The Rotting Zombie's Round-up of Horror News for September 2024

This year has really flown by and at the moment I am drowning a bit in screeners for review. In my day job I am getting towards the end of an ill-advised apprenticeship which has unfortunately bled over into my non-working life, meaning my blog has been suffering in recent weeks. Hopefully that will mostly be over with any week now so that I can get things back to normal! The round-up for this month is a day late, not that it really matters.

Starting off with the official poster for horror film Black Daruma. Coming from the Watts brothers, this promises to be a fresh take on the haunted doll subgenre of horror films. The synopsis has an unemployed man purchasing a Japanese luck doll in the hopes that it will improve his life, but the opposite happens. What makes this interesting is that the entire film is apparently shot from the POV of the creepy doll, with Fionn Watts stating the film is a cross between Gremlins and Paranormal Activity. The movie was shot in eight days with the actors inprovising the psychological meltdowns the doll causes. Black Daruma will be released globally on VOD shortly.

Children of the Pines is an award-winning horror mystery film that is set for a digital debut for global VOD platforms and on DVD on October 18th 2024. This has a young college student who whilst visiting her estranged parents discovers they are into supernatural healing for their family trauma. She is introduced to strange children now living in her childhood home and is forced to face a sinister plan for her to join them.

It is the month of Halloween so ARROW - the streaming subscription platform, has announced the movies coming to it as part of their Shocktober programme. These include among them Noroi: The Curse (a pseudo-documentary about an investigative reporter looking into paranormal phenomena), Offspring (a family get caught up with a clan of cannibalistic savages), and Pandemonium (a man gets trapped in a hellish void after a road accident). Among other releases are 2021's Slumber Party Massacre, We Forgot About the Zombies from 2022, and the fun named Carved: The Slit-Mouthed Woman from 2007.

Described as a '...new sexy vampire film' and said to be inspired by genre classics such as Stranger Things, The Faculty and The Goonies is Fangs. In this movie, vampires have moved to a small town and begin to slowly take it over. Two outcast girls - Nikki and Cassi discover that they and some other outcasts are the only ones who can stop the evil takeover. There is currently an Indiegogo campaign running to get funds for this, more info can be found here.

Another simply titled movie is Knife, a slasher film that features a weapon as the villain, able to take control of anyone who touches it. This comes from Mike Kuciak (Death Metal). Originally a short film, there is currently a Kickstarter campaign running to have this made into a feature film. Again, more details can be found here.

Souls of the Damned is a new horror film from director/writer Frank Palangi (Killer Tales) and starring Erica James (The Annihilator), Debonnay Meyers (The Lost Chronicles) and Palangi (Rise of the Scarecrows: Hell on Earth). Stills from the movie can be seen below.

Originally released in 1983, The Baphomet Seance was a movie that ended up being banned. Described as an instructional video on how to conduct seances and talk to the dead, this was removed from distribution due to its Satanic and Occult messaging. The film has came back now and is to be shown at selected theatres and at horror conventions. For more info on how to check this out head to the film's website here.

Finally for today, Synapse Films are releasing the complete, uncut, and newly restored versions of Killers and The Convent on October 8th on Blu-ray, with the later one also getting a 4K UHD release. Killers is about two convicted killers (played by Dave Larsen and David Gunn) who escape death row and one stormy night invade the home of what appears to be the perfect family. It isn't long before the tables are turned and the killers find themselves fighting for their very survival from the family who turn out to be violently sinister.
The Convent has a hazing ritual in an abandoned boarding school going wrong, leading to demonic possession, murder and more. The only hope for the students survival rests with Christine (Adrienne Barbeau - The Fog), a killer who was responsible for the mass slaughter of a group of nuns in the building decades previously.