Fright Rings captures the essence of the 2007 horror anthology “Trick ‘R Treat” the way Michael Dougherty captures Halloween with his film by releasing a officially licensed apparel “Trick ‘R Treat” collection.
The collection is headlined by a box set, which is limited to 1,000 pieces. The set includes a retro-inspired ventilated Sam mask, an exclusive T-shirt designed by Justin Osbourn, a prismatic sticker and a collector’s box.
The release also includes four other shirts. Kyle Crawford’s design outlines the rules of Halloween (also available on zippered hoodies). Matt Tobin turns Sam into a skull and crossbones-inspired symbol (also available on baseball tees). Abrar Ajmal contributes two designs: an ominous look at Sam and a sly reminder to always check your candy.
Last but certainly not least are Sucker Socks. Your feet can be as stylish as your shirt this Halloween with a pair of Trick ‘r Treat custom knit crew socks.
These items are in stock now on Fright-Rags.com. Orders will ship in 2-3 business days to ensure domestic delivery by Halloween.
As an added bonus, every order shipped in October will include a free Halloween goodie bag, including a Gory Ticket that could win the recipient up to $250 in Fright-Rags merchandise.
Markus lives the perfect life: a lucrative job in construction management, an adoring and faithful wife, and a beautiful and smart daughter about to tend a prominent English school. Yet, Marcus finds solace in a double life by living his true self as a bi-sexual man with a secret, younger male lover from one of his construction projects, leaving his wife frustrated and destructive in their foundering marriage. When Markus’s construction colleague Christopher finds himself being squeezed by the taxing agency, Marcus offers to help out a little. Christopher asks his 12-year-old son Johannes to be nice to and to spend time with Markus’s 11-year-old daughter Elisabeth in a show of good faith towards Markus’s good will. With Johannes around most of the time, Markus tries to keep grounded his uncontrollable desires for Johannes, but invites Johannes to Markus’s family’s summer house. Through the summer, Markus and Johannes form a relationship, but not everything is as it’s seems when hidden agendas and surprising outcomes could potentially destroy everyone involved.
An intense psychosexual, “The Summer House” zips straight out of Berlin from writer-director Curtis Burz who touches upon more taboo subject material than one might be able to withstand without feeling guilty, dirty, or rotten. Burz’s pen weaves through one man’s constant struggle between maintaining a barely afloat marriage to a wife he loves because of their daughter and his secretive bi-sexual life in an affair involving a much younger man. Burz also remarks on Markus’s wife Christine and her battle with near tragic depression; she’s complicit in Markus’s affair by allowing him, with only little resistance, to continue, yet Christine wants Markus to rediscover his love for her on his own. The pen continues to weave through the stories of the children, Johannes and Elisabeth. The very nature of a child feels exploited here in more ways than one, but the film’s end game takes an usual twist, one I can’t spill here without spoiling the finale fun. Burz continues to drop dark material presented and staged in a glowing-like and vividly colorful mise-en-scene throughout that would suggest happiness or perfection for all involved; however, the nagging, gloomy undertone remains behind the scenes and unseen and that’s the kind of sadistically gratifying contribution added by director Curtis Burz.
“The Summer House” is a socially controversial film without being overly in your face with it. Nothing is explicit with the subtleties being just enough to make your stomach feel uneasy and to make your jaw clench with anticipation. The scenes with Markus (the then 40-year-old Sten Jacobs) and Johannes (a certainly under 18-year-old Jasper Fuld) kept building the tension between them and Jacobs portrayed a creepy, over-anxious and over-persistent pedophile uncomfortably well whereas Fuld plays his part just as convincingly as a seemingly tolerable young boy who may or may not be curious about Markus’s intentions toward him. The vexation Christine discharges is all due in part, greatly toward, of the leading lady Anna Altmann’s performance. Altmann captures a wife in marriage limbo, looking to rekindle a broken family stuck in stalemate due to her husband’s mid-life sexual crisis while maintaining her daughter’s precociousness. Nina Splettstößer feeds off Atlmann’s motherly performance by portraying Elisabeth as quiet and intelligent, yet passive and conniving who sees her mother as someone who hates her because of how stringent her mother is toward her.
The story’s complex web becomes stickier and the spider draws even closer when Markus’s secret sleepovers become exposed, creating a twist ending not even M. Night Shyamalan could conjure up. However, the story behind Markus’s colleague Christopher and his wife Anne feels ignored and neglected. Aside from Christopher incidentally being the catalyst between Markus and Johannes, Christopher and Anne’s scenes seem unnecessary. One scene has the both adult couples seemingly in the early wine and dine stages of a swinger party, but once most of the kissing between Anne, Christopher and Christine is out of the way, the scene falls short with a quick cut to just Markus finishing off with his wife Christine with all their clothes still on. Christopher and Anne come and go in barely a handful of other scenes that don’t tie into much of the story and would have either been better if either explored further into their adventurous lifestyle to get a better understanding of Johannes or leave them out all together.
