TIMBER FALLS will be opening on December 7. I saw the film at Screamfest in Hollywood last October and was pleasantly surprised: the plot (religious loonies kidnap a couple out camping and try to force them to conceive a surrogate child) did not sound particularly auspicious, but the characters suspense were handled pretty well, and the horror hit most of the right notes - grim enough to be effective without getting lost in a welter of blood.

Below is a video the question-and-answer session after the screening.

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Esplatter.Com informs us that George A. Romero’s DIARY OF THE DEAD will be screening at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival, which will run from January 17 through 27 in Park City, Utah. The film is part of the Part City at Midnight series, which presents ” eclectic mix of horror, over-the-top comedies, surreal tales, explicit animation, and bizarre stories that defy categorization.”

Here is a complete list of films in the series:

• ADVENTURES OF POWER, U.S.A. (Director and Screenwriter: Ari Gold) — In his quest to become the world’s greatest air-drummer, a small-town dreamer must overcome obstacles and ridicule to save the day. Cast: Adrian Grenier, Jane Lynch, Jimmy Jean-Louis. World Premiere
• THE BROKEN, U.S.A. (Director and Screenwriter: Sean Ellis) — On a busy London street a woman sees herself driving by in her own car. Stunned, she trails the mystery woman as events take an eerie turn into a living nightmare. Cast: Lena Heady, Richard Jenkins, Asier Newman. World Premiere
• GEORGE A. ROMERO’S DIARY OF THE DEAD, U.S.A. (Director and Screenwriter: George A. Romero) — When a group of film students making an indie horror film find themselves trapped in a world being consumed by flesh-eating zombies, they cleverly switch gears and use the camera to document the world crumbling around them. Cast: Nick Alachiotis, Matt Birman, George Buza, Wes Craven, Stephen King, Quentin Tarantino, Guillermo del Toro, Nick Alachiotis, Matt Birman, George Buza, Wes Craven, Stephen King, Quentin Tarantino, Guillermo del Toro. U.S. Premiere
• DONKEY PUNCH, United Kingdom (Director: Olly Blackburn; Screenwriters: Olly Blackburn, David Bloom) — After meeting at a nightclub in a Mediterranean resort, seven young adults decide to continue partying aboard a luxury yacht in the middle of the ocean. But when one of them dies in a freak accident the others argue about what to do, leading to a ruthless fight for survival. Cast: Robert Boulter, Sian Breckin, Tom Burke. World Premiere
• FUNNY GAMES, U.S.A. (Director and Screenwriter: Michael Haneke) — A family settles into its vacation home, which happens to be the next stop for a pair of young, articulate, white-gloved serial killers on an excursion through the neighborhood. Cast: Naomi Watts, Tim Roth, Devon Gearhart.
• HELL RIDE, U.S.A. (Director and Screenwriter: Larry Bishop) — Quentin Tarantino presents this bloody, sexy tale of motorcycle revenge. It’s a modern-day take on 1960s motorcycle flicks, with bikers who hit the road to avenge the death of one of their “old ladies” at the hands of a rival motorcycle gang. Cast: Larry Bishop, Dennis Hopper, Michael Madsen. World Premiere
• OTTO; OR, UP WITH DEAD PEOPLE, Germany/ Canada (Director and Screenwriter: Bruce LaBruce) — A lonely gay zombie searches for love and meaning in contemporary Berlin. Cast: Jey Crisfar, Katharina Klewinghaus, Susanne Sachsse, Marcel Schlutt. World Premiere
• TIMECRIMES (LOS CRONOCRIMENES), Spain (Director and Screenwriter: Nacho Vigalondo) — A man accidentally travels back to the past, only to meet himself there. He also encounters a series of mysteries–pieces of an unpredictable jigsaw puzzle of terror, drama, and suspense–that all lead to an unthinkable crime. Cast: Karra Elejalde, Candela Fernandez, Barbara Goenaga.

Read our report of the DIARY OF THE DEAD screening at Hollywood’s Screamfest film festival.

