So, the Mimesis red-band trailer has just been released, and if we were ready to kill before, we’re ready to go on a killing spree now. Basically, the trailer opens up with Sid Haig lecturing about what today’s horror fans (aka, sickos) want. Then it skips to a Night of the Demons-type of invite-only party mechanism to get everyone in the same place at once. After that, the premise and the blood, blood, and more blood.

Looks fucking awesome!

Mimesis is coming to Blu-ray on February 12, 2013.

Rock Hard \m/

Yell! Magazine’s Halloween week is kicking off pretty good so far with articles we hope you are enjoying. TheMatt started it up with his list of scary video games to play, Evil Argento brought us tips in the makeup department, and Jamie Lee introduced you to some horror classics that you must see before you die. Things are moving just fine here. Do you really see any employee problems at the moment?

TheMatt and NoFaceNorm can burn in hell this Halloween… MUAHAHAHAHA!

Except for those two guys mentioned above, who will be dealt with unimaginable pain in just a few more days, our previous means of measure wasn’t working efficiently enough, and it’s time to bring out the pendulum, guys!

Now onto our list of the Top 10 Most Memorable Women in Horror. Can we really move on this Halloween without honoring some of the top actresses who have either scared the living crap out of us or have simply showed us something to desire in horror films? Hell no!

So, to start off the list at the Number 10 spot is Cécile De France, who bumped off our original choice, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, for not living up to a similar role set out by Kurt Russell in The Thing prequel. Tons of other female actress could have made the list, so feel free to leave your top choice in the comment section below.

No.10 Cécile De France

Haute Tension (2003)

Cécile De France

Cécile De France, the talented French actress born in Belgium who was once named one of Europe’s “Shooting Stars” by the European Film Promotion, landed her first notorious horror role as the protagonist in Alexandre Aja’s Haute Tension. You could also call this film the Fight Club of horror for having a similarly twisted ending where Marie (Cécile De France) attempts to save her college friend from a maniac that killed her family in brutal fashion before the ending revealed that Marie is really the murderer. Why you ask? For her love, and desire to be left alone with Alex (her college friend). Now that’s incredibly hot if you ask me! Beyond the main plot of the film, we see great scene’s with Marie, a memorable masturbation moment (most likely thinking about Alex), and a bloody fight for life against her persona (the psychopathic killer) set in her deep dark mind.

Cécile De France carries herself through as Marie like a pro in every suspenseful moment in the film, making herself comparable to a young Jamie Lee Curtis in Halloween. Although in real life she prefers thrillers to horrors, Haute Tension delivers everything you could ask for in a modern horror: gore, suspense, and unnerving sound design. She has a spot in our hearts, and deserves to be on this list of memorable women in horror among many others.

Personal Quote:

“I prefer thrillers, but when it’s thriller/horror I like it. The gore is not very important to me, I prefer suspense. But I like dark films.”

No.9 Jessica Harper

Suspiria (1977)

Jessica Harper

The godfather of Italian Giallo films, Dario Argento, had Jessica Harper star as Suzy Bannion in one of the scariest movies ever made, Suspiria. While the film is still labeled as a glossy horror film for its ravishing visual performance, it still contains all the gory trademarks of Dario Argento, like close ups on wounds, never-ending stabbings in the first-person point of view, and the strangest occurrence of deaths — all combined with a chilling ambiance created by Goblin (an Italian progressive rock band).

It may sound like I’m glamorizing the film too much at this point… it really should be about Jessica Harper, and why she ranked in at number 9 on this list, but all those elements about the film are as damn great as her performance. It’s actually pretty hard to describe how great she was because she was so seemless in Suspiria, blending in with the same fear you faced as a viewer of the film (a goal successfully achieved by Argento). She also brought additional beauty, and aesthetics to the picture when she had to face the terrifying coven of witches.

If only Suspiria had a more promising ending, and mainstream success like The Exorcist did. Jessica Harper would have ranked in much higher.