Overall, “The Summer House” is deserving of it’s numerous film festival awards and a solid release for not only Artsploitation Films, but also as a film that has been Berlin born even if the film released nearly 3 years ago. Certainly very relevant to today’s modern multi-societal problems including the dissolving of families, behavioral issues with not only pedophilia, but with depression, and to round out the pleasantries with scrofulous affairs. The Artsploitation Films, in a metaphorical broken and cracked pane glass over a solemn Markus family DVD cover, has a widescreen 1.85:1 ratio release with a German and English 2.0 audio track is accompanied with bonus features that include deleted scenes, cast and crew interviews, and a trailer; all content clocks in at around 195 minutes total – not bad all around for an independent feature.
It’s time to go back to Camp Crystal Lake in this official video game adaption of Friday the 13th! Today, developer Gun Media opened up their Kickstarter and looking to raise $700,00.
Friday the 13th: The game will feature gameplay where you can play as both Jason and the camp counselors. As Jason you get to stalk the camp counselors kill them in anyway the player wants. If you want to be scared however, then take control of the counselors and try to survive. The multiplayer mode will have 7 vs 1 gameplay where one player will play as Jason while the others play as the counselors. This is indeed the Friday the 13th game we’ve been waiting for.
If none of this has you sold on the project already, then what if we told you that Kane Hodder will return as Jason? Kane will return to do the motion capture for Jason. That means the movement in all the kills you perform as Jason will be authentic to the movies. If that’s not enough then how about Tom Savini being the executive producer and cinematography? Once I saw him on board I was instantly sold, I am a huge fan of Tom Savini and happy to see he’s working on this game.
If you’re big Friday the 13th fan then keep an eye out for this. Hell maybe even back the game up yourself? Head over to their Kickstarter and show the project some love.
In the zombie post-apocalypse, the human discovered that by not firing their weapons allowed the flesh eating hordes to calm their desires, resulting in the protection of the zombie species and institutionalizing laws against the killing zombies for fear of another undead swarm attack. One of the many survivors Clay has lived in a zombie cooperation world for over a year after the initial outbreak along with his sister Mia, whose boyfriend Gerry didn’t survive, but still roams the Earth as the walking dead. With no one truly dying, the whole idea of existence becomes meaningless and where people, like Mia, won’t move on when they’re loved ones still feel very much alive. When Clay discovers his sister’s attachment to undead Gerry, he takes it upon himself to kill Mia’s zombie boyfriend, releasing a zombie swarm post-apocalypse apocalypse on the his town.
Unprecedented and gushing with rage, “A Plague so Pleasant” redefines the way audiences would view the zombie since 1968, constructing still a vicious species of man-eating undead while domesticating them to a lumbering land fixture much like the way pigeons amongst the birds. First time directors Benjamin Roberds and Jordan Reyes triumph amongst the modern zombie competition, spilling their heart and soul onto the script and onto the screen. With a story to match, a Romero-inspired social commentary zombie film held true to form by instilling normality to a post-apocalyptic world. Zombie and man living together. What was that Bill Murray line in “Ghostbusters?” “Cats and dogs living together… mass hysteria.” Clay and Mia were living a mundane life while the dead remained alive and protected, socially poking fun at how society maintain a normal livelihood with zombies: the U.S. Government made killing zombies a national felony, companies were mandated to go through a yearly undead awareness program as a formality, and there’s a guarded visitation area full of the undead much like a graveyard without graves.
Stunning cinematography added much needed life to “A Plague so Pleasant” which settles into an already over saturated zombie genre. Starting in black and white, Clay introduces his life in a offscreen monologue, conveying much of the post-apocalyptic and zombie information. The black and white symbolizes how simple and plain life has become with the living with zombies regulations. When Clay breaks the law by offing Gerry for good, thats when the movie turns to color and creating complications in a black and white life. The once unvarying and shuffling zombie nuisance goes into full berserk mode with “28 Days Later” sprinters thirsty to tear into anything with a heart beat. Only when the zombies turn calm is when life goes back to being black and white, considering the option that normality needs to be simplified to live peacefully.
The special effects by first timer Tyler Carver are a great effort clashing together a classic European Giannetto De Rossi style with Carver’s own settle flair by not being overly gruesome. There’s not an over-the-top, chart-topping special effects moment that defines the “A Plague so Pleasant,’ but there the solid effects subtly throughout satisfies. The zombies overall look are the usual stock type, yet they’re exhilarating to watch with an army of intense actors who are no doubt from the Athens, GA Halloween attraction named Zombie Farm where Tyler Carver has a connection. Not everything about the creation of a frightening zombie was accomplished as much of the audio tracks were out of sync and just too gaudy.
