We’re officially less than a month away from Rob Zombie’s Halloween II hitting theaters. Expect one more tidal wave of pre-release material as we get closer to the August 28th release date.
Here’s the latest photo from Zombie’s MySpace–a shot of bloody Laurie crouching amongst some more bloody bodies. Enjoy.
The Alien remake/reboot/prequel saga takes another turn today–with news from Variety that says Ridley Scott is back in the director’s chair.
Scott, the filmmaker responsible for the original, will helm what is being labeled a prequel to the first film–a movie that found the crew of a salvage ship battling a vicious alien life form on their vessel. The movie spawned a franchise (it was all downhill after James Cameron’s sequel though) and this may be Fox’s last best chance to restore the series to iconic status.
Screenwriter Jon Spaihts has been recruited to pen the new script. Here’s the early description:
The film is set up to be a prequel to the groundbreaking 1979 film that Scott directed. It will precede that film, in which the crew of a commercial towing ship returning to Earth is awakened and sent to respond to a distress signal from a nearby planetoid. The crew discovers too late that the signal generated by an empty ship was meant to warn them.
I have no clue how that will play out, but I like the idea of a prequel rather than a remake or a rebooting of the Alien franchise.
All in all, this is good news. If they were going to do another Alien, this is about as much as you could hope for–getting the man who made the original classic back to direct is like a dream come true. Making it a prequel may not be the most exciting idea ever (I still kinda like the idea of an Alien film that brings the monsters to Earth), but things could have been way worse there. Now let’s all cross our fingers and hope Fox doesn’t fuck this up.
Director Glenn McQuaid’s horror comedy I Sell the Dead is set to hit limited theaters on August 7th and then take to the airwaves courtesy of IFC’s Video-On-Demand service on the 12th. In preparation for that, they’ve released a new trailer for the film (starring Dominic Monaghan, Larry Fessenden, Angus Scrimm, and Ron Perlman). Check it out below.
If you’ve not heard of I Sell the Dead prior to now, here’s the official synopsis. I think the film looks and sounds incredibly cool–hopefully it lives up the potential hinted at in the preview.
In I SELL THE DEAD, 19th century justice has finally caught up with two of the craftiest grave robbers in town. With only a few hours to go before his date with the guillotine, body-snatcher Arthur Blake (Dominic Monaghan / LORD OF THE RINGS, Lost) tells his life story to the peculiar Father Francis Duffy (Ron Perlman / HELLBOY, THE CITY OF LOST CHILDREN). Before long, Arthur spills the beans on how he got started in the grim corpse peddling usiness with seasoned ghoul Willie Grimes (Larry Fessenden / WENDIGO THE LAST WINTER, HABIT). As the whisky flows Arthur’s tales get stranger and stranger. From their graveyard discoveries of vampires and zombies to tales of vicious gang rivalries with the infamous House of Murphy, Arthur’s confessions are the stuff of legend! Whether pillaging in fog drenched grave yards or plotting on blood soaked coast lines, Grimes and Blake leave no graves unturned. Their colorful and peculiar history is one filled with adventure, horror, and mayhem that threaten to drag all involved down into the very graves they’re trying to pilfer.
I’ve still never seen so much as a single episode of HBO’s vampire series True Blood. People keep telling me to watch it (I don’t have HBO) and I meant to pick up the first season’s DVDs just to see what all the fuss was about, but I get sidetracked easily (and, to be totally honest, Twilight has killed vampires for me lately. Vamps were on thin ice with me after the whole Anne Rice thing–glowing vampires was the proverbial stake through the heart. It’s not particularly fair, but what can you do?).
The show (starring Anna Paquin) is a ratings hit. The numbers are growing with each new episode and the program is the most watched series on HBO since The Sopranos. With success like that, it’s no wonder the company is announcing that they’ve greenlighted a third season of the show before the second one has ended.
I guess this means I’m going to have to watch it at some point.
Universal hasn’t officially announced this (and since they own the film, they’re the final word on the subject), but the guys at STYD spotted this on Moviefone. The site is listing an October 20th DVD release date down for Sam Raimi’s Drag Me To Hell. The film, which marked Raimi’s return to the genre that launched his career, didn’t set the box-office aflame (it made 58 million bucks), which is a shame because it was one of the best films of this lousy summer. Many have speculated that the movie’s PG-13 rating put many horror fans off of seeing it by creating the impression we’d be getting a watered down mainstream horror film. That wasn’t the case.
Hopefully this release date pans out–Drag Me To Hell would make great Halloween viewing (a double feature with Trick ‘r Treat sounds like the way to go to me). Here’s to also hoping the film finds the wider audience it deserves once it breaks into the home market.
