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[2012 HORROR MOVIE PREVIEW] INDIE RELEASES

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Bloody Disgusting 2012 Horror Movie Preview

I’m out of breath. Every year we work on our annual best & worst lists, along with these 2012 previews pieces. It’s an insane amount of work that it all seems worth it when they’re all live on the site. It’s fun looking back while simultaneously projecting forward.

Next year looks great, as the several preview pieces will foreshadow. But the real gems aren’t with the big studios, it’s with the new mini majors and independent filmmakers. Ending our two week long extravaganza, inside you’ll see what the indie filmmaker has in store for 2012. What are you most excited for?

[INDIE RELEASES] 2012 HORROR MOVIE PREVIEW

FOX / SONY / DIMENSION / LIONSGATE / WARNER BROS.
PARAMOUNT / SUMMIT / UNIVERSAL / RANDOM BIG STUDIOS / INDIE

CLICK ANY IMAGE FOR SYNOPSES, TRAILERS, DETAILS & MORE STILLS (If Available)

Dates Subject to Change

The Divide (January 13, Anchor Bay)


In this graphic and violent, post-apocalyptic thriller, nine strangers—all tenants of a New York high rise apartment—escape a nuclear attack by hiding out in the building’s bunker-like basement. Trapped for days underground with no hope for rescue, and only unspeakable horrors awaiting them on the other side of the bunker door, the group begins to descend into madness, each turning on one another with physical and psycho-sexual torment. As supplies dwindle, and tensions flare, and they grow increasingly unhinged by their close quarters and hopelessness, each act against one another becomes more depraved than the next. While everyone in the bunker allows themselves to be overcome by desperation and lose their humanity, one survivor holds onto a thin chance for escape even with no promise of salvation on the outside.

The Wicker Tree (January 27, Anchor Bay)


Young Christians Beth and Steve, a gospel singer and her cowboy boyfriend, leave Texas to preach door-to-door in Scotland . When, after initial abuse, they are welcomed with joy and elation to Tressock, the border fiefdom of Sir Lachlan Morrison, they assume their hosts simply want to hear more about Jesus. How innocent and wrong they are.

V/H/S (TBD, Bloody Disgusting/The Collective/Site B)

VHS
The best way to describe it without giving anything away is that it’s a new kind of found footage horror film from the perspective of several genre filmmakers we personally know and love. So who is part of the madness, you ask? Adam Wingard (You’re Next, A Horrible Way to Die, Pop Skull), Simon Barrett (You’re Next, Dead Birds, Read Sands), Ti West (The House of the Devil, The Roost, The Innkeepers), David Bruckner (The Signal), Joe Swanberg (Silver Bullets), Glenn McQuaid (I Sell the Dead), along with Radio Silence, the YouTube sensations formerly known as Chad, Matt and Rob (Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Chad Villella)!

The Day (TBD, WWE Studios)


In a post-apocalyptic future, an open war against humanity rages. Five survivors wander along rural back-roads, lost, starving and on the run. With dwindling food stocks and ammunition, an attempt at seeking shelter turns into a battleground where they must fight or die.

John Dies at the End (TBD, Indie)


It’s a drug that promises an out-of-body experience with each hit. On the street they call it Soy Sauce, and users drift across time and dimensions. But some who come back are no longer human. Suddenly a silent otherworldly invasion is underway, and mankind needs a hero. What it gets instead is John and David, a pair of college dropouts who can barely hold down jobs. Can these two stop the oncoming horror in time to save humanity? No. No, they can’t.

The Revenant (TBD, Lightning)


This breakout horror comedy centers around a fallen soldier who somehow finds he has joined the ranks of the living dead. Bart Gregory (Anders) has just recently been laid to rest – so why is he still up and walking around? The only person Bart can turn to for answers is his best friend Joey (Wylde), and before long the two pals have surmised that the blood is the life. In order to survive, Bart requires a steady supply of it. Convinced that no one will miss the drug dealers and killers who have transformed LA into a swirling cesspool of crime and vice, the two friends decide to do law enforcement a favor by cleaning up the streets while collecting the precious blood needed to keep poor Bart from withering away into dust!

The Lords of Salem (TBD, Haunted Pictures)


The story is about a local DJ who mistakenly unleashes a hellish curse on the town. 300 years earlier on the very streets of Salem that the townspeople walk on today, innocent folks were rounded up from their homes, convicted of being witches and sentenced to death. The Lords of Salem ran the town with an iron fist, but four witches who were tortured and killed in secrecy vowed that one day they would be back for revenge.

