DVD releases for September 28, 2010

This is the last week of September. Friday is the first day of October. Probably the best time of year to be a horror fan. The Fall/Halloween movie season gets started with some great titles.

First up is Adam Green’s Frozen. I wish I had been able to see this in theaters, as the trailer looked so intense. Looks like a great movie to curl up with on a cold winter night.

I have always heard how awesome the 1981 made-for-TV Dark Night of the Scarecrow is, and now I will finally be able to find out for myself. Hope this flick lives up to the hype!

I’m not a die hard fan of Madman like a lot of slasher fans are. But I do enjoy it, and will be glad to finally add it to my collection, as the original DVD had been out of print for a while.

While Iron Man 2 was not quite as good as the first (and it broke the sequel-that’s-better-than-the-first chain that X2, Spider-Man 2 and The Dark Knight started), I definitely had a good time in the theater. It was a great kickoff for the 2010 summer movie season.

Get Him to the Greek was not a genre movie of any kind, but goddamn I can’t wait to see it. Forgetting Sarah Marshall is probably one of the funniest movies I’ve ever seen, and part of it’s charm was Russell Brand. Basing an entire movie around his Aldous Snow was a great idea.

Another film I am stoked for is Suck. To begin with, I would probably watch anything Alice Cooper was in at all, because he rules so hard. Throw in Iggy Pop and Henry Rollins and it’s all rock n’ roll from there.

I haven’t been into all the DC animated movies over the past few years (though I still want to see Batman: Under the Red Hood), but Superman/Batman: Apocalypse does look pretty fun.



...And holy shit, next week looks almost as good, if not better!  Because, fucking finally:

Zombies on the Rampage

I read a review in a fairly recent issue of Fangoria of some new low-budget zombie film. The review began with the following lines: “I hate zombie movies. I hate saying I hate zombie movies.” This was the reviewer’s way of saying that he has grown bored with the zombie sub-genre in the past six years, since the Dawn of the Dead remake and “The Walking Dead” comic renewed interest in reanimated corpses. At least they renewed interest with the masses. Us horror hounds have always known that zombies were awesome, and it didn’t take these breakout works to prove it (though I do love them both).

This review kind of bothered me. I mean, the movie being reviewed may have sucked (I don’t even remember what it was called). And we have all seen our fair share of crappy zombie movies to come out in the last half decade. But seriously, that is not going to deter me from continuing to check out the ones that look good, even if the genre *is* saturated. Just last year I watched and LOVED Dead Snow, and the other night I finally got around to watching Flight of the Living Dead--fun as hell. Granted, for every one of those enjoyable zombie movies, there’s a The Wickeds or a Day of the Dead 2. But still….remember how fun Dead & Breakfast was? And I would never want to dissuade someone from making the next Hide and Creep.

Maybe this guy was one of those movie-goers bemoaning all the post-Scream slashers that came out eleven years ago (of which I certainly saw my fair share of crappy ones…but I was just thankful that people were making slasher movies again). And I’m sure he now “hates vampire movies” and “hates saying he hates vampire movies.” And maybe he‘s right. But this automatically, and unfairly, crosses out all the great flicks that may come out dealing with any of these commonly-tread horror tropes.

I love zombie movies. I love saying I love zombie movies. Like many of you, I’ve loved them for twenty-ish years, ever since I saw the Tom Savini Night of the Living Dead remake in seventh grade. And I will continue to love every zombie movie (and slasher movie and vampire movie and whatever else becomes popular next year) that is made well, and with care and affection from the filmmaker. But who knows, maybe the movie being reviewed just sucked.