Howdy, folks! It’s Sunday, which means it’s time for the horror haul, our weekly round-up and one-stop-shop for all things horror. This week in horror news, Rick and Morty take on horror classics like Re-Animator and Poltergeist in a new round of the claymation shorts Rick and Morty's Noncanonical Adventures, Hulu's Locke & Key adaptation gets a new director, Alexandre Aja and Oculus set up shop on a VR horror series, and Castle Rock adds another genre regular to the cast.

Elsewhere, we've got new trailers for the head trip Shudder original Kuso, the festival hit Devil's Gate, a shameless The Conjuring ripoff, Conjuring the Witch's Doll, along with Ghost House and The Hatred.

For all the horror news we’ve already covered on the site this week, you can click through the links below. Then, check out other genre highlights from the week and finish it all up with a rundown of the week in horror movie trailers. For more, be sure to hit up Collider Nightmares or our round-up of the best horror movies on Netflix. Thanks for tuning in, and sound off in the comments with your thoughts, questions, and other horror musings.

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'Rick and Morty' Spoof 'Poltergeist' , 'Re-Animator' and More

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Image via Adult Swim

Ahead of the long-awaited Season 3 premiere, Rick and Morty are back at it again in the claymation shorts The Non-Canonical Adventures of Rick and Morty. This time, they're taking on some genre favorites, including James Cameron's  Aliens, Joe Dante's  Gremlins, Stuart Gordon's Re-Animator, Tobe Hooper's Poltergeist and Stanley Kubrick's  2001: A Space Odyssey. The shorts come from stop-motion animator Lee Hardcastle.

Rick and Morty returns to Adult Swim on July 30. Catch up with the latest installments of The Non-Canonical Adventures of Rick and Morty below.

Andy Muschietti Steps in for Scott Derrickson on Hulu's 'Locke & Key'

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Image via Universal Pictures

IT director Andy Muschietti is taking over for Scott Derrickson (Doctor Strange, The Exorcism of Emily Rose) at the helm of Hulu's hour-long horror fantasy Locke & Key. Per Deadline, Derrickson had to step down from the project after running into a scheduling conflict with his other upcoming television project, TNT's serialize adaptation of Snowpiercer.

For Muschietti, that means he's moving from his highly-anticipated Stephen King film to take on a project by King's son, Joe Hill, an acclaimed genre author in his own right who wrote the comic book the series is based on. Bates Motel and The Strain producer Carlton Cuse is set to serve as showrunner.

Here's the synopsis for the comics, via Amazon:

Following their father's gruesome murder in a violent home invasion, the Locke children return to his childhood home of Keyhouse in secluded Lovecraft, Massachusetts. Their mother, Nina, is too trapped in her grief—and a wine bottle—to notice that all in Keyhouse is not what it seems: too many locked doors, too many unanswered questions. Older kids Tyler and Kinsey aren't much better. But not youngest son Bode, who quickly finds a new friend living in an empty well and a new toy, a key, that offers hours of spirited entertainment. But again, all at Keyhouse is not what it seems, and not all doors are meant to be opened. Soon, horrors old and new, real and imagined, will come ravening after the Lockes and the secrets their family holds.

Alexandre Aja Teams with Oculus for VR Horror Series

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Image via Dimension Films

The Hills Have Eyes and Horns director Alexandre Aja is teaming with Oculus and VR studio Future Lighthouse for a horror VR series Campfire Creepers. The "episodic immersive" project is inspired by anthology series like Creepshow and Tales from the CryptRobert Englund, of Freddy Krueger fame is set to drop in for a guest appearance.

VR is an exciting front for entertainment, but one filmmaker still haven't mastered yet. I'm of the belief that the format has to find a way to overcome the way the format cuts the viewer off from the world around them. No matter what gimmicky delights a VR experience can offer I'm always acutely aware that I've become deaf and blind to the real world and it's distracting. We've seen how AR can break out (Pokemon Go, Spachat's little hot dog dude), but VR hasn't quite got there yet. That said, not a lot of folks are doing long-form narratives, so I'm exited to see how this turns out.

Check out the details in the press release below:

The live action anthology series, directed and produced by Alexandre Aja, responsible for horror hits like The Hills Have Eyes and Piranha, invites the viewer to join the fire circle at Camp Coyote as a group of campers take turns telling scary stories, each one leading you on an immersive ride into your darkest childhood fears.

