It should come as no surprise to regular readers of this site that we are big believers in Spanish director Gonzalo Lopez Gallego. His film King of the Hill (El Rey De La Montana) is a great favorite and earlier today we had the chance to sit and talk with him about possible release plans for that film - not particularly good news, unfortunately - and what he’s working on now. And Gallego is a busy man with two productions gearing up in North America and a third in Spain. Read on for the complete conversation!
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One of the major highlights of being here at the Sitges Festival, just outside Barcelona, has been the chance to meet and get to know a lot of the local talent, all of whom have proven to be just stellar people. And one who I’ve been able to talk with a fair bit is J.A. Bayona, the director of huge international and critical hit The Orphanage (El Orfanato). When asked if he was working on something new earlier this week Bayona would only nod, smile and say yes but that he’d have to wait until it was announced in the trades before he could talk about it. Well, it’s in the trades.
Today Variety announced that Bayona would be directing an adaptation of David Moody’s novel Hater, the story of an ‘epidemic of violence’ spreading through otherwise normal people. Once again Guillermo Del Toro will serve as Bayona’s producer and word is the film will be shot in both America and Spain. Expect to hear more on this just as soon as I’m able to pin him down.
5 Star Productions has announced a new horror thriller titled Slice. Thailand certainly is not short of horror films, cranking them out willy nilly but what is special about this one is the talent behind the camera and behind the pen. Muay Thai Chaiya director Kongkiat Komesiri and art director, acclaimed director Wisit Sasanatieng [Tears of the Black Tiger, Citizen Dog and The Unseeable] except this time around Wisit [left] is writing the script. That makes me a happy boy because he has already proven he can do good horror with The Unseeable.
After a string of murder cases, involving mostly male victims being severed from the police are still baffled by the case and have no clue linking a murder suspect. An ex hitman named Tai, turned informant, tries to fill in the details of this baffling case. But the police simply disregard his valuable input, until now. The situation changes when the next victim is revealed as the son of a government official. The order is put out to capture the murderer at all costs. The police have nowhere to turn to for clues and so must revert to Tai for leads. But information from the Tai comes with a price. First he requests his freedom. In return, he promises to apprehend the murderer within 15 days. To make sure he can deliver the murderer as promised, his wife is held against her will until he can deliver the murderer. With Tais expertise in tracking down people, the ex hitman uses what he knows to gain insight and clues to the case. Remembering that one of his childhood friends has a history of mental illness that shows in the form of resenting the male species in general, thus starts a chase for the murderer. Tai must now duel it out and hopefully catch the right man.
We’ll jump at the chance to give you any information or fun tid bits on any Shinya Tsukamoto film. Yeah, we’ve got big man crushes on the guy. And while this may not be much it is at least a tease, a taste of what is to come. The ever watchful eyes of Chris over at the J-film Pow Wow sighted a handful of images from Nightmare Detective 2 over at Cinema Today. It’s just enough to whet your appetite.
David S. Goyer is one of the most prolific genre writers out there and once in a while he dabbles in directing. His directing efforts have not been as successful as his writing gigs, Blade 3 was pretty much hated by the fans even though I don’t think it’s that bad and The Invisible was just that to most people out there. But I just watched the trailer for his new film The Unborn, starring Gary Oldman and I have to say this thing looks fucked up, in a good way. Doesn’t start out very promising though, pretty much run of the mill asianesque ghost story but the second half of the trailer kicks all sorts of freaky ass. Hopefully the finished film packs as much punch as the later part of this trailer does.
An interview with Goyer and the trailer have been posted over at MTV.com so head on over and take a gander.
And the acclaim just keeps rolling in for Swedish vampire film Let The Right One In ...
Every year each of the affiliated festivals of the European Federation of Fantastic Film Festivals - there are about twenty in all - award what is known as the Silver Melies Award to the best European genre film to take part in each of their festivals. Those silver award winning films, in turn, become eligible to win a Golden Melies Award as the Best European Genre Film of the year. This year’s award ceremony has just wrapped up here in Sitges and out of a very strong field that included the likes of The Orphanage, Frontiere[s], King of the Hill, Inside, The Substitute and more, Let The Right One In has been selected as this year’s winner. Yes, it really is that good.
