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Devolved is the debut feature from Severin Films co-founder, John Cregan.  This isn't his first time behind the camera, though.  Like any good independent director, he's done a bunch of shorts, and there are always all of the extra features that he's worked on with Severin Films and the other companies with whom they collaborate.  All of that extra work helps his film go from a micro budget so-so potboiler to a pretty darned decent little satire.For all of you who are/were picked on in high school and grade school, this film is for you. When a whale watching boat sinks, its passengers make their way to a deserted island.  The group is split evenly between the populars and the nots.  The populars are basically...

A look at what's new on DVD today:

"Meskada" (2010)

Directed by Josh Sternfeld

Released by Anchor Bay Entertainment

When this thriller premiered at Tribeca this past spring, Alison Willmore wrote, "the second film from writer/director Josh Sternfeld ("Winter Solstice") has ambitions reaching beyond being a straightforward police procedural," though critics, including her, were mixed about the end result. Nick Stahl and Rachel Nichols star as small-town sleuths who investigate a botched home invasion case that claims the life of a young child in an affluent community and enflames class divisions when the main suspects are from the poorer community nearby. Grace Gummer, Meryl Streep's second daughter to go into the family profession, makes her film debut.

"Anywhere USA" (2008)

Directed by Chusy Haney-Jardine

Released by Cinevolve Studios

Winner of a Spirit of Independence prize at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival, Chusy Haney-Jardine's collection of three comic vignettes involves a...

I don't know who Lindsay Shaw is, but I get the impression that if I were a 15-year-old girl that giggles a lot, I'd probably be following Shaw on Twitter. She was the star of ABC Family's "10 Things I Hate About You" (cute show), one of the leads in Nickelodeon's "Ned's Declassified School Survival Guide," and a recurring character on "Pretty Little Liars," all of which fall well outside of my demographic. She now stars in Devolved, from the studio that also brought us Damon Lindeloff's novelty obsession, Birdemic: Shock and Terror. I don't know a damn thing about Devolved, except that Chris Kattan is also in it (oh, there he is!), but I confess that I adore the marketing angle presented in this trailer.

Devolved is screening this week and next in New York, D.C., and Boston. At midnight, in all likelihood.

It’s no secret that I am a huge fan of Severin Films. If they aren’t releasing incredible catalog films like Hardware, The Sinful Dwarf and the upcoming Bloody Birthday on DVD, they are bringing the phenomenon that is Birdemic to a city near you (and soon to DVD and Blu-ray, too). To their bag of tricks you can add feature film production. We reported earlier on the anthology horror film The Theatre Bizarre being co-produced by the company, but coming to you first is Devolved, written and directed by Severin co-founder John Cregan.

Read more on Interview: Severin Films co-founder and Devolved writer/director John Cregan…...

Hey After Dark Originals fans! Here's the new trailer for Antonio Negret's creepy twin flick Seconds Apart. The film stars Orlando Jones (Drumline, Evolution), Gary Entin (Rest Stop, The Seeker: The Dark Is Rising, Devolved) and his twin brother, Edmund Entin (Rest Stop, The Seeker: The Dark Is Rising, Rest Stop: Don't Look Back).

Synopsis:

Seth and Jonah are murderous twins who share an evil kinship. Damned from the moment of their births, the brothers possess a talent for telekinesis – a power they are suspected of misusing in the most horrific ways imaginable. As fellow students meet gory fates, a local investigator suspects the twins are connected to these gruesome murders, culminating in one final showdown of brother against brother, evil against evil.

http://www.afterdarkoriginals.com/...

One more After Dark Originals trailer has made its way online -- this time for Antonio Negret's Seconds Apart -- and of course we have it here for your perusal.

Seconds Apart stars Orlando Jones (Drumline, Magnolia, Evolution) along with Gary Entin (Rest Stop, The Seeker: The Dark Is Rising, Devolved) and his twin brother, Edmund Entin (Rest Stop, The Seeker: The Dark Is Rising, Rest Stop: Don't Look Back). It was directed by Antonio Negret (Towards Darkness) and written by George Richard.

Synopsis:

Seth and Jonah are murderous twins who share an evil kinship. Damned from the moment of their births, the brothers possess a talent for telekinesis – a power they are suspected of misusing in the most horrific ways imaginable. As fellow students meet gory fates, a local investigator suspects the twins are connected to these gruesome murders, culminating in one final showdown of brother against brother,...

I've spent a lot of time telling you all about the different aspects of Severin Films' home video catalog and even their theatrical releases.  You would think that would be all, perhaps they'd found their niche and they'd be glad to hang out in their comfort zone, but you'd be wrong.  Having admirably tackled EuroSleaze, horror, the eternal works of D'amato, Borowczyk, and Franco, and dipped their toes into feature film distribution and production, you'd think they would be satisfied.  However, Severin Films has so much more to offer, their future is bright, and I predict that at least a couple of their upcoming releases will blow the minds of home viewers in the coming years.

I never got around to talking about one of Severin's best complete packages, the two disc special edition of Ozploitation biker classic, Stone.  A good five years before Mel Gibson hit the wide...

Now, I'm straight, but I have a huge man-crush on David Gregory.

And really, if you're a fan of subversive cinema, what's not to love?

For those of you that don't know, Gregory is the UK born horror hero behind such counterculture cult film DVD imprints as Blue Underground and Severin Films and many of the supplemental documentaries that pad out their unique releases. Dedicated, ambitious and massively prolific, this incredible force of frightful celluloid nature recently wrapped his debut feature length shocker, the shot in 16mm Plague Town and has just re-issued, among a slew of other bizarre titles, two of Jess Franco's weirdest and wildest (I'm a devout defender of Franco, more on that in further Blood Spattered Blog entries) – the slasher Bloody Moon and the certifiably insane Devil Hunter - on his cooler than thou Severin label.

Since I so admire those that practice what they preach,...