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April 2009
Halloween Comics Embargo To End?
If you’re an avid reader of Stefan Hutchinson’s HALLOWEEN comics for Devil’s Due based on the classic series continuity, you’re surely as forlorn as I over the long-ass delay for HALLOWEEN: THE FIRST DEATH OF LAURIE STRODE #3 and continued slate of mini-series like HALLOWEEN: THE MARK OF THORN.
While there has been no official announcement yet, this “flipbook” series of images posted by mini-series artist Jeff Zornow has broken the dread-soaked silence, teasing that something is brewing and the comics might soon be back on track.
Think I’m being melodramatic about their absense? Just check out previously released titles HALLOWEEN: NIGHTDANCE & HALLOWEEN: 3o YEARS OF TERROR to see you don’t need film-stock to tell grippingly powerful tales in the HALLOWEEN universe. We’ll keep you updated on any further developments!
Source: OHMB
DVD Announcement: Psychos In Love
Streeting April 28 from Media Blaster’s genre arm Shriek Show comes Gorman Bechard’s PSYCHOS IN LOVE (1987) one of the most charming retro slashers to date – a slash-rom-com, and with a killer theme song to boot. What a pants tingler to see the original Wizard Video artwork is being used!
Joe (Carmine Capobianco) was a lonely psychotic killer. After all, it’s tough to find the right woman when you re compelled to murder them after a few dates. When Kate (Debi Thibeault) walked into Joe’s bar, she seemed perfect. She was gorgeous, she hated grapes. But each of them had a terrible secret: they were killers. Is that the kind of thing you can risk telling the one you love? They shared passion, they shared laughter, they shared a few little murders. But then they met Herman, a local plumber and part-time cannibal, and he wanted bodies. Kate and Joe are two young lovers just trying to make ends meet. And everyone they meet, meets the end pretty quickly. It s not Ozzie and Harriet, but it’s Psychos in Love!
Special Features:
- Feature Commentary with Gorman Bechard (2009)
- Feature Commentary with Gorman Bechard & Carmine Capobianco (2005)
- Original Trailer
- Alternate Opening
- Making Psychos in Love
- Extensive Photo Gallery
- Extended Scenes
- Highlights from Psychos in Love: The Stageplay
- Gorman Bechard Short Films: Bartholomew the Strangler, Short Film (1983), The Only Take, Short Film (1983), Objects in the Mirror are Further Than They Appear, Short Film (2003)
- Gorman Bechard Trailers: You Are Alone (2005), Friends with Benefits (2009)
- Video Promo for Gorman Bechard Novel: Unwound (2007)
Visit the official website put together by Bechard himself @ psychosinlove.com
Slaughter High #1 Best Selling DVD!
In a win for retro slashers everywhere, SLAUGHTER HIGH (1986) is the #1 selling title at DVD Empire currently, out of all possible DVDs to buy. One of Lionsgate’s other releases this week, MY BEST FRIEND IS A VAMPIRE, is #2, proving everyone indeed loves the 80’s. With #3 being THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL, it warms the heart to know that Simon Scuddamore has beaten Keanu Reeves. Rest easy, misunderstood cult hero.
Apparently the DVD buying public at large were unfettered by the lack of special features/film transfer and opted to dip in to a little Marty Rantzen goodness anyway. And that’s a good thing – at the end of the day, it’s the film that matters.
And as much as we’ve slagged the cover art, it was neat that Lionsgate were able to add an UNCUT banner onto the packaging.
Welcome Back To The Funhouse
You got a purty mouth….
A remake of Tobe Hooper’s underrated 1981 monster/slasher hybrid The Funhouse has been bandied about for a couple of years now, so it’s ‘upcoming’ status isn’t really news. However, only recently the project seems to be gaining traction. Remake-mongers Strike Entertainment (production arm of Universal), who previously hit gold with the unexpectedly-not-abominable remake of Dawn Of The Dead, and has a “companion piece” to carpenter’s Thing in the works, is now spearheading the project. While no writers or directors have been announced, Alien Raiders‘ director Ben Rock let slip an intriguing detail on the latest installment of Dread Central‘s podcast Dinner For Fiends. He mentioned to DC’s Steve “Uncle Creepy” Barton that a director of a well-recieved short film was close to nabbing the job to helm the upcoming reduxe. Now, that really doesn’t narrow the field much–if at all–but it does allow for some interesting speculation.
What’s my guess?
Well, keep in mind that this is utter, unadulterated speculation, but I’m gonna toss out the name of Mark Pavia. As some of you no doubt recall, Pavia directed the grossly underrated, late 90’s sleeper The Night Flier, then faded away into undeserved obscurity after but one film. So why’d I choose him? His claim to fame was an acclaimed early 90’s short entitled Drag, a zombie opus that got him the ‘Flier gig, and served as a warm-up of sorts to Pavia’s dream project, a big screenn adaptation of the cult comic DeadWorld which he was thiiiiiis close to landing before it lapsed into development hell. What’s more…his other dream project is the intended Michael Berryman vehicle Slice, a classic slasher homage about an axe-wileding kindergarten teacher(!). The final nail in the coffin is Pavia’s long-time involvement with a propsed remake of Cronenberg’s Shivers (which also seems to have collapsed).
SO, we have an acclaimed short film, a classic slasher dream project previous involvement with semi-high profile remakes, and a man on the lookout for a comeback….it’s by no means a sure thing, but Pavia seems to have all the right ingredients.
I for one could go for a Funhouse remake. What does the slasher nation make of all this?
Code Red Update On Trapped & Terror Circus
Code Red are back with a few new releases. TRAPPED and TERROR CIRCUS are not slashers per se but have tangible relations to the subgenre – TRAPPED being a revenge film and TERROR CIRCUS cut from PSYCHO cloth.
