*Updated* The month of June has a spectacular variety of horror and sci-fi titles arriving on VOD that make for a ton of opportunities for fans to beat the summer heat from the comfort of your own living room, all while catching up on some great films. Rodney Ascher’s latest terrifying sleep paralysis documentary, The Nightmare, is getting a release courtesy of Gravitas Ventures, Dark Sky Films is unleashing Ted Geoghegan’s We Are Still Here in early June and the latest from iconic director Joe Dante—Burying the Ex—digs its way onto VOD via Image Entertainment.
Amigo Undead (Gravitas Ventures) - June 2nd
Amigo Undead is a horror/comedy that begins when Kevin Ostrowski, a straight laced financial adviser, is invited to his ne’er do well older brother Norm’s 40th birthday party. It takes some arm twisting, but the free-wheelin’ Norm eventually convinces his brother to come out and join him in the desert.
Much to Kevin’s dismay, the ‘party’ turns out to be a small gathering of a few of Norm’s eccentric friends at a campsite. When one of the friends, the titular Jovan, chokes on a hot dog, circumstances conspire to make the group decide that an impromptu burial is the right course of action. Unbeknownst to them, they bury Jovan in cursed Native American land, and he soon returns possessed by a demon hell bent on fulfilling an ancient vendetta.
Antics ensue as Norm, Kevin, and the others run through the desert, the monster in hot pursuit, encountering a few other strange back-woods types as they go. As things get increasingly bizarre and ridiculous with the monster seemingly impossible to stop, the brothers find themselves with their backs against the wall; can they find a way to finally look past their differences and reconcile in the face of their imminent demise?
The Encounter (Uncork’d Entertainment) - June 2nd
Things start out normal when Collin Bastrow is camping with his wife and friends but an inexplicable event occurs resulting in Collin being found naked and cold in the forest the next day with no sign of his wife and friends. Collin can’t recount these events initially but they come back to him over time in shocking fashion. Can he remember before the same happens to others?
The Nightmare (Gravitas Ventures) - June 5th
Imagine that when you slept, you sensed that something was watching you in the darkness. Worse still, when you suddenly woke up, you were paralyzed and helpless, as a shadowy presence came inexorably closer to you. Welcome to THE NIGHTMARE from Rodney Ascher, who last rocked audiences with his portrait of the Kubrick-obsessed, ROOM 237. In this new film, he uses atmospheric, cinematic recreations to get the audience into the heads of everyday people suffering from “sleep paralysis”, a condition in which they regain consciousness but are unable to move or cry out for help. Frequently they hear menacing noises and voices and even see intruders (human or otherwise) in the room with them. The prevalence of sleep paralysis in the general population is surprisingly high, approximately 6.2%, a statistic borne out by a dramatic show of hands (and one tearful testimonial) at the film’s park City premiere.
THE NIGHTMARE’S subjects hail from different backgrounds and walks of life, but share eerily similar visions of malevolent, near-human beings that grow increasingly aggressive the longer the sleep paralysis recurs. Are these just random hallucinations or something more? Rational explanations get challenged by the similarities of the “shadow people” multiple subjects describe looming over them. Ascher, who has first-hand knowledge of sleep paralysis, brings the full intensity of this experience to the screen while maintaining empathy and respect for his subjects. As the film unfolds, distinctions between the documentary and horror genres fade as do easy lines between reality and the imagination.
We Are Still Here (Dark Sky Films) - June 5th
After the death of their college age son, Anne and Paul Sacchetti (Barbara Crampton and Andrew Sensenig) relocate to the snowswept New England hamlet of Aylesbury, a sleepy village where all is most certainly not as it seems. When strange sounds and eerie feelings convince Anne that her son's spirit is still with them, they invite an eccentric, New Age couple (Larry Fessenden and Lisa Marie) to help them get to the bottom of the mystery.
They discover that not only are the house's first residents, the vengeful Dagmar family, still there - but so is an ancient power. A primal darkness slumbers under the old home, waking up every thirty years and demanding the fresh blood of a new family.
An altogether new take on the haunted house genre that deftly mixes human drama and comedy, WE ARE STILL HERE is a couple's terrifying journey through darkness and loss set against the freezing New England winter.
American Backwoods: Slew Hampshire (Midnight Releasing) - June 9th
In June of 1994, one of the most brutal mass slaughters in history occurred in the backwoods of northern New England. Four months later, history is about to repeat itself. The end of summer signals the brink of manhood for a group of lifelong friends who proudly call New Hampshire their home. But when they embark upon a local rite of passage - traveling north for one final weekend of debauchery together - it just might prove to be their final weekend PERIOD, as this rite is doomed to go frightfully wrong.
