The Horror Geek – News, Rants and Reviews From The Horror Geek!

It’s hard to determine when, exactly, the concept of the “snuff film” (a film wherein someone is murdered on camera and the resulting material is sold for profit) entered the collective consciousness. If I had to guess, I’d go with the book The Family: The Story of Charles Manson’s Dune Buggy Attack Battalion (written by Ed Sanders of the rock group The Fugs). The book covered the Tate and LaBianca murders, but it also insinuated that Manson and his merry band of murderers may have been involved with the creation and trafficking of what Sanders referred to as “snuff” films. If it wasn’t there, it was certainly years later when Michael and Roberta Findlay’s lousy film Slaughter became an exploitation sensation thanks to producer Allen Shackleton tacking on some fake footage of a woman being murdered by the film crew after the conclusion of the last scene and renaming the movie Snuff. Either way, the concept of the snuff film has been with us for years-a popular urban legend that lives on because it’s not only gruesomely fascinating, but also feels like it could genuinely happen.

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I’m not convinced that this is something I’d consider a “horror movie”, but it’s a slow news morning here and a few of the bigger sites have covered it so I might as well too.

Anyway, THR is reporting that Patrick Lussier and Todd Farmer (the minds behind the My Bloody Valentine remake earlier this year) are re-teaming to bring us Drive Angry–a horror/thriller/road picture to be shot in 3D and starring Nic Cage. The writing/directing tandem had plans to do a sequel to MBV, but Lionsgate was uninterested for some reason–so this is what they’ve cooked up instead.

Lussier will direct (based on a screenplay he co-wrote with Farmer) the film, which finds Cage playing a rage-driven father chasing the people who killed his daughter and kidnapped her baby. Apparently, things get bloody as the chase moves forward–leaving a trail of dead bodies along the highway. As far as loglines go, this one is good enough to get me interested in learning more. If Cage dons a bear suit or punches women in the face at any point during the onscreen events, I’m all in.

Production on Drive Angry is scheduled to start in April of next year in Louisiana.

Rob Zombie’s Halloween II may have underperformed at the box office this weekend (it made 17 million bucks in the early estimates–good enough for third place, but not even close to The Final Destination’s 28 million) but that doesn’t mean it’s the end of the line for Michael Myers. The Weinstein’s are already planning a third film in the series–without Rob Zombie at the helm. Here’s the clip from the LA Times:

““Halloween II” may not have won the box office this weekend, but Weinstein Co. is taking a lesson from the movie that did as it prepares a sequel for next summer.

The independent studio’s co-Chairman Bob Weinstein said today that the 3-D sequel, titled, appropriately enough, “Halloween 3D,” is in development.

The investment it takes to shoot movies in digital 3-D has proved particularly lucrative for horror films. For “The Final Destination,” this weekend’s No. 1 movie, theaters with at least one 3-D screen earned 3.25 times as much as those that showed the movie in 2-D only, according to distributor Warner Bros. That’s substantially higher than for other recent releases. The equivalent 3-D multiple for last month’s “G-Force,” for instance, was only 1.7 on its first weekend. For July’s “Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs” it was 1.4 andm for June’s “Up” it was 2.2. January horror flick “My Bloody Valentine” earned 6.4 times as much from 3-D theaters as it did from 2-D on its opening weekend.

Weinstein said Rob Zombie, who directed “Halloween II” and 2007’s reboot of the 31-year-old horror series, won’t return for “Halloween 3-D.” He said the studio is in negotiations with a new director, whom he declined to name, who has experience in horror and has a “different take” on the franchise.“

At this point, I don’t even give a shit what they do with Halloween anymore. I’ve got Carpenter’s original film and I like to pretend the whole thing ended right there, with a befuddled Loomis looking down at the lawn where the corpse of Michael should have been only to find nothing. I think it’s also safe to assume that Halloween 3D will not be an updated version of Season of the Witch…

It will be interesting to see if Zombie really bows out here. He wasn’t interested in doing Halloween II, either, and we see what happened there.

