Not the same-old screams
It happens every Halloween.
You dig out some scary movies for an old-fashioned fright fest at home. You turn the lights down, fire up the DVD player and pop in "Halloween" or "Friday the 13th" or some other classic horror flick.
Fifteen minutes in, you're bored. Why? Because you watched these same movies the last four Halloweens.
This year, consider watching something different. Movie studios have recently cleared their vaults of dozens of horror films of every style and vintage, many hitting DVD for the first time. Campy B-movies, obscure cult favorites, slasher films -- whatever your taste, there's a recent release to satisfy it.
Of course, it's difficult to know where to start. So we checked out a handful of new horror DVDs to let you know what should be added to your film festival list, and what should be sent to the bad-horror-movie graveyard.
Here, in chronological order, is our rundown:
"The Food of the Gods" (1976; PG, MGM, $14.98)
This campy '70s gem, which finally arrived for the first time on DVD last month, comes from B-movie maestro Bert I. Gordon.
Based partially on an H.G. Wells story, the movie follows a group of unsuspecting vacationers to an island where a strange substance that looks like pancake batter recently started bubbling up from the ground.
When local farm animals eat this goop, a startling transformation occurs.
They get very big. And very mean.
We see the vacationers battle giant wasps, giant rats, giant worms, even a giant chicken. (Yes, you read that right.)
Eventually, the story boils down to an extended battle of wits between the giant rats and a small group of people led by a studly football player. I won't spoil things by telling you who wins.
Make no mistake, "The Food of the Gods" is a B-movie, through and through. The plot is silly, the dialogue hilarious and the special effects super-cheesy. (To show the giant rats attacking a guy who's fixing a flat tire, Gordon films regular-sized rats swarming over what is clearly a tiny toy car.)
But you know what? "The Food of the Gods" is fun. It's fast-paced and provides some quality kills, though the violence rarely stretches the parameters of the PG rating.
Then there's the "Twilight Zone"-like ending, which has me praying that someone will make a sequel someday. (It could be called "The Food of the Gods: When Cows Attack.")
(Rating: 3 bloody knives)
"The Burning" (1981; R, MGM, $14.98)
The 1980s were all about big hair, Cabbage Patch Dolls and slasher movies.
In the wake of "Halloween" and "Friday the 13th," it seemed like every week brought another horror movie about hot, hormonal teenagers getting chopped up by a faceless killer at a summer camp.
One of the first, and least known, flicks to capitalize on this trend was "The Burning," which has never been available on DVD until now.
This movie starts with a group of kids at (surprise!) summer camp pulling a prank on the camp's hated caretaker, Cropsy. The prank goes wrong, and Cropsy winds up disfigured by burns.
Years later, he returns to the camp, thirsty for revenge. He sets his sights, and his trusty garden shears, on a new group of teens.
The most interesting thing about "The Burning" is the star power behind it. It was the first producing/writing credit for current movie moguls Bob and Harvey Weinstein. And its cast includes the film debuts of Holly Hunter and Jason Alexander!
Besides that, "The Burning" is by-the-numbers '80s slasher material. The kills are suitably bloody and there's the usual adolescent nudity.
(Rating: 1.5 bloody knives)
"Cujo: 25th Anniversary" (1983; R, Lionsgate, $19.98)
"Cujo" was the first Stephen King book I read, and it turned me into a (pardon the pun) rabid fan. I was too young to see the movie version when it came out, though, and in the ensuing years I never did watch the flick from beginning to end. I figured this new 25th anniversary DVD would be a good opportunity to see what I've been missing.
"Cujo," it turns out, is a well-made, scary thriller. The story is simple: Cujo, a friendly St. Bernard who lives on an isolated farm, turns rabid after being bit by a bat. He kills the farm's owner, then spends most of the movie terrorizing a mother and her young son, who are trapped on the farm in their tiny stalled car.
Dee Wallace (the mother from "E.T.") and Danny Pintauro (a few years before he snagged a role in the '80s sitcom "Who's the Boss?") play Donna and Tad Trenton, the trapped mom and son, and they are fantastic. Director Lewis Teague gives the Trentons' Ford Pinto the claustrophobic feel of a coffin. The violence is intense without being overly gory.
The movie is not without flaws. The opening act moves a bit too slowly, and the freeze-frame ending comes off as cheesy and dated. Still, "Cujo" delivers. Just don't watch it with your dog.
(Rating: 3 bloody knives)
"The Return of the Living Dead: Collector's Edition" (1985; R, MGM, $19.98)
Plain and simple, this movie rocks. As colorful and lurid as an old EC comic book, "Return" is a lighter, funnier spinoff of George Romero's classic zombie flick, "Night of the Living Dead."
Likable teenager Freddy mistakenly cracks open a canister in the basement of the funeral supply business where he works, releasing a gas that brings to life a horde of corpses in the nearby cemetery.
