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Stars: Amber Doig-Thorne, Laurence R. Harvey, Dani Thompson, Ayvianna Snow, Simon Bamford, David Gelmini, Charlie Bond, Annabella Rich, Rami Hilmi, Sarah Rorbach, James Hamer-Morton | Directed by Angie Darling Baby, Alexander Churchyard, Paul Doherty, Andrew Elias, Bazz Hancher, Jason Impey, Debbie Lant, Tony Mardon, Hannah Paterson, Richard Rowntree, James Saxon, Teddy Saxon

As a fan of the first entry into this now-turned franchise, I was eager to finally get the chance to see the sequel, Video Shop Tales of Terror 2: Lust & Revenge. Like the first film, this second entry into the series promised a return to the nostalgic charm of retro VHS horror – delivering both scores and laughs, just like the first film, and it certainly delivered on both front.

The film comprises multiple segments, each offering a unique blend of terror and dark humour. Video Shop Tales of Terror 2: Lust & Revenge opens with a trailer for “The Beast...

Twice a month Joe Lipsett will dissect a new Amityville Horror film to explore how the “franchise” has evolved in increasingly ludicrous directions. This is “The Amityville IP.”

After a number of bloated runtimes and technically inept entries, it’s something of a relief to watch Amityville Christmas Vacation (2022). The 55-minute film doesn’t even try to hit feature length, which is a wise decision for a film with a slight, but enjoyable premise.

The amusingly self-aware comedy is written and directed by Steve Rudzinski, who also stars as protagonist Wally Griswold. The premise is simple: a newspaper article celebrating the hero cop catches the attention of B’n’B owner Samantha (Marci Leigh), who lures Wally to Amityville under the false claim that he’s won a free Christmas stay.

Naturally it turns out that the house is haunted by a vengeful ghost named Jessica D’Angelo (Aleen Isley), but...

Twice a month Joe Lipsett will dissect a new Amityville Horror film to explore how the “franchise” has evolved in increasingly ludicrous directions. This is “The Amityville IP.”

The law of horror movie franchises is that eventually, without fail, you go to space.

It’s fitting, then, that the final outing for prolific Amityville writer/director Mark Polonia takes the “franchise” into the furthest reaches of space in the year 3015.

It’s been a few entries since Polonia’s last outing. He’s the creative responsible for Amityville Island, Amityville Exorcism, and Amityville Death House. Of these, Island has some amusingly self-aware bits, Death House has a great spider walk finale, and…well, the less said about Exorcism the better.

Where does Amityville in Space fall? Alas, it skews closer to Exorcism than the others. Not helping matters is that this latest film shares a character – Father Benna (Jeff Kirkendall...

On November 13, 1974, at 112 Ocean Ave. in Amityville, New York, a young man named Ronald DeFeo woke up in the middle of the night, took up a shotgun, and went from room to room in his home, systematically murdering six members of his family. DeFeo was apprehended by the police. At first, DeFeo claimed the murders were mob-related, but he later confessed to committing the crimes himself. He was sentenced to 25 years to life for his crimes. DeFeo died in prison in 2021. 

DeFeo's murders became notorious with the publication of Jay Anson's nonfiction book "The Amityville Horror" in 1977. After the killings, the Lutz family moved into 112 Ocean Ave., and they claimed to experience a panoply of paranormal phenomena. Flies mobbed the building, and the entire Lutz family reported hearing eerie voices. George Lutz, the family patriarch, claimed to be possessed by a demonic presence that was driving him to kill his family.

Live or die. The choice is yours. But if you reach ten sequels, shit’s probably going to get weird. This week, the Saw franchise returns with Saw X. Which means people really like to see other people tortured and I’m judging every single one of us. It also means the Saw franchise has done something quite special. Not many horror franchises make it this long. Not even Freddy himself has crossed the tenth movie finish line. Scream. Evil Dead. Child’s Play. Paranormal Activity. The Conjuring. Even when you include the spinoffs, none of them have hit ten films!

But Saw X isn’t the first horror franchise to reach that landmark. So, let’s play a game and take a look at how other franchises have fared in their milestone tenth installments…

Jason X (2001)

Walk into one room and bemoan Jason X and everyone will laugh and agree.

If you’ve sought out any of Mark Polonia‘s previous microbudget (at best) horror releases, you know what quality ceiling to expect from Cocaine Shark. The movie costs as much as the animation to manipulate Cocaine Bear’s left paw for thirty seconds, maybe even less. Polonia’s signature is churning out poster-perfect titles like Amityville in Space or Sharkula with table-scrap resources, which only sometimes deliver as advertised. Cocaine Shark artwork features a ferocious Great White surrounded by bricks of floating white powder but narratively follows a story that aligns more with Joe Dante’s blink-and-miss laboratory creation in Piranha. It’s “Cocaine Shark” in name and marketing alone, undeniably zany with a less-financially-endowed Troma aroma, but ultimately uninteresting as dull dialogue dominates the seventy-minute duration.

