Baking collective Eat Your Heart Out is an extraordinary collection of UK food artists who have come up with some of the grossest and NSFW cakes you have ever seen. They go way beyond bachelorette party penis cake fare and into much more disturbing territory.

Eat Your Heart Out makes pops, specialty chocolates, and anatomically correct confections. Check out some images of their work below, but beware the people looking over your shoulder.
 

Bleeding Brain Cake



Fungus Toenail Cookies



Till Death Do Us Part Chocolate Skull



Castrated Testicles Chocolates

While scanning the official 'Dexter' store on Showtime's website this morning, we inadvertently uncovered the scheduled release date of the Seventh Season on Blu-Ray and DVD. So get ready to celebrate the summer with 'Dexter' as Season 7 arrives on May 14th, 3 months earlier than usual! Not a surprise considering the 8th and final season is also debuting June 30th as opposed to it's usual late September start. You can pre-order the Blu-Ray or DVD boxed set of 'Dexter' Season 7 via Showtime's website or Amazon right now.

Synopsis: DEXTER returns to DVD and Blu-ray in explosive fashion with Season 7, as Dexter is finally forced to confront his greatest fear, as Debra witnesses his insatiable, ritualistic slaying of a killer. Now Deb knows the secret of his Dark Passenger, his undeniable thirst for blood, and the Code that their father Harry instilled in him as a young boy. But as Deb tries to reconcile the unfathomable idea that her beloved, mild-mannered brother is Miami's most notorious serial killer, Dexter is still pulled by his natural impulses to seek out the guilty and exact his brand of vigilante justice. Michael C. Hall, Jennifer Carpenter, Ray Stevenson, Yvonne Strahovski all star.  

FEARnet dedicates this post to former Iron Maiden drummer Clive Burr, who we're sorry to say passed away last night. Clive had a long history of illness, incluing Multiple Sclerosis, and died peacefully in his sleep. One of classic metal's outstanding percussionists, Clive's legacy includes the first three Maiden albums, particularly the immortal Number of the Beast. Keep him in your thoughts today, and if you want to offer a toast in his honor, we've got just the thing...

Named after the song Trooper, Iron Maiden’s brew was developed by Bruce Dickinson himself. Although it’s unclear what beer has to do with the Charge of the Light Brigade, it sounds quite tasty.

Description below:

Trooper is a premium British beer inspired by Iron Maiden and handcrafted at Robinsons brewery. Being a real ale enthusiast, vocalist Bruce Dickinson has developed a beer which has true depth of character. Malt flavours and citric notes from a unique blend of Bobec, Goldings and Cascade hops dominate this deep golden ale with a subtle hint of lemon.

Dickinson introduces Trooper in the video below. More information on the website here.
 

Zombies have become so trendy in the past ten years. People who barely know what the undead are about will tell you that they just love zombies. There are YA novels about zombies; there are bumper stickers that reference the zombie apocalypse. But, most people that profess an undying love for these revenants know little or nothing about zombie cinema, prior to 28 Days Later. Obviously, we think that lack of knowledge is totally uncool.

As any good horror fan knows, George A. Romero was instrumental in popularizing zombie cinema and deserves most of the credit for the ‘zombie mania’ that exists today. However, there is a veritable plethora of zombie cinema that came out of Europe in the ‘70s and ‘80s that the casual horror fan may not be intimately familiar with. Being the altruistic and well-informed people we are, we have opted to drop some knowledge. We’ve put together a list of five of our favorite retro European zombie films. Who knows? You may even find a title or two on our list that you haven’t yet seen.

The Living Dead at Manchester Morgue

The story plays out something like this: A couple of strangers, brought together by fate, share a drive to Manchester. And true to form, the pair meets with unexpected consequences

The Living Dead at Manchester Morgue, a Spanish/Italian co-production, has been known by countless titles. To some, it may be better known as Let Sleeping Corpses Lie. Regardless of what title you know the film by; it is an excellent zombie film.

