Flesh for Frankenstein and Blood for Dracula. Island of Lost Souls. The Most Dangerous Game. The Night of the Hunter. The Blob. For a company perhaps best known for releasing pristine editions of international arthouse classics, The Criterion Collection certainly has a healthy amount of cult films in its repertoire. Cult cinema is often a difficult beast to recognize, for such films avoid the roads best travelled in their journey towards recognition and renown. Unlike seminal films in the collection including The 400 Blows, 8 ½, or Rashomon, cult films aren’t typically met with immediate cultural or institutional recognition upon release, aren’t made by internationally-recognized talent, and don’t always have an immediately traceable history of influence. That is, however, what makes cult films so interesting and so valuable: they emerge without expectation or pretense and signal the most populist and anti-elite means by which a film can gain recognition, pointing to the fact that there are always valuable films potentially overlooked between the pages of history. Herk Harvey’s low-budget drive through horror masterpiece Carnival of Souls (1962), like many cult films, emerged into the top tier of film culture in some of the unlikeliest of ways. Harvey was an industrial and educational filmmaker; the $33,000 Carnival was his only feature work. The film had ten minutes lobbed off of it for its drivethru run to fit more screenings, and was largely a non-event when it first graced American screens. Carnival’s success is owed mostly to genre film festivals, late-night television [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]

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. Here’s one that’s so delightfully, Sesame-Street-levels of deranged that it has to be celebrated. Besides, what’s more horrifying than public speaking, confusion, and a jury of evil children all smashed together in a primary color bit of ultra-violence? Even though it’s slightly less bloody than Blues Clues, it earns extra points for coming up with more T-words than all other entries combined. And for making me fear (and hunger for) tacos. What does it cost? Just 5 minutes of your time. Check out T is for Toss for yourself:

This week, on a very special episode of Reject Radio, we speak with Paranormal Activity 3 star Lauren Bittner, get some minute-by-minute screenwriting tips from “Something Startling Happens: The 120 Story Beats Every Writer Should Know” author Todd Klick, and we present a very special interview with Mr. Orson Welles (as played by an inebriated Geoff LaTulippe). At least 2/3rds of the show is a great idea. The rest is a genius idea that just might burn down the internet. Download This Episode

We continue our journey through a month of frightening, bloody and violent films. For more, check out our 31 Days of Horror homepage. Synopsis: A contemporary adaptation of the Bram Stoker novel, Ken Russell’s The Lair of the White Worm (1988) begins with archaeology student Angus Flint (In the Loop’s Peter Capaldi) finding a strange serpentine skull in the backyard of an English cottage. After some research, Flint makes the connection between the skull and the “d’Ampton worm,” a giant malevolent worm that was conquered in nearby Stonerich Cavern. The direct ancestor of the worm slayer is the rather charming James d’Ampton (played by a rather charming Hugh Grant), who shares suspicions with Flint that the worm may still be alive under the grounds of their otherwise quaint English hamlet. D’Ampton’s seductive and often leather-bound neighbor, Lady Sylvia Marsh (Amanda Donahue) is an immortal, supernatural force subservient to the worm, and her seductive search for a virgin sacrifice brings about all kinds of over-the-top, schizophrenic greatness.

Why Watch? This haunting little film just won Best Short at Shriekfest, and it’s easy to see why. While awards don’t automatically guarantee quality, the judges definitely got this one right. Karl Holt‘s story focuses on a star paranormal photo-journalist (David Moynihan) who heads to an abandoned asylum to try to regain his beloved spot on the cover of the magazine he works for. Unfortunately, he finds something longing to get out. Everything is pumping on all cylinders here: the camera work is stunning and makes great use of the dilapidated building and modern home alike, the sound design is stirring and creepy, the acting solid, the atmosphere filled with buzzing and ill will. Just hands down, a fantastic horror short film that delivers obsession and fear in equal measure. What does it cost? Just 10 minutes of your time. Check out Negative Image for yourself:

We continue our journey through a month of frightening, bloody and violent films. For more, check out our 31 Days of Horror homepage. Synopsis: Where do you take Jason when he’s already been through the woods all the way to New York City? Why you take him to space, of course! In the distant future, Voorhees and his most recent victim are resurrected by advanced technology. Not one to care about details like the year or where the hell he is, Jason immediately begins dismembering people.

