Movies
Update: After Dark Horrorfest 4 Lines Up ‘The Graves’
The trailer is now available below! The first addition to After Dark Horrorfest 4 was announced today by After Dark Films’ CEO Courtney Solomon. It’s now official that the After Dark Horrorfest will take place January 29, 2010. The new title joining the 8 Films to Die For lineup is The Graves, written and directed by Brian Pulido. You can read more about the announcement below.
Pulido, a well known comic book writer and creator of such titles as Lady Death and Evil Ernie, makes his feature directorial debut on the film. The films stars Clare Grant, Jillian Murray, Bill Moseley, Lamb of God singer D. Randall Blythe and Tony Todd. Brian Ronalds and Dean Ronalds of Ronalds Brothers Productions and Francisca Pulido of Mischief Maker Studios produced. Adam Goldfine is the Director of Photography. Dana Lambert, VP of Acquisitions at After Dark Films brokered the deal with Ted Chalmers of Moving Pictures Film & TV who represented the filmmakers in the negotiations.
In The Graves, two inseparable sisters, Megan and Abby Graves, are taking one last wild road trip before Megan has to start a new job. The journey includes a trip through remote Arizona in search of a kitchy roadside attraction. Instead, Megan and Abby happen on Skull City Mine, a weather-beaten, abandoned mine town converted into a self-guided tour. What seems like a fun day in the sun turns into a mind-bending fight for survival against menaces both human and supernatural.
“Brian’s background and knowledge of the horror world has served him incredibly well. He has directed a film that audiences are going to find both scary and immensely entertaining. The Graves is simply great edgy fun and we’re excited to have it as part of our line up.” stated After Dark Partner/CEO Courtney Solomon.
“Mischief Maker Studios and Ronalds Brothers Productions are pleased that their first foray together has produced a theatrical feature film,” says Mischief Maker Studios COO Francisca Pulido. “Brian Pulido continues to deliver the goods to horror fans. The Graves is a fun, date night horror flick.”
After Dark Horrorfest 4 runs for one week in theatres across the United States from January 29nd – February 5th, making it the largest nationwide film festival.
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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