The zombie carnage is not in every scene, but it does not hold back when it is called for. The Living Dead at Manchester Morgue offers organ removal and a bit of the old ultra violence, here and there. Manchester Morgue’s sometimes understated approach to on screen violence allows the film to focus a bit more on the story and it even delivers a touch of social commentary. Some viewers have criticized Manchester Morgue for being slowly paced, but I didn’t get that. For me, it’s more like slow burn, leading up to a very dramatic conclusion.

The ending is pretty great. It would have been nice to see a follow up. The final scene provided a potential set up for a second film, but audiences never got to see another installment.

Nightmare City

Nightmare City really hits the ground running. Not even ten minutes in to the film, we see police officers, with machine guns, waging full-blown zombie warfare. Most zombie films have a scene like this in the last thirty minutes of the film, but to get that kind of action right after the opening credits is a nice change of pace. I remember being pleasantly surprised, the first time I saw Nightmare City.

There is plenty of camp for camp sake in Nightmare City. We see girls doing disco aerobics attacked by zombies, which is farcical enough on its own. But, the camera is slowed down to display the carnage in slow motion for this scene. It’s ridiculous fun. We see zombies cutting off body parts with maniacal facial expressions that you will have to see to believe. Nightmare City vacillates between campy and serious, throughout the course of the film and it walks the line well.

The film doesn’t hassle much with character development. A lot of the film is just introducing characters to kill them off.  Though that can be a risky move, Nightmare City more than pulls it off. Most of the characters that do stick around for the long haul are witty and deliver some clever and snarky bantering throughout the less eventful scenes.

The only downside Nightmare City is that the effects haven’t aged very well. In some of the scenes, the zombie makeup looks like mud. However, since the movie is already quite campy, I wasn’t bothered too badly that some of the effects didn’t stand the test of time. The actual scenes of carnage don’t look as bad. And, there is a fair amount of carnage. There are plenty of impalements, exploding heads, and the like to keep the average gore hound happy.

One key difference between Nightmare City and most other zombie films is that the zombies in this film actually crave blood instead of the human brain. The plus side to that is that we get to see liberal use of stage blood.

The ending will probably polarize viewers. It’s a love it or hate it kind of ending. Although, it wasn’t perfect, I loved it.

Burial Ground

In Burial Ground, an ancient crypt is opened at the same location a group of couples have identified as a vacation spot. We soon find the undead appearing as uninvited party guests.

The couples in this film have an insatiable appetite for sex. They all want to screw their brains out, every chance they get: inside, outside, in public, in private. They don’t care. They just need sex and they need it now. What they really don’t want is to be distracted from their constant fornication by vexatious zombies. They just want to get their swerve on without interruption. But, who doesn’t love a film about sex-crazed couples being systematically picked off by the undead?

The characters aren’t very likable, but that makes it more fun to cheer for their ultimate demise. And, there are some truly fantastic demises in this film. The carnage in is epic. We see zombies grazing over a human corpse and mining the organs as if they were at a supermarket.

There is some absolutely outrageous dialogue that would never fly today. (“You look just like a little whore. But, I like that in a girl.”)

All in all, Burial Ground is a really fun film. There’s enough sex and gore to keep viewers glued to their television for the entirety of the film.

Zombie

One of two Lucio Fulci title to make our list, Zombie is one of Fulci’s most celebrated films.  It is a well-loved film, amongst cult audiences, and even gets recognition in some mainstream circles. Guillermo del Toro is a huge champion of the film.  Zombie is every bit as grotesque as one would expect from a Fulci film. Towards the beginning of the film, we find the coast guard investigating a seemingly abandoned and mysterious boat. Of course, the officers find much more than they were expecting. We see severed hands, arterial spray, worm-like creatures, and, of course, zombie attacks during their investigation. These events are just a precursor to what’s to come.

For the connoisseur of gratuitous nudity, Zombie has plenty to offer. There are bare nipples in the shower, bare nipples on a boat, and bare nipples under water.

Zombie may just hold the distinct honor of being the only zombie film to feature a zombie attacking a topless female scuba diver. Making the scene even more bizarre, the zombie tussles with a shark after the unsuccessful attack on his underdressed victim.  I must say that they don’t make movies like they used to.

