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"I RECOGNISE TERROR AS THE FINEST EMOTION AND SO I WILL TRY TO TERRORISE THE READER. BUT IF I CANNOT TERRIFY, I WILL TRY TO HORRIFY, AND IF I CANNOT HORRIFY, I'LL GO FOR THE GROSS-OUT. I'M NOT PROUD." --- STEPHEN KING ::::::::::::: Spoilers for plot points and resolutions can occur within my movie reviews with or without warning. Read at your own risk.

LET ME IN - teaser posters

January 12th 2010 21:58
Let Me In teaser poster
With a scheduled release date of October this year in the States, director Matt Reeves’ re-envisioning of the masterful Swedish vampire movie Let the Right One In (2007) has already had four distinct teaser posters released. The American version is called Let Me In (probably because the literal English translation of the original title, Låt Den Rätte Komma In, is too obscure for the average American moviegoer; Let the Right One In. Which one is that? Sounds like a non sequitur of sorts.)

Of course the real reason the remake has been made is because executive producers smelled a potential cash cow after the Swedish version received enormous critical acclaim and did great international box office ... and Joe Average American doesn't like having to read subtitles.

The title Let Me In does have a concise directness to it I’ll admit. The real question is whether director Reeves, who apparently penned the screenplay, will follow the brilliant novel by John Ajvide Lindqvist more closely than Swedish director Tomas Alfredson. As much as I love the original movie adaptation, I’m secretly hoping Reeves will indulge the novel’s darker aspects, and in particular include the character subplot of teenager Tommy which was jettisoned from Lindqvist’s own screenplay.

The lead characters names have been changed. Eli has become Abby (played by established child star Chloe Moretz) and Oskar has become Owen (played by young Australian rising star Kodi Smit-McPhee, whom co-stars in the hotly-anticipated apocalyptic drama The Road). Richard Jenkins plays The Father (which suggests that Reeves has made a substantial alteration from the novel’s darkest character element). Only the adult character of Virginia apparently remains the same (according to imdb.com’s cast list, which doesn’t include the character Tommy, but then he may have had his name changed).

Chances are this will be a PG-13 movie in the States. In fact I’d put a wager on it. I can’t see any American producers allowing the novel to be filmed in its entirety as it’s too horrific and nightmarish for mainstream audiences. Whether it will have any of the poetry and atmosphere of the Swedish original is another story entirely. There’s even a significant character called The Policeman (played by Elias Koteas) in Reeves’ version, yet the police were kept at reach in the novel and barely made an appearance in the original movie.

The promotional posters, the last teaser of which actually includes cast listing, are pretty cool though.
Let Me In promo poster 1

Let Me In promo poster 2

Let Me In promo poster 3

Let Me In teaser poster

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The Wolfman 2010 movie poster
Apart from Wilderness by debut director Scooter Downey, and Jennifer Lynch’s Hissss, the other flick I’m hotly anticipating for release in the New Year is The Wolfman remake (originally made in 1941, and not to be confused as a remake of the 1961 Hammer movie The Curse of the Werewolf which was known as The Wolfman in the U.S.). The remake is directed by Joe Johnston, with a screenplay by Andrew Kevin Walker (Se7en) and David Self, and special effects make-up by the legendary Rick Baker (An American Werewolf in London). The movie is scheduled for release in the U.S. on February 12.

A nobleman, Lawrence Talbot, returns to the family estate in Victorian-era Blackmoor on the request of his brother’s distraught fiancée Gwen to help look for his missing brother. A suspicious Scotland Yard inspector joins the search. The movie stars Benicio Del Toro as Talbot, Anthony Hopkins as his estranged father, Emily Blunt as Gwen, Hugo Weaving as Inspector Alberline, and also features Geraldine Chaplin. Now, that’s a cast!

But if the production stills are anything to go by the movie promises to be a sumptuously moody portrait of rage and despair, a dark piece of nightmare art. The MPAA have given it an R-rating, let’s hope it’s what the industry refers to as a hard R (which would mean at least a strong MA down under). Bring it on I say! I want the hairs on my back to bristle with fear, the saliva in my mouth to swirl feverishly, and the howl in the pit of my throat to ache for release into the hot, sweaty night.

Here are a selection of some of the more mesmerising stills, savour them!
The Wolfman

The Wolfman

The Wolfman

The Wolfman Hugo Weaving

The Wolfman Emily Blunt

The Wolfman

The Wolfman Emily Blunt

The Wolfman

The Wolfman

The Wolfman Benicio Del Toro

The Wolfman Benicio Del Toro


How good does Rick Baker's werewolf make-up look! Those lycan eyes (all the better to star into the abyss), those lycan talons (all the better to rip you to shreds), those lycan teeth (all the better to devour your flesh) ...

Here's the sensational trailer:


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WILDERNESS looks wild!

November 10th 2009 09:57
Orble movie colleague Jason King over at Salty Popcorn sent me the link to a fantastic looking trailer to new American horror-thriller Wilderness which is still in post-production and will be released in 2010.

I discovered whilst looking into the release dates another horror movie called Wilderness, a UK production which was released in 2006. That looks quite good too. It stars Sean Pertwee and deals with violent juvenile delinquents sent to an island as punishment, only to find the island is inhabited with something much more terrifying than each other.
Wilderness Sean Pertwee
Savage English wilderness

The American Wilderness looks superior though and stars Lance Henrikson and Sean Elliott as father and son who reunite for a camping trip only to find themselves plunged headlong into a nightmarish struggle with something other than themselves. Hmmm, the two movies do sound kind of familiar ....