Actor David Chandler as Clay does a fine job portraying a bored survivor and a clueless big brother while also performing the second zombie swarm nearly without speaking during the entire engagement. Mia, played by Eva Boehnke, resembles the gorgeous Lebanese-American porn star actress Mia Khalfia with her giant nerdy glasses. Boehnke creates a free spirited, yet delusional, persona in Mia whose holding onto the past and coping the only way she knows how and that’s by not separating from her undead boyfriend Gerry. We round out the cast with Todd played by Maxwell Moody. Todd becomes the catalyst of the coming events by placing the idea of him and Mia being a couple and putting a bullet into Gerry’s rotting brain. Chandler, Boehnke, and Moody on paper are amateur actors in an estimated $1,500 budget, independent movie, but they own their performances and shine through budgetary constraints.
Another awesome release from Wild Eye releasing that would make a worthy and unique edition to a zombie fanatic’s movie collection. Don’t judge to harsh the production value with the slight aliasing, the out of sync zombie audio tracks, and the muffled off screen Clay character monologue. Instead, focus on the cinematography, the actors performances, and the genuine story telling of a socially awkward scenario. Let “A Plague so Pleasant” infect, let it sink it’s teeth deep, and let it help turn your undying attention unto a lively concept.
Melissa discovers a massive King crab on her home’s shore off of Crabbe Creek, Nowhere, USA. Her fondness for the crab forces her to take it as her pet and naming in Pee Wee. Her scientist father works constantly and diligently in the basement, trying to create a genetically modified food source to nourish the billions of people that will overwhelm Earth in the years to come. When Melissa returns home with Pee Wee, she feeds the crustacean a handful of her father’s genetically enhanced grapes. The grapes cause Pee Wee to grow at a rapid rate, but when Melissa’s home blows up due to an experiment gone array that tragically kills both her parents, she’s left to be raised by naïve local sheriff uncle while she protects Pee Wee on her lake covered land. Twenty-years later, Melissa can no longer Pee Wee, who now goes by the name of Goliath, from slaughtering cattle, protecting it’s young, and seizing a small town full of trigger-happy rednecks!
Deep under the giant ocean of micro-budget directors, director Brett Piper is a name I’ve caught before on my critique fishing pole line. Nearly a decade ago, I viewed Piper’s biological terror film “Bacterium” and the estimated $30,000 E.I. Independent Cinema release had instilled hope in me that reviewing non-mainstream projects would be a promising venture and not an anguishing waste of time. Piper’s latest film “Queen Crab” distributed by Wild Eye Releasing continues to impress without the flashy green dollar signs. Working with “way less” than he had on “Bacterium,” Piper puts his unquenchable zaniness into hyper-drive, soaring through old time monster movies and creating one more lasting impression from a dying breed of late-night drive-in horror movies.
“Queen Crab” is a combination of Gordon Douglas’s “Them!” and Desmond Davis’s epic classic “Clash of the Titans,” cultivating similarities from both films. The stop-motion special effects animates the monstrous crab to life and creating a charming piece of movie magic. Pee Wee, the crab, is compiled of stop-motion animation, traditional effects, green screen, and literally minor computer imagery. Some scenes of Pee Wee look really fantastic while some obviously didn’t receive too much attention during post-production and that’s expected. Pee Wee, or Goliath when adult, looks phenomenally, and cheekily, stunning during stop-motion animation. Also, the superimposed backgrounds, creating an eerie atmosphere, adds to the bigger than life aspect of this small budget adventure.
A package like this comes complete with overemphasized, sometimes ear-aching, acting from a range of talented, yet novice, cast such as Michelle Simone Miller, Danielle Donahue, Rich Lounfello, Kathryn Metz, Steve Diasparra, Ken Van Sant and A.J. Delucia. When at first glance of the Wild Eye Releasing DVD cover, I wouldn’t have expected anything less from the multifaceted cast who look to be having just as much fun in being a part of the Piper project. The DVD cover does strike a familiar resemblance to Asylum Entertainment’s straight-to-DVD artwork with absurdity and does tell small tall tales with the explosive war zone artwork which is only half true, but Brett Piper and “Queen Crab” don’t try to create a facade and bluntly tells you, in the form of their artwork, that a giant crab ripping people to shreds and destroying stuff should be a film that never takes itself seriously no matter what the context the story is in.
The Wild Eye Releasing DVD cover defines the movie, but my real only gripe with this outside binding is why the synopsis. The backside synopsis doesn’t give an accurate portrayal of events and seems more tuned to classic monster movie scenario where a comet awakes a “centuries-old beast.” I don’t know what to say, but there’s certainly no comet involved. Other than that minor flaw, the DVD is accompanied with a good handful of extras that include a commentary with director Brett Piper and producer Mark Polonia, a blooper reel, behind the scenes featurettes, a sneak peak at Brett Piper’s “Tricyclops,” and trailers. “Queen Crab” creates larger than life horror, sci-fi, and fantasy fun for nearly all ages. I hope to see another Brett Piper creature feature film soon and hopefully it won’t take another decade!
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