The film will be rolling out in US theatres in the very near future, check out the American trailer below the break.
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A.J. Annila’s horror film Sauna has been one of our conversation pieces around these parts. We have been talking about it a long time and a lot of us finally got to see it in September at TIFF and Fantastic Fest. Most of us liked it. Some did not. But that is not as important as the news that IFC Entertainment has picked up the U.S. rights for VOD and DVD sales for this Finnish supernatural thriller.
When more details surface we’ll keep you in the know.
Yes, all you observant folk have already recognized the men in the picture as being three quarters of the brilliant League of Gentlemen but, alas, I’ll have to ask you to ignore the tall man in the middle because Mark Gatiss in not involved in what I’m about to talk about. Too busy writing novels and other shows, I suppose ... anyway ...
Two of the founding members of the League - Steve Pemberton and Reece Shearsmith - have been hard at work on a new show for BBC2 for a good while now. Titled Psychoville it’s finally ready to go into production and they’ve just announced the full cast: Dawn French, Christopher Biggins, Dame Eileen Atkins and Nicholas Le Prevost will be joining the two former League-ers. French should need no introduction, really, as is the case for anyone with ‘Dame’ in front of their name, while Biggins is a long time veteran of British television and appeared in The Rocky Horror Picture Show, while Nicholas Le Prevost has racked up sixty screen credits in a career going back to the late seventies. So clearly the originating duo went out looking to add some experience to their cast and came back having landed some rather large fish.
A recent article in the UK’s Guardian outlines some of the plot points for this new one, which sounds every bit as odd and brilliant as the League ...
One very good reason to see Agnes Merlet’s chilling new possession film Dorothy: young first time actress Jenn Murray in the title role. To step into a lead role your first time out is a challenge no matter what the role is but to step into a role like this - a role with serious physical, mental and emotional demands - is entirely another. And Murray, to be blunt, absolutely nails it with a stunningly charismatic performance. This girl is going to be a serious, serious star and will soon be scooping up the sort of roles that generally go to Samantha Morton these days. I guarantee it. The entire cast is very strong, actually, and the film has a beautifully constructed air of menace to it which makes one very badly cliched character and an ultimately unsatisfying ending all that much more disappointing.
Continue Reading "Sitges 2008: DOROTHY Review"...
We’ve covered a good amount of Argentinian horror film in these pages in the past and the more we do the more I realize just how interconnected the film scene is there, and just how supportive many of the key players are of each other’s work. Case in point: upcoming title Lo Siniestro. The film was directed by Sergio Mazurek with producing duties handled by Hernan Findling (director of Breaking Nikki), cinematography by Daniel De La Vega (director of Death Knows Your Name) and some of the script writing chores handled by Nicanor Loreti (director of El Kuervo). Oh ... and the lead actor? That’s Luis Ziembrowski, co-director of The Owner. See what I mean?
Clara (Paula Siero) is a 30 something year old nurse suffering from amnesia. After her mother’s death, she travels to Mar Sereno, the town where she was born. But she will be followed by a terrible curse, and also by her violent husband (Carlos Echevarría), whom she just left. Once in Mar Sereno, she will be aided by Carlos (Luis Ziembrowski), a cop with a dark past who’s currently living there. As Clara starts discovering the secrets of her troubled youth, she starts remembering the dark secret that lead to her amnesia. But dwelling into the past can lead to her and every one in her family to their demise.
We’ve got a quartet of images from this which you can find at the link below.
Though he’ll likely always be best known as the editor of Michael Haneke’s key works, Austrian film maker Andreas Prochaska had a surprise hit a couple years back with what I believe is the first ever Austrian slasher, Dead In Three Days. While it did little to break new ground the film was a solid little exercise in genre film making that took great use of its young cast and it’s alpine setting. And now, like all good slasher directors, Prochaska has a sequel on his hands.
In the summer after Nina¹s graduation, her life changed forever. Three of her best friends became victims of a psychopath, herself and her best friend Mona just barely escaping death. Nina has now only one wish: to forget. She leaves her home town, breaks off all contacts and moves to Vienna to start a new life.