 

Inspired by cult classics like Creepshow and Tales from the Crypt, Campfire Creepers is one of the first pieces of episodic immersive content that seeks to draw in more mainstream viewers into VR. One of the episodes includes a guest appearance by Robert Englund, known for his legendary turn as Freddy Krueger.

 

In each episode Alexandre Aja and Future Lighthouse will push the VR story telling limits of what has been done before, utilizing new camera movements, editing, macro shots, etc., always playing with what could be possible to bring more chills to the viewer’s experience.

 

Campfire Creepers is currently filming and first episodes will be released this Halloween exclusively in the Oculus Store.

'Castle Rock' Recruits 'IT' Star Bill Skarsgard

Image via Netflix

IT and Hemlock Grove star Bill Skarsgard is the latest actor to sign up for Hulu and Bad Robot's upcoming Stephen King horror series Castle Rock series, which is assembling quite the roster of familiar genre talent. Skarsgard joins previously announced cast members Melanie Lynskey, Sissy Spacek, Jane Levy, and one of Moonlight's many breakouts, Andre Holland. Per Deadline, Skarsgard is playing "a young man with an unusual legal problem."

Produced by King and J.J. Abrams and developed for TV by Sam Shaw and Dustin Thomason (Manhattan), Castle Rock also set a pilot director this week. Mad Men and American Horror Story director Michael Uppendahl has been tapped to helm the first episode and will take on his first pilot gig for the Hulu series.

Plot details are scarce at the moment, but here's the official sereis description for Castle Rock:

A psychological-horror series set in the Stephen King multiverse, Castle Rock combines the mythological scale and intimate character storytelling of King’s best-loved works, weaving an epic saga of darkness and light, played out on a few square miles of Maine woodland. The fictional Maine town of Castle Rock has figured prominently in King’s literary career: Cujo, The Dark Half, IT and Needful Things, as well as novella The Body and numerous short stories such as Rita Hayworth and The Shawshank Redemption are either set there or contain references to Castle Rock. Castle Rock is an original suspense/thriller — a first-of-its-kind reimagining that explores the themes and worlds uniting the entire King canon, while brushing up against some of his most iconic and beloved stories.

Trailer Trash: 'Kuso' Is a Mindbender; 'Conjuring the Witch's Doll' Is a Blatant Rip-Off

Kuso https://www.youtube.com/embed/bZ3GJxzVkIs

Broadcasting through a makeshift network of discarded televisions, KUSO depicts the aftermath of Los Angeles's worst earthquake nightmare. Viewers travel between screens and aftershocks into the twisted lives of the survived, experiencing a hallucination that is half-Cronenberg, half-Ren & Stimpy.

Ghost House https://www.youtube.com/embed/U9WvN8WVtrw

A young couple, Jim and Julie, are vacationing in Thailand where Julie falls in love with photographing small shrines called“Ghost Houses” that are believed to give spirits shelter and comfort. A couple of British travelers take them into the countryside with the promise of showing Jim and Julie a ghost house graveyard where many of the shrines are discarded. After leaving the graveyard with a souvenir, Julie is increasingly plagued by visits from a malevolent spirit that threatens both her sanity and her life. After Julie is literally frozen in a state of terror, Jim must find a way to lift the curse before he loses Julie to the ghost world forever.

The Hatred https://www.youtube.com/embed/TjDRxmcMei0

Sins from the past return to terrorize the present in this shocker from a producer of Halloween. When recent college grad Regan goes to a family’s house to babysit their daughter for the weekend, she invites her three best gal pals along. What starts as a girls’ getaway becomes a journey into hell, as the young women discover the house is haunted by a dark and violent history involving a Nazi (Wishmaster’s Andrew Divoff), his daughter, and an ancient artifact that feeds on fear.

 Conjuring the Witch's Doll https://www.youtube.com/embed/97aYLCuMGRE

Ambitious young true crime writer Adeline Gray travels to a remote English village to unravel the mystery behind a family’s murder. While investigating the prime suspect’s now derelict ‘Manor in the woods’, she notices a creepy life-size Victorian doll is following her from room-to-room.   After a series of terrifying and inexplicable events, she believes the doll is carrying a hateful spirit wanting to be left alone. Desperate for a career defining story, Adeline’s persistent search for answers soon puts her too at the mercy of the Witch’s Doll.

Devil's Gate https://www.youtube.com/embed/01wjYvoqRkc

The film is set in a small town where an FBI Agent, played by Schull, comes to investigate the missing wife and son of a local rancher, played by Ventimiglia.