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While movie remakes are popular across genres (Anyone remember the 2018 remake of Garry Marshall's "Overboard"?), the horror genre is especially susceptible. The genre is unique insofar as its scares endure more than most. Where comedies and action movies, for instance, are inextricably linked to their time of release, a scary movie is a scary movie. With a fresh coat of paint, what was new three decades ago can seem fresh again.

A curious contemporary trend has emerged in which relatively recent titles are remade just a few years after their original releases. Released just 14 years after the first "Cabin Fever," the remake used the exact script as the original. Recently, horror filmmaker Anthony Diblasi released "Malum" in select theaters. "Malum," a remake of Diblasi's 2014 indie "Last Shift," isn't quite a shot-for-shot remake so much as it is a reimagining. With more money and more experience, Diblasi revisits his demonic fable in a new context.

The very first Make Believe Seattle festival took place last week and included a lot of stellar features. One that particularly caught my eye was Pursued. It is the new film from Jeffrey Obrow, known for 80s classics The Dorm that Dripped Blood and The Kindred. He’s back with a new thriller focusing on friends and strangers in the digital age.

When Lark (Madison Lawlor) learns that her mother (Molly Ringwald) is dating a new guy, she has mixed emotions. She’s happy that her mom is finally moving on after her father’s death two years before, but the whole idea naturally feels a bit strange. This is only compounded by the fact that she only learns about the relationship when Carol announces that she will be going away for the weekend with her new suitor. Lark cautions her mom, asking if she really knows this guy well...

The late 80’s mostly pushed aside slashers for a return to potpourri poisons; creatures, monsters, zombies and mad scientists shared the spotlight in a bid to woo horror fans grown complacent with mere stabbing and stalking. Out of this stew grew The Kindred (1987), a mostly forgotten mélange that serves as the final (and best) calling card for the directing team of Stephen Carpenter and Jeffrey Obrow (The Power). Bring your slickers and keep the first five rows clear; things are going to get very messy.

Distributed by FM Entertainment in early January, The Kindred brought in $2.4 million before shuffling off to a home video release from Vestron; some critics praised the effects and that’s about it. But for horror fans who missed it the first go around (pick me!), it offers a fast paced ride through groovy practical effects and a typically, um, heightened performance from Rod Steiger.

We open at night,...

All hail Film Ventures International. Long-time purveyors of cinematic sleaze and genre enchantment, they’ve produced or at least distributed some of my very favorite low budget wonders: Beyond the Door (1974), Grizzly (’76), The Incubus (1981), and Pieces (’82) are only some of their titles that have provided hours of entertainment, from the goofy to the sublime (which in their case, is often one and the same). One of their final releases, The Power (1984), is a good example of their often heady mix, and a solid springboard for directors Stephen Carpenter and Jeffrey Obrow on their way to their demented mutant mash The Kindred (’87).

Released in late January, The Power (Aka Evil Passage) didn’t do much business; playing in theatres for one weekend and bringing in just under a million dollars, head honcho Edward L. Montoro surely heading out the back door with a bagful of cash on his way to bankrupting the company.

Some things are best left unborn. Almost always found on lists of “VHS horror movies that need Blu-ray releases,” Stephen Carpenter and Jeffrey Obrow’s 1987 creature feature The Kindred is finally headed to DVD and Blu-ray courtesy of Synapse Films. The announcement was made over on EW today, where Synapse’s Don May reflected on the […]...

After some delay, Synapse Films has finally put out The Dorm That Dripped Blood on Blu-Ray with a Blu-Ray/DVD Combo pack! You may know the film as Pranks or, for you elitists out there, as Death Dorm. We got the review of Synapse’s Blu-Ray/DVD Combo for you beyond the break!

I like you better when you drink.

The Movie:

Five college students during Christmas break volunteer to clean up a dormitory prior to its demolition. Some of the volunteers, and even a couple of parents, bite the dust as they are picked off by a killer on campus. The plot of the film is your basic slasher fodder and while the film itself didn’t bring anything new the table. What I found more interesting than the film itself are the fact that the directors, Jeffrey Obrow & Stephen Carpenter, made the majority of this film during their...

1982 - 84 mins. - Rated R

D: Stephen Carpenter, Jeffrey Obrow

C: Laurie Lapinski, Stephen Sachs, David Snow, Daphne Zuniga, Pamela Holland 

Group of college students playing pranks on one another while getting an old college dorm ready for a demolition are picked off by an unseen killer.

Ok. Yes there are more technically proficient slashers from the mid to early 80's out there. And yes, there is better acted ones out there too. However, one of the main objectives of a slasher is its ability to craft suspense, tension and unease. With that in mind, The Dorm That Dripped Blood succeeds admirably. The Dorm That Dripped Blood features creepy sequences of the killer lurking in shadows, stalking his victims from afar. The music score is well used throughout the film helping to heighten the suspense and involvement in the film's proceedings. The death sequences, while not overly gory, are brutally effective.

Syfy and Korean monsters, machine-gun-toting Japanese schoolgirls, and some re-releases are the topics of this week's horror titles.

