Collins’ Crypt: On Scream Factory’s Modern Output

Since launching in 2012, the Scream Factory label (an offshoot of Shout! Factory) has blessed horror fans with elaborate special editions of their beloved horror films from the '70s and '80s. Titles that were never given respect from their owning studios (such as Halloween II, Prince of Darkness and Crawlspace) now have Blu-ray special editions, and even movies that already had decent editions on the market, like The Fog and Day of the Dead, are given upgrades - more extras and/or new transfers that make it easy to replace the older one. Not every title is a must-own (it's only out of OCD collector habit that I'm keeping The Horror Show), but in just under two years they've released an exceptionally strong library of horror flicks spanning all sub-genres, a sort of Criterion Collection for cult horror.

And while such titles continue to be their bread and butter, they've also put out a few modern titles, many of which also worth adding to your collection, or at least a rental. Hitting stores today is the latest, a French indie called Dead Shadows that combines Night of the Comet with The Thing (the Carpenter influence doesn't stop there - the score recalls his 80s electronic cues and there's a giant Escape from New York poster prominently displayed in the hero's room). In 20 years, this could have been the sort of movie that fans bug the Scream Factory execs to release the way they demand things like Fright Night 2 or Shocker now, so I like that they're jumping the gun and getting it out of the way, while still releasing older films that provide fond memories despite not being particularly great (Final Exam and Evilspeak, in stores soon!).

Since it's those titles that get all of the love from fans, I thought I'd highlight a few of their other new releases that might get lost in the shuffle. When they announce a special edition of Sleepaway Camp, the horror sites blow up in excitement - but if they do the same for a little British zom-com or Chiller original movie, you might hear a few crickets. They might be newer, but these movies have earned the right to be on the shelf with the rest of the Scream releases - check em out if you can.

Beneath
As I've explained a few times, I have a near paralyzing fear of fish - even the scariest bits of Jaws don't unsettle me as much as the site of a good sized catfish swimming around in a place where I might have been standing or swimming. So Larry Fessenden's Beneath unnerved me more than even Fessenden himself probably intended, as the film is more about the kids in the boat that the giant man-eating fish has trapped on an idyllic summer day. See, the boat is sinking, so the kids need to occasionally vote someone off as a sacrifice in order to keep from ending up in the water (and also to hopefully keep the fish busy while the rest attempt to get closer to shore), and thus that uncomfortable but suspenseful dynamic makes up most of the runtime. But whenever that damn (practical!) fish reappeared... *shudder*.

Chilling Visions: 5 Senses of Fear
There's been a mini-revival of anthology films recently, thanks to the universal love for Trick r Treat (at least among those who have seen it) and the inspired V/H/S films, which found a way into the trendy found footage genre while paying tribute to Amicus anthologies of the 70s with its healthy number of stories (four or five tales used to be the norm, but somewhere along the line it became more common to only get three). So it didn't take long for Chiller to join the fray, assembling a team of five filmmakers (including Emily Hagins and former child actor Miko Hughes) to tackle a series of loosely connected stories, each of which focuses on one of the five senses (how has that not been used BEFORE this movie?). Like all anthologies, it's hit or miss, but I like the idea of replacing a traditional wraparound with a recurring "villain" of sorts within the stories (an evil company named Watershed), similar to Trick r Treat's approach.

Cockneys vs. Zombies
This British gem played at Fantastic Fest and UK's Frightfest in 2012, and later earned a minor theatrical release, but Scream's Blu-ray is probably how most fans will discover it. And discover they should - I've grown pretty sick of wannabe Shaun of the Deads over the years, but this one works like gangbusters, pitting a group of bank robbers (for a noble cause!) and some old folks against Romero style slow zombies that have sprung up around their London suburb. There can be a bit too much CGI for my tastes, but there are some inspired kills and hilarious bits (a slow zombie "chasing" an old guy with a walker can never not be funny), plus an all-time great zombie movie hero in Ray, played by the fantastic Alan Ford. Writer James Moran (who also wrote Tower Block, released by Shout! itself) provides a fantastic audio commentary as well, making this a solid disc all around.

Dead Souls
Admittedly, this is on the lower end of their modern releases, but it's still worth a look thanks to an admirably minimal approach to haunted house fare (for the most part it's just our hero and heroine in the house, seeing creepy things and uncovering tragic secrets, not unlike the recent Oculus), with a plot that keeps opportunities for dodgy CGI effects to a minimum. And some later developments that take it out of Poltergeist territory and end up closer to something like the druid plot from the original script for Halloween 6, which is odd enough to be appreciated. It's not as cookie cutter as you'd expect, in other words, and it also boasts a solid supporting turn from Bill Moseley, making it worth at least a rental for horror fans with their expectations in check.

The Battery
The best of the lot - but it's not out yet! Scream proved to be wiser than, well, any other distributor there is and snapped up this micro-budget gem for release later this year. I saw it a few months back and was blown away; it's pretty much the best zombie film in a decade, and achieves the honor with almost no zombies. Instead, it focuses on the tedium of life post-undead apocalypse, with our two heroes (the only people on-screen for about 95% of its runtime) making their way around rural New England, scavenging supplies and trying to regain something that resembles a normal life. If you're the sort who bitches about a Walking Dead episode that doesn't offer much zombie action, you'll probably hate it - but more patient viewers are in for a real treat when Scream puts the disc out this fall, presumably with their usual copious bonus features (though the movie alone will make it worth the cost of the disc).

In addition to these brand new films, they've also expanded their scope into the 90s and 00s as of late; 1993's Body Bags was a natural fit, given their predilection for Carpenter fare (counting the Halloween sequels that he wrote/produced, the line boasts SEVEN of his films, more than double any other filmmaker), but Lake Placid and Ginger Snaps (both on the way) are still fairly new compared to the majority of the line. And their Vincent Price set (rumored to be the first volume of a continuing series) has broken ground in giving their treatment to 60s fare as well. Much like Criterion's line can be used as a makeshift "history of cinema" as it takes a fine example from every sub-sub-genre of movie (not THE BEST MOVIES OF ALL TIME, something that dumb people seemingly can't get through their heads), the modern additions to the Scream Factory line help establish it as a pretty respectable way to go through the history of the past 50 years of horror even if it doesn't have the landmark "classics" (Rosemary's Baby, Exorcist, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, etc). Some may cry foul that stuff like Dead Shadows is considered part of a line that includes certified classics like The Fog and From Beyond, but I'm all for their expansion - the more prolific they get, the more likely it is that a bigger studio will want to work with them. Win-win.