Soon to make its world premiere at the Film4 Frightfest in London, the producer of Wolf Creek will be making waves again with Coffin Rock - the feature debut from writer-director Rupert Glasson.  Here’s how the festival describes it:

In the small coastal town of Coffin Rock, Rob and Jess live an almost idyllic life, their relationship marred only by their inability to have children. In a weak moment Jess sleeps with a stranger and later learns she’s pregnant. But the shocking truth is Evan targeted her the moment she walked into the fertility clinic where he worked. Now Jess’ guilt turns to full-blown horror as Evan begins a petrifying transformation from menacing stalker to unhinged psychopath….

But don’t take their word for it, we’ve got the trailer below the break and it’s truly unsettling stuff!

Continue Reading "Obsession Turns Ugly In Australian Thriller COFFIN ROCK"...

Imagi Studios has set up a booth at the Anime Expo 2009 in Los Angeles and “Anime3000” has capture on camera the Gatchaman promo being on display on the floor. Of course, the video quality ain’t so great as typical with any cam-job.  We have to bear with it until a proper version comes along.  Hopefully, more news update on this promising superhero film will emerge soon. 

You’ll find the promo after the break.

Continue Reading "Cam-Job Promo for Imagi’s GATCHAMAN"...

My biggest gripe with animated films in Hollywood today is the lack of mature or edgy content for adults.  Most of the animated films getting produced are driven by slapstick gags and the characters are drawn in cartoony fashion.  Creative studio Nathan Love, in collaboration with Perspective Studios, has completed a three-minute trailer for Blood Trail that utterly go against this convention.  Its a horror piece based on writer Matt Cochran’s screenplay of the same name and its expected to be developed into a feature film, video game and/or graphic novel.  Before you watch this trailer, I must warn you that it contains extreme gore and graphic violence in full CG animated glory.  This is definitely not safe for work so keep your kids away.  What transpire in the last half had me going “oh shit!”.

You’ll find the trailer embedded below after the break.

Continue Reading "Trailer for CG Animated Horror BLOOD TRAIL"...

While in New York a week or so back I had a friend ask if I’d seen the new French trailer for Tony Jaa’s Ong Bak 2.  As with the original Ong Bak Luc Besson’s Europa Corp have gotten their hands on this one and while the rumor is that there has been a mild re-cut of the film to tighten things up a bit - I’m hearing six minutes have been removed - and some changes to the score - though nothing as drastic as the hip hop version done for the original - the new French trailer, I was told, makes Ong Bak 2 look like “the greatest action film ever made”.  I hadn’t seen it at the time, but now I have and I have to say I pretty much agree.

What do you say?  Was it the argument between Tony Jaa the director and Tony Jaa the actor over whether he really needed to get into that pit of water with a live crocodile that drove Tony to go hide in the jungle for two months?  Check the French trailer out below the break along with the extended Thai promo reel!

Continue Reading "It’s Tony Jaa Versus Crocodile In the French Trailer For ONG BAK 2!"...

With the announcement that [REC]2 will be opening Sitges 2009 the PR train is getting rolling with the first in a planned series of behind the scenes videos.  It’s in SPanish only but it does provide a good look on set of the sequel to the hit Spanish horror picture and directors Jaume Balaguero and Paco Plaza hard at work.

Oh, I should have seen this coming.  I really should have.  A new Jean-Pierre Jeunet film is a big, big deal in France and I should have known that the folks behind the scenes would not have been content with just the one brief teaser for the film that appeared a few days ago.  No, that would not nearly be enough.  And so now there are more.  Lots more.  As in seven brand new teasers, each of them dedicated to a different character for the film.  And all of them look like gold.

Is it better to live with a bullet lodged in your brain, even if it means you might drop dead any time? Or would you rather have the bullet taken out and live the rest of your life as a vegetable? Are zebras white with black stripes or black with white stripes? Is scrap metal worth more than landmines? Can you get drunk from eating waffles? Can a woman fit inside a refrigerator? What’s the human cannonball world record?  Find out answers to these questions and more. A comedy in the vein of Delicatessen and Amélie.

You’ll find all eight teasers below the break!  And, for fans, the Dominique Pinon one is number seven.

Continue Reading "More Of Jeunet’s MICMACS!  Lots More!"...

It’s kind of funny how easily the reptile part of the brain can take over.  It makes us do odd things, makes us fixate on the things that make our nether regions tingle, to the exclusion of all else.  Makes us so focused - for example - on a certain Oscar-winning director casting a porn star in one feature that we cmpletely miss the fact that he’s working on another one as well, this one starring an actor with more than a little bit of awards hardware on his shelf at home.  A well ... I guess I just don’t find Matt Damon as attractive as Sasha Grey.  Such is life.

