A NIGHT OF NIGHTMARES sounds like a rather generic title for a movie coming from confrontational director Buddy Giovinazzo, the man behind COMBAT SHOCK and the I LOVE YOU episode of THE THEATRE BIZARRE. But while this film (originally known as GINGER) isn’t as graphically intense as Giovinazzo’s past work, it’s a lot more distinctive than the general run of indie horror fare.

Drive-in-style horror isn’t the only kind of cinema they don’t make like they used to back in the ’70s. Charles de Lauzirika’s psychological thriller CRAVE is the kind of tough, uncompromising character study that Hollywood used to turn out with regularity, and should be supported and treasured when it appears today.

One of the joys of this year’s Fantasia film festival in Montreal has been seeing all the evidence of how successfully mutable the horror genre can be. That’s literal in the case of ERRORS OF THE HUMAN BODY, which emphasizes the dramatic over the shocking even as it deals with mutations of genetic material—and more.

It’s rather appropriate that the titles of the two latest features from Japanese naughty boy Noboru Iguchi be titled DEAD SUSHI and ZOMBIE ASS: TOILET OF THE DEAD, as they both mix fresh and tasty moments with the same old shit.

At first glance, audiences could make some unflattering assumptions about director Gabriel Carrer’s latest outing IN THE HOUSE OF FLIES: Yet another indie movie about pretty people tied up in basements and hideously tortured by some sadistic lunatic with sinister motives. This is a popular well to draw from because it’s inexpensive to shoot, and because despite all the voices out there condemning “torture porn” as a genre, audiences seem to continue to support it. Fortunately these assumptions about IN THE HOUSE OF FLIES would be quite mistaken. There is something much more sophisticated going on in this film than its trappings would suggest.

Stop us if you’ve heard this one before: Young director (usually European) has an audacious debut feature that has fans and critics buzzing. Said director is then tempted into working with a big Hollywood studio, and once he exhibits the same risky daring for which he was presumably hired, the studio’s timid money men bow to test screenings and drain the product until it’s a safe, bland porridge. Such was the case with Clive Barker, whose second film NIGHTBREED (1990) was hobbled by backers Morgan Creek and Fox.

There have been many—probably way too many—movies made about terrible events within and surrounding the house at 112 Ocean Avenue in Amityville, New York, most purporting to be based to some degree or another on fact. It can be unequivocally stated that MY AMITYVILLE HORROR is the most true-to-life film to deal with the phenomenon, and pretty much as unequivocally stated that it’s the best of them too.