Hellbenders 3D (TBD, Indie)


A new horror comedy said to be in the vein of classics such as ‘The Exorcist’ and ‘Ghostbusters.’ Taking place in modern day New York, a team of holy men (consisting of ministers and priests) battle the forces of evil.

Twixt (TBD, Indie)


A writer with a declining career arrives in a small town as part of his book tour and gets caught up in a murder mystery involving a young girl. That night in a dream, he is approached by a mysterious young ghost named V. He’s unsure of her connection to the murder in the town, but is grateful for the story being handed to him. Ultimately he is led to the truth of the story, surprised to find that the ending has more to do with his own life than he could ever have anticipated.

Maniac (TBD, Indie)


Wood plays the role of a serial killer who works at a shop that sells antique mannequins. He finds victims on the Internet and stalks them like prey, all the while suffering from hallucinations that throw him back into the past, when he was abused by his own mother. In his twisted mind, he gains a measure of revenge against his mother with each kill.

The Barrens (TBD, Anchor Bay)


Stephen Moyer will play a man who takes his family on a camping trip to the more than 1 million acres of dense forest known as the New Jersey Pine Barrens, where he becomes convinced they’re being stalked by the legendary winged monster that looks like a deformed hybrid of several different animals. The legend of The Jersey Devil has been passed along for hundreds of years, as the creature has risen from obscurity to take its place alongside the Loch Ness Monster, Big Foot and the Chupacabra.

Jaun of the Dead (TBD, Cinetic Media)


The zombie world has yet to witness one last stand – Cuba. An outbreak hits the island on the anniversary of the revolution, so Juan and his friends set out to conquer the undead who, according to government reports, are unruly Americans continuing their quest of undermining the regime.

Macabre (TBD, Bloody Disgusting Selects)


Two newly weds Adjie and Astrid, along with 3 of their best friends decided to have an interstate road trip as a last attempt to reconcile Adjie with his estranged little sister Ladya. Their trip is however abruptly interrupted when they run into Maya, a strange girl out of nowhere, who wanders aimlessly into their path. “I’ve been robbed” is all she has to say. The friends unanimously decided to give her a ride to her isolated house by the end of the woods. Maya introduces Adjie and friends to her blue-blooded mother Dara, a woman of ageless enigma and few spoken words. Dara insists that their kindness should be repaid with a dinner feast. This is where the night turns into a crimson-hell for the 6 friends, who find themselves trapped and hunted down by Dara and her cult-like family of her three deadly protégés, born and raised to systematically eliminate unsuspecting passers-by for one nefarious reason. Slaughtered one by one, everybody will bleed, the darkest of nights never looked so red.

Hellacious Acres: The Case of John Glass (TBD, Bloody Disgusting Selects)


Story centers on a man suffering from amnesia who wakes up inside a cryogenic freezer as a robotic voice bombards him with information about World War III.

The Theatre Bizarre (TBD, W2)


Directed by: Douglas Buck, Buddy Giovinazzo, David Gregory, Karim Hussain, Tom Savini, Richard Stanley. A modern horror anthology inspired by the over-the-top shocks of Paris’ early 20th century ‘Theatre du Grand Guignol’.

Under the Bed (TBD, Site B)


A suburban nightmare following two brothers who must band together to defeat a creature under the bed. It’s a love letter to early Steven Spielberg films.

The Tall Man (TBD, SND)


Jessica Biel plays a nurse living in a small town where children have gone missing over the years, leaving no clues. One night, she finds her son’s bed empty and, desperately rushing downstairs, confronts a huge dark figure, with her son in his arms.

Sleep Tight (TBD, Filmax)


The residents of the building where Cesar works as a doorman are not aware of the overtime he has been putting in. Apparently, he is at their service both day and night.

[REC] 3 Genesis (TBD, Filmax)


The original REC crew are back ready to submit their ensemble cast to another fight for survival against the zombie infection. This time to the backdrop of an original soundtrack. The new chapter will see the film “open up” by using a more traditional cinematographic style. However the film’s roots have not been forgotten and viewers will still be immersed in the action watching certain events unfold through the eye of the video camera. The action in REC 3 GENESIS encompasses the events of the first two films and after the sense of claustrophobia previously experiences. The action now takes place miles away from the original location and partly in broad daylight giving the film an entirely fresh yet disturbing new reality. The infection has left the building. In a clever twist that draws together the plots of the first two movies this third part of the saga also works as a decoder to uncover information hidden in the first two films and leaves the door open for the final installment the future REC 4 Apocalypse.

