Movies
News Bites: ‘Survival’ Begins Selling, ’25/8′ Trailer, ‘Psycho Sweet 16’ Pic
Working hard here in Toronto, so I’ve got a quick News Bites update for you guys and gals. Beyond the break you can check out the first pic from Jacob Gentry’s (The Signal) MTV film My Super Psycho Sweet 16, read about the first sales of Romero’s Survival of the Dead and check out trailer news for Wes Craven’s 25/8. More updates this weekend.
25/8 TRAILER COMING SOON
Wes Craven updated his Twitter with some great news about his latest horror project, 25/8, which he’s been working on for quite some time now. “Just saw the studio’s new trailer for 25/8… it rocks! Think Stand By Me with knives!” It looks like we might finally start seeing some PR hit the web for the film starring Max Theirot, Denzel Whitaker, Shareeka Epps and Emily Meade.
No release date has been given at this time.
From writer/director Wes Craven comes a thriller that warns us evil is working 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. And if you have any chance of beating it, you’ll have to fight for your life 25/8. In the sleepy town of Riverton, legend tells of a serial killer who swore he would return to murder the seven children born the night he died. Now, 16 years later, people are disappearing again. Has the psycopath been reincarnated as one of the seven, or did he survive the night he was left for dead?
MY SUPER PSYCHO SWEET 16 IMAGE
The NY Post just revealed the first ever image from Jacob Gentry’s My Super Psycho Sweet 16, a new MTV movie coming this fall.
Written by Jed Elinoff and Scott Alan Thomas, a privileged teen’s birthday bash at a roller rink is interrupted by a serial killer. The title and concept plays off the network’s reality hit “My Super Sweet 16,” which chronicles the lavish birthday parties of pampered kids. Chris Zylka, Ric Reitz, Lauren McKnight, Matt Angel, Justin Price, Melanie Booth, Alex Van and Max Calder all star.
Check out a pic of star Juliana Guill (Friday the 13th) from the film.
SURVIVAL OF THE DEAD BEGINS SELLING
George A. Romero’s Survival Of The Dead, the sixth instalment of the cult director’s zombie franchise, has sold in multiple territories, reports Screen Daily. It is the first horror to be selected for Venice’s main competition since the festival’s debut year in 1932 when Dr Jekyll And Mr Hyde was the opening film.
Voltage Pictures is handling the worldwide sales for the film, excluding the US. It has sold to Optimum Releasing (UK), Paradiso Entertainment (Benelux), Splendid Film (Germany), Presidio (Japan), Gulf Film Group (Middle East), Imagem Filmes (Brazil) and M Pictures Entertainment (Thailand). Negotitations for France and Italy are ongoing, while Spanish and Australian rights are still up for grabs.
E1 Entertainment will distribute Survival Of The Dead in Canada, which was also a co-producing country on the picture while John Sloss’ Cinetic will handle US sales. Cinetic also handled the domestic deal for Diary Of The Dead, which was picked up by The Weinstein Company.
Nadine de Barros, VP of Sales and Acquisitions for Voltage, said: “The reaction has been very enthusiastic. Domestic sales will be handled after the official Toronto premiere.”
The Survival Of The Dead will have a midnight screening in Toronto on September 12.
The trailer for Ti West’s upcoming adaptation of A Christmas Carol raised a lot of eyebrows when it dropped earlier this week. While plenty of folks initially dismissed Ebenezer as a derivative project meant to cash in on the recent wave of unnecessary prequels that expand the backstory of beloved characters (such as 2023’s Wonka), Charles Dickens’ original novel already made a point of exploring Ebenezer Scrooge’s origins in detail – meaning that this new film is likely just a particularly faithful adaptation of the source material under a different name.
Couple that with the fact that the movie is being helmed by a genuine horror auteur and I think it’s safe to say that the latest iteration of the first modern ghost story is in good hands.
That being said, one detail that immediately jumped out at me during the brief teaser (other than a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it nod to Johnny Depp’s iconic bedroom death scene from the original A Nightmare on Elm Street) is the fact that many of Ebenezer’s ghosts appear to have been directly lifted from the iconic John Leech illustrations that accompanied the first edition of Dickens’ novel.
Here are a couple of stills from the trailer compared to the original artwork:
The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come in ‘Ebenezer’ and ‘A Christmas Carol’
The Phantoms in ‘A Christmas Carol’ and ‘Ebenezer’
Marley’s Ghost in ‘Ebenezer’ and ‘A Christmas Carol’
Mainly working with old-school wood and steel engravings that would later be transferred to print, Leech was instrumental in crafting the iconic look of history’s most influential phantoms – especially since Dickens is said to have been deeply involved with the creation of these so-called “comic illustrations.”
And since the novel is commonly said to have popularized spiritualism in Victorian England, much of the ghostly iconography that we still see in genre media to this very day (including some of Ti West’s previous films) can be traced back to the author’s partnership with Leech.
Ebenezer won’t be the first A Christmas Carol adaptation to borrow heavily from these designs, but I can appreciate how Ti West is incorporating an important part of horror history into his latest film.
Ebenezer will be available in theaters starting November 13.
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