As you’ve probably read by now, Academy Award-winning actress Joan Fontaine, the leading lady known for her string of roles as demure, well-mannered and often well-bred heroines in the 1940s, and the younger sister of actress Olivia de Havilland, died today at her home in Carmel, California; she was 96.
She was known best for her back-to-back roles in two Alfred Hitchcock thrillers — the 1940 Best Picture winner Rebecca and the 1941 film Suspicion, for which she won a Best Actress Oscar, making her the only actor in a Hitchcock film to receive an Academy Award.
Her obituary on the IMDB (click her for the entire piece) stated that producer David O. Selznick snapped up the rights to the Daphne du Maurier bestseller Rebecca, in which an unnamed, demure heroine — known only as “the second Mrs. de Winter” — is taunted by the memory of her husband’s first wife, the beautiful and seductive title character. Selznick brought director Alfred Hitchcock over for his first American production, cast matinée idol and rising star Laurence Olivier as moody, mysterious husband Maxim de Winter, and embarked on a Scarlett O’Hara-style talent search for his leading lady. Rejecting Loretta Young, Margaret Sullivan, Vivian Leigh (then Olivier’s wife), and a then-unknown Anne Baxter along with hundreds of other actresses, Selznick decided on Fontaine, who though not an established star projected the right mix of beauty, insecurity, and tenacity needed for the part. Fontaine’s insecurity, however, was heightened by Olivier’s sometimes cruel treatment of her on set, as he had lobbied aggressively for Leigh to get the role, and Hitchcock capitalized on her inferiority complex to shape her performance. The resulting film, released in 1940, was an unqualified critical and financial success, catapulting Fontaine into the tier of top Hollywood leading ladies, establishing Hitchcock firmly in the United States, and nabbing the film 11 Academy Award nominations, including ones for both Fontaine and Olivier; it would go on to win Best Picture.
Below is a classic nine-minute clip from Hitchcock’s Rebecca – the one that first jumped to our minds whenever we thought of her acting in the film.
And here’s a fan-made trailer for the film:
RIP, Ms. Fontaine. Your fans will miss you dearly.
I do recommend the issue for lots of fun content and interviews with the three cover models here, but HEADS UP! The piece plays kind of fast and loose when it comes to spoilers (the cover itself is one big hint that they go into detail over; kind of late for a warning there).. Worse yet, we find out that there are only twelve episodes this season! Seven down, five to go. If you can’t stand not to read the cover story (we don’t blame you, too many goodies) but are wary of spoilers, skip the page on “The Horrors Ahead” – which lists ten upcoming story points. I suggest just folding the page over on itself and reading around it for a good compromise. Apparently, the season also won’t be a wrap until January, which means we’ve got something to ease any post-holiday depression!
SPOILER ALERT-if you plan on seeing Mama (2013) on DVD but have not done so yet, it’s probably best to save watching this BTS footage till after the movie. More than one commenter on the Wired post said it sort of, well, spoiled the illusion.
Many of us who have been terrified by the movie for months, on the other hand, are more than happy to see that it was an illusion…
Well, we WISH we could take credit for any part of this, or just post it directly, but it’s a Wired.com Exclusive clip from the Javier Botet featurette on the Mama DVD/Blu-Ray. Click the big red link below for the never-before-seen footage!
SEE! Proof the CGI was mainly limited to the hair/clothes floating effect!
SEE! The only actor who could portray Mama in the feature film and give you the worst nightmares!
SEE! Javier Botet out of make-up, being interviewed, to possibly help you sleep a little better by reminding you it’s just a movie.*
Not to mention some very creepy concept art (it must be a co-incidence that one of the drawings looks like a relative of the Attic Monster/Medieros Girl fromREC and REC2), Botet wandering around the set semi-casually in full makeup and costume (other than the CGI sensors/trackers wrapped around his bald head, making him look like the world’s scariest Christmas decoration), and we start to see him being swooped around on wires before the clip fades out. We do get to see over two minutes of amazing, never-before-seen footage, though. He does that horrifying, speedy crawl backwards, then they (apparently) reversed it to make it look extra creepy and unnatural.
You can watch the entire Javier Botet ‘bringing Mama to life’ (or death, as it were) featurette when the Mama DVD/Blu-Ray releases on May 7th… just in time for Mother’s Day.
*This will help, until the next time it’s the middle of the night, you can’t sleep, and you hear a strange noise.
