Movies
‘Dream House’ Burning to the Ground, Legal Battle Ensues
There’s nothing worse than watching a filmmaker go head-to-head with the suits of a feature film. Creativity nearly always loses, and somehow the studios always find a way to convince the press that it’s the director’s fault. Who knows what’s true? An interesting story hit the web today about the Chinese horror film Dream Home, which was supposed to hit theaters (out there) in October – but a lawsuit could burn this nearly completed slasher film to the ground. The director cites “creative differences”, while the producers are going for the throat claiming the director wanted to remove the gore. Sounds to me like they are just trying to get us against him. Read on for the story and then tell us what you think.
The debut film of Macau gambling heiress Josie Ho’s movie financing and production outfit 852 Films, “Dream Home,” is now delayed due to a legal dispute between the company and the film’s director Pang Ho-cheung (“Isabella”).
The $4 million slasher thriller was originally scheduled for October in Hong Kong, and is the first in a proposed three to five films from the HK$100 million ($12.8 million) fund out of the pocket of Ho’s father, casino king and philanthropist Stanley Ho. Beyond Hong Kong, the film is repped by international sales agent Fortissimo Films.
Director Pang cites “creative difference” as the reason for the row, but he rebukes claims of going over-budget or of him cutting all the gore out of the slasher pic, which is in post-production. In spite of the legal row, Pang continues to work on the edit. “I haven’t received any message telling me to stop working on it,” he told The Hollywood Reporter. “I haven’t done anything in breach of contract, and the principle of the case is to honor the contract,” he asserts.
852 Films has issued a statement stressing its right as the owner of the film as well as the confidentiality agreement in the contract it signed with Pang, and that the company will not remark on the case “in the spirit of the law.”
The dispute is thought to be about the final cut of the film, although Pang declined to comment on whether he has final cut of “Dream Home” or the details of his contract with 852 Films, citing legal reasons.
“I can only say that, in the past, I’ve always had final cut on all my films,” he said.
The legal proceedings plus discussions between the investor and the director means the scheduled date will not be met. The film might be postponed to as late as March 2010.
“Dream Home” investor, copyright owner and lead actress Josie Ho could not be reached for comment.
But it is believed that an opportunity has arisen for the film to use the editing services of RSA U.K., the film and television production company owned by directors Ridley and Tony Scott.
In “Dream Home,” Josie Ho starred as a woman who takes extreme measures to secure her dream home, including an attempt to obtain her father’s life insurance. The storyline would seem sticky and might provoke awkward questions now in light of Stanley Ho’s ongoing hospitalization since early August after the billionaire had a stroke.
The film has its share of publicity-generating scandals locally in the months before Ho senior’s hospitalization, including an alleged row between Josie Ho and her husband/852 Films co-founder Conroy Chan over a supposed hook-up between Chan and a female minor cast member of “Dream Home.” The couple later allegedly reconciled.
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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