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Terry Levene, the schlock showman who as the head of Aquarius Releasing was behind such films as Bruce Lee Fights Back From the Grave and Doctor Butcher, Medical Deviate, has died. He was 90.

Levene died Jan. 13 surrounded by his family in Englewood, New Jersey, Severin Films executive Josh Johnson announced.

Operating out of an office above the Selwyn Theatre on West 42nd Street in New York, Levene creatively marketed low-budget American features including Isaac Hayes: Black Moses of Soul (1973) and Silent Night, Deadly Night (1984).

For grindhouses and drive-ins, the onetime amateur boxer rebranded Lucio Fulci’s supernatural horror film The Beyond (1981) as Seven Doors of Death (1985) and Umberto Lenzi’s Italian shocker Cannibal Ferox (1981) as Make Them Die Slowly (1983), promoting the gory latter as “The Most Violent Film Ever! Banned in 31 Countries!”

Aquarius passed out barf bags to those paying to see Doctor Butcher, Medical Deviate (1983), which was a re-edited...

Killer Collectibles highlights five of the most exciting new horror products announced each and every week, from toys and apparel to artwork, records, and much more.

Here are the coolest horror collectibles unveiled this week!

Halloween Print from Jason Edmiston

For those who can’t make it Pasadena for this weekend’s Halloween: 45 Years of Terror convention, Jason Edmiston is bringing some of the celebration to you. The artist’s Halloween 36×24 timed edition screen print is available online for $75 until Monday, October 2, at 12pm Est.

No One Will Save You Vinyl Soundtrack from Waxwork Records

Everyone from Stephen King to Guillermo del Toro has been praising Brian Duffield’s No One Will Save You since it debuted on Hulu last week. Now the film’s original soundtrack is invading vinyl from Waxwork Records.

Composed by Joseph Trapanese, the score is pressed on 180-gram “Invasion” (midnight blue and white swirl) colored vinyl.

When the classic monster movie King Kong was released in the US in 1933, it had the biggest opening ever recorded, and little wonder – who could resist the fantastic story of a giant lovesick ape on the rampage in New York city!

Since then Kong has returned to the screen numerous times, not least in the 1976 version King Kong, starring Jeff Bridges and Jessica Lange, with Kong himself brought to life by special effects legends Carlo Rambaldi (Et) and Rick Baker (American Werewolf in London). Directed by John Guillermin (The Towering Inferno) and produced by the legendary Dino De Laurentis (Flash Gordon) this blockbuster features a stirring John Barry score, action set pieces, stunning scenery, groundbreaking effects – it’s arguably one of the greatest King Kongs ever. To celebrate the towering release of the film in a stunning 4K restoration, here’s a look at Kongs onscreen from the 1931 original all...

To mark the release of the 4K reissue of John Guillermin’s King Kong, out now, we’ve been given a Steelbook to give away to 1 winner.

Fred Wilson (Charles Grodin), an employee of a large American oil company, has been charged with a mission to find new oil wells. With a chartered boat, he sets off on a journey to an uninhabited island in the South Pacific. On board is also a stowaway: the palaeontologist Jack Prescott (Jeff Bridges) has smuggled himself onto the ship, as he hopes to examine a rare species of monkey on this island. On the way, after a violent storm, the expedition also takes on board the shipwrecked Dawn (Jessica Lange), who is floating in a lifeboat at sea. When the ship anchors off the island, however, it turns out not to be a uninhabited as everyone once thought. The natives of the island...

To mark the release of the 4K reissue of John Guillermin’s King Kong, out now, we’ve been given 2 copies to give away on 4K Ultra HD.

Fred Wilson (Charles Grodin), an employee of a large American oil company, has been charged with a mission to find new oil wells. With a chartered boat, he sets off on a journey to an uninhabited island in the South Pacific. On board is also a stowaway: the palaeontologist Jack Prescott (Jeff Bridges) has smuggled himself onto the ship, as he hopes to examine a rare species of monkey on this island. On the way, after a violent storm, the expedition also takes on board the shipwrecked Dawn (Jessica Lange), who is floating in a lifeboat at sea. When the ship anchors off the island, however, it turns out not to be a uninhabited as everyone once thought. The natives of the...