Zombie is noteworthy for exploring a zombie outbreak by way of voodoo, rather than some of the more typical methods of reanimating the dead. It is one of only a few films to take this approach, Wes Craven’s The Serpent and the Rainbow being another.

The Beyond

Liza, a New Yorker, learns that she has inherited a hotel in New Orleans. The renovations for the hotel exhume problems she would never have expected, even in her most depraved dreams. Liza, The hotel’s sassy new proprietor, seems to think that if you’ve come in to a property that is situated over a gateway to Hell, it’s best to just pretend like everything is fine. Because, really, what could go wrong in that scenario?

One of the main reasons we love The Beyond so much is because it is so different from its contemporaries. It’s part ‘haunted house’ tale and part ‘zombie film’. The pairing of the two sub-genres goes off without a hitch

The Beyond is really The Godfather of Gore at his grotesque best. Lucio Fulci treats his audience to more than one scene of good old-fashioned eyeball popping fun as well as a segment where a man is pulled apart by a cluster of irksome and blood thirsty arachnids. We even bear witness to a blind woman getting her neck ripped out by her companion dog. There’s a lot to see, here. Gore hounds will not be disappointed.

The Beyond is not particularly cohesive, but very few Italian horror films have ever been accused of cohesion. Though, it lacks a strong plot, this movie still scares me, to this day. Between the premise and the ample jump scares; The Beyond keeps me on my toes.

Things are rolling along for Columbus, Wichita, Little Rock and Tallahassee on the set of Amazon’s Zombieland TV series.

Over the past few weeks, there’s been quite a bit of casting news around the show, but not too much in the way of plot details. We’re hoping that will change soon. Until then, feast your eyes on the first images from the set via our friends at ScreenCrush.

They are pretty mental and the gore level looks to be very much in line with Ruben Fleischer’s original.  Go to ScreenCrush for more details and images.
 

It's no secret that I am not a fan of Rob Zombie's films. His music? Fun stuff. His allegedly hardcore horror-flavored image? Not so much. Seems more like a marketing gimmick to me, but that's not to say I think Mr. Zombie is a "poser." I've read enough interviews to know that the guy is a lot smarter than you might think, and he definitely knows his fair share about horror cinema. But after suffering, struggling, and mentally slapping myself throughout House of 1,000 Corpses, The Devil's Rejects, and his two Halloween remakes, I simply had no interest in exploring any more of the man's movies.

Fortunately a few years have passed and I've calmed down about how freaking stupidly awful Halloween 2 was (arggghhh!), so when I realized that Rob Zombie's long-arriving The Lords of Salem was finally available for viewing, I decided to wipe the slate clean and see what the guy could do with a good, old-fashioned occult story about witches gone wild. My open-mindedness was rewarded only halfway; in other words, while The Lords of Salem is certainly Rob Zombie's most compelling, cohesive, and mature horror film thus far, it still suffers from the myriad problems that plagued his earlier films.

The Lords of Salem is about a rockin' indie DJ (Sheri Moon Zombie, of course) who listens to a mysterious band of musicians called "The Lords," which leads her on a lurid, languid descent into witchcraft-related madness. There are several ostensible subplots about Heidi's co-workers (Ken Foree and Jeff Daniel Phillips), a local author (Bruce Davison) who starts poking around for clues, and a trio of snooping older ladies who are up to no good -- but Zombie seems single-mindedly insistent on focusing almost exclusively on... well, his wife. Potentially cool ideas are plunked on to the screen and most of them are promptly forgotten about. That's just plain old annoying, truth be told.

Chalk it up to bad editing, confused writing, or just plain old laziness, but virtually everything that's potentially interesting about The Lords of Salem is pushed aside so that Zombie can focus on his (rather uninteresting) main character while dipping his brush into a half-dozen moments, themes, and characters that come directly from the filmography of Dario Argento. It doesn't help matters much that, when it comes to shocks and scares, Mr. Zombie has no interest in composing a complete shot. Numerous visions of demonic creepiness are completely undone due to a complete reliance on the center of the movie screen, and some of the movie's most potentially disturbing moments are ineffective because Zombie either lingers too long on, or smash-cuts away from, something goofy.

