Also known as Murder by Phone, this Canadian slasher — of sorts — boasts an interesting pedigree, as it features actors like John Houseman and Richard Chamberlain, as well as a score by James Bond series composer John Barry.

The U.S. print of this — Murder by Phone — is 17 minutes shorter than the Canadian and international The Calling cuts. You’ll miss out on so much of a disgruntled phone employee using the phone lines — is he using a Captain Crunch whistle? Any phone phreaks reading this? — to kill people.

This will be part of my telephone-based drive-in horror night that I am curating, so…I guess stay tuned for that. These are the movies you never knew you wanted but here they are, calling and calling until you pick up. Consider this a not-as-good Scanners with Chamberlain looking very Gibb brother who is way too invested in solving this case. Gotta love the end freeze frame as he just has to answer that phone.

You can watch this on YouTube.

Terror in the Aisles once was only available as a bonus feature on the Shout! Factory Halloween II blu ray, but now that it’s available on its own, I’m excited for other people to see it. It was a multi-watch on HBO for me when I was young. Even better, this played theaters!

Andrew J. Kuehn revolutionized movie trailers — he created the trailers for Jaws,  E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, Schindler’s List, Top Gun, the Indiana Jones movies and more — before he started producing and directing movies like Get Bruce and the remake of D.O.A.

There are so many scenes clipped into this film, which is hosted by Donald Pleasence and Nancy Allen who are sitting with a crowd of fake moviegoers who react to the rapid-fire scenes as they come hard and fast. Instead of a laundry list of films — I mean, do you want to read 78 (91 in the network TV version) titles? — let me tell you the more interesting ones, like What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?, Phantom of the Paradise, Suspiria, The Car, The Legacy, The Funhouse and, of course, the first two Halloween films.

For some reason, even though nearly every movie here was R-rated (Dawn of the Dead was released unrated), this film had to endure several cuts to avoid an X rating.

You can watch this on YouTube or order the new stand-alone blu ray from Shout! Factory.

Part of Herschell Gordon Lewis’ so-called Blood Trilogy with Blood Feast and Two Thousand Maniacs!, this one concerns Adam Sorg, an artist who is seeking the perfect color red for his latest masterpiece. While conventional science would tell you that blood would turn brown when it dries, in this movie, it remains the same garish tone that an Italian giallo would feature.

Color Me Blood Red and A Bucket of Blood are essentially the same basic film, except that where Roger Corman keeps much of the violence off-screen, you’re here for a Lewis film to see blood and organs splash all over the screen. You’re not here for subtlety.

Gordon Oas-Heim is positively unhinged here as the lead. It’s kind of amazing that years later, he’d play Manford the butler on The New Monkees. He also shows up in Lewis’ Moonshine Mountain as the sheriff (he used the stage name Adam Sorg here!) and also is in Andy Warhol’s Bad.

This would be the last film from the duo of Lewis and David F. Friedman. There were plans to make a fourth in the series — Suburban Roulette* — but Friedman thought they’d done all they could when it came to gore. He’d move on to make roughies and nudie cuties like A Smell of Honey, a Swallow of Brine; 7 Into Snowy and The Acid Eaters, as well as Love Camp 7 and Ilsa She-Wolf of the SS using the name Herman Traeger.

You can watch this on Tubi or get the Arrow Video blu ray from Diabolik DVD. That has audio commentary by Lewis and Friedman, as well as Something Weird as a second bonus film. If you don’t have the gigantic Lewis box set, this is a great purchase.

*Lewis would end up making a movie with this title in 1968.

There are parts of America that may as well be another country or even another world. In this film, originally known as Reckoning, we learn that the Appalachian mountains are isolated and quite frankly terrifying, with the community in the film operating in its own very unique set of rules.

When Lemon’s husband dies, she must fight to keep his farm working and repay his debt to the oldest family on the mountain. Their cold-hearted matriarch is ready to destroy a decade-old truce and even hurt Lemon’s son to get what she wants.

Lane and Ruckus Skye have worked together to create movies like the upcoming Becky and the short The 7 Sevens. This is the first of their films that I’ve seen and it certainly sets a mood. A grim one, but quite a mood.

Danielle Deadwyler, who appeared on HBO’s Watchmen series, is really solid in this, putting you directly into her struggles and getting you on the side of her character.

Uncork’d Entertainment and Dark Star Pictures will release this on October 2 in drive-ins and then on-demand four days later. They sent us this review copy, which has no impact on our thoughts.

