I had a chance to see George Romero’s Survival of the Dead last September during Fantastic Fest in Austin, TX. You can read the full review here. Or, if you don’t want to click a link, I will sum it up by saying I wasn’t in love with the movie.

That’s not to say the movie doesn’t have its good points and isn’t any fun, it does and is. It’s just not a great movie and I was hoping for more.

My opinion aside, the movie will finally be released and to begin the push for that, the studio has dropped the first poster from the film on us. It contains your typical mix of unholy zombies bent on one thing: brains.

Plus, a tag line that actually does a pretty good job of relating one of the central premises of the movie. Nice work marketing team.

Check out the full sized poster after the jump. Survival of the Dead premieres on VOD, Amazon, Xbox Live and Playstation April 30 and in theaters on May 28th.

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We’ve been bringing you brand new clips from the upcoming Solomon Kane as of late, including a thrilling scene from the Hall of Mirrors. Recently, a new clip has been posted in which Solomon’s faithful friend, William Crowthorn, and his family are captured by the riders in the forest.

The film follows the travels of Solomon Kane, a priest-turned-renegade priest who swears his duties to fighting all things spooky and evil. The interesting part of that plot is that Solomon doesn’t always use his sword to do his talking. Being a priest, he tries to go the way of the peaceful man before turning to violence. An interesting twist on the Medieval Action Adventure film.

While there’s still no word on when the wide US release will be, France and Russia get to see the film in two weeks, and our very own Chris Ullrich saw the film back at Fantastic Fest.

Check out the new clip after the jump, and keep it here for more Solomon Kane news as it comes to us.

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This week on The Flickcast, Chris and Matt have to go it alone again. They take on a bunch of new, and returning, topics including Fantastic Fest in Austin, new television shows including Cougar Town, Community, FlashForward and returning shows like The Big Bang Theory, Lost, Fringe and Dollhouse.

In addition, they discuss Ryan Reynolds confirmation of his appearance in Green Lantern and Deadpool, the career of Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, Billy Crystal’s recent projects, Megan Fox on Saturday Night Live, Transformers 3, the A-Team reboot, and much more.

Plus, Chris and Matt make some great picks this week including Matt’s pick of the indie comic The Stuff of Legend and Chris’ pick of Scott Sigler’s sci-fi/horror novel Infected.

As always, if you have comments, questions, critiques or offers of sponsorship, feel free to hit us up in the comments, on Twitter and at Facebook, MySpace or via email.

Thanks for listening.

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This week on The Flickcast, Chris and Matt go it alone with Chris on location in Austin, Texas for the Fantastic Fest film festival. Among the topics the duo cover this week are Fantastic Fest in Austin, the new A Nightmare on Elm Street trailer, Corey Feldman returning for Lost Boys 3, the elements that make a horror film, Zombieland, Gentlemen Broncos, the future of 3-D, the potential Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles DVD movie, the new Predators movie potentially begin in 3-D and much more.

Plus, Chris and Matt make some great picks this week including Matt’s pick of the Freddy’s Nightmares TV series and Chris’ pick of Michael J. Bassett’s as-yet unreleased film Solomon Kane.

As always, if you have comments, questions, critiques or offers of sponsorship, feel free to hit us up in the comments, on Twitter and at Facebook, MySpace or via email.

Thanks for listening.

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When I first heard about writer/director Oren Peli’s first person video camera horror film Paranormal Activity, I have to admit I was skeptical. Seeing some of the advertising and hearing the buzz from various sources, this film seemed to be yet another cheap video production still hoping to cash in on the “magic” generated by The Blair Witch Project. Fortunately, after seeing the film at a sold-out midnight screening during Austin’s Fantastic Fest, I can thankfully say my first impressions of the film were completely wrong . . . mostly.

The premise of the film is simplicity itself. A young couple have lived together for a few years and gradually there have been strange and unexplained sounds and the woman (Katie Featherston) it is revealed has been experiencing this type of “activity” since she was a young girl. Her boyfriend, the annoyingly overconfident Micah (Micah Sloat), is determined to get to the bottom of these phenomenons and so begins his quest to videotape the couple’s activities 24 hours a day in order to catch the ghosts in action and ultimately, to take care of the situation and get them to stop.

One of the film’s biggest strengths is that it follows the Hitchcock tradition of not showing everything. Instead, during several scenes, the camera stays in one place as the couple goes off to investigates a noise or other disturbance and the audience is left only able to hear what’s happening, their imagination filling in the blanks. This conceit serves the film far more effectively than an outlandish display of gore or other visual effects would have. This technique is used very effectively in Paranormal Activity, much more than it has been lately in films like Cloverfield or Quarantine.

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Fantastic Fest in Austin is one of the best festivals in the country devoted to genre films. Previously, we brought you news about the first round of films scheduled to show during the fest. And now, there’s even more news to share today, including some great guests and some relly cool films we’re looking forward to seeing.

But really, I probably can’t do all this info proper justice (given my time constraints today at least) so I’ll just let Tim League, director/co-founder of the Fest, speak for himself via the latest Fest press release:

George Romero Returns to Fantastic Fest!

George RomeroIn 2007, Fantastic Fest was honored by the presence of one of the true masters of horror, George A. Romero.  Now, two years later, we are thrilled to welcome back the undisputed champion of all things undead for his latest blood-drenched thrillride, SURVIVAL OF THE DEAD.  When the idyllic retreat of Plum Island falls victim to the zombie plague, a new breed of clan war breaks out.  On one side is the camp who want to exterminate all undead with a wickedly diverse array of brain-splattering headshots.

On the other, devoted family members take the stance that “zombie-ism” is a disease, the undead have rights and they must be kept alive until a cure is found.  Unable to simply “agree to disagree,” the two clans go to war and make their island microcosm a whole hell of a lot bloodier. An undead parallel to the tribal wars that are plaguing our own society today, SURVIVAL OF THE DEAD exposes the futility of such conflict and the need for tolerance of the beliefs of others.  Plus it’s got zombie horses in it!

From the very beginning, Romero has been making more than simple gore films.  To be sure, he’s amazing at delivering “the blood-red goods,” but what makes his films classics are the underlying social and political threads interwoven with the rampant gut-munching.  NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD played with themes of Vietnam-era paranoia, DAWN OF THE DEAD poked fun at mass-consumerism all the way up to DIARY OF THE DEAD which took aim at the journalistic and new media ethics (or lack thereof).

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Film festivals are often a conumdrum for me because I sometimes wonder how they get started and, more to the point, who picks the films that get shown at them. My problem is that the films selected for many of the festivals don’t usually seem all that appealing (at least to me) and are often a collection of “art for art’s sake” films overwhelmed by their own sense of self-importance.

Fortunately, I don’t have this problem with the Fantastic Fest in Austin, which runs from September 24th to October 1st. The films selected for this festival represent an eclectic mix of genres and filmmakers and what I consider to be some of the most interesting, innovative and creative films being produced today. Sure, they’re not all potential Hollywood blockbusters, nor are they for everyone, but they are all pretty much guaranteed to be interesting, entertaining and in their own way, artistic and provocative. Plus, they’re just so darn fun to watch.

Besides, any festival that kicks off with Director Jared Hess’s (Napoleon Dynamite) film Gentlemen Broncos, starring Jemaine Clement of Flight of the Conchords fame, is aces in my book.

Here’s the first list of the films announced today that will be showcased at this years Fantastic Fest:

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