July 26th has an eclectic assortment of horror and sci-fi offerings for fans, including a pair of cult classics—The Boy Who Cried Werewolf and Hellhole—from the fine folks at Scream Factory. Severin Films resurrects Doctor Butcher M.D. and Zombie Holocaust in HD this week, and Karyn Kusama’s superb psychological thriller The Invitation comes home on Tuesday courtesy of Drafthouse Films.

Other notable Blu-ray and DVD releases coming our way on July 26th include Five Miles to Midnight, the Killer Thrillers Collection, Consumption, and Exorcist House of Evil.

The Boy Who Cried Werewolf (Scream Factory, Blu-ray)

Richie Bridgestone’s parents are getting a divorce, but that’s the least of his problems at the moment. Richie is hoping his parents will reconsider and on a visit to his father’s secluded cabin, he witnesses his dad being attacked by a werewolf. Much like the tale of the boy who cried wolf,...

A faux sequel to Lucio Fulci’s Zombie, which was itself a faux sequel to Dawn of the Dead, Italian filmmaker Marino Girolami’s Zombie Holocaust (later released as Doctor Butcher M.D.) is something of a cult gem in the horror world,… Continue Reading →

The post Severin Bringing Zombie Holocaust Aka Doctor Butcher M.D. to Blu-ray; Includes Limited Edition Barf Bag! appeared first on Dread Central.

Some know it in its original Italian form as Zombi Holocaust (or Zombie Holocaust), while others adore the re-edited Us release known as Doctor Butcher M.D., but with their upcoming two-disc Blu-ray of Marino Girolami’s 1980 horror film, Severin Films aims to please all sides with uncut releases of both versions of the movie.

Featuring over two and a half hours of special features, Severin Films’ Zombie Holocaust / Doctor Butcher M.D. Blu-ray hits shelves on July 26th:

Press Release: It sparked riots on 42nd Street, spawned a generation of gorehounds on VHS, and forever set an insane standard for Italian mad doctor/zombie/cannibal carnage worldwide: Ian McCulloch (Zombie), Alexandra Delli Colli (The New York Ripper), Sherry Buchanan (Tentacles) and Donald O’Brien (Emanuelle And The Last Cannibals) star in this blood orgy of gut-munching, eyeball-gouging and face-chopping originally known as Zombie Holocaust, which a notorious American distributor would then re-edit,...

Our series continues with a special installment that compares not just one but Two remakes to a classic original. This week, Cinelinx goes ape and looks at all three versions of King Kong.

King Kong was created in 1933 by Universal Pictures and was the prototype for the Kaiju genre, years before Godzilla ever stomped on Tokyo. The image of Kong atop the Empire State Building is one of the most iconic images in the history of film and pop culture. The first film led to a sequel (the Son of Kong), an animated series, lots of rip-offs (Mighty Joe Young, Konga, A*P*E, the Mighty Peking Man) and years later inspired a pair of remakes (Not counting the campy Kaiju films King Kong vs. Godzilla and King Kong Escapes.) After all these years, Kong remains one of the greatest giant movie monsters of all time. Let’s take a...

A new apocalyptic dark comedy called Hot, based on the award-winning play by Daniel Keleher and directed by Victor Warren, is streaming now exclusively on the streaming video service Vhx, - a digital distribution platform backed by major angel investors including Chris Sacca and Fred Wilson that empowers independent artists to sell video content directly with their audience.

In addition to the spontaneous release of the film a new movie poster and a trailer for Hot simultaneously.

About Hot:

Hot is a comic yet ultimately devastating look at an apocalyptic future Los Angeles torn apart by a dangerous virus, most of its victims left unconscious to die slowly.

Life-long best friends Jones (Steven Strait) and Benny (Zachary Knig [Continued ...]...

South by Southwest in Austin, Texas has begun and one of the films being screened is Teenage Cocktail. A poster and teaser for the film were revealed and are available after the jump. Also: an I Am Not a Serial Killer clip, a trailer for The Girl in the Photographs, and release details for Victor Warren’s Hot.

SXSW: Teenage Cocktail: “Feeling confined by their small town and overbearing parents, Annie and Jules hatch a scheme of running away. The only issue is, they need the money to get there. Jules suggests the couple try webcam modeling. Although she’s nervous at first, Annie can’t argue when the money starts rolling in. But as the girls soon find out, consequences can blindside you. Sometimes violently.

