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The 1980s horror film Spookies was a notoriously troubled production. Filming began in 1984 with Brendan Faulkner and Thomas Doran at the helm… but then creative and legal issues arose during post-production, so that version of the film (which was going by the title Twisted Souls) was never completed. Instead, an investor hired Eugenie Joseph to shoot new footage – involving a different cast and a lot more monsters – that was then mixed together with the footage left over from Faulkner and Doran. This mish-mash was released under the title Spookies in 1987, and over the decades it has developed a cult following. That’s why producer/co-writer Frank Farel is now moving ahead with the sequel Spookies II: Spookier, and he has told our friends at Bloody Disgusting that FX artists Gabriel Bartalos and Vincent J. Guastini, who worked on the first movie, are coming back for the follow-up!

The first Spookies (which,...

The 1980s horror film Spookies was a notoriously troubled production. Filming began in 1984 with Brendan Faulkner and Thomas Doran at the helm… but then creative and legal issues arose during post-production, so that version of the film (which was going by the title Twisted Souls) was never completed. Instead, an investor hired Eugenie Joseph to shoot new footage – involving a different cast and a lot more monsters – that was then mixed together with the footage left over from Faulkner and Doran. This mish-mash was released under the title Spookies in 1987, and over the decades it has developed a cult following. And that cult is now so large, Spookies producer/co-writer Frank Farel is moving ahead with Spookies 2!

Farel dropped the sequel news into an interview with The Barrens Hideout Podcast at the Dark Arts Festival in Lincoln, Rhode Island last weekend. He said (with thanks to our friends at Bloody Disgusting for the transcription), “Remarkably,...

A sequel to Spookies is in the works, Bloody Disgusting has exclusively learned.

Frank Farel, co-writer and producer of the 1987 cult classic, announced the news during a live interview with The Barrens Hideout Podcast at Dark Arts Festival in Lincoln, Ri over the weekend.

“Remarkably, [Spookies] has done well enough in its revival that I’m at the start of raising financing for a sequel,” Farel revealed. “I’m hoping to get a couple of name horror actors into it. I’m also looking to make a film that is almost an anti-sequel. I don’t just want to rehash what was done the first time.

“I don’t want to even make a typical sequel. I want to make something that’s an animal of its own. It’s different in so many ways. The way I’m doing it, it’s almost intended as a mockery of what happened to our original film.

As the U.S. dealt with the debris of another war in the mid-’70s, a faction of people started to look to the stars for guidance. No, I don’t mean God or any other proclaimed deity, but rather astrology, the study of the stars and planets and their relationship to human movement. It goes without saying that a little cultural reflection was in order, and before long we had not one, but two films entitled The Astrologer. One holds a small bit of cult cache. This is the other one. Leave it to Severin Films, then, to choose to champion the underdog with a fun, new Blu-ray presentation. Severin has their reasons, though: this was the first film by well-regarded action director James Glickenhaus (Shakedown). And who doesn’t want more Glickenhaus in their lives?

Some temperance is in order, however, as The Astrologer is unlike any of...

February’s home media releases are ending in a big way, with 20 different horror and sci-fi titles making their way onto various formats this week. Leading the pack this Tuesday are Rian Johnson’s Knives Out, which comes home on Blu-ray, DVD, and 4K Ultra HD, as well as Richard Stanley’s Color Out of Space, which will be available on both Blu and DVD. Scream Factory is showing Mary Lambert’s Pet Sematary Two some love this week with their Collector’s Edition release, and for those of you into wacky, obscure cult classics, you’ll definitely want to pick up Vinegar Syndrome’s Blu-ray for Spookies.

Arrow Video is keeping busy with their Special Edition releases of Deadly Manor and the One Missed Call trilogy, and Severin Films has given James Glickenhaus’ The Astrologer an HD overhaul this week, too.

Other notable releases for February 25th include The Candy Snatchers,...