The zombies go on a brain-eating rampage, their first targets being a group of punk rockers partying amid the headstones. The punks team up with some local business owners in a life-or-death battle against the undead.
Writer/director Dan O'Bannon, who wrote the script for the original "Alien," successfully balances scares with comedy in "Return." He doesn't shy away from the horrific elements of zombification, but he gives the walking dead some personality (unlike the mute, shuffling zombies in Romero's films). In one classic gag, the zombies eat the brains of waves of cops who respond to the cemetery, then one zombie gets on a police radio and pleads: "Send more cops."
If you want good, gory thrills mixed with laughs, all set to a sweet punk-rock soundtrack, "Return of the Living Dead" is for you.
(Rating: 3.5 bloody knives)
"From Beyond: Unrated Director's Cut" (1986; NR; MGM, $19.98)
"From Beyond" is cult director Stuart Gordon's follow-up to his horror hit "Re-Animator." It has never been available on DVD until now, and fans are sure to rejoice that the version is a director's cut that includes scenes long thought lost forever.
Jeffrey Combs, a "Re-Animator" vet, plays Crawford Tillinghast, an assistant to a scientist who has created a device called the Resonator, which stimulates the pineal gland in human beings, allowing them to see into a parallel dimension.
During an experiment, the Resonator kills its creator and sends Crawford to an insane asylum. He's released by Dr. McMichaels, a sexy female psychiatrist who wants Crawford to continue experimenting with the Resonator. When they do, they open a door to a parallel reality that's fueled by sex and violence. Living there is the Resonator's creator, now a hideous monster who's bent on enslaving Dr. McMichaels and turning the rest of the human race into "elevated" creatures like himself.
Based on an H.P. Lovecraft story, "From Beyond" combines elements of brainy science fiction with straight-up blood-and-guts horror. Combs and Barbara Crampton, who plays the psychiatrist, both are good at showing how the Resonator brings out their darker natures. And Gordon's distinctive use of color makes the parallel dimension look like a psychedelic nightmare.
Still, the movie left me a little cold. Maybe it's the sci-fi element, or the relative lack of humor. Whatever the reason, I didn't experience a rush watching "From Beyond."
(Rating: 2 bloody knives)
"Broken" (2006; Unrated, Dimension Extreme, $19.95)
The "torture" subgenre of horror films -- think of the "Saw" and "Hostel" films -- has drawn a lot of attention lately, so I thought I'd check one out.
First off, I have to point out that "Broken" wins the award for Most Disgusting DVD Packaging Ever.
The DVD comes in a cardboard slipcase with an image of a stitched wound on the cover. If you slide the top and bottom halves of the case apart, the wound opens to reveal a razor blade nestled in what looks like bloody guts.
Nice.
Now on to the movie. "Broken," a British film that came out on DVD last month, is about a single mother who is kidnapped and brought to an isolated spot in the woods, where she is tortured, held captive and basically turned into a slave by a weird dude with a fondness for Crocodile Dundee-style hats.
As the days pass, the two fall into a strange kind of domestic peace -- he makes her scrub pots and tend a garden -- though the woman does try to escape a couple of times. Eventually, the man brings another victim to the camp, which kicks off a chain of events that leads to an exceptionally cruel ending.
The most shocking thing about "Broken" isn't the violence, though it does have a few moments that will make all but the most jaded horror junkies cover their eyes, but the fact that its middle act is so boring. (Pot-scrubbing isn't the most dynamic activity to watch.) And we find out nothing about this evil man -- he's never named, not even in the credits -- which some horror enthusiasts might consider a brave choice, but it made me feel jerked around.
Unless you're a die-hard "extreme horror" fan, I'd leave this one off the list.
(Rating: 1 bloody knife)
"The Host" (2006; R, Magnolia Pictures, $29.98)
Saving the best for last, Korean import "The Host" is a wonderfully chilling monster movie that doubles as a touching family drama, with some political commentary thrown in for good measure.
It begins with an evil American scientist ordering a Korean underling to dump toxic chemicals down the drain, knowing that they will wind up in the Han River. Later, we see the result: a vicious monster that looks like an amphibious version of the "Alien" creatures.
In a scene worthy of Steven Spielberg or M. Night Shyamalan, the monster leaps out of the water and attacks, snatching young Hyun-seo and dragging her into the deep. Hyun-seo's affable but irresponsible father, Gang-du, vows to find her. He is helped by his own father, as well as his bitter brother and archery-champion sister.
The family battles government quarantines, the corrupt American military and their own pent-up resentments as they search for Hyun-seo, who is being held captive in a sewer.
"The Host," which arrived on DVD this past summer, cheerfully plunders past monster movies, from "Godzilla" to "Jaws," but it stands finally as a true original, one that works equally well as a story about the love between parent and child and as a scary horror romp.
(Here's a tip: When you watch "The Host" on DVD, choose the Korean language option and then activate the English subtitles. The English dub track is corny and distracting.)
(Rating: 4 bloody knives)