regional Premiere
Director - Matt Johnson, 83 min
A pair of cinema-obsessed high school geeks are caught up in an escalating cycle of violence when the lines between fantasy and reality begin to blur.

ESCAPE FROM TOMORROW (USA, 2013)
Regional Premiere
Director - Randall Moore, 90 min
A family vacation at the happiest place on Earth devolves into a hellish nightmare.

THE FAKE (South Korea, 2013)
U.S. Premiere
Director - Sang-ho Yeon, 101 min
Yeun Sang-ho's follow-up to THE KING OF PIGS tells the story of a brutal scumbag who tries to expose a religious fraud.

FATAL (South Korea, 2013)
Texas Premiere
Director - Lee Don-ku, 103 min
A Korean teen's desire to overcome a horrible crime committed as a youth turns into violence in Lee Dong-ku's passionate and moving debut.

GATCHAMAN (Japan, 2013)
U.S. Premiere
Director - Touya Sato, 113 min
The classic anime series - known variously as BATTLE OF THE PLANETS and G-FORCE - explodes on the big screen with its first live action adaptation.

GREATFUL DEAD (Japan, 2013)
World Premiere
Director - Eiji Uchida, 97 min
A young female peeping tom develops a fatal attraction to a virile old man.

JODOROWSKY'S DUNE (USA, 2013)
Texas Premiere
Director - Frank Pavich, 88 min
This is the story of the greatest film never made: Alejandro Jodorowsky's adaptation of Frank Herbert's DUNE.

JOURNEY TO THE WEST: CONQUERING THE DEMONS (China, 2013)
North American Premiere
Directors - Stephen Chow & Chi-kin Kwok 110 min
One of the undisputed Chinese masters of comedy, Stephen Chow (SHAOLIN SOCCER; KUNG FU HUSTLE) returns with an action-packed love story about competing demon hunters vying for the same conquests.

LOVE ETERNAL (Ireland, 2013)
U.S. Premiere
Director - Brendan Muldowney, 94 min
When a young shut-in is forced back out into the real world following the death of his mother, he discovers he can find peace and love only amongst the dead.

METALLICA THROUGH THE NEVER 3D (USA, 2013)
Regional Premiere
Director - Nimród Antal, 92 min
Director Nimrod Antal creates a groundbreaking 3-D motion picture event, combing a bold narrative and spectacular live-performance footage of one of the most influential rock bands in history.

MISS ZOMBIE (Japan, 2013)
North American Premiere
Director - Hiroaki Tanaka, 85 min
Cult director Sabu returns with his first original story in a decade! When a family has a zombie unexpectedly delivered to their house, they decide to keep her as a domestic servant.

MOEBIUS (South Korea, 2013)
U.S. Premiere
Director - Kim Ki-duk, 89 min
A transgressive taboo-shattering psychodrama from Korean auteur Kim Ki-Duk.

MONSOON SHOOTOUT (India, 2013)
North American Premiere
Director - Amit Kumar, 88 min
When a rookie cop corners a suspected murderer, he must make a choice with far-reaching effects in this violent Indian thriller.

NINJA II: SHADOW OF A TEAR (USA, 2013)
World Premiere
Director - Isaac Florentine, 95 min
Scott Adkins returns as Casey Bowman, a Ninjitsu master out to avenge the death of his wife in director Isaac Florentine's follow-up to his 2009 film NINJA.

RAGNAROK (Norway, 2013)
World Premiere
Director - Mikkel Brænne Sandemose, 100 min

The ancient and modern worlds collide in this rousing Norwegian action adventure.

RIGOR MORTIS (Hong Kong, 2013)
U.S. Premiere
Director - Juno Mak, 105 min
A former movie star gets a battle he didn't bargain for when he moves into a haunted public housing tenement inhabited by various degrees of the undead.

THE STRANGE COLOR OF YOUR BODY'S TEARS (France, Belgium, 2013)
U.S. Premiere
Directors - Bruno Forzani & Hélène Cattet
A man finds violence and sex at every turn as he searches his apartment building for his missing wife in this stylish mystery from the directors of AMER.

