The Walking Dead, True Blood, Supernatural
Historically, horror hasn't scared up a great track record on TV. Supernatural series? Yes. Terrifying ones? No. The good news for FX, which on Wednesday launches American Horror Story, is that audiences seem to be growing braver. Millions have dared to peek out from behind their fingers, making hits out of The Walking Dead and True Blood. Even when Nip/Tuck dipped its scalpels into overt horror -- terrorizing us with sadistic serial killer The Carver -- it drew record numbers to FX.
But do viewers have the stomach for a haunted house dreamed up by Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk, who gave us both Glee and Nip/Tuck?
read more
Masters of Horror - Season 1 courtesy Diyah Pera/Showtime
New releases announced today, August 30:Masters of Horror - Season 1 Blu-ray Bundle (Amazon exclusive) will be coming out September 8 Visit TVShowsOnDVD.com for the complete stories on these and other news items.
read more
Firefly on Blu-ray Disc, Courtesy of Fox Home Ent.
Right at this moment we're nearing the end of a mini TV shows on Blu-ray "drought". Did you realize there even WAS one? Oh, yeah: the January 29th release of Damages marks the last time a TV season set came out on the high definition Blu-ray Disc format.But if you own a Blu-ray player, then never fear! The dry spell is over in just a few weeks, when Lionsgate releases Weeds - Season 3 on June 3rd. And other titles are on the way, too, including the just-announced 3rd Season of Prison Break, arriving day-and-date with the DVD version on August 26.There's much more, too. Among the upcoming titles are July 1st's Mad Men from Lionsgate, BBC Video's July 29th release of Robin Hood, and MGM's direct-to-video return of Stargate SG-1, titled "Continuum," on the same date. August 26th sees the first *TWO* seasons of Heroes on BD and, just a week prior to that, the first season of the Cartoon Network's Justice League comes to stores. The fourth seasons of both Grey's Anatomy and Lost have bee...
read more
Tru Calling courtesy Fox
New releases announced today, May 2:Samuel L. Jackson's Afro Samurai - Director's Cut on Blu-ray Disc will be coming out August 26 George of the Jungle (2007) - Swinging 1st Season will be coming out August 19 Masters of Horror - Season 2 will be coming out July 29 Rebus - Set 3 will be coming out July 1 Robin of Sherwood - The Complete Collection will be coming out July 29 Tru Calling - The Complete Series will be coming out August 12 Visit TVShowsOnDVD.com for the complete stories on these and other news items.
read more
The Sopranos - Season 6 Part 2 [Blu-ray] courtesy HBO Home Video
HBO has joined the parade to Blu-ray after Warner Bros, its distributor, announced on Friday that they were dropping HD-DVD in May 2008. The Warner Bros announcement could be the event that ends the war between high-definition formats. HD-DVD has the exclusive support of Universal and Paramount/DreamWorks, while Blu-ray has Fox/MGM, Warner Bros, Disney, Sony and Lionsgate. Warner Bros, which holds about 20 percent of the market, was a huge win for the Blu-ray group, and leaves Blu-ray with roughly 75 percent of the HD market. The Warner Bros decision has influenced New Line, along with HBO, to make the switch to Blu-ray, but BBC Home Video is bucking the trend and "will evaluate the marketplace before committing to one format" (according to the studio); the studio has four high-definition releases planned for 2008, available on both formats, and has sold more copies of Planet Earth on HD-DVD. Recent notable Blu-ray releases include The Simpsons (Fox), Pirates of the Caribbean: At Wo...
read more
Well, this is it — the last post for Masters of Horror Season 2. I still haven't read or heard whether or not there will be a Season 3, but I sure do hope so. As soon as I find out, I'll definitely post it here. I thought that Season 2 wound up being pretty damn good, with four episodes now filling some slots in my top 10 favorites:1. "Fair-haired Child" (Season 1)2. "The Black Cat" (Season 2)3. "Pelts" (Season 2)4. "Cigarette Burns" (Season 1)5. "Right to Die" (Season 2)6. "The Screwfly Solution" (Season 2)7. "Imprint" (Season 1, aka "The Banned Episode")8. "Dance of the Dead" (Season 1)9. "Deer Woman" (Season 1)10. "Dreams in the Witch-House" (Season 1)As you can see, the final episode of this season, "Dream Cruise," didn't make it into my top favorites, but I also didn't find it to be a particularly bad episode. The story was interesting enough, even though it conjured up similar specters from other J-horror films like Ju-on: The Grudge and The Ring (Ringu). Some of it even...
read more
I found this week's Masters of Horror episode, The Washingtonians, to be one of the more creative and clever stories of both seasons. The premise reminded me a little bit of Ravenous, a cannibal movie of the confederacy kind, which I highly recommend if you like gruesome, moody and blackly comedic horror with a twist of historical drama. (It has a superbly unsettling musical score, too.) Of course, The Washingtonians was more of a political satire than a serious attempt at "rewriting history," but Ravenous truly made me feel like the events of the story could have possibly happened during harsh winters at "ye old valley forts." At one point during Washingtonians, HHH (horror-hound-hubby) and I decided that we knew the exact wording used in the casting call for the show: "the oldest, creepiest looking actors money can buy." Some of those cast members were pretty frightening before the white makeup, powdered wigs and blood-drenched feasting. I can definitely understand why "Amy" alway...
read more
"Meow meow meow meow meow meow." My black cat, "Sprite" wanted to get her 2 pounce in about this week's Masters of Horror episode, The Black Cat. I had to give her a six-word limit, or else she would have hijacked this post. She gives it 4 out of 4 claws, mostly because she thought that "Pluto" the cat was very handsome (even with just one eye). Ahem.How can I find the words to describe Stuart Gordon's adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe's The Black Cat, when all I can think is "wow?" I've always enjoyed Stuart Gordon's masterful cinematic interpretations of H.P. Lovecraft's work, and had hoped he would bring the same atmospheric, dramatic and gory details to his Edgar Allan Poe debut. Well, he did, and I would love to see Gordon take on even more Poe in the coming years. Come on, Stuart, we know you can't resist the pulse of The Tell-Tale Heart!As Gordon explained in the Fangoria interview I posted Friday, The Black Cat does get into some difficult terrain with realistic scenes of graph...
read more
Fangoria.com has posted a "Fearful Feature" on tonight's Masters of Horror episode, The Black Cat. It's a really good interview with "Master Director" Stuart Gordon and our beloved genre actor Jeffrey Combs, who I am certain will make a perfect Edgar Allan Poe in this episode. It's a good read; great to get primed for tonight! Enjoy.[Click Here to Read the Feature]
read more
After a bit of a lukewarm start, Masters of Horror has picked up significantly in this second half of season 2. I cannot wait for Stuart Gordon's interpretation of Poe's The Black Cat next week. I have pretty high expectations for it, and the preview looked amazing!This week's episode, We All Scream For Ice Cream felt much like an episode of Tales From the Crypt. It was creatively creepy, but not really as intense or groundbreaking as some of the other Masters episodes. Director Tom Holland has a couple of my favorite classics on his resume, including Child's Play and Fright Night. It turns out, he also directed several episodes of [HBO's] Tales From the Crypt, so I guess there's a good reason why We All Scream... reminded me of Tales From the Crypt.In all honesty, I'm a bit ambivalent about this episode. It wasn't bad, it wasn't great, it was entertaining in a "made for TV" kind of way... it even felt a bit like an '80s horror film for reasons that I cannot pinpoint. I liked it, bu...
read more