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The After Dark Horrorfest was a game-changer back when it premiered in 2006. Not only was this film festival devoted to the horror genre, it was accessible. Founder Courtney Solomon (An American Haunting) chose the best possible venue for this “ultimate celebration of horror”: the big screen. So from November 17 to 21, these hand-picked titles were shown at select theaters across the U.S.

There have been four “sequels” to the After Dark Horrorfest since then, but for many horror hounds like myself, the original one is a bit more meaningful. It was an exciting time for discovery, developing one’s own taste, and for learning what the genre had to offer in the non-mainstream sector.

So in honor of this momentous film fest, we look back at the first “8 Films to Die For”.

The Abandoned (Nacho Cerdà)

Pictured: Anastasia Hille in The Abandoned.

That February following the first After Dark Horrorfest,...

Killer Collectibles highlights five of the most exciting new horror products announced each and every week, from toys and apparel to artwork, records, and much more.

Here are the coolest horror collectibles unveiled this week!

Peeping Tom 4K Uhd from Criterion

Peeping Tom will join The Criterion Collection on 4K Ultra HD and Blu-ray on May 14. The 1960 British horror-thriller has been newly restored in 4K with Dolby Vision Hdr and uncompressed monaural sound.

A progenitor of the contemporary slasher, Michael Powell (The Red Shoes) produces and directs from a script by Leo Marks. Carl Boehm, Moira Shearer, Anna Massey, and Maxine Audley star.

Special features include: a new introduction by Martin Scorsese; a new interview with Thelma Schoonmaker; a new featurette with Scorsese, Schoonmaker, and Boehm; audio commentaries by film scholar Laura Mulvey and film historian Ian Christie; featurettes Marks and on the restoration; and more.

Chucky Talking Board from...

Under their new boxset/collection banner, The Abomination Collection, Goredrome Pictures are set to release extreme films Necromaniacs (Norway – 2022) by Stephen F. Flannagan and Scarlet P*ss Princess (USA – 2023) by Jack Mulvanerty.

The pair are the first two films from The Abomination Collection, the extreme series with the exclusive artwork by Shin Nagai on the box set. Created and distributed by Goredrome Pictures, collection consists of 14 shocking films that deal with a cluster of strong subject matter including a lot of perversions.

The other 12 films of the series will be announced in the coming months.

Necromaniacs

Directed by Stephen F. Flannagan, Necromaniacs is an extreme horror comedy film about necrophilia and stars Lars Ueland and Vibeke Rauhala. After Nekro Forest (2021), Necromaniacs is the second installment in the necro-saga that pays homage to Jörg Buttgereit’s Nekromantik (1987) and Nacho Cerdà’s Aftermath (1994).

Dario and Maria are a young couple who share...

It’s Friday the 13th and a full moon tonight so we let the crazies loose and are bring back one of our favorite staff posts, The Thirteen! If you aren’t familiar with The Thirteen, it was initially conceived to be a Top 13 list of films about a certain topic. Sadly, we started it last September and it fell by the wayside. Read our past two posts:

13 Songs Used in Films That Take On a Haunting Feeling

13 Female Villains & Anti-Heroes in Film

Xtro

contribution by Jeremy Jones

A young boy sees his dad abducted by some unseen force. Three years later a meteor hits in the middle of the woods and brings something icky. Written, directed and scored by Harry Bromley Davenport, Xtro is a demented labor of love. The first twenty minutes are the most chunk blowing worthy moments. Including perhaps the grossest thing ever, walking in on your parents having sex.

Leos Carax's Holy Motors won Official In-Competition Fantàstic Selection and Carax also took home the best director award earlier today at the Sitges Film Festival. The film also won awards in two other categories as well: the International Fantastic Film Festival of Catalonia's Critics' jury and the International Fantastic Film Festival of Catalonia's Silver Méliès jury, on which our own Shelagh M. Rowan-Legg presided. Other multiple winners included Jennifer Lynch's Chained, Ben Wheatley's Sightseers and Brandon Cronenberg's Antiviral. You will find all the winners listed below. The jury of the 45th Sitges - International Fantastic Film Festival of Catalonia's Official In-Competition Fantàstic Selection, consisting of Judith Colell, Denise Crosby, Lamberto Bava, Nacho Cerdà and William Lustig, decided on the following awards: Best in competition fantastic feature film:Holy...