SXSW 2016 Screenings:

Saturday, March 12th, 2:15 Pm at Alamo Lamar D

Sunday, March 13th, 6:00 Pm at Alamo Slaughter (SXSW Satellite)

Tuesday, March 15th,...

Plus: Imax, Un in programme to effect change.

Paramount Pictures will not distirbute animation title The Little Prince from March 18 and will not handle the film. Director Mark Osborne tweeted the development and advised followers that it will be released by another distributor later this year.

Imax Corp and the United Nations Environment Programme will convene a panel discussion on Wednesday at the USC School of Cinematic Arts in Los Angeles to discuss the power of film to effect change. The panel is the first step in the partners’ initiative to promote solutions for climate change and the Un’s sustainability goals. Glydascope Magnet Films is handling the Us release of the apocalyptic satirical comedy Hot. Victor Warren directs and Dallas Sonnier he film, which launches exclusively on the streaming video service Vhx backed by angel investors including Chris Sacca and Fred Wilson that empowers independent artists to sell video content directly with their audience.

Stars: Ian McCulloch, Alexandra Delli Colli, Sherry Buchanan, Peter O’Neal, Donald O’Brien, Dakar, Walter Patriarca, Roberto Resta | Written by Fabrizio De Angelis, Romano Scandariato | Directed by Marino Girolami (aka Frank Martin)

One of the bizarrest horror films to come out of Italy in the early 80s, Zombi Holocaust is – as the title suggests – a mix of the two genres Italian horror cinema became predminantly known for: cannibal and zombie movies…

For those unaware of Zombi Holocaust, the film finds Ian McCulloch (who found fame in Italy following his appearance in British sci-fi show Survivors) venture to a tropical island in the East Indies to investigate just why a tribesman, working at New York City hospital was chomping down on the limbs of the cadavers in the cold storage. He and his crew, including Alexandra Delli Colli (who would later star in Lucio Fulci’s controversial New York Ripper...

Above: Radio Raheem And The Gentle Giant by Spike Lee

I.

In 1993, the curators of the Whitney Biennial mounted one of the most politically charged exhibitions ever to grace a major American art institution. Granted, up to that point the Biennial had become a bit of a lightning rod for critics of all persuasions, since the show’s fundamental charge—showcasing the best new American art of the previous two years—would always put it in the crosshairs of certain traditionalists, as well as those who found the choices to be too tame by half. In short, it’s a guarantee you’ll never please anyone.

But ’93 was a bit of a benchmark. The show was dominated by artwork that directly engaged problems of social justice—feminism, race, queer politics, economic disparity, and various intersections of those categories. A lot of the work was quite strong, and many of those...

It is now time for my complete list of The Suck In Today’s Film Biz. Earlier this week, I’ve dropped some bits on Keyframe and Filmmaker Mag. IndieWire picked it up. There’s so much that is wrong, it is easy to share the wealth. But here is all of those combined lists plus many more. Can’t you hear everyone screaming “Omg, there is so much too fix! It is time we made this really work for ambitious and diverse film once and for all!”? We wish, right?

I have been chronicling the negative in our film industry for sometime now — six years in these type of posts, but my original rant goes back to 1995 for Filmmaker Magazine. Much of what I have stated in years’ passed remains still in need of getting done. Dig in to my past lists and when you combine them you will...

Written by Julien Blondel | Art by Didier Poli, Jean Bastide, Robin Recht | Published by Titan Comics | Format: Hardback, 64pp

Elric Volume 1: The Ruby Throne may just be an introduction to the Albino Emperor of Melnibone but what an introduction it is. Julien Blondel, Didier Poli, Robin Recht and Jean Bastide have converted Michael Moorcock’s Elric to a graphic novel, and what we get is an orgy of blood, violence and nudity that would make Game of Thrones just a little jealous.

Elric sits on his throne seemingly at the end of his life, his energy spent and enthusiasm to rule waning. Typical of Melnibone’s decadent nature war is not far away and as barbarians make their way towards the city Elric’s advisers implore him to destroy the invaders with haste. Rising for battle and calling on gods and demons for strength he may win the battle,...