No.8 Patricia Tallman

Night of the Living Dead (1990)

Patricia Tallman

[In a creepy voice (CV)]:: “They’re coming to get you, Barbara!”
Barbara: “Stop it! You’re ignorant!”
(CV): “They’re coming for you, Barbara!”
Barbara: “Stop it! You’re acting like a child!”
(CV): “They’re coming for you!”

As annoying as that was for Barbara, I sure as hell had a kick out of it, and I continued to pursue it on a few of my dates. It didn’t get me laid, but what the heck, it was going nowhere anyways, and I still felt VICTORIOUS afterward. Thank you Mr. Romero! I’m sure you experienced the same situations. You’re probably asking this question “Dude, why aren’t you featuring the original Barbara?” Well, it’s an easy answer: TheMatt (one of our favorite writers) has a sexual fetish for redheads. If we didn’t include her on our list of the most memorable women in horror, we would all have to face his hissy fit for weeks to come, and you’d have to endure his incessant bitching and moaning in his articles. Trust me! You don’t want TheMatt interfering with your daily time on the Interwebs.

Anyway, Patricia Tallman was hot for the role, or possibly too hot. Wait a minute, did I just say that! I’m a guy who craves titties night and day. You can never be too hot to star in a zombie horror. As weak as her character was at the very beginning, when she first realized the circumstance that was happening with the dead, her role quickly made a u-turn when she had to face the zombies one on one with a rifle in the climax of Night of the Living Dead. Patricia Tallman lived up to the original actress as well as beating out Jessica Harper, and Cécile De France on this list because zombies are much more frightening than witches and a dyke who craves pussy. C’mon, if you don’t agree, just have a second look at that picture, doesn’t she look badass enough?

No.7 Natasha Henstridge

Species (1995)

Natasha Henstridge

Natasha Henstridge was an easy choice for our list of the most memorable women in horror considering she was the cause of an outbreak of premature ejaculation in the mid ’90s with all the boys who snuck in to see Species during the opening week. I guess I was one of them, and at the age of 14 it didn’t take much for a rapid fire.

Species was famous for its sexual content and simplistic story that called on Henstridge to star as Sil, a genetically engineered alien/human hybrid who breaks free from captivity while also discovering her instinct to mate. Let’s just say it didn’t take much for the marketing team over at MGM to think up ways to sell the film. Species earned $113 million at the box office, making it an instant hit. For an acting debut, the blonde bombshell was instantly recognized as a sex symbol in mainstream horror cinema, landing her future roles in a Species sequel, alongside Jean-Claude Van Damme in Maximum Risk, and another horror/sci-fi by legendary director John Carpenter called Ghost of Mars.

What’s not to like about Natasha Henstridge? Being one of the sexiest creatures in horror history lands her the number 7 spot in the most memorable women in horror.

Find out who’s the most memorable women in horror after the jump…

13 Classic Films To Satisfy Your Halloween Horror Cravings

Before we get started, I just want to say that this is my view on the best classic horror films and not the ULTIMATE list. If you read this and start to think, “Hey, why isn’t such and such movie on this list?” don’t feel bad. I had a lot of options. Too many options. If I had wrote about every single movie I had come across that I wanted to showcase, we’d be here until January — and I wouldn’t dare deprive you Americans of turkey or presents for you shameless gift hoarders or the dark rites for… well, those of you who worship something else.

That being said, I hope to introduce some timeless classics to people who might not have otherwise given them a second thought or maybe reintroduce a few oldies but goodies.

It seems like fewer and fewer people these days truly recognize anything that was popular before the mid to late ’70s, if that — especially not horror from before then. Those who are about to die in classic horror movies, we salute you!

No.13 Awakening of the Beast (1970)

Awakening of the Beast (1970)

Awakening of the Beast is the brainchild of Brazilian actor/filmmaker Jose Mojica Marins, also known as Coffin Joe. He appears as both himself and Coffin Joe in this film. Coffin Joe was the prominent character in a horror movie trilogy (At Midnight I’ll Take Your Soul, This Night I’ll Possess Your Corpse, and The Strange World of Coffin Joe — check ‘em out!) and makes another appearance here.

