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Regardless of any perceived quality when it comes to individual entries, you have to hand it to the Silent Night, Deadly Night franchise. It kicked off with a demented killer Santa story that created immense controversy, cementing it as a piece of hallowed horror history. Since then, it has produced a series of movies that each stand out for any number of memorable reasons (my personal favorite). You can certainly argue the successful and not-so-successful elements of a Silent Night, Deadly Night entry, but it’s tough to say any one of them is “normal.” They all offer such unique quirks and oddities that it’s hard not to find them attractive from the right angles.

And Silent Night, Deadly Night 4: Initiation is the weirdest one of the bunch and so much better for it.

As a franchise entry, we do need to establish some important context. Long story short,...

Featuring: Zeph E. Daniel, Julian Sands, Brian Yuzna, Screaming Mad George, Richard Stanley | Directed by Larry Wade Carrell

It’s one of the most controversial, influential and groundbreaking horror satires of the 1980s. Brian Yuzna’s Society told a terrifying surreality of what the rich were doing to the poor in shocking, sexual detail. But did you know it was based on truth and took inspiration from the satanic ritual abuse carried out by the Beverly Hills elite Keith family? Or that son Woody Keith changed his name to Zeph E. Daniel and co-scripted Society to exorcise the demons from his violent youth? This is the full, appalling story of how Daniel’s autobiography became a classic chiller for the ages.

Have you read that official synopsis above? Does it sound bizarre? Well, this documentary is more bizarre than you can imagine!

A satire on the rich versus poor divide...

Ever since its release in 1989, Brian Yuzna’s Society has attracted a lot of attention. It’s a film whose special effects work continues to impress audiences today, and is astounding in light of the tools available at the time. It took on what was then highly controversial subject matter, and its focus on sexuality caused apoplexy in American censors. As such, it has received extensive critical appraisal, but one area which hasn’t really been covered in the past is what it meant to its writer, Zeph E Daniel (then known as Woody Keith) – both as he understood it at the time, and later.

Taking on a lot of difficult issues, The Darkside Of Society is a film which some viewers will find hard to watch, and which one might consider exploitative were it not for Daniel’s evident passion for telling his story and the degree to which documentarian Larry.

Stars: Neil Dickson, Tyler Tackett, Ariadna Cabrol, Edward Apeagyei, Tamara Radovanovic, Mehmet Cerrahoglu, Helen Babic, Marcus Jean Pirae, Loris Curci | Written by Larry Wade Carrell, Zeph E. Daniel | Directed by Larry Wade Carrell

[Note: With the film out now on DVD from High Fliers Films, here’s a reposting of our review of The Quantum Devil from its screening at the Romford Horror Film Festival earlier this year]

As seems customary in film now, Marvel often lead the way, even if it’s only in its influence on the film industry. When they started the ‘Marvel Universe’ many other studios and films tried to replicate this with their own characters (and continue to do so), with mostly unsuccessful attempts. More recently, they introduced a ‘multiverse’ to expand on this, and once again that became The buzzword in the industry with more films trying to emulate it. And now with its latest phase of films starting with Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania,...

Exclusive Behind-the-Scenes Look at The Quantum Devil: "Crazed House ltd. is proud to announce the Texas Premiere of The Quantum Devil at Texas Frightmare Weekend. Saturday May the 27th at 8:00 pm. They will also also host a special live Q&a with Director Larry Wade Carrell, Writer and Producer Zeph E. Daniel and actor Tyler Tackett. Additionally, they will be available all weekend for autographs at the Crazed House booth #507.

As part of Texas Frightmare Weekend, the Quantum Devil will screen inside the Irving Convention Center's fourth floor Grand Ballroom. Renamed "the Alamo Drafthouse Screening Room". Screening Saturday evening at 8:00 pm. All screenings are complimentary with a convention pass at the convention center. For tickets and info, please visit texasfrightmareweekend.com."

Coming Soon From 1091 Pictures: The Quantum Devil

"An international team of scientists are summoned by ominous invitation to a remote location in Eastern Europe to conduct clandestine...