For all of those complaints, however, the Zombie spouses and their collaborators do a pretty fine job of setting up Heidi's unpleasant plight while laying down a few simple clues about the impending witch invasion. A few of the stand-alone horror moments (including a pretty eerie prologue) are handled very well, but for all its halfway-compelling ideas and characters, The Lords of Salem simply flies off the rails at the beginning of Act III, which is precisely when it should be doing the opposite. The film displays an irritating devotion to "nightmare vision" scares, which do make sense in a film about a woman haunted by witches, but each successive sequence lowers the potential scariness of the movie. We need to be creeped out for 90-some minutes, not just two or three times in a film that goes from ominous to familiar to downright incomprehensible. 

If Rob Zombie has improved as a director, and while I don't care much for Salem I'd argue that he has, it's in the quieter moments, weirdly enough. The man clearly has an eye for horror, which makes one wish he worked more as a director and less as a screenwriter. Reined in by a tough producer and a locked screenplay, Rob Zombie could probably make some pretty bad-ass horror flicks. Left to his own devices, Zombie delivers garish, ugly, confusing movies that may try to evoke the cult classics of the '70s and '80s, but The Lords of Salem works as an indicator that the man may be a better visual filmmaker than I've given him credit for.

Unfortunately he's still "0 for 5" in my book, but his latest effort still stands as Rob Zombie's most compelling and "complete" movie. And yes, I do look forward to his next film.

READ FEARnet's PARTNER REVIEWS OF THE LORDS OF SALEM

With the demise of the drive-in theater rose the behemoth home video industry – and a torch was passed from one era of low-budget directors and producers to a new batch of underfunded fringe filmmakers.  These fresh faces had new technology, and a new distribution game… but a similar reckless abandon and rebellious tenacity as their b-movie forefathers.

Fright fans were introduced to a new breed of horror movies - made for tens of thousands of dollars… or thousands of dollars… or a few hundred bucks and a borrowed video camera.  Unpaid amateurs / quasi-professionals made up the bulk of most casts and crews - and often, the directors and producers were quite inexperienced themselves.

Join me for a visit to the heyday of the direct-to-video, micro-budget horror movie.  We’ll explore this strange new cinema of the 80s and see how it evolved through the ‘90s.  (Be sure to adjust tracking for best picture quality.)

In the early 80s, videotape and analog editing systems weren’t good enough for making feature films… but people started doing it anyway.  Boardinghouse (1982), directed by John Wintergate, takes the credit for the first feature length movie shot on videotape.  It was printed to 35mm film and theatrically distributed, so it represents a bridge between the old and the new.  Videotape was functioning now as a shooting format, but even though the home video market had built up its momentum, that pesky theatrical release was still a necessity.  Until…

Direct-to-video movies Sledgehammer (1983), directed by David A. Prior, A Polish Vampire In Burbank (1985), directed by Mark Pirro, Blood Cult (1985), directed by Christopher Lewis, and Truth or Dare?: A Critical Madness (1986), directed by Tim Ritter paved the way.  A new business model was established.  Theatrical release had been excluded from the loop.  

Soon, a slew of ultra-cheap movies were being released direct-to-video.  The late ‘80s and the 1990s saw the emergence of filmmakers who would be ridiculed by critics for their no-budget tactics, yet worshipped by new hard line cult followers.  Usually shooting on video to keep costs to a minimum, these filmmakers fused artistic freedom with exceedingly unrefined DIY methods to conceive a whole new category of cinema.

With no theatrical distributors or exhibitors to please, and with no MPAA to concern themselves with, micro-budget filmmakers had the freedom to do whatever they pleased.  Lurid material and outlandish creative choices became fair game.  

