William Lustig’s Maniac, released in 1980, is not a nice movie. It is an exploitation classic; a weird, super-creepy story of a very damaged man (originally played by Joe Spinell) who kills women as a way to articulate rage towards his deceased mother. It is dirty but effective, and
A Maniac remake shot recently with Elijah Wood in the lead role, and it doesn’t look like a nice movie, either. In fact, this version from director Franck Khalfoun (P2, Wrong Turn at Tahoe) and writers Alexandre Aja, Grégory Levasseur & C.A. Rosenberg looks dirty and ugly in just the way you’d expect a film called Maniac to be.
The film is selling in Cannes now, and a sales teaser trailer has shown up online. This one is definitely not safe for work, thanks in part to nudity, but more for violence and general creepiness. One shot of a victim of Wood’s character towards the end of the teaser is really queasy. Read More »
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Briefly: The last time Eli Roth had has name in the director’s credit of a feature film was Hostel: Part II, released in 2007. Roth has stayed in the game as a producer, and did a little work for Quentin Tarantino in Inglourious Basterds, all while talking about various possible directorial opportunities.
Now Roth has a new film lined up: The Green Inferno, which he co-wrote with Guillermo Amoedo, from Roth’s own story. Roth recently produced an earthquake thriller called Aftershock in South America; Amoedo was a co-writer on that film. (We showed you the first stills from Aftershock earlier this year.)
While a press release flew out of Cannes today announcing that Worldview Entertainment has financed the film, there are no story details revealed at this point, and no casting. We know that, like Aftershock, the film will shoot in Peru and Chile, with production set to begin this fall.
Posted on Thursday, May 17th, 2012 by Angie Han
Thanks to upfronts, all the networks have been flooding the Internet with previews for their new series. Earlier this week, we got a peek at some of NBC’s upcoming offerings, and today we have glimpses of a few select shows from CBS and ABC.
Specifically, that means CBS’ Vegas, directed by James Mangold, co-written by Nicholas Pileggi, and starring Dennis Quaid; CBS’ Elementary, a contemporary Sherlock Holmes twist featuring Jonny Lee Miller and Lucy Liu; and ABC’s 666 Park Avenue, from creator David Wilcox (Life on Mars) and stars Terry O’Quinn and Vanessa Williams. Hit the jump to watch the videos.
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A whole lot of the supernatural horror/thrillers that have shown up in the past few years haven’t been terribly inspired; the intersection between budget, ideas and real scares rarely seems to be at the right point.
But The Possession looks like it might be a bit different. Based on an LA Times article called ‘Jinx in a Box‘ and originally titled Dibbuk Box, the film features Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Kyra Sedgwick, Madison Davenport and Natasha Calis in a story about a young girl who awakens an old evil. The title of the film may be all too generic, but the trailer actually looks quite creepy. And I’ll say this: it’s got a pretty great kicker shot. Read More »
Posted on Wednesday, May 16th, 2012 by Angie Han
Bloodthirsty fish, show-offy zebras, superpowered brothers, and overgrown manchildren run wild in today’s Sequel Bits. After the jump:
- Josh Trank still not sure on Chronicle 2
- Similarly, Joss Whedon undecided on Avengers 2
- More Grown Ups 2 shooting news in New England
- MIB3‘s viral campaign concludes with a final video
- Chris Rock rocks out in a new Madagascar 3 clip
- The Hoff features prominently in clips from Piranha 3DD
- Chris Hemsworth spills about Thor and Loki’s relationship
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Posted on Wednesday, May 16th, 2012 by Angie Han
It’s been several years since David Gordon Green began working on his remake of Dario Argento‘s horror classic Suspiria, but the pieces appear to be falling into place for real this time. About a month after producers announced that financing was locked in and casting was underway, Green has found his star:15-year-old Isabelle Furhman, best known for her turn in Jaume Collet-Serra’s rather insane Orphan.
Fuhrman leads a strong cast that also includes Isabelle Huppert, Janet McTeer, Michael Nyqvist, and Antje Traue, in unnamed roles. More details after the jump.
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Posted on Tuesday, May 15th, 2012 by Angie Han
Though much of what we loved in the ’80s fails to hold up today, Ghostbusters is one major exception. Filmgoers loved it in 1984 and they still love it today, as evidenced by the endless stream of parodies, homages, and references we get even now.
After the jump, watch two very different tributes to the horror-comedy classic. “The Ghostbusters Tour of New York” is a recent video pilgrimage of familiar locations from the film that includes on-site re-enactions, while “Blue Busters” is a 1984 parody from Apple Inc. that, yes, features appearances from a young Steve Jobs and a young Steve Wozniak.
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In February 2012, I visited the Portland-based animation studio Laika to watch the production of their newest stop-motion animated feature film ParaNorman (you can read about what I learned on set here). While on set I participated in an extensive roundtable interview with directors Chris Butler and Sam Fell about the very long process of turning this idea into a hand-crafted stop-motion animated 3D feature film. After the jump you can read the entire transcript of the interview.
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