Horror movies

Here’s another draining bout of horror opportunism, spawned in this instance by the copyright expiring on Disney’s Steamboat Willie, the 1928 landmark animation that launched Mickey Mouse into the world. Scurrying on to screens months behind the similarly motivated The Mouse Trap, Steven LaMorte’s bloody pastiche opens with a quote coyly ascribed to “Walt D” before plodding mirthlessly in the pawprints of those recent Winnie-the-Pooh carve-ups, demonstrating no greater brio, invention or wit. Its mock Mickey is a genetically modified super-violent pipsqueak (played by Terrifier breakout star David Howard Thornton, in mangy rodent costume), let loose from the sewers by blundering engineers; rather than the jaunty steamboat his predecessor commandeered, he wreaks murderous havoc on a grimy approximation of the Staten Island ferry, whistling while he works.

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Arterial spray fans won’t feel short-changed, but many of the kill scenes are torpedoed by poor lighting, clumsy-to-inept camera coverage and cutting, and effects that only erratically match the action. Amid a number of Sharknado-level performances, and accidentally serving the public by muffling dialogue that wasn’t exactly sparkling to begin with, Thornton gives his Mickey a certain bouncy malevolence – but we get the idea after only a few minutes of watching the actor tap dance on a pop culture grave. These tacky novelty films have been unlucky to land at a moment when mainstream horror has seriously raised its game, but something as cut-price, retrograde and reactionary as this really does deserve the damning label of Mickey Mouse fare.

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cross-posted from: https://feddit.uk/post/26685384

Following its international premiere at London's FrightFest last year and a successful festival run, Irish horror An Taibhse (The Ghost) has been picked up for worldwide sales by Toronto-based genre specialists Raven Banner and Firebook Entertainment, with a new trailer today teasing a creepy new entry into the folk horror canon.

Executive produced by six-time Oscar nominee Jim Sheridan (My Left Foot), An Taibhse is written and directed by John Farrelly and stars Tom Kerrisk and Livvy Hill.

Marketed as “the first Irish language horror film”, the pic follows:

Amid the barren landscape of post-famine Ireland, a father and daughter struggle to survive the brutal winter as caretakers of a remote mansion, only to be driven to the edge of sanity by the horrors lurking within.

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Proving no film is safe from the rebooting hands of Hollywood, The Muppets have launched their version of the sci-fi classic "Alien" using the space-traversing swine from "Pigs in Space." While not as serious or spooky as Ridley Scott's newest film in the franchise, "Alien: Look Who's Coming to Dinner" doesn't shy away from puns, violence or (by Muppet standards) salty language. Sadly, James Franco is not involved.

Directed and co-written by long time Muppet collaborator Kirk Thatcher, the spoof is the first episode in a planned comeback for the plucky porkers. A new online series will follow the further adventures of the crew of the S.S. Swinetrek. The three little pigs take on the Oscar winning film "Gravity" next week with "The Gravity of the Situation."

CBR

Bong Joon-ho recently confirmed that following his already-shot animated film about sea creatures — potentially titled “The Valley” — he plans to direct a horror action film set in an underground Seoul subway station. Bong’s horror movie will now have a score composed by John Carpenter.

Last night, speaking at a 4K restoration screening of “The Thing,” Bong conducted the post-screening Q&A and asked Carpenter if he would be interested in making music for his horror film.

Bong detailed the plan for his “next, next movie”, and before he could even officially ask the question, Carpenter eagerly replied, “I wanna do your score.” The pair locked the deal with a handshake as Bong assured the audience this was “officially” and “seriously” happening.

Details of Bong's horror film remain under lock and key. The filmmaker has described it as the “life project” he's been thinking about since 2001. Back in 2020, Bong briefly mentioned the project, which he described as a “Korean film, set in Seoul, with unique elements of horror and action,” but on a similar scale as 2006’s “The Host.”

cross-posted from: https://feddit.uk/post/25950482

In the sleepy town of Clover Falls, popular teens are butchered with regularity by a disfigured masked killer in the Freddy/Jason/Michael mode, named Roger Bladecut (Billy Burke). Their deaths are (somehow, invisibly) filmed and sold as horror movies at the local video store, run by Roger Bladecut. This maniac’s daughter, Abbie (Sari Arambulo), is for some reason keen to follow in her father’s footsteps, but when she starts hanging out with other teens realises that maybe murdering your fellow humans isn’t all its cracked up to be.

Even a cursory outline of the premise is probably enough to set alarm bells ringing for anyone with even a passing interest in plausible world-building. For those willing to suspend their disbelief, Bloody Axe Wound features some charismatic performances (from Sam Crane and Eddie Leavy in particular), a banging soundtrack crammed with riot grrrl riffs, and some nice juicy practical gore effects.

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After two decades, ten films, and over a billion dollars grossed worldwide, Saw remains one of horror’s most popular and enduring franchises. Unfortunately, the series’ iconic villain Jigsaw may have already set his last trap, according to an anonymous source BD has verified as being close to the production of its newest sequel.

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“It’s totally dead,” the source tells us. “It’s 100% over. Almost a year now.”

So what happened?!

According to the source, “Everything went sideways in January 2024 … the producers started fighting.” While one producer attempted to “plow forward” with the film, the other “put up roadblocks,” stifling Saw XI’s production

But what about Lionsgate? Surely the company that Saw helped build would have stepped in to steer its lucrative ship back on course? Our source suggests, “[Lionsgate] didn’t have anyone to smooth over the disagreement.”

