I still remember watching William Lustig‘s original Maniac (1980) …on a VHS tape rental in my bedroom in high school; I had lugged the TV set and VCR in there because I was stuck in bed nursing a flu at the time.
I’m pretty sure Maniac (along with a few other serial-killer horror movies; I saw Henry, Portrait of a Serial Killer at SIFF in 1990 and purchased my first purse-sized canister of pepper spray shortly after) was a big part of the reason I took the first “Self-Defense for Women” class I could find (and the second, and the third, and the…) and developed habits that I keep to this day, like always having my car keys in my hand by the time I left a building to walk through the parking lot to my car, even if it’s only ten yards away. Also probably among the reasons why, after dark, I keep them in my hand, with the self-defense trick of holding them in your fist with the pointy end of the keys jammed between my fingers and pointing out, so you have a better chance of breaking your attacker’s skin, or putting out an eye, if you need to strike out to defend yourself.
Frank Zito’s victims get themselves some payback in the fucking blood-curdling, nightmarish finale of the original Maniac (1980).
Here’s the HD red band trailer for the Maniac (2012) remake – there’s a separate piece coming on why I’m actually optimistic about the chances of it being successful. Don’t expect to see the titular character Frank Zito even remotely resembling Joe Spinell, though!
*I didn’t actually SEE it in 1980 (that’d be a great movie for a girl still in elementary school to watch, scarred for life? Check!), I think it was 1984. My mom would buy me a Fangoria–and even Famous Monsters Magazine– in 1981, though. Towards the end of the run of Famous Monsters of Filmland, I had a subscription. I wish I’d held onto it!
Well, if you’re reading this, I assume by now you’ve seen my post that had a You Tube video embedded in it of the first sick, creepy, and fun five minutes of American Horror Story: Asylum (if not, click here). Tuesday evening (well, Wednesday morning, it was definitely after midnight), the only link to the new five minutes was on Facebook, and guess what? It didn’t work (turns out I was not alone)! I was ready to turn in around 5:00 AM, but ended up staying up till after 8:00AM fiddling around with the goddamned thing to get it to work. I finally got so sleepy I decided to say the hell with it and grab some shut-eye. When I logged in today, I wasn’t really expecting anything, but ta-dah! Thus the aforementioned post. That was a pretty cool way to start the day.
Though some people didn’t like Adam Levine and what happened to him (he’s NOT DEAD, upset Adam Levine fans, he’s signed for the whole season) everyone lost their got-damn minds (all at the same time, apparently, judging from the various messages/boards almost bursting into flames. about the new opening title credits sequence. They –and I — LOVED it. You probably noticed some quick blink-and-you-miss-them moments; flashes of raw, visceral images. I was curious and ended up getting screencaps for as many of those as I could for you to enjoy (I do NOT own them, nor do I own the copyright, they’re here for entertainment only) There’s a few clues –and verification of hints we already got– in there… if you’ve read anything about the upcoming season, you probably noticed them too. If you have theories, share them in the comments section. These filled in a few blanks for me too, I’ll post on it later–nothing that’ll spoil the thrills, though. More to come!
I have two trailers for the October 23rd DTV release of Wrong Turn 5: Bloodlines. One is Red Band, the second is really, REALLY Red Band. It’s probably oh, I don’t know, the goriest, most NSFW teaser trailer I’ve posted (so far) on Horror Boom. The ABCs of Death trailer was spectacularly gory, but that turned out to be composed entirely of snippets from all the entries in the 26th Director Contest run last year, so it might not count completely. I’m glad that most of the directors got featured—even if the clips flash by pretty fast—because as you know from reading my Horror Boom Picks for the top twenty (out of over 160) entries for the T is for… entries, at least twenty of them were kick-ass great. If you want to catch up on the first three articles, please do by all means (it turned out to be an insanely time-consuming project, but I don’t regret it). You can find Part 2/5 here and Part 3/5 here. The final two parts WILL be coming later, though I’m thinking of spreading them out two at a time instead of five at a time.
But I digress. OK, first up, the (slightly) less offensive and shorter spot for Wrong Turn 5: Bloodlines can be found below. It made me laugh the first time I saw it even though I had an ugly headache at the time. Still makes me smile (you’ll know the funny part when you see it):
Here’s the official plot description (or excuse for the mayhem, this go-round, anyway):
The cutting-edge terror continues when a small mining town hosts the legendary Mountain Man Festival on Halloween, where crowds of costumed party-goers gather for a wild night of music and mischief. But a killer celebration soon gives way to a blood-soaked feeding frenzy when an inbred family of hillbilly cannibals trick and treat themselves to a group of visiting college students who are just dying for a good time…
The DVD/Blu-ray details are a little, ahem, juicier:
Now that horror fans have the backstory on the Hillbilly Cannibals’ “Bloody Beginnings”, the franchise rejoins the infamous disfigured brothers as they return when WRONG TURN 5: BLOODLINES debuts on unrated Blu-ray, DVD, and, for the first time ever, Digital Copy on October 23rd from Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment. This all-new terrifying film boasts the talent of horror movie veteran Doug Bradley (Hellraiser) along with “Game of Thrones”’ Roxanne McKee.
