Five Insane B-Horror Movies Coming in July

It’s July, and you know what that means: SUMMER MOVIE SEASON.

But what if your tastes skew a little more toward the campy, crazy, bloody, disturbing, and decidedly low-budget? What do you do in a summer movie environment chock-a-block with Wonder Woman and Fate of the Furious?

Well, there are plenty of good (or so-bad-it’s-good) horror movies coming out of smaller studios, making their way to independent theaters, small summer runs, or even just video on demand services.

If there’s anything that we have learned as pop culture writers here at ComicBook.com, it’s that B-movie horror movies become cult classics which are cheap to license for home video, streaming, and Mystery Science Theater 3000. This keeps them in circulation more or less for the rest of time, and this month is as good an opportunity as ever to get in on the ground floor of some of these potential phenomena.

So…what can you keep an eye out for? We have you covered…!

THE RECALL

This one is a bit of a cheat — it’s not fully a horror movie, and it certainly isn’t quite as low-budget as many of the rest on this page…but it has that kind of campy cult classic-in-the-making vibe to it, so we figured it was worth mentioning.

Especially since one of the main players is Blade and Major League star Wesley Snipes.

Directed by Mauro Borelli, The Recall centers on a group of friends vacationing at a remote cabin lake house when aliens attack Earth. Charlie (Jedidah Goodacre) and his friends Brendan (R.J. Mitte), Annie (Laura Bilgeri), Rob (Niko Pepaj), and Kara (Hannah Rose May) are forced to rely on an eccentric and mysterious hunter (Wesley Snipes) with special knowledge of the attack, explaining this day has been prophesied for years.

It’s definitely a sci-fi movie with a lot of horror trappings, from being stranded while the monster is striking to the eccentric and dangerous character played by Snipes, who feels like a potential slasher-movie villain when you first meet him and only gets less crazy as the world around him gets dramatically more so.

If you’re curious about this movie, we’ve got good news for you: check back tomorrow for an interview with R.J. Mitte, best known for his role on Breaking Bad, who spoke with us about the movie.

BAD FRANK

Here’s the official write-up for the “thriller” Bad Frank, which definitely isn’t 100% schlock horror, but has a lot of the hallmarks of the kind of movie that would have been bound for the horror shelf in any video store’s “cult” section back when there were video stores, and cult sections, and OH DEAR GOD I AM OLD. 

Here’s the official write-up on the film:

Writer/Director Tony Germinario’s Award-Winning ‘tour-de-force’ thriller BAD FRANK punches its way to VOD this July from Gravitas Ventures.

Headlined with a true Breakout Performance by Award-Winner Kevin Interdonato, and featuring electric support from Amanda Clayton (Bleed For This), Tom Sizemore (Showtime’s Twin Peaks, Saving Private Ryan, HEAT), Brian O’Halloran (Clerks 1 & 2), and boxing icon Ray ‘Boom-Boom’ Mancini, BAD FRANK has become a majorly sought after Film this year, and acquired by heavyweight Foreign Rep, Lotus Entertainment. 

Frank Pierce (played by Interdonato) leads a seemingly normal life, but when a disturbing past re emerges and something precious is taken from him, his mask of sanity loosens and unearths the urge to be violent once again.

With countless Best Film and Best Actor accolades in US and Europe, and heralded by JoBlo.com as, ‘Nastily Entertaining”, 2017’s mightiest Independent feature sits with viewers for days. BAD FRANK hits the U.S. Market on iTunes July 4th. Pre-Order now. 

GREMLIN

This is probably the most straightforward title on the list — and actually pretty fun! (We’ve actually had a chance to see this one before tossing it on here.)

The official writeup goes…

Emmy Award winning director, Ryan Bellgardt’s (Army of Frankenstein) highly anticipated creature feature Gremlin hits VOD July 11 from Uncork’d Entertainment.

Godzilla meets The Ring in a thrilling, uniquely-scripted horror jaunt that boasts amazing computer-generated effects and from some of the best in the game.  

Adam receives a mysterious box from a relative containing a creature that will kill everyone he cares about. The only way to be rid of the curse is to give the box to someone he loves. As the ominous timer on the box counts down to its end, he can only imagine the horrors that await. Does he give the box away to save his family, or unleash a monster upon humanity? He can’t destroy it. He can’t escape it. He can only give it to someone he loves…
 
Adam Hampton, Kristy K. Boone, Catcher Stair, Katie Burgess, Mike Waugh, and Caleb Milby star in Gremlin, available everywhere on digital 7/11.

BONEJANGLES

No relation to the guy from Tim Burton’s The Corpse Bride, sadly!

This Bonejangles heads to VOD platforms on July 18.

This one just feels like a 1980s slasher/creature feature that you would find going direct to VHS from Vestron Video. 

…In the most amazing way possible, of course.

Check out the official (and admittedly short) writeup:

While transporting the legendary killer Bonejangles, a group of police break down in a town cursed with monsters, and must release him to survive!

Reggie Bannister, Elissa Dowling, Kelly Misek, Jr., Julia Cavanaugh, Devin Toft, Jamie Scott Gordon, Lawrence Wayne Curry, and Hannah Richter star in a Brett DeJager film, written by Keith Melcher.

GRANNY OF THE DEAD

Coming July 14 is the kind of horror comedy that just…absolutely needs to be seen.

Seriously, how could you not want to watch a movie about octogenarian zombies?

Tudley James directs Granny of the Dead, a movie in which “regular guy Ed awakes one morning to find that his Grandma has become one of the living dead. Trapped in his home, Ed struggles to handle the situation. When he discovers the rest of the town’s elderly have also been infected by the zombie plague, Ed must become a hero in order to save his family and friends.”

What kind of hero, you ask?

Well, we imagine it has a lot to do with bashing blue-haired heads in.

This feels like a kind of absurdist extension of the Shaun of the Dead brand identity, and we are for it.