The first part of this film starts out like a black-and-white PSA about drug use and the horrors of the devil’s hallucinogens. Dr. Sergio, a psychiatrist, appears on a TV show with three other panelists to discuss the LSD experiments he has supposedly performed on four volunteer drug addicts in order to support his claim that drugs cause sexual perversion. He presents a series of documented events that he recounts to his colleagues who argue against his case. Dr. Sergio gathers the four volunteers, and after an injection, instructs them to stare at a movie poster (it just so happens to be The Strange World of Coffin Joe).

Now, if you’ve stuck with the movie for this long, the payoff comes around this part. The movie switches to a psychedelic panel of colors, and the events of the film become surreal and delirious. It’s shades of Alejandro Jodorowsky, except with a distinct exploitative feel that will leave you confused and oddly intrigued.

No.12 Haxan (1922)

Haxan (1922)

Benjamin Christensen set out to make a film about how superstition and undiagnosed mental illness fueled the hysteria of the witch hunts. Part one of the film catalogues the appearances of witches and demons using some of the most bizarre paintings, woodcuts, and photographs that you’ll ever lay eyes on. The second part of the movie features a series of theatrical, dramatic vignettes that retell tales of medieval superstition and beliefs, including Satan himself joining in on the action by luring a woman away from her marriage bed and wreaking havoc on a group of monks. Sounds like a good time to me!

I won’t ruin the last two parts of the film, but instead I’ll tempt you into watching it by adding that the film was banned in both Denmark and the U.S. for what were considered graphic depictions of torture, nudity, and sexual perversion. The countries that allowed its showing cut it heavily. A bit of a shame considering that the film cost two-million Swedish kronor to make — unheard of in 1922. Luckily it’s now a public domain film that you can see for free right now on YouTube! Gotta love those common property laws.

No.11 Kwaidan (1964)

Kwaidan (1964)

Probably the most well-known Japanese folktale included in the film is “The Woman of the Snow,” or the tale of the yuki-onna. In traditional Japanese folktales, the yuki-onna is a beautiful young woman who appears during snowstorms/snowfall and preys upon unsuspecting mortal men. It’s a little formulaic for horror by today’s standards and deadly women in fiction is nothing new at this point, but there’s something distinctly spooky about the tale of the yuki-onna.

I won’t lie; the stories of Kwaidan are somewhat predictable, but the more keen observer will appreciate the beauty in this piece of cinematic high-class horror.

No.10 Spider Baby (1968)

Spider Baby (1968)

The Merrye siblings live in an old, decaying mansion along with their guardian/chaffeur Bruno (Lon Chaney Jr.). Their unique syndrome makes them regress mentally, socially, and physically starting at puberty. The siblings, Ralph, Virginia (Jill Banner), and Elizabeth (Beverly Washburn) come from a long line of inbreeding and exhibit extreme signs of madness, all while managing to be delightfully and childishly playful.

If that doesn’t sound as disturbing as it should, let me reinforce it with some examples: Virginia is the titular Spider Baby because she enjoys trapping her victims in her “web” and “stinging” them to death with two butcher knives. One of the first kills in the movie happens almost immediately when Virginia does just this to a delivery man and keeps his ear as a trophy in a box. Ralph (played comically, weirdly, and more than a little creepily by Sid Haig) is, ahem, a sexually charged simpleton who traverses the house via a dumbwaiter. I wonder if they make medications for that sort of thing these days.

The plot thickens when greedy cousins Peter and Emily come to take possession of their land by becoming the childrens’ legal guardians.

Though it’s absurdly funny in some places, perhaps without intentionally being so, Spider Baby manages to be a solidly freaky and kitschy horror flick that perfectly encapsulates the more schlocky and comedic horror of the decade.

