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REVIEW: Horror-Comedy Collection ‘Hellarious’ is Frightfully Funny

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Hellarious

There’s a brand new feature-length collection of horror-comedy shorts coming to Blu-Ray this month. It’s called Hellarious, and it’s perfect for fans who like a little hilarity mixed in with their carnage.

Curated by Jason Tostevin, co-founder of Nightmares Film Festival, and distributed by Chris Ethridge (Haven’s End) at Film Spawn this collection has something for everyone, especially those whose sense of humor run to the dark and twisty.

Hellarious

The Hellarious official artwork was designed by Marc Schoenbach

Take for instance, Killer Kart. Directed by James Feeney, the film finds a small crew of employees shutting down a grocery store for the evening when they suddenly find themselves in a gory life-and-death struggle for survival against a very angry feral shopping cart.

The premise is completely, farcically ridiculous, but Killer Kart works because Feeney and his cast understood that the best way to play farce is to do it completely seriously. There are no winks to the audience here. The campy dialogue is delivered like discount Shakespeare and I was there for every hilarious and bloody minute of it.

Then there’s Horrific from Rob Boocheck–whose work you might recognize from ABCs of Death 2–in which a goat rancher in Texas finds himself in a face-off against the legendary chupacabra. Boocheck’s creature is one step shy of terrifying and his protagonist played by Mike C. Nelson gives a fearless performance fighting off the infamous creature with all the bravado of The Three Stooges.

Tostevin’s own ‘Til Death finds four very unhappily married friends who decide the best way to deal with their wives is to get rid of their wives. Unfortunately for them, they make the mistake of burying them in cursed ground and they wake to find their wives “alive” the next morning and quite impossible to re-kill.

Watching these guys, who deftly manage to not learn their lesson in the least, slowly lose it over the course of the short is comedic gold. As a bonus, the make-up and effects are bloody brilliant, displaying exactly how each wife was killed without having to show the deaths themselves.

Death Metal has never been so deadly!

Chris McInroy’s Death Metal finds a musician who wants to be great, but he just doesn’t have what it takes. That is, until his dad gives him a badass guitar created by Satan himself.

Unfortunately, he doesn’t listen to the rules of using the instrument and well, let’s just say there’s a reason they call a guitar an axe. McInroy’s effects are fantastic, and there’s something brilliantly funny and wide-eyed about his protagonist.

Clarissa Jacobson’s Lunch Ladies will take you on a gore-laden trip back to your school days where we find Seretta and LouAnne, fraternal twins who have entered a contest to become personal chefs for Johnny Depp. These ladies love Johnny. The problem is their dead-end job in the cafeteria doesn’t allow them to be creative.

Hellarious Lunch Ladies

Sometimes you just have to get creative according to the Lunch Ladies.

When some, shall we say, fresh ingredients present themselves, however, Johnny is right there to inspire them with one of their favorite movies.

Donna Pieroni and Mary Manofsky are absolutely perfect in the roles of Seretta and LouAnne, respectively. Their comedic timing is on point, even in the most harrowing of circumstances, and they bring a palpable earnestness to the short that sells it completely.

Bitten, a film by Sarah K. Reimers which will also be screening at the iHorror Film Festival this October, might just be one of the best horror-comedy shorts I’ve seen in years, and it all starts when a dog find himself on the wrong end of a werewolf’s bite.

Hilariously funny, Reimers blends suspense and possibility beautifully and Michael Curran gives an unforgettable performance that you have to see to believe.

Michael Curran is brilliant in Bitten from Sarah K. Reimers

The collection rounds out with a second entry from Tostevin, co-written by Randall Greenland, titled Born Again, which concerns a group of ill-prepared Satanist attempting to summon up some serious evil.

Unfortunately for them, they seriously messed up this particular ritual and well, someone totally unexpected shows up instead. This short is excellently paced with excellent practical effects.

What’s so brilliant about Hellarious is that it is shining a spotlight on films that would often find themselves lost after their time on the festival circuit. By packaging them together in this collection, it promises these shorts a longer life, but also gives an opportunity for those who don’t regularly get to attend festivals a taste of what they’ve missed.

This can be especially true with horror-comedies, which aren’t easy to pull off to begin with. It takes a skilled hand to combine laughter with the horrific and the filmmakers included in Hellarious prove that they are more than up to the task.

You can pre-order a copy of the collection on Blu-Ray for $20 plus shipping by clicking here. The disc comes with a bonus short from Clarissa Jacobson title A Very Important Film which parodies some of the self-important festival film tropes recognizable to anyone who has ever attended one.

Blu-Rays of Hellarious ship on around September 17, 2019! Check out the trailer below.

Hellarious – Official Trailer from Hands Off Productions on Vimeo.

