Vampire feature Bloodlust set for UK DVD release in February

Way back in 2010, Richard Johnstone directed a vampire feature variously called Bloodless or Bloodlust which had its first screening in March this year. Now it has finally appeared on Amazon UK, set for a release in February from 101 Films.

Bloodlust is a vampire feature which adds another British Horror Revival credit to the CV of Victoria Hopkins, who was Erika Spawn in The Devil's Music. You may also have seen her in Zombie Women of Satan and Doghouse and she is also in the recently completed Le Fear II: Le Sequel. Also in the cast are Bill Fellows (Wolfblood, Blood and Carpet) and Lucas Hansen (Soldiers of the Damned, Human Centipede II)

Synopsis
Northern England. Present day. A bus drives 5 young couples to an old castle in an unknown location. They have responded to an advert looking for people to take part in a 30-day medical trial. The COMPANY running the experiment, led by the CO-ORDINATOR, explains there will be no contact with the outside world. The group are free to leave at any time, but if they do, they will forfeit their fee: £20,000 per couple.

Mysterious, unexplained events occur around the castle and strange noises are heard in the middle of the night. At first the group are skeptical – they think the COMPANY is creating the illusion of a “haunting” to test their reactions, until it is revealed there is something more sinister involved.

Why is an Italian film ripping off the poster for The Borderlands?

Am I missing something here? This is the poster for Elliot Goldner's acclaimed British horror feature The Borderlands:

Here's the same design on the German DVD:

And the Italian DVD:

And here's exactly the same design on the British DVD sleeve for an Italian horror film called Back from Hell. Right down to the 'Evil has a new form' tag-line.

Meanwhile the British DVD of The Borderlands uses this instead:

First screening next week for 'Somerset Crocodile' movie The Hatching

The Hatching is a new British horror film I picked up on a while back about crocodiles in the Somerset levels. Shot at the tail-end of last year, it's now ready to screen and will have its premiere next week as part of the Bath Film Festival.

The cast is top-lined by British genre star Andrew-Lee Potts (Primeval, Strange, Freakdog, The Bunker) and Laura Aikman (Casualty, Keith Lemon) with Thomas Turgoose (Eden Lake), Jack McMullen (Grange Hill, Brookie) and Georgia Henshaw (In the Dark Half), Plus, for some reason, 'comedian' Justin Lee Collins.

Synopsis:
Tim returns to his childhood home to bury his father and take over the family business, with his girlfriend Lucy. However, Tim carries an old burden; a friend of his was killed by a crocodile during a kids’ prank at a local zoo and when locals mysteriously start vanishing, Tim realizes the crocodile eggs he stole as a child have now hatched and are loose on the Somerset Levels. As people disappear and gruesome body parts mount, the horrific truth emerges and for Tim it’s a race against time, to put right what went so horribly wrong.

The Hatching is helmed by experienced director Michael Anderson who started out as clapper-loader on stuff like An American Werewolf in London and has made stacks of corporates, commercials etc. (But he's not this guy.) He describes the film as a comedy horror, a cross between Hot Fuzz and Jaws. Top prosthetic house Animated Extras created the crocodile.

You can find out more at www.hatchingthemovie.com or www.facebook.com/hatchingthemovie

The Hatching screens at the Little Theatre Cinema in Bath on 22nd November, with the director and producer in attendance. There is also a screening on 28th November at The Seed Factory in Aller, a village near Bridgwater where prodco Ebenezer Films are based.

Can’t wait to see… Boris in the Forest

Here’s an in-production short I came across by chance which sounds great. Boris in the Forest is a forthcoming short film from Robert Hackett: “A black comedy about a Californian nerd in search of his horror hero Boris Karloff.”

It stars Mac McDonald from Red Dwarf, George Georgiou (Mamma Mia!), Darren Kent (Community), Joyce Henderson (Burke and Hare) and, as William Henry Pratt, British horror regular Jonathan Hansler (Axed, The Devil’s Business). Mark Towns (Gnaw, The Borderlands) is editing the film even as we speak.

You can find out more on the picture’s Facebook page.

Huge fan of Karloff here. Can’t wait to see this.

The Fallow Field novel available for Kindle

Leigh Dovey, writer-director of the brilliant The Fallow Field, has now turned the story into a novel which is available as an eBook from Amazon.

If you've seen the film, you know the basic story, but in case you haven't here's the synopsis:

Amnesiac Matt Sadler  awakes alone in the middle of a wilderness with no recollection of the past seven days. As disturbing slithers of memory gradually return he retraces his steps to a remote farm owned by loner Calham. The farmer is suspicious of Matt but instantly sparks a dark sense of déjà vu. Calham turns on Matt, imprisoning and interrogating him, before forcing him on a terrible journey of abduction and slaughter to show the amnesiac the twisted games they used to play together. As Matt s fogged memory slowly begins to clear and he learns the two men share a violent history, the horrors of their past come skipping out of the darkness to greet them….

You can find out more about Leigh's forthcoming work at his new website.