WE ARE WHAT WE ARE (USA, 2013)
Texas Premiere
Director - Jim Mickle, 105 min
Director Jim Mickle paints a gripping portrait of an introverted family struggling to keep their macabre traditions alive.

WE GOTTA GET OUT OF THIS PLACE (USA, 2013)
U.S. Premiere
Director - Simon Hawkins & Zeke Hawkins, 91 min
Three fun-seeking teenagers end up on the VERY wrong side of a bloodthirsty crew of rural crimelords.

WOLF (The Netherlands, 2013)
U.S. Premiere
Director - Jim Taihuttu, 120 min
Freshly released on parole and hailing from an immigrant family, Majid's only real assets are his fists. He's inexorably drawn into the worlds of competitive fighting and organized crime in this gritty crime thriller.

THE ZERO THEOREM (United Kingdom, 2013)
North American Premiere
Director - Terry Gilliam, 107 min

An eccentric and reclusive computer genius plagued with existential angst works on a mysterious project aimed at discovering the purpose of existence - or the lack thereof - once and for all. However, it is only once he experiences the power of love and desire that he is able to understand his very reason for being. 

Take a peek at the previously-announced wave one and wave two of films.

Sure, they are called Halloween Hot Sauces, but don't let the man tell you when you can eat your hot sauce. This set includes all three sauces: mild Spider Venom (made with jalapeno peppers); medium Bloody Bat (made with cayenne and black pepper); and hot Grinning Skull (made with habanero peppers and crushed red peppers). For a little extra, you can even get your hot sauces in coffin boxes.

$19.95 at HalloweenHotSauce.com

Poster and home video art is almost as important an element of horror movies as the movies themselves.  Oftentimes the promotional art is the first impression we get of any given movie, and though we've always been told by our parents to not judge a book by its cover, it's sometimes hard not to form opinions about movies based on whether or not we dig the artwork they're wrapped in.  Especially in the days of the video store, it was oftentimes the box art that drew us to a movie, and made us want to see it.

Unfortunately, that terrific art we've gotten over the years has always been covered in titles and text, essential elements that nevertheless detract from the overall impact of the art itself.  What would some of our favorite poster and VHS box arts look like without all those necessary bells and whistles?  That's the question artist Chris MacGibbon recently found himself pondering, and his artistic talents allowed him to find out the answer.  Thankfully, we all benefit from his talents.

Based out of California, MacGibbon has been hard at work on creating a portfolio to showcase his artwork, with the goal of someday joining the likes of Nathan Thomas Milliner in creating cover art for horror movie distribution companies like Scream Factory.  He recently found himself looking for something to do and for a fun way to add to his portfolio, which is where the idea to retouch and clean up some of his favorite pieces of horror art came from.

"A lot of the artwork I grew up with as a kid was essentially becoming lost with DVD/Blu-ray as companies were creating new pieces as some of these films were re-released," said MacGibbon, when I spoke with him about the project.  "In other cases the original paintings or photos just flat out didn't exist and if I wanted to make a cover for any of the films to help spruce up my portfolio, I obviously couldn't just slap the VHS artwork on the cover and call it a day."

Instead, MacGibbon breathed new life into the VHS artwork he and so many of us loved as kids, by heading into Photoshop and removing anything and everything that got in the way of the artwork.  Though he jokes that how he went about the process is "a trade secret," MacGibbon did spill some of the beans about how he arrived with the raw artwork that you're about to see.  "It's all about the cloning tool and patience. In some cases I actually had to separate pieces of the art that might not have titles over it so it wouldn't be affected by the process. So some of those pieces are all layers. It's a complicated and time consuming process and in some cases certain details are lost."

The result of all his hard work?  Absolutely stunning pieces of art that look fresh and brand new, despite how familiar we thought we were with them.  I now shut up and allow you to enjoy MacGibbon's handiwork, which I can guarantee will give you a new appreciation for some of your favorite VHS art!

Amazing how different the art looks without all the filler, isn't it?!