Stars: Neil Dickson, Tyler Tackett, Ariadna Cabrol, Edward Apeagyei, Tamara Radovanovic, Mehmet Cerrahoglu, Helen Babic, Marcus Jean Pirae, Loris Curci | Written by Larry Wade Carrell, Zeph E. Daniel | Directed by Larry Wade Carrell

As seems customary in film now, Marvel often lead the way, even if it’s only in its influence on the film industry. When they started the ‘Marvel Universe’ many other studios and films tried to replicate this with their own characters (and continue to do so), with mostly unsuccessful attempts. More recently, they introduced a ‘multiverse’ to expand on this, and once again that became The buzzword in the industry with more films trying to emulate it. And now with its latest phase of films starting with Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, they have created something new for people to snatch hold of. Enter – The Quantum Devil.

There are no superheroes in sight here though as...

The first two Silent Night, Deadly Night films get all the glory — to the point where casual horror fans may be surprised to learn that three more installments were produced in the franchise. The 1984 original generated highly publicized controversy by showing its killer dressed as Santa Claus in advertisements, while the 1987 first sequel gained cult status for its over-the-top campiness and liberal reuse of clips from its predecessor.

The series was then relegated to straight-to-video territory with 1989’s Silent Night, Deadly Night 3: Better Watch Out, 1990’s Silent Night, Deadly Night 4: Initiation, and 1991’s Silent Night, Deadly Night 5: The Toy Maker. While the third installment continues the killer Santa plot, the storyline was abandoned for the latter two installments, which each tell an unrelated tale set during Christmastime.

Diverging from the franchise’s headline-making narrative may have been a death knell — look at how long it took viewers...

Silent Night, Deadly Night Collection Arrives December 13 on Blu-ray™ + Digital: "Killer Santa Claus comes to town for the first time on Blu-ray™ as the Silent Night, Deadly Night Collection arrives December 13 on Blu-ray™ + Digital from Lionsgate. Featuring all-new special features and starring Academy Award® nominee Mickey Rooney, the Silent Night, Deadly Night Collection will be available on Blu-ray + Digital for the suggested retail price of 22.99."

Official Synopsis

Prepare for a trilogy of pure terror with this collection of films from the Silent Night, Deadly Night series. In Better Watch Out!, it’s a very bloody Christmas after Ricky Caldwell, the notorious “Killer Santa Claus,” awakens from a six-year coma with one thing on his mind: murder. In Initiation, a reporter’s investigation into a mysterious death leads her into the clutches of a cult that’s chosen her as its new queen, and The Toy Maker stars entertainment legend Mickey...

That didn’t take long. Just last week, we heard that the sequels Silent Night, Deadly Night 3: Better Watch Out, Silent Night, Deadly Night 4: Initiation, and Silent Night, Deadly Night 5: The Toy Maker were getting the Blu-ray treatment as a triple feature in the Vestron Video Collector’s Series. Now Vestron has revealed the list of bonus features that will be included in this release – and Amazon is already accepting pre-orders at This Link!

Here’s the info on Vestron’s Silent Night, Deadly Night Collection:

Prepare for a trilogy of pure terror with this collection of films from the Silent Night, Deadly Night series. In Better Watch Out!, it’s a very bloody Christmas after Ricky Caldwell, the notorious “Killer Santa Claus,” awakens from a six-year coma with one thing on his mind: murder. In Initiation, a reporter’s investigation into a mysterious death leads her...

Joining the other two movies in the world of Blu-ray, Lionsgate has officially announced that the Silent Night, Deadly Night Collection is joining the Vestron Video Collector’s Series.

Featuring all-new special features, the Silent Night, Deadly Night Collection includes Silent Night, Deadly Night 3: Better Watch Out, Silent Night, Deadly Night 4: Initiation, and Silent Night, Deadly Night 5: The Toy Maker. All three movies are worth watching for their own reasons – Sndn 3 stars Bill Moseley as the killer, while Sndn 4 is just plain bonkers and has very little to do with the franchise or even Christmas at all – but in my personal opinion it’s Sndn 5 – starring Mickey Rooney! – that is the true underrated gem of this oddball franchise.

You can expect to own the collection on December 13, 2022.

The Special Features package includes…

Silent Night, Deadly Night 3: Better Watch Out!

Audio Commentary with Film Historian Jarret Gahan...

The classic Christmas slasher Silent Night, Deadly Night is already available on Blu-ray (pick up a copy Here), and so is its stock footage filled sequel Silent Night, Deadly Night 2 (you can buy that one Here) – and pretty soon the oddball sequels Silent Night, Deadly Night 3: Better Watch Out, Silent Night, Deadly Night 4: Initiation, and Silent Night, Deadly Night 5: The Toy Maker will be joining them! All three of the movies are getting the Vestron Video Collector’s Series treatment, and you won’t have to buy three different items to collect all of them. This is going to be a triple feature release.

