Horror-comedies are a mixed bag. Often they’re not scary or violent enough to satisfy your horror boner, nor are they funny enough to tickle your funny bone(r). When they work well, you get an Evil Dead II or a Dead and Breakfast. When they fail you get…I don’t know, who remembers shitty horror-comedies? Tucker & Dale vs. Evil follows two lovable, well meaning rednecks through a series of misunderstandings that result in a group of vacationing college kids being convinced the duo are out to murder them. Like any educated group, the kids decide the best thing to do is to take the war to the hillbillies and try to kill them and rescue their “kidnapped” friend. Things go comically and fatally awry to great effect.

Why Watch? Early Tim Burton, late Vincent Price, and a stop-motion nursery rhyme for the gruesome ones. This 1982 team-up between Burton and Price was one of the director’s last short films before landing the directing gig for Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure and going down the path we all know he followed. It came 11 years before The Nightmare Before Christmas, but the tones and design concepts are all there (just no Henry Selick). Instead of a skeletal hero, it’s a little boy who wants to turn his dog into a zombie. What does it cost? Just 6 minutes of your time.

Why Watch? When “Based on Real Events” is actually scary. Apparently with the proliferation of webcams (remember when they didn’t come standard?) comes the proliferation of creeps being able to spy on you through your webcam. This short takes that concept and shoots it entirely through the little camera at the top of a computer screen. It’s a steady ramp from uneasiness to terror. Plus, it has a hell of an effective use of native music. This is proof that sometimes the most frightening things are the ones at our fingertips. What you use to connect with your loved ones can also be used to reach out and touch you. What does it cost? Just 7 minutes of your time. Check out Webcam for yourself:

The first installment of the Wrong Turn franchise was a fun and surprising little tale of cannibals messing up young people in West Virginia after a few decades of inbreeding turned them into resilient monsters. The follow-up was a respectable attempt that took the series to it’s logical conclusion: Henry Rollins. As for the third entry, I’ll be honest with you, I have no idea what the fuck happened, but I assume it involved cannibals trying to eat young people. Which brings us full circle to Wrong Turn 4: Bloody Beginnings, a movie that kind of almost sort of tells you how it all began. In case you were wondering, these in-bred meat eaters weren’t always wild – no, they spent a few weeks in an asylum before managing to escape, start a riot, and kill a good portion of the staff. Then the state of West Virginia apparently decided to pretend that never happened and just ignore that gigantic building, allowing the inbreeders to use it as their base of operations before they, I guess, move out into the woods by Wrong Turn. That may sound like this movie was bad, but that’s just my snarky way of writing, in fact, the movie is quite -

With the entire original run of The Twilight Zone available to watch instantly, we’re partnering with Twitch Film to cover all of the show’s 156 episodes. Are you brave enough to watch them all with us? The Twilight Zone (Episode #107): “Mute” (airdate 1/31/63) The Plot: A little girl is treated like dog feces because she has a special gift. The Goods: When Ilse (Ann Jillian) was born, her parents decided to do a little experiment. Instead of talking to her like a normal child, they deprived her of language in order to exercise her natural psychic abilities. As a result, she became incredibly strong at speaking telepathically with the other children in a school where such a thing was the norm. Sadly, the school wasn’t run by a bald guy in a wheelchair, and when her parents die in a fire, she’s sent to the United States with a new set of parents. Her life is now filled with people who speak, a bunch of schoolmates who think she’s an idiot, and a teacher who also has the gift of telepathy but views it as a curse. Good times ahead!

With the entire original run of The Twilight Zone available to watch instantly, we’re partnering with Twitch Film to cover all of the show’s 156 episodes. Are you brave enough to watch them all with us? The Twilight Zone (Episode #104): “The Thirty-Fathom Grave” (airdate 1/10/63) The Plot: A hammering comes from down below. The Goods: While puttering around the ocean, a Navy Destroyer discovers a strange phenomenon bleeping on its radar. The crew agrees that it sounds like a hammer, but when they reach the source of the sound, there’s no ship to be found…on the surface. With the realization that the noise is coming from deep under the water, some joke that it’s a haunted submarine. It’s a suggestion that sets one of their own on edge, and on a course heading toward tragedy.