One of the most fondly remembered eras in fright-film history is the golden age of Italian gore – a prolific period that brought such directors as Dario Argento, Lamberto Bava and Lucio Fulci to international attention and acclaim. Spawning all number of surreal sub-genres, including black-gloved killer-thrillers and stomach-churning cannibal adventures, this is a time that continues to crib a fresh generation of fascinated fans.

As such, 88 Italian have announced the UK Blu-ray release Zombi Holocaust (1980) and Burial Ground aka Nights of Terror (1981) – a pair of plasma-packed pot-boilers that could only have been dreamt up during the bygone boom in Euro-terror eccentricity.

In Burial Ground, the carcass-crunching action comes thick and fast as veteran director Andrea Bianchi (Strip Nude For Your Killer) evokes the sinister spirit of Lucio Fulci and George Romero. Also known as The Zombie Dead, Bianchi’s bout of bloodstained brilliance has a pack of ghoulish predators entrap...

Prepare to be corrupted and depraved once more as Nucleus Films releases the sequel to the definitive guide to the Video Nasties phenomenon – the most extraordinary and scandalous era in the history of British film. Video Nasties: The Definitive Guide Part 2, a three-disc collector’s edition box set, is being released on DVD on July 14th 2014, to tie in with the 30th Anniversary of the Video Recordings Act 1984.

For the first time ever on DVD, all 82 films that fell foul of the Director of Public Prosecutions “Section 3” list are trailer-featured with specially filmed intros for each title, alongside a brand new documentary – Video Nasties: Draconian Days (review), directed by Jake West.

And to celebrate the release, Film4 FrightFest is hosting a special event – the world exclusive London Premiere of the finalised unseen extended 97 minute cut of Video Nasties: Draconian Days at The Prince Charles Cinema on Thurs 3 July, 8.30pm. The...

Titan Comics has announced The Tenth Doctor and The Eleventh Doctor comic series.

The publisher has revealed its first titles following its acquisition of the Doctor Who licence.

Doctor Who: The Tenth Doctor will feature David Tennant's version of the character.

Nick Abadzis (Laika) and Elena Casagrande will deliver the first arc, with writer Robbie Morrison (Nikolai Dante) coming aboard after the first five-issue arc.

Al Ewing (Loki: Agent of Asgard) and Rob Williams (The Royals: Masters of War) will be joined by artist Simon Fraser (Nikolai Dante) on Doctor Who: The Eleventh Doctor, starring Matt Smith's iteration of the Doctor.

Alice X Zhang is providing the covers to the comics.

Idw Publishing previously held the licence for Doctor Who comics.

Titan also announced a collection of the Michael Moorcock adaptation Elric: The Ruby Throne by Julien Blondel, Robin Recht, Didier Poli and Jean Bastide, and...

Venture capital is a business where “the rich get richer,” Fred Wilson, managing partner at Union Square Ventures said Wednesday at Business Insider’s Ignition Conference in New York. That’s because a favored few firms, such as Andreessen Horowitz and Sequoia Capital, have the right of first refusal on the most promising opportunities thanks to their previous early stage investments in companies like Facebook and Google. “They see every single opportunity of quality that comes along,” Wilson said. Also read: Twitter vs. Facebook Ipo: How the Micro-Blog Dressed Up to Win Over Wall Street Wilson made it clear that...

The New York Foundation for the Arts will induct composer Elliot Goldenthal, filmmaker Mira Nair, visual artist Fred Wilson and author and co-director of the Acquavella Gallery Michael Findlay into the Nyfa Hall of Fame on April 23. The Nyfa Hall of Fame honors the work of artists to whom Nyfa provided critical support early in their careers and recognizes philanthropists and patrons of the arts who have had an impact on the city’s cultural community. The induction ceremony and dinner will take place at Espace, 635 West 42nd St. Story: IFC Nabs Mira Nair's 'Reluctant Fundamentalist' for North

read more...

Embedded above is, without a doubt, one of the most outrageous things I have ever seen. It’s the short film Leperf**** by Drew Tobia, a film so completely over-the-top — in a very minimalist way — that I can’t even bring myself to write the full title. And, yes, the title is a very accurate description of the film. It’s just the road to get there that’s so terrifying, grotesque and, kinda surprisingly, emotionally devastating, which is probably the key to why it’s such an effective film.

