Posts Tagged ‘Horror’
A new version of Heavy Metal, the 1981 animated anthology film with stories based on the comics magazine Heavy Metal (originally Metal Hurlant in France), has been batted around for the last couple years. At various points a whole laundry list of directors have been ‘confirmed’ to helm segments: David Fincher, James Cameron, Guillermo del Toro, Zack Snyder, Rob Zombie, Gore Verbinski, Mark Osborne and probably more that we’ve forgotten.
The film was dropped by Paramount in 2008, but is reportedly still kicking. David Fincher has stayed on as producer and a possible segment director, and Blur Studios, the outfit also reportedly animating the Fincher-produced The Goon, may still be involved.
Now there’s new word that the core team of Fincher, Cameron and Snyder is moving forward with the film, which will be entirely animated in 3D.
Deadline talks about the project, though in truth they don’t have many details beyond what we’ve already known. It’s in Fincher’s hands now, and he’s looking for independent financing and distribution commitments. Mike Fleming says that the film will feature eight or nine animated segments, which echoes what we’ve heard over the past couple years. He also says “all of them [will be] infused with the spirit of the erotic and violent storylines that defined the magazine,” which means, yeah, it’s Heavy Metal. (The 1981 film had seven segments, or eight if you count the opening credits sequence ‘Soft Landing’ as being separate from the framing story.)
Deadline labels this a ‘passion project’ for Fincher, but it seems more like a playground, especially with Cameron involved. All the pulp sci-fi inspirations that have always played in his work are right there in Heavy Metal, and doing a segment for the film would be a way for Cameron to make something a little lighter than his usual features. (Hopefully his playing won’t look anything like that dismal music video for Bill Paxton’s band.) Cameron’s involvement may be the one thing that can get this movie financed at this point. Maybe they can get Jason Reitman in there, too. His father produced the original film.
I only hope that a new version can echo the original’s blend of idiosyncratic animation styles. Whatever you think of the ‘81 Heavy Metal (yeah, it’s an indulgent cheese-fest that often makes no sense at all) it has some unique animation. Hopefully a 3D version won’t just gloss everything over with the same style. At least it’s likely to be better than Heavy Metal 2000, which was truly garbage.
So much for those ‘please turn off your cell phone’ messages before movies. A new German horror film called Last Call is pushing a new ‘interactivity’ gimmick that will have one member of each theatrical audience receive a call from an onscreen character during the film. The ghost of William Castle approves.
Jawbone (via Gizmodo) has news on the film, which harbors some not insignificant ambitions. Last Call won’t just phone up an audience member during the film. Special language recognition software will “transform the participant’s answers via mobile phone into specific instructions. A specially developed software then processes these commands and launches an appropriate follow-up scene. The dialogue between the movie’s main actress and an audience member leads to a different film - and outcome - every time: sometimes with a happy end, sometimes with a more gruesome one.”
So it works like this: you provide your cell number when purchasing a ticket, then software will randomly call one of the submitted numbers. Answer the call and you’ll hear the on-screen actress requesting help. Then the audience member “has to help her escape by choosing a path through the old, rundown sanatorium. Furthermore, he also decides whether she should help other victims to flee the scene -and every single choice shapes her fate: it’s a matter of life and death.”
Amusing concept, sure, and it seems like great fodder for drunken midnight screenings. Maybe not so much for run of the mill events. It is so easy to envision how audience members would mess with the system. “What should I do?” “Eat bacon!” “Lay down and die!” What happens if the person called just hangs up? How many possible outcomes will there be?
Anyway, here’s the sales pitch / trailer:
So much for those ‘please turn off your cell phone’ messages before movies. A new German horror film called Last Call is pushing a new ‘interactivity’ gimmick that will have one member of each theatrical audience receive a call from an onscreen character during the film. The ghost of William Castle approves.
Jawbone (via Gizmodo) has news on the film, which harbors some not insignificant ambitions. Last Call won’t just phone up an audience member during the film. Special language recognition software will “transform the participant’s answers via mobile phone into specific instructions. A specially developed software then processes these commands and launches an appropriate follow-up scene. The dialogue between the movie’s main actress and an audience member leads to a different film - and outcome - every time: sometimes with a happy end, sometimes with a more gruesome one.”
So it works like this: you provide your cell number when purchasing a ticket, then software will randomly call one of the submitted numbers. Answer the call and you’ll hear the on-screen actress requesting help. Then the audience member “has to help her escape by choosing a path through the old, rundown sanatorium. Furthermore, he also decides whether she should help other victims to flee the scene -and every single choice shapes her fate: it’s a matter of life and death.”
Amusing concept, sure, and it seems like great fodder for drunken midnight screenings. Maybe not so much for run of the mill events. It is so easy to envision how audience members would mess with the system. “What should I do?” “Eat bacon!” “Lay down and die!” What happens if the person called just hangs up? How many possible outcomes will there be?