For June 21st, we have the Canadian backwoods thriller TRAPPED, directed by cult director William Fruet (DEATH WEEKEND, KILLER PARTY, SPASMS), written by John Beaird (MY BLOODY VALENTINE, HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME) and photographed by award-winning cinematographer Mark Irwin (SCANNERS, VIDEODROME, THE BLOB, THE FLY, SCREAM)! An innocent camping weekend turns into terror and murder for four young university students. Henry Chatwell (Henry Silva, OCEANS 11, SHARKEY’S MACHINE, CHAINED HEAT) tortures, stalks and kills his wife’s lover, all witnessed by the students. Unable to contact the sheriff, the students return to their campsite where they are taken captive by Chatwell. Chatwell’s verdict is that the students must die! Realizing he has gone too far, two villagers release the students, but they are soon recaptured one by one, except for Roger (Nicholas Campbell, THE DEAD ZONE, tv’s DaVINCI’S INQUEST). Chatwell goes after Roger with an axe and the fight is on. When you are trapped like an animal…it’s kill or be killed!
Specs on this disc are:
Brand new 16×9 master from the original IP
Original trailer (in Spanish)
CR also have a retro action title CHOKE CANYON releasing the same day. Now onto all things TERROR CIRCUS:
To celebrate the April release date of the official DVD of TERROR CIRCUS (aka BARN OF THE NAKED DEAD), Grand Illusion Cinema in Seattle will be playing this at 11PM on April 10 & 11, a well as 17 & 18
Three showgirls are on their way to Las Vegas to hit the big time. Soon after leaving a desolate gas station in the middle of the desert their car breaks down. Luckily (?) for them the three women are saved by a seemingly nice guy named Andre. He takes the three lovely ladies back to his house. There they soon learn that Andre isn’t such a nice guy as they become new additions to his perverted circus of captive women! Tortured and abused they must escape Andre’s grasp or die one by one. Oh yeah, and did we mention the horribly disfigured mutant that lives in the shed! A.K.A. Nightmare Circus & Caged Woman 2. Co-presented by Code Red DVD.
And be sure to pre-order the official DVD of this, released thru Media Blasters. Our TERROR CIRCUS (aka BARN OF THE NAKED DEAD) DVD release has been mastered in Hi-Def from the original camera negatives! This is the best this film will ever look, and it has been properly presented in its original aspect ratio of 1.78:1 and in 16×9. Special features include an on-camera interview with star Jennifer Ashley, make-up effects artists Doug White and Byrd Holland, costume designer Alan Apone, and producer Marvin Almeas; as well as an audio commentary with White and Holland. We hope this is what the true fans of this film have been waiting for and that it was worth the wait to see the film in this fully authorized presentation!
First five to complain about titles the company are yet to release get the coveted Retro Slashers Golden Dildo Award!
Source: Code Red
Roth Reveals Plans For The Ultimate Slasher Film
Say what you will about GRINDHOUSE (2007), but Eli Roth’s faux-trailer for THANKSGIVING was inspired lunacy, achieving a sense of genuine loyalty and homage to the golden age of the slasher film in its 2 and a half minutes that entire films in the past few years have not (won’t mention titles). It’s always been floated by Frothy Rothy as a possible feature, but only now has the man laid out an honest to goodness battleplan for getting this sucker up on the big screen:
“The plan is this: I want to do a huge budget movie, but tack on three weeks to the end of it and shoot ‘Thanksgiving’,” he revealed. “I want to do an $80 million dollar movie, and then schedule three weeks at the end to quickly shoot a $5 million dollar movie.”
Roth said that after he shoots his untitled sci-fi blockbuster, he’ll get back to his roots by filming “the sickest, bloodiest, most violent slasher movie,” he said of the “Thanksgiving” flick inspired by the holiday-themed horror classics of the ‘80s. “I want to make the highest body count slasher film I can.”
Once the sci-fi script is finished, Roth plans to shop the two movies around to studios, looking for an $85 million budget for the pair. “Yeah,” he explained of the plan. “You just do them both.”
Here’s the famous trailer for the uninitiated – and yes, that’s John Harrison’s score from CREEPSHOW!
Source: MTV
First Wrong Turn 3 Images Revealed
Who’s with me on this – WRONG TURN (2003) is the modern-day descendant of Jeff Lieberman’s JUST BEFORE DAWN (1981)? I haven’t had the courage to venture into the recent sequel yet as its Reality-TV struck me as totally non-retro and so-played (but I trust you guys – what did you think of it? Should I go there?).
The upcoming WRONG TURN 3 (Fox, director: Declan O’Brien) however looks like more a return to basics, with a bunch of prisoners providing the cannibal meals this turn.
Source: Shock Till You Drop
Retro Slashers Content Migration
Just a quick note that the main RetroSlashers.net site is down, and will be for the next week or two. Over the past year, this blog which was intended as A) a place to make easy updates and get material online faster and B) a place for discussion has grown too big for its britches, so with its healthy growth in recent times it became apparent it has outperformed the site, and is restricted by its status as a simple blog offshoot.
Hence we’re merging all site content into into the current platform – that’s why all that stuff is currently offline. The result will be one better than ever super-duper central place for all your retro and slasher needs. May take a while, but well worth the work on our end, and hopefully worth the wait on your end.
Thanks for your patience, and we’ll also be offering a brand new forum to take the edge off! If you have any suggestions for the site, do let us know!
RETRO TRASH: V (The Series)
RETRO TRASH
A refuge for the ’80’s!
Welcome to Retro Trash, a dumping ground of all things ’80’s, from movies and music to television and fashion. Here, fans of everything from prosthetics to spandex can find gems from the decade that taste (and subtlety) forgot!
