Seen On DVD

Pete Tombs
Producer, Hell's Ground and founder Mondo Macabro, www.mondomacabrodvd.com To fully enjoy our movie and appreciate all the references we're making, you need to see Texas Chainsaw Massacre; that's the seminal horror movie. It's the kind of movie that came out of nowhere; it came out of regional Texas filmmaking, shot on no budget, and it started a genre. And our movie is in that genre. Friday the 13th is good for the idea of the masked serial killer.

And then there's a very obscure film from the '80s called Mother's Day that had some input into this genre. It's that kind of backwards psycho, American gothic kind of thing. If you're familiar with those films, then you'll see the resonances and the echoes in our movie. At the very least it will make you laugh.

Texas Chainsaw Massacre (USA) 1974, Dark Sky Films

List price: $29.98 (two discs)

Friday the 13th (USA) 1980, Paramount

List price: $9.98

Mother's Day (USA) 1980, Troma

List price: $9.95

Omar Khan
Director, Hell's Ground The three films that influenced me most in making Hell's Ground include Hitchcock's Psycho . There's a lot of Psycho going on in my film, a lot of it subconscious. When I was writing it, I wasn't thinking Psycho , but there's a deliberate homage to Psycho because it's the absolute number-one film of the genre. Texas Chainsaw Massacre is literally a film I was traumatized by when I saw it. I was left in a state for days where I was just shell-shocked. I loved what it did for me.

And then, of course, John Carpenter's Halloween. I'll never forget the experience I felt watching this movie. And I'm sorry I'm going to give you a fourth movie, and it comes from France -- Haute Tension, which I thought was absolutely thrilling. The director Alexandre Aja is the most exciting person to watch in horror movies at the moment.

Psycho (USA) 1960, Universal

List price: $19.98

Texas Chainsaw Massacre (USA) 1974, Dark Sky Films

List price: $29.98 (two discs)

Halloween (USA) 1978, Anchor Bay

List price: $19.98

Haute Tension (France) 2003, Lions Gate <

p>List price: $14.98

Andy Stark
Editor and co-producer,
Hell's Ground Films that define horror for me include 1932's The Hounds of Zaroff . It's the classic conceit of a guy who's bored with hunting animals so he kidnaps people. They wake up on his island and he hunts them. Hitchcock's Frenzy -- I liked the way the killer was portrayed -- very shocking. I was amazed that Hitchcock made something so strong. It's an odd movie in his canon. It's still quite shocking. You wonder how on earth could he have made that film at a studio. It's unpleasant but superb.

France's Sheitan is one I enjoyed. It's very generic. We know what's going to happen, but it's done in a nice, interesting way. It took the genre but twisted it. It had this wonderful multicultural thing that France has got now. Vincent Cassel was superb as the idiot farmer.

THE Hounds of Zaroff

(USA) 1932, Criterion Collection

List price: $24.95

Frenzy (England) 1972, Universal

List price: $19.98

Sheitan (France) 2006,
Tartan Video

List price: $14.95

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