With hours of bonus footage including behind-the-scenes featurettes and commentary “DIE-aries” from director Declan O’Brien (Wrong Turn 4, Sharktopus), WRONG TURN 5: BLOODLINES will give audiences an extra scare this Halloween season. Available on Blu-ray, DVD, and Digital Copy October 23rd.
Special Features A Day in the Death Hillbilly Kills Director’s Die-aries Audio Commentary by Declan O’Brien
Speaking of “Hillbilly Kills”, here’s the REALLY offensive, gruesome teaser trailer that debuted in the last 24 hours, although it’s closer to a ‘tightly edited Death Reel’ from parts one through four. THEN, they tacked on a fun Director’s DIE-ary that was also shown at SDCC 2012. Almost everywhere but You Tube, they require age-verification, and HOAH! you’ll soon see why. Check it out below…
If you want to go to the official site and see it bigger, click on this link here. It’s the closest they have to an official Wrong Turn 5 site for now anyway, though I’ll be keeping an eye out for an official Facebook page (they did one for the prequel last year, also with a ton of fun stuff).
I am kind of bummed, though, that the DVD cover I voted on a few months ago didn’t get picked, because I thought it was way cooler. Found it:
What’s not to like?
I also really prefer “Bloodbath” instead of “Bloodlines” after the title, especially if this is going to be the ‘the most gruesome Wrong Turn ever”. Maybe it had something to do with the inclusion of Doug Bradley in the cast, as a kind of in-joke, but come on, you’re going to pick Bloodlines over BLOODBATH? Unless they’re saving it for the next movie, planning to REALLY out-do themselves, that’s just not acceptable to me. (Mm’kay?}
If you want to see more, our good fiends/friends at Dread Central have a giant gallery of photos from their on-set visit (to Bulgaria), and it looks like they’re gonna be going with at least SOME practical effects. The only things in the previous entries that have bothered me CGI-wise were a few really shoddy CGI blood squirts that looked one notch above someone drawing them on the frame with a red Sharpie. I know they don’t have an eight-figure budget or anything (see:filming in Bulgaria), but do film-makers who use CGI blood really think we’re not going to be able to tell the difference between that and the real thing? Hey, when they can do a good enough job that we can’t tell the difference between CGI blood and practical blood, fine, but if not, please don’t insult our intelligence.
From the prequel – this happened in the first ten minutes, possibly even before the opening credits. Sold!
Though, speaking of intelligence, looks like I’m one of the last fans to be aware that the family is known as “The Hillicker Brothers” –though I know there was at least one female in Wrong Turn Two:Dead End. I remember a scene pretty early on of her getting jealous of her brother secretly peeking from the woods and drooling at a naked reality-show bimbo, and then stabbing her so fiercely and so many times that you could see her spine by the time the mutant sister was done. I think she may have done the tongue bite-off at the opening, too, but right now I’m too tired to check.
Guess now it’s down to Three Finger, One-Eye, and Snaggletoof Saw Tooth. Oh well, keep things entertaining and I’ll overlook that. Declan O’Brien’s Part 3 —he wrote, but did not direct— did so little for me I think I only watched it once, but he improved a hell of a lot when he wrote and directed the prequel, Bloody Beginnings, which didn’t try to be anything it wasn’t, just embraced the horror and gore. Both had some really mean-spirited endings, but best of all, he really seemed to be having fun.
Do you ever watch a trailer for an upcoming movie and sort of hope it won’t be that good, because you know if it is, you’re going to have to wait what seems like forever to see it?*
Well, with The Bay, I saw the poster (above) and thought OK, bland title, but it looks interesting.Body horror! Maybe even a creature feature! As soon as the trailer started I thought, oh shit! Not more found footage! My current opinion on found-footage horror movies, based on sitting through one too many of them, is that for every great, entertaining found-footage horror movie there’s about ten boring, forgettable, frustrating, or just downright shitty ones, now that everybody has cashed in (or at least tried to) on it.
…seems like a fresh breath for found footage horror. Actually, a pretty fresh breath for a medium-to- wide-release horror movie, whether it’s found footage or not. Contagion was very effective, but did the virus manifest itself in the form of parasites eating the infected ‘from the inside out,’ including their tongues? No, it did not!
