April is shaping up to be a great month for horror and sci-fi VOD releases, as we have over a dozen great titles making their way home this month. Things kick off with Universal’s release of M. Night Shyamalan’s Split and the Sasquatch-themed The Bigfoot Project on April 4th. Then, on April 7th, we have a pair of stellar indie horrors coming our way—The Void and Bethany—with The Bye Bye Man making its VOD bow just a few days later.
April’s digital genre offerings continue throughout the month, with the releases of The Dark Tapes on April 18th, Detour on April 25th, and both Rupture and A Dark Song rounding out the month’s VOD titles with their April 28th releases. Read on for our full breakdown of all the genre VOD releases for April 2017.
The Bigfoot Project (Gravitas Ventures) – April 4th
A bush-league group of amateur filmmakers spend two weeks in the backwoods of Georgia searching for the mysterious Bigfoot.
Split (Universal Studios Home Entertainment) – April 4th
Heralded as “one of his best films – period” (Alex Welch, IGN), M. Night Shyamalan returns to the screen with SPLIT. Kevin Crumb’s (James McAvoy) fractured mind has revealed 23 personalities, but one remains dangerously submerged, set to materialize and dominate the others. McAvoy delivers “the role of his career” (Peter Debruge, Variety) as Kevin reaches a war for dominance among all those that rage within him, threatening his stability and impacting the survival of everyone around him.
Teenage Ghost Punk – April 4th
Life changes for a high school cheerleader named Amanda when she and her family move from a small town in Michigan to a Victorian house near Chicago. While her newly-divorced mom struggles with a new job and her eccentric little brother seems to fit in effortlessly, Amanda tries to find her way in her daunting new high school.
Meanwhile, weird things happen in the family’s new house. Knocking sounds. Strange guitar riffs during rainstorms. Unexplained household messes.
A quirky medium and a bumbling young paranormal investigation team search for answers but add little clarity before an unseen force meting out rough power chords scares them away.
Amanda soon discovers that her house is haunted … by Brian, the ghost of a teenage punk rock guitarist who has been jamming on the roof during rainstorms since the 1980s. He enjoys spirited poker nights with a neighborhood quintet of teen ghosts from different eras – the 1960s, 1950s, 1910s, 1870s, and 1700s. Amanda and Brian forge an unlikely friendship, but tension arises when Amanda asks him to her school’s Homecoming dance.
Bethany (Uncork’d Entertainment) – April 7th
After Claire's mother dies, she and her husband move back to her childhood home only to have the abusive and traumatic memories of her mother come back and bring unrest into the house. Claire soon finds herself in a fog of past and present when her imaginary friend from childhood begins haunting her memories. What is this terrifying thing that is trying to reach out to her, and what does it want?
The Void (Screen Media Films) – April 7th
When police officer Carter (Aaron Poole) discovers a blood-soaked man limping down a deserted road, he rushes him to a local hospital with a barebones, night shift staff. As cloaked, cult-like figures surround the building, the patients and staff inside start to turn ravenously insane. Trying to protect the survivors, Carter leads them into the depths of the hospital where they discover a gateway to immense evil.
The Bye Bye Man (Universal Studios Home Entertainment) – April 11th
When three college friends stumble upon the horrific origins of the Bye Bye Man, they discover that there is only one way to avoid his curse: don’t think it, don’t say it. But once the Bye Bye Man gets inside your head, he takes control, making you see and do the most unspeakable acts committed by man. Is there a way to survive his possession?
Chupacabra Territory (Maltauro Entertainment) – April 11th (Flixfling Exclusive until 5/11)
Four friends hike into the Pinewood Forest to find evidence of the Chupacabra, an ancient creature believed to be responsible for the disappearance of four experienced hikers a year earlier. As they journey deeper into the forest, their innocent search uncovers more than they had ever hoped for, and with it a darkness that threatens to consume their very existence. One by one they are hunted down, their survival tested, their lives hanging in the balance of fear, friendship, disbelief and horror.
Robot Wars (Breaking Glass Pictures) – April 11th
In the near future, powerful corporations at war with each other over advanced technology development rule over an industrial wasteland. Corporate espionage has reached new heights of infiltration and bloodshed.
A convict is offered a second chance at freedom, but there is a catch: he must help a team of corporate thieves steal secretive prototype technology from a rival company. With a surgically-implanted camera and data links, he joins the team of thieves to complete the heist.
