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17 Oct
| On Friday, /Film’s Russ Fischer said of Devil, the upcoming Dowdle Bros. film from a story by M. Night Shyamalan and script by Brian Nelson, that “The film starts shooting in Toronto a week from Monday, and that’s all we’ve got. It’s tightly under wraps, and has been for a while. Which, I suspect, really means that there’s some info out there that we haven’t dug up yet.” Look’s like we’ve now managed to dig a bit of it up, with a little help from our friends. Be wary of potential spoilers as you read on. After Russ’ post was published, I received a kindly nudge in the direction of the film’s logline. Googling it (of course) I found it published on just one site – the rather unexpected Hollywood.Com. Here it is, word for word: |
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17 Oct
| What the world needs now is another vampire movie like I need two holes in my neck. Of course, it’s going to get one, and a whole lot more than one. Perhaps the most interesting one on the cards, however, is a big screen adaptation of Moira Buffini’s play A Vampire Story to be called Byzantium. The play was commissioned as part of the NT Connections program in London last year and I’m not even the tiniest bit surprised the movie adaptation is coming. The official synopsis follows after the break. Bear in mind that this is the official synopsis of the stage play, and the eventual film could be anywhere from identical to radically altered. It also gets into light spoiler territory after the second paragraph. |
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13 Oct
| Repeat the following name after me three times: Ti West. Ti West. Ti West. Pray that Hollywood doesn’t tuck him into its throbbing succubus and then wring his brilliance out into its rancid, gold spittoon gifted by Dubai. With The House of the Devil, one of the most gorgeous, sexy, and vital horror films in recent memory, the 29-year-old writer/director has bowled me over. I haven’t been this excited by an independent film from a new, uncompromising voice in modern cinema since Jody Hill’s The Foot Fist Way. If you follow my work at /Film, oh shit, you know what that means: I might proceed to drive my unwieldy love-cart off a cliff that is this oncoming jump…so if you choose not to follow, I’ll leave you with an echo. “Take those greedy scumbags at Platinum Dunes hostage, tie them up at the bottom of a Lake and force them to watch THOTD a million times…Happy Halloween.” … |
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10 Oct
| Word has been trickling out about the Joss Whedon/Drew Goddard co-written project Cabin in the Woods for some time now, and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t getting psyched for the film’s release this February (on my birthday, no less!). Now according to our friends over at ShockTillYouDrop, we’ll have to wait a lot longer to see the finished product: Word is that the film, which is also being directed by Goddard, is being delayed until January 11, 2011 while MGM converts it to 3-D. Apparently, it’s not a punishing delay—MGM reports that it’s actually tracking quite well—but for some reason they’ve deemed a 3-D conversion necessary. I suppose with the box office success of recent 3-D horror films like My Bloody Valentine 3-D and The Final Destination, not to mention animated features like Monsters vs. Aliens and Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, studios are beginning to see … |
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9 Oct
| You want the rights to some of the classic horror franchises to escape the clutches of Michael Bay’s Platinum Dunes? Be careful what you wish for. A lot of people really don’t like the Platinum Dunes horror remakes. Easy enough to understand; hell, as far as I’m concerned there are only two real Texas Chainsaw Massacre movies, and they both have Tobe Hooper’s name on the director’s card. But people who will see and complain about the Dunes films won’t even touch the Saw franchise. (Which leads me to wonder just who is seeing the Saw movies to make them successful. Damn kids!) Where does that leave fans of a series like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, which is now passing from Platinum Dunes into the hands of Saw’s Twisted Pictures? More to the point, will we ever have to suffer through the marketing for a Texas ChainSAW Massacre? Variety reports that Twisted … |
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8 Oct
| It’s been two and a half years since Kevin Smith first mentioned plans of writing and directing a low budget horror movie. But is has been over a year since Red State was given a pass by The Weinstein Co. Havey Weinstein called the film “quite disturbing and challenging, a departure from” Smith’s previous screenplays. Smith has also said that the project is “decidedly non-commercial, it’s really f’n bleak and dark, so bleak that it makes The Dark Knight look like Strawberry Shortcake.” I’ve always assumed that this project would never get made… but today there is an update. Smith is in London doing press for his new book Shooting the Sh*t with Kevin Smith: The Best Of Smodcast, and has revealed to DenOfGeek that he might have finally found funding for the horror film: “I got a call at 2am last night. I think we’ve got the money for Red … |
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8 Oct
| Michael Dougherty’s semi-anthology horror film Trick ‘r Treat has been the subject of a lot of blog talk over the past two years, and now thanks to this week’s DVD release, everyone can see it. So, of course, Dougherty is talking about the sequel. In this case, it’s one I’m very interested to hear more about. Dougherty tells MTV that he’s got part of the first sequel mapped out. He knows how the sequel ends, and without giving too much away, that’s the most crucial part. Because while Trick ‘r Treat is labeled an anthology film, in reality it is a handful of interwoven tales. While focusing on one, you’ll catch glimpses of the others and in that way fill in some intentional little narrative gaps. And there’s sort of a full-circle narrative style going on, so the end is, in some ways, the beginning. Once again, the organizing principle … |
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5 Oct
| It is no secret that I LOVED screenwriter Michael Dougherty’s directorial debut Trick ‘r Treat (you can watch our video blog review here). The film will finally get released on Blu-ray/DVD this week, and part of the celebration includes Alex Pardee’s “Hiding From The Normals” art show event at Gallery 1988. To commemorate the event, Alex, Michael and Gallery1988 teamed up for a super limited edition t-shirt depicting Sam, one of the main, and scariest, characters from the film. There are only about 100 of these made, and they will be sold for $25 each. You’ll need to be at the Gallery on Tuesday night at 7pm, as they will be sure to go quick. Check out the full design after the jump. Gallery 1988 Los Angeles: Cool Stuff is a daily feature of slashfilm.com. Know of any geekarific creations or cool products which should be featured on Cool … |
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5 Oct
| I first saw photos from Splice in February of this year and was immediately ready to see it. Cube director Vincenzo Natali has brought Sarah Polley and Adrien Brody into a world of genetic creature development that seems to have a lot of potential. The initial stills (some of which come from the clip below) showed a weird little creature that becomes something much larger and more dangerous. See the clip and read a bit of buzz from the Sitges Fest ‘09 after the break. The basic plot rundown is below, and you can read that or skip if you wish to remain less potentially spoiled. (There’s nothing truly spoilery in either my words here or that synopsis, but if you just want to get a taste, skip right to the clip, which doesn’t give too much away.) It’s easy to see how this could combine elements of Alien, Species and Mimic, … |
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5 Oct
| When Paramount Pictures announced that they were planning a viral limited release for the indie horror film Paranormal Activity, most people wrote it off as the studio dumping the film in a few theaters before the enviable dvd/blu-ray release. At /Film, we immediately saw the potential of the Demand it campaign, especially when it comes to small film distribution. This even prompted Derrick Comedy to launch their own Demand It campaign for the indie comedy film Mystery Team (Demand that Mystery Team come to your city now!). This weekend, Paranormal Activity expanded to 33 cities. The campaign worked and the Thursday through Saturday midnight screenings sold out in all venues, earning a per screen of $16,000 for a total estimated gross of $535,000. Hundreds of thousands of fans across the country have voted for their cities on the Eventful Demand It website, prompting Paramount to expand to over 40-markets. Beginning next … |
