Haunted Newsreel

Today, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced their nominees for the 80th Academy Awards (aka the Oscars). Although the Academy rarely honors the horror genre outside of Best Makeup, this year they've recognized Johnny Depp's turn as the murderous title character in Tim Burton's Sweeney Todd with a nomination for Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role. The film also received nominations for Best Art Direction (Dante Ferretti, Francesca Lo Schiavo) and Best Costume Design (Colleen Atwood). Congratulations to all nominees.(read more...)

On February 26th, 2008, Blue Underground will be releasing a two-disc special edition of Jorge Grau's The Living Dead at Manchester Morgue,a film they previously released as a single disc under the alternate title Let Sleeping Corpses Lie. The new release will include a fresh widescreen transfer, Dolby Digital 5.1 English soundtrack (as well as a Dolby Surround 2.0 track and the original mono), trailers, TV and radio spots, a gallery of publicity materials, and interviews with Grau, star Ray Lovelock, and effects guru Giannetto de Rossi. The Grau interview from the old Let Sleeping Corpses Lie release will also be included.

Also out that day from Blue Underground are four Italian giallo films previously released by Anchor Bay: The Bloodstained Shadow, Case of the Bloody Iris, Short Night of Glass Dolls, and Who Saw Her Die?

I usually keep personal information out of these news stories, but in this case, I'm going to make an exception. Bloody-Disgusting announced that The Weinstein Company will be releasing George A. Romero's Diary of the Dead in theaters on February 15th, 2008. Why is this important to me, personally? That's my 25th birthday, and a very good present indeed. And it wasn't even on my Amazon wishlist!

Genius Entertainment will release Rob Zombie's Halloween, a remake of the 1978 John Carpenter classic, in separate rated and unrated two-disc special editions on December 18th, 2007. The rated disc will feature the film as it played in the theaters and buyers will have a choice between widescreen and fullscreen. The widescreen-only unrated version, which features 11 minutes of additional footage, is being touted as Zombie's director's cut. Features for all editions include:(read more...)