Happy August, everyone! The arrival of a new month means that we have a brand new crop of Digital and VOD releases to look forward to (plus, we’re now even closer to Halloween!), and there are a handful of movies that should keep you busy throughout the entire month.
Things kick off this week with Alien: Covenant arriving on August 1st, alongside Bender, WTF!, and Alien: Reign of Man. On August 4th, Trent Haaga’s southern fried crime caper 68 Kill makes its digital debut, and just a few days later, both Cut Shoot Kill and Three Tears on the Bloodstained Flesh arrive on VOD.
August 18th looks to be a busy day with three different titles coming home—Dave Made a Maze, The Ice Cream Truck and The Monster Project—and the month’s VOD and digital releases are rounded out with Bushwick on August 25th, Stasis on August 28th, and The Evil in Us on August 29th.
Alien: Covenant (20th Century Fox Home Entertainment) – August 1st
The crew of the colony ship Covenant, bound for a remote planet on the far side of the galaxy, discovers what they think is an unchartered paradise, but is actually a dark, dangerous world. When they uncover a terrifying threat beyond their imagination, they must attempt a harrowing escape.
Alien: Reign of Man (Uncork’d Entertainment) – August 1st
Stranded on a distant planet, a team must fight aliens and activate a machine meant to restore Earth to a time before its downfall. Deanna Grace Congo, Torrei Hart, Khu, and Cameron White star.
Bender (Candy Factory Films) – August 1st
It's 1870s Kansas, and people have started to mysteriously vanish on the plains. When the troubled Doctor York goes searching for answers, he stumbles upon the Benders, a homesteading family with an unnatural way of living off the land. And when the good doctor also disappears, the locals sense that the Benders may be farming more than wheat. With the sheriff circling and insanity afoot, America's first serial killing family must decide what to do with their latest harvest in a 19th century thriller that'll make your blood run cold.
WTF! (Midnight Releasing) – August 1st
Three years ago, twenty-two year old girl-next-door Rachel barely survived a brutal massacre that left her friends in pieces. Time has passed, Rachel has moved on, but unfortunately history has a way of repeating itself. Her close friends are spending spring break in a secluded house in the woods, and they have cordially invited her to join. Little does she realize that another bloodbath will be showing up as plus one. Once Rachel and her friends arrive at the cabin, the partying, sex, and terror begins.
68 Kill (IFC Midnight) – August 4th
Trailer-dwelling, sewage-pumping Chip (Matthew Gray Gubler) may not lead the most glamorous life, but he’s got one thing going for him: he’s head over heels infatuated with his girlfriend Liza (AnnaLynne McCord). He’s more than willing to overlook her wild streak—the fact that she’s hooking up with their landlord; her rather extreme mood swings —so when she proposes a plot to steal $68,000, he goes along with the plan. But when what was supposed to be a simple heist turns into an off-the-rails, blood-spattered crime spree, Chip learns the hard way just how deranged the love of his life really is. The new film from Troma alum Trent Haaga blends wicked comedy with pure pulp thrills for a no-holds-barred blast of insanity.
Cut Shoot Kill (Freestyle Digital Media) – August 8th
Serena Brooks, an ambitious young actress, signs on as the star of a horror film with a crew of backwoods filmmakers that have worked together for years. When the cast starts disappearing, Serena has to become her character if she wants to survive!
Three Tears on the Bloodstained Flesh (Unearthed Films) – August 8th
A man with a dark past returns to bury his niece Lexie. Dragging his troubled daughter Kendall, he simultaneously reunites with his estranged sister, Stella and reignites a past rivalry with the corrupt town sheriff. Dominic begins digging around the town, and uncovers the town's dark secrets, which include a mysterious cult, a supernatural curse, a masked killer, and a very high body count.
The Transfiguration (Strand Releasing) – August 8th
An official selection at the Cannes Film Festival, writer/director Michael O'Shea's debut feature The Transfiguration follows troubled teen Milo who hides behind his fascination with vampire lore. When he meets the equally alienated Sophie, the two form a bond that begins to challenge Milo's dark obsession, blurring his fantasy into reality. A chilling portrait of violence, The Transfiguration is an atmospheric thriller set against the grit of New York City.
Fate (Self Destruct Films) – August 15th
A brilliant quantum physicist is on the verge of discovering the secret of the space time continuum when the government shuts him down. His quest to see his research to the end becomes paramount when his fiancé is killed. His only hope to avert his lonely fate is to travel back in time and save her life.
