IFC is really serious about this whole horror thing, apparently, because every time I turn around they’ve added more new movies to their VOD schedule. The two latest aren’t quite as exciting as some of the earlier releases (which isn’t a comment on their quality, but more an observation on their “buzz factor), but Coffin Rock and Paintball still look interesting.
Fangoria broke posted the news earlier this week and gave the following plot breakdowns for each film.
Coffin Rock, written and directed by Rupert Glasson, is about a young married woman (Lisa Chappell) who drunkenly sleeps with a stranger; when she becomes pregnant, the one-night stand begins a psychopathic campaign to prove the baby is his.
Paintball, directed by Daniel Benmayor from a Mario Schoendorff script, a group of contestants (led by Brendan Mackey and Jennifer Matter) in the titular contest deep in the woods discover that some unexpected players have joined the game—using real weapons.
Paintball makes its On Demand debut on January 29th. Coffin Rock will be available February 3rd, and don’t forget that the French cops vs. gangsters and zombies flick The Horde will also viewable in February as well.
Check out the trailer for Coffin Rock below, and then hit the “read the rest of this entry” link to have a gander at Paintball.
I’ve still yet to see Joel Schumacher’s Blood Creek–because Lionsgate decided to dump it in about a hundred second run theaters for a week before pulling it out of theaters completely. I’m not sure why they continue to follow this business model, but I find it incredibly annoying–and I have a hard time bringing myself to promote their releases because of it. However, you can’t skip talking about potentially interesting movies just because the distributor sucks. And that’s why you continue to see coverage of Lionsgate releases here.
Getting off that tangent, that’s the cover art for the DVD release of Blood Creek over on the left. The short description is that it’s a horror film with Nazis. The longer description can be read in the next paragraph…
Acclaimed director Joel Schumacher (The Lost Boys, Tigerland) takes the reins of Blood Creek, a tense supernatural horror-thriller concerning two brothers who find themselves at the center of a terrifying occult experiment. In 1936, the Wollners, a German family living in Town Creek, West Virginia, are contacted by the Third Reich to host a visiting scholar. In need of money, they accept Professor Richard Wirth into their home, unaware of the Third Reich’s practices in the occult and Wirth’s real mission that will keep the family bound for decades to come. After 71 years, in 2007, Evan Marshall’s life has stalled at 25 years old when he is left without answers after his older brother Victor’s disappearance from a camping trip near Town Creek. When Victor returns one night, very much alive, and having escaped his captors, Evan asks no questions. At his brother’s request, he loads their rifles, packs their boat and follows Victor back to Town Creek on a mission of revenge that will test them in every possible way. The DVD features audio commentary with director Joel Schumacher.
The film will be available on DVD this January 19th.
I’ve been following Season of the Witch since it was first announced last year. The story, which finds a group of medieval knights charged with transporting a witch, who may be responsible for the black plague, to a mountain monastery sounded pretty cool. The cast includes Nic Cage (who, let’s face it, guarantees nothing in terms of quality these days) and genre fave Ron Perlman. The other potential negative here is that the film was directed by Dominic “any shot that lasts over 1.5 seconds without an cut is too long” Sena. So, I’ve hopeful that this thing might turn out well, but there were some variables working against it.
Fandango debuted the first trailer for the film, and I’ll be damned if it doesn’t look good. If they’d managed to keep the goddamn stupid Marilyn Manson music out of it, I’d be even more excited. Who puts fucking Marilyn Manson in a trailer for a film set in medieval times? Please, fire whoever made that call. I’ve got nothing against Manson, it’s just that I’ve seen a lot of people ruin horror movies and trailers by including his music in trailers where they don’t fit. So, please, cut it the fuck out already.
Anyway, enough ranting from me. Check out the trailer below. Season of the Witch will be in theaters on March 19th, 2010.
I’ve seen all three Underworld movies and I’m still not really sure if I like them or not, but apparently someone out there does because production is moving along on a fourth installment in the seemingly never-ending Vampire/Werewolf war.
THR’s Heat Vision Blog is reporting that the fourth film now has a screenwriter: John Hlavin. If that name isn’t familiar to you, you’ve seen his work if you ever watched FX’s The Shield.
Details about the new film are being kept quiet, but Hlavin did offer up this tidbit. “I can tell you it’s not a prequel.It will satisfy old fans and excite new audiences, meaning that we don’t want to redo the first three movies, so steps are being taken to honor what fans have loved but at the same time introduce fresh elements.“
I’ll tell ya what would excite me–Vic Mackey showing up to pop some caps in vampire and werewolf asses. If that happened, no one would even care if it was a remake, a prequel, or if Kate Beckinsale was coming back. Let’s all cross our fingers and hope this comes to pass.
When news broke not too long ago that Larry Fessenden had been hired to direct the English language remake of the Juan Antonio Bayona directed, Guillermo Del Toro produced film The Orphanage, horror fans were excited. If they were going to remake the film, at least they were getting an interesting and edgy director for the job. Unfortunately, it appears as though that’s no longer the case.