Childish Games (TBD, Filmax)


Daniel receives an unexpected, and unwanted, visit from a friend who he hasn’t seen since his childhood. His friend is obsessed with his daughter and insists that Daniel has to meet her. Daniel does his best to get rid of him and tries to forget the incident. That same night his friend commits suicide. Laura, Daniel’s wife, suggests they go to his friend’s funeral. There they meet his daughter, a little girl, barely seven years old, who since the death of her father has been taken into foster care. Laura convinces all parties that the best thing is for the little girl to go and stay with them. But the little girl’s presence in the house starts to have an adverse effect on the couple when fears and memories which Daniel thought he had long since buried start to come creeping back inside his head. The same obsessions and fears that took the life of his friend start to take control of Daniel. A growing sense of isolation engulfs Daniel in the house, which until the arrival of the little girl, he had thought belonged to him.

The Awakening (TBD, Cohen Media Group)


Haunted by the death of her fiancé, Florence Cathcart is on a mission to expose all séances as exploitative shams. However, when she is called to a boys’ boarding school to investigate a case of the uncanny, she is gradually forced to confront her skepticism in the most terrifying way, shaking her scientific convictions and her sense of self to the very core. Haunting and moving in equal measure, The Awakening is a sophisticated psychological/supernatural thriller in the tradition of ‘The Others’ and ‘The Orphanage,’ but with its own unique and thrilling twist.

Intruders (March 30, Millennium Entertainment)


Juan and Mia, two children who live in different countries, are visited every night by a faceless intruder – a terrifying being that wants to get hold of them. These presences become more powerful and start ruling their lives as well as their families’. Anxiety and tension increase when their parents also witness these apparitions.

Horror movie fanatic who co-founded Bloody Disgusting in 2001. Producer on Southbound, V/H/S/2/3/94, SiREN, Under the Bed, and A Horrible Way to Die. Chicago-based. Horror, pizza and basketball connoisseur. Taco Bell daily. Franchise favs: Hellraiser, Child's Play, A Nightmare on Elm Street, Halloween, Scream and Friday the 13th. Horror 365 days a year.

Editorials

‘Ju-On: The Curse’ – The Original Movies That Spawned ‘The Grudge’ Franchise

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In a world where over-polished corporate products dominate the media landscape while the ever-growing threat of AI-generated “art” haunts the horizon, I can’t help but remember a story about how Wes Anderson insisted on using real fur on the stop-motion puppets of his animated opus, Fantastic Mr. Fox. When the animators complained that using fur would result in obvious thumbprints and erratic hair movement that would ruin the “illusion” of lifelike movement, the filmmaker explained that these imperfections were the point.

Why am I bringing this up on a horror website? Well, I’ve always been of the opinion that low production value is simply part of the appeal of independent cinema, and nowhere is this more evident than in the horror genre. Rubber monster suits and watery blood effects are a big part of what make even the cheapest scary movies so endearing, and horror fans are uniquely predisposed to look beyond technical limitations in order to appreciate a good story.

One of my favorite examples of this is a certain micro-budget duology that kicked off one of the scariest film series of all time despite some undeniably janky presentation. And as a lifelong fan of low-budget scares, I’d like to invite you to join me down a J-Horror rabbit hole as we explore the criminally underrated origins of the Ju-On/The Grudge franchise.

While most of you are likely already familiar with 2002’s Ju-On: The Grudge, the film that helped to kick off the J-Horror craze and established Takashi Shimizu as a master of the craft, a lot of folks don’t realize that this was actually the filmmaker’s third attempt at telling the Saeki family story. In fact, the very first appearance of Kayako and her ghostly son occurred in a couple of 1998 short films made by Shimizu while he was still in film school.

Part of a made-for-TV anthology showcasing the work of up-and-coming Japanese filmmakers (Gakkô no Kaidan G), the shorts attempted to update classic Japanese folk tales for a new generation by incorporating modern elements like helpless high-schoolers and cellphones into old-fashioned ghost stories.

