Movies
George A. Romero’s ‘Deadtime Stories 2’ Already Filming
While George A. Romero Presents Deadtime Stories made its rounds at last months American Film Market, plans were already underway for a sequel. This morning a new story hit the web detailing DEADTIME STORIES 2, which is already lensing for a 2009 release. In addition, the story also reveals that there will in fact be a DEADTIME STORIES 3! It’s hard to get excited this early in the game considering we haven’t even seen the first anthology yet, but the trailer we brought you does look cool. Read on for all of the details on the sequels.
Article from Pittsburgh Live:
A werewolf running wild in Monongahela?
Don’t panic. It’s just a film crew shooting a segment of a George Romero horror film.
Production work for “George A. Romero Presents … Deadtime Stories 2” took place Tuesday night and early this morning in the city.
“Deadtime Stories” is a trilogy of films by Romero, the filmmaker who wrote and directed “Night of the Living Dead” and sequels that grew from the ghoulish flick.
Romero is not on location with the actors and crew for “Deadtime Stories.” However, two of the directors have local ties.
Jeff Monahan is one of three directors for “Deadtime Stories 2.” The film comprises three scary shorts. The style is similar to the format of the old “Night Gallery” and “Twilight Zone” series.
Monahan is a Connellsville native and his short for the “Deadtime Stories 2” is set in an urban town named Connellsville.
The storyline: People have been disappearing for years in Connellsville, and nobody knows why. In fact, more people have disappeared from Connellsville than any small town in the world.
The crew shot some scenes in Connellsville on Monday and will be there Wednesday and Friday.
The scenes shot in Monongahela depicted two young sweethearts in a car at “Lovers Leap” who are attacked by a werewolf who flips the car onto its roof.
The scene is set in the 1950s, however the movie quickly flashes forward to the present.
Another of the directors, Matt Walsh, has a film production company in Monongahela, 555 Films. The scene of the car flipping was shot on 555’s property.
Monahan, who also produces and does a lot of the writing for the segment – titled “Quota” – in the film, said he was happy to include his hometown in the film.
“I called my urban city Connellsville. I figured why not?” Monahan said. “We actually shot scenes at a small dairy in Connellsville.”
Walsh said the first “Deadtime Stories” edition is already completed and an April 2009 release date in planned.
“Deadtime Stories 2” is expected to be released in November 2009, Walsh said.
“What was really nice is that we received funding for the second movie before the first movie was even completed,” Monahan said. “We’re hoping to get these movies out and be popular enough to continue making more of them.”
Production on “Deadtime Stories 3” is set to take place in the summer, Walsh said.
Each movie features Romero, sitting in an armchair with a large book, getting ready to tell his scary tales.
The film crew is expected to return to Monongahela on Thursday evening to wrap up shooting on the film.
The movies are being produced through Monahan’s 72nd Street Films, along with Romero, Christine Romero and 555 Films.
There’s been a lot of talk about how Christopher Nolan snuck in some horror elements into his epic adaptation of The Odyssey. However, even before the Cyclops began to eat Ithican soldiers and Circe subjected them to magical body-horror, cinemagoers were already witnessing supernatural terror through a certain trailer that was attached to most IMAX screenings of Nolan’s film.
It turns out that this trailer was for Rob Savage’s Other Mommy, an adaptation of Bird Box author Josh Malerman’s horror novel, Incidents Around the House. With the teaser now available online and revealing that the award-winning Jessica Chastain is playing the titular antagonist (as well as her ill-fated human counterpart), not to mention the fact that the picture is being helmed by the director of hits like Host and The Boogeyman, genre fans are understandably hyped for this upcoming thriller.
That’s why I’ve decided to take a closer look at the trailer and share four things we learned from this sneak peek at Other Mommy!
4. Rob Savage is Going Back to His Supernatural Horror Roots
I know I’m in the minority when I admit that Dashcam is my favorite Rob Savage movie, but even I understand why the filmmakers’ fans have been waiting a while for the director to get back to telling more grounded paranormal stories as he did with 2020’s Host.
Other Mommy obviously isn’t a found footage movie, but moments like the poltergeist activity on the kitchen table combined with the nature of the source material, which actually features a full-on exorcism, indicate that this adaptation is more than a simple creature feature. That’s why I think Savage is once again going to borrow from the same ghostly narratives that made his debut film such a viral hit.
3. Other Mommy is a More Convincing Doppelganger in the Adaptation
Part of the horror from Malerman’s original novel came from the fact that the entity taking on the form of Bela’s (Arabella Olivia Clark) mother wasn’t very good at passing itself off as human. This resulted in several uncanny moments where other characters began to notice that there was something visibly wrong with the family and decided to keep their distance.
Savage’s film appears to be taking a different route, with the trailer showing a version of the entity that can, at least physically, imitate Chastain’s character perfectly. This change is likely the result of the filmmakers wanting to incorporate more paranoid scenes where Bela and her father, played by Jay Duplass, are confused about which Mommy is safe to interact with.
2. The Family is Also Better Off This Time Around
Incidents Around the House featured some interesting subtext about how poverty can negatively affect American family dynamics. After all, the main characters were already feeling scared and isolated before the entity emerged from Bela’s closet and began scratching at their emotional wounds. The trailer for the movie, however, depicts the family as being relatively well off before these incidents begin to occur.
I can only imagine that this part of the story was changed so that the family’s fall from grace can be even more dramatic as the mom and dad’s pasts are revealed and Bela falls further into the clutches of the demonic antagonist.
1. Jessica Chastain is Embodying Evil Dead Rise’s Alyssa Sutherland
Mothers turning against their children is one of the most disturbing horror tropes out there (just check out classics like Hereditary and Carrie if you need proof), but it takes a remarkably skilled actress to pull off such a monstrous transformation. This is especially true when both a regular, loving mother and the Other share the screen in the same film.
That’s why I appreciate how Chastain appears to be channeling another evil redhead mother that recently traumatized audiences with her performance. It’s too early to be sure, but I’m fairly confident that Chastain’s character has at least some amount of Ellie in her cinematic DNA – Ellie being the iconic deadite brought to life by Australian actress Alyssa Sutherland in 2023’s Evil Dead Rise.
Let us know in the comments if you think we missed any important details from the trailer, and don’t forget to check out Other Mommy when it hits theaters on October 9!
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