The trailer for The Bay RAINED found-footage clichés.* Opening of trailer consists of transcript of a woman calling 911, the operator calm but the female caller crying and panicking? Check. Title card describing vague mysterious incident that happened in specific location on specific date? Check. Title card informing us that the US government/military/CDC has held back this footage (…Until Now )? Check. Someone earnestly talking to the camera about how important it is that this footage gets out? Check. Screams, crying, other incoherent sounds of people seriously losing their shit off-camera/out of frame? Check. Security-camera footage integrated? Check. Shaky-cam? Check. Night-vision? Check. Skype? Check. Sound of police radio, walkie-talkie or other static-y communication device indicating the situation is deteriorating/ escalating (“…repeat, we have a code blue, request back-up immediately…”)? Check. Picture suddenly going into static/pixels right after jump moment? Check.
From what I’ve read, the horrible thing is this is actually a very early stage of the virus…
I’m going to stop listing them now out of compassion for you, the reader, but it’s safe to say we hit the majority of them here. However, there’s not nearly enough clichés to make me roll my eyes and forget about it the second the trailer ends. Check out the trailer for The Bay below…
Did that look boring? Nope! Here’s what the trailer has going for it that I think most horror fans, even those that found-footage has just about worn out their welcome with as much as me, will make a mental note NOT to miss The Bay for:
What seems like a fresh plot for found footage horror. Actually, a pretty fresh plot for a medium-to- wide-release horror movie, whether it’s found footage or not. Contagion was very effective, (I’m not even a mild germaphobe, but it made my blood run cold more than once) but did the virus manifest itself in the form of parasites eating the infected ‘from the inside out,’ including their tongues ? No, it did not!
‘Body horror’. Someone involved in the creation of The Bay has to be a Cronenberg fan.
Also, gory medical horror is all but guaranteed from the trailer.
Since the novelty of found footage dissolved, I’ve found the smaller number of characters it focuses on, the less excited I get about seeing it. The Bay seems to have an ensemble cast and a larger scale.
The ‘Miss Crustacean’ Beauty Pageant is already fun as hell – imagine adding body-eating parasites into that scenario. Hopefully during a Fourth of July parade.
Certain moments in the trailer gave me a genuine feeling of dread.
A strong “Don’t Screw With Mother Nature” theme
The sense that we might get we may get an ‘all hell completely breaking loose resulting in total fucking gory chaos everywhere’ scene. When the film-makers get it just right, I practically levitate and forget everything and everyone around me, including the fact I’m sitting in a theater… and when really done right, repeat viewings give me the same high, and just as pure. I realize that it sounds like I’m talking about uncut Heisenberg-formula blue crystal meth cooked up by Walter White and Jesse Pinkman themselves when I try to describe my visceral reaction to these kind of scenes …but I’m pretty sure there’s no narcotic in the world that could make me feel as great as I did watching, say, the last act of The Cabin in the Woods.
OK, I admit it– The Bay had me at “eating them from the inside out”.
*Now all the reviews from TIFF are coming in, and everyone has more or less raved about the movie. The word “skin-crawling” comes up a lot in the reviews. The only complaints are that it’s too gruesome, and OHGODDAMNIT HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO WAIT TILL NOVEMBER2nd? THAT’S OVER A FUCKING MONTH! OK… breathe…
**Let’s see, where’s that list for my Found Footage Horror Movie Drinking Game™ I was putting together? I’m not joking. I’ve been jotting things down and I still plan to post it once I add some more clichés, then figure out a way to lay out the rules so no-one ends up passing out halfway through the movie.
When I made the first list of Ten Trailers To Keep You Awake, I held a few back. There’s a TON of scary-ass trailers out there. When searching for the right version to embed in my posts, I’d come across at least ten more frightening ones, knowing there was going to be a sequel to that little series. Funny thing–most of the horror trailers on this second go-round are Asian.
This Ju-On trailer (for the original 2002 theatrical release – first came two made-for-TV Ju-On movies) doesn’t have English subtitles. Doesn’t need them. Trust me. How the fuck anyone in Japan who saw this trailer was brave enough to go see the movie in the theater, I have no idea. My skin crawls even watching this in the daytime on my laptop, using the small You Tube viewer the size of an index card; not even half-screen, let alone full screen.
I even considered saving this for last, it’s so frightening …but hey, the week-end is coming up, who needs sleep, right?
…That I posted the scary-ass theatrical trailer for last week. After I watched the Mama short below (in the middle of the night, only one awake in the house, you know, the stupid viewing method I keep swearing I’m going to stop doing) I had a nightmare. A very specific nightmare; the kind you know a certain something horror-related that you watched before bed-time inspired.