This is just… well, a couple years late, but we love this guy. Better late than never! Don’t miss watching the great, gory ad spot for the book (included with the interview). It includes a compilation of ‘blurbs’ from everyone from Tony Todd to Bruce Campbell on the genius of Kane Hodder and his iconic characters, along with a montage of some REALLY nasty, iconic scenes and kills (including the grisly Hatchet jaw rip (well, the lower jaw stays; it’s the head on up that goes).
This isn’t exactly a breaking newsflash, but we hadn’t seen these yet. While we’re bummed out that there’s no gnarled scabby human face (or what WAS a human face at some point) on it, the inside looks pretty scary. Hope all the characters smoke a bunch of weed like in the original before they play the reel-to-reel recording (if it’s set in the 70s-early 80s –if not, read it, I guess) because if they decide to bust out a book like this with very succinct, blunt warnings including DON’T SAY IT. DON’T WRITE IT. DON’T HEAR IT. DON’T SHARE IT, then I’m going to have serious problems having any sympathy for them.* Not to mention, no-one in it is half as goddamned gorgeous (or funny) as Bruce Campbell was in the originals, so there’s no distraction to let a few things slide. OK, where were we? I realize this is a “re-boot”, but come on… having a female heroine saw off her “possessed arm”–give us a little more than that. It’s not like the old-school Necronomicon looked goofy, it was pretty disturbing, and the Raimi/Tapert team did a really amazing job constructing it with such limited funds (as with all aspects of the series). So let’s see more of the inside…
*maybe it’s because we’ve seen enough horror movies, but no matter what dose or kind of alcohol and narcotics were in our systems, we’d take one look at that thing and say, “Welp, that just about does it for me,” then put it back right where we found it, and go start looking for somewhere else to spend the night that didn’t contain a book bound in human flesh and inked in blood in the first place.
The EW.com article we very recently re-blogged was an in-depth analysis for THIS nasty, wicked, sick new full-length red band trailer. We’re worried this trailer contains ALL the gore in the movie, because we don’t know how they can top plenty of what is seen here. Shit, we don’t know how they’ll even get away with it. What we meant to do was read the EW.com piece, re-blog it, then watch the trailer at the very end of the piece after writing something enthusiastic yet graceful. What we should have done was follow that plan. What we did instead was get two pages (tops) into the 12-page EW.com piece, then what little willpower and professionalism we began with suddenly went crashing out through the window all at once, as the only thought barging into our brains screamed ENOUGH WAITING, FUCK THAT!WATCH IT NOW!NOW! and we did so immediately.
Jesus CHRIST, you guys!
I don’t know how this movie is going to get away with an R-Rating, even this red band trailer had us stunned, wincing, and (rarer yet), momentarily speechless. Just try watching through to the end without wincing and protectively grabbing your mouth/jaw. We still can’t do it! So put down anything you’re eating or drinking* (even water, who knows, you could do a spit-take) and watch this full-length, gruesome, filthy, WONDERFUL trailer below (in HD) now! We won’t spoil the end… until after the jump.
When the first red band “teaser” trailer (with a little more conversation and a little less action) was released and we posted it in Fall 2012, we made a huge-ass collection of screen caps for a slideshow to post later. Then ADD kicked in (maybe that was about the same time they released the first five minutes and the new opening credits for American Horror Story Asylum) and it didn’t happen.
Oh, did we say grabbing our JAW? We forgot to mention our EYE. Actually, not 100% sure I want to know what the story behind this screen grab from the full-length trailer even IS.
Well, we just started taking screen-shots of this one, so look for a nasty slide show coming up (though probably not before the finale of American Horror Story Asylum at the end of January, that’s pretty time-intensive)
“Okay, I am fucking drawing a line in the sand here, DO NOT READ THAT!”
The Evil Dead opens in April of 2013!
*Especially if it’s warm and red, you’ll know the footage we mean when you see it.
We’re almost ashamed to admit we haven’t seen this in the theater yet. We actually are ashamed that another movie that opened the same weekend as Hitchcock, a certain low-budget horror-action sequel with wall-to-wall Grand-Guignolpractical effects, took priority over Hitchcock to see in the theater. This piece was so cool and in-depth that we were really happy to read that Hitchcock is only in limited release in the US now, and it will be released wide in theaters on February 8th, 2013! Enjoy this great read from Movieline.com.
