For many horror fans, DARK NIGHT OF THE SCARECROW is a treasure, a shining example of an era of quality made-for-TV genre films. For others, it was a source of frustration—a film they’d constantly heard was great, but worried they might never get to see. Now—and surprisingly late, considering all the other less worthy flicks that have found their way to DVD—those audiences (including myself) have been able to experience what’s been held up so high for so long, thanks to VCI’s DARK NIGHT DVD. But was it worth the wait? Is DARK NIGHT only something wonderful in the distant memories of those who watched it long ago?

FEAR ME NOT, the English title that has been applied to Danish director/co-writer Kristian Levring’s film (now on DVD from IFC Films/MPI Media), is clearly meant to be ironic. But the movie’s original moniker, DEN DU FRYGTER (WHAT YOU FEAR), is even more pointed: While protagonist Mikael Neumann (Ulrich Thomsen) becomes someone to be scared of, it is his own hidden anxieties that push him into that situation.

The three-part documentary that’s one of the centerpieces of Shout! Factory’s SLUMBER PARTY MASSACRE Collection opens with Christmas-morning footage of a preteen Tony Brown (webmaster of the SLUMBER PARTY fan site The Old Hockstatter Place and one of the Collection’s contributors) unwrapping a VHS copy of the first in the film franchise, and literally screaming with excitement. It’s a good thing it wasn’t this two-DVD set he received, or the poor kid might have had a coronary.

I dare any FANGORIA reader to sit across from me and argue against the notion that the sun rises and sets on Rod Serling’s THE TWILIGHT ZONE. It does. It did when the show premiered on CBS in 1959 until its literal twilight in 1964. And even after decades or imitators, comic books, clones, movies and a few failed attempts to forge Serling-free follow-ups, it still bloody well does.

Some cheeses, like sharp Canadian cheddar, improve with age. Others, like late-’80s/early-’90s cheapo ALIEN ripoffs, well…not so much. They might be fun in a forgivable so-bad-it’s-good kind of way, but by the measuring stick of contemporary low-budget horror, they often reek like ripe limberger and taste twice as bad.

Independent zombie movies are a dime a dozen—and 10 pennies are what a lot of them are worth. That’s why undead flicks with a bit of creativity and inspiration should be celebrated. I don’t want to mislead you into thinking that HELL IS FULL, from Big Biting Pig Productions, is some new classic of the subgenre—it isn’t. But it does try to tell a walking-corpse story in an interesting and fresh way, and for that, it deserves some praise.

Back when Alexandre Aja’s 3-D PIRANHA was released, the director told anyone who asked that his movie was not a remake of the 1978 Joe Dante/Roger Corman favorite of the same title. And as it turned out, he was absolutely right; his flick was more a redux of HUMANOIDS FROM THE DEEP, another Corman-produced aquatic-terror opus that Shout! Factory released alongside PIRANHA on disc while Aja’s film was heading for theaters.