So what WAS I thinking when I watched it after dark, alone in the house? It was probably related to the fact that I’d just spent a boring half an hour searching for scary-ass shorts to share it with you fellow horror fans, watching a few horror shorts claiming to be SUPER!! SCARY!!! that weren’t too scary, original, or even that gracefully put-together. As I discovered with the Scariest Short of the Week (Bedfellows) that I posted two weeks ago, just because a short is less than four minutes long doesn’t mean it can’t be well-made, tightly edited, and scare the living shit out of you. Longer ones (in the eight-to-ten-minute range) could also be sleep-with-the-lights on scary (or TRY to sleep with the lights on scary, yet you still end up wide-awake) as well; intense, perfectly paced, and a little too memorable than you’d like to experience right before bedtime – see my post on Cleansed, the scariest short of LAST week.
yes, go Go GO GO!
Well, not the case last night. So anyway, I was just about to say the hell with it and watch the end of 2007’s The Orphanage* (review coming – it was even more haunting than I expected, ALSO a Del Toro-presented production by the way, and I can’t recommend it enough) when I remembered something. Hey, wasn’t that upcoming, ultra-creepy Mama movie that I posted the ‘Spooky-ass Trailer’ for recently actually based on a short film by the same director? Well, might as well see if… oh, hey, here it was! Popped up right away in the search! I’d just watched several horror shorts claiming to be SUPER!SCARY! that just ended up being, well …stupid. How could this be too freaky to watch before bedtime?
Watch it below to judge for yourself. If you’re feeling brave, turn all the lights off and the sound up like I did! Hey, it’s less than four minutes long, right?
Fuck! (I think that was also my one-word You Tube comment I posted after I caught my breath). Yes, indeed, definitely the inspiration for the upcoming movie presented by Guillermo Del Toro, and directed and written by…
*It’s possible the first half of The Orphanage also contributed to my nightmare, and it was the combination of the two, but I hadn’t even got to the really wrenching moments and reveals by time I turned off the TV and conked out last night. Pretty sure it was the short.
Whenever a movie’s tagline could be replaced with “It’s Just So Wrong,” it goes on my watch list (Inbred‘s actual tagline: They Came In Peace But Left In Pieces).
Alex Chandon pitches things perfectly between gory homage and something a little bit different from what we’ve seen many times before. The big difference adding freshness to the material is the way in which the onscreen horror is turned into a bit of a show by the villagers, adding a surreal aspect to proceedings. It’s like seeing a chamber of horrors being touted by P. T. Barnum.
Check out the latest red band trailer*, which was actually age-restricted when I first saw it on Dread Central. No such restriction on You Tube, though!
OK, I’ve actually done more than watch trailers. I’ve read plenty of print media giving Inbred reviews ranging from glowing to raving. Online, they’ve also gone the extra mile to promote the film everywhere, including personal responses to my questions (most of my questions are usually a more polite, articulate version of “WHEEEEEENNNN???”) on the official Facebook page, and a pretty impressive official website I’ve been following since I found it. I’d recommend joining the Inbred ‘group’ on Facebook for the most up-to-the-minute news; combine that with the enthusiastic Inbred website and you’ve got pretty much everything a fan could want. Once I read the ‘Director’s Statement’ on the site, I was 100% in, especially when he described Inbred as “the film I would love to sneak in and see aged 14 and feel very naughty doing so. It’s very wrong but very right.”
Done and DONE!
The first teaser trailer, which I literally saw around a year ago as of this writing (soon after Inbred’s debut at the London Frightfest in August 2011), had me sold off the bat at the very memorable image below:
It’s not just the gore. Oh, don’t get me wrong, that’s a big part of what got my attention, I’m just saying there’s other aspects. That initial trailer had little-to-no dialogue, which made me curious. what… the… FFFUUU— What was that, a gunshot wound to the head? Was it an accident, or deliberate? Is the guy turning around because he was going to retaliate, or just in shock? Is he going to stumble blindly around for awhile, or drop to the ground the second after what we saw ends? I’m kind of hoping it was a horrible mistake in a string of shocking events that makes whatever situation the protagonists are in even worse, but I want to know! Do you know how hard it is for a recovered spoiler-whore(you’re talking to one right now) to avoid spoilers for an ENTIRE YEAR? Three months before the Spatartus: Revenge season premiere on STARZ and I was falling off that wagon, shamelessly typing “Spartacus Season Two Spoilers” into the Google search box during weak moments.
The plot description/synopsis (that I read a year ago) as soon as I followed the URL from the trailer also gave me a good gut feeling about the movie. Here is the latest, from the official Inbred site:
A disparate group of young urban offenders and their care workers embark on a community service weekend in the strange, remote Yorkshire village of Mortlake, which prides on keeping itself to itself. A minor incident with some local inbred youths rapidly escalates into a blood-soaked, deliriously warped nightmare for all involved. This is a demented horror film with nowt taken out.
