A serial killer known as "The Hinsdale Slasher" has been terrorizing a small Midwestern town. Holly Brand learns that Graham is actually the killer and he has kidnapped her best-friend Zakiya. With the help of her aunt, Police Chief Debra Dorn, Holly finds out where Graham has taken Zakiya, but this killer is not what meets the eye. He is actually a werewolf!

Holly becomes a hero and a media sensation after she kills "The Hinsdale Slasher", but only her aunt and best-friend know that he was in fact a werewolf. Suddenly, the ordinary teenager's, Holly, life is completely changed. All the media reporters wants her to do an exclusive interview and the poplar boys want to date her, including the star high school football player, Jeff.

She gets nominated to be the Midwinter Dance Queen, which upsets a popular girl, Gina, who wants revenge!

Slaughter
Director: Stewart Hopewell
Written By:  Stewart Hopewell
Starring:  Lucy Holt, Amy Shiels, David Sterne
Studio: Liongates
ASIN: B001P9N9A8
Release Date: March 31, 2009
Running Time: 96 minutes
Rated R for Disturbing Violent Content, Language and Some Sexuality


Slaughter was released to theaters back in 2009 as part of the After Dark Horrorfest III (aka 8 Films to Die For). As of writing this review, it is only the second After Dark movie I have viewed.

The film opens up with a twenty-something Faith (played Amy Shiels) arriving in Atlanta and leaving her small town life, her horrible mother, and her abusive ex-boyfriend. At a nightclub, she meets a twenty-something Lola (played by Lucy Holt), who is care-free type person. They chat and exchange numbers.

Just as Faith starts to adjust to the city life, she receives dozens of hateful emails from her ex-boyfriend. Not having anyone to turn to, she befriends Lola, who lives outside of Atlanta on her family farm with her father and brothers. Faith moves out of the city after she recognizes her ex's truck parked near her apartment and she ends up living with Lola in the upstairs part of the barn that has been turned into an apartment.

Lola lives a wild life; letting rich older men buy her stuff in exchange for a one night stand. The men are always gone by the time Faith gets up in the morning, but then she notices strange things. One of the men left his watch behind and Faith finds a set of car keys in the weeds.

Hostel/ Hostel Part II/ The Tattooist/ The Hunt for the BTK Killer
Directors: Eli Roth, Peter Burger, Stephen Kay
Starring: Jay Hernandez, Derek Richardson, Lauren German, Heather Matarazzo, Jordan Ladd
Studio: Mill Creek Entertainment
ASIN: B008R5SYEY
Release Date: October 9th, 2012
Run Time: 371 minutes
Rated: R
Buy Link: Amazon.com


With Halloween just days away, there's nothing better than watching horror movies, which are constantly being aired on cable channels, but most of them are edited for content. Mill Creek Entertainment recently released four shocking horror films onto a two-discs set. Tower PR and Mill Creek Entertainment kindly sent me a complementary copy to review. This pack contains the splatter-fest Hostel (2006) and its sequel Hostel II (2007), along with The Tattooist (2007) and The Hunt for the BTK Killer (2005).

Hostel starts out as a typical college vacation trip film, where Josh, Paxton, and their new friend Óli just want to have a good time. They get a tip that there are 'easy' beautiful women in Bratislava and of course they go. Things seem normal as they meet three women who seduce them, but they have no idea of what horrors await them.

Hostel is not for the weak-hearted! It, along with the Saw movies, created what is known as the "torture porn" genre. The first half is more-or-less a raunchy comedy, but then after a few twists and turns, the mayhem begins. It is sick to think that there might be rich powerful people that want to torture and kill a person. The movie is well acted and the last thirty-minutes is intense, but it is also twisted.

The Mammoth Book Slasher Movies 
An A-Z Guide to More than 60 Years of Blood and Guts
By Peter Normanton
Publisher: Running Press
ISBN: 978-0762445967
Pub. Date: October 23, 2012
Pages: 512
Buy Link: The Mammoth Book of Slasher Movies

For twenty-three years, I have been a diehard horror fan ever since my grandma let me watch the horror classic John Carpenter's Halloween. It was the censored version that aired on network television, but it was my first introduction to the horror genre. Of course I was excited when I learned that Running Press was releasing a new book about slasher films. Running Press nicely sent me an advanced review copy earlier this month in exchange for this review.

Author and Editor Peter Normanton compiled the best slasher movie from 1916 to 2011 into one nifty guide for horror fans, starting with 28 Days Later and ending with Zombie Flesh Eaters. You might be thinking “Why is there zombie movies listed in a slasher book?” as that was the exact question that popped into my mind when I began reading it. The tagline on the front cover does say "An A-Z Guide to More Than 60 Years of Blood and Guts," and the back cover does mention that book contains more than 250 slasher and splatter movies. So that explains the zombie flicks, such as Night of the Living Dead, Dawn of the Dead, Day of the Dead, Return of the Living Dead and a few others.