You can check out more of Chris MacGibbon's artwork over on his Facebook page, CMac Custom Designs.  He's available for any custom work you might need, and I personally look forward to the day when a company like Scream Factory discovers him and puts him to work!

NECA has been on an absolute roll lately with their action figure offerings, thinking more and more outside of the box in their never ending quest to bring to us collectors the most unique toys we've ever seen, based on the popular properties that they've got licenses for.  

Thankfully for horror fans like ourselves, two of those properties are Nightmare on Elm Street and Friday the 13th, and NECA recently beefed up their lines of Freddy and Jason toy offerings with versions of the characters based on the way they appeared in their respective NES games in the 80s, giving us two of the most original and totally awesome toys we've ever seen of the characters.  Not an easy task considering how many toys those two have spawned over the decades, to say the least.

What do they have up their sleeves next?  Well, they're going old school once more, traveling even further into the past and taking inspiration this time around from the 1970s; the time when toy company Mego reigned supreme.

Hate to bore you with a history lesson, but I feel the need to bore you with a wee bit of a history lesson right about now.  Founded in the 1950s, the Mego Corporation started out selling cheap dime story toys and moved into the action figure market in the early 70s, when they started scooping up licenses to popular properties like Star Trek and Wizard of Oz.  They also struck deals with Marvel and DC Comics, releasing the very first figures of the superheroes under those banners.

Their revolutionary 8" figures became the standard in the action figure market at the time, and thanks to their focus on releasing toys based on hot properties, Mego became the kings of the toy game throughout much of the 70s, before the company's downfall in the early 80s.

Though the company is long gone, the Mego style of toy has become more popular than ever over the years, with countless companies releasing their own Mego inspired toys, in an effort to capitalize on the undying popularity of those original action figures from the 70s.  What's old is new again in today's pop culture climate, and NECA isn't going to sit back and let everyone else have all the fun.

Of course, Freddy and Jason weren't around back in the 70s, but that didn't stop NECA from imagining a world wherein they not only were, but also wherein Mego made toys of the characters.  Prototype images for their retro style 8" Freddy and Jason toys were originally shown off at this year's San Diego Comic Con, and now we've got a full image gallery to drool over, as well as complete release details.  

So let's take a closer look at these retro offerings, which are fully posable and feature real fabric clothing, true to the Mego style!

Based on his very first appearance in the original Nightmare on Elm Street (note the lack of stripes on his sleeves), Freddy comes with a removable hat and is of course rocking his signature razor glove.

As for Jason, his toy is based on his look in Friday the 13th: Part 3, rocking the mask that he stole from Shelly.  He comes with his trusty machete and harpoon gun, and the mask is removable, revealing his ugly mug underneath.

Both toys are currently available for pre-order from online toy outlets, and can be purchased for around $25 a piece.  They're set to begin shipping in October, and shots of the period authentic packaging will soon be unveiled, over on NECA's website.  So be sure to keep those eyes of yours peeled!

It's another Friday, which means another new episode of the Killer POV podcast is live over on the GeekNation website and we feel like you guys will get a kick out of this particular topic and this episode's particular guests. Hosts Rob Galluzzo (FEARnet, Icons Of Fright), Rebekah McKendry (Fangoria) and Elric Kane (Inside Horror) tackle the subject of favorite genre villains and who better to chime in than two actors whom have delivered two of the best genre performances in the last decade - Leslie Vernon himself Nathan Baesel ('Behind The Mask: The Rise Of Leslie Vernon') and AJ Bowen ('The Signal,' 'The House Of The Devil,' 'You're Next'). The gang touches upon the history of Behind The Mask, what it’s like for actors like AJ and Nathan to tackle what can be considered "villain" roles and then we expand upon the topic of genre performances by focusing on some of our favorite villains! Also, Elric has seen Rob Zombie’s latest The Lords Of Salem and he liked it! Rob is all caught up on "The Walking Dead" and revisited 'Monster Man.' while Rebekah saw 'Jugface' and the documentary 'The American Scream.' All this and more on the latest Killer POV!