The director, of course, is Steven Soderbergh, and the film - the new one - is The Informant!, a based- on-a-true-story tale of quite possible the least competent corporate whistle-blower in the history of ever.  i can’t help but feel that the Coen Brothers stole a little bit of the stylistic thunder on this one with Burn After Reading but Damon looks fantastic in it - as, bizarrely enough, does Scott Bakula - and I got more than one good laugh out of it when I caught it screening before Public Enemies.  And, yep, it’s online now so I rather suggest checking it out.

[Udated with fresh trailers]

It aint just America making throwbacks to the blaxploitation era right now, a point well made by French effort Black, a more modern spin on the genre that we’ve been covering here for quite some time.  Starring French musician MC Jean Gab’1 - also featured prominently in Banlieue 13 Ultimatum - as a Senegalese-French thief travelling to Africa for a heist where he’ll not only have to deal with local law enforcement but also Russian mercenaries and a flamboyant arms dealer who seems to be slowly turning into a snake, Black had its premiere at SXSW earlier this year.  And with the French release right around the corner - July 15th in France for those keeping track, August for Canada - the PR train is rolling full speed.  The first proper French teaser was released in mid-June and has since been followed by a second teaser and - just now - a full theatrical trailer..  You’ll find them all along with the earlier sales trailer - English subtitled, no less - below the break.

Continue Reading "No Dynamite, Just BLACK *UPDATE*"...

If you went to watch Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs at the theaters, chances are you might have caught the second trailer for Ilion Studios’ Planet 51.  Its a sci-fi animated comedy that has been on my radar for so long.  With animation that looks just as good as any other heavyweight studios, Ilion from Spain may prove to be a major contender.

Planet 51 is a galactic sized animated alien adventure comedy revolving around American astronaut Captain Charles “Chuck” Baker, who lands on Planet 51 thinking he’s the first person to step foot on it. To his surprise, he finds that this planet is inhabited by little green people who are happily living in a white picket fence world reminiscent of a cheerfully innocent 1950s America, and whose only fear is that it will be overrun by alien invaders…like Chuck! With the help of his robot companion “Rover” and his new friend Lem, Chuck must navigate his way through the dazzling, but bewildering, landscape of Planet 51 in order to escape becoming a permanent part of the Planet 51 Alien Invaders Space Museum.

The release date is on November 20th.  You’ll find both the trailers below after the break

Continue Reading "Second Trailer for Ilion Studios’ PLANET 51"...

Twitch has not as yet given the work of Jonathan Nix any attention. That will change. Better late than never, right? Jonathan’s work producing animated shorts and soundtracks for the same has won him critical acclaim at festivals across his native Australia and beyond, and his latest project is the very wonderful-looking The Missing Key. This planned 25-minute short appears to build on the whimsical baroque setting for his earlier piece Hello (2003), a melancholy Italianate fantasy world with a distinctive touch of the surreal, and so far it looks to be absolutely gorgeous. Find the synopsis and a two-minute preview trailer from YouTube embedded after the break.

Continue Reading "Gramophone! Teaser for Jonathan Nix’s THE MISSING KEY"...

Though I have no idea what it’s like from the local perspective, to an outsiders eye it looks as though now is an interesting time to be making films in Australia.  Though several of the big, high profile genre films have failed to find the international traction they were expected to post-Wolf Creek the country has turned out a string of small, sharp thrillers and indie dramas that just look to be dead solid.  Films like Acolytes, Beautiful, Last Ride and Van Diemen’s Land.  And Van Diemen’s Land takes me to where I want to go - to the resurgence of the hard edged Australian period drama, the Aussie western if you will, post The Proposition.

It’s a genre pretty uniquely suited to Australia, a land with stark landscapes and an even starker history, and another very solid entry in the genre is just around the corner.  Kriv Stenders’ Lucky Country is due to hit Australian screens in mid-July.  The just-released trailer starts off looking like a period-set family drama but things quickly take a darker turn and it is obvious something is lurking below the surface.  Beautifully shot with a strong cast, this story of a failing farm and gold-seeking ramblers looks like a keeper.  Check the trailer below the break!

Continue Reading "Australia Goes Western In LUCKY COUNTRY"...

It’s Canada Day today, the day we celebrate my homeland’s politely asking the British if we could be our own country, please, and the British saying yes.  It’s a national holiday but here I am working away to bring the news to you, the same as always.  Because that’s just how much I care.  Though apparently I didn’t care all that much last week, when I neglected to post a Twitch Video Player Top Ten, so this week’s edition spans two weeks.  But two weeks, three weeks ... it wouldn’t change the title at the top of the list.  After just one day the trailer for Noboru Iguchi’s RoboGeisha has become far and away the number one video loaded into the Twitch Video System since we switched to our current provider.  Yes, one day to total dominance.  Don’t mess with robot geishas, man, they’ll mess you up ... Here’s the list!

