Movies
BDTV: Universal Studios Hollywood Horror Nights Webisode
Universal Studios Hollywood has just released the first of a series of webisodes in honor of this year’s Halloween Horror Nights!! Each webisode contains special behind-the-scenes footage that is a must-see for all fans of Halloween and Halloween Horror Nights. You can check it out over at BDTV and then read on for more details on this year’s festivities.
Issuing a dare to “Live Your Worst Nightmare,” Universal Studios Hollywood has ratcheted up the intensity level to present a new “Halloween Horror Nights” for 2008. This year’s event will pair Hollywood’s top entertainment scenic and special effects artists with a cast of thousands to create terrifying new experiences including a “Terror Tram” excursion that will feature a stopover at the infamous Bates Motel, a new scare zone based on the hit movie, “The Strangers” and a bloodcurdling new “Nightmare on Elm Street” maze, all contributing to Southern California’s most intense Halloween experience.
“Halloween Horror Nights” begins on Friday, October 3 and will extend over an expanded 13-night run concluding Saturday, November 1. Tickets to “Halloween Horror Nights” are on sale now at www.UniversalStudiosHollywood.com.
In line with the “Live Your Worst Nightmare” theme, “Halloween Horror Nights” will boast a new “Nightmare on Elm Street: Home Sweet Hell” maze, a painstakingly surreal recreation of the notorious house at 1428 Elm Street. The looming, sinister structure will incorporate live reenactments of never-before-presented nightmare sequences from the classic film series and will follow a storyline that will be recognizable to fans of “The Nightmare on Elm Street” films but equally terrifying to anyone who enters. “Halloween Horror Nights” will also feature the return of two other notorious horror icons: “Friday the 13th’s” Jason Voorhees and “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre’s” Leatherface, each featured in his own meticulously crafted maze of shock corridors.
The newly re-envisioned backlot horror experience will take guests aboard the “Terror Tram: The Nightmare Tour” – which expands to double the length of previous Halloween tram experiences – and for the first time, incorporates a series of spine-chilling mazes, treks through the timeless set from “Psycho,” and a walk through the tortured landscape of “War of the Worlds” set into a unique and unforgettable experience that will raise the bar of terror to a level that only an authentic Hollywood studio can equal.
In addition to the new “A Nightmare on Elm Street”-themed maze, “Friday the 13th: Camp Blood,” “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: Back in Business” and the “Universal House of Horrors” mazes will return with significantly elevated fear quotients. New characters based upon the Rogue/ Universal Pictures hit movie, “The Strangers,” will hauntingly roam within a dedicated “scare zone.”
Universal Studios Hollywood’s favorite thrill-ride attractions will also remain open for “Halloween Horror Nights” nocturnal affair, many with menacing twists. “The Simpsons Ride,” “Jurassic Park – In the Dark,” the “Revenge of the Mummy” psychological thrill-ride roller coaster and “WaterWorld,” aptly transformed into “Slaughter World” for the occasion, will all seem like tranquil respites from the mayhem of Jason, Freddy and Leatherface. The standing sets and themed streets of the theme park will also be transformed into a bloodbath, as if scenes from horror films that were left on the cutting room floor had exploded to life.
An all-new “Bill and Ted’s Excellent Halloween Adventure” show will make an encore performance along with the distasteful “Chucky’s Insult Emporium” show bringing guests face-to-face with the scathing sarcasm of the sociopathic doll from Universal’s “Child’s Play” movies.
“Halloween Horror Nights” will continue on consecutive weekends beginning on Friday, October 3 through Saturday, November 1. Event dates are: October 3-4, 10-11, 17-19, 24-26, 30-31 and November 1. The event will begin nightly at 7:00 p.m.; closing hours vary by night throughout the event. Tickets to “Halloween Horror Nights” are $54 and are available for purchase online at www.UniversalStudiosHollywood.com or at the Universal Studios Hollywood ticket booths.
“Halloween Horror Nights” tickets will also be sold in advance at Ralphs
The 30th edition of the Fantasia International Film Festival commences this week in Montreal, running from July 16 through August 2. It’s set to unleash 125 features and 200+ shorts, from new premieres to festival favorites.
That includes screenings of upcoming theatrical releases Buddy, Colony, Her Private Hell, Hot Spot, and Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma, as well as retrospective screenings of Pontypool and Gozu. But so much of the fun of Fantasia is the new film discoveries and surprises, and this year’s fest comes packed with potential.