And that trailer wants to kill you with a sledgehammer. For some reason, actor’s actor Vincent D’Onofrio went out and directed a horror musical. From the look of the trailer, it’s not exactly a musical in the same way we normally think of – the lyrics singing the internal feelings and external goings on of the plot. Instead, it takes its cue from the concept of a band heading out on a camping trip to write their next album. Don’t Go In the Woods seems to lack the acting impetus that you might think D’Onofrio would go for. However, after speaking with him a while back about his personal fears, it’s good to see him go traditional without at all going traditional. Plus, who would have thought Private Pyle would direct a slasher flick? Check it out for yourself:

If the people behind The Howling Reborn are to be believed, the reason why horror movies suck is because no one wants to see 40 year olds in the lead. Their solution was to hire a Harry Potter look alike and walk down the Twilight road instead of a Howling road. When someone thinks about The Howling, often fondly, placing it among the best werewolf movies (saying little, as most werewolf movies strangely blow), what comes to mind? A prolonged, awesome transformation scene a la An American Werewolf in London perhaps? Maybe 40 year old leads? Either way, you probably conjure up in your head, I don’t know, a giant werewolf? So if you were to make another installment in this franchise, you’d think at the very least there would be a cool transformation scene and a big, bad ass werewolf. I think I would have preferred that you made this film, as The Howling Reborn is satisfied with their dopey, emo werewolf narrating his sad story rather than turning into a werewolf. Rather than anyone turning into a werewolf. Okay, so that’s not entirely true. There are werewolves in this movie. For a few minutes anyways.

Why Watch? It’s better horror than most of the stuff hitting theaters and home entertainment. I’ve fallen in love with Finite Films because they use audience participation in a fascinating way – they take constraints on their filmmaking directly from their fans. In Forest Falls, the constraints include using a location from a famous horror movie, featuring a character whose attempt to quit smoking is important to the plot, and a dozen others. They’ve taken those dogmatic rules and built an unsettling horror film that’s definitely by the book – it’s just unclear which book it is. The tried and true cabin in the woods story gets a new flavor, and a production company proves they need a distributor on their side. From the writing to execution, it’s excellent work all around. What does it cost? Just 26 minutes of your time. Check out Forest Falls for yourself:

According to a press release that left blood all over my inbox, Lee Hardcastle – a filmmaker twice featured in our illustrious Short Film of the Day feature – has won the chance to see his work next to 25 of the best horror filmmakers working today in the anthology picture The ABCs of Death. Drafthouse Films and Timpson Films held a contest that saw 170 entries narrowed down to 13 by the voting public. Those top 13 were then shown to the directors involved in the production, and they voted Hardcastle as the winner. T is For Toilet features a young boy who is learning to use the toilet all by himself, and the horrific monster that we all know lives inside all of our johns has different plans for him and his family. It should be shown to all potty training young ones, alongside this magical gem. Runners up, T is for Talk by Peter Haynes; T is for Turbo by Francois Simard, Anouk Whissel and Yoann-Karl Whissel; T is for Table by Shane Free; and T is for Termite by Steve Daniels will all be invited to be included in the DVD/Blu-ray release of the film. In the mean time, check out T is for Toilet for yourself:

Why Watch? Based off a Gary Raisor story, this short delivers vibrant color design and an eye for textures that make a family’s life more joyous and the threat of losing it even more unsettling. A young couple and their daughter keep getting phone calls from a wrong number. It’s a simple fear – the availability we have thanks to our phones – that translates into something jarring and bizarre here. It has a Twilight Zone level of obviousness to it, but the true star here is a production design that pops thanks to camera work. What does it cost? Just 7 minutes of your time. Check out The Night Caller for yourself:

What can I say about Beyond the Black Rainbow that hasn’t already been said about licking toads while watching a 70s slasher flick behind your neighborhood scientific research compound? Writer/director Panos Cosmatos‘s deranged trip down the rabbit hole feels like Cronenberg and Argento furiously impregnated a robot named TARKOVSKY. It’s homage at its highest form – work born directly from the visual and storytelling tropes of iconic artists that manages to feel brand new with the presence of a fresh personality. In the 80s-set film, and stop me if you’ve heard this one, Elena (Eva Allan) is held captive in a research facility by Barry Nyle (Michael Rogers), the demented product of a cult-like program born two decades earlier that sought to merge science and religion. As he slowly deteriorates mentally, blood starts spilling, but even if Elena gets a chance to escape, she’ll have him murderously on her trail.

This week, on a very special episode of Reject Radio, Ben Solovey explains why he’s personally restoring a 16mm print of Manos: The Hands of Fate, one of the worst movies ever made. Plus, I Melt With You director Mark Pellington talks drugs and demons, and it’s Fat Guy Kevin Carr versus Geek Tyrant editor-in-chief Jim Napier in a Movie News Pop Quiz that will change everything forever and ever. Download This Episode

