I would like to tell you all about two things I am really, really waiting for. The first is writer/director Ti West’s upcoming film ‘HOUSE OF THE DEVIL’. The second… well, we’ll get to the second one in a bit, but first, the devil.
By way of introduction, in 2005 Ti West made a movie titled ‘THE ROOST’. It is a low budget horror flick about a roost of bats that bite folks and turn them into zombie-like monsters who then attack other folk. Now, while I admit that is not the most exciting concept I’ve ever heard, The Roost is clearly a case of the director’s style and panache making the movie.
Why?
Imagine it is 1985. You force yourself to stay awake until 2AM and then sneak downstairs to the Den*, dial up the UHF setting on your parents’ Magnavox television set, and flip the dial until you find the late night horror movie of the week. Between the UHF broadcast handicap, bad rabbit ear reception, and the film’s low quality technique and treatment your screen is all fuzzed out so you have to sit close in the dark and pin your eyes to the movement.
That is The Roost, in a nutshell. and it won me over immediately.
So, shortly after re-watching this instant classic a few months ago I IMDB’d Mr. West and found that one of his next movies is the aforementioned ‘House of the Devil’. It is currently filming in Connecticut and should be out early 2009.
Here’s the description provided on IMDB:
‘In the 1980s, college student Samantha Hughes takes a strange babysitting job that coincides with a full lunar eclipse. She slowly realizes her clients harbor a terrifying secret; they plan to use her in a satanic ritual.’ – IMDB
Now, if that doesn’t sound like the most old school motherfuckin’ horror film I don’t know what does. First, you’ve got a house, which puts it in that special class of films occupied by the likes of Rob Zombie’s ‘HOUSE OF 1000 CORPSES’ and Lucio Fulci’s ‘HOUSE BY THE CEMETARY’, both of which I am a HUGE fan of. Second, you’ve got the devil, always a good thing unless you’re a wayward virgin or Dick Cheney (time to pay up Dickey boy!!!). And lastly, the film is even a period piece set in the 80’s.
How could a horror fan not be psyched!!!
Now in the more immediate future Mr. West has directed the soon to be released ‘CABIN FEVER 2’ (or did it come out yet and go direct to DVD? This one got away from me). I liked the first Cabin Fever but then Eli Roth went and made ‘HOSTEL’, which is easily the WORST movie I have seen since Sly Stallone’s ‘COBRA’** so I’m jaded on anything Roth right now. Hopefully West will make it great and Roth will make ‘THANKSGIVING’ based on his faux trailer on last year’s GRINDHOUSE and we can all be one big happy family again…
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Now, on to number two. This is something I know next to nothing about, only having seen it mentioned for the first time last night while reading the Spring ’08 issue of FILMMAKER magazinet. In the article on Dario Argento’s ‘MOTHER OF TEARS’ the writer, Travis Crawford drops mention of an upcoming prospective collaboration between Argento, his daughter Asia, Ray Liotta and, ready? VINCENT GALLO!!! Oh my god, I can not even fathom what this film would be like, but in the interveiw Dario says they’re not sure when they can start filming it because of the cast. He says, ‘We don’t know when we can start – maybe at the end of May?’
If that’s the case then it has already begun…
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* when was the last time you heard of anyone who had a ‘den’? Not since the 80’s I’ll bet.
** and actually, to reference my previous tirade, I’d rather watch Ken Russell’s ‘FALL OF THE LOUSE OF USHER’ twice all the way through than even look at the art on the box of Hostel. Seriously, for a movie that was supposed to be so violent and disturbing, I found it quite the opposite. I saw it by myself in the theatre on opening day high as a kite and had to keep fighting the idea that I had wandered into a screening of a Skin-e-max movie of the same name by accident. Boo.