Dawn of the Discs reports that “All 3 films will come together in one package, will be presented in their original aspect ratio and will feature new special features for each film.” Details on the special features haven’t been revealed. Nor has the release date.

Stars: Lacey Cofran, Marcus Jean Pirae, Paula Marcenaro Solinger, Rachel Alig, Larry Wade Carrell, Melissa Arras, Sarah Lingle, Steve Joseph | Written by Zeph E. Daniel, Michael Muscal | Directed by Larry Wade Carrell

Opening with a scene featuring a young woman strapped to a chair, legs in stirrups and screaming for her life as a man places what can only be described as a rather brutal looking corkscrew between her legs, The Next Girl sets its stall out very early.

Kidnap, torture and trauma are seemingly the name of the day in director Larry Wade Carrell’s latest feature, which sees a young woman, Lorien (Lacey Cofran), abducted by a strange group of human traffickers who use drug and trauma-based mind control to turn women into “Sofia” dolls. Trapped in a waking nightmare she fights for a way to escape, to avoid becoming the titular next girl…

Ok, so given how...

[We're celebrating some of the most memorable horror and sci-fi movies of 1989 this month in Daily Dead's Class of 89 retrospective series! Check back on Daily Dead throughout the rest of August for more special features celebrating the 30th anniversaries of a wide range of horror and sci-fi films!]

It wasn’t until the first few years of the ’90s that the 1989 film Society found its way onto my radar because of the twenty-something video store clerk, who carried a copy of the latest Fangoria magazine rolled into his back pocket, who would slip rated-r films my way without my parents’ consent. It was always in his “Employee Picks” section, most often already rented with only the lone slipcase left for my young mind to try and piece together what this film could be about. But the video store guru, who introduced me to horror films like Don’t Look Now and The Changeling, loaned me his personal copy of the film and, after getting a large pizza and a one-liter of Dr. Pepper, I took it straight home.

I still remember that evening as vividly as I remember my first kiss, the horror movie I snuck into after...

Stuart Gordon’s debut feature, Re-Animator, isn’t just one of the best horror movies of the 1980s, but also one of the few rare perfect horror comedies ever made. Alongside Evil Dead 2, the original Re-Animator essentially helped invent the splatstick subgenre and announced Gordon as one of the most exciting voices in horror, plus, it turned genre royalty Jeffrey Combs and Barbara Crampton into stars overnight. There’s almost no way it could be outdone in its sequel, 1990’s Bride of Re-Animator, though it’s not for lack of trying.

Brian Yuzna, producer of the first film, stepped into the director’s chair for the follow-up, which finds med student Dan Cain (Bruce Abbott) and Dr. Herbert West (Jeffrey Combs) escaping to Peru months after the bloody and tragic events of Re-Animator. They continue to conduct their reanimation experiments on soldiers injured and killed in the midst of a bloody civil war,...

Stars: Jeffrey Combs, Bruce Abbott, Claude Earl Jones, Fabiana Udenio, David Gale, Kathleen Kinmont, Mel Stewart, Irene Cagen, Michael Strasser, Mary Sheldon | Written by Rick Fry, Woody Keith | Directed by Brian Yuzna

It’s been almost two years since I reviewed Second Sight’s release of Re-Animator on Blu-ray. Now we have the release of Bride of Re-Animator – this time from the UK’s kings of cult, Arrow Video. Will they give this gore filled classic the treatment it deserves?

Bride of Re-Animator continues the story of Dr. Herbert West (Jeffrey Combs) who like any good Frankenstein like character has returned home to continue his re-animation of dead corpses. With the help of Dr. Dan Cain (Bruce Abbot) who has also returned they are building a woman. With Lt. Chapham (Claude Earl Jones) on their trail though will history repeat itself?

With Brian Yuzna taking over from Stuart Gordon in the director’s chair,...

Special Mention: The Rocky Horror Picture Show

Directed by Jim Sharman

Screenplay by Richard O’Brien and Jim Sharman

1975, USA

For the unfamiliar, The Rocky Horror Picture Show is the film adaptation of a popular musical stage production composed and written by Richard O’Brien, a struggling actor at the time who was best known for his performances in such musicals as Hair and Jesus Christ Superstar. For O’Brien, The Rocky Horror Picture Show was an homage to drive-in double features and science fiction B-movies of the fifties, and ironically, the film itself went on to become the ultimate midnight movie. To this day, screenings held in and around its anniversary as well as on Halloween sell out. It has never been pulled by 20th Century Fox from its original 1975 release, and it continues to play in cinemas four decades after its premiere, making it the longest-running theatrical release in film history.

Hey there creeps! We got ourselves a real mixed bag o’ goodies this time: body horror, summer camp, and radio ghosts galore… oh, and a vampire or two for good measure!

Society

Release Date: Available Now on Blu-ray Written By: Rick Fry, Woody Keith Directed By: Brian Yuzna Starring: Billy Warlock, Devin DeVasquez, Evan Richards

Oh man, good ol’ Society, what a history we have together! There was nothin’ quite like those halcyon days of yore, when as a lowly vid-joe store employee I handed my mainstram horror lovin’ customers a copy of this lil’ sick ticket item when asked for a recommendation. They’d return this sh*t with the quickness, slam it on the counter without makin’ eye contact, then try to avoid the ol’ Ouija Board Kid on all future visits. I mean, really, was one massive incestuous orgy with faces blastin’ forth from anuses too much?...

Stars: Billy Warlock, Devin DeVasquez, Evan Richards, Ben Meyerson, Charles Lucia, Concetta D’Agnese, Patrice Jennings, Heidi Kozak, Ben Slack, David Wiley, Tim Bartell, Brian Bremer, Maria Claire | Written by Rick Fry, Woody Keith | Directed by Brian Yuzna

If you are old enough to remember the good old days of renting out horror movies on videos you’ll remember the joy of watching the trailers for new releases, even if you’d seen them many times before. There was a lot of work put into them and they did their job well. One I always remember seeing and it left me wanting more was the trailer for Society, just a shame I never managed to get it. Now though, with Arrow Video’s Blu-ray release, I finally get to see the film in all its gory glory.

Bill Whitney (Warlock) “appears” to be your average teenager. Being part of a...

Brian Yuzna's 1989 horror Society is out on Blu-ray from Arrow Films. Ryan takes a look back at a grotesque satire...

Bill Whitney’s just an ordinary American high school kid. Sure, he may live in a Beverly Hills mansion. He might drive a brand new Jeep to the beach. But deep down, he has the same hang-ups as most teenagers: he distrusts authority, resents his parents, and suspects that he might actually be adopted.

Gradually, however, we suspect that there might be something more to Billy’s paranoid fantasies than raging hormones - his parents really do seem to be up to something sinister - something to do with private parties, naked orgies, and shunting...

"We're just one big happy family... except for a little incest and psychosis"

Society stars Billy Warlock, a young actor fresh from TV shows like Days Of Our Lives. If this were a straight drama,...

If you missed Part 1 and Part 2 of our Silent Night, Deadly Night retrospective, be sure to check them out before you proceed!

After Silent Night, Deadly Night: Part 2 failed to garner even half the reaction that the original film did, the subsequent installments in the franchise from that point forward all went straight-to-video. It was in 1989 that rights holders Live Entertainment – who had released the first two films on VHS – spearheaded the revival of the series, rushing a second sequel into production.

Independent producer Arthur Gorson was the man put in charge of the third installment, hired for the job in March of 1989 with the mission of having the film finished and released on video in time for that year’s holiday season. Gorson was and still is to this day good friends with veteran filmmaker Monte Hellman (Two-Lane Blacktop), who he suggested as director of the project. Though Gorson...

Throughout the month of October, Editor-in-Chief and resident Horror expert Ricky D, will be posting a list of his favorite Horror films of all time. The list will be posted in six parts. Click here to see every entry.

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Enjoy!

150: Session 9

Directed by Brad Anderson

Written by Stephen Gevedon and Brad Anderson

2001, USA

If there was ever a perfect setting for a horror movie, it would be the abandoned Danvers State Mental Hospital. Built in 1878 on an isolated site in rural Massachusetts, it was a multi-acre, self-contained psychiatric hospital rumoured to have been the birthplace of the pre-frontal lobotomy. The hospital was the setting for the 2001 horror film Session 9, where an asbestos clean-up crew discover a series of nine tapes, which have recorded a patient with multiple personalities, all of which are innocent, except for number nine. With a shoestring budget and no real special effects, Session 9...