The LA Times has released the preliminary weekend box office figures–and now we know the answer to the question “which horror flick will do better on opening weekend”?

The winner is, amazingly enough, The Final Destination. Death’s latest adventure lead the pack, taking in an impressive 28 million bucks. Rob Zombie’s much hyped Halloween II could only slide into third place with a disappointing 17 million. I’ll admit these numbers surprise me–I didn’t know which film would come out on top, but I figured the end result would be much closer.

I’m curious if the additional charge for the 3D glasses for The Final Destination figures into the tally as well–I’ve never heard if it does or not, but that’s a few extra bucks with each ticket sold if it does.

Unfortunately, it looks like the worst case scenario happened here–two horror movies opened, but audiences split over which one they went to see. Either film could have upped their weekend haul by opening without genre competition. The bad news here for both flicks is that the genre market is set to get crowded from here forward and horror flicks generally don’t do well after the first weekend under the best of circumstances.

Oh Guillermo Del Toro–you crazy workaholic bastard. Seems like not a week goes by without news of the beloved filmmaker taking on a new project. To be fair, a lot of these are things he’s producing, which requires a lot less involvement than directing, but one has to wonder how Del Toro will manage to fit all these projects into his schedule even if he’s only a figurehead.

The latest news comes from Bloody-Disgusting and indicates that Del Toro is still planning to produce Deadman (which he’s been attached to for a number of years, but it had fallen off the radar)–a film based on a relatively obscure DC comics character. Nikolaj Arcel is supposedly interested in directing. If you’re not familiar with Deadman (and if you’re not a hardcore comic nerd or worked in a comic shop, you’d have no reason to be…), it’s the story of Boston Brand–a trapeze artist murdered during a performance. A Hindu goddess gives him the power to inhabit the living so he can find his killer. I swear, I’m not making this up.

This is another fine example of just how lost DC is when it comes to making comic book films. Once you get past Batman, DC is clueless. The logical thing to do would be to make movies with your big guns (or at least your “recognizable to a mainstream audience”) characters–you know, Superman, Wonder Woman, etc. Instead, we get Green Lantern, The Green Arrow, and Deadman…way to go. Here’s to hoping for an Aquaman announcement sooner rather than later.

I don’t really believe that Deadman will ever see the light of a projector’s bulb–it reeks of being one of those announced projects that goes into pre-development and then gets stuck in turnaround for eternity (Del Toro’s been attached to this thing since like 2006–so I’m not exactly going all Nostradamus here). That’s probably for the best, but if it does actually come to fruition, I’ll bring you more details as they’re released.

Ah Sunday, a day for rest and relaxation–and apparently a day for no horror news.

I saved this clip of Silent Hill: Shattered Memories for a day just like today. The Wii-updating (I’m hesitant to call it a remake–it is technically a remaking of the first game, but it’s bringing a lot of new elements to the table as well) of the classic survival horror game is looking pretty good. Don’t take my word for it, though, have a look at this new trailer for the title that appeared at GamesCom earlier this month.

Expect Silent Hill to hit retailers on October 13th for the Wii, PS2, and PSP–just in time to creep you out for Halloween.

If Robert Rodriguez/Nimrod Antal’s sequel to the classic action flick Predator is going to make it out by next July, things are going to have start falling into place in short order. That’s why it’s good news to hear that the production team was scouting locations in Hawaii last week.

Tim Ryan’s Reel Hawaii blog says a scouting team did check out the islands, and if they decide to use them, shooting would last on the location for 18 days in October. The film begins principal filming on September 28th.

We don’t know much in the way of plot specifics for the sequel, but apparently the new film will take place on the Predator homeworld instead of here on Earth.