The original Toshio!

Despite some cheap camerawork and drama class make-up effects, Shimizu’s Katasumi and 4444444444 (so titled because the Japanese pronunciation of the number 4 is similar to that of death) were the clear highlights of the spooky collection despite being much shorter than the other segments. That’s why it was only natural that the director’s next project would be a feature-length expansion of these ideas produced for the direct-to-video market.

Coming up with an extensive mythology surrounding his murderous ghosts and realizing that he had a potential hit on his hands, Shimizu ended up making the risky decision to split his original two-hour story into two smaller films shot back-to-back. And while the sequel would suffer from this decision, the focus on serialized storytelling is what would ultimately turn this indie experiment into a global phenomenon.

Released in 2000, the first entry in this duology, simply titled Ju-On: The Curse, weaves an interconnected web of paranormal incidents surrounding a cursed house and the ill-fated families that inhabit it. While the film would actually reference the events of Shimizu’s shorts, it’s here that audiences were first introduced to the iconic opening text explaining how a violent death may spawn an infectious curse that self-perpetuates by causing even more deaths in a never-ending cycle of violence.

At first glance, The Curse feels a lot like an anthology meant to repurpose Shimizu’s existing ideas for ghostly short films into a feature format, but narrative details eventually add up as worried teachers, unsuspecting teenagers and psychic realtors unravel bits and pieces of the Saeki family history in a tragic tapestry of death. Curiously, this attempt at crafting a complex narrative puzzle would become a staple of the franchise as future entries (and even the video game) used non-linear storytelling to breathe new life into familiar yarns.

Of course, it’s really the scares that put this franchise on the map, and that’s why you’ll find plenty of expertly orchestrated frights here. Sure, the pale makeup effects and stock sound design aren’t that much better than what we saw in Gakkô no Kaidan G, but the suspenseful execution of moments like Toshio’s slow undead reveal and Kayako’s first contortionist crawl down the stairs – not to mention the incredibly disturbing sequence with a baby inside of a trash bag – are the stuff of horror legend regardless of budget.

I’d even argue that the low production value actually adds to the experience by making everything feel that much more down to earth. The Saeki house isn’t a stylish haunted manor from the Vincent Price era, it’s just a regular Japanese home inhabited by regular people, making it easier to believe that this modern urban legend could also happen to you. Hell, I even think Toshio is scarier when he can pass as a living kid even if the screaming cat effects aren’t as good as the sequels.

Cheap can still be scary.

Unfortunately, quality scares can’t solve everything, and that’s where Ju-On: The Curse 2 comes in. Released the same year as its predecessor, this bizarre sequel only features about 45 minutes of new footage, with the rest being recycled segments from the first film meant to pad out the runtime. While this is a surprisingly dishonest move on Shimizu’s part, with the decision likely resulting in confused viewers thinking that there was something wrong with their rented videotapes, it’s still pretty hard to call this a bad movie.

That’s why I’ve come to respect the flick as a rare instance of a cinematic expansion pack, as the first film didn’t really need to be any longer, but the new segments still do a great job of adding to the existing mythology. This time around, we learn that you don’t even have to come into direct contact with the haunted house in order to be affected by the curse, with characters only tangentially connected to the Saeki tragedy still meeting terrible fates.

That final shot featuring multiple Kayakos is also one of the most incredibly chilling moments in the entire franchise, with the amount of care put into these scenes suggesting that this was probably all meant to have been included in the first film before Shimizu decided otherwise. Either way, I’d still recommend watching this one immediately after Part I in a condensed double-feature – so long as you skip the first thirty minutes.

Despite their humble origins, these low-budget scare-fests would go on to inspire a ghostly media empire, with Shimizu eventually being given the chance to bring his creations to the big screen with one of the best J-Horror flicks of all time. And while I won’t argue that these direct-to-video precursors are necessarily better than 2002’s Ju-On: The Grudge (or even the American duology which was also helmed by Shimizu), I still think that something special was lost each time the series was tasked with pleasing a wider audience, as the story slowly became glossier and less real.

That’s why I’d urge hardcore horror fans to seek out Shimizu’s early experiments, as his creative fingerprints are the duct-tape that keeps this janky collection of horrific vignettes together. It may not always be pretty, but I’ll take the grimy actors caked in cheap blood and white clown makeup over corporate-approved movie monsters any day of the week.

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