Now, I do understand that not everybody will have the same visceral reaction as me to this film as it does touch an exceptionally sensitive area of my psyche. It’s not even something I can even truly understand or quite know how to articulate. But, I’ll try:

Fans of Italian horror movies might be with me on this one,...

What's that shambling over the curb toward the local theater? No, behind the vampires. Could it be a stampede of the undead about to take over Hollywood?

AMC's new drama series "The Walking Dead" debuts on Halloween, and more than a half-dozen zombie-related feature projects are on their way to theaters -- including Friday's "Resident Evil: Afterlife" -- or in development at the studios. With this many flesh-rotting grave-jumpers on tap, could zombies be making a run -- or, perhaps, a very slow, clumsy walk -- at the pop culture crown?

"Zombie movies, much like zombies, could become this horde that just marches across the world," said Rhett Reese, who co-wrote last year's breakout hit "Zombieland" with Paul Wernick.

The movie, TV and publishing industries have been feasting on vampires for material the past few years. But like every profitable trend, the obsession with bloodsuckers must eventually head back into...

Andreas Weigend knows how to influence people. As the former chief scientist at Amazon, Weigend helped implement a series of ingenious tools to help customers "make better decisions," from recommended purchases and one-click checkouts, to wish lists and book-interest sharing. With our recent launch of the Influence Project, we spoke with Weigend about what "influence" means on the Web. Weigend, a professor at Stanford, approached the subject philosophically, picking apart the complicated concept of influence by each attribute and nuance.

Austin Carr: Does influence exist online, and if so, who has it?

Andreas Weigend: Let's unpack this. When we talk about this, we have to figure out what it is we want to measure. This isn't about "influence" in the abstract, but influencing behavior. What does an influencer do? An influencer changes behavior, garners attention, and helps people make better decisions. One dimension of this is active versus passive. Active relates to push,...

Foursquare has, as rumored, raised a chunk of venture cash that'll let it expand its business significantly, and fast too. But what exactly is so hot about this hot-topic location-based game tech? Unusually we have Vc insight on the matter.

We'd heard about the rumors last week, and they were immediately interesting as Foursquare seems to be busily rocketing to success in the location-based "check in" game that's got many a smartphone-owner playing along. Foursquare's business model is a treat all by itself, as the company is pursuing high-profile advertising partners to try to build its game into a more involving "user experience" via ads, rather than opting for the simpler Google-like system of merely maximizing ad exposure.

Foursquare's own co-founder and CEO Denis Crowley blogged about the news and revealed some interesting stuff, charting Foursquare's meteoric rise from a kitchen-table business start just a year ago. "Today we closed...

The news came this weekend that Twitter has agreed to acquire Atebits, the cleverly named company behind Tweetie, a Twitter client for Apple's iPhone and Mac platforms. This is a huge step, and a glaring indicator, for Twitter as a company--how it'll manifest itself for Twitter the service isn't quite so clear.

Fred Wilson, a major investor and director for Twitter, hinted last week that Twitter was about to start "filling the holes" in the service. Third-party services, he says, sprung up around Twitter out of necessity: you needed search, you needed a mobile app, you needed a URL shortener, and you needed an image uploader. None of that came in Twitter, and until now, the company was content to let developers fill those gaps.

But not anymore. Twitter bought startup Summize back in 2008 to create a decent search engine, and now they've acquired Tweetie, one of the best (if...

A new game for Wii (149,000,000 results) is launching in Japan at the end of the month that scores players based on their knowledge of Google's search engine results. And Kensaku (492,000 results) pits contestants against each other in a number of ways to guess which search term is the most popular. Game developer Shift has loaded 10,000 search results onto the game, but you can always update it using the Wii's Wi-Fi--so, the world is your oyster (1,440,000 results.)

As well as the basic quiz format, there's also a bomb game (34,700,000 resuits) and a running challenge (46,300,000 results) where your game character runs faster the more popular the search results are. This is not a game for Googlewhackers.

Japan is the unofficial home of weird and wonderful games--a lot of which you can find on Nintendo's DS console. Doki Doki Majo Shinpan, for example, lets players hunt for high school witches by touching them up,...