Directors like Hugh Gallagher (Gorgasm, Gorotica) took the sex and depravity to extremes.  Prolific directors like Ron Ford (Alien Force) and Kevin J. Lindenmuth (Addicted to Murder) would build cult followings with their horror/sci-fi contributions.  Low-fi, over-the-top gore was splattered across the screen by filmmakers like Todd Sheets (Zombie Bloodbath, Goblin), Leif Jonker (Darkness), Ronnie Sortor (Sinistre), Andreas Schnaas (Violent Shit), and Olaf Ittenbach (The Burning Moon).  Unbridled insanity poured forth from directors like Matt Jaissle (The Necro Files) and the Polonia Brothers (Saurians, Feeders).  Directors like Scooter McCrae (Shatter Dead) and Andrew Copp (The Mutilation Man) submitted brooding art film / exploitation film hybrids with intriguing narrative and visual agendas.

Darkness (1997), Leif Jonker’s Kansas-lensed vampire bloodbath, maintains a strong cult following today.  Shot on Super 8 film by a buncha youngsters, the weak links in this DIY movie are outweighed by the earnestness with which the filmmakers and cast attacked the subject matter.  Jonker’s passion for the film is evident in every frame.  There is a ferocity to this carnage-filled flick that makes it stand out.

Another movie that still maintains an ardent following is Scooter McCrae’s Shatter Dead (1994), shot in New York.  A tale of the undead trying to cope in society alongside the living, Shatter Dead gained attention for its somber tone and imaginative, unsettling plot.  It is one of the most infamous of the 80s/90s micro-budget films, and it did more than most movies to bring attention to the shot-on-video output of the era.

Two true heroes of the micro-budget scene are Mark and John Polonia, Pennsylvania-based twin brothers who never let lack of budget derail them.  They began rolling camera in the mid-80s, and soon cranked out their first feature, the (now rather notorious) shot-on-video Splatter Farm (1987).  Their dinosaur adventure movie, Saurians (1994) gains its tremendous charm by aiming so very high on such a very low budget.  Shot on Super 8 film, Saurians attempts to be Jurassic Park on a budget that would make Ed Wood cry.  Using a variety of film-trickery, including early, extremely clunky computer imagery, Saurians ranks as one of the most entertaining flicks to emerge from the 80s/90s micro-budget scene.  The ridiculous but fun Feeders (1996), one of the Polonia’s bigger hits, features rubber alien puppets, and crude computer generated UFO special effects.  Feeders 2: Slay Bells (1998) delivers pure b-movie magic with a ludicrous tale of Santa Claus’s fight to save the world from alien invasion.  Refusing to let time constraints stop ‘em, the Polonias allegedly shot the feature-length Terror House (1998) in only 48 hours!

Until John Polonia passed away at the age of 39 in 2008, the twins remained relentless in getting no-budget movies made, no matter what negativity, road blocks, or financial set-backs confronted them.

Other names drifted to the head of the pack, partly because they submerged themselves in the distribution and marketing game, and functioned as producers on other filmmakers’ movies.  New York-based Ron Bonk (The Vicious Sweet) is one of these fringe-cinema leaders.  He has worked consistently as a director, producer, and distributor for the past two decades.  Bonk unleashed his most recent film, Ms. Cannibal Holocaust just last year.  

Perhaps the most influential figure in 90s direct-to-video outsider cinema is J.R. Bookwalter – writer, director, producer, and editor… as well as founder of Tempe Video, a trailblazing production and distribution company.  Bookwalter hit the ground running with his blood-soaked first feature film, The Dead Next Door (1989), an Ohio-lensed movie that resulted from a business partnership with Sam Raimi (The Evil Dead, Oz The Great And Powerful).  

The Dead Next Door - often credited as the most expensive Super 8 feature film ever made - was a hit with horror fans, and gave Bookwalter’s career an early boost.  When Bookwalter directed the significantly lower-budgeted features Ozone (1995) and The Sandman (1995), he raised the bar for poverty-stricken shot-on-video movies.  While still DIY rough, these movies aimed for bigger and better, exhibiting a luster and grasp of the craft that most other SOV movies hadn’t achieved.  