Better, check out this official background, also from the site; it really told me all I needed to know…
INBRED is the warped brain child of UK writer/director Alex Chandon, who is responsible for the independent cult feature films CRADLE OF FEAR (2001) and PERVIRELLA (1997) as well as numerous award winning shorts and music promos. The script was written in 2009 and it immediately piqued the interest of New Flesh Films, who were looking for a strong feature to launch their company’s slate of productions. Private investors loved the INBRED script and decided to back the movie and so the wheels were set in motion. Alex developed a few drafts of the script and the final draft is co-written by his long time collaborator Paul Shrimpton, who lives in Yorkshire, where the film was eventually set. It was while staying with Paul that Alex decided that Yorkshire was the perfect location for the film; Paul’s hometown of Thirsk has some stunning locations and a community untouched by film-makers and so they were all eager to help and get involved. Producer Margaret Milner Schmueck previously worked on the production of Alex’s CRADLE OF FEAR and had in the interim period produced a body of award-winning shorts. Her strong connections with northern crew and talent sources made an interesting fit for INBRED so when Alex invited her on board as delegate producer to head up the production, Split Second Films (splitsecond-films.com) the Midlands based independent production company which Margaret co-founded became the UK production company. In early June 2010 an 8 week pre-production period started for a 4 week shoot through August 2010. INBRED had a successful 26 day shoot and then the long post production stage went into progress. INBRED has over 170 shots that require some sort of digital visual effects. This process was undertaken by Alex Chandon and a select crew of talented artists and took 6 months to complete. INBRED premiered at the prestigious FRIGHTFEST FILM FESTIVAL in London, UK in August 2011 to rave reviews and then played at a select few European festivals in late 2011, which also generated great positive feedback, which resulted in Darclight Films becoming the sales agent for INBRED at the very end of 2011. So we all hope that 2012 is indeed the year of the INBRED!
That’s looking like a distinct possibility! Inbred finally has a UK DVD/Blu-Ray release date of October 15th, a UK theatrical release on September 21st, and best of all, a US release confirmed for this year. Many fans on various boards are so excited they’re buying a copy, sight unseen (hell, since I have a region-free player, I’d do the same thing if I wasn’t on such a low budget). When a movie is compared favorably to Peter Jackson’s Dead Alive by multiple critics and reviewers, I start to pay attention really fucking fast. Did I mention Alex Chandon is also a genre fan also grew up in the 80s horror boom?
Wait. What’s that? You’d like to see ‘The Inbred Song’, AKA ‘EE BY GUM’, as (apparently) performed in the actual movie? Well, okay! It’s worth it for the lyrics alone.
Say, that banjo player looks a little familiar, did he happen to have a memorable moment in most of the trailers?
*Oh, and they’re right, it IS harder to hold my breath for thirty seconds than I assumed (it’s either the subject matter, me being more out of shape than I thought, or a combination of the two).
You’re a very troubled little girl. -William (John Waters)
(Raising her hand to calmly ask a question in Anatomy Class) Can you contract an STD from having sex with a dead person? -Pauline, Excision
Okaaay! Uh… wow. I remember seeing a piece on this movie somewhere; I think the movie might have been in production (or post) at the time. I recall hearing that there weren’t just walk-outs, there were actual PASS-outs, when it played at the 2012 Sydney Film Festival (and one or two other showings). At some point I added it to my IMDB Watch List. When I saw the image above, it came back to me. Today I finally saw the full-blown intense Red Band trailer below. I know I hadn’t seen it before, because I would have remembered John Waters showing up in it (for one).
You might want to put down anything you’re eating before you watch this..
The official website for the film has some lush, vivid stills so twisted I didn’t even consider putting them here; at least one of them, anyway, grossed me out just to look at. If/when you look at the “Stills” section of the elaborate website, you’ll know the one I mean as soon as you see it. Gah. There’s a ton of media, both stunning and grotesque, and news galore on the official site. There’s less NSFW content –but loads of updates– on the official Facebook page for the movie.
If you’re looking forward to seeing Excision as much as I am (hey, why are you looking at me like that? Don’t judge me!) then you’ll be happy to know the release date for the DVD and Blu-ray is coming up faster than Pauline’s lunch in the trailer you watched. OK, maybe not that quickly, but soon! Here’s the official Press Release:
On October 16th, Anchor Bay Films presents the harrowing coming-of-age horror film, and instant cult classic, Excision, from writer/director Richard Bates, Jr., which the Sundance Channel deemed, “Without question the most mind-blowing grotesque film to screen at this year’s fest.” Boasting an impressive and eclectic cast including AnnaLynne McCord (The CW’s “90210,” Transporter 2, Fired Up, FX’s “Nip/Tuck”), Traci Lords (Blade, Zack & Miri Make a Porno, Cry Baby), Ariel Winter (ABC’s “Modern Family”), Roger Bart (Hostel Part II, Law Abiding Citizen, American Gangster), Malcolm McDowell (The Artist, A Clockwork Orange, Rob Zombie’s Halloween, HBO’s “Entourage”) and cameos including Ray Wise, director John Waters, and Academy Award® winner Marlee Matlin, Excision comes to Blu-ray™ for an SRP of $24.99 and DVD for an SRP of $22.98.
