Nov 11, 2014
Retro Review: SEPARATION (2011) {0}
Separation Anxiety
While most indie horror films are interested in getting you as much “bang for the buck” as humanly possible, there are always a few filmmakers out there who insist on using the horror genre as a vehicle for plain, simple, and sometimes painfully “relatable” stories about the frank difficulties of normal life. (Check out films like Marianne, Absentia, or Citadel for a few great examples.) Simply put: we’re all afraid of sharks, stalkers, and monsters; that’s the easy stuff. So kudos to the independent filmmakers who make horror films and suspense thrillers about “normal” fears like loss, regret, betrayal, and isolation.
Nov 10, 2014
Review: THE TAKING OF DEBORAH LOGAN (2014) {0}
The best damned ‘demonic possession’ film since The Exorcist?
‘Found footage’ gets a bad rap these days, which is strange if you think about it: sure, there’s a lot of landfill made using the format, but we shouldn’t let a few bad apples – okay, a few hundred – give the format a bad name. After all, we don’t punish Bridesmaids because 90% of comedies aren’t funny. As with comedy, the hit/miss ratio of ‘found footage’ films is really a numbers game: for every hundred or so made, only one or two are any good: Wikipedia lists nine such films made before The Blair Witch Project (notably the notorious Cannibal Holocaust – although Stanley Kubrick could have been first, if he’d stuck with his concept of Dr Strangelove as a faux- documentary, purportedly discovered by aliens far in the future, revealing how the human race blew itself up), and over a hundred since. Now, to the short list of found footage films which don’t give the much-maligned format a bad name – Blair Witch, Cloverfield, Chronicle, Paranormal Activity, REC (and its US remake, Quarantine), the first two V/H/S films, The Bay, The Sacrament, and one or two others (see our VODcast “Found Footage: It’s Not All Junk”) – must be added The Taking of Deborah Logan, which is not only one of the format’s best films, it might also be the best film about demonic possession since The Exorcist.
Interview: HILLBILLY HORROR SHOW’s Bo Keister {0}
There’s something horrific in his shorts
Howdy y’all! Hillbilly Horror Show is an anthology show featuring an awesome foursome of kickass short horror films and whatnot by talented varmints and smart-asses. The shorts are packaged into a fun, 1 hour comedy show hosted by Bo, Cephus and their hot kissing cousin, Lulu.
With Volume 3 just gone live today, exclusively here, we sat down on a rickety folding chair with Bo Keister, one of the hillbilly hosts of the growing collection of horror shorts, from some of the best emerging directors – with a lot of laughs in between.
IRON SKY Sequel Seeks Nazi Gold {0}
The Coming Race is, err… coming
Iron Sky: The Coming Race, the hotly anticipated sequel to the 2012 hit about Nazis on the moon, is well underway with its crowdfunding campaign, which aims to raise $500,000 for production of the new film.
Poster Drop! Matt O’Leary and Jessica Cook Get STUNG {0}
Artist Justin Erickson of Phantom City Creative, the Toronto-based design collective behind the recent illustrated posters for Cub and The Strain, has come up with another winner, this time for Benni Diez’s upcoming horror comedy Stung, starring Matt O’Leary, Jessica Cook, Peter Stormare, Clifton Collins Jr. and Lance Henriksen, in which (it says here) “a fancy garden party goes terribly wrong after a local species of wasps mutate into giant predators. It’s up to Paul and Julia, two catering staffers at the high-society event, to stop the killer creatures – an effort that kickstarts a budding romance between the two.”
Will the film live up to Phantom City Creative’s poster? Or will horror fans get, you know…
Check out the full poster after the jump, and follow @JEricksonArtist, @BenniDiez and @XYZFilms for more.
Nov 6, 2014
Exclusive Review: STONEHEARST ASYLUM, aka ELIZA GRAVES (2014) {0}
You don’t have to be mad to work there, but it helps
Brad Anderson has made a lot of television since his breakthrough film, The Machinist, a decade ago: a dozen episodes of Fringe, two apiece of The Wire, Boardwalk Empire, Treme and the US remake of The Killing, and the pilot episodes of Almost Human and Forever. He’s also managed to make two half decent films, Transsiberian (2008) and The Call (2013) – but “half decent” from the man who gave us The Machinist doesn’t really cut it, does it? Therefore, despite the promise of a supporting cast supporting that includes Sir Michael Caine, Sir Ben Kingsley, Brendan Gleeson, David Thewlis and Jason Flemyng (not to mention leads Jim Sturgess and Kate Beckinsale), I approached Stonehearst Asylum with some of the trepidation with which Edward Newgate (Sturgess) approaches the forbidding gates of the remote lunatic asylum at the start of the film.
Poster Drop! 5 New Images for THE PYRAMID {0}
20th Century Fox has unearthed five new posters for its upcoming Egyptian-set horror film, The Pyramid, produced by Alexandre Aja (The Others, Horns), the directorial debut of prolific horror screenwriter Grégory Levasseur (who scripted The Hills Have Eyes and Maniac remakes, as well as Mirrors and P2), making his directorial debut. The Pyramid is released in UK cinemas on December 5th.
BREAKING: TheHorrorShow.TV Launches Subscription Service for UK Horror Fans {0}
TheHorrorShow.TV – UK Home of Horror On Demand – Launches Subscription Service
For the first time ever, UK horror fans will soon be able to enjoy a wide variety of horror films, from cult favourites to new releases, via VOD platform TheHorrorShow.TV‘s brand new subscription service, which goes live at midnight on Thursday, November 6th.