Looking back at the direct-to-video movies of the 80s and 90s, one notes that often, two elements make these movies entertaining:  audacity and adversity.  A filmmaker’s freedom and willingness to put just about anything on screen results in some bizarre, shocking, and/or fun flicks - a welcomed antidote to the seen-it-all-before blues one can contract from watching a steady stream of bigger budget films.  Also, when lack of money and/or professional experience cause the filmmakers and cast to struggle - fighting against all odds just to get the movie made - it adds to the movie’s personality… it’s sometimes charming, sometime hilarious, and on occasion, rather impressive.

Removing theatrical release from the equation built the foundation upon which today’s indie film distribution machine is built.  Back in the 80s, the major studios had much to do with the videocassette rental industry, but nothing to do with the birth of non-theatrical, direct-to-video feature films.  Filmmakers who work today in this market, releasing their movies via disc and VOD, owe thanks not to Hollywood, but to the filmmakers listed above.  These are the gentlemen who took the risks, blazed the trail, and left in their wake a wealth of lawless, anything-goes movies.

Final Destination and Shark Night 3D fans, listen up!

Horror Movie a Day will pay tribute to the late, great David Ellis with a 10-year anniversary midnight screening of Final Destination 2 at the New Beverly on March 16.

Why David Ellis?  HMAD midnight screening programmer Brian Collins explains:

His movies were hit or miss, but I loved that David Ellis was one of the few non-pretentious big-screen directors out there, making fun genre flicks and having a good sense of humor about himself and his movies (he wanted Shark Night to go out under its original title: Untitled 3D Shark Thriller). So it's a huge shame that he suddenly passed away a couple months back while gearing up to reteam with his Snakes on a Plane star Samuel L Jackson on a new film, because we're not likely to have another guy like him any time soon.

And we're also not likely to ever have another Final Destination film as glorious as 2003's Final Destination 2, easily the best in the series and ironically the only one I never got to see theatrically! I was on my internship at the time and could only afford to see one movie a month, and I chose Darkness Falls. Yeah, good call, BC. So I am beyond stoked to present the film for both its 10th anniversary, but also a bit saddened that it will also serve as a tribute to Ellis, who would go on to direct the 4th film (the first of the series to be in 3D) and the underrated Cellular, along with the aforementioned B-movie gems. His movies may not be critical hits, but damned if they didn't always make for a fun time with a packed crowd, so this should be a pretty great screening.

Final Destination 2 will be shown in 35mm at the New Beverly Cinema, located at 7165 Beverly Blvd in Los Angeles, 90036. Tickets are just $8. Don’t miss it! More information about the event here.
 

Get ready, kids: the first clip from the new Evil Dead has been posted. It's a very brief scene, featuring the old reliable horror prop the medicine cabinet mirror, but it's pretty intense nonetheless. Dig it!

File this in the category of “Childhood Dreams Can Come True.”

Marvel comics superheroes are going on a road trip and fans may be treated to something they’ve never seen before: the entire Marvel universe together on one stage.

“While no concrete details about what the live-action show have been revealed — we’re assuming there’s no ice involved — the production will involve Marvel Comics’ vast collection of characters, meaning it can deliver something movie fans may never see on the big screen: Spider-Man and the X-Men, Daredevil and the Fantastic Four paired with The Avengers. Because of movie rights held by Sony and 20th Century Fox, those characters are prevented from appearing in the Disney/Marvel franchise, but there are no such restraints for things like live tour,” Deadline said.

