Directed by Tom Shankland, 2008
Written by Tom Shankland based on a story by Paul Andrew Williams

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More horror movies come out per month than I have numbers for.  Plot that out over a year and the number of titles becomes sheer cacophony.  There is so much mediocrity in the world that a film must be either bolt-of-lightning brilliant or sack-of-hammers stupid to stand out amongst the din.  The year is 2009.  We’ve seen all we’re going to see, right?

Tom Shankland thinks otherwise.  Tom Shankland proves otherwise.

I’m not prepared to declare THE CHILDREN bolt-of-lightning brilliant, but it is the most invigorating piece of horror I’ve seen since [REC].  That may not seem like a ringing endorsement considering Jaume Balagueró and Paco Plaza’s Spanish powerhouse is barely two years old, but if one considers the hundreds upon hundreds of horror movies that have risen and fallen betwixt the two, I hope my affinity for this bit of Brit horror comes off as enthusiastic as I want it to.  If not, how about this:

I fucking love THE CHILDREN.

I came across the title for TERROR AT BLOOD FART LAKE about two weeks ago, thoroughly enjoying a review for it on Amazon that was no doubt written by the director; “Well, needless to say when I finally got to attend a screening I was as excited as a fat girl on a first date. The lights went down, the film came on and I was immediately transported into the whimsical world of Terror At Blood Fart Lake.”

I had no idea how awesome TABFL was, though, until this very second thanks to @noahphex, who linked me to the trailer.  I know that with my linking of the giant monster penis and now this I’m really classing this joint up, but please do watch this video.  Watch, learn, and love.

I came across the FX Makeup page of one Amber Atkisson earlier and on it was this impressive sculpture test of a killer penis for a project called THE PICKLER, about which I can find no information.  Though the end monster looks a lot closer to an ALIEN chest-burster than it does a human penis, I’ll leave the full snap of the veiny bastard off of the main page for those sensitive to such matters.

Check out Amber Atkisson’s FX page for more images, one of which is a sketch showing the intended scale of the monster penis mayhem.

I jumped the gun claiming the video of an ‘unknown life form’ clinging to the walls of a sewer line was not only viral marketing, but viral marketing for DISTRICT 9.  Turns out the video is A) 100% real and b) still without unanimous identification.

The original YouTube user that posted the video has since pulled it (though one can still find it), but io9 have done the round up and discovered that the sewer line in question is privately operated and outside of the City of Raleigh’s control.  Furthermore, there is a split in the scientific community as to what exactly the pulsating sac of insomnia is.

The first camp believes it to be slime mold, the second believes it/them to be fresh water bryozoan.  The third camp believe it is a species of Tubifex worm that have taken to living in a colony.

Me?  I’m going with the larval stage of the trash compactor monster from Star Wars.

I was fortunate enough to attend the NIGHT OF THE CREEPS re-union screening a few weeks ago, which was the first time Fred Dekker, Jason Lively, Steve Marshall, Jill Whitlow, and Tom Atkins had ever watched the movie together.  The event was a blast, the print was pristine, the movie (also the first time the director’s cut had been shown theatrically) was a riot as always, but cherry atop a mountain of cherries was the Q&A afterward.

As I recall, no one asked too many details about the DVD, most likely safe from the knowledge that the disc’s producer, whose name escapes me, is the same geeky gent who brought that inspired THE MONSTER SQUAD two-disc set to the world.  Had someone in the audience been with a time machine, I think that would have changed.

Amazon is running a contest wherein voters get to elect the NIGHT OF THE CREEPS DVD cover.  Keep in mind when you look at the three monstrousities that this is the first time Fred Dekker’s now cult classic is, legitimately, available on DVD.  Even the bootleg had a better cover than this.

Scratch that, the bootleg had a much, much better cover:

I created the Shit Just Got Real tag precisely for videos like this.  Unfortunately I don’t think this captured video feed of an “unknown life form” in a sewer on YouTube has a gasp of truth to its slimey breathing.  Not when DISTRICT 9, the alien invasion flick produced by Peter Jackson, is on the horizon and has already leveraged word of mouth and street-team ad campaigns.

But, hey!  That doesn’t mean we can’t hope someone finally filmed the spawning sacs of a C.H.U.D.  One day, people, one day…

If you read HorrorsNotDead.com strictly through an RSS feed, you will have no clue as to the changes I speak.  If you load the site on a regular basis like any decent human being would and should, you may have noticed a few tweaks around these parts.  Even if you do have it bookmarked, you’ll be clueless as to the fourth point below.  Surprise!

Firstly is the header.  Gone are the random selection of horror related quotes.  In place are pictographs of the three most recent articles that I’ve deemed highlight worthy.

Second is the width.  As you should have noticed, HND is now a tad wider.  This allows me to fit more of more verbal girth into your gaping maw all at once.

Third, and perhaps the smallest change with the biggest impact, are the various blog templates.  A desire to not clutter the front page has led me to restrain from posting things in the past.  Now, with the inclusion of several styles (most notably headline only), you can expect to see more updates throughout the day without having to overload the front page.

[As always with coding changes, kudos go to Chris Bowyer, lord of MovieForums.com, for processing all my whimsy.]

Fourth, and biggest of all…