While Dinoshark (directed by Kevin O'Neill and starring Eric Balfour, Iva Hasperger, Aaron Diaz, Humberto Busto, Roger Corman) and Mongolian Death Worm (directed by Steven R. Monroe and starring Sean Patrick Flanery, Victoria Pratt) were on cable TV only recently, they're already here on home video. On top of that Chawz, the "Jaws with a wild boar" offering from Korea, and the hilariously unbelievable Machine Girl are vying for your purse strings all way from the Far East.

For the classically inclined, re-releases of Roger Corman's The Terror with a young Jack Nicholson, The Dorm That Dripped Blood, El Topo, as well as Francis Ford Coppola's Dementia 13 will keep you company this week.

The Terror

Directed by Roger Corman

Starring Jack Nicholson, Boris Karloff, Sandra Knight

In one of his first-ever roles,...

Hey Fiends! Happy Monday! Let’s take a look at your DVD and Blu-Ray Releases for tomorrow – April 23, 2011. We have some Hi-Def upgrades that you freaks will definitely want to pick up. Check beyond the break to get the full list!

All Descriptions of the following titles are provided by Amazon.com unless otherwise noted. If you plan on buying a flick from this list, please click on the links provided or click on the cover as it helps us pay the bills around here. Also, unlike most sites, we provide the Netflix widget which we think is pretty convenient to add these films to your queue. If you don’t have Netflix, feel free to click on “Free Trial” and try it out!

Blow Out (The Criterion Collection)

Format: DVD | Blu-Ray

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In the enthralling Blow Out, brilliantly crafted by Brian De Palma (Sisters, Carrie, Scarface), John Travolta (Saturday Night Fever,...

Your Weekly Source for the Newest Releases to Blu-Ray Tuesday, April 26th, 2011 Jesse Eisenberg & Kristen Stewart star in Greg Mottola’s Adventureland (2009) Billie Bob Thornton is naughty in Terry Zwigoff’s Bad Santa: Unrated Director’s Cut (2003) French cult classic Betty Blue: Original Theatrical Release (1986) Val Kilmer stars in Blood Out (2011) John Travolta stars in Brian de Palma’s Blow Out: Criterion Collection (1981) D.A Pennebaker’s documentary Bob Dylan: Don’T Look Back (2010) Matt Damon & Heath Ledger star in terry Gilliam’s The Brothers Grimm (2005) Ben Affleck stars in Kevin Smith’s Chasing Amy (1997) Korean horror director Shin Jung-Won’s Chawz (2011) Renee Zellweger & Catherine Zeta-Jones star in Rob Marshall’s Chicago (2002) Kevin Smith’s Clerks: 15th Anniversary Edition (1994) Sylvester Stallone & Viggo Mortenson star in Daylight (1996) Francis Ford Coppola’s Dementia 13: Blu-Ray/DVD Combo pack (1963) Jeffrey Obrow’s The Dorm That Dripped Blood:...

We're just a week away from Synapse Films' Blu-ray and DVD release of The Dorm that Dripped Blood completely uncut for the first time ever. For those fans (I'm looking at you, Matt Fini) out there eagerly anticipating this long time coming moment, a new cut-to-uncut comparison has just popped up online for the insanely curious.

Dig on the comparison right here for the goods courtesy of MovieCensorship.com.

From the Press Release

Synapse Films is proud to present the fullest-length version of Jeffrey Obrow and Stephen Carpenter's lost classic The Dorm That Dripped Blood on April 26th, 2011.

On the eve of Christmas vacation, a college dormitory stands condemned, the dark halls now vacant… and unsafe. Co-ed Joanne Murray and her close friends volunteer to help close down the building, unaware a psychopathic lunatic hides in the shadows. As the students disappear one by one, Joanne discovers the...

Oh, Synapse Films. How we love thee. We could cuddle you in our arms forever. Stroke your hair. Nuzzle you close. You are our sunshine. Our only sunshine. You make us happy ... especially when it comes to delivering some of the most psychotic films out there completely uncut and uncensored!

From the Press Release

Synapse Films is proud to present the fullest-length version of Jeffrey Obrow and Stephen Carpenter's lost classic The Dorm That Dripped Blood on March 29, 2011.

On the eve of Christmas vacation, a college dormitory stands condemned, the dark halls now vacant… and unsafe. Co-ed Joanne Murray and her close friends volunteer to help close down the building, unaware a psychopathic lunatic hides in the shadows. As the students disappear one by one, Joanne discovers the horrifying reality that if she is to survive, she will have to find a way to slay the brutal murderer… alone.

Synapse Films is proud to present the fullest-length version of Jeffrey Obrow and Stephen Carpenter's lost classic The Dorm That Dripped Blood. On the eve of Christmas vacation, a college dormitory stands condemned, the dark halls now vacant… and unsafe. Co-ed Joanne Murray and her close friends volunteer to help close down the building, unaware a psychopathic lunatic hides in the shadows. As the students disappear one by one, Joanne discovers the horrifying reality that if she is to survive, she will have to find a way to slay the brutal murderer… alone.