Can you smell the crisp October air? Then screw you, it’s in the mid-80s in Austin. Enjoy your sweater weather, I’ll just continue wearing shorts and flip-flops…in October. But no matter what weather you may be experiencing, it’s October the world over and that means it’s time for copious amounts of candy and scary movies. To celebrate this greatest of months, we here at Film School Rejects have decided to spotlight a different horror film every day all month long, in a feature we’ve cleverly titled 31 Days of Horror. These aren’t really reviews as such, think of it more as a list of our favorite movies that go bump in the night. These are the movies you want to watch at midnight with all the lights off. No cell phones, no laptops, no distractions. Environment is everything and really letting yourself get drawn into a good horror movie can lead to more than a few legitimate scary moments. I think you’ll be surprised. So turn off the phone, grab a bowl of popcorn, hit the lights and beam one of these fine films through your eyeballs. My choice? Australian import The Loved Ones. Synopsis: Brent’s dad is teaching him how to drive one morning. They banter back and forth playfully when a young boy stumbles shirtless and bleeding directly into the road. Brent swerves to avoid him, but crashes the car into a tree killing his father. Six months later, life is starting to turn back to normal, at least for [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]

Welcome back to Junkfood Cinema; arson is only acceptable against houses that give out pennies on Halloween. We have emerged from our coffins yet again to bring you the dankest, dingiest, most malodorous horror films we can scrape from our blood-stained basements. We will cut into the flesh of these films with sharp lampoon and serrated mockery, spilling all of their faults onto the ground with a satisfying splash. But then we will take that hollow corpse, stuff it full of love and whatever legitimate praise we can muster, and raise it high upon a post in the middle of our cinematic cornfield to scare away even worse films. Then, as we all sit in a circle around it reciting our hymns to the great Cthulu, I will pass around a tray of snacks themed to the film to help ensure your gut grows to the size of The Great Pumpkin himself. This Week’s Cauldron Offering: Killer Party The basic story here, and I only say “story” because they’ve yet to come up with a word for the result of highlighting every fifth word in the newspaper and then filming it, is that years ago on a sleepy college campus an April Fool’s Day prank ended with the death of a young fraternity brother. Years later–after the world had, after much doubt, decided it could in fact continue spinning with one less frat boy in it–the now vacant frat house where the accident occurred is designated as the spot for [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]

We continue our journey through a month of frightening, bloody and violent films. For more, check out our 31 Days of Horror homepage. Synopsis: Based on the novel “Let the Right One In” by John Ajvide Lindqvist the film Let Me In is relocated from Sweden to Los Alamos, New Mexico. Owen (Kodi Smit-McPhee) is a friendless boy, a victim of bullies at school. Not a day goes by when he isn’t pushed, shoved, harassed and threatened. With no one to turn to, not a friend, or teacher, not even his parents who are consumed by a bitter divorce, Owen retreats into  violent fantasies of revenge. One night a man (Richard Jenkins) and his daughter Abby (Chloe Moretz) move into the apartment complex and Owen becomes curious about the girl who only comes out at night, sits in the cold with no shoes or coat, but seems untouched by the frigid New Mexico winter. She looks ragged, she smells bad, her hair is lank and her are eyes dull. But even so, Owen is drawn to her. The next time he sees her she’s been transformed, no longer sickly looking, she looks like a pretty little girl. Owen will learn she’s without a doubt different from any girl he’s ever met.

Since it’s number 13, and we’ve all been infected with the Horror virus around these parts, this week’s column will be bloody and terribly scary. Well, not scary exactly (though I’m sure it could give Wes Craven’s decidedly non-trouser-messing recent stuff a good run for its money), but, like, dedicated to Halloween. Next week, with it being the last column before All Hallow’s Eve, I’ll be looking at some costumes you can pick up from the world of horror movies, so this week it’s all about murderous merch. Scary swag. Ghoulish goodies. And loads of other not-funny, but pleasant alliterative phrases in the same mold…