Filmmaker Charles Band has a career that stretches back into the 1970s, and over the decades he has brought more than four hundred genre movies into the world. He’s best known for launching the company Full Moon, which got its start with the classic Puppet Master back in 1989. All these years later, Full Moon is still going strong – and it looks like 2026 is going to be a great year for the company. A while back, they launched a poll where fans to choose their next ten productions, with fourteen options to pick from. One of the winners was a project called The Grim Rapper, which has been on the Full Moon “to do” list for a long time. It made it through production a few months ago, and now a trailer for the finished film has dropped online! You can check it out in the embed above.
A specific release date hasn’t been announced, but Full Moon says the movie will premiere sometime this summer, and it will be streaming on Full Moon Features.
When a different version of The Grim Rapper was announced several years ago, it was going to be directed by William Butler from a script by C. Courtney Joyner. At the time, the project had the following description: The year is 1996. After the East-Coast West-Coast hip-hop war leaves a notorious L.A. gangsta rapper shot dead, the resurrected thug returns as a relentless killing machine, hellbent on revenge! He’s “The Grim Rapper”, determined to wipe out the posse that did him wrong by executing his targets with his gruesome weapon of choice: a massive skull-laden boom-box that obliterates anyone in its path with deadly beats blasted straight outta Hell! As the bodies pile up, the streets run red and everyday hustlin’ turns into a hip-hoppin’ horrorshow!
Now The Grim Rapper has the following synopsis, and Joyner’s script has been updated to a modern setting: Rap icon D.A. Mann is murdered at the height of his fame and returns from the dead three decades later after forging a dark pact with an Aztec blood demon. Driven by vengeance and the desperate hope of seeing his true love one final time, he rises to confront the people who betrayed him and deliver their souls to the demon. When Hathorne Slim a ruthless record label executive attempts to cash in by releasing D.A. Mann’s unreleased albums, the resurrected rapper unleashes a wave of supernatural retribution that threatens the executive and everyone in his path.
The film marks the feature directorial debut of Hugo Velazco, who is already a trusted member of the Full Moon team, as he has been working in the marketing department for at least ten years.
Will you be watching The Grim Rapper when it premieres this summer? Take a look at the trailer, then let us know by leaving a comment below.