One film I’m looking forward to with cautious optimism is The Descent 2. I thought the original was excellent and I hope the sequel rises to the bar set by that movie. The only reason I’m not more excited is because director Neil Marshall isn’t returning. Usually that means there’s a shift in style and things of that nature from one film to the next as a new director comes in and wants to put his own unique stamp on things.

That being said, this debut trailer (courtesy of IGN) for the film looks good. In fact, it looks like it could have been pulled out of the original in some ways. The claustrophobic setting, the monsters, all of it is giving me a positive vibe. Check it out for yourself and see if you don’t agree.

The second installment picks up right where the first film ended. I’d post a plot synopsis, but it would be full of spoilers for the first film–and if you haven’t seen it yet, I’d hate to be the guy to ruin it for you.

Adventurous fans can return to the cave on December 4th, when The Descent 2 makes its UK debut. I’ll bring you details about the US release as they become available.

Next year’s After Dark: Horrorfest is slowly starting to take shape. Earlier we learned that Brian Pulido’s The Graves and the adaptation of Clive Barker’s Dread would be part of the one week mini-festival. News emerged last night (from both Bloody-Disgusting and STYD) adding another film to the tally: Lake Mungo.

Described as a supernatural mystery, Lake Mungo marks the directorial debut of Joel Anderson. Talia Zucker, Rosie Traynor, David Pledger and Martin Sharpe star in the film, which features this plot synopsis:

In Lake Mungo, sixteen-year-old Alice Palmer drowns while swimming in the local dam. When her body is recovered and a verdict of accidental death returned, her grieving family buries her. The family then experiences a series of strange and inexplicable events centered in and around their home. Profoundly unsettled, the Palmers seek the help of psychic and parapsychologist, Ray Kemeny. Ray discovers that Alice led a secret, double life. A series of clues lead the family to Lake Mungo where Alice’s secret past emerges.

This year’s Horrorfest starts on January 29th. The films will be shown theatrically for one week, then will be available on DVD a short time later. Expect more details on both Lake Mungo and the rest of the scheduled flicks as it becomes available.

Rob Zombie is causing an internet explosion today–first with his release of Halloween II (in theaters now) and then with news of his next project. Guess what? It’s not Halloween III–although the idea of Zombie’s typical redneck characters fighting druids who utilize robots and make evil masks might be interesting…

No, Zombie has surprised us all by revealing that his next project is a re-imagining of the cult classic sci-fi flick The Blob. If that’s not a “what the fuck?” moment, I don’t know what is.

Zombie tells Variety that “I’d been looking to break out of the horror genre, and this really is a science fiction movie about a thing from outer space. I intend to make it scary, and the great thing is, I have the freedom once again to take it in any crazy direction I want to.”

I’m genuinely puzzled by the whole “I’d been looking to break out of the horror genre” line. If anyone seemed suited to work in the horror field for life and be perfectly content with it, you’d think it would be Rob Zombie. I mean, Christ, his last name is friggin’ Zombie. I’m all for artists exploring their interests, but I’m not entirely sold on Zombie being able to work outside the genre. And, let’s keep things in perspective here–The Blob is really a horror movie at heart (in the same way Carpenter’s The Thing is–you might have a monster from outer space running around, but it’s still a monster eating people).

The filmmaker goes on to add something even more outrageous to cult cinema purists:

“My intention is not to have a big red blobby thing … I have a totally different take, one that’s pretty dark.“

I know people are ranting and raving about this point like Zombie just said “I’m going to redo the crucifixion–only without Jesus”, but is it really that big a deal? Isn’t it more troubling that The Blob is being remade at all? We’ve already had a Blob remake (and it turned out pretty well) so why do it again? Zombie has complained that he did the Halloween films because there wasn’t funding for his own unique independent projects. I was cool with that–sometimes you have to suffer for the greater good. After doing two of those “for hire” kind of productions, I think most of us hoped we’d be seeing something along the lines of Tyrannosaurus Rex–and not another soulless remake to a film that was fine in the first place.

I’m just going to hope for the best on this one as it starts to move forward.