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The insider notes that the franchise might sell somewhere else, but it will likely “start over,” if so.

In the end, Jigsaw was thwarted not by cancer or a circular saw to the throat, but a persistent plague to creativity and filmmaking. As the source concludes, “Greed and ego won.”

The public domain is, in a way, the great cinematic universe in the sky — the final resting place for all intellectual property where characters from all walks of life are legally allowed to encounter one another. Untouchables Entertainment sees a filmmaking opportunity in that. The banner has released the first trailer for “The Dark Domain: MVW Mickey-Vs-Winnie,” a horror imagining that sees the Mickey of Disney’s “Steamboat Willie” and Winnie-the-Pooh coming face-to-face and haunting a killable group of childhood friends.

The film, which bills itself as the “first public domain crossover film” and ventures to launch a “Dark Domain Universe,” takes place in the Hell Forest and introduces other monsters with names like The Stitcher, Hellshadowers and The Wickeds. They’re all along for the ride with Dark Mickey (Daniel Wilkinson) and Dark Winnie (Chris Boudreaux), going head-to-head in the horror tradition of Freddy and Jason, or the Alien and the Predator. Notably, the project’s unveiling does not refer to Mickey alongside his commonly-known Christian name, “Mouse,” as it’s only the “Mickey” character seen in Walt Disney’s 1928 “Steamboat Willie” short that has entered the public domain.

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IMDb

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/26722585

Brian Cox, Edie Falco, Dean Norris and Lisa Kudrow play “wacky” parents trapped in a haunted mansion in a minimal Max original

cross-posted from: https://feddit.uk/post/25585102

The first reactions are in for new horror movie Clown in a Cornfield after its premiere at SXSW – and viewers are full of praise for the slasher comedy with a twist.

Directed by Tucker & Dale vs. Evil helmer Eli Craig, the movie is based on the novel of the same name by Adam Cesare and made by the same production company behind the Smile franchise. The film follows teenager Quinn (Katie Douglas), who moves to a small town in Missouri after the death of her mother. Their fresh start is disrupted, however, when the town's mascot Frendo the Clown begins to wreak bloody havoc on its residents.

"#ClownInACornfield was fucking spectacular!" tweeted one viewer. "Paving the way for a new generation of slashers! A new era and I’m here for it. A gruesome, wild and chaotic bloodbath! Amazing cast and a premise that will shock people! A huge win for horror fans! Folks are gonna lose their minds!"

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Film-maker James Ashcroft has created a scary and intimately upsetting psychological horror based on a story by New Zealand author Owen Marshall set in a care home, a film whose coolly maintained claustrophobic mood and bravura performances make up for the slight narrative blurring towards the end. It’s a movie about bullying and elder abuse – more specifically, elder-on-elder abuse – and it is always most chilling when it sticks to the realist constraints of what could actually happen.

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As this highly derivative but mildly absorbing Canadian horror thriller kicks off, we meet Ethan (Douglas Smith), a young man seemingly on the verge of killing himself. He looks out over a picturesque stretch of Saskatchewan landscape bathed in magic-hour glow before we cut to a welter of confusing, often blood-soaked flashbacks (or flashforwards) – and his voiceover then explains that although his memory doesn’t work so well, he’d rather not remember most of his life anyway. That’s because unfortunate Ethan is suffering from a kind of cyclical amnesia, not unlike the disorder that bedevilled Guy Pearce’s character in Memento, which compels him to keep reintroducing himself to people he’s met many times before. This is a particularly dangerous condition to have because Ethan is living in the middle of a zombie apocalypse that’s turned everyone who hasn’t gone full zombie into skittish, trigger-happy survivalists desperately clinging to what little resources they have.

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Writer-director Lowell Dean (Wolfcop) takes his time slotting the narrative puzzle pieces into place with minute reveals, which is frustrating because genre-savvy viewers are likely to have guessed it all after 20 minutes. That makes it a little bit harder to feel much empathy for doltish Ethan as he struggles to work it all out, but at least his dimness, a condition not entirely unrelated to his memory struggles, is grounded in the story itself.

• Die Alone is on digital platforms from 10 March.

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Since George Romero first pioneered the concept with his Living Dead films, the zombie apocalypse has become a staple of horror films. Combining elements of monster movies and the disaster genre, these stories can evoke many different fears at once. From illness and death to isolation and societal collapse, zombie apocalypse narratives explore different facets of human nature and, often, the undead themselves are the least terrifying part. Generally, the true danger of such films is other people and the paranoia and desperation that develops among survivors, leaving zombies as a secondary threat. The cult classic, Stake Land, however, upped the horror by introducing a vampire apocalypse, making the undead more threatening than ever.

Drawing on many of the classic tropes of the zombie apocalypse genre, the 2010 horror film offered a unique twist on the old formula. More deadly monsters, a protagonist that specializes in hunting them, and elements of a road movie all set Stake Land apart from many of its predecessors and made it a particularly scary and moving story that, despite its lack of commercial success, is still loved by its fans and remains an underrated gem

A teenage girl has recurring nightmares of a tower collapse in the 1960s. She discovers that these nightmares are a premonition she inherited from her grandmother. The grandmother predicted the collapse of the building and saved a group of people from death. Decades later, the granddaughter begins to have visions of her family members dying. She realizes that there is a sequence and must fight to prevent Death from reclaiming her family's bloodline.

IMDb