Alexander Aja continues his work with remakes as the producer of a forthcoming remake of William Lustig‘s brilliant Maniac – whose ultra-violence caused Gene Siskel to famously storm out of the theater and rail against it on his show with Roger Ebert. The movie will be directed by Franck Khalfoun – a talent who delivered the parking garage stalker flick P2 and who has an extra C in his first name. News of a remake, especially something as grisly and revered as this movie, needs some sort of sugar to help the medicine go down. The sugar this time is Elijah Wood – a giant spoonful of happy feet who will be stepping well outside his wheelhouse to play the serial killer. Say what you will about his role in Sin City, but that was not the blood-soaked mayhem and confusion that this murdering character demands. They are as different as the black and white Wood was painted with as Kevin, the silent cannibal. Also, in a strange turn of rumored events, Badass Digest is reporting that unnamed sources are claiming the movie (or at least its kills) will be shot POV. It’s an interesting, if unoriginal, idea, and it could very well work beautifully. The only real concern is when the camera will cut away (if it’s just the kills in POV), because so much of Maniac was brought to life by Joe Spinell‘s performance. He killed without mercy or understanding, and him staring on at his own work [Due to Content Scraping and Theft, we have been forced to try abbreviated feeds. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause and woud very much appreciate you clicking through to view the full article on FilmSchoolRejects.com]

I guess I’m feeling pretty violent these days, since last week I talked about how more people on TV needed to die and we’re revisiting the subject of death again this week. Though, with a slightly different slant – whereas previously I wanted more death, now I want that same amount of death, but slower. In television, everyone seems like they’re in a huge hurry to die. Granted, the world of make believe is at least as dangerous as the real one, in fact, it’s infinitely more so. In a regular day, most of us won’t contend with tornadoes, Megasnakes, Sharktopi, advanced alien civilizations, primitive monsters, serial killers, psycho killers, bank robbers or mutated man-beast hybrids. Sure, there are some exceptional days, but for the most part we don’t have as much to worry about. Regardless of what Last Action Hero says, I think we also have it safer, after all, we don’t just instantly drop dead at the slightest provocation.

This morning, you probably woke up to your normal routine (maybe slightly augmented by falling back an hour in time). You hopped in the shower, brushed your teeth, drank some orange juice with breakfast, and cursed yourself for the thousandth time for drinking orange juice after brushing your teeth. Most of all though, you felt safe. And you had no idea there was a man sleeping under your bed. Director Jaume Balagueró (REC, REC 2) uses that uneasy non-knowledge for both horror and humor in Sleep Tight (Mientras Duermes), a film that balances precariously over the Dark Comedy and Funny Home Invasion genre bins. The overall result is chilling proof that Balagueró can take us back into an apartment building while delivering a completely different scare.

When the calendar page turns to October, we Rejects have only one thought: horror. To celebrate this grandest and darkest of months, we’ll cover one excellent horror film a day for the entirety of the month. That’s 31 Days of Horror and 31 Films perfect for viewing on a dark, chilly, October night. If you, like us, love horror and Halloween, give us a Hell Yeah and keep coming every day this month for a new dose of adrenaline. Synopsis: After Warren inherits a nice slice of wilderness, he and a few friends head out on a camping trip to check it out. Unfortunately for Warren and his friends, there are a couple of residents who already call the land home – and a few of them are ready to kill to keep it. Also, they kill for fun.

We continue our journey through a month of frightening, bloody and violent films. For more, check out our 31 Days of Horror homepage. Synopsis: Jack Finney’s novel “The Body Snatchers” gets its second film adaptation by Philip Kaufman in 1978. This time, the setting is changed from a small California town to the teeming metropolis of San Francisco. Donald Sutherland plays Matthew Bennell, a health inspector who stumbles across reports of people claiming their loved ones are not themselves. His colleague Elizabeth Driscoll (Brooke Adams) faces similar stories and even suspects her live-in boyfriend Geoffrey has been infected. After conferring with Matthew’s pop psychology guru friend David Kibner (Leonard Nimoy), they settle on mass hysteria as a cause. However, when Matthew’s other friends (Jeff Goldblum and Veronica Cartwright) discover a mysterious body in the back of their spa, the group soon discovers an insidious alien force has come to earth with the ability to duplicate people.

Why Watch? How do birthday wishes get granted? Take two minutes out of your day to find out, and you’ll be glad/bothered that you did. This beautifully shot, very short black comedy has the upper hand on being clever, unexpected and inappropriately funny. Just be careful the next time you blow out the candles, and remember – you still have time to vote for your favorite horror short in the ABCs of Death contest where the winner gets to see their work amidst 25 of the most talented horror filmmakers out there. What does it cost? Just 2 minutes of your time. Check out T is for Truck for yourself:

Why Watch? There’s still time to vote for your favorite short film in the ABCs of Death contest where the winning director will see their work amongst 25 brilliant horror minds. This one is receiving a lot of love, and it’s easy to see why. The trend (and fascination) with child violence continues, but Paul F. Tompkins is the brilliant comic centerpiece of this short. It involves a string of child-murders, an active imagination, a lost tooth, and a costume meant to keep the magic of youth alive. Oh, and a lot of future therapy sessions. What does it cost? Just 5 minutes of your time. Check out T is for Tantrum for yourself: