The Omen was a blessed success upon its release, earning a spot among the top 10 highest-grossing films of 1976. One of those ticket buyers was Wes Craven, who had already made his debut with The Last House on the Left and was gearing up for his sophomore film, The Hills Have Eyes.

“I remember thinking, ‘Big studio, won’t have a cutting edge to it. Gregory Peck, how can he be scary? I like him, but.’ And it was. I was totally amazed,” the master of horror recalled in a 2006 DVD special feature in which he waxes poetic about The Omen for some 20 minutes.

“I think [Richard] Donner is just one of our primo filmmakers.” Craven had been watching the future Superman and The Goonies director’s work since his early days helming episodes of classic TV shows like The Twilight Zone and Gilligan’s Island. “Every so often, he just knocks something out of the park with something that will play forever. Omen certainly was that.”

The Omen arrived in a time when boundaries were being pushed in entertainment, just as Craven had done with The Last House on the Left. His controversial effort admonished the media’s misleading representation of death during the Vietnam War by showing violence in all its uncomfortable detail.

“It was just a moment in culture in the ’70s where a lot of taboos were being broken, and that certainly was one where you have a child that’s totally evil. That just by itself is an outrageous idea, because the ending is you want him to kill a child. I think because of the times, with the Vietnam War and everything else, all of us were feeling like, ‘Is this the end times?’ It just feels so insane.”

Craven recognized that The Omen would always be compared to The Exorcist. While Craven also admired William Friedkin’s 1973 masterpiece — Linda Blair starred in his 1978 TV movie Summer of Fear and made a cameo in Scream — he felt that The Omen provided something different for audiences.

“[The Omen] was a delicious scare, as opposed to one that made your hair turn white. The genius of it was that it was definitely a studio presentation by a director who knew how to appeal to the popular audience. But it was very, very classy. It had magnificent montages in it. I mean, some of the things he pulled off in there in order to build tension go way beyond The Exorcist. The Exorcist was much more insular and ended up all just in that room.”

He continued, “When films last a long time, it’s because in some way or another they’re extraordinary, and they are entertainments. Certainly in the case of [The Omen], it was a film that, by staying just a notch away from the extremes of The Exorcist, made itself available to a much, much broader audience. People were able to watch it and be scared, but not repulsed and not just sickened.”

In the film, Robert Thorn (Peck) harbors from his wife, Katherine (Lee Remick), the secret that their son, Damien, is adopted. He believes this to be for everyone’s own good, but his dishonesty proves to be fatal. Parallels can be drawn to the parents in A Nightmare on Elm Street hiding the truth about Freddy Krueger from their children.

“I love stuff like that. It’s all over my movies too; somebody who has a terrible secret, and because they feel guilty about it they don’t convey some vitally important information. To think of something evil inside of your own child puts you in such a primally horrible position, totally believable that they deny it for half the picture, and just can’t believe that anything like that is possible,” Craven noted.

“Never work with animals or children” is an old entertainment adage that The Omen brazenly defies on both counts. Damien Thorn was played by Harvey Spencer Stephens at the tender age of five.

“You had to get that sense of a child that could go from looking at you like a child to somebody that was almost fully mature and was truly evil. It’s not easy to get with a child. The eyes were a very particular kind of gray-slate-blue — very much like the nanny, by the way — and he had the ability to look truly evil, which is not easy for a child. They don’t even have the concept.”

Craven had some experience working with animals — most notably the prominent dog characters in The Hills Have Eyes and its sequel — but he remained in awe of the scene in which the Thorn family’s car is attacked by baboons at the zoo.

“Just to get animals to act — to get those dogs to be as ferocious as they were, to get baboons to react in that sort of mortal terror that they seem to have and then this complete primal outrage they just had to get at this thing and tear it apart — that’s the mark of a director who thinks big and then can pull it off.

“It’s very, very rare. Donner’s one of the few directors I know that can do that. He keeps it extremely human. It’s all built around a very intimate, emotional core of your central characters, but the palette and the canvas is really big.”

David Warner’s performance as photographer Keith Jennings made such an impact on Craven that he later cast the actor as drama teacher Gus Gold in Scream 2. “I always wanted to work with him. He has that sort of bloodhound look to him,” he remarked.

“He was a great character too, and very sympathetic in a way that he was really the only person that you felt like he was totally outside of religion, in a way, and yet he had to begrudgingly admit that there was something there, because it was stalking him at a certain point. He has that very early phenomenon of the markings on the photograph. This is a photographer. He would know that it’s not on the negative.

“To him, it wasn’t faith or charity or any of these sort of abstractions. It was actual markings in his photographs. In the non-human observer, the camera itself, a mechanical thing sees something that you’re not seeing. That’s pretty scary.”

The character’s remarkable decapitation inspired Craven’s most memorable murder set piece not involving Freddy or Ghostface: the basketball-induced head explosion from Deadly Friend.

“David Warner losing his head was one of the great all-time shots in American horrific cinema. It was just such a clever way to kill the guy. So spectacular, and it looked impossible to capture and film everything in that shot, from the aspect of shocking the audience and showing it graphically but tastefully was perfect.”

Craven concluded his praise with his typical soft-spoken eloquence. “It became one of the great delicious treats to watch The Omen, this evil child and everything else in a way that was scary and beautiful to watch and sometimes quite spectacular.

“A guy at the top of his form with a really, really good script and great backup: great musician behind him, great cinematographer, great costume design and production design. Every once in a while that confluence of the perfect movie comes together just like a perfect storm, and this is one of those cases.”

The post “A Delicious Scare”: Wes Craven Felt ‘The Omen’ Was a Perfect Horror Movie appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

Two years after being released direct-to-Blu-ray and direct-to-streaming, we’ve learned that Rob Zombie’s The Munsters is next headed to the small screen courtesy of SYFY.

The following showtimes are locked in for The Munsters this weekend….

• Saturday, April 6 – 10:30pm EST
• Sunday, April 7 – 2:45am EST

In The Munsters, “Herman and Lily’s crazy courtship takes The Munsters on a hauntingly hilarious trip from Transylvania to Hollywood in the all-new feature length film.”

Jeff Daniel Phillips plays Herman Munster and Sheri Moon Zombie plays Lily Munster in Rob Zombie’s movie, with Daniel Roebuck co-starring as Grandpa Munster.

Richard Brake (31, 3 from Hell) plays Dr. Henry Augustus Wolfgang. Catherine Schell (“Space: 1999,” The Return of the Pink Panther) is “Zoya Krupp the gypsy queen.”

Dee Wallace, Cassandra “Elvira” Peterson and Jorge Garcia also star in the film, alongside original “The Munsters” television series actors Butch Patrick and Pat Priest.

If you want to revisit the original series, “The Munsters” is streaming on Peacock. That series ran for just two seasons between 1964 and 1966, spawning several feature films and a sequel television series titled “The Munsters Today” (1988 – 1991). Most recently, Bryan Fuller’s “Mockingbird Lane” reimagined the series for NBC, but never made it past a pilot episode.

The post Rob Zombie’s ‘The Munsters’ Is Coming to SYFY This Weekend appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

The latest from directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett, Abigail, transforms a heist movie into a full-blown vampire horror movie blood bath. What sounds like absolute bad news for the would-be criminals tasked with what seems like an easy job should make for an entertaining thrill ride for audiences.

As for those would-be criminals, Bloody Disgusting learned more about the key players in Abigail when invited to set last summer in Ireland.

The first scene observed on set introduced the group, handpicked to kidnap the 12-year-old ballerina daughter of a powerful underworld figure. They’ve just arrived at their eerie destination after a successful grab. From the grand staircase in the sprawling estate’s foyer, a commanding Lambert (Giancarlo Esposito) lays out the ground rules of the kidnapping as he takes their cellphones. The group is given fake names corresponding with members of the Rat Pack to preserve their anonymity, with the added horror bonus of telling audiences not to get too attached.

But who are these characters?

Of his intimidating character Lambert and the script, Esposito tells us, “The first couple of pages are really captivating; they were for me when I read them. I went, ‘Wow, what a great set piece in the beginning.’ Then I come into the film, and I’m taking charge and telling people what this job is, which ostensibly is a kidnapping. I have to do that convincingly for the film afterward to work.”

Expect Lambert to be very untrustworthy, as Esposito warns that “there’s a little tinge of him being resentful about” Lambert’s position.

In the scene, Dan Stevens’ Frank appears to be working directly for Lambert as his second in command during this operation. The horror stalwart describes his role within the group, “Because of the nature of this motley group, it initially follows quite classic heist movie tropes where you’ve got the wheels, the getaway driver, and you’ve got the tech girl who’s going to hack the computers, and then you’ve got the medic who’s going to administer the sleeping drugs. Then you’ve got Kevin Durand playing the muscle or whatever. Everyone seemed to have a very, very clear role in this band of criminals. And then there’s Frank, who just seemed to be an asshole. That seemed to be his special skill, really. We could never quite figure out what he was doing there. For all intents and purposes, he was the boss of the group. So maybe that’s it. Maybe bosses are just assholes, I don’t know. But that really seemed to be his special skill. That and cursing frequently. That’s definitely one of his special skills.”

Stevens certainly looks the part of an ex-cop turned mob henchman, and it turns out that he had a lot of input on his character’s design.

He explained, “That was a collaborative effort really with costume designer and directors and myself and just sort of an interesting shopping trip in Dublin one day just to see what we could pull together for him. I think the role originally had been written for a 60-something Italian American, and because of the demands of the role, I guess, or other reasons, they didn’t find somebody of that casting, so they came to me. We had to amend what sort of a cop this guy had been and what his background was. We took particular inspiration from ‘I Think You Should Leave,’ the slicked-back hair. That seemed to make us laugh. So that definitely stayed in from that.”

Melissa Barrera as Joey in Abigail, directed by Matt Bettinelli-Olpin & Tyler Gillett.

Immediately distrustful of Frank, a sentiment he reciprocates, is Joey, played by Scream veteran Melissa Barrera. She recounts Joey’s role within the group, “Her specialty and the reason that she’s here actually is because she’s a medic. That’s what her profession is, and she’s here basically to knock the victim, whoever they’re kidnapping, she’s supposed to inject them with a sedative and then make sure that they survive and take care of them. She has an extra sedative in case they need it. That’s her job; she’s the caretaker and the nurse, basically, of the group. But of course, being in the army, she has some skills with weapons and she has some combat training, so we get to see a little bit of that. Not a lot, but I did learn how to properly hold a gun and where the finger’s supposed to be.”

Barrera also gave her character a real name, beyond the moniker Joey, worthy of Bram Stoker’s Dracula. 

The actor tells us, “I actually gave her her real name because these characters, the names that you see in the trailer are their ‘names’ that they’re given there because they share their real names, because it’s for safety reasons in case anyone gets caught, they’re given the rat pack names. So, funny story: originally my character’s rat pack name was Sammy, and because of Sam in Scream, they changed it to Joey. I ended up being Joey and Kathryn ended up being Sammy, but I worked with Matt and Tyler to give her a real name, which is Ana Lucia Cruz, and I wanted it to be a reference to Dracula. So Lucy, I named her Ana Lucia, and Cruz as in cross, something that would kill a vampire, that protects you from the vampire. So that ended up being her name.”

(from left) Abigail (Alisha Weir) and Peter (Kevin Durand) in Abigail, directed by Matt Bettinelli-Olpin & Tyler Gillett.

Kevin Durand may look imposing in stature, but it quickly becomes clear that his character has a softer side. 

“I play a guy named Peter who is basically a hired muscle for the group,” the Canadian actor shares. “We’ve been hired to kidnap a target, and you realize that the target’s a 12-year-old, and we’re like, okay, this is too easy. We realize that it’s not as easy as we thought. Peter’s always a couple of steps behind, partially because it’s a bit of a language barrier. I’m playing him like he’s from French Canada, who’s a little bit of a skew and trying to catch up. He is not really okay with his line of work, so he drinks heavily.”

The group dynamics will play a vital role in Abigail, with the strangers reluctant to trust each other. That’s less so with Peter, who Durand reveals will quickly develop a bond with another team member. 

“Well, to a certain degree, some of us look out for each other; some of us don’t give a shit,” Durand explains. “Peter really takes a liking to Sammy, played by the amazing Kathryn Newton. So, they have a pretty cool connection, kind of like a brotherly, sibling-type thing. I mean, they don’t know each other.”

The trailer highlights that some characters quickly embrace the vampiric nature of their captive. That’s less so with Peter.

Durand comments, “How does Peter react when things get weird? He doesn’t want to believe it. He’s very Catholic and the idea that vampires actually exist, he’s like, ‘There’s no such thing.’ He doesn’t believe it and then he’s being attacked by the one.”

It’s easy to see why Peter takes a liking to Sammy. Newton brings a vivacious energy to her heavily tattooed hacker character.

(from left) Abigail (Alisha Weir) and Sammy (Kathryn Newton) in Abigail, directed by Matt Bettinelli-Olpin & Tyler Gillett.

Newton says of Sammy, “She’s really kind of privileged and naïve to the stakes that she’s put herself in because I think she comes from a background of nothing really bad happens to her. It might even be created in her head if something’s bad. This is a real shock. But I would argue that she’s the nicest person in the movie. I think that she’s got the best intentions; she is not here to really make any money or care about kidnapping anybody. She’s kind of here just to have a good time.”

Angus Cloud’s Dean serves as the group’s wheelman. The “Euphoria” actor brought an unflappable cool factor to the scene observed as he, along with his new colleagues, handed over their phones. Abigail marks one of his final screen appearances.

The crew’s shooter, Rickles, is played by William Catlett. Catlett walks us through his no-nonsense character, “He’s the one that kind of keeps everything grounded in the film. It’s like a heist film. Then it turns into a horror film. We were just doing EPK where we were up in my bungalow because, just like a slapper, you want to be above so you can see everything until everything goes to shit. But that’s pretty much Rickles.”

Catlett also reinforces that this assembled criminal team is working together for the first time on this kidnapping heist.

“We all just met up, but we were all summoned here by Abigail,” Catlett says. “We’d done something that brought us here. Whatever we did, it’s like payback. We were all supposed to be in this place. We think we’re coming together for one thing, but we were handpicked to be here.”

As for the eponymous vampire child and the vampiric horror? Stay tuned for more on Abigail very soon.

The post ‘Abigail’ – Meet the Criminals Behind the Heist-Turned-Vampire Horror Movie [Set Visit] appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

The exploration of horror through an overcrowded streaming market continues. Since each month brings a plethora of new additions to streaming libraries across all platforms, from Netflix to Tubi, that means an insane selection of all styles and types of horror available at our fingertips.

Max doesn’t just serve as the spot for Warner Bros. titles, but offers hubs to connect you to HBO, Cartoon Network, TCM, and curated selections to find even more pockets of horror.

New additions to Max’s horror library in April include Wes Craven Presents: They and Alex Garland’s Men on April 18. Also look for Metalocalypse: Army of the Doomstar to arrive on the streaming platform on April 6.

Here are the best Max horror movies you can stream right now.

Aliens

Whereas Ridley Scott’s Alien embraced quiet haunted house-like chills for his sci-fi movie, James Cameron took a drastic detour into action-horror territory for the epic-scaled sequel. Poor Ellen Ripley is forced to return to LV-426 along with space Marines, in search of missing colonizers that were attempting to terraform the exomoon. It goes without saying that the xenomorphs are back in plural form. Aliens expands the body count and lore in spades, but it’s anchored by two fierce mothers going toe-to-toe in Ripley and the xenomorph queen.

The Brood

Frank Carveth (Art Hindle) is in the midst of an embittered separation process from his estranged wife Nola (Samantha Eggar), a disturbed woman currently undergoing experimental therapy. Her psychotherapist, Hal Raglan (Oliver Reed), has developed a unique process that allows his patients to let go of their suppressed emotions via physical manifestations on their body, weird growths, and skin anomalies. That means Nola channels her rage into a brood of psychically manifested children, who then act on her fury through murder. It’s visceral body horror meets genuine family tragedy and drama. With a new David Cronenberg body horror movie on the way, now’s a perfect time to watch this one.

Carnival of Souls

When Mary Henry miraculously survives a harrowing car accident, she finds herself inexplicably drawn to a mysterious, abandoned carnival. Shot at the Saltair Pavilion, one of the first amusement parks in the west, the setting enhances the eerie atmosphere. A slow burn befitting of an episode of the Twilight Zone, this carnival is one you won’t wish to take a trip to anytime soon. Instead of high octane thrills, this trip to the carnival is one of slow, permeating dread.

Carrie

A common thread in coming of age tales is the journey of self-discovery. That’s hard enough for a hormonal teenager, but it’s even more so when that teen is an outcast targeted for bullying. Poor Carrie White grew up extremely sheltered thanks to her fanatically religious mother, so when her first period came in the middle of her post-gym class shower, she thought she was dying. Cue excessive bullying. Her foray into puberty comes with newfound telekinetic power, and with it enough strength to rebel against her mother and find herself. Carrie’s road to self-discovery is paved with a lot of blood and death. While there are multiple adaptations of Stephen King’s novel, it’s tough to beat Brian De Palma’s classic.

Cast a Deadly Spell

This made-for-cable movie is more of a loving send-up, marrying comedic horror-fantasy to noir. Set in an alternate 1940s where magic and magical creatures exist, Detective Harry Philip Lovecraft (Fred Ward) is hired to track and retrieve the stolen Necronomicon. That job leads to a much bigger conspiracy involving femme fatales, assassins, ancient evils, and a bid to bring about Armageddon. It’s a charming creature feature steeped in noir convention, with a stacked cast too.

Cronos

Guillermo del Toro’s feature debut reframed the vampire mythos at nearly every turn. Antique dealer Jesús Gris discovers a strange mechanical scarab hiding within a statue. It stings him, injecting Jesús with a solution that restores his youth, increases his energy levels, and instills a powerful thirst for blood. Throw in a dangerous businessman that’s been after the scarab for years, and Jesús’s newfound vampirism causes a wake of destruction. While vampires are often portrayed as romantic figures of eternal life, del Toro centers his story around an aging grandfather, presenting a different, poignant side to romanticizing vampiric immortality.

Don Monjes (Two Monks)

Two Monks, aka Dos Monjes, tells the nonlinear tale of the rivalry between Javier and Juan. Set in a Gothic monastery, Oro employs a heavy German Expressionist style for his violent narrative told from two different perspectives. It’s moody and minimalist, biding its time in revealing the truths behind the men’s opposition. This eerie gothic tale is foundational horror, especially when venturing into classic horror from Mexico as it’s written/directed by Mexican horror trailblazer Juan Bustillo Oro.

Eraserhead

1977 propelled body horror forward in a major way with David Lynch’s Eraserhead. It centers around poor Henry Spencer. He’s just trying to survive his strange industrial world and his angry girlfriend, Mary X. And also the unbearable cries from his newborn child, a mutant. The fear of becoming a parent has never been as viscerally upsetting, abstract, or as singular than in Lynch’s hands.

The Exorcist

Director William Friedkin changed the face of possession horror with this classic. When daughter Regan falls mysteriously ill, single mother and popular actress Chris spares no expense on experimental treatments to heal her. When all else fails, Chris turns to the Church. The battle for faith and redemption centers around a possessed child, and Friedkin mines every moment for terror and horror in equal measure. An impeccable cast, fantastic cinematography combined with iconic shot composition, and a visceral approach to the possession make this an all-timer.

Eyes Without a Face

Georges Franju’s horror classic follows a brilliant plastic surgeon and his horribly disfigured daughter, and his extreme quest to give her a new face. The surgeon sets about finding the perfect face, which entails gruesome facial transplants involving unwilling participants. While Eyes Without a Face dwells in the psychological, the grotesque imagery involving the surgeries unsettles. It’s a lush, haunting horror film unafraid to test the squeamish.

From Dusk Till Dawn

This vampire classic by director Robert Rodriguez and screenwriter Quentin Tarantino bides its time getting to the horror. The first act plays like a crime thriller, with the Gecko Brothers (George Clooney and Tarantino) taking a family hostage to get them across the border while running from the law. They wind up at an all-night truck stop, unaware that it’s home to a hive of vampires that use the place as their feeding ground. It’s the type of creature feature with it all: humor, action, and loads of viscera. The vampires may start human-like, but they quickly reveal their monstrous form once the blood starts spilling.

Hausu

A Japanese cult classic takes the haunted house concept to wacky extremes in the best way possible. The premise has a group of seven high school girls traveling to a remote home belonging to one of their aunts, and it happens to be haunted. That doesn’t adequately prepare the viewer for the madness. Take the haunted house tropes, like spooky cats, bleeding walls, and vengeful ghosts, and combine them with hallucinogenic visuals and funhouse sensibilities. You have the most bizarre haunted house horror movie you’ll ever see. I mean that as a compliment.

Hereditary

Ari Aster’s feature directorial debut presented a master class in foreboding atmosphere and subtle background scares that embedded deep under your skin. The haunting imagery in Hereditary is the type that lingers with you long after the credits roll. The title sells the premise well; this horror movie takes a sobering look at what subsequent generations inherit from their parents. In this case, the unlucky Graham family is unwittingly held prisoner to their matriarch’s dark designs, leading them down a destructive, dark path.

Kwaidan

Director Masaki Kobayashi’s anthology, which roughly translates to “Ghost Stories” from the term Kaidan, draws from Lafcadio Hearn‘s collection of folk tales. Kwaidan presents four vignettes of terror, often revolving around a form of supernatural or violent karma. The haunting tales and stunning cinematography helped earn this rare horror anthology a Best Foreign Language Film nomination at the Academy Awards. As if that’s not reason enough to watch this horror classic, the second segment, “The Woman of the Snow” serves as inspiration to another memorable segment from 1990’s Tales from the Darkside: The Movie.

The Lure

What if the original Hans Christian Andersen version of The Little Mermaid, in its bloody glory, was set in the 1980s in a Polish cabaret? Oh yeah, and it’s a musical. That’s the concept behind Agnieszka Smoczynska’s stunning film featuring mermaid sisters Golden and Silver, who come ashore and wind up getting adopted by a local nightclub band. A visually resplendent horror fairy tale that’s unafraid to get weird, bloody, and downright tragic.

Pet Sematary

Director Mary Lambert’s adaptation of Stephen King’s novel remains a high point in the pantheon of King adaptations. When the Creed family moves into their new home on a rural but deadly stretch of road, their plucky neighbor Jud (Fred Gwynne) introduces them to the neighborhood pet cemetery. But there’s stony, sour ground beyond the deadfall there, and it reawaken things that were better left dead. That the charming cast makes you first root for the Creed family before Lambert layers in absolute nightmare fuel (hello, Zelda) ensures this film holds up well.

Scanners

A futuristic sci-fi thriller that centers around industrial conspiracy and espionage as a scientist sends a man, Revok (Michael Ironside), with extraordinary psychic powers to hunt down others like him. This is the type of sci-fi horror feature where its villain and a now iconic head popping scene somewhat overshadows the film itself, which is far headier than the violent head burst suggests. Scanners marks the first of David Cronenberg’s films that spawned sequels, though he wasn’t involved with subsequent entries in this franchise.

The Strangers

From the outset, Bryan Bertino’s debut establishes a somber tone. James Hoyt (Scott Speedman) and Kristen McKay (Liv Tyler) are on a weekend trip for a wedding, but romance isn’t in the air. This isn’t a happy couple in love, but one reaching critical mass. Enter the three masked strangers. The eerie way they lurk in the background sends chills down your spine, but not as much as their motive: “Because you were home.” There’s no glimmer of hope for James and Kristen, and no identities for the killers either. Not much is scarier than knowing they’re still free to slay again. And they will. A reboot on the way serves as the perfect excuse to revisit this bleak gem.

Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me

It should surprise no one that David Lynch‘s prequel movie refused to give in to expectations and polarized upon release. “Twin Peaks” frequently leaned into the supernatural, but it was offset with a sense of quirky humor. Not so in this feature, which is devoid of any levity. The film chronicled Laura Palmer’s final days and embraced experimental horror, capturing Laura’s visceral terror with an oppressive feeling of dread.

Under the Skin

Jonathan Glazer’s Under the Skin follows an extraterrestrial, credited as The Female (Scarlett Johansson), as she seduces lonely men in Glasgow, luring them to an otherworldly place for consumption. Soon, this process unlocks a journey of self-discovery for the Female. Glazer documents the alien’s burgeoning curiosity with a cold distance, the Female’s horrific acts captured with a sterility that somehow enhances the horror. Never is that more disturbing than a devastating beach scene. Under the Skin is as elusive as it is mesmerizing, even as its aloof nature effectively induces maximum discomfort.

The Witch

Robert Eggers’ feature debut centers around a young woman coming of age under the harshest of conditions. After exile from their community, Thomasin’s family relocates to a rural area near dark woods to rebuild their lives. Thomasin’s adolescence is marred with puritanical oppression and a witch in the woods wreaking havoc on the family. What would self-discovery look like in 1630s New England, when the freedom to do so doesn’t exist? Never have we cheered so hard for a teen to live deliciously and find her place in the world.

The post The Best Horror Movies on Max to Stream Right Now (April 2024) appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

With Legendary’s big budget Hollywood blockbuster Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire dominating the box office, you knew it wouldn’t be long before The Asylum whipped up their own “mockbuster” version of the film. Their answer to Godzilla x Kong? It’s titled Ape x Mecha Ape: New World Order, a sequel to last year’s Ape vs. Mecha Ape, naturally.

Ape x Mecha Ape: New World Order will be available on Digital beginning April 5, and it pits the two titular titans up against, well, a mockbuster take on Lovecraft’s Cthulhu. Naturally!

In Ape x Mecha Ape, “A global cabal of world leaders awakens an ancient creature beneath the ocean floor. Now mankind’s only hope rests on an uneasy alliance between the giant ape and his mechanical arch-nemesis, Mecha Ape MkII, to save the Earth.”

The film will also be playing in the following theaters this Friday:

• Laemmle – Glendale, California
• Hickory Ridge Cinemas – Brunswick, Ohio
• Trylon Cinema – Minneapolis, Minnesota
• O Cinema – South Beach, Miami, Florida
• Aurora Cineplex – Roswell, Georgia

Sean Young, Ashley Dakin and Jared Rivet star in The Asylum’s latest mockbuster.

Ape x Mecha Ape was directed by Marc Gottlieb (Ape vs. Mecha Ape).

The post ‘Ape x Mecha Ape: New World Order’ Trailer – Mockbuster Titans Join Forces to Fight a Knockoff Cthulhu appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.