Movies
Horrorfest ’10: After Dark Heading Deep Into ‘The Reeds’
Some pretty exciting news to end the week as After Dark Films announced that The Reeds will be the seventh film in next month’s fourth annual After Dark Horrorfest. That leaves one and final movie to go. We caught a screening of Nick Cohen’s thriller at last month’s AFM (read our review here), and while we weren’t huge fans, it’s a solid, well-shot genre thriller that a think a lot of you may enjoy. Reeds follows a boating party that gets lost in the ancient waterways of the Norfolk Broads and finds itself victim of a terrifying secret hidden in The Reeds. Check out the release, trailer and new still below.
THE REEDS, the seventh pick for After Dark Films Horrorfest 4, was announced today by ADF CEO Courtney Solomon. The national film festival opens January 29, 2010, for one-week in 25 markets.
In THE REEDS, a weekend boating trip through the Norfolk Broads becomes a deadly ordeal for six 20-something year old friends who lose their bearings in the vast reedy tidewaters. Chances of escape and hopes for survival diminish as inexplicable forces terrorize the lost and terrified group.
THE REEDS was written by Chris Baker and Simon Sprackling from a story by Chris Baker. Nick Cohen directs a cast of young actors, including Anna Brewster, O.T. Fagbenle, Will Mellor, Danny Caltagirone, Scarlett Johnson and Emma Catherwood. Geoff Bell appears as Mr. Croker.
The film was produced by Simon Sprackling, with Charlie Gauvain Co- Producing. Screen East, Silverstream Productions, Altadena Films, Delacheroy Films and DI Dragon financed the picture.
Dana Lambert, VP of Acquisitions at After Dark, brokered the deal with Ildi Toth Davy of Altadena Films.
ADF Exec Stephanie Caleb stated, “We’re thrilled to have acquired Nick Cohen’s latest feature! The cast is terrific, and the seemingly tranquil and scenic setting is anything but!! This isn’t a place you’d want to be lost.”
Producer Simon Sprackling added, “We are surprised and delighted to be signed up for such a prestigious genre showcase and to have the weight of the studio behind us.”
Director Cohen commented, “I am delighted that The Reeds has been selected for the After Dark slate. It is a real privilege to be participating in such an exciting and groundbreaking festival line-up.”
Universal has been having a hell of a time getting their Universal Monsters brand back on a better path in the wake of the Dark Universe collapsing, with four movies thus far released in the years since The Mummy attempted to get that interconnected universe off the ground.
First was Leigh Whannell’s The Invisible Man, to date the only post-Mummy hit for the Universal Monsters, followed by The Last Voyage of the Demeter, Renfield, and now Abigail. The latter three films have attempted to bring Dracula back to the screen in fresh ways, but both Demeter and Renfield severely underperformed at the box office. And while Abigail is a far better vampire movie than those two, it’s unfortunately also struggling to turn a profit.
Where does the Universal Monsters brand go from here? The good news is that Universal and Blumhouse have once again enlisted the help of Leigh Whannell for their upcoming Wolf Man reboot, which is howling its way into theaters in January 2025. This is good news, of course, because Whannell’s Invisible Man was the best – and certainly most profitable – of the post-Dark Universe movies that Universal has been able to conjure up. The film ended its worldwide run with $144 million back in 2020, a massive win considering the $7 million budget.
Given the film was such a success, you may wondering why The Invisible Man 2 hasn’t come along in these past four years. But the wait for that sequel may be coming to an end.
Speaking with the Happy Sad Confused podcast this week, The Invisible Man star Elisabeth Moss notes that she feels “very good” about the sequel’s development at this point in time.
“Blumhouse and my production company [Love & Squalor Pictures]… we are closer than we have ever been to cracking it,” Moss updates this week. “And I feel very good about it.”
She adds, “We are very much intent on continuing that story.”
At the end of the 2020 movie, Elisabeth Moss’s heroine Cecilia Kass uses her stalker’s high-tech invisibility suit to kill him, now in possession of the technology that ruined her life.
Stay tuned for more on The Invisible Man 2 as we learn it.
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