"Blood on the Walls" opens up the mammoth book and gives a history lesson on horror cinema throughout the years, followed by an A-Z listing of each movie containing a synopsis and several facts about the movie.

The movies listed are:

Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers
Director: Dwight H. Little
Starring: Donald Pleasence, Ellie Cornell, Danielle Harris, Michael Pataki
Studio: Anchor Bay Entertainment
ASIN: B000FA57UI
Release Date: July 25, 2006
Running Time: 88 minutes
Rated R

I originally saw Halloween 4 when I rented it and the fifth movie a few weeks before The Curse of Michael Myers came out to VHS. I only had basic cable as a kid, and Halloween 4 & 5 never aired on any of the channels. The first thing I noticed was the horrible cheap looking mask. You would think Moustapha Akkad would want a decent looking mask, but I guess they ran out of money for it. All the VHS covers and DVD covers have Michael wearing the 1978 mask, so it can be a little misleading.

After the box-office bomb called Halloween III: Season of the Witch, the franchise took a six year break, coming back in 1988 with Michael Myers surviving the explosion at the end of Halloween II. For the past ten years, he has been in a coma at a sanitarium. Without Dr. Loomis's approval, Michael is being transferred to another hospital by an ambulance. He awakes from the coma and kills the paramedics.

Dr. Loomis arrives at the crime scene on Halloween morning. After a quick glance he knew that Michael is alive. On his way to Haddonfield, Illinois, he stops by a gas station/diner where he finds two corpses and Michael, now dressed  in a mechanic's clothes. Dr. Loomis pulls out his gun, but it is too late as Michael has escaped in a tow-truck, causing a fire that explodes Loomis's car and the gas station/diner.

Eight-year-old Jamie Lloyd is still grieving over the death of her parents, whom died in a car accident. She continues to live in Haddonfield with her foster family, the Carruthers. On Halloween night, Jamie's foster parents are spending the night out and Jamie's foster-sister Rachel is going to take her (dressed in a clown costume) trick-or-treating for the night, even though Rachel is going to miss her date with her boyfriend. The girls are unaware that they are being watched by the bogeyman!

Q: 2012 marks the 20th anniversary of Goosebumps! Why do you think Goosebumps has endured for twenty years?
A: I am totally amazed by this. I feel so privileged to be able to scare so many generations of kids. I think the series continues because everyone likes a good scare.

Q: What inspired you to call the series Goosebumps?
A: I was stumped. I couldn’t think of a name for the series. Then I saw an ad for a TV station that was showing horror movies. The ad said, “It’s Goosebumps week on Channel 11.” There it was! I knew that had to be the title.

Q: You returned to Goosebumps in 2008 after an eight-year break. What inspired you to go back to Goosebumps?
A: My readers! Everywhere I went kids asked me: When are you going to write new Goosebumps books? I always listen to my readers. So now I'm having fun writing more books for Scholastic.

Q: What is the most surprising thing that has happened to you in the last twenty years as a result of the popularity of Goosebumps?
A: Everything that has happened to me has been amazing and surprising. I got the chance to do things that Idreamed of when I was a kid: I got to travel around the world; I had my own Goosebumps attraction at DisneyWorld; I’ve been on TV and had three TV series. I got to throw out the first pitch at Yankee Stadium (actually I let my son do that). I met some of my all-time heroes, including Ray Bradbury. But the biggest thrill was and continues to be meeting and hearing from so many kids who enjoy my books.

Goosebumps Wanted: The Haunted Mask
By R. L. Stine
Publisher: Scholastic Inc.
ISBN: 9780545417938
Pub. Date: July 1, 2012
Pages: 240

A few months ago R. L. Stine released a new book, Goosebumps Wanted: The Haunted Mask, in a rare hardback edition. The new sequel doesn't include the characters of Carly Beth and Sabrina, but focuses on two new kids, Lu-Ann Franklin and Devin O'Bannon.

The books begins at William's Mask Emporium, in which the owner and his dog, Hansel, get a late night visitor - his brother, Randolph, who happens to brought along a few creepy masks that were made from human flesh. William recognizes that the masks are nothing but pure evil. He plans on destroying the masks, but the masks may get him first.

The plot jumps forty years into the future, where twelve-year-old Lu-Ann and her friend Devin are dreading the upcoming annual Halloween party that is being hosted by their classmate Polly Martin. Every year the party gets more boring and if Lu-Ann has to attend, she is going to make it a frightening evening by pulling some pranks with her best-friend Devin. Her plan changes when she learns that Devin can't come to the party. She attends the party anyway and talks two other friends, Marcus and Brad, into following her to Polly's Attic while the other kids played a silly balloon game. They hear an unknown voice coming from a closet - a half skeleton, half human corpse holding the green haunted mask falls out of the closet when Lu-Ann yanked it open. It was the ugliest mask that Lu-Ann had ever seen and it would make the perfect prank, but once she slips the mask on, the mask becomes part of her flesh.