Robert Deniro is one again presenting the annual Tribeca Film Festival in NYC this April 25 through May 7, and it once again looks to be a gigantic and equally quality line-up.  United 93 will be making its screen premeire, amongst other attractions.  For the horror fan, there are four films making their world premeire that you may want to take a closer look at.

The Gravedancers (trailer)
Midnight
[GRAVE] 2006 99 min 
 
Directed By: Mike Mendez 
World Premiere 
 
Harris, Kira, and Sid are college friends who reunite for the funeral of their good friend Devin. A night of drinking ultimately leads to a trip to the cemetery, where the trio bids a final goodbye to Devin before finding a strange card on a gravestone. Written on the card is a song, which the three drunken friends sing while dancing on the nearby graves. Little do they know that the song is actually an ancient curse, and that by invoking it they've condemned one another to a month of haunting, the final outcome of which could very well be death. Director Mike Mendez keeps The Gravedancers firmly planted in a kind of horror classicism, foregoing much of the tongue-in-cheek postmodernism that one might expect from a ""new-school"" horror filmmaker. That having been said, paranormal investigators Vincent and Culpepper still happily offer up some comic relief. Eventually it is revealed that the ancient curse woke three psychopaths from their eternal slumber, and that these three ghosts will stop at nothing to take Harris, Kira, and Sid back to the other side with them. The two investigators try to help Harris, Kira, Sid, and Harris' wife Allison thwart the ghosts and survive. The question is: Will they make it?

PLAYING:
Thu 4/27, 10:30pm AMC Loews 34th Street 13    
Sat 4/29, 11:59pm Regal Cinemas Battery Park 11    
Tue 5/02, 10:15pm AMC Loews 34th Street 13   
Fri 5/05, 11:30pm AMC Loews Lincoln Sq 5   
Sat 5/06, 11:59pm AMC Loews Village VII 3

Hatchet (trailer/official website)
Midnight
[HATCH] 2006 82 min 
 
Directed By: Adam Green 
World Premiere 
 
Adam Green's modern interpretation of the iconic late '70s and early '80s horror slasher flicks pits a deformed, hatchet-wielding baddie against a group of young Mardi Gras revelers on a "Haunted Swamp Tour." Filled with boobs, beer, beads, and buckets of blood, Hatchet sports a sly sense of humor and appearances by icons of the genre like Robert Englund (Freddy Krueger), Kane Holder (Jason Voorhees), and Tony Todd (Candyman). But despite the many horror allusions, the film's main draw is its classic story…On a haunted swamp tour of New Orleans, a motley crew of eight tourists and one guide are forced to abandon their sinking boat, leaving them stranded in what turns out to be the backyard of the ghost of Victor Crowley, a hideously deformed man who was mercilessly taunted by the locals and accidentally killed with a hatchet on Halloween. Local legend has it that Victor still roams the swamps, ripping victims apart with his bare hands-and the tourists soon learn there is truth to the legend. Crowley quickly starts his dismembering crusade, and the group initially freaks out in true Jamie Lee Curtis style. In between jokes about the Dawson's Creek theme song and the shame of going to Hofstra University (Green's alma mater), the group decides to fight back. Who among them will survive? The killer ending is sure to surprise you.

PLAYING:
Thu 4/27, 7:30pm AMC Loews Village VII 1   
Sat 4/29, 11:59pm AMC Loews Village VII 3    
Sun 4/30, 4:00pm AMC Loews Village VII 1   
Thu 5/04, 10:30pm AMC Loews 34th Street 9    
Sat 5/06, 11:45pm AMC Loews Lincoln Sq 6

Sam's Lake (trailer/offical website)
Midnight
[SAMSL] 2006 86 min 
 
Directed By: Andrew Erin 
World Premiere 
 
In writer/director Andrew Erin's frightening feature debut, a brutal murder from the past haunts the small towns surrounding Lake Sam. After a disturbed teenage boy slaughtered his entire family, he disappeared into the woods and authorities never found him. Forty years later, Sam, a nature-loving city girl who grew up in the area and was named after the lake, has returned to her parents' lake house in the wake of her father's death. At the last minute, she decides to bring with her a group of friends for some relaxation and fun. The friends immediately notice the strange cornhusk dolls that hang from houses nearby; eventually, they convince Sam and her local friend Jesse to tell them the story of the murder and the yearly disappearances that have terrorized the area towns. Sam agrees on the condition that they visit the house where the murder occurred. It is in this decrepit home that the group discovers an old diary containing secrets of the legend of Sam's Lake. Set against the backdrop of a beautiful yet foreboding lake, this haunting film offers a spine-tingling story of twisted familial relations and the horrifying consequences of trying to purge oneself of the past.

PLAYING:
Fri 4/28, 11:30pm AMC Loews Village VII 2    
Sat 4/29, 4:00pm AMC Loews Village VII 1    
Tue 5/02, 11:00pm AMC Loews Lincoln Sq 6     
Fri 5/05, 11:59pm AMC Loews 34th Street 13    
Sat 5/06, 11:59pm Regal Cinemas Battery Park 11

Sheitan (trailer/official website)
Midnight
[SHEIT] 2006 92 min 
 
Directed By: Kim Chapiron 
International Premiere 
 
There is bizarre. There is strange and creepy. And then there is Sheitan. This audacious and casually offensive film serves up a feast requiring a cast iron stomach and an ol' fashioned sick sense of humor. On Christmas Eve in a Parisian nightclub, we meet Bart the white boy, Ladj the black guy, and Thai the Asian guy. Then the boys meet the disconcertingly beautiful Eve and bartender Algerian Yasmin. When Eve spontaneously invites everyone to her parent's country house the guys figure they've got it made. Arriving on Christmas day, the group, with Bart's pit bull in tow, is greeted by the caretaker Joseph played by Vincent Cassel who sheds his leading man good looks for a character who is grotesque, likable, and freakish at the same time. While his pregnant wife, Marie, lurks upstairs, Joseph welcomes the out of town guests with an enigmatic smile and some breezy racial epithets describing each newcomer. As a special treat, he takes them to the local hot springs populated by some friendly, oddball hicks including a girl who gives Bart's dog more than a tummy rub. When the group stays the night, the dinner conversation, mainly inspired by Joseph, turns to such savory topics as sex, satanic possession, and incest. With Joseph's erratic behavior escalating and his rarely seen wife casting an eerie presence, all hell starts to break loose. Director Kim Chapiron and co-writer Christian Chapiron have concocted a no-holds bar, in your face, cinematic orgy of twisted comedy, edge of your seat bloody suspense, and sexy eye candy with a climax that will leave you laughing and covering your eyes.

PLAYING:
Fri 4/28, 11:30pm AMC Loews Lincoln Sq 5      
Sun 4/30, 10:45pm AMC Loews 34th Street 12     
Wed 5/03, 10:00pm Regal Cinemas Battery Park 11     
Thu 5/04, 11:59pm AMC Loews Village VII 3     
Sat 5/06, 11:30pm AMC Loews Village VII 2
 
For more detailed information you can visit the Official Website for the 2006 Tribeca Film Festival in NYC...