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Somehow I missed this USA Today article when it came out in October (must have been too busy with Halloween stuff). Basically, it is an interview with directors Collin and Greg Strause, who say they want ALIENS VS PREDATOR: REQUIEM to return to the horror roots of the 1979 Ridley Scott film ALIEN.

“That movie was dark. That movie used a lot of rain,” Colin says. “And that movie was scary. We want it more like the classic early Alien and Predator movies we grew up on.” 

Unfortunately, the good intentions fo the Strause brothers seem belied by the accompanying photograph of an alien-predator hybrid, who looks like an outtake from the “If They Mated” routine on Late Night with Conan O’Brien.

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TIMBER FALLS is a pretty good backwoods horror flick that screened at this year’s Screamfest in Hollywood (I mentioned the film in this post). Unlike many low-budget films sans stars, this one is actually going to get a theatrical release, on December 7. Check out a clip below.

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Guillermo Del Toro’s fantasy-horror-war film, set in the war-torn Spain of 1944, is an obvious attempt to follow-up his previous THE DEVIL’S BACKBONE, which also set supernatural elements in the context of the Spanish Civil War. The film is beautiful and frequently moving, but it cannot quite match the heights of its predecessor, due to a narrative that remains in the inchoate stages far too long, before finally narrowing its focus in the second half, at which point it lives up to all expectations and more.

The story follows Ofelia (Ivana Baquero), whose widowed mother Carmen (Ariadna Gil) has married Captain Vidal (Sergie Lopez). The film begins with Carmen and Ofelia driving to an isolated mountain location, where Vidal is busy routing out the remnants of the rebels in the aftermath of the Civil War. Along the way, Ofelia encounters a large gleaming insect, rather like a preying mantis, which she takes for a fairy, because of its fluttering wings. She is also enchanted by an ancient stone labyrinth near to her new home. It soon becomes apparent that Vidal is a professional sadist who ruthlessly kills guilty and innocent alike, and his only concern for Carmen is that she live long enough to give birth to the son she is carrying in her womb. While Vidal goes about searching for the partisans, Ofelia escapes into a fantasy world in the labyrinth, where she encounters a faun (Doug Jones), who sets her a series of tasks to prove that she is indeed the reincarnated princess of the underworld. Eventually, the two story threads collide when Vidal pursues Ofelia into the labyrinth (shades of THE SHINING), where she carries her newborn brother for an encounter with the faun. Continue Reading »

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Bloody-Disgusting.Com has an interview with Rob Zombie, who discusses details of the upcoming unrated HALLOWEEN DVD release. In a nutshell, Zombie says that the unrated cut is not the workprint that was leaked online shortly before the film’s theatrical release:

I don’t know what this bullshit workprint is, something got online which I never saw. But during the course of cutting a movie, there’s like 50 different ‘workprints’, you know what I mean? So whatever’s online, I don’t know. Because every day you recut the movie and it’s different. So the version from the day that someone decided to steal the movie and put it online is one of the 300 versions we were cutting. So I don’t know what that is, but the one on the Unrated DVD is not that. The Unrated version has stuff no one has ever seen; stuff that was never in any cut. And also we went back and made it real movie - redo the music, redo the sound, remix it, make it all look good. The unrated version is definitely the most deluxe version of all.

This is a somewhat odd rant. Zombie seems to be disowning the leaked workprint. In a way, this is understandable; why should he defend an unfinished version of the movie? But references to “50 different ‘workprints’” and “300 versions we were cutting” are rather obvious exaggerations to make it sound as if the the leaked version were just one of many variations - and a forgotten one at that. Okay, so the “workprint” was not the “director’s cut;” it was a work-in-progress. Big deal. It still reveals that some major changes were made in post-production before the film was released.

Zombie goes on to say that he did not indulge himself by restoring every deleted scene, just the ones he thought would improve the film. The rest will be available as extras on the DVD.