Now, a year and a half later, only terrible nightmares remind her of the past. A disturbing and terrified call in the middle of the night from Mona, breaks her exile. Thinking it another dream, she tries to contact Mona, but she seems to have disappeared. Her cell phone number no longer exists, and the gas station which Mona¹s father had run has mysteriously closed down. The only remaining trace of her friend leads to Tyrol, to Mona¹s place of birth, and finally, to a lonely inn in the snow-covered mountains. The villagers avoid the place. They don¹t like the inn-keepers and numerous rumours circulate about the woman living there with her three grown sons. Despite all warnings, Nina heads for the mountains alone. It¹s her only chance of finding her best friend. However, what Nina finds at the inn is far more terrifying than the rumours suggest, plunging her into a new terror amid the inhospitable freezing snowscapes of the Austrian mountains.
The first teaser for this one has just arrived and you’ll find it below the break in the Twitch Player.
Continue Reading "First Teaser For Austrian Slasher DEAD IN THREE DAYS 2"...
Oh, they tease, they tease ... with the theatrical release of Norwegian slasher Cold Prey 2 just days away a new clip from the film has just arrived online. It’s a brief one that looks to be advertising some sort of cell-phone based promotion, but it joins the excellent teaser and trailer which arrived online previously. You’ll find all three below the break in the Twitch Player.
Continue Reading "A Clip From COLD PREY 2 (FRITT VILT 2)"...
The “Really Scary Shorts” program in last year’s Dead Channels Festival of Fantastic Film featured Richard Gale’s Criticized, winner of—count ‘em—15 film festival awards, including Best Short Film at Dead Channels 2007. With Criticized, Gale proved once and for all that it’s the little things in life that matter in a horror movie. In his follow-up—The Horribly Slow Murderer With the Extremely Inefficient Weapon—Gale shifts from the office desk paperclip holder to the kitchen cutlery drawer. Already at its world premiere at Austin’s Fantastic Fest last month, The Horribly Slow Murderer With the Extremely Inefficient Weapon won a special jury prize and saw its equally popular West Coast premiere in this year’s Dead Channels’ “Fantastic Short Films” program. At this point I have to officially crown Richard Gale as the reigning king of “object horror.”
Continue Reading "2008 DEAD CHANNELS—The Horribly Slow Murderer With the Extremely Inefficient Weapon"...
** UPDATE **
In a very brief email from the powers that be on this film I am told that any rumor of Paul Andrew Williams’ involvement in 28 Months Later is “totally untrue”. Here the update ends, with the original post below for reference’ sake.
It seems that Russia-set three-quel 28 Months Later... has settled on a director. And that fellow is The Cottage director Paul Andrew Williams. Now this franchise is one of those rare ones where the sequel outdoes the original. Much like the Alien franchise the change in directors (Danny Boyle, Juan Carlos Fresnadillo) over entry has been a benefit. The question is whether or not the franchise is malleable enough to find a third entry. Probably. Likely. And the smart thing to do is the develop the world rather than shoe-horn in the recurring characters from entry to entry. If only more franchises would understand this very simple concept.
2008 is the year of the horror-western, apparently, and one that we have been tracking for quite some time here is Swiss director Olivier Beguin’s twenty minute short Dead Bones, which has just premiered at the Sitges Festival. What do we learn from this film? There is a reason why people might be inclined to name a town Dead Bones, dammit, and maybe it’d be best if you just went ahead and rode around it.
The film tells the story of a bounty hunter who rides into a remote town in pursuit of a pair of criminals only to discover the town itself is far more dangerous than his quarry. Shot on location using the still-existing Spanish sets that hosted the large majority of spaghetti westerns through the 1970’s Dead Bones has a remarkably authentic and cinematic quality to it, and full marks go to Beguin for having the good sense to start things off right by going back to the land that made westerns popular in the first place.
As is often the case with a project such as this in which virtually everybody involved is working outside of their first language - it’s shot in English with a multi-ethnic cast and crew - the rhythms of the dialog can feel forced and unnatural in places but Beguin shows his chops in a pair of extended set pieces that crank up the tension nicely: an underground chase through a series of tunnels with bounty hunter and prey chained together at the wrist and an extended, tightly choreographed outdoor gun battle. Also very noteworthy are the stellar gore effects, the first gouts of blood splattered on the screen by Cannibal Holocaust director Ruggero Deodata, appearing in an extended cameo.