The Marvel Universe Live tour, featuring “state-of-the-art special effects, pyrotechnics, aerial displays, and martial arts,” will launch in July 2014 and hit 85 cities in North America.

via Deadline

• Audio Commentary with Director Tony Maylam and International Film Journalist Alan Jones
• Audio Commentary with stars Shelley Bruce and Bonnie Deroski
• Blood ‘n’ Fire Memories– A detailed look at the creation of the film’s make-up effects with Special Effects Artist 
• Tom Savini
• Slash & Cut – An interview with editor Jack Sholder
• Cropsy Speaks– An interview with actor Lou David
• Summer Camp Nightmare– An interview with actress Leah Ayres
• Behind-the-Scenes Footage
• Theatrical Trailer
• Make-Up Effects Still Gallery
• Poster & Still Gallery

• Audio Commentary with Justin Beahm and Historian Jim Presley
• Small Town Lawman– An Interview with actor Andrew Prine
• Survivor Stories– An Interview with actress Dawn Wells
• Eye of the Beholder– An Interview with Director of Photography James Roberson
• Theatrical Trailer
• Essay by writer Brian Albright
• Poster & Still Gallery

One of the most long-awaited sequels has finally landed a director. Signed on to Jurassic Park 4 is... Colin Trevorrow.

Never hear of him? That's fair. He is a relative newbie to Hollywood. His feature directorial debut came only last year, with indie flick Safety Not Guaranteed. Besides that, he has a doctumentary (Reality Show) and a writing credit (Making Revolution) to his resume.

This could be very good for Jurassic Park 4... or very, very bad. On the one hand, a green director means that he doesn't come with any baggage, any bad habits, or any expectations. On the other hand, can someone with so little experience handle such a massive undertaking - in 3D, no less?

Trevorrow will work off a script from Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver, who wrote Rise of the Planet of the Apes. Steven Spielberg, who directed the first two Jurassic Park films, will executive produce the newest addition to the franchise.

Source: Deadline

• New 1.33:1 digital transfer mastered from producer Manfred O. Jelinski’s 16mm inter-negative
• German language with removable English subtitles
• Full running audio commentary by Jörg Buttgereit and co-author Franz Rodenkirchen
• Featurette with outtakes and interviews with Buttgereit and producer Manfred O. Jelinski.
• The Making of Nekromantik documentary featuring behind the scenes footage
• Still gallery of over 100 stills from the collection of Jörg Buttgereit and Manfred O. Jelinski
• Liner notes by director Jörg Buttgereit, former Deep Red Magazine writer Graham Rae, and Combat Shock director Buddy Giovinazzo
• Limited edition VHS of Buttgereit’s Super 8 short film Hot Love

This week in horror, moviegoers were introduced to the animal that is Eddie Quist. Good ole Eddie, he’s a romantic of sorts, who just happens to be a serial killer and a werewolf. Joe Dante’s movie is awesomely ‘80s and totally L.A. and, as every review and Wikipedia page will attest to, made werewolves funny and way cooler looking than the classic Universal wolfman, thanks to Rob Bottin’s effects. Also, it stars the extraordinary Dee Wallace.

Six years after Joe Dante’s modern wolfman hit screens, fans were treated to a revisited version of Sam Raimi’s Evil Dead. Evil Dead 2: Dead By Dawn doesn’t really need an introduction, and is somewhere between remake and sequel. Raimi had a bigger budget, allowing him to add new scenes, new characters and more gore, including the Evil Hand.

“She bit me, man. She took a chunk clean right outa' me .” Finally, 2002 brought us Paul W.S. Anderson’s Resident Evil based on the popular video game.  But most importantly, he brought us Milla Jovovich and Michelle Rodriguez toting guns and killing flesh-hungry scientist zombies.
 

Title:The Howling
Released: March 13, 1981
Tagline: Imagine your worst fear a reality.
 

Title: Evil Dead 2
Released: March 13, 1987
Tagline: 2 Terrifying, 2 Frightening, 2 Much.

Title:Resident Evil
Released: March 15, 2002
Tagline: A secret experiment. A deadly virus. A fatal mistake.

Call it weird, experimental, avant-garde, or artsy-fartsy stream-of-consciousness film school strangeness, but there's certainly something to be said for a dark indie thriller that eschews a traditional narrative in favor of something a bit more personal, abstract, and bizarre. Films like Calvin Reeder's The Rambler, for example, may shine at a film festival, but it's a rather tough sell to viewers who are looking for more traditional form of "scary stories" -- but that's not to say there's no room for the cinematic oddities.