1.  RoboGeisha Trailer (55 055)
2.  Micmacs a Tire-Larigot Teaser (6836)
3.  Symbol Teaser (3760)
4.  The Canyon Trailer (3039)
5.  Air Doll Trailer (2639)
6.  Road To Home Teaser (2513)
7.  New Legend Footage (2262)
8.  Thirst Trailer Two (1912)
9.  Forbidden Reality Trailer (1784)
10. Linni Meister - My Ass Music Video (1606)

Oh Hong Kong you’re so wacky. While a gweilo like me could never fully understand this brand of nonsense comedy there is a certain delirious joy when watching them. They’re just so out there that even without understanding them and all their cultural nuances fully they are no less entertaining. For example we have the trailer for Wong Jing’s upcoming nonsense comedy On His Majesty’s Secret Service. Though quite unlike the James Bond film of the same name from 1969 a quick search couldn’t pick up a lot of details about this film. Thus, I first found what I hoped was a description of the film to the more qualified and sanitary skills of Google Translate and this is what it came up with…

The film story takes place in ancient times, the emperor has to have a direction to 12 named after zodiac ... personal protection. Louis Koo as one of nine days, the representative of the high sign of the Zodiac “dog”, also known as the “灵灵dog,” he indulged in technology will certainly insist that the technology will be better than kung fu, but his inventions are in action on many occasions was busy in doing so out of tune with the other agent, and only his brother, “灵灵Tiger” and fiancee, “Mei hope that” duty-bound to support him. But the face of an infatuated Mei hope, wonder dog灵灵style was unmoved. At this point, the major opponent just Tso ambitious, desire to kill the emperor replaced, but he must first get rid of the dog led to灵灵大内密探. What is unexpected is the father-in-law of conspiracy Cao is only the tip of the iceberg,灵灵dog will have to face more and more powerful enemy, the palace seems to calm potentially dangerous, murderous hidden.

Then a little more digging found this much more coherent synopsis over at Far East Films...

The secret service has been responsible for protecting the Emperor for generations and 12 agents are always assigned to bodyguard duty. Amongst the current group, Zero Zero Dog (Louis Koo) is considered to be the weakest as he shows no interest in the martial arts and spends his time studying technology and creating inventions. When Dog stumbles upon an evil plot to kill the Emperor by the chief eunuch, Cao Yan Chui (Fan Siu Wong), he decides to prove everyone wrong and vanquish the enemy himself.

The film stars stars Louis Koo, Big S Barbie Hsu, Fan Siu Wong, Leung Kar Yan, Liu Yi Wei, Sandra Ng, Law Kar Ying, Chen Jia Jia, and Sang Wei Lin. The trailer is loaded up after the break and I am a tad disappointed that the sound is out of sync but you definitely get the gist of the film. Martial arts, crazy characters and zany comedy are after the break!

Continue Reading "Trailer for zany Chinese comedy ‘On His Majesty’s Secret Service’!"...

[Our thanks to Captain Awesome for pointing out a series of fresh stills for this one.  More bio.  More slime.  You know the drill.  Hit the link below to check ‘em out.]

I’ve always had a sweet spot for 1950’s b-grade science fiction and a particular weakness for The Blob and apparently low budget film maker John Lechago feels exactly the same way.  His latest effort, Bio Slime is an obvious nod to the blobby days of yore, albeit a nod filtered through the much more explicit filters of films such as Evil Dead and Braindead.  If you’re a fan of this sort of thing then the plot line shouldn’t matter very much but if you’re curious it revolves around a strange mass of slime released from a mysterious brief case during a drug deal gone bad. 

Though he’s been brewing his particular brand of madness for a good long while now it wasn’t until the arrival of Machine Girl that writer-director Noboru Iguchi really made an impression here in North America.  But when he did, it was a big one - his fetishized story of a high school girl whose arm is replaced by a giant machine gun becoming a genuine viral phenomenon as it raced through the web.  And how has Iguchi followed up the success of Machine Girl?  With robotic geishas.  Lots of them.

RoboGeisha is the latest collaboration between Iguchi and special effects man Yoshihiro Nishimura - himself the director of Tokyo Gore Police - and it bears all of the now-classic hallmarks of the duo: outrageous special effects, grotesquely hilarious gore and weapons where weapons just should not go.  Machine Girl had the mechanized arm.  Iguchi’s earlier Sukeban Boy had leg and breast cannons.  Nishimura’s Tokyo Gore Police has the infamous penis cannon.  RoboGeisha?  This one boasts what the trailer graciously describes as hip-katanas, though the swords are actually placed considerably lower and more to the rear.  Yes, Iguchi’s latest has ass-swords and women who aren’t afraid to use them.  And that’s not even mentioning the giant robot-building, the transforming geisha-tank or the fried shrimp rammed into eye sockets.

The trailer for RoboGeisha is a virtual compendium of the bizarre and hilarious world of Iguchi, all of it narrated in bizarrely dry style. We’re very proud to have been given the world exclusive of the trailer here at Twitch, passed to us directly from production company TO Entertainment, and you can find it below the break!

Continue Reading "Noboru Iguchi Says ‘Geisha Is Beautiful!  Geisha is Robot!’ It’s the ROBOGEISHA Trailer!"...