Dave Made a Maze (Gravitas Ventures) – August 18th
DAVE MADE A MAZE tells the story of an unaccomplished and frustrated artist (Nick Thune) who builds a cardboard box fort in his living room and winds up trapped with a gang of oddball explorers in a fantasy world of his own creation, threatened by booby traps and a bloodthirsty Minotaur.
The Ice Cream Truck (Uncork’d Entertainment) – August 18th
Mary's husband gets relocated for work which allows her to move back to her suburban hometown. As her family ties up loose ends back home, Mary moves into their new house all alone and....waits. Yet in this idealistic world, something seems very odd. The Ice Cream Man, a symbol of youth and good times, starts killing some of her neighbors. Mary soon learns that the suburbs are scarier in more ways that she ever remembered.
The Monster Project (Epic Pictures) – August 18th
In a chilling and inventive take on the classic monster movie genre, THE MONSTER PROJECT follows a group of aspiring horror filmmakers, eager to raise their YouTube subscriber count, who post an online casting call for “real life” monsters to interview for their documentary. They find three participants and choose to film them sharing their haunted experiences in a mansion in the woods on the night of a lunar eclipse. The production suddenly turns into a nightmare when the participants transform into a real vampire, demon, and skinwalker (a type of harmful witch, according to Navajo legends, that can transform into any animal with the intent of harming people), forcing the unsuspecting crew to fight for their lives.
The Domicile (MTI Home Video) – August 22nd
Russel Brody, a one-time successful playwright, works diligently on a follow-up play that could land him back in the spotlight he so early craves. With a baby on the way, however, and a strained marriage, stress and frustration take center stage. When his wife accidentally stumbles down the stairs and dies from her injuries, Brody's mental state goes from bad to one of utter despair. In a bid to help his friend regain his sanity, Brody's co-writer David Stanley suggests he revisits Lucy, his former mistress. The ghost of Brody's dead wife awakens to the sordid details of his unfaithfulness, enraging her supernatural spirit to haunt him in every horrifying way imaginable. At first, Brody thinks he's hallucinating and hearing things in his head, the result of his state of mind and alcohol. But as things intensify, his grip on sanity quickly slips away, and he starts to go mad. Appearing in every shadow, and provoking him relentlessly, the ghost cranks up her onslaught, making his life a living hell. Brody reaches his breaking point when the ghost possesses his former mistress, and he's forced to confront the scorned entity -- resulting in a climax of both psychological and physical terror.
Kill Switch (Lionsgate) – August 22nd
In the future world, a physicist’s experiment to harness unlimited energy goes wrong. Chased by drones and soldiers, Will Porter must race through an imploding world and retrieve the Redivider box to save his family — and all of humanity!
Bushwick (RLJ Entertainment) – August 25th
When Lucy (Brittany Snow) steps off the subway, she walks into an utter bloodbath on the streets of Brooklyn’s Bushwick neighborhood. Texas is attempting to secede from the Union, and militia forces have descended upon New York City to claim it as an East Coast base of operations and negotiation tool. Faced with a flurry of whizzing bullets and total destruction around every corner, Lucy takes shelter in the basement of Stupe (Dave Bautista), a burly war veteran who reluctantly helps her traverse the treacherous five-block stretch of Bushwhack to reach her destination—assuming it’s still there.
Ghost House (Vertical Entertainment) – August 25th
A young American couple, lost in the Thai countryside, find themselves haunted by an evil spirit. Desperate for a solution, the couple spirals deeper into a surreal supernatural world leading them into a frenzied, terrifying confrontation with pure evil.
Stasis (XLRator Media) – August 28th
After a night out partying and being left behind by friends, Ava sneaks back home to find that she’s already safe in bed. But that’s not Ava... it’s someone who looks like her. A time-traveling fugitive has stolen Ava’s body, which makes Ava a virtual ghost, who is silent and invisible to the world. But Ava is not alone. There are other body snatchers secretly living among us, plotting to alter the future. Ava realizes she can stop these body snatchers and put the timeline back on course.
The Evil In Us (RLJ Entertainment) – August 29th
Six school friends meet up for a fourth of July celebration on a remote island off the Washington coast for a weekend of fun and partying. But the good times quickly turn into a nightmare when they unknowingly take a new bio-active drug containing a virus that causes fits of psychotic rage. Only one girl, Brie, doesn’t take the drug and she alone must fight to stay alive as her friends slowly turn into bloodthirsty cannibals. Trapped on the island, Brie must endure the unimaginable and fight for her life.
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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