Happy weekend, wilters of all that is unwilling. Can you guys believe that they’re officially changing the name of the Razzies into the I, Frankensteins? Maybe that was just a rumor though. The genre has been alive and well at Sundance, with loads of films seeing good reviews and distributor deals. (Spoiler: that’s what some of these stories are about.)
Now for a couple of tidbits I didn’t get to in the main story. Jeff Baena’s zombie comedy Life After Beth was picked up by indie hitmakers A24, so we should be seeing Dane DeHaan, Aubrey Plaza, John C. Reilly, Anna Kendrick and Paul Reiser serving up bloody chuckles later this year. And you’ll soon be able to find Vincenzo Natali’s completely swept under the rug paranormal thriller Haunter on Blu-ray and DVD starting February 11. It was quite an interesting take on the home ghost genre.
Well Go USA Nabs Dead Snow Sequel, Which Spurts out Fantastically Orchestral Theatrical Trailer
While it may have sounded like the most unneeded sequel ever created, Tommy Wirkola’s Dead Snow: Red vs. Dead looks insanely pleasing and puts Wirkola’s talent for gore-baths in the upper echelon. Its Sundance premiere was met with cheers and Well Go USA took no time at all in lining up with the literal armies of undead waiting to attack. Oddly enough, Well Go USA will be releasing the all-English version of the film domestically instead of the half-Norwegian/half-English cut that was shown at Sundance. Are we seriously that opposed to subtitles? Oh, yeah I guess we are.
Picking up soon after the more generic original film left off, Red vs. Dead follows sole survivor Martin (Vegar Hoel) as he discovers his previously severed zombie-infected arm has been reattached and has given him somewhat super powers. He enlists the help of an untested American zombie hunting group - including Martin Starr and Ingrid Haas - to help him take on Colonel Herzog (Ørjan Gamst) and his horde of vengeful Nazi zombies. And from the batshit insane trailer seen above, Martin and Co. have a zombie horde of their own coming to the party.
Wirkola has promised an innumerable amount of ways to kill people with this one, and the preview features around 15, so I can’t wait to see what else he has in store, assuming of course my eyes haven’t been gouged out by garden shears. Well Go USA will be announcing release dates shortly, so stay tuned.
The Mirror (2014) Sales Trailer - The best bloopers are here
The Mirror Releases Spooky Trailer and Lands Distro Deal
Did you watch the trailer for Oculus the other day and think that horror movies about haunted mirrors were too few and far between? You’ll be among those pleased to know High Point (via ScreenDaily) picked up the U.K. found footage thriller The Mirror from director Ed Boase (Blooded). News of the acquirement was soon followed by the release of the film’s sales trailer, seen above. It’s got the markings of a second-gen shaky cam flick, where cameras are given to everyone and are also set up all over the place, and is quick to let audiences know that not everyone is comfortable being filmed once shit starts getting weird. We know what’s coming, right?
But The Mirror is firmly rooted in the contemporary, with a starting off point taken straight from real life. A mostly hogwash story hit the media involving a haunted antique mirror whose owners were plagued by illness, finance troubles and weird sightings. So the three protagonists – Jemma Dallender, Joshua Dickinson and Nate Fallows – are using their footage ostensibly as an application to famed debunker James Randy’s never-won $1 million prize to anyone with definitive proof of the existence of anything supernatural. What makes this one look better than average is that it seems to remain rooted in psychological terror rather than having a bunch of ghosts and goblins roaming around. Plus, British indie horror films tend to feature more enjoyably written characters. And mirrors are freaky, yo. That’s my soul in there.
IFC Releasing Jim Mickle’s Cold in July
The sales poster seen above features a stern-faced image of Dexter’s Michael C. Hall holding a smoking gun. And we all know what those mean, right? Hall plays a hunter turned victim in the upcoming thriller Cold in July from We Are What We Are director Jim Mickle, and the film’s Sundance premiere drew the attention of IFC, who acquired it for around $2 million. While this doesn’t necessarily qualify as horror, it’s adapted from the novel by dark fiction master Joe R. Lansdale, and features enough violence and psychosis to figure in. Plus, Hall and Mickle are well versed in the genre.
Hall plays small-town Texan Richard Dane in the 1980s who wakes up to find his home being broken into, and ends up killing the intruder in sell-defense. It’s obvious where the burglar learned his ways, as his father Ben aims to avenge his son’s death. Enter a bunch of sexy twists and turns and you’ve got what is bound to be one of the moodiest films of 2014, which also stars Don Johnson, Sam Shepard, Wyatt Russell, Nick Damici and Vinessa Shaw.
IFC Midnight Catches Boogeyman Thriller The Babadook, Plus a New Poster
Movies about boogeyman have been replaced in recent years with pic about Bigfoot, ghosts that never appear, and monsters more mutated in nature. I’m not even sure if children are still frightful of their closets and the area beneath their beds. There’s a chance that might all change with The Babadook, the directorial debut from Jennifer Kent, which landed a deal with IFC Midnight following its premiere at Sundance. ("They all premiere at Sundance" sounds like an ominous tag on a poster.) EOne also released the above poster for the film’s festival debut. The poster, as well as the storybook used in the film, uses a messy aesthetic that would be eerie even if it didn’t have anything to do with bumpers in the night.
The film follows Amelia (Essie Davis) and her nightmare-plagued 6-year-old son Samuel (Noah Wiseman). The family patriarch experienced a violent death around the time of Samuel’s birth, and the boy’s behavior has been anything but normal. The situation escalates once the seemingly handmade storybook The Babadook shows up at their house, and Samuel determines the book’s central creature is the very monster that’s been bouncing around his brain. And though Amelia doesn’t believe him at first, the horror soon finds her as well. It sounds both goofy and seen-before, but there’s something inherently disturbing about the entire thing, and IFC Midnight apparently believes enough people will agree. No release date yet, but it’ll hit VOD and select theaters later this year.
Collingswood Story vs. Paranormal Activity Legal Battle Ends Peacefully
Last April, filmmaker Michael Costanza brought Paramount and the Paranormal Activity 4 producers to court claiming they blatantly ripped off the central concept of his 2002 virtually un-distributed webcam-based horror The Collingswood Story, backing that up with proof of meeting with producers in 2010 specifically about adding a similar plot device to their film. They told him no and promptly released one of the most terrible sequels in recent memory. DreadCentral caught up with Costanza to see how things were going, and the director says he is "pleased that the matter has been resolved amicably." Unsurprisingly, no details were given, but it’s excellent that he appears to have come out the victor, as P.A. 4 was quite obviously guilty of ripping him off.
In more good news, Costanza also revealed that he’s finally working on an HD release of The Collingswood Story for a domestic release, which hasn’t happened in the nearly 12 years since it was completed. He found all of the original tapes, which play out a set of webcam conversations between a guy and his new girlfriend who lives in a spooky house, and this new version will contain footage not included in the original cut, as well as lots of behind-the-scenes footage. As well, he’s not at all against the idea of creating a follow-up, but he’s focused on a horror TV pilot at the moment. So fans will have to wait and see. This many years into the found-footage onslaught, new viewers of Collingswood may not give it the respect it deserves, but its perseverance through the years with the Internet community as the main source of marketing is proof of its quality. I’ll be anxiously Skyping random people in anticipation for this release.
