Just in Time for Halloween: The Serpent

The Serpent, which is to be released on DVD on October 31st, is described as a romantic escape into nature that turns into the ultimate moment of reckoning when a husband and wife are trapped in a tent with a deadly snake. Unable to escape and with certain death looming, the couple find themselves spiraling into a dark and dangerous space of which only one can survive as the tent becomes a heated confessional to a cataclysmic truth.

Judging from the synopsis and the trailer, The Serpent has all the earmarks of a good fright movie: isolation, betrayal, the fight for survival, and, in this case, an evil villain that is literally a snake.

Check out the trailer below to see if you might be interested:

https://video.search.yahoo.com/yhs/search?fr=yhs-adk-adk_sbnt&hsimp=yhs-adk_sbnt&hspart=adk&p=movie+trailer+for+The+Serpent#id=4&vid=4df8ad811450b959f42e340e3d932833&action=click

October Horror DVD/VOD Releases

Based on the trailers I viewed and the film descriptions, these October releases look promising.

GHOST STORY - In this singular exploration of legacy, love, loss, and the enormity of existence, a recently deceased, white-sheeted ghost returns to his suburban home to try to reconnect with his bereft wife. (Available October 3rd on DVD)

https://youtu.be/c_3NMtxeyfk

THE CRUCIFIXION  - Based on a true story, when a priest is jailed for the murder of a nun on whom he was performing an exorcism, an investigative journalist strives to determine whether he, in fact, murdered a mentally ill person, or if he lost the battle with a demonic presence. (Available October 6th on VOD)

https://youtu.be/9J33S2HC8xA

NIGHTWORLD - When Former LAPD Office, Brett Anderson takes a job as head of security at an old apartment building in Bulgaria’s capital, Sofia, he soon begins to experience a series of bizarre and terrifying events. Once he begins to delve deep into the building’s sinister history, and investigate its shadowy owners and past employees, Brett soon uncovers a malevolent force nestled deep in the bowels of the building in the basement that will do anything to be set free into our world. . .  (Available October 20th on VOD)

https://youtu.be/0T7jHCQX-Xs



For other titles, please see http://horrorfreaknews.com/october-2017-horror-movie-release.

New September Horror Film Releases

In the lead-up to Halloween, there are many new horror films being released in September. Here are two you might like to check out:


It

There's something truly terrifying about sinister clowns, and Stephen King's Pennywise is among the

scariest. This film has been touted as the most-awaited horror movie of 2017. It's getting excellent reviews and has an 85% rating in Rotten Tomatoes, which states that the film is "well-acted and fiendishly frightening with an emotionally affecting story at its core. It amplifies the horror in Stephen King's classic story without losing touch with its heart."

For the trailer, please click here.

mother!   

From the director of  Black Swan, this film has an all-star cast including Jennifer Lawrence, Javier Bardem, Ed Harris, Michelle
Pfeiffer, and Kristen Wiig. A young woman renovates a Victorian mansion in the countryside where she lives with her husband. A stranger knocks at the door one night and becomes an unexpected guest, and soon his family joins him. Suddenly, her husband becomes friendly and accommodating with everyone but her.

For the trailer, please click here.

Stay tuned for more next week!

September Horror Releases: Part 2

Here are some additional September releases to look for:

What are the Bamboo?

They are from China.

They look just like us.

They live by night.

They drink human lifeblood but otherwise keep their distance.

And every century, they grow white blooming flower.

A boy named Kyo is saved from the precipice of death by a Bamboo, a vampire born of the tall grasses. They start an enjoyable yet strange shared life together, Kyo and the gentle Bamboo. But for Bamboo, communication with human beings is the greatest sin.


The horror genre's greatest living practitioners drag our darkest fears kicking and screaming into the

light in this collection of nineteen brand-new stories. In "The Boggle Hole" by Alison Littlewood an ancient folk tale leads to irrevocable loss. In Josh Malerman's "The House of the Head" a dollhouse becomes the focus for an incident both violent and inexplicable. And in "Speaking Still" Ramsey Campbell suggests that beyond death there may be far worse things waiting than we can ever imagine... Numinous, surreal and gut wrenching, New Fears is a vibrant collection showcasing the very best fiction modern horror has to offer.




Nilhollow—six-hundred-plus acres of haunted woods in New Jersey’s Pine Barrens—is the stuff of

urban legend. Amid tales of tree spirits and all-powerful forest gods are frightening accounts of hikers who went insane right before taking their own lives. It is here that Julia Russo flees when her violent ex-boyfriend runs her off the road . . . here that she vanishes without a trace.