Anyway, here’s the sales pitch / trailer:
Just as the teaser hits for the new Twilight movie, here’s word on a film that could be the polar opposite of Eclipse. Directed by Matt Reeves, Let Me In is the remake (or re imagining, as some have said) of the Swedish film Let the Right One In. It stars Chloë Moretz, who is also in Kick-Ass. As she starts to promote that film, she’s talking a bit about Let Me In, and describing a take on vampires that is quite different from that of Twilight.
Speaking to Movieline, Moretz described her Let Me In character, the young (or young-looking) vampire Abby:
Usually a lot of movies glamorize being a vampire. It’s pretty, it’s cool, you look awesome! The way we did it was that it;s not cool to be a vampire. It’s a burden that she has to carry with her, not this fun, cool, interesting thing. It’s scary, deep, and dark, this devil inside of her. The vampire is different than Abby. It’s like her alternate personality, and when it takes her over, she has no control.
Cinematical talked to the film’s producer, Simon Oakes, who says the film will likely be R-rated and “stay true to the imagery and mystique and the mythology of the original.” In keeping with that, he makes the horror elements sound rather low-key:
At the end of the day, you could make this movie and never use the word “vampire.” You could say this is a love story between two kids. I think an understanding of genre helps, because there are obviously some big set piece-genre moments in it.
But then there’s this:
It’s not a re-imagining; the same beats [are there]. Maybe the scares are a little bit more scary. We haven’t been able to ramp that up quite a lot, obviously, for budgetary reasons.
The only thing that bugs me here is that quote about scares and budget, which suggests that creating scares on film is linked directly to effects. Nothing could be further from the truth. You can make a scary film with no money, as long as you have a camera, actors and an imagination. Other statements in the Cinematical interview suggest that ‘more scary’ doesn’t necessarily mean ‘more gory,’ and in general it sounds like Let Me In isn’t being pushed in a direction that will make it feel untrue to the story.
Here’s a little distraction for you, something to play with for a couple of idle minutes. In order to promote the DVD and BD release of Saw VI (out since January in the US, in UK stores this week), Lionsgate have whipped up a little Where’s Waldo-style picture with Jigsaw’s creepy tricycling puppet Billy hidden away amongst several Saw and Waldo characters and in jokes. You can see the full picture after the break.
The picture was created by Daniel David Freeman who has had some rather hip shows in London and done work for a series of similarly hip clients.
One of the films I regret missing at the 2009 Toronto International Film Festival is a campire rock musical titled Suck. Rob Stefaniuk’s Canadian independent rock comedy tells the story of “a rock ‘n’ roll band that will do anything to become famous.” In a post-Twilight age, it is easy to write off any young vampire movie as just another one of those tween flicks, but this looks different. And early reviews coming out of the festival were very positive. Watch the trailer now, embedded after the jump. And as always, please leave your thoughts in the comments below.
Here is some more information from TIFF’s official guide:
Joey (Rob Stefaniuk) is the ostensible leader of the Winners, a bar band going exactly nowhere. They’re broke and feuding with one another, and the crappy gigs they’ve managed to cobble together and call a tour are being cancelled. Even their lame manager Jeff (played with scuzzy relish by Dave Foley) doesn’t want anything to do with them. Things aren’t much better on the home front. Joey’s permanently enraged girlfriend feels neglected and isn’t thrilled that his ex, Jennifer (Jessica Paré), is still in the band. But their luck is about to change. Picked up by a rather scary goth type, Jennifer shows up the next day looking, well, paler than usual. This would normally be a cut-and-dried moral situation, but Jennifer’s recently acquired gifts get the band more attention than ever. And as the bodies pile up and the band’s tolerance for sunlight drops, Joey is faced with an impossible decision: give up what he’s dreamt of all these years, or do the right thing.
Cameos include “Henry Rollins as an obnoxious shock jock; punk godfather Iggy Pop as a crazed record producer and the film’s conscience; heavy-metal legend Alice Cooper as the über vampire” and Moby.
We’ve been covering the development of Jack & Diane for over four years now. This predates the whole Twilight craze, and predates the breakout success of Juno. Bradley Rust Gray’s film is about two teenage lesbians, originally set to be played by Ellen Page and Olivia Thirlby.
“Jack & Diane meet in New York City and spend the night kissing ferociously. Diane’s charming innocence quickly begins to open Jack’s tough skinned heart. But, when Jack discovers that Diane is leaving the country in a week she tries to push her away. Diane must struggle to keep their love alive while hiding the secret that her newly awakened sexual desire occasionally turns her into a werewolf.”
It’s a very indie story about two girls who fall in love. The werewolf aspect is actually a visual metaphor for something else. Jack and Diane was originally set to start production in the fall of 2007, but I guess funding fell through. Last year we heard that Milk/Scott Pilgrim star Alison Pill would be replacing Page in the lead role. And now Bloody Disgusting is reporting that Juno Temple (Year One, Wild Child) has instead been cast in that role, alongside Thirlby, and that shooting will finally begin this May in New York City.