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Simon Baker, Shane West, Phillip Baker Hall, Rebecca Pidgeon, Rachel Leight Cook, and Mell Harris have joined Edward Molina and Hope Davis in the cast of THE LODGER, a thriller written and directed by David Ondaatje for Stage 6 Films, a new Sony subsidiary set up to create low-budget features with an eye toward the video market (although theatrical release is a possibility, depending on Sony’s reaction to the finished film).

According to Variety:

Film is a reimagining of the Marie Belloc Lowndes novel that served as the basis for Alfred Hitchcock’s debut pic, 1927’s “The Lodger.”

Ondaatje-penned script, set in present-day Los Angeles, has two converging plotlines: The first involves a cat-and-mouse game between a troubled detective (Molina) and an unknown killer; the second explores the relationship between an emotionally disturbed landlady (Davis) and her enigmatic “lodger.”

The tale of the Lodger is a bit of a footnote in the history of the Jack the Ripper case - an unidentified tenant who was mysteriously absent whenever the Ripper struck. Scholars hardly consider the mystery man as a serious suspect; his absences were probably coincidental, and no one knows who the Lodger was, so even if he was the Ripper, it brings us no closer to a solution.

Nevertheless, the idea is a great premise for a thriller. Besides the Hitchcock film, there was a sound remake in 1944, directed by John Brahm and starring Laird Cregar in the title role. It stands as one of the best mystery-horror-thrillers ever produced, and one can only hope that Ondaatje’s modernized version will be a worthwhile successor.

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ETOnline.Com has a video featurette on the set of I AM LEGEND, featuring interview clips with Will Smith. At a glance, the footage suggests the new film will be closer in feel to THE OMEGA MAN than to THE LAST MAN ON EARTH (both of which were based on the same source material.

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On his blog, director Rob Cohen has posted a plot synopsis of THE MUMMY 3: TOMB OF THE DRAGON EMPEROR:

The blockbuster global Mummy franchise takes a spellbinding turn as the action shifts to Asia for the next chapter in the adventure series, The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor. Brendan Fraser returns as explorer Rick O’Connell to combat the resurrected Han Emperor (Jet Li) in an epic that races from the catacombs of ancient China high into the frigid Himalayas. Rick is joined in this all-new adventure by son Alex (newcomer Luke Ford), wife Evelyn (Maria Bello) and her brother, Jonathan (John Hannah). And this time, the O’Connells must stop a mummy awoken from a 2,000-year-old curse who threatens to plunge the world into his merciless, unending service.

Doomed by a double-crossing sorceress (Michelle Yeoh) to spend eternity in suspended animation, China’s ruthless Dragon Emperor and his 10,000 warriors have laid forgotten for eons, entombed in clay as a vast, silent terra cotta army. But when dashing adventurer Alex O’Connell is tricked into awakening the ruler from eternal slumber, the reckless young archaeologist must seek the help of the only people who know more than he does about taking down the undead: his parents.

As the monarch roars back to life, our heroes find his quest for world domination has only intensified over the millennia. Striding the Far East with unimaginable supernatural powers, the Emperor Mummy will rouse his legion as an unstoppable, otherworldly force…unless the O’Connells can stop him first. Now, in The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor, the trademark thrills and visually spectacular action of the Mummy series will be redefined for a new generation.

The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor is helmed by director Rob Cohen (The Fast and the Furious, xXx) and written by Alfred Gough & Miles Millar (Spider-Man 2, television’s Smallville). Reprising their roles as producers in the series are Bob Ducsay, Sean Daniel, Stephen Sommers and James Jacks.

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MIDNIGHT MEAT TRAIN is a filmic adaptation based on the Clive Barker story of the same name (which appears in the first volume of his “Books of Blood” series). Director Ryuhei Kitamaura (who practically exploded with screen with far-out monster action in GODZILLA: FINAL WARS) is the director, so I can only imagine that the film will be one wild ride.

