Movies
IFC Midnight Acquires SXSW Thriller ‘Wake’
IFC Films has acquired North American rights to Chad Feehan’s psychological thriller Wake (review) following its world premiere at SXSW earlier this year. Feehan also wrote the screenplay and produced the film, along with Amanda Micallef and Lea-Beth Shapiro. Josh Stewart, Jamie-Lynn Sigler, Chris Browning, Angela Featherstone and Afemo Omilami star in the story of two people en route to a wedding who stop off at a sinister motel in the Mojave Desert. IFC will release through its IFC Midnight VOD pipeline. Click the title for stills and more.
“Driving to a wedding in Los Angeles through the Mojave Desert, Paul and Adrienne seem destined for a life of genuine love and happiness. Road-weary, they decide to stop for the night at lonely Roy’s Motel and Cafe. This roadside artifact proves to be a strange and surreal place with an unsettling mix of travelers, including front-desk manager Frank and his promiscuous wife Sandy. Ultimately, these ill-fated lovers lead Paul and Adrienne down a path of tense and emotionally charged experiences. In the end, a horrifying secret from Paul’s past is revealed with grave consequences for all parties involved.”
Two things that have proven to be pretty dependable at the box office in recent years are horror movies and Christopher Nolan movies. With Nolan’s The Odyssey absolutely dominating the box office this past weekend, many fans of Nolan’s work have been left hungry for a Nolan-directed horror movie. After all, The Odyssey does whet the appetite for Nolan nightmare fuel.
Christopher Nolan has brushed up against the horror genre in the past with 2002 thriller Insomnia, but does he have any interest in someday making a full-on horror movie?
Nolan tells the Empire Podcast in a new chat, “I’ve always been interested in doing a horror film.”
“But horror is most successful when the conceptual framework of whatever the story is is just so undeniable. I think there are very few really great horror movies,” Nolan continues.
So why hasn’t Christopher Nolan directed a horror movie yet?
He explains to Empire, “I’ve never clicked with a particular idea or concept that worked for me. I love the genre. Of all genres, it’s the most visceral. Where the direct response to the audience is the most important. That is to say, you’re trying to make people literally feel something in their bones about what’s going on on-screen.”
Nolan calls horror “a genre in which experimentation is demanded.” He explains, “I go to see a lot of horror films with my kids these days, and you’ll see things in the first half an hour, 45 minutes of any horror film that you’d never see in another genre. Risks that are taken. Dangerous approaches to things. Admittedly, a lot of movies can’t sustain that to the end. But in the horror genre, that kind of innovation is not just respected – it’s really demanded.”
Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey is now playing in theaters.
Cillian Murphy as Scarecrow in Christopher Nolan’s ‘The Dark Knight’ (2008)
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