Straight outta Austin, TX comes the latest Shudder exclusive Horror movie to drop this year, the meta-horror comedy ‘Scare Package’. With a concept from writer Cameron Burns and director Aaron B. Koontz, and a host of other indie film Directors, this 7-ish part anthology touches on classic tropes of our favourite film genre from the VHS era with a lighthearted touch that will no-doubt entertain die-hard fans, but may leave casual viewers underwhelmed with too many unfunny and confusing moments in it’s frenetic free for all of ghosts, ghouls and gore.

Like all anthologies, you need a framing story, and in ‘Scare Package’ it comes in the form of a day at Rad Chad’s Horror Emporium, a sprawling Texas video store lorded over by the titular Chad (Jeremy King), a hyperactive hybrid of Guy Fieri and Joe Bob Briggs who’s new hire Hawn needs a crash course in Horror cliches to handle their obsessive clientele. As Chad rattles off the tropes of horror on a tour of the store, we hop into each Director’s segments, with unfortunately mixed results.

Early segments like “One Time In The Woods” from director Chris McInroy, an uproariously goofy spin on the “melt movie” had us in stitches, and Emily Hagins “Cold Open”, who’s Jon Michael Simpson bookends the movie with a wide-eyed turn as hapless horror villain “Mike Meyers”, landed a lot of laughs with a light touch.

Other segments like the Werewolf support group story “M.I.S.T.,E.R.” and the underwhelming “Girls’ Night Out Of Body” land with a thud at best, with themes that have been done better than in ‘Scare Package’. The remaining segments, including a far-too-long conclusion to the framing story, and the completely baffling Kung-Fu VR battle / ‘Get Out’ possession story “So Much To Do” are only saved by a hail-Mary horror-host cameo so glorious we can’t in good conscience spoil it for you.

With a slow trickle of Horror films in the summer months on Shudder, ‘Scare Package’ offers enough laughs and gore to keep Horror movie fans from switching channels, but sadly it’s inconsistent tone and uneven direction keep this from being a classic in the vein of Tales From The Darkside, Creepshow or VHS. If you’re a dedicated drive-in mutant, we’d say “Check it out”, but for us this is a one time rental.

‘Scare Package’ is streaming now on Shudder.

From director Albert Shin, ‘Disappearance at Clifton Hill‘ is equally calculated and confident, with a certain cold charm in its execution, burning ever so slowly, drawing you in, until a hallucinatory conclusion changes everything. With fantastic performances from the leads, an impenetrable Tuppence Middleton as Abby and an implacably odd David Cronenberg as a local conspiracy nut that’s half Evil Kinevil and half Art Bell, the strangely specific personalities of small town Ontario add a layer of almost “David Lynch lite” to everything, an off-putting anxiousness to every interaction Abby has in her investigation. Canadians, being ever so polite, don’t seem to appreciate appreciate an outsider asking questions. At first relishing the familiar mystery tropes of retro-diner document drops, staticky VHS tapes and her very own ‘yarn wall’, Abby’s initial glee in stirring up trouble quickly turns to fear when things turn very real, very quickly as she steps on the toes of the local land development baron, a pair of tiger owning French magicians, and her own estranged family.

‘Disappearance at Clifton Hill‘ is propelled not only by it’s perfectly cast characters (especially the mysterious Podcaster played by Cronenberg and unforgettable supporting roles Marie-Josée Croze as a chain smoking Quebecois magician and Elizabeth Saunders as a tiger taming, white trash gambler) and well paced screenplay co-written by Shin and James Schultz but also by a discordant, hypnotic score by Alex Sowinski and Leland Whitty of Canadian band BADBADNOTGOOD and naturalistic but suitably ‘Modern Noir’ cinematography from Catherine Lutes that pairs the lurid red lights from facade of Niagara Falls presented to tourists with the drab, damp reality of a seasonal small town that time is passing by.

Like any good crime story, ‘Disappearance At Clifton Hill‘ lets out a little of its mystery at a time, almost totally bereft of any ‘action’ in the traditional sense, and with an unreliable narrator to boot, until the tension is nearly unbearable. And it’s in this quiet, more believably sinister telling of its tale that the film displays it’s unique, and uniquely Canadian take on the classic potboiler, leaving its audience to ask as many questions as the story answers.

‘Disappearance At Clifton Hill‘ is out now on Amazon Prime VOD. Watch the trailer below for a taste.

VFW (Fangoria Studios)

In ‘VFW’, the gloriously sour Fred (Stephen Lang) and his cadre of iconic character actor cronies (including William Sadler, Fred Williamson, Martin Kove and David Patrick Kelly) spend their days, and nights, drinking in a run down VFW hall and telling tall tales of their times in Vietnam to whoever’s unlucky enough to listen. When runaway teenager Lizard (Sierra McCormick) seeks refuge from the enraged owners of a half-million dollars worth of Hyper, a deadly new drug she has stolen, the vets must prepare for one last stand against an army of angry mutants out to get it back. One part zombie standoff, one part old-army-buddies fight back with some ‘Escape From New York’ punk-apocalypse thrown in for good measure, ‘VFW’ absolutely revels in it’s riotous levels of gore; gallons of blood burst forth as the vets improvised weapons turn the gutter punks into dog food and the violence so quickly escalates into absurdity that it’s hard not to grin as angle-grinders and flagpoles dispatch the horde of Hyper addicts who swarm the heroes.

VFW (Fangoria Studios)

Begos evokes a grind-house feel to cinematographer Mike Testin’s muted, murky images which keep the claustrophobia front and centre, while the performances from the heroes and villains alike are outlandish, scenery-chewing fun that effortlessly bounce off each other with the feel of a lifelong friendship or appropriately moustache-twirling menace. Long time collaborator Steve Moore delivers a suitably scuzzy, minimal score which only adds to the efficiency of the film and further anchors it in loving 80’s era aesthetics. In fact there’s very little VFW falls short on, and whatever minor technical hiccups or clunky line-readings made it to the final cut are whisked away in a whirlwind of head-splitting violence in a matter of seconds. This film moves fast and fearlessly towards it’s inevitable conclusion and while we can see it coming a mile away, anticipation never makes a roller coaster less surprising.

Refreshingly simple and effective with no sequel-bait in sight, ‘VFW’ lands with a serious impact and marks both ‘Begos and the reinvigorated Fangoria brand as the new standard in indie horror. Check the trailer below and catch it on VOD now!