Archive for August, 2008
Posted by dominie in Events, General, News on August 29th, 2008
The Hollywood Reporter announced that Ricky Schroder (Black Cloud) has just signed on to direct the new television film, Hellhounds, written by Paul A. Birkett of TV’s Not My Life. “The movie, set in 500 B.C., starts Scott Elrod (Men in Trees) as Kleitos, a Greek warrior who with his companions fights against the hellhounds of Hades to rescue his bride from the Underworld and bring her back to life.”
Michael Prupas (Muse) will executive produce alongside Robert Halmi Sr. and Robert Halmi Jr. of RHI Entertainment. It will be Schroder’s fifth project with the Halmi’s. The team began collaborated twenty years ago, during production of Lonesome Dove. Their latest work, Journey to the Center of the Earth just premiered on Ion Television early this year.
The film will begin lensing this Sunday in Romania. It will air on Sci-Fi Channel in the coming year and Schroder reveals that we can expect much CGI and special FX.
Posted by dominie in Films, News on August 29th, 2008
IFC Films has quickly become today’s leading theatrical film distribution company since their launch in 2000. Bloody Disgusting has learned that IFC Films’ latest acquisition is Mark Tonderal’s (Dog Eat Dog) UK horror thriller titled Hush for US release. The film is about a cat and mouse chase involving a young couple and a truck driver staring William Ash, Robbie Gee, Andreas Wisniewski, Claire Keelan, Christine Bottomley, and Stuart McQuarrie. We’re still waiting on the official announcement and release date.
Posted by dominie in Films, News on August 28th, 2008
Isidro Ortiz’s Spanish thriller, Shiver, will arrive in the US later this year—the date still unannounced. Shiver is about “a lonely adolescent [who] moves with his mother to an isolated village and a series of odd events shock the community.” Dark Sky Films picked up distribution rights earlier this year.
In the mean time Ortiz has been putting together his next feature film Naumón, an adaptation based on Belgian author Amélie Nothomb’s Sulphuric Acid. The novel was centered on a fictional reality TV show named Concentration. People are collected from the streets and brought to the studio death camp, where they are to be branded, their fate decided by an amoral spectacle.
The film will be set on a ship and is said to potentially star Asia Argento (Land of the Dead) and first looks at some of the concept art can be found at Aullidos.
Posted by dominie in Films, News on August 28th, 2008
We touched briefly in July on Boogeyman director Stephen Kay’s return to the big screen in the upcoming thriller, Cell 213, about a criminal defense attorney who gets framed for a murder and lands himself a home in the South River State Penitentiary. He soon finds himself in a menacing nightmare.
According to Bloody-Disgusting, principle photography is currently taking place in Toronto, Canada under Toronto based production company Access Motion Pictures. Eric Balfour (Text Chainsaw Massacre, Hell Ride), Michael Rooker (Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer), and Deborah Valente will star in the horror thriller.
In a short interview, Kay commented on prepping for the film. “There’s a certain inherent ‘horror’ in a prison itself. Our goal is to keep the fear and claustrophobia of the real prison life and add to it a deep, psychological terror. The more honest we can keep this world, the more compelling the horror will be. This is a ‘haunted house’ that you really can’t run from.”
Access Motion Pictures was founded in 2007. The production company strives to produces pictures that “showcase compelling stories for a worldwide audience.” They currently have an ambitious slate for fall 2009 that will feature Frankie and Alice, a psychological thriller starring Halle Berry.
Posted by dominie in Films, News, Reviews on August 28th, 2008
In July 2007, Variety announced Universal’s new origins tale about Vlad the Impaler titled Dracula: Year Zero with Alex Proyas (Dark City, I, Robot, The Crow) to direct and Michael De Luca producing. The film will be a new take on the legend of Dracula, showing Vlad when he was still vital. Scribes Matt Sazama and Burk Sharpless are hoping to downplay the monster depicted in the classic Bram Stoker novel, and instead play on sympathy for Vlade’s character, who was actually considered a hero in Romania when he sold his soul to the Devil to save his kingdom and family. In this story of tragedy and love, can Dracula really be considered the hero?
Production is taking place at Universal Studios, rightfully, as it is the home of the monsters and MTV caught up with Proyas for the details. We now bring you the highlights:
Without revealing too much, Proyas tells MTV that the new take on Dracula: Year Zero is “a sort of the origin tale that mixes [the historical] Prince Vlad of Transylvania with sort of [fictionalized] Bram Stoker [take].”