No.9 Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962)

Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962)

The story starts in 1917. Baby Jane Hudson is a vaudeville child star, performs for large crowds, and even has an expensive doll made in her likeness. She’s also a spoiled brat with a very jealous sister. Jumping forward to 1935, both sisters are now stars, but their roles are reversed: Baby Jane’s sister Blanche (Joan Crawford) is the one who performs for her adoring fans, while Jane’s films have flopped. Jane (Bette Davis) has taken to drinking to cope with her lack of stardom.

One night after a party, the sisters is in a car wreck, though it’s unclear which of the sisters was actually driving the car. Blanche becomes crippled from the waist down. In the present, Jane and Blanche have both retired. Though Blanche is crippled, she’s the considerably more well put-together sister; Jane is a mean alcoholic who wears horribly caked-on makeup. Jane abuses Blanche, who is now dependent on her, in a variety of cruel and twisted ways that make you cringe.

Although the roles are campy, Crawford and Davis act them well and still manage to deliver a punch. It’s truly a gothic horror tale at it’s finest, right down to the sets. Not to mention, this is an infinitely quotable film. I’ve made myself a promise that if my burgeoning career as a writer fails, I’m going to open Baby Jane’s Discount Liquor, and any customers who say, “But you are, Blanche! You are in that chair!” will get the aforementioned discount. Remember this, dear readers. Come get your hooch at Baby Jane’s Discount Liquor!

No.8 Rosemary’s Baby (1968)

Rosemary’s Baby (1968)

Rosemary’s Baby takes every woman’s most primitive fear and wraps it up neatly with a bow. The idea of having anything wrong with your unborn fetus would be nightmare-fuel for most women, but poor Rosemary (Mia Farrow) truly gets the short end of the stick in this classic tale of Satanic rituals, kooky neighbors, and every mother’s worst nightmare.

Rosemary and actor husband Guy (John Cassavetes) have just moved into the Bramford, a 19th-century Gothic New York apartment building. Their nosy-ass neighbors, the Castevets (Ruth Gordon and Sidney Blackmer), are meddlesome but seem harmless enough… until suddenly Guy takes a liking to them. Shortly afterward, mysterious and eerie things start to happen around Rosemary and Guy.

Guy lands a part in a play because the original lead goes blind rather inexplicably. Guy, afterward, suggests that he and Rosemary have a baby. On the night of the child’s conception, Minnie Castevet brings the two a chocolate mousse dessert that Rosemary says has a chalky aftertaste. She throws the rest of it out, but evidently eats just enough to get pregnant with Satan’s child! I know, that sounds super zany, but the demonic rape scene is actually pretty freaky — as is the rest of the film.

Did I mention this is directed by Roman Polanski? Yeah, that Roman Polanski. Creepily enough, the year after this movie was shot, Polanski’s pregnant wife, Sharon Tate, was famously stabbed to death by the Manson family. The movie really becomes all the more potent if you go into it knowing that morbid little tidbit.

The whole film is shot in a dark, brooding way that will make your skin crawl from the disturbing yet subtle horror used. The movie builds to a climax that leaves your heart creeping with dread in your chest at what you already know will be the outcome.

For an added treat, check out the cover of the Rosemary’s Baby theme song by Fantomas… you know, one of Mike Patton’s groups besides Faith No More. It will, if nothing else, put you into the Halloween spirit.

Find out which horror classic ranked at Number 1 on after the jump…

Top 10 Movie Franchises That Should Be Rebooted

While remakes are all the rage in Hollywood these days, it seems like another genre is also getting some love: the complete franchise reboot. Made popular by Christopher Nolan’s revamped Batman flicks, the ditching of casts, plots, and entire settings to start all over again seems to be the norm for long-running franchises.

On the one side, it’s a great way to rejuvenate your line, injecting some much needed adrenaline in a declining series. On the other, it’s a fantastic way to alienate fans of the original material. Tim Burton’s 1989 Batman with Michael Keaton and Jack Nicholson might have been a back-handed pimp slap in the face of the character’s fans, what with the rampant murdering, gun use, and other things that are anathema to Bruce Wayne, but it raked in 100s of millions of dollars and earned its fair share of fans that were quite vocal in their lack of enthusiasm for Nolan’s reboot.