Some of these you may have read or heard; others also obsessed with American Horror Story Asylum may know most. However, I’m thinking you’ll read at least one fact you didn’t know, hopefully more! I cited sources when I could, or links to the articles I came across the info or quotes in. A couple I stumbled upon by accident –I was trying to find more than ten, so I could weed out a few of the blander ones–even surprised me. Let’s start things off with a bang (so to speak)…
1. Well, If you’re one of the many ladies and gentlemen out there who find Evan Peters yummy, you might have heard this one. Evan, while wearing a cock “modesty sock” in the scene closing the second episode where he gets bent over Sister Jude’s desk and caned for trying to escape with Grace accidentally gave Jessica Lange and Sarah Paulson a free show! Yes, the rumors are true, Peters confirmed them himself (and so did Paulson). Here’s his confession, from Vulture.com:
Peters: That was literally the first day of shooting. It’s embarrassing that I’m telling you this, but why not? I had to wear a cock sock, right? And since I was wearing a hospital gown, I thought, Well, my front’s not going to be showing. It’s not a big deal. And when they bent me over [laughs], they could see my balls hanging down from the other side. The first day of shooting, and I flash Jessica Lange and Sarah Paulson my balls. Welcome to American Horror Story ! It was ridiculous. I have to put on a cock sock and sheath my balls. Once someone’s seen your balls, it’s over. It’s fine. Everything’s good. They didn’t even say anything. Sarah just walked over after that take and kissed me on the cheek. I was like, Why? What’s happening? That’s when I realized. I was mortified.
Uh, not this exact scene, but I thought Evan Peters fans probably wouldn’t complain.
2. Ryan Murphy said the part of Charlotte/“Anne Frank” was written for Franka Potente, and that she was the “only choice” for the two-episode role.
3. Chloë Sevigne as Shelley had to wear prosthetics after Dr. Nazi “clipped her wings”. When asked about “physical challenges”, she replied, “Well, the prosthetic pieces that they put on made it impossible to straighten my legs, so I had to keep my legs bent all day and I had to be wheeled around in a wheelchair and I was feeling quite helpless. It was a strange feeling to have to need assistance to do lots of different things. And that was probably the most challenging part, feeling kind of helpless in that way.” Eek!
Some foreshadowing for Shelley’s character during an early promo that turned out to be pretty goddamned disturbing… never would have suspected anything, until I saw “Nor’Easter”.
Oh, I can’t wait till we see Pepper again! Especially since I have a newly found admiration for Ms. Grossman since I read her interviews.
6. To protect leaks about the plots, nearly everyone in the cast except Jessica Lange, James Cromwell, and Zach Quinto only see their own script “sides”. Sarah Paulson (who plays Lana Winters) has said she doesn’t yet know the ultimate fate of her character.
7. Both James Cromwell and Jessica Lange have played characters that were in-patients in mental hospitals. On the much-loved HBO series created by Alan Ball, “Six Feet Under”, James Cromwell played Ruth Fisher’s (played by fellow American Horror Story alum Frances Conroy, who was robbed of any Emmy for her SFU role, especially in Season Five) second husband, Arthur, whose obsessions about preparing for World War Three turned into deep psychosis; When it got to the point that he moved into the basement bomb shelter and refused to leave, his miserable wife had to finally call a hospital and he was taken out of the house in a straitjacket. While he was undergoing treatment (in a much nicer psychiatric facility than the one in Asylum, of course), his character had to have several sessions of shock therapy that resulted in serious (though temporary) memory loss.
In 1982, Jessica Lange played tragic actress Frances Farmer in the emotionally brutal biopic Frances. During the portions of the film covering her years-long stay in the 1940s after her abusive mother had her committed to a state mental hospital, she also had to receive very extreme, repeated treatments including repeated shock treatment (she had bruising/slight scorch marks on her temples very similar to Lana’s after her shock treatment in episode two) and a padded cell. Towards the end of the movie, her character was shown being on the receiving end of a trans-orbital lobotomy. If you want to watch the aforementioned scene from the film below, you’ll recognize a very familiar line of dialogue from the doctor when he’s “pitching” the lobotomies. Hell, that’s trivia I just accidentally stumbled upon when I was finding the clip: that Brad Falchuck, who wrote the episode “I Am Anne Frank, Part Two”, was inspired from this horrifying scene. The clip ends before the actual surgery, but trust me, it’s still disturbing.
9. As of this writing (November 19th), Ryan Murphy as said that not only has the season not wrapped yet, but that the script for the Asylum finale is still being polished by the writers.*
10. During a red carpet interview at the American Horror Story Asylum premiere event, Zachary Quinto (Dr. Thredson) said that the set was so creepy, and the atmosphere was so intense, he started bringing his banjo to the set and playing it during breaks in shooting. He said at first he was “sort of a little bit nervous” about playing, but everyone has thanked him for doing it, and told him how much it helps to lighten the mood. You can see the entire montage of red-carpet interviews with the leads in the below video (brought to you by DreadCentral.com).
*For the record, I trust him and the entire creative team completely.