Spanish director Nacho Cerdà and his Phenomena: The Ultimate Cinematic Experience has been bringing back the double-feature tradition to Barcelona with a monthly screening of classic and diverse films from the 1970s and 1980s, such as Total Recall, Aliens, Rambo, and Scarface. With 3D and digital projection on a seeming steam-roller path of destruction of celluloid, series like these are cropping up in many cities, and Cerdà is certainly one of the best people to be organizing this popular return to tradition. Screening at the gorgeous 1800-seat Urgel Cinema, the series draws a diverse crowd of film lovers who revel in the experience of seeing these films as originally intended: on a huge screen, subtitles, in 35mm. This Friday, April 15, in conjunction with Salón de Cómic in Barcelona,...

If you have Netflix and are a horror fan in need of something to watch this Labor Day weekend, one look at this gargantuan list I compiled of the new terror titles Netflix has added for instant streaming in just the first three days of this month should keep you busy until Labor Day next year. You'll find something for everyone, from older titles to recent releases, famous to obscure, classic to not-so-classic, monsters to maniacs - you name it.

For the record, I considered compiling this list in alphabetical order or by year of the film's release, but then I realized I had already spent well over an hour just sorting through the massive catalogue of titles Netflix has now made available for instant streaming and realized Labor Day would be over by the time I finished arranging this list in any kind of order. Ready? Here you go.

Monday, October 12

If you are not into the sun, sand and cinema that Spain’s Sitges (see last report here and go here for the fest’s official site) has to offer, the next best thing about this international film festival is the socializing. Hundreds of genre celebrities, fans and journalists have assembled in this coastal town, and this edition has witnessed such folks as Thirst’S Park Chan-wook, Tetsuo’s Shinya Tsukamoto, The Abandoned’s Nacho Cerdá (busy teaching in Barcelona, he tells me), Ghostbusters’ Ivan Reitman, [Rec] 2 helmers Paco Plaza and Jaume Belagueró (“Doing better at the box office in Spain than the first film,” Belagueró says), Day Of The Beast’s Alex de la Iglesia (looking very professorial), Orphan’s tiny terror Isabelle Fuhrman and Irreversible’S Gaspar Noé (whose controversial new film Enter The Void is debuting here), just to name a few.

Of all this terrifying talent,...

Monday, October 12

If you are not into the sun, sand and cinema that Spain’s Sitges (see last report here and go here for the fest’s official site) has to offer, the next best thing about this international film festival is the socializing. Hundreds of genre celebrities, fans and journalists have assembled in this coastal town, and this edition has witnessed such folks as Thirst’S Park Chan-wook, Tetsuo’s Shinya Tsukamoto, The Abandoned’s Nacho Cerdá (busy teaching in Barcelona, he tells me), Ghostbusters’ Ivan Reitman, [Rec] 2 helmers Paco Plaza and Jaume Belagueró (“Doing better at the box office in Spain than the first film,” Belagueró says), Day Of The Beast’s Alex de la Iglesia (looking very professorial), Orphan’s tiny terror Isabelle Fuhrman and Irreversible’S Gaspar Noé (whose controversial new film Enter The Void is debuting here), just to name a few.

Of all this terrifying talent,...

Pieces was the first “No One Under 17 Admitted” movie I ever saw back in my burgeoning horror-lovin’ youth without an older friend to help me through the doors. The additional sign over the box office reading “If You’re Not 17, You’re Not Getting In!” seemed to pose an additional challenge to my friend and I—neither one of us close to that magic age—but we paid our admissions and made it inside easily.

Then the box-office guy called out, “Hold on, you two!” and we were sure we were busted. It turned out, though, that he just wanted to be sure we had our tickets; we acknowledged that we did, he told us thanks and we scurried up the escalator before he could think again about it. So happy were we to have broached the domain of the age-forbidden that we each bought a huge tub of popcorn...

Legendary UK TV film critic Barry Norman looks at the making of two early 90's Low budget UK horror movies. Jim Grooms 1992 cult horror-comedy Revenge of Billy the Kid and Cult director Richard Stanley's horror / sci-fi Hardware.

This segment is taken from the BBC's long running film show Film '90 (now obviously Film 2008). Barry Norman presented the show for 25 years starting in 1972 up until he left and in 1999 and was replaced by current host Jonathan Ross.

Though Hardware was slated as a Terminator rip off by some at the time it made a profit and Richard Stanley went on to make another film with a cult following the Namibian serial killer movie Dust Devil in 1993. DVD label put out a remasterd directors cut of Dust Devil in 2006 which you can still pick up from Amazon. However his career stalled when he was thrown off the set of the 1996 production of The Island of Dr.