Such reboots are in the offing in 2012 for characters like Spider-Man (Sony’s The Amazing Spider-Man), the Crow (Supposedly with Bradley Cooper in the Eric Draven role), Star Trek’s Chris Pine is in the running to star in Tom Clancy’s rebooted Jack Ryan franchise and Robocop, Tomb Raider, The Fantastic Four and countless others are gearing up for new versions of their respective movies. Just this past month, we witnessed the attempted rebirth of the Conan franchise with Jason Momoa in Conan The Barbarian 3D.

So without further ado, here is Yell! Magazine’s Top 10 Franchises That Need To Be Rebooted. The rules are simple: we’re not making sequels, these must be franchises that have run their course financially or arrived at logical conclusions and the original cast must be ditched in its entirety, ensuring that no links to the original version survive, story elements and settings can be changed but the general plot must be unchanged.

No.10 Rambo

Sylvester Stallone pretty much brought his second-most-famous character’s story to a close in 2008’s John Rambo, ending the movie with the tired soldier returning to his family’s farm for some much needed R&R, which he’ll probably spend by unleashing some .50 caliber hell on those darn gophers plaguing his mother’s rose garden. In order to reboot the franchise, we’d have to ditch the traumatized Vietnam Veteran angle and bring the story forward a couple of decades to a more modern conflict.

Luckily, there’s no shortage of those as everything for Gulf Wars 1-2 to Afghanistan could be used to produce a modern-day Rambo. Personally, I’d ditch the one-man army conceit and go back to the series’, not to mention the novel’s roots and focus on a troubled soldier simply trying to adjust to life back in the world. Rambo, especially in the later movies, was a caricature, a jingoistic cartoon of American politics.

What’s needed for the reboot is First Blood’s human, flawed but honorable man trained as a killing machine and trying to deal with a society that no longer has a use for him. We’ve seen enlisted men and women come home with enough nightmares to give Freddy Krueger pause, it should come as no surprise to find out that a new John Rambo is lurking out there, ready to take on a society that hates and fears him.

“And in other news, local hero John Rambo goes on crazed rampage. Dozens dead, including 12 kids, 5 elderly people, 2 kittens and 1 goat, which the suspect described as ‘looking at me funny’.”

No.9 Timecop

Looking at Jean-Claude Van Damme’s list of accomplishments, I hesitated between this movie and the more popular Bloodsport for the reboot treatment. I picked Timecop for several reasons. Foremost, Bloodsport is already getting a reboot and I didn’t want to tread ground already covered. Secondly, Bloodsport is the ultimate underground martial arts tournament movie and there’s very little to improve upon in that regard. Lastly, I felt that JCVD’s 1994 time-traveling cop movie, and to a lesser degree its abysmal 2003 DTV sequel, The Berlin Decision, was such a gigantic missed opportunity that it was worth revisiting the central plotline.

Here is a movie that could have benefited greatly from a bigger budget and more creative minds on script duty. Basically, time travel is real and the Time Enforcement Commission is formed to police unregulated incursions in time. What should have been a mega-budgeted affair became a vehicle for Van Damme’s endless butt shots and split kicks. How lacking in the imagination department do you have to be to turn a premise such as this into a movie whose only expeditions in time are to the 1920s and a 60-second visit to the Civil War? Let’s ditch the “you can only travel backward in time” insanity and have the characters visit the future too.

Let’s throw a Michael Bay-size budget at this thing and get some decent time travel destinations on the menu. Let’s have our hero chase bad guys to the Battle of Thermopylae, run down illegal time travelers during the Siege of Orleans or keep an assassin from putting two bullets in Columbus’ head before he gets to discover the New World. But nooooo, instead we got a dour Van Damme with a beaver stapled to his head.

Donald Trump called, he wants his hair back.

No.8 The Hidden

The ’80s were all about the buddy-cop movie. Eddie Murphy and Nick Nolte in 48 Hours, Mel Gibson and Danny Glover in Lethal Weapon and Michael Nouri and Kyle MacLachlan in The Hidden. What? You don’t know that one? For shame! I hereby revoke your membership in the Fraternal Order Of Movie Geeks and banish you from my mother’s basement. No grilled-cheese sandwiches for you!