However, the mission is quickly compromised. With no contact to their company, the team is forced to take their stolen prize out into the lawless industrial sprawl. Savage gangs and corporate death squads are hot on their trail, and even worse, the team must come to grips with the true nature of their mission….and the terrifying power of their stolen technology.
The Dark Tapes (Epic Pictures) – April 18th
The Dark Tapes is a horrifying blend of terror and mayhem, which takes the viewer on a twisted journey into the world of paranormal activity, demonic possession, and the supernatural. The cast includes a who’s-who of genre talent: Cortney Palm (Sushi Girl, Zombeavers, Death House), Brittany Underwood (Nickelodeon’s Hollywood Heights), and Emilia Ares Zorayn (Amazon’s Bosch, V/H/S: Viral).
3 Hours Till Dead (Gravitas Ventures) – April 21st
An AWOL soldier with PTSD goes into hiding. Along with his brother and a few friends they retreat into a rural farm area unaware that the outside world has stopped functioning. On their way back to civilization, his brother is attacked and bitten by an infected farmer. The brother quickly turns into a rabid animal and lives for exactly three hours. Realizing that they are in grave danger, they head back to the forest trying to outlive the legions of the infected.
Detour (Magnolia Home Entertainment) – April 25th
Harper (Tye Sheridan), a seemingly naive law student, obsesses over the idea that his shifty stepfather was involved in the devastating car crash that left his mother hospitalized and comatose. He drowns his suspicions in whiskey until he finds himself suddenly engrossed in conversation with volatile grifter Johnny (Emory Cohen) and his stripper companion, Cherry (Bel Powley). As daylight breaks and the haziness of promises made becomes clearer, how will Harper handle the repercussions (not to mention the violent duo—on his doorstep)? Employing a split-narrative structure to tell this tale of deception and murder, Christopher Smith takes his audience on a thrill ride full of hairpin turns, where it’s never quite clear what or who can be trusted.
A Dark Song (IFC Midnight) – April 28th
An unholy alliance between two damaged souls leads them on a disturbing descent into the depraved realms of black magic. Sophia (Catherine Walker) is a grieving and desperate woman with a secret. Joseph (SIGHTSEERS’ Steve Oram) is an anti-social, alcoholic expert in the occult who reluctantly agrees to help her. Holed up in a remote cabin amidst the desolate wilds of Northern Wales, the two embark on a grueling six-month series of dark rituals that will push them both to the physical and psychological breaking point. The debut feature from rising horror auteur Liam Gavin sustains an air of quietly creeping dread as it builds towards one hell of a payoff.
Displacement (Uncork’d Entertainment) – April 28th
Have you ever wanted a second chance? To give someone a gift you weren’t able to give? Tell them you loved them one last time? These are the questions at the heart of DISPLACEMENT, a character-driven time travel story that explores themes of love and loss, the power of forgiveness, and the consequences of turning back the clock.
All of this is within the context of a mind-bending mystery thriller that follows brilliant young physics student Cassie Sinclair (Courtney Hope) as she attempts to solve the murder of her boyfriend, Brian (Christopher Backus), while battling memory loss, mysterious pursuers, and severe physical distress caused by a quantum entanglement event.
Grieving over the death of her mother (Susan Blakely) to cancer, Cassie must find a way to reverse the anomaly and solve the mystery of Brian’s death, all while avoiding a shadowy group that is dogging her every move, sending Cassie on a journey that will shake her very core, setting off a chain of events that brings her to the brink of complete emotional and physical collapse.
In order to untangle the anomaly, Cassie seeks counsel from her old physics professor (Bruce Davison), encounters her estranged physicist father (Lou Richards), and finds herself being repeatedly interrogated by the mysterious Dr. Miles (Sarah Douglas), all of which reveal clues that lead her further down a path toward discovery and potential redemption. But at how steep a price?
Rupture (AMBI Media Group) – April 28th
RUPTURE follows Renee Morgan (Noomi Rapace), a single mom, who is deathly terrified of spiders. While in route to meet up with a friend, she is violently abducted by a group of strangers. After enduring intense yet strange questioning and examinations, some about her fear of spiders, Renee soon discovers that she is now the subject of an underground experiment. Her captors explain to her that she has a genetic abnormality that can potentially allow her to “rupture” and reveal her alien nature. Renee must find a way to escape before it is too late.
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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