Ooooh, pretty!
Well, Daniel Radcliffe is certainly doing everything he can to shed his Harry Potter public persona. And he’s doing it by chasing horror projects like mad, lately! Hammer’s The Woman In Black was a great foray into the genre earlier this year and he’s already rumored for a cameo role in the sequel. He’s also currently shooting Alexandre Aja’s Joe Hill adaptation, Horns. Seemingly unfulfilled by these, word is that the man is chasing after a plum lead as the HUNCHBACK (who is constantly dirty and wears tattered clown clothes!) in Paul McGuigan’s Frankenstein. The Max Landis-penned script has been hot lately and one that Shawn Levy was attached to until recently. It’s currently going through a rewrite to pare down the budget a bit, but is expected to lens sometime early next year. Does Radcliffe fancy himself a career in the mold of Peter Cushing or Donald Pleasence? He could certainly do worse. I, for one, welcome him into our community with open arms.
Paramount will reportedly have a tease for their currently-untitled Latino spin-off of the Paranormal Activity franchise at the end of the credits of this year’s Paranormal Activity 4. The Latino-themed project is expected to arrive sometime next year with a Latino cast and a more Catholic-based look at the franchise’s mythology, but will be in English. Funnily enough, this won’t be the first foreign spin-off the series has seen. Paranormal Activity: Tokyo Night hit theaters in Japan in 2010. Has anyone around here actually seen it? I’d love to get some feedback on the film.
Speaking of supernatural craziness, the Amityville House is on the market again. Also for sale? A house in Duluth, GA that is apparently an exact replica of Disneyland/Disneyworld’s Haunted Mansion. The pitter patter of geeky feet that you hear right now is Guillermo Del Toro scrambling to snap up a second home in Georgia. Dare you outbid him?
Joe Dante went on the record recently about his next two projects: Paris, I’ll Kill You and Monster Love. Both are set within the famous French city. The first is, of course, a horror version of the recent Paris, I Love You and New York, I Love You; bringing together a bunch of genre filmmakers to do horror shorts. Monster Love is a Romeo & Juliet-esque tale about a vampire and werewolf who fall in love…Dante-style! That one is currently going through a rewrite, so expect the anthology project to shoot first. Both are expected to go before cameras next year though, so it seems that The Hole is merely the tip of the iceberg when it comes to new works from Dante.
John August also spouted off recently about his initial Dark Shadows screenplay. Apparently the first go at it yielded a serious Godfather-esque horror screenplay with Barnabus at the center of things. The project, of course, got pushed back a few times as Depp did other things and Burton made Alice In Wonderland first. By the time they were finally ready to get going, Twilight and True Blood had happened. So they decided to take things in a more comedic direction and we ended up with what hit screens back in May. While I haven’t seen it yet, even those that liked it would probably agree that we’d have been better off with August’s original take on the material.
And now, a brief intermission (courtesy of Adam Green, Kane Hodder, and Joel David Moore)…
Rutger Hauer will be joining the sixth season of True Blood. I’m a still a season behind on this sucker (har har!), but this is still a fun bit o’ news.
Too bad this film doesn’t actually exist.
Also on the TV front, Cartoon Network’s Halloween special has been announced. They’ve done an animated adaptation of Image’s Dear Dracula, which will air October 16th at 7pm (EST). The plot of the graphic novel revolves around a boy who writes to Dracula for Christmas, as opposed to Kris Kringle. You see, little Sam wants to be made a vampire for Christmas. Little does Sam know that Dracula actually decides to show up! Nathan Gamble voices Sam and Ray Liotta is our Count! Emilio Estevez, Ariel Winters, and Marion Ross also lend their vocals to the piece.
A teaser trailer for [REC] Apocalypse (the fourth entry in the franchise) apparently premiered at Sitges yesterday and is expected to hit the ‘net some soon, so keep your eyes peeled!
Despite the fact that Legion and Priest both tanked, director Scott Stewart’s career lives on. His latest, Dark Skies, is now slated for a February 22nd theatrical release via Dimension Films. I’m sure you’re all just as excited as I am. Excuse me while I go place an earwig into my noggin. The plot revolves around a couple whose children are terrorized nightly by aliens. The only way I will even consider watching this is if: A). They scare the crap out of the kids in elaborate ways each night and run away giggling afterwards. B). Alien rape (which is awful to say, but a terrifying concept that isn’t exploited much these days). C) The aliens are bulimic; devouring the children whole and then vomiting them back up every night. Unless the plot can get that creative and/or traumatic, this film can go screw itself.
Speaking of aliens, The Vicious Brothers (Grave Encounters) have their own alien abduction project in the works: The Visitors. “We can’t tell you a whole lot, but suffice it to say it’s a sci-fi, kind of alien abduction horror film called The Visitors that we’re pretty close now to closing the financing on. Hopefully before the end of the year, hoping to shoot it very early next year. It’s way different than Grave Encounters, just in a sense that Grave Encounters is found footage and is very rough around the edges, and was intentionally made to look like it was amateur at times, like that was […] not being filmed by professionals. Whereas The Visitors, whereas it has a few little found footage elements, it’s primarily a more classic kind of cinematic style movie. So I think it’s going to be totally different.” I’m certainly down for this, so I hope they can pull it off. While no classic, Grave Encounters was a solid no-budget effort with a few pretty impressive scares. The sequel, which the brothers wrote and produced, hits this month.
Coming soon to Blu!
Scream Factory has finally set dates for The Nest and Wes Craven’s Deadly Blessing. Both will arrive on Blu-ray/DVD on January 22nd, 2013. The company also announced a few more upcoming titles this past week: The Video Dead (1987), The Town That Dreaded Sundown (1976), and The Evictors (1979). Once again, a new title (or two) is announced every Friday afternoon. No dates on the newbies have been given yet. The Shout! Factory label has made it clear that they intend on releasing 2-3 titles a month throughout 2013. They have current deals with both Universal and MGM, so let’s keep our fingers crossed that more cult favorites and rarities make the roster.
Fuck you, Miramax!
It’s about damn time! For those of you who don’t know, neither The Return of Godzilla (aka Godzilla 1985) nor Godzilla vs. Biollante have ever seen release beyond their initial VHS runs. Why? Because Miramax/Dimension are assholes. That is finally about to change though! Well, at least the release part. I’m sure they’re still assholes, hence our lack of a Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair home release. Echo Bridge Entertainment is working with Toho to bring the Big G’s vegetabattle to Blu-ray/DVD on December 4th this year. It will apparently be a port of the excellent Japanese Blu-ray release and feature a brand new set of English subtitles, as well as the old Miramax dub track. In addition, there is expected to be an audio commentary, a 48-minute “making of” doc, and a 10-minute featurette. Also, given that this is an Echo Bridge release, the DVD will retail for $6.99 and the Blu for $14.99….but you can pre-order that latter here for a mere $7.99. I suspect the aforementioned The Return of Godzilla will be seeing a similar release from Echo Bridge in the future. In fact, expect a lot more Godzilla Blus to roll out between now and Summer 2014, when the new American film hits and the Big G celebrates his 60th birthday.