This April’s VOD offerings are a strong and eclectic bunch, including one of my favorite films out of the 2015 SXSW Film Festival, The Invitation, which arrives on digital platforms April 8th.
For you Norman Reedus fans out there, IFC releases the road thriller Sky, in which he plays a supporting role, on April 15th. The latest horror anthology, Holidays, makes its VOD bow on the same day, courtesy of Vertical Entertainment and XYZ Films, and if you dig Edgar Allan Poe adaptations, then you have The Tell-Tale Heart to look forward to on April 5th.
Other notable VOD titles for April 2016 include The Girl in the Photographs, Pandemic, The Forest, and 13 Cameras.
The Girl in the Photographs (Vertical Entertainment) – April 1st
In Nick Simon’s THE GIRL IN THE PHOTOGRAPHS, Colleen’s life isn’t going anywhere. The small town check out girl with natural beauty is bored with her dead end job and annoyed by her apathetic boyfriend. This isn’t the life she wanted. In the midst of her turmoil, a pair of deranged serial killers begin leaving her photos of their mutilated victims.
Her chance to escape comes in the form of Peter Hemmings, a hipster celebrity photographer who has traveled back to his hometown of Spearfish, South Dakota, with a pack of models, intent on copying the killers’ intense and unapologetic artistry. When he learns Colleen is the killers’ muse, Peter resolves to make her his own and use her as the centerpiece of a photo campaign in Los Angeles.
But before Colleen can leave her old life behind, she must contend with the desires of her murderous stalkers who have chosen her last night in town to execute their most provocative work to date.
Pandemic (XLrator Media) – April 5th
Pandemic is set in the near future, where a virus of epic proportions has overtaken the planet. There are more infected than uninfected, and humanity is losing its grip on survival. Its only hope is finding a cure and keeping the infected contained. Lauren (Rachel Nichols) is a doctor, who, after the fall of New York, comes to Los Angeles to lead a team to hunt for and rescue uninfected survivors.
The Tell-Tale Heart (Alchemy) – April 5th
A haunting account of a tormented man, haunted by the heart of a man he murdered, who continually re-admits himself into a medical facility, in a futile attempt to escape from his pending madness. Set in contemporary New Orleans, The Tell-Tale Heart is based on Edgar Allan Poe’s classic short story of the same name.
Directed by John La Tier, The Tell-Tale Heart stars Rose McGowan (Charmed, Scream, Grindhouse, Jawbreaker), Patrick John Flueger (The 4400, The Princess Diaries, NBC’s Chicago P.D.), Academy Award® nominee Peter Bogdanovich (The Last Picture Show, HBO’s The Sopranos), Jacob Vargas (Next Friday, Selena, Traffic, Jarhead), and Damon Whitaker.
Decay (Uncork’d Entertainment) – April 8th
Featuring a “mesmerizing” performance by Rob Zabrecky, writer-director Joseph Wartnerchaney’s vividly nightmarish pic focuses on a middle-aged grounds keeper at a local theme park that suffers from a debilitating case of OCD. One day, his daily routine is disrupted by a surprise visitor in his basement: a beautiful young woman who, through a jarring turn of events, ends up dead. Jonathan panics and chooses not to report the dead girl. Instead, he invites her to dinner. Jonathan is happy to have a friend, until the police start closing in, and his mind and the body of the girl begins to decay.
Winner of the True Grit Award at the Denver Film Festival 2015, Decay also stars Lisa Howard (The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 2), Jackie Hoffman (Garden State), and Elisha Yaffe (TV’s Better Call Saul).
The Invitation (Drafthouse Films) – April 8th
In this taut psychological thriller by Karyn Kusama (Girlfight, Jennifer’s Body), the tension is palpable when Will (Logan Marshall-Green, Prometheus) shows up to his ex-wife Eden (Tammy Blanchard, Into the Woods) and new husband, David’s (Michiel Huisman, “Game of Thrones”) dinner party. The pair’s tragic past haunts an equally spooky present: Amid Eden’s suspicious behavior and her mysterious house guests, Will becomes convinced that his invitation was extended with a hidden agenda. Unfolding over one dark evening in the Hollywood Hills, The Invitation blurs layers of mounting paranoia, mystery, and horror until both Will-and the audience-are unsure what threats are real or imagined.
The Forest (Universal Pictures Home Entertainment) – April 12th
A young woman’s hunt for her missing sister leads to horror and madness in The Forest, starring Natalie Dormer (Game of Thrones and The Hunger Games) and Taylor Kinney (Chicago Fire, Zero Dark Thirty). When her troubled twin sister Jess mysteriously disappears, Sara Price (Dormer) discovers Jess vanished in Japan’s legendary Aokigahara Forest. Searching its eerie dark woods with the help of journalist Aiden (Kinney), Sara plunges into a tormented world where angry spirits lie in wait for those who ignore the warning: stay on the path.
13 Cameras (Gravitas Ventures) – April 15th
Newlyweds, Ryan and Claire move into a new home across the country, having no idea their grim and lascivious landlord, Gerald, has installed secret cameras in their rental home. As Ryan and Claire's relationship strains from the stress of their pregnancy, Gerald becomes increasingly consumed with their lives, and begins to physically invade their privacy. Ryan and Claire soon find out that their marital issues are nothing in comparison to the monster that watches their every move.
Holidays (Vertical Entertainment / XYZ Films) – April 15th
HOLIDAYS is an anthology feature film that puts a uniquely dark and original spin on some of the most iconic and beloved holidays of all time. The film challenges our folklore, traditions and assumptions, making HOLIDAYS a celebration of the horror on those same special days’ year after year. A collaboration of some of Hollywood’s most distinct voices, the directors include Kevin Smith (Tusk), Gary Shore (Dracula Untold), Scott Stewart (Dark Skies), Kevin Kolsch and Dennis Widmyer (Starry Eyes), Sarah Adina Smith (The Midnight Swim), Nicholas McCarthy (The Pact) Adam Egypt Mortimer (Some Kind of Hate) and Anthony Scott Burns (Darknet).
Sky (IFC Films) – April 15th
Romy (Diane Kruger) and Richard (Gilles Lellouche) are a French couple on vacation in America. They play at being free and wild in the California desert, but can't escape the shadow hanging over their relationship. A drunken night in a bar leads to a violent confrontation. Romy sees a chance to remake her life.
While working within the tradition of the road movie, director Fabienne Berthaud brings a uniquely compelling touch to the genre. Toying with conventions — especially those that have to do with a woman traveling alone — Berthaud evokes a deep sense of dislocation. Romy continually shifts from one locale to the next as Berthaud's restless camera follows. And she meets plenty of people along the way: a sympathetic police officer (Joshua Jackson) in a small-town police station, a cowboy (Norman Reedus) on the Vegas strip, and, in a dust-encrusted trailer park, a perennially pregnant young woman (Lena Dunham) who refuses to be worn down by her bleak surroundings.
Paradox (XLrator Media) – April 19th
A group of young scientists are working on a secret project that may allow them to travel ahead in time. They test it by sending one of their own ahead one hour. He returns pleading with them to shut it down, explaining that within that hour, they will all die.
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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