Excision turned critics’ stomachs as well as heads, garnering much attention at festivals this past year. Noel Murray of AV Club calls it, “One of the damnedest ‘adolescent misfit’ movies you’ll ever see — for those who can stomach the splatter, that is,” and Chris Bumbray of JoBlo exclaims, “While it’s more than a little sick, and will likely leave you queasy by the time the credits roll, Excision is nonetheless a truly unique horror ride into the scariest of all place:s the mind of a teenaged misfit.” Excision holds a 94% “want to see” rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
Based on a short film of the same name, Excision follows a disturbed and delusional high school student, Pauline (AnnaLynne McCord), who, with aspirations of a career in medicine, goes to extremes to earn the approval of her controlling mother (Traci Lords). While dealing with being an outcast teenager and obsession over curing her sister’s cystic fibrosis, Pauline becomes continually deranged as her fascination with surgery and the human flesh grows into something abysmal and demonic.
Bonus feature on the Excision Blu-ray™ and DVD: audio commentary with writer/director Richard Bates, Jr., and AnnaLynne McCord.
Thanks, Official Press Release (and Anchor Bay)! Nice to start the week with some good news. I have no idea how they got stunning AnnaLynne McCord to look so terrible; when I watched the trailer I didn’t recognize her until her credit came up. In some of the freaky dream sequences/fantasies I can recognize her, with all the glamour make-up on and fetish costumes. I’m confident she call pull it off; in addition to some of the rave reviews her acting in this movie is getting, she played a teenaged, breathtakingly gorgeous but vile, sick little bitch on Season Five of FX’s Nip/Tuck who, among other malignant things, taught an eleven-year-old girl how to make herself throw up to keep her weight down, because 80 lbs was ‘too fat’.*
I’m also tweeting the first clip that was released. Remember when you’re watching it that A. that is not an actual dead bird, it’s only a movie and B. not to watch while you’re eating anything …or feeling queasy already, because it even made me wince a little. I’m tweeting it too, though, mainly because the clip’s title is “Bird Surgery” and maybe I can come up with some corn, hack-y joke.
Whoop! Sorry, I seem to have accidentally posted some images of the lead actress in an upcoming unrated French horror movie instead of… no, wait, I was right the first time, these *are* in fact some images of the lead actress from “Excision!”
*which she did sheerly –and successfully– out of spite, because she hated the girl’s mother (for sleeping with HER mother, mainly …longer story than you’d probably care for right now). Her horrible character also banged the girl’s father for the same reason. Oh, I’m looking forward to posting my list of Ten F*cked-Up Things That Happened On Nip/Tuck. That piece just wrote itself (if anything, I had trouble narrowing it down to ten)!
A ghost is an emotion, bent out of shape. Condemned to repeat itself time and time again…
Does that sound familiar? A little J-Horror, a little Gothic, and just a little unsettling. Well, this isn’t a red band trailer, it’s not even close to being offensive (for a horror trailer, anyway) and Mama i s rated PG-13. That being said, this is a very creepy, spooky-ass trailer (and the first full-length one). If at least one of the images in the trailer doesn’t creep you the hell out, even a little, then check your pulse to make sure you still have one!
I’d seen the poster for Mama, which didn’t look that scary; looked kind of generic. Yeah yeah, creepy little girl peering out from behind a drape or something, whatever. Then, after I watched the trailer (because even the trailer was blowing people away) l I looked a little closer…
I then realized uh… I don’t think those are drapes. Look again (if you haven’t noticed it yet) and you’ll see what appears to be cloth is actually a long, scrawny, creepy non-human arm dangling. You can see the lanky, bony hand. Not sure about you, but to me, you know what a look, creepy, dangling arms reminds ME of? A familiar face from my nightmares (and perhaps some of yours, too):
Yes, it’s the Medieros Girl as played by Javier Botet (in all three movies, by the way) AKA the pee-your-pants frightening Attic Monster from [REC].
So after I watched the trailer (while I was musing over how often I watch creepy horror movie trailers after dark when you think I’d have learned my lesson by now after what seems like 500 times and going on ten years of You Tube clips, trailers, etc.), I looked up the cast.
Guess who’s in the credits? Javier Botet! I am pretty sure I got a glimpse of him towards the end of the trailer in a quick flash (and in the thumbnail still they picked for the trailer above). This time, crawling with terrifying and unnatural speed rather than standing upright and swinging a hammer blindly around one of the darkest, scariest attics in all horror film history. Looks like I’m in for this one. Imagery this creepy (below) in the very first trailer?
If you look closely (I know it’s dark) you can see this is in fact TWO creepy little girls, not one. Freaked me the hell out first time I saw the trailer.
