**_Caves darkly lit, blackening the night_** Several youths take a trip to the empty wastelands of SoCal to camp out and explore caves, but their plans are quickly ruined by the primordial denizens thereof. “Hillside Cannibals” (2006) is a mockbuster of the remake of “The Hills Have Eyes,” which was released eighteen days earlier. One character makes a reference to “Deliverance on amphetamines” and I understand this, but the flick isn’t really reminiscent of that iconic film due to the Southwest desert milieu (as opposed to lush northeast Georgia). Rather, it’s a mixture of “The Naked Prey,” “Gargoyles,” “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” and, of course, the original “The Hills Have Eyes.” S. Craig Zahler was obviously inspired by it for his superior “Bone Tomahawk.” Long stretches feature no dialogue, combined with hellish caves, mostly at night, and a great primal percussion-oriented score, which is in the tradition of “The Naked Prey.” While the title might elicit giggles, the proceedings are (thankfully) taken seriously by the filmmakers & cast. Costing $600,000, they did the best they could within their limitations, but it’s a little too one-dimensional and grim. There are several noteworthy females, but not enough is done with them. With more funds and a rewrite to flesh-out the potential, this would’ve been more memorable. Still, it’s worth checking out if what I said trips your trigger. Considering what's been going on in places like Haiti recently, it's not something out of the realm of plausibility. The movie runs 1 hour, 23 minutes, and was shot at Calico Ghost Town north of Yermo, California, a two-hour drive northeast of Los Angeles in the desert high country. GRADE: C+/B-
There is a contest. The prize is immortality. To win, all you have to do is kill! A demon with the power to resurrect and control the dead enters the contest. There will be HELL to pay!
Four guys on a bachelor party get off the subway at a station that shut down in the 70's and, after watching a transit cop get brutally murdered, find themselves running for their lives beneath the streets of NY.
Edward is a friendly, harmless film editor in the splatter and gore department of a horror film company. Ed is assigned to work on the new Loose Limbs series of horror films after the previous editor killed himself with a hand grenade. Later his reality begins to twist and distort into a horrifying world where nothing is as it seems. Soon enough this turns Ed into Evil Ed!
A journalist named Lee Custler (William Katt) is out jogging when a flying object passes behind him and crashes. Sheriff Joel Armstrong (Collin Brock) picks him up and they go to check it out. They find an abandoned caravan close to where the object crashed. As they discover the object and realize it is a spaceship, an Alien emerges. The Alien (resembling a giant spider with a lizard-like head and torso) then chases them, after which Lee flees to the car. However Armstrong makes a stand, trips, falls and is killed by the Alien that then leaves. A terrified Tammy finds Lee and they call the local authorities but their car is destroyed by the Alien.
A precocious girl, her nasty parents, two punk-rock losers and a weak-kneed salesman inadvertently become the guests of two ghoulish senior citizens in their dark, haunted mansion.
After chomping through the fish population, thousands of starved lampreys begin attacking the citizens of a sleepy lake town, and the community scrambles to stay alive.
Happy family in the suburbs have unusual zest for life. Their secret? They're cannibals.
Trapped in a damaged cryogenic pod, a man is forced to watch a series of horrific science-fiction tales while his life support systems run out. Featuring eight intense stories of the unknown and other-worldly, equally wonderful and terrifying. Visit the GALAXY OF HORRORS, if you dare! Curated from Rue Morgue & Unstable Ground's Little Terrors Festival.
A retired soldier is deeply disturbed by his past experiences in Vietnam, but goes out in the jungle one more time to save his sick daughter. He gathers his old gang of misfits, including a sex-maniac and a wife-killer. They slay their way through Vietcong, innocent villagers and traitors - anybody who stands between them and getting the job done.
When a group of hikers take off for a weekend of fun and adventure in remote mountain region, they unwittingly stumble across the Staunton family - for whom the hill is named - and find themselves at the mercy of a depraved, diabolical brood that will stop at nothing to rid their property of these "trespassers." The only law on Staunton's Hill is the law of the Stauntons...and, in this case, the penalty for defying that law is death.
Grave robbing, cannibalism, conspiracy- these and more make up the world our hero (name unknown) falls into after receiving a mysterious package meant for another address. On his attempt to bring the box to it's rightful owner, he witnesses some bizarre, possibly criminal behavior exhibited by the intended recipient. Fascinated, he begins an absurd journey to find out the truth of the package's origins- bringing him to the brink of sanity and good taste.