Were you looking forward to the new Amityville film? Too bad!
The Franck Khalfoun-directed sorta-sequel Amityville: The Awakening was due to hit theaters in a few months on January 2nd, 2015. The hype machine officially kicked into gear back in August when Dimension Films released the first trailer, and despite being a somewhat underwhelming first look, it managed to get a lot of people excited to enter the Amityville house once again. So why the delay?
Get ready for more slow motion zombie strippers!
It looks like the folks over at Sony Pictures have finally decided to get their collective heads out of their asses and move forward with a Zombieland sequel. To show how serious they are about the project, they’ve gone on and not only hired a writer, but they’ve brought back Ruben Fleischer, who directed the first film. Dave Callaham (The Expendables) will pen the script under the supervision of Fleischer.
What if The Little Mermaid was a horror flick?
Well, I can’t say I saw this coming. Just when you think you’ve seen all the genre has to offer, someone reimagines The Little Mermaid under a horrific light that echoes elements of Pan’s Labyrinth and Carnivale. That someone is director Nicholas Humphries, who spins a gritty tale set in the 1930s about a young girl who discovers that she, much like her mother before her, is a mermaid capable of terrible things. There’s actually a trailer that proves this movie exists and it’s surprisingly gorgeous, and just as terrifying.
Being locked in a cellar with John Goodman isn’t such a bad thing, is it?
The Cellar is a very unique sounding slice of psychological horror, directed by Dan Trachtenberg, that takes place within the walls of an underground cellar. Its purpose? A chemical attack on the outside world has left it uninhabitable, leaving only the well-prepared alive. That in and of itself isn’t all that exciting, nor is it a unique premise, but there’s an interesting twist to the J.J. Abrams-produced thriller that really makes this one stand out.
Leigh Whannell goes into the further alone.
The next chapter in the Insidious franchise sees Leigh Whannell, who co-wrote and starred in the previous two films, take the helm now that James Wan has opted to use his talents outside of the realm of horror. With a release date already set for May 29th, 2015, Insidious: Chapter 3 is moving along nicely and today we’ve got our first teaser poster for the film. While it’s not the greatest, the art does display some very creepy text that warns of something living in the vents of your room.
Some interviews with some vampires.
The vampire genre has been part of cinema for as long as film could run through a camera, so it’s kind of astonishing to see filmmakers continuing to push the boundaries, coming up with new ways to tell the age-old tale of bloodsuckers. Filmmakers Jemaine Clement and Taika Waititi’s new addition to the storied genre have taken a much different, lighter route to the oldest of monsters as their story follows a a documentary crew taking an inside look at the lives of three vampires who are hundreds of years old. It’s such a ridiculous setup that the only way you can really pull it off is to do it with comedy, and Clement and Waititi have done just that.
These are the guys brave enough to remake a Korean masterpiece.
A remake to Kim Ji-woon’s brilliant thriller I Saw the Devil has been in the works for quite a while as we’ve known about its unfortunate existence for about a year now. Since then, however, the Americanized remake has been tight-lipped with next to nothing to offer as far as details go. Well, readers, that has all changed today with word coming out of Deadline that the I Saw the Devil remake has found a couple of guys who are willing to remake one of the great modern day thrillers of our time. And so it begins.
This Fall is going to be scary, very scary.
With September already here and October just around the corner, I thought it would be a good idea to take a look at the genre titles heading our way now that the Fall season is starting to settle in. It’s a good thing that the genre finally decided to show up because the last couple of months have been severely lacking in good horror titles. But not only is it exciting that we have a lot of films to look forward to, this is the first time in quite a while that we’re seeing September, and especially October, being taken over by the genre. It’s a strange thing, really, when you think about how rare it is to see a new horror film get a release during the Fall season. Why is that? Whatever the reason may be, it looks like 2014 is going to be the year that changes all of that. Between now and Halloween, we’ll see over 15 new horror films. This is a list of what should be on your radar. (Click the titles for a trailer).
The remake that isn’t really a remake to Charles B. Pierce’s 1976 slasher gets a trailer.
Texerkana will be visited by a masked madman once again in the Alfonso Gomez-Rejon-directed slasher The Town That Dreaded Sundown. Here’s a little bit of a horror movie confession for you: I’ve actually never seen the original film. It’s one of those movies that hardly anyone talks about (unless they really know their shit), so for some reason The Town That Dreaded Sundown has always eluded me. I’ve only recently become aware of the film, which is surprising because not only does it sound like a genuinely creepy slasher, but it has one of the best movie titles ever. The Town That Dreaded Sundown. It’s so good!
A man and his granddaughter exorcise some demons.
