Well, we’ve made it to another month, which means we have a bunch of new VOD releases to look forward to throughout February. If you are looking to escape the winter doldrums while keeping safe and snug on your couches, you have plenty of horror and sci-fi titles arriving digitally in the coming weeks to keep you busy and out of the brutal winter chill.
February’s VOD offerings kick off with Katee Sackhoff in Don’t Knock Twice from IFC Midnight, and for those of you with DISH services, the psychological thriller Lavender makes its bow on that platform beginning February 3rd. The Oscar-nominated Nocturnal Animals arrives on Digital HD on February 7th, the very same day that Stake Land II gets released courtesy of Dark Sky Films.
If you missed Arrival in theaters, Paramount Pictures will release the film On Demand beginning February 14th (following its January 31st Digital HD release). And after recently enjoying its world premiere at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival, the horror anthology XX makes it way to VOD on February 17th.
Other notable VOD releases for February include Osgood Perkins’ The Blackcoat’s Daughter (exclusively on DirecTV), Shut In, Call of the Wolf, Havenhurst, Drifter, and The Crooked Man.
Arbor Demon (Gravitas Ventures) – February 3rd
Arbor Demon follows a young couple enjoying a quite weekend of camping in the wilderness. They both have agendas for this trip, secrets they need to get off their chest, but gunshots in the middle of the night ruin their time of calm and preparation. Something is in the woods. Something is just outside their tent. And it’s bloodthirsty and vengeful.
Fiona Dourif (Curse of Chucky, Cult of Chucky), Kevin Ryan (“Copper,” “Guilt”) and Jake Busey (“From Dusk Till Dawn: The Series”) star in this emotional, psychological horror film.
Don’t Knock Twice (IFC Midnight) – February 3rd
Knock once to wake her from her bed, twice to raise her from the dead…” So goes a disturbing urban legend involving an abandoned house supposedly inhabited by a vengeful, child-stealing witch. When troubled teen Chloe (Lucy Boynton) raps at the door one night, she has no idea the horror she’s about to unleash. Fleeing to the country home of her estranged mother (Katee Sackhoff)—a recovering addict who’s turned her life around to become a famous artist—Chloe must learn to trust the woman who gave her up years ago in order to stop the bloodthirsty, shape-shifting demon stalking them. This wild supernatural shocker delivers a barrage of nonstop jolts and searing nightmare images.
Lavender (Samuel Goldwyn Films/AMBI Group) – February 3rd (Exclusively on DISH)
In “Lavender,” when a photographer (Abbie Cornish) suffers severe memory loss after a traumatic accident, strange clues amongst her photos suggest she may be responsible for the deaths of family members she never knew she had. Justin Long plays a psychiatrist who helps her recover lost memories.
Call of the Wolf (Gravitas Ventures) – February 7th
Call of the Wolf is the story of two kidnapped and trapped strangers who must survive the brutal onslaught of winter and are forced to play a deadly game of survival to outsmart their kidnapper — a sniper calling himself “Wolf.”
Deadly Virtues: Love.Honor.Obey. (Artsploitation Films) – February 7th
Deadly Virtues: Love.Honor.Obey. is the first feature film from Raindance Raw Talent and was directed by Ate de Jong (Drop Dead Fred, Highway to Hell). The unflinching tale is a riveting home invasion thriller like no other. A menacing young man (Edward Akrout) breaks into a suburban home and encounters a married couple (Matt Barber, Megan Maczko) having sex. He quickly bounds them and gleefully tortures the man while forcing the woman to watch. Bordering on uncomfortable sadomasochism, the story soon veers in a different, quite startling, direction one that forces the viewer to reevaluate their allegiances.
Nocturnal Animals (Universal Pictures Home Entertainment) – February 7th
In the haunting romantic thriller of shocking intimacy and gripping tension from acclaimed writer/director Tom Ford (A Single Man), Susan (Amy Adams) is in an unfulfilling second marriage when she receives a package containing a manuscript from her ex-husband, Edward (Jake Gyllenhaal). Moved by Edward’s writing, Susan cannot help but reminisce over the most private moments from her own love story with the author. Trying to look within herself and beyond the glossy surface of the life and career that she has made, Susan increasingly interprets the book as a tale of revenge, a tale that forces her to re-evaluate the choices that she has made, and re-awakens a love that she feared was lost – as the story builds to a reckoning that will define both the novel’s hero and her own. Nominated for 9 BAFTA® Award (Britain’s Oscars equivalent) including Best Director and Best Actor, Nocturnal Animals is the winner of the Grand Jury Prize at the 2016 Venice International Film Festival, and of the 2017 Golden Globe® Award for Best Supporting Actor (Aaron Taylor-Johnson).
Nocturnal Animals also stars Academy Award® nominee Michael Shannon (Revolutionary Road), Isla Fisher (Now You See Me), Karl Glusman (The Neon Demon), Armie Hammer (The Social Network), Academy Award® nominee Laura Linney (The Savages), Andrea Riseborough (Birdman), and Michael Sheen (Masters of Sex).
Stake Land II (Dark Sky Films) – February 7th
STAKE LAND II, a Dark Sky Films presentation of a Glass Eye Pix production in association with Berserker Entertainment and Last Pictures, is a new adventure set several years after the events in Stake Land, in which mankind must struggle to survive in the wake of a vampire apocalypse. When his home in New Eden is destroyed by a revitalized Brotherhood and its new Vamp leader, Martin finds himself alone in the badlands of America with only the distant memory of his mentor, the legendary vampire hunter Mister, to guide him. Roaming the wilderness of a steadily decaying country, Martin searches for the one man who can help him exact revenge.