The Dorm That Dripped Blood The Dorm That Dripped Blood, a minor classic in the popular 80's slasher market that featured a fresh faced Daphne Zuniga (Spaceballs) in her debut performance, was scheduled for a March 29, 2011 DVD/Blu-Ray combo release. Unfortunately, the film's release date has been delayed yet again. Fans of this movie have been clamoring for the release of this horror movie, because of a previously unreleased cut of the film entitled Death Dorm, which contains extra gore.

In The Dorm That Dripped Blood, which is now scheduled to be released on April 26, 2011, a college dormitory stands condemned during Christmas vacation... the dark hall's now vacant and unsafe. Student Joanne Murray and her close friends volunteer to help close down the building, unaware a psychopathic lunatic is hiding in the shadows. As the students disappear one by one, Joanne discovers the horrifying reality that if she is to survive,...

Almost one year ago, when we launched at Big Daddy, one of our first posts was about 10 horror films in need of a DVD or Blu-Ray release. The Nesting and Twice Dead which both made the list are now either out on DVD or about to be released. Other titles that made the list included The Pack, Night Warning, Massacre at Central High, Dance of the Damned, Children of the Corn II: The Final Sacrifice, Deadly Blessing, The Kindred and Killer Party. With this second annual edition, we hope to spotlight more horror films that have fallen through the cracks. Titles that haven't been released beyond VHS (with the exception of one, that has only been released to VOD) that need the attention of us horror fans and distributors to make these titles readily available for our horror movie watching enjoyment.

The Power In The Power, an ancient clay idol...

"The Man From Nowhere" (2010)

Directed by Lee Jeong-beom

Released by Well Go USA

Matt Singer said there's a sequence in this Korean revenge thriller that has "already taken up permanent residence in the Movie Hall of Fame section of my brain," so what more do you need? "Mother" star Won Bin stars as the man who is framed by local gangsters and seeks to retrieve the young girl he lives next door to after she's been kidnapped.

"Abducted" (2011)

Directed by Jon Bonnell

Released by Brain Damage Films

Originally called "Match.Dead," this 2009 thriller details the perils of online dating when a teen girl (Kathleen Benner) arranges a date with a man she soon learns is a psychopath (James Ray). Alan Smithee is the credited screenwriter on IMDb, so one might not want to go in with high expectations.

"Babysitters Beware" (2011)

Directed by Douglas Horn

Released by Phase 4 Films

If you're the...

The Dorm That Dripped Blood, also known as Pranks, is all set for a Blu-ray/DVD release from Synapse Films and we have the lowdown on the special features. The street date is March 8, 2011.

Source: High-Def Digest

“The film will include footage no one has ever seen before including new sequences of gore and dialogue, restoring the film to the most complete version possible — according to Synapse’s Don May Jr..

Specs have yet to be revealed, but supplements will include: Audio commentary with directors Jeffrey Obrow and Stephen Carpenter; Featurettes about composer Christopher Young and makeup FX artist Matthew Mungle; and original theatrical trailer.

The release also will be a Blu-ray/DVD combo pack.”...

The Dorm That Dripped Blood (aka "Pranks") (1981) D: Jeffrey Obrow, Stephen Carpenter Laurie Lapinski, David Snow, Pamela Holland and Daphne Zuniga. You have to hand it to Jeffrey Obrow and Stephen Carpenter. What their feature debut Death Dorm lacks in pacing, technical acumen and suspense, it makes up for in sheer ballsiness. How else to describe a film that was renamed to capitalize on the Vincent Price classic The House that Dripped Blood? You may also find the film under its DVD title Pranks. At any rate, it's never a good sign when a film is released under three...

Things are looking pretty sweet home video-wise over the next few months as some announcements have come out over the past several days, and rather than write up a separate story for each one, we figured that we'd bring it all here for you in one gore-soaked package!

First up, Anchor Bay's little seen or talked about Kevin Costner spooker, Luis Berdejo's The New Daughter, will be hitting DVD and Blu-ray on May 18th, and it tells the tale of single father who moves to a house in the country with his two children following a painful divorce. Soon, however, his adolescent daughter (Ivana Baquero from Pan's Labyrinth) begins acting strangely, and the household is plagued by disturbing events. John begins to suspect that the mysterious mound at the edge of the forest may have something to do with her ominous behavior.

Then, on June 15th from New Century,...

Here is some exciting news from the revamped (again!) Fangoria website. Synapse Films has acquired the rights to The Dorm That Dripped Blood with "many other exciting titles" that they plan to announce in the next few weeks. Synapse’s Don May Jr. told Fango, "We’re working with [director/producer] Jeffrey Obrow, and we’ve uncovered his original answer print, which is titled Death Dorm. He believes that when the film was released as Dorm That Dripped Blood, the theatrical distributor did some editing and changed things around, in addition to the name. Our print is the only 35mm version of the film with the Death Dorm title, and it may contain footage that nobody has seen in 30 years."...