New Horror Releases in Theaters and on DVD: Week of August 3, 2008

So, Paramount's bright idea to repackage some of their old '80s content is to slap some neon paint on the cover and throw in a CD of pop music from the decade. Maybe this would work fine for Ferris Bueller's Day Off or Pretty in Pink, but Friday the 13th???

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More of the same from Paramount. Nothing says slasher like a day-glo rainbow and a song from Bananarama.

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Continuing with the Sci Fi Channel/RHI Entertainment film series dubbed "Maneater," this time the animal culprit killing off helpless humans is ants -- and not normal ants, but super smart ants controlled by an alien force. Raid won't cut it this time.

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Perhaps prolific Z-movie director Fred Olen Ray's (only) shining moment, Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers stars "scream queen" Linnea Quigley as a down-on-her-luck woman who becomes a prostitute for a cult that demands she kill her clients. Not good for business, if you ask me.

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In the midst of a zombie apocalypse, a porn star who moonlights as an assassin (Or is it the other way around?) wreaks havoc.

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A bizarre game of cat and mouse is played out in this hyper-stylized mix of road rage and sexual flirtation from Australia, as a woman driving through a deserted stretch of highway encounters a deranged man filming her as he drives.

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John A. Russo, co-writer of Night of the Living Dead, directed the little-seen backwoods horror movie Midnight in 1982 and followed it up in 1993 with this even littler-seen sequel, about the last remaining member of the deranged family from the original film who moves to the city and begins to stalk the streets with a video camera in hand. He goes on to found TMZ.com.

Horror hostess Morella presents three cheesy, unrelated flicks: Zombies (AKA I Eat Your Skin), about voodoo hijinks on a tropical island; Countess Dracula's Orgy of Blood, in which Spanish legend Paul Naschy battles vampires; and Blood Seekers (AKA Blood Thirst), about a deformed serial killer in the Philippines.

In this horror-comedy, a couple of friends buy a supposedly fake mummy from an antique story that turns out to be the real deal. The mummy awakens but can be controlled by a magical scarf -- much like Liberace.

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From the director of Wolf Creek comes this tale of a group of tourists stranded on a small island in an Australian lake, kept at bay by a gigantic man-eating crocodile. Crikey!

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