Once reunited, Mister and Martin prepare to confront the ravenous Brotherhood and its monstrous overlord. But it'll take more than the two of them to battle this terrifying new threat, and with the future of humanity hanging in the balance, the stakes are higher than ever before.
Reuniting one of horror cinema's most memorable heroic teams, STAKE LAND II is an epic exploration of a post-apocalyptic world ravaged by blood-thirsty vamps and social collapse, where only the strongest survive.
Bornless Ones (Uncork’d Entertainment) – February 10th
Having just moved to a remote home near an institution to better care for her brother Zach, Emily invites a few friends over to help her unpack. They soon discover strange symbols etched into the boards on the windows. In an effort to clean the house they clear them away, soon realizing the gravity of their mistake as they one by one become possessed by an evil force.
Havenhurst (Brainstorm Media/Twisted Pictures) – February 10th
Welcome to Havenhurst, a gothic apartment complex in the heart of New York City. A beautifully maintained, turn-of-the-century building that houses over 3,000 residents and countless dark secrets. The rent is what you can afford and the rules are simple: live a decent life and you can stay forever. Break the rules and there are consequences.
Arrival (Paramount Pictures) – February 14th
Five-time Academy Award® nominee* Amy Adams “delivers one of her best performances” (Brian Truitt, USA Today) as expert translator Louise Banks. When mysterious spacecraft touch down across the globe, an elite team races against time to decipher their intent. As tensions mount between fearful governments, Banks discovers the aliens’ true purpose and, to avert global war, takes a chance that could threaten her life, and quite possibly humanity. Oscar® nominee** Jeremy Renner and Academy Award® winner*** Forest Whitaker co-star in this epic film with “a mind-blowing ending” (Brian Truitt, USA Today) that “you will want to see again and again”(Brian Formo, Collider).
The Crooked Man (Lionsgate) – February 14th
Olivia returns home after six years, and a string of unusual deaths leads her to believe that she’s being haunted by a mysterious force from her childhood.
The Blackcoat’s Daughter (A24) – February 16th (Exclusively on DirecTV)
A deeply atmospheric and terrifying new horror film, The Blackcoat’s Daughter centers on Kat (Kiernan Shipka) and Rose (Lucy Boynton), two girls who are left alone at their prep school Bramford over winter break when their parents mysteriously fail to pick them up. While the girls experience increasingly strange and creepy occurrences at the isolated school, we cross cut to another story—that of Joan (Emma Roberts), a troubled young woman on the road, who, for unknown reasons, is determined to get to Bramford as fast as she can. As Joan gets closer to the school, Kat becomes plagued by progressively intense and horrifying visions, with Rose doing her best to help her new friend as she slips further and further into the grasp of an unseen evil force. The movie suspensefully builds to the moment when the two stories will finally intersect, setting the stage for a shocking and unforgettable climax.
Ghost of New Orleans (SP Releasing) – February 17th
A disgraced detective (Josh Lucas) has a supernatural encounter which leads him to investigate the murder of a beautiful cellist (Lake Bell) that unlocks the truth behind her mysterious death.
XX (Magnet Releasing) – February 17th
XX is a new all-female helmed horror anthology featuring four dark tales written and directed by fiercely talented women: Annie Clark (St. Vincent) rocks her directorial debut with THE BIRTHDAY PARTY; Karyn Kusama (THE INVITATION, GIRLFIGHT) exorcises HER ONLY LIVING SON; Roxanne Benjamin (SOUTHBOUND) screams DON'T FALL; and Jovanka Vuckovic (THE CAPTURED BIRD) dares to open THE BOX. Award-winning animator Sofia Carrillo (LA CASA TRISTE) wraps together four suspenseful stories of terror featuring a cast including Natalie Brown, Melanie Lynskey, Breeda Wool and Christina Kirk.
Shut In (20th Century Fox) – February 21st
Recently widowed child psychologist Mary Portman (Naomi Watts) lives an isolated existence caring for her bedridden stepson (Charlie Heaton) in rural New England. But when a young boy (Jacob Tremblay) Mary is treating goes missing in a snowstorm and is presumed dead, she becomes convinced that his ghost is haunting her…and soon Mary’s grip on reality turns as slippery as her icy surroundings.
VooDoo (Freestyle Digital Media) – February 24th
In the terrifying film VooDoo, Dani Lamb, a seemingly innocent girl from New Orleans, heads to Los Angeles to reunite with her cousin Stacy after discovering her boyfriend is married to a voodoo priestess named Serafine. Dani has a short-lived vacation when after just two days she receives a phone call telling her Serafine has followed her to LA and is intent on killing her. That evening, Dani experiences an extreme haunting and is cursed to Hell by the evil Serafine. Dragged through a rocky tunnel and dropped inside a large cave by Satan’s minions, Dani arrives in Hell and there’s no turning back. On her journey through the Underworld, Dani is emotionally and physically beaten as she discovers the horrors of her past. By the time she encounters Satan, she has long given up her very soul.
Drifter (XLRator Media) – February 28th
A pair of outlaw brothers are held captive in a desolate town run by a small family of psychotic cannibalistic lunatics and their sadistic Mayor.
Heather A. Wixson was born and raised in the Chicago suburbs, until she followed her dreams and moved to Los Angeles in 2009. A 14-year veteran in the world of horror entertainment journalism, Wixson fell in love with genre films at a very early age, and has spent more than a decade as a writer and supporter of preserving the history of horror and science fiction cinema. Throughout her career, Wixson has contributed to several notable websites, including Fangoria, Dread Central, Terror Tube, and FEARnet, and she currently serves as the Managing Editor for Daily Dead, which has been her home since 2013. She's also written for both Fangoria Magazine & ReMind Magazine, and her latest book project, Monsters, Makeup & Effects: Volume One will be released on October 20, 2021.
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