Welcome, folks, to another week of horror. I haven’t had much horror in my life this week besides my 11 month-old realizing how fun it is to tear off her diapers after a meal, but I did finally finish reading A Game of Thrones, which certainly has its share of supernatural elements. What a great book that is, and what a gut-punch of an ending. Really have to get around to watching the HBO adaptation…
But I digress- to the horror! Let’s start off with the most exciting news.
SO MUCH FOR HIS KINDLE FAIL-
Mark Wheaton, known around these parts as the legendary Smilin’ Jack Ruby, has a new movie on the way based on one of his self-published stories. If you haven’t been following his career after CHUD, he became a successful screenwriter for a good number of horror flicks (Friday the 13th, The Messengers) and recently started self-publishing short stories via Kindle. (He wrote a great article about the experience here on CHUD.) The stories were all incredible but one stood out in my mind- Sunday Billy Sunday. The simplest and worst way to describe it would be as another “killer offing kids in a summer camp” story, but it’s so much more than that. Real characters and a coming-of-age feel lend reality to a fairly terrifying story about the priest (Father Billy) that runs the camp, who has a vision from God and is irked when God doesn’t keep talking to him. To spite Him, Father Billy starts slaughtering campers, waiting for God to finally break his silence. He pledges 99 deaths before Summer is over.
Croatian music video director Morna Cirak has optioned the story and intends to shoot it for 2012 festival release. “Religiously motivated violence created a bloodbath in former Yugoslavia and it’s a subject I’ve always wanted to explore in film. I was excited to find a writer of Mark’s talent tackling the subject in a smart, provocative and commercial way,” Ciraki says.
“Sunday Billy Sunday wasn’t a story I considered filmable until Morna presented her vision for the project,” Wheaton says. “Having heard her edgy and unique plans, I’m very excited to help bring this to the big screen.”
So are we all! Shock Till You Drop has the full press release. We can only hope he continues to crank out those great stories. I was honored to be asked to lend a blurb to the print collection of his stories and the man has inspired me to try my hand at more creative writing. He’s one of the good ones and deserves all the success that’s coming his way. Congrats to you, Mark!
If you haven’t read Sunday Billy Sunday or any of his other stories, cough up a buck and check them out– you won’t be disappointed.
FOLLOW IT–
YellowBrickRoad is currently playing at AMC theaters, and you can catch it tonight if you didn’t already win tickets from us. Reviews have been mixed but you have to hand it to Bloody Disgusting for getting these genre flicks out there in theaters.
Their next release is in late June, a German zombie film called Rammbock: Berlin Undead. More on it soon.
BE THE SHARK–
There’s a new Jaws game on the way. I pray for your sake that you never played 2006’s Jaws Unleashed, or if you did you’ve been drinking steadily to erase your memories. Sure, you played the shark and could eat animals and people in bloody fashion and that should have been all you needed for a great game, right? No, you were hampered by horrible controls and a nightmare of level design that just oozed stupidity. In the first level you have to eat a human to get his key card to open a door, I SHIT YOU NOT.
Anyway this new game Jaws Ultimate Predator is only coming out for Wii and Nintendo DS so if it sucks no one will see it anyway. I really hope they do a good job of it, though. We need an evil version of Ecco.
HERE COMES DEATH –
This week THQ announced that Darksiders 2 is in the works. This is good news. If you never played the first you should try picking it up, it’s pretty cheap right now. In it you play as War, one of the four horsemen of the apocalypse, who’s mad because the apocalypse started without him. The game is a complete and utter Zelda ripoff, as you go through dungeons opening chests and doors, finding boomerangs and hookshots and even an annoying companion that gives you unwanted hints. The dark setting gave the game a unique feel and the combat system is a lot of fun.
In the new game you’ll play as War’s brother Death in a story that runs parallel to the events of the first game, as you try to redeem your brother who was blamed for kick-starting the apocalypse prematurely.
Expect a much larger game world, bigger dungeons and bosses, and an improved experience if they live up to their promises. Check Game Informer for the teaser trailer.
EIGHT MINUTES OF TEEN WOLF IS EIGHT MINUTES TOO LONG–
MTV’s Teen Wolf premieres on June 5th, right before the MTV Movie Awards. But then I’m sure you already had your calendars marked.
One thing that bugs me already (as if the idea of a remake with lacrosse-playing hero wasn’t enough) is that he gets turned into a werewolf. Teen Wolf had that hysterical moment with Michael J. Fox’s glasses-wearing wolf dad.
One good thing about this clip is the important warning that is told here, and that is the irrational hate that deer have for asthma suffers. It’s cruel and needless but they just can’t stand all that wheezing.
HORROR FROM THE EAST–
It’s hard not to be ecstatic about The New York Asian Film Festival, which will have a ton of films to offer genre fans. Just check out the ridiculous lineup.
For me the clear standout is the opportunity to see Battle Royale in a theater, but they have a lot more that I’m going to highlight over the next few weeks.
One such film is Haunters, a Korean flick by director Kim Min-suk (former assistant to Bong Joon-ho of The Host and Kim Ji-woon of I Saw The Devil)about a kid who can control people with his mind. Only one person seems to be immune to his powers and of course he’s tasked with stopping him. Check out the trailer- it looks great.
Another selection on the complete opposite spectrum is the Japanese Horny House of Horror, from the writer of Mutant Girls Squad. You won’t need much more than the trailer for this one.
Warning- this is very, very NSFW, and will clearly make for an incredible screening.
That’s all the horror for this week! See you in seven.