Screenwriter Jeff O’Brien has pointed me in the direction of that most elusive beast, the Canadian backwoods creature feature trailer. I’m looking forward to a good ol’ fashioned foam and rubber monster bloodbath.

I was a little worried about this clip since the beginning didn’t seem to follow any of the incarnations of the series, but once they got to the house and the little Lego characters were overdubbed with assorted squealing, I was sold. If only they had recreated the slow, ass-centric walk up to the house in Lego form, my day would be complete.

There must be something in the water. Something To Be Desired is a web-based sitcom now in its fourth season which centres around a group of 20-somethings who work at a radio station in Pittsburgh. For Halloween, the ensemble took a break from their usual romantic slapstick and threw in some grue, paying tribute to a fellow Pittsburgh native by adding a zombie apocalypse to the mix. There’s plenty of oozing bite wounds, impromptu weapons and desperate trysts to satisfy anyone’s appetite for a little Steel City gore.

After you’re done, make sure you check their behind-the-scenes blogging for great pointers on how to shoot your zombie opus, particularly when one of your zombie extras has a bun in the oven.

I made my peace with the deluge of horror remakes long ago. In fact, I can’t even recall if I’ve ever been really upset by the idea of a shitty reimagining even when my two favourite horror movies, Night of the Living Dead and The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, went through the wringer. Now the third film in my unholy trilogy of favourites is being remade, and while I’m still not upset, I am confused.

In a way, Black Christmas is a good choice for a remake. Black Christmas is the proto-slasher, directly influencing the sub-genre’s most famous outing, Halloween. Yet, because it was the first it is also completely unlike other slashers. It not only inspired them, but stands apart. Couple that with its relative obscurity and it would be entirely possible to scare new audiences with something familiar yet slightly different from what they would expect. As much as I hate making judgements based on a trailer, it’s evident that they’ve discarded many of the things that help make Black Christmas stand out and replaced them with lame slasher tropes.

What a waste.

Trailer found via Bloody Disgusting.

The aforementioned Carnival of Lost Souls over at Fox Atomic have continued on past Halloween with the sneak previews, inlcuding raw footage from The Hills Have Eyes and 28 Weeks Later. What’s left of my cynical, little heart yearns to rail against these films for numerous reasons, including the changeover from the creative teams of the first installments, the rushing of raw footage to promote the films during Halloween, and the possibility of a lack of intensity due to being lumped together under the teen-friendly Fox Atomic umbrella. However, few things can break down my defenses as much as seeing Robert Carlyle being chased by zombies.

“Those who push base entertainment are villains. No question.”

Is Bill O’Reilly this generation’s Morton Downey, Jr.? If only he smoked on-air to complete the illusion.

I’m not really familiar with American news personalities, so I don’t know how much weight this guy pulls. Regardless, O’Reilly took a few moments out to berate the film industry for churning out sick movies, condemning them as worse for American culture than gangster rap and dirty movies. If only! What a wonderful world this would be if that were true. Bonus clips include O’Reilly poking fun at the French for abandoning trick or treating, and a transcript from the show in which he discusses the matter with a psychologist, and a Hollywood insider, even taking shots at his parent company, Fox. There’s nothing quite like starting the day being accused of being a sociopath.

I couldn’t tell if they archive the video clips, so you better get there while they’re still available.

Yahoo has the first available teaser trailer for Hostel 2, the sequel to my favourite movie of the year. The kicker is that the teaser is in German. Lion’s Gate marketing executive Tim Palen explains.

“German is more guttural and harsh. I think a lot of people will be taken aback, but with the success of the first ‘Hostel,’ there will be no confusion as to whether the movie is in English. For the discerning horror fan, it will separate ‘Hostel II’ from the typical kids-stranded-in-the-middle-of-nowhere horror film.”

I think Palen may have overestimated the intelligence of the general movie-going audience. After watching the first film in the theatres I heard more than a few people commenting that Hostel was a harsher ride than the director’s previous efforts, like Pulp Fiction and Kill Bill. Oh, well. Place this firmly in the category of a stunt designed solely for me and the handful of similarly like-minded people out there.

As many of you may already be aware, the release of Brokeback Mountain unleashed a torrent of faux-trailers which used the theme song and some judicious editing to make two otherwise heterosexual characters seem as if they were going to get it on. Video slash fiction is go! Probably my favourite attempt, and one of the most surprisingly successful, is this mingling of Day of the Dead with hot and tender man-on-man action. Oh, Bub. Will you ever find the love you seek?

Obviously Not Work Safe! Also Contains Spoilers!

I just know someone out there is going to jack off to this. Today’s clip mixes every on-screen death from the Friday the 13th movies into one big jamboree, with a handy body count in the lower right-hand corner. I never realized just how many people get something sharp stuck through them from below in those movies.

I was looking for the scene with the most ugly example of nakedness in cinema history, but I’m pretty sure it was #105 and they just snipped the ugly nakedness out.

Horror directors Adam Green and Ryan Schifrin have collaborated on a special Halloween treat, a short film entitled King In The Box, which takes a harsh look at the sordid world of fast-food franchise mascots and what they’ll do to get ahead. It wasn’t even a question of whether The King was going to end up murdering someone, it was only a matter of when.

Via Bloody Disgusting, though the more reliable You Tube link was brought to you by Cinematical, which is rocking the face off of Halloween this year. Go check them out.

Bloody Disgusting has posted a couple of clips from Tobe Hooper’s installment for the second season of Masters of Horror.

An unknown monstrous force descends upon a small Texas town, turning husband against wife, brother against sister, parent against child. Tortured by his own tragic past, Sheriff Kevin Reddle must overcome his horrific rage if he is to restore order.

I know Hooper’s been more miss than hit for over a decade now, but I’m a sucker for anything that results in large groups of people losing their shit and turning on one another. Anyone else remember Impulse?

The site this was originally showcased on has since taken it down, whether because the public wasn’t supposed to see it yet or because of excessive demand, i don’t know. Anyway, as you will see this Day of the Dead is about as far away from an actual remake as it’s possible to get while still retaining zombies. The acting is beyond horrible, it looks like it was shot on video and the zombies not only sprint, they’re so hopped up on goofballs that they run up walls. But, just as I was ready to turn it off midway, I became interested again. These aren’t just zombies, these are zombies with a fierce hatred of windows. It’s the night of the defenestrating dead! I counted something like 9.5 zombie/window incidents, and that’s in the trailer alone. Colour me excited!

Many of the most frightening moments encountered in arts and entertainment come from the most unexpected places. One of the numerous things to have inadvertently scarred me as a child was an episode of The Smurfs. When Lazy Smurf gets bitten on the tail by a purple bug, he becomes purple, aggressive and starts biting his fellow Smurfs on the tail as well. Soon the contagion has spread throughout the Mushroom Village, with a handful of survivors fighting off the horde. Sound familiar? Watch the entire segment above. GNAPP!

Billy! What did you do to one of my favourite movies, Billy?!?

“Thanks” to Cinematical for directing me to this teaser.

Before they made their mark with South Park, Trey Parker and Matt Stone were hired to create a video for Universal Studios, which had just been bought out by Seagram’s. This video was meant to reassure Universal’s employees that the studio would remain artist friendly. For obvious reasons, it was never used in the way it was intended.

There are a few small treats in the video for the horror aficionado, including Spielberg reuniting with Jaws, the Bates Motel, Traci Lords and more ceramic deer than you’ll ever need.

Originally found at NewFromMe, though I got the link from The Movie Blog.