Here are eight horror movies to keep an eye out for at this year’s fest.
Big Break
New York’s cult comedy darlings Simple Town are carving their way into horror with this comedic feature. In Big Break, Will (Will Niedmann), Caroline (Caro Yost), and Felipe (Felipe Di Poi Tamargo, Blood Barn) reunite with their estranged ex-collaborator Sam (Samuel Lanier) years after their sketch group disbanded, hoping to get in his good graces to appear in the sequel of his hit film. But dark secrets are exposed during their weekend getaway, forcing these washed-up comedians to learn what it really means to kill to get their big break. Art imitating life in a witty horror-comedy sounds like a blast.
Corpus
An invite to a secluded party with his longtime crush and rising film star instead unfurls a strange nightmare of sensual and supernatural proportions. Corrin Evans’ feature debut is set in the summer of 1998, capturing a stylish, transgressive web of seduction and terror. The film stars Jeff Wahlberg (“Euphoria”), Brodie Townsend (“Heartbreak High”), Michael Vlamis (“Pools”), Lily Cowles (Antebellum), Nuha Jes Izman (“Yellowjackets”) and Ching Valdes-Aran (The Equalizer).
Freaks Part II
Final Destination Bloodlines filmmakers Zach Lipovsky & Adam Stein return to their mutant roots with their follow-up to 2018’s Freaks. Picking up several years later, Mary (Amanda Crew, Freaks) and her daughter Chloe (Lorelei Olivia Mote, Riddle of Fire) are on the run from authorities, masking their superpowered abilities and identities. But revenge will complicate matters in a sequel that teases a severe escalation in bloodshed. The Conjuring‘s Lili Taylor also stars.
Junction Row
Canadian horror icon Katharine Isabelle stars as Juno, a recovering addict who leaves a fringe housing compound for a better life, leaving her beloved Ruby behind. When she learns Ruby has gone missing, she discovers Junction Row has been overrun with criminals and something far more horrifying. The creature feature marks the feature debut of director Ashlea Wessel, who co-writes Junction Row with Clown in a Cornfield author Adam Cesare and Matt Serafini.
The Last Temptation of Becky
Becky Hooper (Lulu Wilson) escalates her ultra-violent annihilation of Neo-Nazis with a new CIA mission that sends her to Poland to infiltrate a family of innkeepers who are running a tourist venture at The Wolf’s Lair, Hitler’s WWII bunker. To prevent the Fourth Reich, Becky takes matters into her own bloody hands. Jenn Wexler (The Sacrifice Game, The Ranger) directs this trilogy capper from a script she co-wrote with Matt Angel (The Wrath of Becky), from a story by Angel andSuzanne Coote (The Wrath of Becky). Neil Patrick Harris also stars.
Los Vampires
Lost actor Henry Ian Cusick and Spectre actor Thomas Kretschmann lead as uncanny surrogates for Carlos Villarías and Bela Lugosi in this fantastical fictionalized account of the making of George Melford’s classic horror film, one that was shot overnight on the same sets as Tod Browning’s Dracula. The period horror movie is written and directed by Craig Mitchell (Komodo). Daniela Couso (Serial Beauty), Jefferson Mays (Inherent Vice), Oscar Nuñez (“The Office”), and Jorge Diaz (Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones) round out the cast. Watch the intriguing teaser here.
Rubberhead: The Life & Monsters of Steve Johnson
The wild life and incredible career of SFX wizard Steve Johnson (Fright Night, Poltergeist II, An American Werewolf in London, A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master) gets the documentary spotlight from director Nick Taylor. Those familiar with Johnson’s two-book saga Rubberhead: Sex, Drugs and Special FX, which serves as the basis for the documentary, will already know that the artist is a candid raconteur as open about his failures as his successes. Linnea Quigley, John Landis, Tom Holland, and Oscar-winner Bill Corso also contribute as talking heads in this illuminating doc.
Unholy Night
Grandma is back from the dead and ready to commit murder in this holiday horror comedy from writer/director Michael Gabriele. The chaos of an Italian Christmas Eve gets dialed up to a zany, violent degree in the first teaser. Marc Bendavid (“Dark Matter”), Shailene Garnett (“Shadowhunters”), Al Sapienza (“The Sopranos”), Ron Lea (“Orphan Black”), Toni Ellwand (“Hannibal”), Cristina Rosato (Mother!), Jacqueline Robbins (“A Series of Unfortunate Events”), and Joe Pingue (Antiviral) star.
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