Welcome, weirdos to the BrittNic Creations’ Horror Roundup! At the end of each month, I’ll be bringing you some news and products from the horror realm. The topics could include new clips from an upcoming horror film*, gothic artwork, unique merchandise, and much more! There’s a mixture of horror goodies for everyone in the Horror Roundup. This will always be a random post. I’d like to think that life and horror aren’t any fun without some absurdity included in them. Now, let’s get to the fun part!
*BrittNic Creations will not be reporting/covering blockbuster film (major studio) horror titles or work until SAG-AFTRA and the WGA are given fair wages and the respect they deserve from studios and the industry. Please refer to the link at the bottom of the page for ways to support strikers during this time.*
Table of Contents
4K Ultra HD, Blu-Ray, and Special Releases
- Color Out Of Space (4K Ultra HD + Blu-ray) (Steelbook) (Walmart Exclusive)
- After a meteorite lands in the front yard of their farm, Nathan Gardner (Nicolas Cage) and his family find themselves battling a mutant extraterrestrial organism as it infects their minds and bodies, transforming their quiet rural life into a living nightmare.
- Winnie the Pooh: Blood & Honey Limited Edition (Steelbook) (Walmart Exclusive) (Blu-Ray)
- Enter the darkest corners of the Hundred Acre Wood. Five years ago, Christopher Robin abandoned his childhood companions, Winnie-The-Pooh and Piglet, and the woods in which they all played. Now an adult, Christopher has returned, with his fiancée Maria in tow, for a reunion with his old friends … only to find that in his absence, Pooh and Piglet have turned feral, silent … and murderous. What was once a joyous place of imagination and merriment becomes a violent battleground for survival in this audacious and terrifying spin on A.A. Milne’s beloved children’s stories.
- Werewolves Within (Blu-ray + DVD) (Steelbook) (Walmart Exclusive)
- Reassigned to the isolated hamlet of Beaverfield, nice-to-a-fault forest ranger Finn Wheeler (Sam Richardson) was just getting to meet the eccentric locals when the town was slammed by a blizzard. Turns out all private generators were sabotaged, and that someone-or something-is brutally picking the residents off. Paranoia mounts (as does the body count) in this semi-satirical shocker based on the VR game.
- Pg: Psycho Goreman (Blu-ray + DVD) (Steelbook) (Walmart Exclusive)
- Siblings Mimi and Luke unwittingly resurrect an ancient alien overlord who was entombed on Earth millions of years ago after a failed attempt to destroy the universe. They nickname the evil creature Psycho Goreman (or PG for short) and use the magical amulet they discovered to force him to obey their childish whims.
- Freaks / The Unknown / The Mystic: Tod Browning’s Sideshow Shockers (CRITERION)
- The world is a carnival of criminality, corruption, and psychosexual strangeness in the twisted pre-Code shockers of Tod Browning. Early Hollywood’s edgiest auteur, Browning drew on his experiences as a circus performer to create subversive pulp entertainments set amid the world of traveling sideshows, which, with their air of the exotic and the disreputable, provided a pungent backdrop for his sordid tales of outcasts, cons, villains, and vagabonds.
Indie Horror Updates
Dark Windows – Official Trailer (Directed by Alex Herron) – Releases on August 18th
A group of teenagers take a trip to an isolated summerhouse in the countryside. What starts as a peaceful getaway turns into a horrific nightmare when a masked man begins to terrorize them in the most gruesome ways.
I Am Rage – Arriving on DVD and Blu-Ray on August 1st
The film stars multi-award-winning actress Hannaj Bang Bendz, best known for her turns in acclaimed British films such as The Man Up The Stairs and Glamour, headlines the film. David Ryan Keith, who previously collaborated with Uncork’d on The Redwood Massacre series of films, directs from a script he co-wrote with Stephen Durham (Army of One).
Erin’s idyllic countryside trip turns to terror when a sinister blood cult abducts her. But they made a grave mistake, her abductors soon learn the painful consequences of crossing someone with severe anger issues.
Horror Roundup Small Business Picks of July ’23
Meagan Meli – Haunted Cups & Halloween Blankets
Aster & Lily Candle Co. – Handcrafted Candles
BeezleBub Illustration -Horror Art & Illustrations
Primordial Creatures – Wooden Horror Art & Detailed Jewelry Designs
Crude Inc. – Twin Peaks & Iconic Horror Artwork & Decor
American Psycho Comic Book Announced
Sumerian Comics has announced they’re lining up a series based on the iconic 2000 horror film, American Psycho, featuring Christian Bale. This series will include four books that involve a dual narrative between Patrick Bateman’s actions in the film and a modern-day arc. Sumerian obtained permission to use Bale’s likeness and character from the film. The story comes from Michael Calero with art by Piotr Kowalski and color by Brad Simpson. American Psycho #1 will be released this fall on October 1st.
Short Horror Film Picks From the Fantasia Festival
The Fantasia International Film Festival of 2023 has its fair share of fantastic independent feature films, but some short indie horror films deserve some of that love. In this Horror Roundup, I’m excited to celebrate some names and creative teams behind short films as part of this Fantasia Festival. Below are some I’ve picked from the long and incredible list of short films.