When they find themselves ensnared in a struggle for survival amongst a sinister hunting party, a bloodthirsty tribe AND a mythical beast, what began as a comedy of errors devolves into an all-out Darwinian duel to the death, and less than 24 hours will pass before a slew of lives have been claimed and the last of the living remains.
NEW! Redeemer (Dark Sky Films) - June 12th
In this pulse-pounding actioner, ex-hitman Pardo (martial arts master Marko Zaror) seeks redemption for his sins by meting out violent justice on those who would prey upon the innocent. Known on the streets as the Redeemer, Pardo is a vigilante desperate for redemption, offering criminals the chance to ask forgiveness for their crimes or pay the ultimate price. When his bloody path crosses that of would-be drug lord Bradock (Noah Segan, Looper, Deadgirl), he must fight an entire underworld organization while keeping one step ahead of a vengeful assassin seeking to undo his virtuous work.
Director Ernesto Diaz Espinoza (The ABCs of Death, Bring Me the Head of the Machine Gun Woman) and Zaror team up once again to provide a jaw-dropping spectacle with genre-savvy humor that offers an impossibly violent, often humorous and thrilling take on the traditional action film.
The Stranger (IFC Midnight) - June 12th
In this supernatural thriller, a mysterious man arrives in a small Canadian town seeking his wife, but his unwelcome presence and what he finds instead soon plunges the community into a bloodbath.
Burying the Ex (Image Entertainment) - June 19th
It seemed like a great idea when all-around nice guy Max (ANTON YELCHIN, Star Trek) and his beautiful girlfriend, Evelyn (ASHLEY GREENE, Twilight Saga) moved in together. But when Evelyn turns out to be a controlling, manipulative nightmare, Max knows it’s time to call it quits. There’s just one problem: he’s terrified of breaking up with her. Fate steps in when Evelyn is the victim of a fatal, freak accident, leaving Max single and ready to mingle. Just as Max is thinking about moving on with what could be his dream girl, Olivia (ALEXANDRA DADDARIO, True Detective) – Evelyn has returned from the grave and is determined to get her boyfriend back...even if that means transforming him into one of the undead.
Pernicious (Benetone Films) - June 19th
It was supposed to be an adventure of a lifetime as three young girls spend the summer in Thailand. But their adventure quickly becomes a nightmare when the trio unleashes the spirit of a murdered child with only one thing on her mind - revenge.
Ghoul (Vega Baby Releasing) - June 23rd
GHOUL is a supernatural horror film involving the real life story of the Soviet Union’s most violent serial killer, Andrei Chikatilo. Three Americans travel to the Ukraine to film a documentary about the cannibalism epidemic that swept through the country during the famine of 1932. After being lured deep into the Ukraine forest for an interview with one of the last known survivors, they quickly find themselves trapped in a supernatural hunting ground.
NEW! Elimination Game (Entertainment One) - June 26th
ELIMINATION GAME, starring Dominic Purcell (Killer Elite, Prison Break), Viva Bianca (X, Spartacus), and Robert Taylor (Longmire, Focus), is a high-octane action movie based on the cult classic exploitation film TURKEY SHOOT (aka ESCAPE 2000). Packed with mayhem, stunts, and special effects, the film is a warped reflection of the global fascination with increasingly brutal reality-television competition game shows.
Bound to Vengeance (IFC Midnight) - June 26th
BOUND TO VENGEANCE is a gritty revenge thriller about a young woman, EVE (Tina Ivlev), who fights back and manages to escape a malicious abductor. However, after discovering she may not be the only victim, Eve unravels a darker truth and decides to turn the tables on her captor.
NEW! Avalanche Sharks (MarVista Entertainment) - June 30th
Bikini Snow Day is the busiest day of the year at Mammoth Mountain, and the resort is packed with wild co-eds looking for a good time. When an unexpected avalanche rumbles down the mountain, it awakens ancient spirits in the form of massive sharks with a taste for human flesh. As the body count begins to pile up, the local sheriff must form an unlikely alliance with a motley crew of locals and tourists in order to kill off the terrifying creatures before it’s too late.
Directed by Scott Wheeler, known for his visual effects work on multiple creature/disaster mash-ups, including Sand Sharks and Mega Shark vs Giant Octopus, the outrageous thriller stars Alexander Mendeluk (Twilight), Kate Nauta (Paranormal Abduction), Benjamin Easterday (Poseidon Rex), Eric Scott Woods (Sand Sharks) and Kelle Cantwell (Dead Girl).
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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