Here’s some info on the actual movie, which has a release date of January 18th, 2013. It’s a “Guillermo del Toro Presents” title; meanwhile while the actual director is Andres Muschietti. The movie stars an almost-supernaturally beautiful Jessica Chastain, along with Nikolaj Coster-Waldau (Jaimie Lannister on HBO’sGame of Thrones, also easy on the eyes) and Megan Charpentier. Here’s the official plot description:
Annabel and Lucas are faced with the challenge of raising his young nieces that were left alone in the forest for 5 years…. but how alone were they? Guillermo del Toro presents Mama, a supernatural thriller that tells the haunting tale of two little girls who disappeared into the woods the day that their parents were killed. When they are rescued years later and begin a new life, they find that someone or something still wants to come tuck them in at night.
It’s those last dozen words that give me the chills. Especially if Javier Botet is involved. Would YOU want his version of a monster to come tuck you in at night? Jesus H. Christ! That’d be the last time in my life I got any goddamned sleep. On the IMDB cast listing, there’s no character name after his credit, so I have a hunch he’ll be playing a monster. Quite possibly THE monster. As I mentioned above, there’s something very skinny moving rapidly towards the camera for a brief moment in the trailer, and I’m 99% sure that’s where Botet (and maybe “Mama”) come in…
More details about Mama as I get them. Since it’s not the little girls, but their “Mama” that’s dangerous, I think there’s a good chance of seeing a fresh, spooky flick!
OK, so that’s not the actual end of the title. Sorry, for some reason if the syllables are right, I can’t stop myself from typing that after the name of a sequel ending in “two”. Actually, there’s a point in the trailer where some poor guy appears to be doing some kind of sick electric boogaloo (it looks like ECT gone horribly wrong—you’ll know it when you see it). Anyway, I’ve been psyched about Grave Encounters 2 since I discovered it was in production!
Damn! What the fuck was that thing climbing out into the hallway from, well, whatever hole in the wall it came out of? I couldn’t even tell it’s gender (not that I am complaining, that creature is grotesque enough without having to see its junk)
I raved previously about Grave Encounters when I put it on the list of Ten Trailers to Keep You Awake. I think it might be one of, if not THE, scariest found-footage movies to come out of the US and Canada. I’m probably in the minority here, but it scared me a hell of a lot more than Blair Witch. Spain’s [REC] is probably the most terrifying found-footage movie I’ve ever seen, and might even make my list of the top ten scariest horror movies, period- -if not the top ten, then it would definitely earn a place in the top twenty. But I digress. In the interest of full disclosure, The Vicious Brothers wrote and directed the first film; this time they wrote the script, but handed the directing reigns to John Pollquin, making this his full-length directing début. I still have plenty of faith in The Vicious Brothers to deliver the goods. The one thing I would have liked to see, though, is a ‘viral site’ marketing the movie campaign. Especially since the movie is so ‘meta’, and involves ‘a mysterious blogger,’ (see the official plot description after the jump) they could have come up with a GREAT marketing campaign and had some fun with it. I LOVE IT when genre films go the extra mile when it comes to promotion …and it’s clear they’re having as much fun playing with it as the fans were. Links to great, entertaining, and just plain fun promo sites will be coming soon in a feature piece, by the way, and there’s some serious must-sees in there.
Here’s the official plot description for Grave Encounters 2…
In 2011, GRAVE ENCOUNTERS was a found-footage horror phenomenon from the Vicious Brothers, with a trailer garnering over 20 million views on YouTube. Many people believed it was just a movie. They were wrong, and film student Alex Wright is out to prove it in GRAVE ENCOUNTERS 2.
While researching the events depicted in the original film and the subsequent disappearance of its lead ”actor” Sean Rogerson, Alex Wright received a bizarre video from a mysterious blogger named “DeathAwaits666.” Appearing to show Rogerson still alive but trapped inside the Collingwood Psychiatric Hospital from GRAVE ENCOUNTERS, Alex and his friends agree to meet the blogger at the infamous hospital in hopes of learning what really happened.* To their horror, they quickly find themselves face-to-face with unspeakable evil. Realizing that they must be smarter and faster than Rogerson and his crew to avoid suffering the same fate, they use their knowledge of the original film to do whatever it takes to survive the sequel.
Yeah… I don’t think that last part’s gonna happen. Take a look at the first theatrical trailer for Grave Encounters 2 below!