Fessenden shared the following with our friends over at Arrow in the Head:
“The Orphanage was two years of waiting. Working on the script with Guillermo was a very exciting experience, but then I got into a casting miasma and that’s where the thing is; I think they’re gonna do it another way, actually. So I think I’m out of it. Hopefully they’ll still use my script, but I’m not sure I’m directing it anymore. That’s Hollywood for ya.”
While the news is certainly depressing, it appears as though there may be a silver lining in it. Fessenden’s attachment to The Orphanage may help him get more work.
“I have like three movies that I wanna do that are, ironically, at this level. Just because that project [Orphanage] got my foot in the door with studios and managers, agents, all good people working hard – but the fact is I don’t trust whether or not it’ll work. You know, after you get bitten once, you’re just a little more wary.”
Here’s to hoping Fessenden gets to make some of these projects. He’s one of the genre’s best kept secrets, and it would be nice if is his work found a wider audience.
“THE ORPHANAGE was two years of waiting. Working on the script with Guillermo was a very exciting experience, but then I got into a casting miasma and that’s where the thing is; I think they’re gonna do it another way, actually. So I think I’m out of it. Hopefully they’ll still use my script, but I’m not sure I’m directing it anymore. That’s Hollywood for ya.”
Variety brings us news today about that mini-series adaptation of Stephen King’s newest novel, Under the Dome, that I mentioned last week. Steven Spielberg’s Dreamworks TV has optioned the novel and hopes to release it on cable.
Spielberg won’t be directing, but he will be Executive Producing alongside King and Stacey Snider. The company has started to meet with potential writers for the project.
I’ll bring you more on this one as details slowly come into focus. In the meantime, if you’re like me you haven’t even cracked open this novel yet. Here’s what it’s about.
Under the Dome revolves around the drama that unfolds after an invisible force field suddenly descends on a small vacation town in Maine. As the locals fight for their survival, the town descends into warring factions led by enigmatic characters.
This isn’t the first time Spielberg and King have attempted to collaborate on a project. Spielberg has had an option on King’s The Talisman for over twenty years, but has never managed to bring the book to the silver or small screen. Let’s hope things go more smoothly with this adaptation.
I’m really looking forward to checking out Brian Pulido’s The Graves when it makes its theatrical debut as part of January’s After Dark: Horrorfest. That being said, I can’t say that I’m really digging this new poster for the film. I find flies kinda gross, but not in the “oh that’s awesomely sick!” kind of way. Since you can’t judge a book by its cover (at least according to popular wisdom…) I’m not going to allow some mediocre poster art to ruin my hopes for this flick.
In case you missed it before, here’s the plot breakdown:
In The Graves two inseparable sisters, Megan and Abby Graves, are taking one last wild road trip before Megan has to start a new job. The journey includes a trip through remote Arizona in search of a kitschy roadside attraction. Instead, Megan and Abby happen on Skull City Mine, a weather-beaten, abandoned mine town converted into a self-guided tour. What seems like a fun day in the sun turns into a mind-bending fight for survival against menaces both human and supernatural.
Pulido is best known for his comic book work, which includes creating cult characters Lady Death and Evil Ernie.
A few days ago, I brought you news about the DVD release of Pandorum (including what to expect in terms of extras). Today, I bring you the cover art (courtesy of the fine folks at DVD Active). I got nothing else…it’s cool, but not anything we hadn’t already seen in the posters.
That being said, if you missed the film in theaters (and judging by the box office numbers, most of you did) you’ll be able to check it out on DVD this December 22nd.
I’m still not entirely sold on Daybreakers, the futuristic vampire movie wherein the vamps have apparently taken over the world and reduced us all to cattle, but this new TV spot and UK quad poster are slowly winning me over.
That’s the poster above (courtesy of Empire), and you’ll find the clip (which comes courtesy of MTV’s Movie Blog) below. Here’s the plot synopsis: In the year 2017, a plague has transformed most every human into vampires. Faced with a dwindling blood supply, the dominant plots their survival; meanwhile, a researcher works with a covert band of vamps on a way to save the human race.
The film stars Ethan Hawke, Willem Dafoe, and Sam Neill. It hits theaters on January 9th–or just in time to wash the foul taste of holiday cheer out of your mouth for another year.
Every time I think I can’t hear anything more that would make me more concerned about The Wolfman remake, something comes along and proves me wrong. /Film has a good article on the latest crew shuffling on the (apparently) greatly troubled film.
Editor Dennis Virkler is out, replaced by Mark Goldblatt and Walter Murch. To people who don’t pay a lot of attention to the technical aspects of filmmaking, these names don’t really mean much (and I’ll be honest, I didn’t really know much of anything about Virkler until today, either) and the idea of shuffling people around this late in the process seems like it should be bad news. However, as the /Film article points out, Virkler’s worked on some really terrible films (check out his IMDB page if you don’t believe me) while Goldblatt and Murch have worked on films like Apocalypse Now, Godfather 2, and Cameron’s Terminator movies. This is definitely a step in the right direction.
However, the film’s shot–and an editor can only make a film from the footage he’s been given. Getting two editors of Goldblatt and Murch’s skill level is certainly a positive, but it doesn’t do much to allay my uneasy feeling that The Wolfman could well turn out to be a disaster of epic proportions.
