It’s the classic Faustian tale of terror: handsome socialite lured by his debauched mentor into wicked hedonism stays eternally young while his portrait ages in the attic instead. Now Oscar Wilde’s only Gothic horror novel, THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY, has been brought to the screen once again as the more simply titled DORIAN GRAY, coming on DVD and Blu-ray August 24 from NEM (see cover and details here).
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Reminiscent of Dario Argento’s gory style, HIGH TENSION (a.k.a. HAUTE TENSION) is an intense French shocker that strikes you in the jugular. Director/co-writer Alexandre Aja lives up to the searing title, creating an admirable tribute to ’70s slasher films like HALLOWEEN and TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE.
Over Memorial Day weekend, some plan a family outing to the beach, while others invite friends over for a backyard barbeque. Then there are those who want nothing more than to turn their lazy Sunday into a marathon of the undead—descending upon the unsuspecting residents of Brooklyn to participate in the annual bloodsoaked celebration known as the Williamsburg Zombie Crawl.
Over a decade after his well-received venture into the vampire genre, COLD HEARTS, writer/director Robert A. Masciantonio is back with a decidedly more hardcore horror outing, NEIGHBOR, hitting DVD from Lionsgate (see cover and details 
Hailing from Japan, director Kinji Fukasaku’s BATTLE ROYALE is a high-octane thriller, a combination of LORD OF THE FLIES and THE MOST DANGEROUS GAME. Under orders from the authoritarian government, 42 teenaged students are given weapons and forced to play a deadly game of survival.
One of the more uniquely conceived independent genre films of late is the tongue-in-cheek chiller SEA OF DUST, for which writer/director Scott Bunt drew from a number of inspirations. “I have a genuine love for the fantasy genre, for the work of Terence Fisher and Mario Bava and Jean Cocteau,” he tells Fango. “And for exploding heads.”
Chuck Connors never asked for your pity. That said, one can’t help but catch the simplest whiff of off-camera tragedy surrounding his star turn in 1979’s TOURIST TRAP today. The headliner of such ’60s television Westerns as BRANDED had gone on record saying he accepted the role of demented Mr. Slausen in hopes of becoming the “Boris Karloff of the 80’s.” Watching Connors rave and rage through the film is to see a leading-man-in-decline struggling to reinvent himself on screen, a Tinseltown phoenix fighting to rise up from his own celluloid ashes.
ZOMBIE ZOOLOGY, a recent addition to Severed Press’ canon of undead horror fiction, offers up something fairly novel for fans of the ever-more-crowded subgenre. Quite simply, each short story in this anthology deals with the notion of zombie animals.
Fango got a couple of comments from New York-based indie producer Michael Hein on his gorefest DEVIL’S GROVE, with news of a new date for the DVD we first gave you the details of 
A few weeks ago, I was meandering through a vintage store when I happened upon a videocassette of the movie GIRL SLAVES OF MORGANA LE FAY. With its cover stating that the film is “a classic of erotic horror,” I couldn’t pass up this potential Eurosleaze gem.
Some of John Carpenter’s fans feel that his last truly worthwhile credit was 1998’s VAMPIRES, so they’ll be especially happy to hear that he’s returning to bloodsucker territory. He has been attached to direct FANGLAND for DAS Films and Blumhouse Productions.
It’s been an interesting day for interconnected DVD announcements. Earlier, we reported on two Texas-lensed horror features with cast/crew in common, SWEATSHOP and CLOSET SPACE, setting distribution deals, and now one of the companies involved has also picked up director Brian Corder’s CARNIES.