Ten thousand dollars straight from director James Nguyen’s wallet was all it took to make the “romantic thriller” BIRDEMIC: SHOCK AND TERROR. And it’s obvious. There are no Michael Bay-esque explosions, no James Cameron-style computerized special effects and no 3-D animation to give the film that extra punch. But there is a fun storyline, lots of birds and plenty of laughs all around. None of the laughs were meant to be intentional, of course, but it’s that unintended humor that has led BIRDEMIC to soar to great cult heights, with some even saying it’s the new PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE.

Any pop-culture receptacle who hasn’t gone deaf or blind in the past four years is no stranger to the inexplicable cultural phenomenon known as the TWILIGHT Saga. Stephanie Meyer, the captain of this teenage girls’ attention-span-consuming cash cow, and her subsequently movie-directing cohorts and actors have taken the age-old story of Romeo and Juliet, mixed it with vampires and werewolves, given it an emo makeover and slapped it across bookstores, big screens, small screens, T-shirts, and every side of the Internet possible.

Along with leg warmers, the Golden Age of the slasher film died in the mid-1980s. Since then, there have been hundreds of uninspired films that took the established formula, added one or two very slight variations and burned our retinas with an inferior sense of déjà vu. Very few post-Golden Age slashers have stayed true to the formula while offering a fresh, smart take on the subgenre. It’s not an easy task, and unfortunately, SPIRIT CAMP is not one of those few. Its heart is in the right place, but it doesn’t have the guts.

REPO MEN, starring Jude Law and Forest Whitaker, should not be confused with Darren Lynn Bousman’s 2008 cult rock musical REPO! THE GENETIC OPERA—although, as you’ve no doubt read, it’s very similar. In fact, REPO MEN has had fans screaming bloody plagiarism, as it’s an almost concept-for-concept echo of Bousman’s film—sans the songs, of course.

For horror fans, the first reaction to issue #1 of Scott Snyder’s AMERICAN VAMPIRE is the sigh of relief they’ll experience as they realize it’s a far cry from the bloodsucking bandwagon most of Hollywood finds itself on. Once they’ve happily exhaled though, the second thought should be, “This is a damn fine comic.”

The story of David DeCoteau’s THE PIT & THE PENDULUM is a little different than the one I read by Edgar Allan Poe. Actually, file that one under the “giant understatement” category. In DeCoteau’s new-to-DVD (from here! and E1) release, seven good-looking college athletes—well, really six; one is a storm chaser—come to the house of a mysterious woman who plans to push each through the pain barrier via the use of hypnosis.

The casual vampire costume-wearer has two choices when it comes to store-bought novelty vampire fangs. Option one: crafted appliances that mold to your teeth and look awesome poking over the edges of your lips. They make you sound a little funny when you talk, are never really comfortable, and are invariably stolen by some house-guest the following spring.