This summer, FANGORIA—in partnership with feature film, television and DVD distributor Lightning Media and Blockbuster—will begin a unique, multi-tiered film distribution program called FANGORIA FrightFest. This exclusive series will consist of eight new feature films, including PIG HUNT, FRAGILE, GRIMM LOVE, DARK HOUSE, HUNGER, ROAD KILL, THE HAUNTING and THE TOMB.

In addition, via the new www.FangoriaFrightFest.com website (launching tomorrow, May 11), fans will be able to see Fango film trailers and other special features, and vote (from June 22 through July 19) on which one of the FANGORIA Frightfest movies will win a big-screen theatrical release in late July. Participants who vote at FangoriaFrightFest.com will also be automatically entered in a sweepstakes to win a free trip to Las Vegas and other special prizes.

Each Fango film will be available through Blockbuster stores and Blockbuster By Mail, as well as digitally via Blockbuster On Demand for a full 45 days before they are available for purchase or rental through other national home entertainment providers. In addition, your local Blockbuster will sport a dedicated space for the FANGORIA FrightFest promotion.

The entire film series will also be previewed in a 30-minute special, 8 FANGORIA FRIGHTS (available free on Time Warner, Comcast, Cablevision, Verizon FIOS and other cable systems; check with your provider), hosted by CABIN FEVER star Cerina Vincent and featuring interviews with many of the eight films’ directors, clips and featurettes. 8 FANGORIA FRIGHTS will be available continuously beginning June 21 and can be found by accessing your On Demand menu.

FANGORIA will soon announce release plans for the films for DVD, VOD and digital download. So stay tuned!

Commented Rich Goldberg, co-president of Lightning Entertainment Group, “The FANGORIA FrightFest lineup represents a diversified lineup of quality genre entertainment, ranging from supernatural chillers to psychological horror and slasher flicks. We want to embrace horror fans of every demographic. And Lightning Media wants to offer producers an alternative, multi-platform delivery system that provides greater awareness and accessibility to reach their audiences.”

“Having a contest to win a theatrical release is a great idea,” says PIG HUNT director Jim Isaac. “Not only will it create some buzz around the sweepstakes, but it will support a film that might not otherwise receive a theatrical release during a time where very few independent films are getting a shot at one. It’s very exciting. Unless you have tons of money to throw at marketing these days—which nobody does—it’s important to think outside the box when trying to get a film in theaters, and that’s what Lightning Media and FANGORIA are doing. It great to see companies trying something different.”

“I think the contest to win a theatrical release this summer is the ultimate in horror-fan empowerment,” adds DARK HOUSE helmer Darin Scott. “It’s a great and exciting idea that brings the fans the film they most want to see. In an era when most horror fans feel the studios are totally not listening to them and don’t care how they feel, it’s a tremendous breath of fresh air.”

And now, further details of the eight FANGORIA FrightFest films you’ll be screaming at—and voting for—this summer:

• PIG HUNT: Fresh off a successful run on the festival circuit (and winner of a Fantasia Audience Award), JASON X/SKINWALKERS director Isaac’s film follows city friends on a backwoods hunting trip who encounter a killer 3,000-pound black boar. “Like it or not, PIG HUNT is an unusual film,” Isaac says. “It was always meant to be. Most people feel it’s much more unusual than I do, but that’s because I grew up in Northern California—cult girls, rednecks, pot fields and strange disfigured beasts… and that’s just the school field trips.”

• FRAGILE: Helmed by Jaume Balagueró, co-director of the modern classic [REC] movies, this atmospheric, award-winning ghost story starring BROTHERS & SISTERS’ Calista Flockhart as a children’s-ward nurse was actually lensed in 2005, but orphaned by the collapse of two different U.S. distributors. Having garnered much acclaim and praise around the world already, it will finally receive its long-awaited and highly anticipated U.S. debut via the FFF series. See Fango #295, on sale next month, for an exclusive Balagueró interview.

• HUNGER: Starring Lori Heuring (WICKED LITTLE THINGS and THE IN CROWD) in a physically and psychologically demanding role, Steven Hentges’ shocker is a film that begs you to consider what you’d do when pushed to the brink of madness and starvation, as a select group of people are held prisoner in a pit and deprived of food. “HUNGER is about humanity,” says Hentges. “When you have strangers trapped together under circumstances they cannot control, how far are they willing to go to survive? What will they strip away to succeed? It is really a character study of five people with no hope.”