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Jake Gyllenhaal’s Thriller ‘Presumed Innocent’ Series Gets Early Release Date

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Jake gyllenhaal presumed innocent

Jake Gyllenhaal’s limited series Presumed Innocent is dropping on AppleTV+ on June 12 instead of June 14 as originally planned. The star, whose Road House reboot has brought mixed reviews on Amazon Prime, is embracing the small screen for the first time since his appearance on Homicide: Life on the Street in 1994.

Jake Gyllenhaal’s in ‘Presumed Innocent’

Presumed Innocent is being produced by David E. Kelley, J.J. Abrams’ Bad Robot, and Warner Bros. It is an adaptation of Scott Turow’s 1990 film in which Harrison Ford plays a lawyer doing double duty as an investigator looking for the murderer of his colleague.

These types of sexy thrillers were popular in the ’90s and usually contained twist endings. Here’s the trailer for the original:

According to Deadline, Presumed Innocent doesn’t stray far from the source material: “…the Presumed Innocent series will explore obsession, sex, politics and the power and limits of love as the accused fights to hold his family and marriage together.”

Up next for Gyllenhaal is the Guy Ritchie action movie titled In the Grey scheduled for release in January 2025.

Presumed Innocent is an eight-episode limited series set to stream on AppleTV+ starting June 12.

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Trailer for ‘The Exorcism’ Has Russell Crowe Possessed

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The latest exorcism movie is about to drop this summer. It’s aptly titled The Exorcism and it stars Academy Award winner turned B-movie savant Russell Crowe. The trailer dropped today and by the looks of it, we are getting a possession movie that takes place on a movie set.

Just like this year’s recent demon-in-media-space film Late Night With the Devil, The Exorcism happens during a production. Although the former takes place on a live network talk show, the latter is on an active sound stage. Hopefully, it won’t be entirely serious and we’ll get some meta chuckles out of it.

The film will open in theaters on June 7, but since Shudder also acquired it, it probably won’t be long after that until it finds a home on the streaming service.

Crowe plays, “Anthony Miller, a troubled actor who begins to unravel while shooting a supernatural horror film. His estranged daughter, Lee (Ryan Simpkins), wonders if he’s slipping back into his past addictions or if there’s something more sinister at play. The film also stars Sam Worthington, Chloe Bailey, Adam Goldberg and David Hyde Pierce.”

Crowe did see some success in last year’s The Pope’s Exorcist mostly because his character was so over-the-top and infused with such comical hubris it bordered on parody. We will see if that is the route actor-turned-director Joshua John Miller takes with The Exorcism.

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Win a Stay at The Lizzie Borden House From Spirit Halloween

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lizzie borden house

Spirit Halloween has declared that this week marks the start of spooky season and to celebrate they are offering fans a chance to stay at the Lizzie Borden House with so many perks Lizzie herself would approve.

The Lizzie Borden House in Fall River, MA is claimed to be one of the most haunted houses in America. Of course one lucky winner and up to 12 of their friends will find out if the rumors are true if they win the grand prize: A private stay in the notorious house.

“We are delighted to work with Spirit Halloween to roll out the red carpet and offer the public a chance to win a one-of-a-kind experience at the infamous Lizzie Borden House, which also includes additional haunted experiences and merchandise,” said Lance Zaal, President & Founder of US Ghost Adventures.

Fans can enter to win by following Spirit Halloween‘s Instagram and leaving a comment on the contest post from now through April 28.

Inside the Lizzie Borden House

The prize also includes:

An exclusive guided house tour, including insider insight around the murder, the trial, and commonly reported hauntings

A late-night ghost tour, complete with professional ghost-hunting gear

A private breakfast in the Borden family dining room

A ghost hunting starter kit with two pieces of Ghost Daddy Ghost Hunting Gear and a lesson for two at US Ghost Adventures Ghost Hunting Course

The ultimate Lizzie Borden gift package, featuring an official hatchet, the Lizzie Borden board game, Lily the Haunted Doll, and America’s Most Haunted Volume II

Winner’s choice of a Ghost Tour experience in Salem or a True Crime experience in Boston for two

“Our Halfway to Halloween celebration provides fans an exhilarating taste of what’s to come this fall and empowers them to start planning for their favorite season as early as they please,” said Steven Silverstein, CEO of Spirit Halloween. “We have cultivated an incredible following of enthusiasts who embody the Halloween lifestyle, and we’re thrilled to bring the fun back to life.”

Spirit Halloween is also preparing for their retail haunted houses. On Thursday, August 1 their flagship store in Egg Harbor Township, NJ. will officially open to start off the season. That event usually draws in hordes of people eager to see what new merch, animatronics, and exclusive IP goods will be trending this year.

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