The Midnight Features and Shorts Programs for this year’s South by Southwest Film Festival have just been announced! For 20 years, the SXSW Midnighters section has embraced genre filmmaking from veterans and rookies alike, and this year continues that glorious tradition. Including four World Premieres, three U.S. Premieres, the nine films picked to guide SXSW audiences into the darkness offer an assortment of filmmaking styles and span the gamut of of genre storytelling.

This will be my third year attending the South by Southwest Film Festival and this year’s lineup of Midnight Features looks fantastic. In previous years, the lineup has included movies like Attack the Block, Kill List, The Innkeepers, Iron Sky, John Dies at the End, and V/H/S – and I can’t wait to stand in line for two hours (hopefully not in the rain this year!) and enjoy these late night genre flicks! Here are some of the Midnight Features I’m most excited about:

An official trailer for the upcoming Rob Zombie horror The Lords of Salem has been released online. The movie keeps Zombie in the genre he loves, while also moving him away from the Halloween franchise some horror connoisseurs were not too fond of.

This new movie takes us to Salem, Massachusetts, setting of the Salem Witch Trials, where that dark and evil past might not be as buried as was once thought.

You can read a synopsis and check out the new trailer for The Lords of Salem below now.

Manchester MEN Arena; 27th November 2012
robzombie.com | marilynmanson.com

“The three principle types of Recall are Cued Recall, Free Recall and Serial Recall. Serial Recall involves a subject being asked to recite events in the order they occurred…” “”Source Code

…I am a Serial Rekaller, and here’s how I remember it:

I am two months late. I saw Rob Zombie [to which I will define hereafter as the headline act] and Marilyn Manson Twins of Evil tour on November 27, 2012. But with X-mas getting in the way and a bout of writers block/laziness, I finally get around to writing this, the gonzo-review and experiental account of the days, months, years leading up to this…

Hello Geeks and Ghouls, Famous Monster here. Well, it’s finally October and you know what that means? Breast Cancer Awareness 5Ks? Good guess. Pumpkin Spice Lattes? Delicious, but no. Halloween? YES. Horror movies? DOUBLE YES!

Welcome to 31 Days of Horror, where I’ll cover at least two noteworthy horror films a day for the entirety of the month. That’s 31 Days of Horror and 62+ scary movies perfect for a cold, dark October night. Be sure to visit Geeks of Doom every day this month for a double-shot of chills and thrills!

Today’s double-shot features two families of psychopathic, flesh-wearin’ rednecks with Tobe Hooper‘s 1974 film, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, and Rob Zombie‘s 2003 cult classic, House of 1000 Corpses.

Updated: 6/21/2012: Yahoo! has confirmed the news of Lynch’s passing. See update below.

This has yet to be confirmed, but I have received word from several notable sources that veteran actor Richard Lynch, best known for playing a wide array of heinous villains in a film and television career spanning nearly four decades, has died at the age of 76. At the moment there are no details as to the cause of his death, but we will keep you updated as we get information.

A native of Brooklyn, New York, Lynch was born on February 12, 1936, as one of seven children in his family. Beginning in 1958 Lynch served in the United States Marine Corps for four years, ending his military career at the rank of Corporal. Following his stint in the Marines, Lynch returned to New York to study acting under the legendary acting teachers Uta Hagen and Lee Strasberg. He became a lifetime member of the prestigious Actors Studio in 1970 and had appeared in many stage productions on and off Broadway, including William Shakespeare’s Richard III and Arthur Miller’s A View from the Bridge. Lynch made his feature acting debut in 1973’s Scarecrow alongside Gene Hackman and Al Pacino. Throughout the 1970’s the actor built up his resume with appearances in films like The Seven-Ups, The Happy Hooker, God Told Me To, and Deathsport and television shows such as Starsky and Hutch, Battlestar Galactica, and Buck Rogers.