After news broke yesterday that The Wolfman was once again moving (from a November release all the way to February of 2010), there was lots of speculation that the film might be in trouble. STYD was on the case, and here’s what they’ve uncovered.
Initial rumors were that the film was requiring extensive re-shoots because no one was happy with the werewolf make-up and the physical transformation scenes star Benicio Del Toro was undergoing (this was apparently being done via CGI…go figure, CGI sucking. Who’d have guessed?). The transformation issues, according to rumors, required that Rick Baker come in and create a more traditional man-to-werewolf sequence using practical FX (please god let this be true…why they’d try to do this with CGI when you could get Baker, the guy who crafted the fantastic transformation scene in American Werewolf, is beyond me).
Those are just rumors though–no one’s officially confirmed them (or denied them for that matter).
The official line from Universal (again, snaps for Ryan Rotten for clarifying all this stuff) is that the move is purely motivated by money. Opening in November put the film up against Disney’s A Christmas Carol (we’re getting a Christmas movie the week after Halloween? WTF?) whereas the February window puts it opposite less intimidating competition. I’m not entirely sold on this story–Universal knew opening in November was going to put the film up against some big movies (although maybe not a Disney holiday flick) and they had the confidence in the project to do it anyway. This sudden change doesn’t inspire confidence.
The good news is that we’ll finally see a trailer for the film when Inglorious Basterds opens on August 21st.
Some of the best gaming news I’ve heard this year revolved around the fact that Atlus is bringing the original Persona game to the PlayStation Portable. One of the earliest RPGs on the original PlayStation console (and the game that basically introduced most western audiences to the Shin Megami Tensei universe) is getting a port to Sony’s handheld–along with a much needed facelift (we’ll all finally be able to play the Snow Queen chapter).
If you swing by the game’s official site (found here) you’ll not only get a look at the game’s packaging, but various other updates. Among these new additions to the site are: 3 new character profiles, 2 clips in the story section, clips of the Speedy Battles system, clips from the Snow Queen chapter, and 2 sample tracks from the game’s soundtrack CD (a 2 disc add-in that will be available with every copy of the game).
If that (and the fact that this is a modern day occult RPG where you recruit demons to fight alongside you) doesn’t get you off the fence on this game, then I don’t know what to tell you. Atlus promises even more goodies for next week, though–so maybe something there will convince you that you need to play this game.
Persona hits the PSP in September of 2009.
I like to think of TheHorrorGeek.com as being a horror site that appeals to a wide range of nationalities. I posted the Brazillian one-sheet for Sorority Row a few days ago (or as I’ve now taken to calling it Pacto Secreto…) and today I’m posting a look at the French Final Destination poster.
The image comes courtesy of a Haley Webb website (found here) by way of Bloody-Disgusting (because there’s no way in hell it would have occurred to me to surf a Haley Webb fansite for potential Final Destination news).
I’ve been looking at the poster for like five minutes now and I’m not sure if I like it or not. This film’s mareting designer has been a big fan of the color blue with gauzy white mixed in. I thought the four characters about to get obliterated by a race car was pretty ho-hum, but then it won me back over when I noticed they all have skulls for heads in the reflection.
Am I reading way too much into this? Most definitely. It’s a boring morning here at Casa de Bracken.
The Final Destination will unveil Death’s grand plan on August 28th.
If you ever found yourself wondering what First Blood would have been like with Kim Basinger playing John Rambo, then wonder no more-just run to the video store, grab a copy of While She Was Out and prepare to be astounded-for all the wrong reasons.
Susan Montford wrote and directed this turgid and hopelessly implausible tale of a woman forced to fight for her life after running afoul of an ethnically diverse gang of young thugs (seriously-there’s a black guy, a Spanish guy, an Asian dude, and the ringleader is white…it’s like the United Nations of young punks) in a mall parking lot on Christmas Eve. When the gang’s chief hoodlum (played by an annoying Lukas Haas) accidentally shoots a mall security guard in the head, they decide that Basinger’s mousy housewife (she’s got an abusive husband at home, played by Craig Sheffer) needs to die too-she is a witness after all.
It’s a slow news day today (I refuse to report on the latest Twilight sequel casting update…you’re on your own with that), but here’s a link to a new viral website for Marcus Dunstan’s directorial debut The Collector.
Clicking here will take you to the new site, where you can watch grainy footage of a half naked chick trying to escape from the film’s titular villain. I don’t know how it all plays out (I have a short attention span), but have a gander for yourselves.
The film opens theatrically this Friday. I’m still pissed that there was no press screening of it in this market.
