Movies
News Bites: ‘REC’ Wedding, Animated ‘Monster,’ ‘Exorcist’ Play, Dracula Badass Again & First ‘House’ Pic
Click on over to the official Facebook page for Filmax’s now-filming REC 3: Genesis and you’ll find a slew of behind-the-scenes wedding photos, which is pretty much like looking through a boring wedding album. It’s hard to complain considering how awesome the first batch of stills were. Paco Plaza is behind the camera solo this time around, with Leticia Dolera and Diego Martin both starring. Watch this spot for an exclusive set report in the coming week.
The boys at /Film caught wind of a bizarre animated project from artist/director Rosto entitled The Monster of Nix, which feature the voice talents of Terry Gilliam and Tom Waits. The animated musical is about Willy, “a troubled boy who fights the destructive force of an all-devouring monster in the village of Nix.” Tom Waits voices Virgil, “a terrifying giant pitch-black swallow,” and Terry Gilliam is voicing the Ranger, “who locks himself up in terror in his forest cabin.” You’ll find a really weird teaser video inside.
Just the other day we told you about a Silence of the Lambs spoof heading to Broadway, now Los Angeles is getting one that’s more head-spinning. A John Doyle-helmed stage adaptation of The Exorcist and world preem plays by Alan Alda and Beth Henley are on tap for the 2011-12 season at L.A.’s Geffen Playhouse, writes Variety. “Agnes of God” playwright John Pielmeier adapts William Peter Blatty’s 1971 novel, also the inspiration for the famous 1973 horror pic. Production from director Doyle (“Sweeney Todd”) is slated to play July 3-Aug. 12, 2012.
It was announced last month that House of Wax and Orphan director Jaume Collet-Serra would be telling a re-imagining of Bram Stoker’s “Dracula” in Harker. Details were slim as it’s said to focus on Jonathan Harker as the Scotland Yard detective who is tracking Dracula, with the script setting up the sleuth as a potential new franchise character. Collet-Serra chatted up with Spanish site Aullidos explaining their gonna make the Count nice and evil again: “[Today is all about] vampires and very romance for girls thirteen years. But we want to bring back Dracula and demonstrate who is boss.” Hell yes! Warner Bros. is behind this little fella.
Update: Image removed at request of Relativity. Lastly, check out this teaser image from Mark Tonderai’s House at the End of the Street, which “centers on a teen girl (Jennifer Lawrence) who moves with her mom to a new town and learns that their home is across the street from a house where a double murder took place. Complications ensue when the teen befriends the massacre’s sole surviving son (Max Thieriot). Elisabeth Shue costars as Lawrence’s mom.” In theaters February 3 from Relativity Media.
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At the Abigail premiere, Dan Stevens listed Norway among his four favorite vampire movies. “I just saw a great movie recently that I’d never heard of,” he told Letterboxd. “A Greek film called Norway, about a vampire who basically exists in the underground disco scene in ’80s Athens, and he can’t stop dancing ’cause he’s worried his heart will stop. And it’s lovely. It’s great.”
You won’t find a better endorsement than that, but allow me to elaborate. Imagine Only Lovers Left Alive meets What We Do in the Shadows by way of Yorgos Lanthimos. The quirky 2014 effort follows a vampire vagabond (Vangelis Mourikis) navigating Greek’s sordid nightlife circa 1984 as he dances to stay alive. Not as campy as it sounds, its idiosyncrasies land more in the art-house realm. Stylized visuals, colorful bloodshed, pulsating dance music, and an absurd third-act reveal help the existentialism go down in a mere 74 minutes.
With the recent solar eclipse renewing public interest in the astrological event, Bloody Birthday is ripe for rediscovery. Three children born during an eclipse – Curtis Taylor (Billy Jayne, Parker Lewis Can’t Lose), Debbie Brody (Elizabeth Hoy), and Steven Seton (Andrew Freeman) – begin committing murders on their 10th birthday. Brother and sister duo Joyce (Lori Lethin, Return to Horror High) and Timmy Russell (K.C. Martel, The Amityville Horror) are the only ones privy to their heinous acts.
Bloody Birthday opened in 1981 mere weeks before the release of another attempt to claim the birthday slot on the slasher calendar, Happy Birthday to Me. Director Ed Hunt (The Brain) combines creepy kid tropes that date back to The Bad Seed with slasher conventions recently established by Halloween and Friday the 13th – with a little bit of the former’s suspense and plenty of the latter’s gratuity. The unconventional set up helps it to stand out among a subgenre plagued by banality.
Starting in the late ’70s and throughout the ’80s, Italy built an enterprise out of shameless rip-offs of hit American movies. While not a blatant mockbuster like Cruel Jaws or Beyond the Door, 1989’s Alien from the Abyss (also known as Alien from the Deep) was inspired by – as you may have guessed from its title – Alien, Aliens, and The Abyss.
After a pair of Greenpeace activists attempt to expose an evil corporation that’s dumping contaminated waste into an active volcano, the environment takes a backseat to survival when an extraterrestrial monster attacks. Character actor Charles Napier (The Silence of the Lambs) co-stars as a callous colonel overseeing the illicit activities.
Director Antonio Margheriti (Yor: The Hunter from the Future, Cannibal Apocalypse) and writer Tito Carpi (Tentacles, Last Cannibal World) take far too long to get to the alien, but once it shows up, it’s non-stop excitement. The creature is largely represented by a Gigeresque pincer claw that reaches into the frame, giving the picture a ’50s creature feature charm, but nothing can prepare you for its full reveal in the finale.
Set against the backdrop of displaced Syrian and Palestinian refugees, What Is Buried Must Remain is a timely found footage hybrid from Lebanon. It centers on a trio of young filmmakers as they make a documentary in a decrepit mansion alleged to be haunted on the outskirts of a refugee camp. Inside, they find the spirits of those who died there, both benevolent and malicious.
It plays like Blair Witch meets The Shining through a cultural lens not often seen in the genre. The first half is presented as found footage (with above-average cinematography) before abruptly weaving in more traditional film coverage. While the tropes are familiar, the film possesses a unique ethos by addressing the Middle East’s plights of the past and the present alike.
Cathy’s Curse is, to borrow a phrase from its titular creepy kid, an “extra rare piece of shit.” The Exorcist, The Omen, and Carrie spawned countless low-budget knock-offs, but none are as uniquely inept as this 1977 Canuxploitation outing. Falling squarely in the so-bad-it’s-good camp, it’s far more entertaining than The Exorcist: Believer.
To try to make sense of the plot would be futile, but in a nutshell, a young girl named Candy (Randi Allen, in her only acting role) becomes possessed by the vengeful, foul-mouthed spirit of her aunt, destroying the lives of anyone who crosses her path. What ensues is a madcap mélange of possession, telekinesis, teleportation, animal attacks, abandoned plot points, and unhinged filmmaking that must be seen to be believed.
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