Regarding vampire mythos, he ensures us there will be stakes, teeth, and blood. “Oh, you’ve got to have teeth… I mean, the teeth are really important. I think Frank Langella in the Dracula movie that was made in the 70s, I think he didn’t want to have teeth in the movie. But, no, I like the teeth. I want to see girls with a lot of teeth.” Regarding garlic, he said “I think the garlic thing is kind of weird,” but would not disclose on any transformations into a bat.
Posted by dominie in Films, News on August 28th, 2008
In May 2008, The Strangers, budgeted at $9 million grossed $54 million in domestic sales. The highly anticipated DVD arrives on October 21st. In the meantime, fans can be excited for the sequel to come. Variety confirmed yesterday that Rogue Pictures has set in motion the sequel to the summer hit.
Bryan Bertino, who wrote and directed the original film, will return to write the script, but as to who will helm the sequel is still being discussed. The sequel will again be co-produced Roy Lee, Doug Davison of Vertigo Entertainment and Nathan Kahance of Mandate Pictures. Rogue will co-finance the film with Intrepid Pictures, with Marc D. Evans and Trevor Macy to executive produce.
Production is tentatively slated for early 2009. Star Liv Tyler, and several of the original villains will also return.
Posted by dominie in Films, Games, News, Reviews on August 28th, 2008
According The Hollywood Reporter, Twilight co-star Ashley Greene who played one of Edward Cullen’s siblings has signed on in an upcoming thriller tentatively titled Summer. She plays a girl searching for her long-lost father w in her journey she encounters a family of serial killers played by Stephen McHattie (Watchmen, Pontypool), Barbara Niven and Peter Mooney.
Lee De Marbre (Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter) directs the film, written over a year ago by Sean Hogan and Christine Conradt. Principle photography in Ottawa is already halfway through and reports say its first footage may appear at this year’s AFM.
Posted by dominie in Events, Films, News on August 28th, 2008
According to Bloody-Disgusting, a fourth film has been added to the third annual After Dark Horrorfest taking place in January 2009. In addition to The Broken, Slaughter (formerly Faithless), and Perkins’ 14, we now have Butterfly: Revelation as one of the “8 films to die for.”
Although still unannounced on the official website, Wikipedia also shares this information. Here’s a recap on what to expect thus far:
The Broken is a psychological horror story about a woman whose life descends into nightmare when she wakes up in the hospital after seeing an apparent double of herself driving by—in her own car.
Slaughter follows a young woman trying to escape an abusive past. She moves to Atlanta in hopes of seeking refuge at her family far, but discovers even more cruelty awaits her.
Perkins’ 14 is a killer thriller involves the arrest of a suspected murderer. It follows Robert Perkins, who after witnessing his parents’ massacre brainwashes 14 bodyguards to kill anyone that tries to harm him.
In Butterfly: Revelation, a young man discovers he has inherited the powers of “The Butterfly Effect” and attempts to solve the mystery of his high school girlfriend’s death using his newfound ability, only to unwittingly unleash a vicious serial killer.
We can also thank DreadCentral for new still of Stewart Hopewell’s Slaughter. 
Posted by dominie in Films, Games, News, Reviews on August 27th, 2008
ShockTillYouDrop.com recently had a chance to visit the set of director Jon Harris’ The Descent 2. Exclusive from their interview, here are the highlights.
In chatting with writer of The Descent 2, James Watkins who recently directed Eden Lake, we learned that the sequel will introduce new elements from the first film to play on. There will be men this time around, more gore, and really tap into our “deep primal fears.” Gory moments will serve as breathing room in this sequel reveals Watkins as he describes a new sequence he and Harris came up with involving water. They toured the caves in Yorkshire with a cave rescue crew for a first hand experience but didn’t go very deep at all. “It’s pretty dangerous,” expresses Watkins, “The real extreme cavers do the water stuff. Going into the water not knowing where you’re going to come out, I wouldn’t even want to do that on the fantastic set Simon [Bowles] has built.” (more…)
Posted by dominie in Comics, Events, Films, Games, News on August 27th, 2008
In addition to the Dead Space EA video game and Dead Space: Downfall, both arriving in October, and the ongoing Image Comic series, Dead Space has launched their new website, NoKnownSurvivors.com.
The website will utilize all manners of storytelling and filmmaking from audio effects to the rapidly growing 3D animation techniques to serve fans with more Dead Space content. Over the next nine weeks, fans can immerse themselves into the world and follow every step of the process as the creators tell two tragic stories, Misplaced Affection, followed by 13.
Misplaced Affection follows “an organ replacement technician who falls hard for a capable female security officer. 13 is the “tale of a sleeper agent who makes the wrong decisions for the right reasons.” Each story is four chapters long, with new chapters going live every Monday.