What's indecipherable to you may be strangely straightforward to another, and therein lies the beauty of art. In other words, if you're looking for a "normal" thriller about an ex-con who hitchhikes his way across the country and stumbles across all sorts of violent and unkind people, The Rambler might throw you for a loop, or even piss you off. If, on the other hand, you're open to a grungy yet weirdly cerebral film that all but scoffs at a traditional narrative structure, The Rambler may prove to be an arcane little treat.

If this was a standard indie horror movie I could describe The Rambler like so: "A quiet and inscrutable convict is released from prison and begins a long, bizarre, and very disturbing journey to his brother's farm in Oregon. Along the way our anti-hero deals with femmes fatale, tortured ghosts, mad scientists, sleazy scam artists, and super-freaky religious nuts... but the unnamed rambler may soon discover that the darkest of all the hidden evils is (dun dun dunnn) himself!"

Again, that's how I might describe The Rambler if it offered anything even remotely resembling a traditional narrative. The film starts out simply enough, but once the rambler (a calmly compelling Dermot Mulroney) begins to ramble, his back-road exploits go from disturbing to bizarre to virtually incomprehensible. And I don't mean that the movie tries to make "linear" sense but fails. I mean that Mr. Reeder is more interested in a long walk through hell as seen through the eyes of an ex-convict who generally seems sedate -- but is actually quite madly insane. Although it's never presented in a first-person perspective, The Rambler feels like a distant cousin to the new Maniac remake: horror stories told from inside the mind of a calm, cool lunatic.

Whether Reeder's style of abstract horror works for you or not, there's little denying that there's a good deal of darkly fascinating material to be found in his sophomore effort. (It seems safe to say that The Rambler is a solid step up from The Oregonian, Reeder's first cinematic experiment.) The Rambler is an intentionally strange horror flick that practically asks you to dive right in and draw your own conclusions. I'm not even certain how much I "liked" The Rambler, but it still stands as evidence of a young filmmaker who knows all about the standard horror cliches and conventions but is firmly intent on delivering them with a great deal of twisted humor, a welcome splash of shocking horror, and a willfully difficult narrative structure.

Also this: even when I had no idea what was going on, I appreciated the lovely cinematography. No joke. For an indie flick this dark, strange, and obsessed with the ugliest side of humanity... it really looks pretty!

READ FEARnet's PARTNER REVIEWS OF THE RAMBLER

Paris art gallery La Gaite Lyrique currently has an exhibit running through April 7th called "Arrrgh! Monsters in Fashion!" As a follow-up to the gallery's 2011 show, Pictoplasma, Arrrrgh! features 58 designers and 80 looks that are all monsters in one way or another. It is doubtful that any of these outfits would actually scare someone (unless you wore it to your cousin's Bar Mitzvah) but it is nice that monsters are getting their due.

From the website: "Do you dare to mix with these monsters? The strange, the unnerving, the seductive or pop? Rub shoulders with around eighty creatures, who'll be spilling down off the catwalk with one desire: to get to know you better. ARRRGH! questions our conceptions of beauty and identity. Freed from all constraints, the creators are pushing the boat out to present their most avant-gardist work, disolving the barriers between costume and clothing design."

Enough jibber-jabber. You want to see the pictures.

Photos from Vintage Traffic

Arrrgh! Monsters in Fashion runs at La Gaite Lyrique in Paris now through April 7th, 2013. In addition to the exhibit, guided tours, workshops, and children's activities are also planned to tie in with the show. 

Remember how awesome that red-band trailer for Danny Boyle's latest feature film 'Trance' was when we debuted it last month? Well, now we've got 2 new clips from the flick to tide you over until the April 5th release. Starring James McAvoy (X-Men: First Class), Vincent Cassel (Black Swan) and Rosario Dawson (Grindhouse), Trance is co-written by Boyle and John Hodge, and weaves the tale of an art auctioneer who becomes entangled with a group of criminals and teams up with a hypnotherapist in an effort to recover a lost painting.