December 30, 2007 Well, 2007 is now behind us, and 2008 is shaping up to be an even better year for the horror genre. Here's a roundup of releases that eSplatter knows will be hitting screens or at least DVD shelves during the first third of 2008 (i.e., January-April).

1/1/2008:

Solstice

Directed by Daniel Myrick. Starring Elisabeth Harnois, R. Lee Ermey, and Amanda Seyfried. A young girl uncovers a disturbing secret about her twin sister, who committed suicide just a few months before. From the director of the "Blair Witch Project," this is a direct-to-DVD release.

1/4/2008:

One Missed Call



Directed by Eric Valette. Starring Edward Burns, Shannyn Sossamon, and Ray Wise. In this remake of the Japanese horror film "Chakushin Ari" (2003), several people start receiving voice-mails from their future selves -- messages which include the date, time, and some of the details of their deaths.

1/8/2008:

Boogeyman 2

Directed by Jeff Betancourt. Starring Tobin Bell and Danielle Savre. Unrated direct-to-DVD to the Sam Raimi-produced PG-13 horror hit.

1/18/2008:

Teeth



Directed by Mitchell Lichtenstein. Starring Jess Weixler, John Hensley, and Josh Pais. Still a stranger to her own body, a high school student discovers she has a physical advantage when she becomes the object of male violence.

1/25/2008:

Untracebale

Directed by Gregory Hoblit. Starring Diane Lane, Colin Hanks, and Billy Burke. Sony is releasing this horror film with Diane Lane. FBI agent Jennifer Marsh is tasked with hunting down a seemingly untraceable serial killer who posts live videos of his victims on the Internet. As time runs out, the cat and mouse chase becomes more personal.

2/1/2008:

Shrooms

Directed by Paddy Breathnach. Starring Lndsey Haun, Jake Huston, and Max Kasch. Having been promised the 'trip' of a lifetime by their Irish friend and mushroom expert Jake, a group of American teenagers arrives in Ireland, keen for adventure. Despite Jake's warnings about the 'shrooms they shouldn't eat, things start to go horribly wrong and the teenagers suffer horrific visions. The panicked friends are attacked by ghostly creatures, never sure whether they are experiencing gruesome reality or startling hallucinations. As the group is bloodily whittled down to one, it is soon clear that, whether or not these apparitions are real, the carnage they leave behind certainly is

2/8/2008:

Poughkeepsie Tapes



Directed by John Erick Dowdle. Starring Stacy Chbosky, Ben Messmer, and Samantha Robson. When hundreds of videotapes showing torture, murder and dismemberment are found in an abandoned house, they reveal a serial killer's decade-long reign of terror and become the most disturbing collection of evidence homicide detectives have ever seen.

2/8/2008:

Dark Floors

Directed by Pete Riski. Starring Noah Huntley, Skye Bennett, and William Hope. Concerned for her autistic daughters health, the father sees a removal from the hospital by force as the only option. An elevator break-down prevents a smooth exit and renders them trapped with others. Yet the incident is only the beginning of a descent into nightmare. As the doors open the hospital appears mysteriously deserted. When mutilated bodies are found, creatures from a dark world start a frightening attack. It soon becomes clear that the survival of the group may rest solely on the little girl.

2/14/2008:

Caretaker

Directed by Bryce Olson. Starring Kira Verrastro, Judd Nelson, and Jennifer Tilly. A comedy horror film

2/15/2008:

Diary of the Dead

Directed by George Romero. Starring Joshua Close, Michelle Morgan, and Shawn Roberts. A group of college students are making a movie when a zombie overthrow of the planet takes place.

2/19/2008:

Catacombs

Directed by Tomm Coker and David Elliot. Starring Cabral Ibacka, Pink, and Shannyn Sossamon. On her first trip to Paris, a young woman hits a party in the Catacombs, the 200-mile labyrinth of limestone tombs underground. Things go terribly wrong from there.



2/22/2008:

The Signal

Directed by David Bruckner and Dan Bush. Starring Mya Denton, Anessa Ramsey, and Rod Sahr. It’s New Year’s Eve in the city of Terminus and chaos is this year’s resolution. All forms of communication have been jammed by an enigmatic transmission that preys on fear and desire driving everyone in the city to murder and madness. In a place once marked by conformity but now sent into complete anarchy, the rebellious Ben must save the woman he loves from the bedlam in the streets as well as her crazed sadistic husband. But the only way he can tell who to trust or who has given in to violence is by uncovering the true nature of The Signal.

Told in three parts from three unique perspectives by three visionary directors, The Signal was originally conceived as an experimental film project called Exquisite Corpse where one filmmaker would begin a story then hand it off to another filmmaker to continue and then to another and so on until the movie was complete. The story eventually took shape and evolved into a scifi/ horror/thriller that imagines a world where everyday anxieties become the catalyst for inhuman terror. The Signal is a horrific journey towards discovering that the most brutal monster might actually be within all of us.

2/26/2008:

Rage

Directed by Robert Kurtzman. Starring Andrew Divoff, Reggie Bannister, and Erin Brown. A crazed scientist experimenting with a rage virus on innocent victims in a laboratory in the woods. When his monstrous subjects escape and vultures devour their remains, they became mutations seeking to feed on humans.

3/4/2008:

Automaton Transfusion

Directed by Steven Miller. Starring Mena Suvari. A secret military experiment to use zombies as soldiers goes terribly wrong in a Florida town.



3/14/2008:

Funny Games

Directed by Michael Haneke. Starring Naomi Watts, Tim Roth, and Michael Pitt. A shot for shot remake of the original by the same director, in which psychotic young men take a family hostage in their cabin.

3/18/2008:

Sick House

Directed by Curtis Radclyffe. Starring Gina Philips, Alex Hassell, and Andrew Knott. It looks like this one is heading straight to DVD as well. Phillips plays a a young archaeologist, whose research is ruined when authorities shut down the hold hospital she's working in because of its history involving an old orphanage. Terror lurks in the old orphanage, beneath a disused London hospital - a Seventeenth Century malevolence, the Plague Doctor, has returned to complete his evil masterpiece.

3/21/2008:

Shutter

Directed by Masayuki Ochiai. Starring Joshua Jackson, Rachael Taylor, and James Kyson Lee. In Tokyo, a young couple (Jackson and Taylor) on their honeymoon first begin to see ghostly images in their photos

4/8/2008:

Day of the Dead

Directed by Steve Miner. Starring Mena Suvari, Christa Campbell, and Nick Cannon. Remake of the George Romero classic has a band of survivors pitted against a zombie outbreak. This one is heading straight to DVD on April 8.

4/11/2008:

Prom Night

Directed by Nelson McCormick. Starring Brittany Snow, Dana Davis, and Jessica Troup. A remake of the infamous Jamie Lee Curtis film has a killer on the loose during Prom Night. This one is PG-13

4/11/2008:

Ruins

Directed by Carter Smith. The movie tells the story about a group of tourists on a Mexican holiday, who embark on a remote archaelogical dig - and find a supernatural evil among the ruins.

Don't forget to email Lucius Gore your top picks for 2007. We're doing our annual vote.


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