Hopefully, the screenwriters have figured out a good way to develop the short story into a feature. Barker’s tale really just builds up to an awful revelation (the protagonist is forcibly recruited by monstrous cannibals living in the subway) and leaves the reader reeling from the blow. It’s pretty effective, but a film will need a second and a third act that can dramatically resolve the situation without feeling like an anti-climax. Here’s hoping…

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JoBlo.Com points us to this nifty promo featurette, in which director Christopher Nolan and others discuss using IMAX technology to film THE DARK KNIGHT:

This sounds like incredibly good news. The IMAX format is truly impressive, and I cannot even begin to imagine what the action scenes with Batman and the Joker will look like splashed across the giant screen. More and more, we are seeing feature films screen in IMAX theatres (which used to be exlusively devoted to short, specialty films), but too often those features are shot in 35mm and then blown up for IMAX exhibition. Actually filming in IMAX should create some spectacular results.

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Sometimes, you can’t win for losing. THE GOLDEN COMPASS - the $180-million dollar adaptation of the first in Philip Pullmans “His Dark Materials” trilogy - deliberately tried to avoid controversy by toning down the anti-religious elements of the books. The result? Fans are upset, and the Catholic League, a U.S. group, has called for the film to be boycotted, on the grounds that it might lure children to read the books:

Calling Pullman “a noted English atheist,” the group said on its Web site: “It is his objective to bash Christianity and promote atheism. To kids.

“Though the movie promises to be fairly non-controversial, it may very well act as an inducement to buy Pullman’s trilogy, ‘His Dark Materials‘.”

A Reuters article, posted at Yahoo News, gets comments from some of the cast and crew about the controversy: Actress Nicole Kidman says she would not want to be part of an anti-religious movie. Actor Daniel Craig says controversy could be good for the film (after all it hardly hurt THE DA VINCI CODE). And director Chris Weitz says he needed to tone down the controversy in order to launch an audience-friendly trilogy, but he expects more controversy if the film franchise continues.

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Comic Book Resources has an interview with Sam Raimi, in which the director talks obliquely about the possibility of a fourth SPIDER-MAN film. Raimi says he will begin working with a screenwriter on the project as soon as the writers’ strike ends. Regarding whether the sequel would proceed from the previous trilogy or chart its own new path, he adds:

If I was writing it I would have a very strong opinion about that, but we’re hiring a writer to come up with his own take. Sony was willing to go either way, we’ll just have to wait and see what the writer comes up with. I think anything’s possible, though.

I mean, there’s been so many different versions, it doesn’t have to follow the movies that we’ve made. I’d very much like to see Tobey Maguire as Spider-Man, so I have a personal interest in that, but certainly anything’s possible. Spider-Man’s such a big character in the comic books that he could endure a lot of different interpretations. You could start over or you could start with a different aspect of the story than I’ve focused on in the pictures I’ve made, we’ll just have to wait and see what the writer comes up with.

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In a brief post today, Shock Till You Drop tells us what we already know: the upcoming FRIDAY THE 13TH film will not be a remake.

Well, duh. Any decent horror fan knows that Jason Voorhees did not really take up the machete until the first sequel, and there was little chance that even the most half-assed Hollywood producer would be stupid enough to make a new movie about Jason’s mother killing off camp counselors.

Without clear sourcing, the article goes on to tell us that the film will feature a “leaner, meaner, faster Jason Voorhees” and that we should imagine the story takes place “somewhere between parts two and four.”

A rather vague pin-pointing of the time frame, to be sure. Are they hinting that the new Friday is a remake of PART III? Or merely that it incorporates some elements from that film (this was the one that first put Jason in a hockey mask, after all)?

In any case, the new FRIDAY will be directe by Marcus Nispel (who also helmed the TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE remake), from a screenplay by Damian Shannon and Mark Swift. One imagines that Nispel (and presumably his screenwriters) are relived to be working on a franchise that, despite its popularity, is not to hard to top, in terms of quality.

Expect the new FRIDAY to open on February 13, 2009.

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American fans know Dario Argento for his movies, particularly 1977’s SUSPIRIA, but the Italian fright-master has also dabbled in television. Unfortunately, few if any of us in the states have had an opportunity to sample his TV work, but that is about to change: According to ESplatter.Com,  DOOR INTO DARKNESS, a series of four one-hour episodes, will come to DVD on February 26, 2008.

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