New on DVD July 9-19: Demons, Aliens and Out-of-Control College Students

It’s the middle of the summer, the sun is hot, and you’re in the mood to stay inside and watch a movie that will get your adrenaline flowing. You’re in luck; new movie releases on digital and DVD for mid-July include films about  terrors including ravenous demons, soul-stealing aliens and misbehaving young people.

“Spring Breakers” is a hedonistic adventure written and directed by Harmony Korine (“Kids”). It follows a quartet of college students (Ashley Benson, Vanessa Hudgens, Selena Gomez, Rachel Korine) as they engage in behavior typical of kids on spring break: drinking, sex, fast driving and armed robbery. The film got its most significant attention for its atypically bad-girl performances by Hudgens and Gomez and its more typical weird-guy performance by James Franco.

“The Host” didn’t get much attention at all. Based on Stephenie Meyer’s lesser-known novel (as compared to the books she wrote featuring Bella, Edward and Jacob), “The Host” is about a young woman (Saoirse Ronan) who must fight back against aliens who are intent on taking over the world by controlling humans’ minds. There’s a love triangle here, too, but absent any vampires or werewolves, this story didn’t capture the imagination of audiences nearly as completely as “Twilight” did.

A reboot of Sam Raimi’s 1981 cult horror classic, “Evil Dead” also features young people doing unwise things, but this time their unwise behavior includes inadvertently summoning murderous demons to a spooky cabin in the woods. Produced by Raimi and Bruce Campbell (the star of the original film) and directed by Fede Alvarez, this remake is perhaps less funny but even bloodier than the original.