Butcher Boys is the new film written and produced by Kim Henkel, best known as the scribe behind the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre. It revolves around a group known as the Bone Boys, a vicious gang that runs the streets and deals in human flesh as if it were drugs. A young woman and her friends are selected at random to be on the menu, and insanity ensues.

We spoke with Henkel about how Butcher Boys is an evolution of Texas Chainsaw Massacre, the taboo of cannibalism, and his upcoming documentary. 

Where did the idea for Butcher Boys come from?

Jonathan Swift’s “A Modest Proposal” was a major inspiration. [“A Modest Proposal” was a satirical essay written in 1729 which suggested that poor parents sell their babies as food for the wealthy.] What I posited was that, some time after writing “A Modest Proposal,” a group of individuals decided to put it into effect for whatever reason, and the Bone Boys are an extension of those individuals.

The movie is bonkers. It starts out full-tilt and doesn’t let up. What went into the decision to not spend time getting to know the characters before the madness starts?

My approach was, “You can get to know someone on a slow train, or you can get to know someone on high-speed rails.” It’s just a mapper of cranking up the MPH but the same thing happens. You learn about these characters,  you just learn about them on the fly. There is no attempt to make this a character study; they are almost archetypes more than they are real characters. I even named two of the characters “Ken” and “Barbie!”

There are a lot of references - some veiled, some obvious - to Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Was that intentional or organic?

I originally conceived of this as a Chainsaw sequel. I looked at some basic things I was doing in Chainsaw, as well as what I was doing here, and both beg the question of what does the social entity of being a family mean? What are you entitled to do under duress, when your way of life is threatened? In Chainsaw, the family members were redneck luddites. They were victims of technological advances, and they were attempting to preserve their way of life in the face of that. The Bone Boys, whatever their origins were, they have embraced it for what it is, and made it an enterprise. In Chainsaw there was a rudimentary process of the same thing.

So this is more like an evolution of the Chainsaw story.

Yes. They look at what a social entity is entitled to do when confronted with the challenges it faces. Chainsaw’s response is, “Not only can we kill you, but we can eat you.” Butcher Boys’ response is, “Not only can we kill you and eat you, but we can harvest your unborn.”

Did you have any problems getting the film past the MPAA?

I don’t know anything about the MPAA, but I would assume that Butcher Boys is relatively tame compared to what you see today, in terms of blood and guts and gore.

Sure, but what makes it so intense is the subject matter. I think cannibalism is one of the last taboos 

Well that is the whole idea: to violate the taboos. To me, it’s not that different from what is going on in the world today. Look at some of the supposedly “legitimate” and other “outlaw” regimes around the world, and what they think they are entitled to do. We’ve got Assad gassing his own people [in Syria]. This is precisely parallel to those kinds of choices - or looks at those kind of choices that social entities make.

The film feels like it is set in a dystopian, not-too-distant future. 

It’s supposed to be set in our present dystopia, so to speak. It sort of imagines a bleaker, darker world than most of us inhabit on a day-to-day basis. There are many places in the world that are much kinder and gentler than in the Bone Boys’ world.

In the film, eating human flesh is presented like a drug addiction, and you have one character, Amphead, that seems very much like a Leatherface-type character. Is he the devolution of humanity as you fall deeper into addiction?

Absolutely. The idea is that when human beings deteriorate, the worst we become is monsters. In that sense, he is very much like Leatherface. What is our worst self? That is what he should be. The face of human kind at its very worst.

There are a lot of cameos by famous Texas Chainsaw actors. Can you talk a bit about bringing them in to your film?

It was just a really fun thing to do. Each of the cameos play a roll in the film - they are not just pasted in - so if you didn’t know who they were, they would function just as well. Why not use wonderful actors with whom I’ve worked in the past?

What is coming up for you?

