It’s no secret that heavy music and horror are quite fond of one another. While both are fueled by intense creative passions, they are also continually combated by critical scrutiny. But for those who are able to surpass their grimy and gritty exteriors can find a creative playground where nearly anything is possible. This is a place where your darkest nightmares are made tangible. This is a place where aesthetic qualities know no bounds. This is a place where director Mitch Massie and proto-punks Child Bite feel right at home. Both exemplify the nature of truly unfettered expression and their recent collaboration is sure to have genre fans clamoring and the general public cowering.

Lance Henriksen’s been a lot of things; an actor, a writer, alien slayer, sometimes a cowboy, other times a psychic, one time an astronaut, but mostly, a badass. Thanks to Dark Horse, he’s now a comic creator.

The tradition of the Christmas horror movie is a long and storied one, a yule tide storybook that’s marked with half-realized nightmares, a shallow talent pool and, just, terrible judgment. From snowmen possessed by serial killers to murderous Saint Nicks, there’s no tradition too treasured or figure too holy for horror movies to tear apart and mock for our collective enjoyment.

One of the kings of the Asian action scene, actor Donnie Yen (HERO, 14 BLADES, the IP MAN films) again proves himself a master of flying fists and feet in the Weinstein Company/Radius release DRAGON (a.k.a. WU XIA), which opens in theaters this Friday and is currently available On Demand and iTunes.

One knows that a director has truly made history when one of the best actors of our generation is cast to play him. Or is it the other way around? Anthony Hopkins, whose Hannibal Lecter in THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS stands as one of the greatest cinematic villains of all time, slays the role of the eponymous auteur in breakout director Sacha Gervasi’s HITCHCOCK.

Things continue to get buggy for Dustin Warburton. While the East Coast—based writer has been busy juggling horror fiction (TASTE, STRANGE THINGS and MORTICIANS FOOD), young adult novels and children’s books (including THE LITTLE MONSTERS GUIDE ON HOW TO SCARE CHILDREN), as well as co-authoring books with major sports figures like Dennis Rodman (!), he now makes his motion-picture debut this year with the big bug flick SPIDERS 3D, produced by that nature amok/Syfy-friendly Nu Image company. Warburton whipped up the story for recent festival-fave SPIDERS 3D with veteran frightmaster Tibor Takacs (THE GATE, ICE SPIDERS, I, MADMAN, etc.), who then handed final screenwriting chores to Joseph Farrugia.

HOME SWEET HOME (playing Brooklyn's Nitehawk Cinema as part of VHS Vault) is what happens when a maniacal muscle man escapes from an insane asylum and decides to kill some of the most annoying characters ever shown onscreen.