Although Asmodexia has been quietly stirring up the genre for the last few months, it appears to be picking up some steam now that IFC Midnight has finally slated it with a release date. Hailing from Spain, Asmodexia marks the feature film debut from Marc Carrete, who has spun a unique looking tale of possession and the journey of those trying to rid their country of its evil. While I think the trailer could use some work, it does a good job of peeling back the layers of the story, showing us why Carrete’s feature debut is one worth keeping an eye on.
Rodney Ascher’s new documentary is all about nightmares, the real ones.
Last year, Ascher delivered the weird and mostly fascinating documentary Room 237, which peeled back the various layers of some seriously bat-shit interpretations of Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining. His new film, The Nightmare, is a documentary in which he investigates the demonic visions experienced by victims of sleep paralysis and provoked by Ascher’s own unsettling experiences with the condition.
The guys who brought us Resolution have a twisted tale to tell…
Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead left quite an impression on the world of horror with their indie hit Resolution, and now they’re back with Spring, a romantic tale of horror that hides a monstrous secret. With its world premiere about to get underway at this year’s TIFF, we now have the first trailer for the duo’s sophomore effort and it looks fantastic.
The true story of a doll harnessing a demonic spirit, waiting to possess a human soul.
Annabelle hardly needs an introduction as we were first introduced to her in James Wan’s hit haunter, The Conjuring. Annabelle was such a terrifying force in Wan’s film that despite her lack of screen time, she still managed to get her very own feature film—directed by John R. Leonetti—that hits theaters on October 3rd.
This cub is going scout hunting.
The projectors are about to start rolling at the 2014 Toronto International Film Festival and one of the films that looks to steal the show at the Midnight Madness program is Jonas Govaerts’ feature film debut Cub. With the release of a wicked new trailer and its World Premiere just around the corner, there is now a huge spotlight shining on the once under the radar thriller that hails out of Belgium.
This is going to be glorious.
There’s exactly two reasons why the horror world should be paying attention to Howl. The first one is obvious: It’s about werewolves. And the second? Well, that goes to Mr. Paul Hyett. You may not be familiar with the name but you’ve no doubt seen his work in dozens of films. Hyett is the terrifying mind behind the SFX on films like The Descent, Attack the Block, Doomsday and so much more. And that doesn’t even scratch the surface. He recently took his talents behind the camera of his feature film debut with a little film called The Seasoning House, which is a vicious in-your-face tale of revenge, proving that Hyett has a voice in the genre worth listening to.
A Maniac takes on the iconic haunted house.
When word of a new take on the Amityville franchise first broke we got the same ol’ reaction these franchises tend to get—leave it alone already!? I felt the same way, honestly, because this iconic series has been more bad than good over the years, and the last thing we needed was another mediocre take on the “true story”. Enter Maniac director Franck Khalfoun and you’ve got entirely different beast, however. His latest horror outing, the remake of William Lustig’s 1980 cult slasher, proved that Khalfoun knows how to unravel a tale of suspense that is both bloody as hell and just as disturbing. Essentially, he’s the kind of director you want steering a franchise like this one. Now, we have a trailer for Amityville: The Awakening, giving us our very first look at what Khalfoun has in store. How does it look? I’ll get to that.
The Stand may have found its force of evil.
With a director finally set in place for the long awaited movie adaptation of Stephen King’s The Stand, we’re going to start seeing some big names getting thrown around to fill the shoes of the iconic characters found within the pages of King’s epic story. Back in June The Fault in Our Stars director Josh Boone spilled some details on the film, saying that, “We’re gonna do one three-hour, R-rated version with an amazing A-list cast across the board. Every single one of those characters will be somebody you recognize and somebody you relate to. And it’s gonna be awesome.” Well, if Deadline has it right about who Warner Bros. is eyeing for the the part of Randall Flagg, then it looks like Boone wasn’t joking.
It’s only just a doll.
The first trailer we saw back in July played more like a short film as it offered up a look at how Annabelle got her terrifying start in the possessed doll business. Now, New Line’s supernatural spinoff of The Conjuring has an official trailer that digs much deeper into the story surrounding Annabelle.
Astron-6 deliver their most ambitious project yet!
The mad men of cinema, Astron-6 (Father’s Day, Manborg), are back with their giallo parody The Editor, which follows a one-time (and now one-handed) master film editor toiling in the cinematic sweatshops of 1970s Italy, who becomes the prime suspect in a series of brutal murders.
Leigh Janiak’s haunting debut gets a starry new poster.
By now you should all be quite familiar with Leigh Janiak’s Honeymoon, as it’s about to roll out into limited theaters and VOD platforms next month on September 12th. We saw the absolutely chilling new trailer for the film a few weeks back that told us just enough to let us know that whatever happens to poor Bea in the woods is certainly going to come back and haunt us.