At his blog A Vc, Fred Wilson examines a few provisions of the banking reform bill currently being debated in Congress and highlights a couple of provisions that could affect filmmakers. From his blog: 1) Changing the definition of a “qualified investor” in angel and venture deals. Not just anyone can invest in a startup company. You have to be a qualified investor. A qualified investor is currently defined as anyone with a net worth of over $1mm or net income of over $250k. Dodd’s bill would increase that to $2.3mm and $450k respectively. And then index those numbers to inflation. 2) Eliminate the existing federal pre-emption over state regulation of “accredited offerings.” Angel and venture financings...

If you ever visit the downtown Manhattan offices of Foursquare, the popular location-based social game for smartphones, don't say the word Gowalla. When I made that mistake during a visit there last November, 27-year-old cofounder Naveen Selvadurai sent me to the Foursquare time out chair. It was a joke. I think.

Gowalla is Foursquare's arch-rival. The companies both launched eight months earlier at the South by South West interactive festival. Their products pioneered the then-uncharted territory of location-based social networking. On Foursquare, a user "checks in" to locations (as pinpointed via satellite) to invite along friends, leave tips glued to Gps coordinates (like ordering advice at restaurants), and compete for digital rewards in the form of badges, or titles like "mayor" (for the user who checks in the most at a venue). Similarly, Gowalla asked users to check in places in order to collect digital goodies, akin to virtual geocaching.

It used to be, if you were serious about starting a tech company, you went to Silicon Valley. But emerging entrepreneurial hubs around the country are giving startup aspirants options. In this series, we talk to leading figures in those communities about what makes them tick. Here, part two of our five-part series.

New York City is big, buzzing--and good for startups? Fred Wilson, a venture capitalist at Union Square Ventures, thinks so. He should know: Wilson's firm has backed brand-name, New York-based startups like social organizers Meetup, and he put his own money into Wallstrip, which produces business news videos, and which was sold to CBS for $5 million in 2007. Union Square has also placed a bet in Foursquare. (Not to be totally East Coast-centric, Union Square maintains left-coast investments in startups such as Zynga and Twitter.)

But New York, Wilson points out, has been a hotbed of entrepreneurial activity since its earliest days.

One of the most redeeming qualities of the social media landscape revolves around the unique ability microblogging (eg. Twitter, Facebook status updates, Blog comments) offers in the creation of "Thought Viruses." Everyone knows you can't really "create" a "thought virus" however there are people in the social Web who gracefully dance the waltz of maven and connector into what I call "Thought DJ's." These individuals are the uber-talented social media curators who skillfully bring the proper mix of humor, wit, intelligence and interesting "tinyurls" and create an environment of heavily anticipated tweets. Much like an influential music DJ who "breaks" and "discovers" new music today's "Thought DJ" delivers news, information, insights and even concepts to us with a freshness that is reminiscent of the day we used to buy 45's at the local record store. Their ability to be on the cutting edge of information combined with their innovative point...

There are plenty of tools out there for adding "friends" to your social network: Glue lets you connect with others who like the same media and entertainment sites as you, Twinkle lets you discover people tweeting near you, WhosHere helps you find "chance encounters" with people--whatever that entails--and social Web browsers like Flock lets you channel the musings of your entire social media constellation into one easy-to-read basin.

The problem: these apps work. Often too well--the basin is overflowing.

When I look at my Facebook News Feed, Google Talk list and my Twitter client, here's what I see: old friends, workmates, acquaintances, and then, in a much smaller group, real friends. In an article this week entitled, "What's a Friend Worth?" BusinessWeek writer John Byrne went straight to the source--Facebook HQ in Palo Alto--to figure out just how many real friends a given Facebook user actually has in his or her network.

Oprah is now officially on Twitter.

The Chicago talk show host completed her first tweet just this morning, and is devoting a block of time in her broadcast today to discussing the microblogging site. "Hi Twitters. Thank You For A Warm Welcome," she wrote. "Feeling Really 21st Century."

In a great irony, the woman with the Midas touch will, perhaps for the first time, endorse a company whose bottom line she can't directly benefit. Though Oprah's post is reportedly getting tens of thousands of replies per hour, not a single one helps Twitter figure out how it's going to generate revenue. More users? Sure, pile 'em on.

Just yesterday, Twitter's co-founder Biz Stone tried to address rumors of a Google acquisition in a blog post entitled "Sometimes We Talk," in which he said that his site regularly talks to big tech players about "a variety of subjects," some of them presumably sale or partnership.