I’m working on a documentary about Lou Perry [who played L.G. McPeters in Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2]. He’s had small parts in a lot of major films. You’ll see him pop up in Poltergeist or Blues Brothers or Boys Don’t Cry, he’s an interesting character. We started shooting this documentary in 2007, and in 2009 he was murdered, right in the middle of the process. So we’ve got to find a way to pull that together and finish that up.

Butcher Boys is now available on VOD.

Catch up on season three of The Walking Dead before the fourth season returns to AMC on October 13th. But do it the whimsical way: with "The Seussing Dead," a Dr. Seuss-style story that hits all the high points of season three. Brought to you by CineFix as part of their "I'd Watch That!" series. 

You'd think that once a show is a few weeks into shooting, the cast would be pretty much set. Not so with American Horror Story: Coven, which continues to add actors to its enormous cast.

The newest addition is Danny Huston, a writer / director / actor with a long list of credits. Among those that FEARnet readers would likely be most familiar with: Hitchcock, Clash of the Titans, and 30 Days of Night. Huston will play the "sexy" and "dangerous" boyfriend to Jessica Lange's grand dame witch, Fiona.

American Horror Story: Coven is set in New Orleans and revolves around witches. In addition to Lange's "supreme witch" Fiona, the cast includes Kathy Bates as historical socialite and serial murderer Madame LaLaurie and Angela Bassett as voodoo priestess Marie Laveau. The season is said to cover 300 years of witchcraft history, and modern witches who are fighting against extinction. The season premieres October 9th on FX. 

Source: Hollywood Reporter

German animator Annette Jung recreated a one-minute segment of Michael Jackson's "Thriller" video. In Legos. Specifically, she recreated Jackson's werewolf transformation scene, and it is dead on. I would love to see her take on the zombie dance next!

And for reference, in case you can't remember (or just want to relive the awesomeness), the original "Thriller" video:

In 1987, Minute Maid forever changed the lives of horror fans when they added a flavor called Ecto Cooler to their Hi-C line of fruit juices, a tie-in with the cartoon series The Real Ghostbusters.  The juice box emblazoned with the image of loveable Ghostbusters character Slimer, the drink itself was flavored orange but colored green, allowing kids to feel like they were sucking up liquified Slimer through a straw, but pleasing their taste buds with a much more appealing flavor than Ectoplasm.

Though Ecto Cooler hasn't been seen on store shelves for over 10 years now, it's still to this day one of the most beloved products to ever enter our lives, fondly remembered by those who were lucky enough to experience it, and hands down one of the most nostalgia inducing relics of all time.  In fact, Ghostbusters fans have for years been trying to perfect the formula to make their own DIY version of the drink, unable to rest until that sweet tangerine taste touches their lips one more time.

Given the recent return of General Mills' Frute Brute and Yummy Mummy cereals, it seems like anything is possible right now on the Halloween front, and with fan demand at an all time high, I quite frankly wouldn't be surprised to see Ecto Cooler return to shelves at some point in the not too distant future.  Wishful thinking?  Perhaps.  But if the Brute and the Mummy taught us anything this year, it's that anything is possible.

Cliff over at The Holidaze blog was recently struck with this same thought, daydreaming about the return of the most beloved juice drink ever created by man.  But Cliff went even one step further in his daydreaming, imagining a world where Minute Maid not only brought back Ecto Cooler, but also added a bunch of new horror inspired flavors to their Hi-C line.  

Much like the recent collaborations between myself and artist Frank Browning, over on my blog Freddy In Space, Cliff decided to take matters into his own hands and bring the tasty idea to life, since he knew it was something that would never actually happen.  And thus, the Hi-C Horror Flavors were born, a medley of delicious juices inspired by horror films like Friday the 13th, Nightmare on Elm Street and Trick 'r Treat.

Check out the clever concoctions he came up with, which are guaranteed to leave you salivating for more!

It's all holidays all the time over on The Holidaze, whether Cliff's talking Easter or Christmas, and you can be sure that he's got a whole lot more Halloween fun in store for ya through the big day.  So be sure to keep an eye on the site in the coming weeks, and all year long for that matter!

Which Hi-C Horror Flavor would you most like to taste?  Comment below and let us know!