• ROAD KILL (a.k.a. ROAD TRAIN): This Australian surprise finds four road-tripping friends relentlessly menaced by a tractor-trailer—with no driver. Hold on tight when you watch director Dean Francis’ potential sleeper. Stars Aussie heartthrob Xavier Samuel of THE TWILIGHT SAGA: ECLIPSE and festival fave THE LOVED ONES.

• DARK HOUSE: Directed by TALES FROM THE HOOD writer/producer Darin Scott, this gorefest features a charismatically maniacal performance by horror legend Jeffrey Combs of RE-ANIMATOR fame as the host of a spooky attraction that—of course—is home to a bunch of real, aggressive ghouls. “DARK HOUSE is a unique, hi-tech take on the venerable haunted-house genre,” Scott says. “I think fans will find DARK HOUSE to be a rollercoaster of scares, fear, twists, turns, fun and wild visuals that they’ve never seen in this type of movie before. The deadly collision of cutting-edge holographic science with spiritual evil unleashes a rapid-fire burst of mayhem that will have the audience holding onto their seats and begging for more.”

• GRIMM LOVE (a.k.a. ROHTENBURG and BUTTERFLY: A GRIMM LOVE): Nothing’s scarier than the truth, as you’ll learn in this based-on-fact thriller concerning Oliver Hartwin (Thomas Kretschmann of KING KONG and THE STENDHAL SYNDROME), a man who sought a partner on-line for companionship, intimacy and the opportunity to eat his lover’s flesh—and actually found one. FELICITY’s Keri Russell co-stars as a student researching the unfathomable crime. Director Martin Weisz got the HILLS HAVE EYES II gig off this film, which won over half a dozen top festival prizes.

• THE HAUNTING (a.k.a. NO-DO: THE BECKONING): This Spanish chiller—no relation to the classic 1963 Robert Wise film or its awful 1999 remake—by FOTOS and LA HORA FRIA director Elio Quiroga follows new parent Francesca (Ana Torrent of THESIS), who’s consumed by motherhood, postpartum depression and a bevy of shadowy figures and eerie specters, all threatening to drive her mad. “THE HAUNTING is a horror ghost story about people who can see invisible things,” Quiroga says, “and also the story of the people that secretly filmed supernatural phenomena almost a century ago in Spain: the cameramen of the Secret NO-DOs, some old newsreels about unexplainable phenomena commissioned by the Catholic Church in the ’40s that have been kept buried in secret for decades.”

• THE TOMB (a.k.a. LIGEIA): In Michael Staininger’s updated adaptation of the classic Edgar Allan Poe tale “The Tomb of Ligeia,” Wes Bentley (DOLAN’S CADILLAC, AMERICAN BEAUTY, GHOST RIDER) is Jonathan, a celebrated scholar and author who falls under the spell of the devastatingly beautiful and enchanting Ligeia—a spell that may lead to his ruin (à la Vincent Price in the original 1964 Roger Corman adaptation). Produced by THE CROW’s Jeff Most and co-starring THE DARK KNIGHT’s Eric Roberts and KILL BILL’s Michael Madsen.

Adds Isaac, “The advantage of having FANGORIA and Lightning Media teaming up to release PIG HUNT is huge and a very smart approach to getting a film released in today’s market. FANGORIA has their finger on the pulse of what’s going on in the world of horror films, and the fans trust them. FANGORIA is going to be a huge part of getting the word out. Lightning Media knows how to release a film in these difficult times, and Fango knows how reach the fans. It’s a great fit.”

“Bringing out our movie with the involvement of the number-one horror magazine, with 30 years of history and credibility in this genre, is just something no other distributor can provide,” adds Scott.

Reviewing the FANGORIA FrightFest roster, FANGORIA Entertainment president Thomas DeFeo concludes, “FANGORIA, both the magazine and on the web, is the leading resource for fans looking for a range of horror film styles. We are excited to be able to team with Lightning Media to bring to the marketplace more of what we hear an array of fans—people from diverse demographics with divergent tastes—are asking to see. And that’s top-quality production values, outstanding star power and variety of choice.”

 

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