State Trooper Peter Grainger has witnessed unspeakable things that have broken other men. But he has to find Julia and can’t turn back now. Every step takes him closer to an ugliness that won’t be appeased—a centuries-old, devouring hatred rising up to eviscerate humankind. Waiting, feeding, surviving. It’s unstoppable. And its time has come.

NOTE:  All book descriptions are from Amazon.com.

September Horror Releases: Part 1

September is shaping up to be an interesting month in terms of new horror releases. Here's a few to look for:

Written by the father-son team of Stephen and Owen King, this novel provides an ironic twist to a

classic fairy tale. In a future so real and near it might be now, something happens when women go to sleep: they become shrouded in a cocoon-like gauze. If they are awakened, if the gauze wrapping their bodies is disturbed or violated, the women become feral and spectacularly violent. And while they sleep they go to another place, a better place, where harmony prevails and conflict is rare.

One woman, the mysterious “Eve Black,” is immune to the blessing or curse of the sleeping disease. Is Eve a medical anomaly to be studied? Or is she a demon who must be slain? Abandoned, left to their increasingly primal urges, the men divide into warring factions, some wanting to kill Eve, some to save her. Others exploit the chaos to wreak their own vengeance on new enemies. All turn to violence in a suddenly all-male world.

A novel by Jeffrey Ford: All Maggie, Russell, and Henry wanted out of their last college vacation

was to get drunk and play archaeologist in an old house in the woods outside of town. When they excavate the mansion's outhouse they find way more than they bargained for: a sealed bottle filled with a red liquid, along with the bizarre skeleton of a horned child.

Disturbing the skeleton throws each of their lives into a living hell. They feel followed wherever they go, their homes are ransacked by unknown intruders, and people they care about are brutally, horribly dismembered. The three friends awakened something, a creature that will stop at nothing to retrieve its child.

A novel by Kay Howard: In New York City, magic controls everything. But the power of magic is fading. No one knows what is happening, except for Sydney—a new, rare magician with incredible

power that has been unmatched in decades, and she may be the only person who is able to stop the darkness that is weakening the magic. But Sydney doesn’t want to help the system, she wants to destroy it. Sydney comes from the House of Shadows, which controls the magic with the help of sacrifices from magicians.





NOTE: All book descriptions are taken from Amazon.com.

Please stay tuned next week to Part 2 of September releases.

A Real-Life Man in Black

I discovered that Huffington Post has a weird news section which reports on such things as a calf that's a dead ringer for Gene Simmons. Recently the newspaper featured a unique listing from NASA for a planetary protection officer

. . .who would help thwart the spread of extraterrestrial life ― 'intentionally or unintentionally' ― on Earth and to outside solar systems.

'Planetary protection is concerned with the avoidance of organic-constituent and biological contamination in human and robotic space exploration,' the job listing states. That basically means preventing extraterrestrial life forces ― no matter their size ― from spreading during space travel.


There are only two positions like this in the world, the other being with the European Space Agency.

Among the job listing requirements are frequency of travel and proven diplomatic skills in negotiating win-win solutions.

For the job listing itself, see https://www.usajobs.gov/GetJob/ViewDe....

For the full text of the article, see http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/entry/na....

(By the way, if you would like to see the calf that looks like Gene Simmons, please click here: http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/entry/ca....)

Reprinted from my Goodreads blog.

The Dark Tower Film

Fans of Stephen King's The Dark Tower series may have mixed feelings about the new film, which has opened to generally negative reviews (Rotten Tomatoes: 18% for critical response, although the audience response is more favourable at 63%).

It is billed as a "science fantasy western" that continues the themes of the Dark Tower novels. Part of the problem may be trying to capture the essence of a series of novels that spans King's writing life. Critics have denounced the plot as incomprehensible and unfaithful to King's novels.

The film features Idris Elba (fans of The Wire will recognize him as the actor who plays Stringer Bell) as Roland, the last of the lone Gunslingers. Matthew McConaughey stars as Walter o'Dim, the Man in Black, an ageless deceiver and sorcerer.

The Dark Tower film has an interesting history. It started production in 2007 and has had three successive directors: J.J. Abrams; Ron Howard; and finally Nikolaj Arcel (with Howard in a production role). A follow-up television series is planned for 2018. (Sources: Wikipedia and Rotten Tomatoes)