Cybersurfing: Prom Night Meat Train

What are our friends on the Internet up to? Let’s take a look…
Trying to drum up interest in the home video release of ONE MISSED CALL this week, Warner Brothers has a contest to give away a free Blu-ray player. You can enter here.
Vault of Horror enthuses over the trailer for IGOR, which screened at the New York Comic Con and makes an interesting, though often overlooked point about PG-13 horror films like PROM NIGHT. Although most horror fan attention is focused on the excising of gore to win a more lenient rating, something else is going on that has drawn less attention: horror films that are thematically R-rated material are being marketed to teen audiences, and even younger viewers are watching them. This led recently to an incident in an Illinois theatre where the film had to be pulled after 300 patrons, between 11 and 15, had to be ejected by the police for unruly behavior. Exactly what the correlation is between the violence on screen and the behavior of the young crowd is hard to say, but something like this obviously could not have happened with the original PROM NIGHT, which was rated R.
Dinner with Max Jenke applauds the fact that MIDNIGHT MEAT TRAIN, the film adaptation of the Clive Barker story, will retain the word “Meat” in its title, even though distributor Lionsgate was afraid that patrons would laugh at the potential sexual innuendo.
Eplsatter.com reviews the ’70s blaxploitation film BLACULA, a thread-bare production distinguished mostly by the presence of actor William Marshall in the title role. The review overlooks the fact that the plot (in which Blacula meets the reincarnation of his old love) prefigures BRAM STOKER’S DRACULA by two decades. Esplatter also gives the rundown on HOUSE BY THE CEMETERY, the weakest of the zombie trilogy directed by Lucio Fulci in the early ’80s (which also includes CITY OF THE LIVING DEAD and Fulci’s masterpiece THE BEYOND).
Horror Movie a Day attended the double bill of HORROR EXPRESS and THE BLOOD ON SATAN’S CLAW (a.k.a. SATAN’S SKIN) at the New Beverly Cinema this weekend, and the reaction was very positive:

Anchor Bay released this one (under the “Blood on Satan’s Claw” title) but only in Region 2, so it should be relatively easy to find if you’re not in America. It’s also been released on VHS, whatever that is. If you can watch it though, I highly recommend it – it’s like Children of the Corn meets Wicker Man, something I mean in the most positive way possible. Hopefully a stateside release will be coming along promptly. Like tomorrow.
Like I said earlier, it screened with Horror Express, a film that I really enjoyed when I watched it, despite being a god-awful transfer. Unfortunately, the print they showed wasn’t much better – it was scratched to hell, and each reel had a different color timing to it (one was too red, the next one looked right, then the next one was too yellow…). Still, a damn fine film that is also largely overlooked. Support strange 70s horror!

Now I’m really sorry I didn’t make it out. Damn!

One Reply to “Cybersurfing: Prom Night Meat Train”

  1. The title SATAN’S SKIN was actually a pre-release title in Great Britain, where the film was released as THE BLOOD ON SATAN’S CLAW just as it was in America. It has already been annouced for a DVD release this year, so fans of the film can rejoice as this classic ’70s shocker finally gets a digital release. (The SATAN’S SKIN title was referenced in the wonderful Pirie’s Heritage of Horror book, where the film itself was rightly praised for its quality).

Leave a Reply