I have a feeling we might be seeing this character from Sister Jude’s past again…
Ok! So here’s the second Halloween 2012 treat (three more to come). I promised another Ju-On gallery, and this time– y’know, Halloween Treats and all– I’m going to focus on Kayako. It also seems fitting, since on Halloween 2004, I was first introduced to the series and to Kayako (and her family) when my mom and I went to see the movie The Grudge in the theater (in a packed house, closer to the screen than was optimal when seeing a really scary movie). By thirty minutes in, we were holding hands!
Looks like lots of people have been doing searches and landing here because they want to dress like her for Halloween. Maybe this will help you out with the make-up. There’s a couple of make-up tutorials on You Tube but it seems as though most of them don’t understand Samara from The Ring and Kayako from The Grudge/Ju-on are two different characters. Here’s the closest I got, just taking photos to use on T-shirts I’d be selling. I wanted a recognizable image yet needed to do my own to avoid copyright infringement. Well, I gave it a shot, anyway!
Oh, and please note I’m going to be adding to it over the next 48 hours until it is juuuuuust right. I have over 100 images but need to start sleeping before dawn breaks. It can’t be healthy for my system to keep the sleep-cycle of an undead crack whore, so I’m making an effort to get in bed and at least TRY to fall asleep before I hear birds chirping outside. Keep checking back, as you’ll keep finding plenty of new, scary, Ju-On photos and content all the way up to Halloween night!
Overall, I really made this as a tribute to her character. I even added a little behind-the-scenes stuff on the multi-talented Takako Fuji, who has played Kayako six times in full-length features, in addition to the two short films. As far as I’m considered, The Grudge 3 doesn’t even count as part of the series, since she didn’t play Kayako in it; in fact she wisely turned it down. I’ve read a few recent interviews with Fuji-San (they needed a translator) which I purposely sought out to remind myself that the Ju-on series were only movies, and Kayako doesn’t really exist. Fuji-San said that even though she has a strong background in modern dance, her back would always hurt for a day or so after each time she filmed a staircase-crawl (that makes my back hurt just thinking about it), that she’s a smoker who would take cigarette breaks in costume as Kayako which would make anyone walking by seeing her start to laugh, that she sometimes gets asked to “do” Kayako at parties (she always does), but most of all, kept apologizing “for all the nightmares!” That helped… sort of… a bit… a little, tiny bit, anyway.
So here’s that gallery, in some different formats to mix it up. She remains one of the most frightening female horror icons of all time, even probably up in the top five for me.
The above and below are shots where the lighting is dim, but what you CAN see is clearly Kayako, just enough to know who you’re looking at and to scare the shit out of you.
mirror mirror, on the wall, who’s the scariest one of all?
Fuck!
You’re not even safe under your own bed sheets…
This is from the very first Ju-On TV movie, and the first time I’ve ever let out a shriek watching something on my TV in my own home. During daylight, no less. Almost had a goddamn heart attack when Kayako quietly said, “Kobayashi?” held still for a long moment, then suddenly SWOOPED down close to his face. And that was the last time we (or anyone) ever saw Kobayashi Dear…
Here’s some really frightening PR shots taken…
When someone dies in the grip of a powerful rage…
…a curse is born.
…The curse gathers in that place of death.
Those who encounter it…
…will be consumed by its fury.
More quotes from this interview later on.
More coming soon; I’ve now looked at the maximum amount of depictions of Kayako (after dark) that I can without risking nightmares. If you have requests for photos/pics, please put them in the comments below and I will do my best to accommodate them!
The first Red Bandteaser trailer for the 2012 Evil Dead reboot just hit the internet about an hour ago (as of this writing), and it is SHOCKING and GORY and FUN and SICK and I think NICOTERO is involved and a TOTAL EVIL DEAD BLOOD BATH and I just got a LOT more fucking excited* about it! I wasn’t expecting that much gore, but HOAH!I’m talking HOAH! LEE! SHIT! Check it out below, even though you don’t get to see sexy Bruce Campbell anywhere!
No wonder the fans at NY Comic Con lost their damn minds. Oh, and I almost forgot — Happy Birthday, Mr. Raimi! Nice of you to give your fans a present. Oh, uh, retroactive warning, don’t watch this when you’ve got a paper cut on your tongue. Or easily offended. Sorry about that, good thing I said something before you saw this, huh?
The movie’s current release date is April 12, 2013!
*I’m not a big Diablo Cody fan, and I hear she was involved with the screenplay, so that kind of tamped it down. Also, it made me feel old, which I’m not a big fan of either. But THIS, THIS shit here, made me forget all about all that!
HORROR BOOM 