The Hidden is one of those forgotten gems that you’re more likely to find in a Wal-Mart bargain bin than in somebody’s DVD player. Essentially just another buddy movie, the twist is that MacLachlan’s detective is actually an alien cop in pursuit of a body-hopping fugitive. Nouri is the gruff, rules-don’t-apply-to-me veteran with a chip on his shoulder who gets dragged along for the ride. Also, sci-fi fan favorite Claudia Christian, of Babylon 5 fame, makes an appearance as a possessed stripper packing a machine gun.

This happened to me once. Apparently, stuffing nickels in a G-string isn’t proper stripper etiquette.

The Hidden is ripe for a reboot. It would be relatively cheap to produce, since the aliens don’t actually appear in their true form until the climax. I loathe and despise all things Twilight-related, but even I have to admit that Robert Pattinson would make a good replacement for MacLachlan, they both have that weird, detached, ambiguous, alien feel to them. Throw some stubble on him and he could pass as a rookie alien cop. The bad guy isn’t some outer space drug dealer or world-conqueror, he’s just on Earth to cause havoc because he totally loves that shit. Throw in some destruction-focused alien weaponry, a few one-liners, some witty banter between the alien cop and his new human partner, and bingo! Instant hit.

No.7 Missing in Action

Before ascending to Godhood, Chuck Norris once ruled the kingdom known as Hollywood. During his reign, which was both terrifying and merciful at the same time due to Chuck Norris rearranging the laws of physics until they pleased him, His Holiness Chuck once graced a movie titled Missing In Action with His presence. In this movie, Chuck Norris played himself, a Vietnam-era soldier captured… that is to say, willingly spending time in the company of torturers and sadists at an isolated jungle POW camp until such time he no longer wishes to stay at said location.

Chuck Norris manages to escape, by the simple virtue of being Chuck fucking Norris, and returns to wreck unholy havoc on his tormenters. Missing in Action is a simple, action-oriented tale, which nonetheless managed to spawn a pair of sequels, but the basics are ripe for rebooting. Throw someone like Jason Statham inside a… oh, let’s say, an Al-Quaeda stronghold along with several of his wartime buddies, throw away the keys and watch the magic happen.

Oh, Chuck, what am I saying? We’re treading on Holy ground here! I never should have said anything. Please forgive me, oh bearded one! Kindly refrain from striking me dead with a heaven-sent roundhouse kick to the face. Please don’t wipe us all out by rubbing your fantastic beard against the ozone layer and setting the Earth on fire!

THE END IS NIGH! REPENT!

No.6 Tremors

The original Tremors is a fun but very light monster feature starring Kevin Bacon, Mr. Remo Williams himself, Fred Ward, and Reba McEntire, for some strange and possibly satanic reason. Also, vagina sand monsters.

Frankly, I don’t see it.

The franchise was swiftly run into the ground by a mostly comedic direct-to-video sequel (Tremors 2: Aftershocks), a blatant cash-grab threequel (Tremors 3: Back To Perfection) and a desperate for attention prequel (Tremors 4: The Legend Begins). With the series so completely played out it’s the perfect time to reboot this bad boy! The series’ iconic “Graboids” could use a good CGI facelift and since they often mutate into deadlier, stranger forms newer movie makers could have a lot of fun coming up with different variations. Flying Graboid, quadruped Graboid, Japanese schoolgirl abusing Graboid…

Ok, now I see it.

I know we talked about ditching entire casts beforehand but I have such a soft spot for Michael Gross’ zany, well-armed survivalist Burt Gummer that a small cameo wouldn’t be out of place. Keep the central conceit of having the larva form Graboids as traveling underground only to erupt underneath their prey, make sure the movie takes place in an isolated locale and we’ve got ourselves a decent mid-level crowd pleaser.

Find out which movie franchise needs a reboot at the number 1 spot on the next jump…