The Aristas are a wealthy Mexican family who are charging high prices from the well water on their property. Is it the fountain of youth? Is it a source of power? Or does the water just taste that good?

Regardless of the answer, a young handyman named Don has started to work for them, guarding the well while being tempted by the two young Aristas daughters, who are obsessed with sex and flaunting their power.

I had no expectations going in on this and was really intrigued by how it was put together. Its definitely unlike anything I’ve seen before.

You’ll recognize Esai Morales and Mariel Hemingway in the cast, but the young actors in the lead really make this work, as does the assured direction by Zachary Cotler and Magdalena Zyzak.

Jackson Rathbone, who was Jasper Hale in the Twilight films is our window into this world of the ultrapowerful, who are separated by only a gate from the lower castes. Once he is inside their world, he cannot help but be changed by it, particularly by his attraction to Tania (Marisol Sacramento) and Ximena (Carmela Zumbado) while learning from the more seasoned Michael (Xander Berkeley, Candyman).

Once the well starts being drained, the family demands that the American workers build a wall around their property, which seems to be the very textbook definition of ironía. Yet being kept out of the thing they want most means the townspeople won’t be silent for much longer.

Dark Star Pictures has already released this in virtual theaters and it will be on demand as of October 13. They sent us a review copy, but that did not impact our review.

I always make the remark that we often get films that don’t fit into our normal genre, but you know, more and more, we’re expanding what we watch here.

Song Lang is a combination of an underworld and romantic story, set in 1980’s Saigon. It’s all about the friendship between the brutal debt collector Dung (Lien Binh Phat) and opera singer Linh Phung (V-pop star from 365daband, Isaac), whose struggling company performs Cai-Luong, a modern form of traditional Vietnamese folk opera.

Dung comes to collect the debts of the opera company, yet both men soon find that there may be more than just a friendship growing between them. This is an unexpected film that is written and directed by Leon Le. It premiered on the 100th year anniversary of Cai Luong performance arts, which is a form I had never heard of nor seen before this movie.

A tragic romance about two men set against the backdrop of Asian opera? And they say all we care about is Lucio Fulci movies.

Song Land is ready for a virtual theatrical release October 9 and will also show at Laemmle theaters ahead of an on demand and DVD release November 11.

In a total surprise, the tenth anniversary of Hatchet ended up being the fourth film, bringing Victor Crowley (Kane Hodder) back to Honey Island Swamp to take on a movie that is coming to be filmed in his home.

It all starts with Crowley massacre survivor Andrew Yong (Parry Shen) promoting his book on his ex-wife Sabrina’s TV show. During a book signing, a film crew tries to get him to hear their idea for a film based on the night he almost died before his agent Kathleen (Felissa Rose) takes him away. Yet before you can say sequel, a plane with everyone on it has crashed into the swamp, the agent’s phone plays Rev. Zombie’s (Tony Todd) voodoo curse and everyone ends up dying.

Everyone in this movie — even Tiffany Shepis and Brian Quinn from Practical Jokers — is cannon fodder for the nearly unstoppable Crowley. In fact, despite the grisly demise he endures by the end of the film, the credits tease that he’s coming back while answering the question of what happened to Marybeth Dunston (Danielle Harris).

Here’s a drink I mixed up that will make this movie ever better!

Honey Island Swamp Juice

• 1 oz. vodka
• 1 oz. blue curacao
• 1 oz. triple sec
• 1 oz. orange juice
• 1 oz. pineapple juice

1. Add all ingredients to a shaker with ice.
2. Shake it up like you’re ripping a human being apart and then drink up.

Director Adam Green decided to return to this series because two of his heroes passed on. Wes Craven’s death had him thinking about coming back to another chapter in the Hatchet series, but it was George Romero who told him to make it for his fans. Green has said that Victor Crowley would not exist if not for Romero’s pep talk assuring him that what he did as a filmmaker mattered and that his work was important to the genre.

Even cooler, the band Igniter contributed the song “Hatchet (The Ballad of Victor Crowley).” Green’s favorite Craven movie is Shocker and he loves the song from the movie, “Demon Bell (The Ballad of Horace Pinker)” by Dangerous Toys. Jason McMaster, the singer for both Dangerous Toys and Ignitor, wrote this new song as a gift for Green. After Cravens’s death, Green had gone to a Dangerous Toys reunion show to escape his grief and met McMaster. They discussed what a big deal his band, the movie and the director all were to Green, so McMaster put together a new Shocker-style theme song. How cool is that?

You can watch this on Amazon Prime, Shudder with or without Joe Bob Briggs commentary and on Tubi.