In an exclusive club called “The Pink”, writer and mom-to-be Riley has a chance to join the “boss babe” culture. With dermatologists at your beck and call, decked-out work stations — and you can bring your kids too? Riley can’t pass this up, but she isn’t sure she can afford it or fits in. When she meets Star, founder of The Pink, she’s reassured that there’s no catch, but can Riley really trust this too-good-to-be-true situation? Director Ingrid Haas takes the lure of “safe space” and makes it a sinister environment full of supermoms.
Directed by Andrew Cyr-Marcoux, this short film follows Lucas and his family moving out of their old apartment, looking for a fresh start. However, strange and unexplained events begin to occur. As his sister finds herself in danger, Lucas realizes he is the only one to protect her.
Ewa is a lonely 10-year-old-girl who believes she is a vampire. She longs to vampirize a neighborhood boy for companionship and devises a plan to set the stage for it to happen. Writer / Director Rodrigue Huart has made something so special here, a powerful take on contemporary vampire folklore and childhood alienation, existing in an anguished place between the universes of LET THE RIGHT ONE IN and Romero’s MARTIN with a haunting performance from newcomer Katell Varva at its centre.
While on a fun excursion together, teenager Tamahi and her two friends Yu and Aki pass in front of a foreboding, dilapidated apartment complex. Immediately, bad things start to happen. Tamahi runs into the courtyard of the complex, followed by Aki, who suspects the grim concrete edifice might be a “carabi-yau” — a place where people suddenly disappear and never return. There are rumours of an experiment gone wrong at a nearby facility years before, but what the three girls will come face to face with on this ill-fated day will go far beyond any scientific explanation…
When you are hypersensitive to the everyday sounds around you, the ability to hear becomes a curse. After several therapies and an attempt to take her own life, Ava is up for an experimental treatment in an anechoic chamber, but what first appears to be an oasis of calm soon begins to crumble as her own body betrays her solitude. Starting as a 2022 Frontières pitch, Director Tamara Scherbak and writer/producer Christina Saliba shed light on a debilitating condition with White Noise but push the envelope by imagining the extreme horrors of trying to rid yourself of real and existential pain.
Written and directed by Colin Treneff, this short film involves one quiet night in the summer of 1984, an MIT student discovers an unfathomable horror after accidentally inventing a computer program that can predict the future.
Writer/director Zoey Martinson (THE FISHERMAN) nails one of the most compelling setups for a horror narrative that we’ve seen in some time: a young man under house arrest — in a haunted house.
Mall of America® and American Monsters
Mall of America® and American Monsters are set to open one of the top haunt attractions in the country this Halloween season. The 45,000 square feet of terror will feature elaborate set designs with unexpected thrills around every corner. The intricate detail and one-of-a-kind offerings, such as specialty bars with themed cocktails and food, will create a haunt experience like no other.
This story-based, immersive Halloween haunt brings together dozens of live scare actors and legendary creatures in terrifyingly evocative sets, combined with media-based scare moments, theatrical lighting, special effects, and an original soundtrack that will transport guests into a never-before-experienced realm of horror. Thrill seekers can expect tickets to go on sale early August with this new haunt running September 15 – October 31. The attraction will be located on Level 2, South.
Horror Roundup Book & Comic News
- COMING SOON:
- Jordan Peele Presents: Out There Screaming: An Anthology of New Black Horror
- A book available now for pre-order (out on October 3rd)
- A cop begins seeing huge, blinking eyes where the headlights of cars should be that tell him who to pull over. Two freedom riders take a bus ride that leaves them stranded on a lonely road in Alabama where several unsettling somethings await them. A young girl dives into the depths of the Earth in search of the demon that killed her parents. These are just a few of the worlds of Out There Screaming, Jordan Peele’s anthology of all-new horror stories by Black writers. Featuring an introduction by Peele and an all-star roster of beloved writers and new voices, Out There Screaming is a master class in horror, and—like his spine-chilling films—its stories prey on everything we think we know about our world . . . and redefine what it means to be afraid.
- Includes stories written by Erin E. Adams, Violet Allen, Lesley Nneka Arimah, Maurice Broaddus, Chesya Burke, P. Djèlí Clark, Ezra Claytan Daniels, Tananarive Due, Nalo Hopkinson, N. K. Jemisin, Justin C. Key, L. D. Lewis, Nnedi Okorafor, Tochi Onyebuchi, Rebecca Roanhorse, Nicole D. Sconiers, Rion Amilcar Scott, Terence Taylor, and Cadwell Turnbull.
- Jordan Peele Presents: Out There Screaming: An Anthology of New Black Horror
- BRITT’S PICKS (Available Now):
- Horrorstör by Grady Hendrix
- Something strange is happening at the Orsk furniture superstore in Cleveland, Ohio. Every morning, employees arrive to find broken Kjerring bookshelves, shattered Glans water goblets, and smashed Liripip wardrobes. Sales are down, security cameras reveal nothing, and store managers are panicking. To unravel the mystery, three employees volunteer to work a nine-hour dusk-till-dawn shift. In the dead of the night, they’ll patrol the empty showroom floor, investigate strange sights and sounds, and encounter horrors that defy the imagination
- BONE ORCHARD: THE PASSAGEWAY by Jeff Lemire (illustrated by Andrea Sorrentino)
- From the acclaimed creative team behind GIDEON FALLS and PRIMORDIAL comes the first book in a bold and ambitious new shared horror universe! When a geologist is sent to a remote lighthouse to investigate strange phenomena, he finds a seemingly endless pit in the rocks. What lurks within—and how will he escape its pull?
- Horrorstör by Grady Hendrix