Bando Glutz‘s screenplay blends Deep Blue Sea and Synchronic as an East Coast drug kingpin unleashes a “highly addictive stimulant,” HT...

A couple months ago – soon after the successful theatrical release of director Elizabeth Banks’ Cocaine Bear (read our review Here) – we saw the trailer for Cocaine Shark, the latest movie from prolific low budget filmmaker Mark Polonia. We already knew at that time that the movie had secured a distribution deal with Wild Eye Releasing, and now we know when Wild Eye is going to be sending Cocaine Shark out into the world. The film is set to receive a DVD and VOD release on July 11th!

July 11th also happens to be the start of the Shark Week marathon on the Discovery Channel, so this is some perfect timing.

Scripted by Bando Glutz, Polonia’s Cocaine Shark has the following synopsis: A mafia drug lord has unleashed a new, highly addictive stimulant on the streets called HT25, derived from sharks held captive in a secret lab, and which causes monstrous side effects.

Plot: A four-part docuseries digs into the troubling true stories behind The Amityville Horror.

Review: The Amityville brand has gone completely out of control in recent years. Low budget filmmakers have been taking advantage of the fact that anyone can slap “Amityville” into the title of their movie, flooding the market with titles like Amityville in the Hood, Amityville in Space, Amityville Karen, Amityville Cop, Amityville Vampire, Amityville Shark House, and The Amityville Vibrator. I’m not saying these movies are bad. I haven’t seen them. But it’s clear that the Amityville name has drifted far away from the stories that made us take notice of that name in the first place. So even though we’ve heard the story of George and Kathy Lutz moving into a haunted house and we know the DeFeo family was murdered in that house, it was a smart idea on the part of MGM,...

The unofficial Amityville Horror movies just keep getting weirder, with recent films including Amityville in Space, Amityville Thanksgiving, and Amityville Christmas Vacation. Essentially, indie filmmakers are having a blast poking fun at the franchise with these wildly unofficial installments, using the name brand recognition to draw attention to their efforts.

Up next? Amityville Backpack!

The horror goes portable in this upcoming tale of a haunted, killer backpack, which has just been funded through Indiegogo. Evan Jacobs (Death Toilet) is directing the film.

The filmmaker previews, “The plot follows a rather hapless dude who buys a backpack at a garage sale. When people around him turn up dead, he comes to believe his new accessory may be to blame. Tracking its history, he discovers it has connections back to a haunted house in a small town called Amityville…”

Amityville Backpack will be distributed by Srs Cinema, and you still have time...

Last month, Scream VI and 65 released on the very same day, and believe it or not we’re getting yet another big screen double feature from the horror genre this week.

Here’s all the new horror releasing April 11 – April 16, 2023!

For daily reminders about new horror releases, be sure to follow @HorrorCalendar.

After scaring up $4.5 million at the worldwide box office, viral hit Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey was finally made available to watch at home beginning yesterday.

You can rent the film for $9.99 or purchase it for $19.98 on Amazon now.

Rhys Frake-Waterfield directed the bloody horror movie for Jagged Edge Productions, a twisted take on the classic children’s tale. And yes, a sequel is already on the way.

In this version of the classic story, Christopher Robin is headed off to college and he has abandoned his old friends, which then leads to the duo embracing their inner monsters.

Who knew movie-goers had such a hunger for movies about animals on cocaine-fuelled rampages? In less than two weeks of release, director Elizabeth Banks’ Cocaine Bear (read our review Here) has racked up over $50 million at the box office. In the build-up to the release of that film, a news report about New Zealand police recovering more than three tons of cocaine that was found floating in the Pacific Ocean got people talking about the possibility of a Cocaine Shark movie… and the idea was even passed along to Banks, who said, “Jaws with cocaine, I don’t see how that loses.” But as it turns out, Banks has been beaten to the Cocaine Shark idea by prolific low budget filmmaker Mark Polonia, whose own Cocaine Shark movie is so far along that it has already secured a distribution deal with Wild Eye Releasing, and a trailer is already online!

You’ve probably noticed that the “Amityville” franchise has been growing in some wacky ways in recent years, with that “Amityville” branding seemingly being slapped onto anything and everything. Long story short, these movies aren’t actually part of the Amityville Horror franchise, but rather they’re simply using the familiar name to grab your attention.

And it works, of course, with recent indie horror movies including Amityville in Space and The Amityville Moon getting coverage here on Bd because… how the hell can we not?!

Up next from this unofficial Amityville franchise is Amityville Thanksgiving, a brand new indie horror movie from director Will Collazo Jr. that’s just popped up on Amazon.

In Amityville Thanksgiving…

“Jackie (Natalie Peri) and Danny (Paul Faggione) are spending the holiday week in therapy instead of at the dinner table. Their marriage has taken a turn for the worst, and they turn to...