After going down well at Sitges and Sundance, Vincenzo Natali’s Splice was picked up for distribution by Warner Bros. through their Dark Castle label. They’ve announced a 4th June release, which simply can’t come soon enough. But what’s this? A fly in the ointment?
According to Fangoria, Natali is heading back to the edit room to make some alterations to the film. He says:
You’re going to see a slightly nipped-and-tucked version. I’m actually going into the editing room next week, and if they’re true to their word, it’s just going to be cosmetic… There are also a few things I’m changing after seeing the film with an audience. I believe what will come out of it will be a new and improved cut, but in essence, it’ll be the same film.
What changes will he make? I made my own enquiries and confirmed that the only tweaks will come in “tightening up the ending”. Note: that’s tightening up, not overthrowing and replacing. The only question remains how many minutes are we calling the ending here? The last five? Ten? Twenty?
The Los Angeles Times is reporting that Lars and the Real Girl helmer Craig Gillespie is in final talks to direct DreamWorks’ remake of Fright Night. According to the Times source, “a sweepstakes that included at least three directors appears to be coming to a close, with Craig Gillespie the man who will likely sit behind the camera.” Dreamworks apparently met with a bunch of directors on Friday and began final talks with Gillespie to helm the remake. Marti Noxon, a veteran of television shows like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel and Mad Men, has been writing the screenplay, with Michael De Luca and Alison Rosenzweig set to produce.
Gillespie worked for over 16 years as a commercial director, nominated for four DGA Awards for “Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Commercials“, one of which he won. He made his directorial debut in 2007’s Mr. Woodcock, but left the project after several negative test screenings (audiences didn’t respond well to the dark humor he had been using in his commercials). David Dobkin replaced Gillespie in the director’s role, and many scenes were re-written and re-shot. He went on to write and direct Lars and the Real Girl, which won critical acclaim — garnering screenwriting nominations at the Oscars and WGA, and earning a best actor nomination for star Ryan Gosling at the Golden Globes. Gillespie has a relationship with Dreamworks, having produced and directed episodes of the Spielberg-produced Showtime series The United States of Tara.
Previously (from Russ):
In Tom Holland’s 1985 original film, a kid discovers that his new next-door neighbor is a vampire. After some ‘boy who cried wolf’ problems, he faces down the creature with help from his girlfriend (Amanda Bearce), a fellow horror movie junkie named Evil Ed and the aging host of a late-night horror TV show. Part of the reason we heard the Screen Gems version died was a desire to deviate significantly from the original plot, and that a suitable screenplay was never devised.
The plan is to keep the horror/comedy tone but update the effects, which is becoming boilerplate conversation when talking about the remake of a film with a large or specific fanbase. “No, we just want to update it, just polish it up a bit.” But the late-night horror movie show host is fairly antiquated as a character. Maybe the kids will join forces with Harry Knowles? And will the remake retain the gay subtext (it’s just barely subtext) of the original film? For that matter, will it hire an actor who’ll go on to do gay porn afterward, just like Stephen Geoffreys did? So many questions!
Fright Night is a fantastic film. It has great performances and some excellent practical effects. The idea that ‘updating’ might be neccessary is silly. (The DVD needs updating, though!) But Noxon has some great credits in the resume, so now I’m curious. Her past work suggests she might be just right to help create a film that could parallel the original.
Crackle is streaming the original film for a while, so you can check it out there if you’ve never seen it. (Note that it is NSFW.)
via: FirstShowing
1408 screenwriter Matthew Greenberg has been hired to pen a remake of another Stephen King adaptation, Pet Sematary. Transformers/G.I. Joe/1408 producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura is attached, and the project is set up at Paramount Pictures. Aside from the previous King adaptation, Greenberg’s screenwriting credits include a bunch of subpar genre efforts: Reign of Fire, Halloween H20 and The Prophecy II. No director has been attached.
King’s original novel was published in 1983, and was nominated for Best Novel at the World Fantasy Awards the next year. The book was brought to the big screen in 1989 with a film directed by Mary Lambert, and starring Dale Midkiff, Denise Crosby and Fred Gwynne. There was also a sequel, Pet Sematary II, which was met with less financial success and critical acclaim. At one point Alphaville was trying to get a remake off the ground with Face/Off scribes Mike Werb and Michael Colleary penning a draft. George Clooney was even circling the project, but it never went into production.
The original description from the book follows:
“Sometimes dead is better….” When the Creeds move into a beautiful old house in rural Maine, it all seems too good to be true: physician father, beautiful wife, charming little daughter, adorable infant son — and now an idyllic home. As a family, they’ve got it all…right down to the friendly cat. But the nearby woods hide a blood-chilling truth — more terrifying than death itself…and hideously more powerful.
If you’ve never read the book, you can grab the 576-page mass market paperback for under $6 on Amazon. You can watch a trailer for the original Pet Sematary film, taken from an Aussie CIC VHS video, below:
source: THR