Damn! What the fuck was that thing climbing out into the hallway from, well, whatever hole in the wall it came out of? I couldn’t even tell its gender (not that I am complaining, that creature is grotesque enough without having to see its junk). Bringing back the main character (and possible sole survivor) from the first movie has potential. Thinking back, I can’t even say for sure who got the worst death in the first movie. Many times after whatever monster/demon/ghost combo got ahold of someone (causing the other characters present to scream “WHAT THE FUCK?” “SHIT!” “FUCKING RUN!” at the top of their lungs while the footage got blurry or digitized as they either dropped the camera to come back for later or blunder quickly away from the scene) the poor bastard just …vanished. I don’t think vanishing after being suddenly yanked into a bathtub filled to the brim with blood means they got an easy death. So, that leads me to think…
(SPOILER ALERT FOR THE ORIGINAL GRAVE ENCOUNTERS – highlight the text below to reveal and read). Who knows if they’re in some kind of hell-dimension, or just dead? I think the guy who fell down the elevator shaft and died when he hit the ground probably had it the easiest. OK, now I’m getting too spoiler-y as far as the original. Anyway, we never saw him die… his character was the biggest douchebag in the movie, but he ended up having to catch and eat live rats, then got a lobotomy. The horrible old-school ice pick kind. OK, now I’m getting too spoiler-y as far as the original and wanting to veer off topic.
Check out the first teaser poster below—the tagline struck me as kind of lackluster, but the image sure as hell got my attention!
Some people are worried the movie is going to get too “meta”, which was a concern to me for the first 20 seconds or so of the trailer, when fans are recommending Grave Encounters as a great, scary movie to pick up a copy of and see, bla de-blah. After that, though, it starts to get interesting. Even though this trailer swears Grave Encounters 2 contains 2 X THE FEAR, 2 X THE INTENSITY, and 2 X THE ENCOUNTERS, I’ll just be happy if it’s up to par with the original. Also, I have a suspicion that I don’t really WANT to see a sequel twice as frightening as the original, since the first one already was scary enough to shoot my nerves to shit!
Most people (including me) seem to agree that if the sequel is as good as the first movie–or even a notch down– they’ll be in for a great, scary ride. Lucky Uncle Creepy, from my favorite horror news site Dread Central, has seen it and said it “could very well be the perfect sequel”. I pretty much trust him 100% – besides being just as passionate a horror fan as I am (probably more, since he devotes so much of his time to Dread Central he seems to be on it 24/7, unlike me) has yet to steer me wrong with a review of, well, anything as of this writing. Oh, and they also gave us a look at a second poster that’s hard not to get a big grin looking at:
Looks like we’ll get to find out for ourselves when Grave Encounters 2 is available On Demand on October 2nd (with a theatrical release and midnight screenings beginning on October 12 … right, like I have the willpower to wait for that**). Only weeks away; time for a new “Milestone” countdown widget! Now that I think of it, the release date is great timing for those of us who have been jonses-ing for American Horror Story: Asylum to start already, goddamnit! on October 17th. So, we’ll have GE2 to look forward to two weeks before the premiere, which should hold us over a bit longer.
Also, that buys me a little extra time on my article featuring a trilogy of my current favorite–and most terrifying– insane asylum-set horror movies (Session Nine, Asylum Blackout (nothing supernatural in that one, but JESUS it was terrifying) and of course, the original Grave Encounters). I’m also writing a piece that is in danger of growing to a novella-length essay on the history of the Danvers Asylum, which I’m fairly convinced was haunted, and I sure as hell want nothing to do with the Luxury Apartments built on the property after the Asylum was torn down. Fuck that! Would YOU want to live there?
Oh, and the “Collinswood Hospital/Sanitorium” (the setting for both Grave Encounters movies) is —unlike the aforementioned Danvers in Session Nine— is, thank God, completely fictional. But looking at this (fictional) atmospheric image of the exterior, you could have fooled me. Feast your eyes on the below…
It’s not often you see an image so spooky, yet almost breathtakingly beautiful. Now THAT takes some finesse from the production design team.
*visiting the ‘real psychiatric hospital from the original’ film: Bad Fucking Idea, or Big Fucking Mistake?
**I’ll end up being just about as patient as I was with REC 3: Genesis, Asylum Blackout, Piranha 3DD (and boy, was seeing THAT one in 2-D for less than ten bucks at home one of the best judgement calls I’ve made in the last couple of years) and V/H/S when they popped up in the “Just In” section On Demand before the official VOD date. Let’s see, here. So I can watch it starting in less than two minutes at home for $9.99 (sometimes less than that) instead of waiting several more weeks to see it in the theater for $12.50? Especially Though there’s nothing, and I mean nothing like the high of seeing a Midnight Preview or an opening night showing in a packed theater full of fans just as excited to see the movie as you are …DEAL! When I have a choice between INSTANT gratification or waiting (unless I know for sure it’s going to be showing here in the Emerald City –not in a theater that’s an area code or two away– and guaranteed a lively crowd, with the date less than two, three weeks tops from now) all my willpower instantly goes down the drain when it comes to a horror movie I’ve been all hopped up to see for months.
HORROR BOOM 