Wilderness (US) is co-written between Sean Elliott and the director Scooter Downey, which is his debut feature having only worked only as a set intern on an unknown drama called How You Look At Me which starred Frank Langella. How the hell does someone get a production like this greenlit when the director has barely got on-set experience to his name, let alone a short film director or writer’s credit? The machinations of Hollywood and its satellite village production houses and the inner workings of the financing of independent features seems to be a most unpredictable and curious beast.

The stylistic editing and content of the trailer makes the movie look like some kind of visceral, arthouse horror, with elements of Deliverance, The Edge, and something supernatural even … the last shot suggesting a primordial horror from the depths! Yikes! Well, I’m suitably amped. This is up there with Jennifer Lynch’s Hissss on my most anticipated horror release for 2010.

(Cheers Jason, hope you don't mind, but I took the link and ran with it!)

No pics or poster available yet, but check out the awesome trailer here

And here's the trailer to the more conventional looking English Wilderness:

Wilderness movie poster
The UK 2006 release



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Fantastic Planet international film festival
Paying tribute to the dark spirits of Hallowe’en, the organisers behind Sydney’s A Night of Horror international film festival are giving the horrorphiles amidst the sci-fi crowd a taste of blood at the inaugural Fantastic Planet international film festival at Dendy Cinemas, Newtown, which opens this weekend, Friday October 30th and runs until Friday November 6th.

Strigoi movie poster
Friday night, 9pm, is a screening of Strigoi (2009), a UK production shot on location in Romania; classic vampire territory. But this is no pedestrian vampire flick! This is a movie that digs deep to the dark essence of vampirism. The mythology behind the title is the belief that a person can rise again after death to seek justice if they’ve been wronged, their appetite and quest intensified by their thirst for blood. A Canadian short, Initiation, screens beforehand


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Theatre of Blood Alison Meredith, Brendan Taylor
Grand Guignol rises from the dead in Sydney! As part of the Under the Blue Moon Festival the Newtown Theatre is staging Theatre of Blood, channeling the grotesquely imaginative theatrics of the infamous French thespians of histrionic horror. If you're keen to see actors suffering for their craft, this is exactly the place to be!

Theatre of Blood
The Grand Guignol was a Parisian theatre that operated between 1897 and 1962. It produced, almost exclusively, one-act plays from 10 to 40 minutes in length, and was renowned for its perverse and violent content. The theatre itself was a converted chapel in the heart of the red light district, so patrons to the theatre would pass garish neon signs, streetwalkers loitering in doorways, and other shadowy behaviour in the dark alleyways near the theatre


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A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010) teaser movie poster
A good seven months before its release comes the trailer to the remake of A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010), produced by supertrash producer Michael Bay (uh-oh), directed by Samuel Bayer, a music clip director (another dubious sign), and co-written by Wesley Strick, who penned the screenplays to Arachnophobia (1984), Martin Scorsese’s Cape Fear (1991), and Wolf (1994), and Eric Heisserer, who is currently on board the re-remake of The Thing (2010).

Freddy Krueger is played by Jackie Earle Hayley, who looks more like a child-murderer than Robert Englund, and actually played a pedophile in the drama Little Children. However his voice doesn’t possess the same nightmarish tone (but that’s after years of Englund’s voice echoing along the cult fabric of our cine dreams). Relative unknown Rooney Mara plays the role of Nancy


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Rue Morgue Festival of Fear 2009 poster art
Every year around this time I wish I was a Toronto native. Unfortunately I live on the other side of the world, and flying to Canada for three days is simply out of the question. Rue Morgue, the essential horror in art and culture publication hosts a national expo every year called Festival of Fear. For three days – Friday August 28 to Sunday 30th - horrorphiles can indulge in all manner of the weird and grotesque, the sublimely frightening to the exquisitely gruesome.

I’m so envious of what’s going to be projected, exhibited, discussed and displayed; including screenings of Jacques Tourneur’s original Cat People (1942) and I Walked With a Zombie (1943), special screening of Mario Bava’s Black Sunday (1960) with Barbara Steele introducing, Q&As with legendary makeup whiz Tom Savini, guerrilla filmmaker Roger Corman, and splatstick superstar Bruce Campbell, a fact and fiction panel on vampires, a workshop on how to make a short horror film, and not forgetting the official festival party "Dance of the Deadites", and an appearance from wurgin blood lover Udo Kier


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THE STATE OF THE BAIT

July 21st 2009 00:21
Zombieland
There are comin’ in thick and fast; Halloween is not too far off and American distributors know this is a time to make a killing at the box office for horror flicks. So without further bloody adieu here are five trailers of varying calibre with my two or three cents thrown in for bloody measure.

Halloween II 2009 movie poster
First up is Rob Zombie’s continued travesty; Halloween II (2009), or H2 as some of the stupid marketing refers to it. As if Zombie’s dire remake of John Carpenter’s seminal slasher flick wasn’t enough, which single-handedly ruined any kind of nightmarish mystery associated with the boogeyman we know as Michael Myers. Donald Pleasence eats Malcolm McDowell for breakfast. And Tyler Mane is no Nick Castle


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Embodiment of Evil

I’ve been attending film festivals since I was fifteen. For many years I enjoyed the programme of the Wellington Film Festival of which Bill Gosden was the director. I noticed this year the Wellington Film Festival which kicks off in a few days (now under the umbrella of the multi-city New Zealand International Film Festival) is screening several exciting movies that didn’t play here at the Sydney Film Festival. I'm very much looking forward to seeing these movies in the near future, and hopefully on the big screen!

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56th Sydney Film Festival banner
I love this time of year: Sydney Film Festival. Fifty-six years old and going strong. Kicking off this Wednesday June 3rd and going through until Sunday June 14th. It’s twelve days of cinema heaven. Although the pickings are a little slim on the hardcore horror front, the lean selection promises to be intense, visceral, memorable, and destined for cult status (with one already holding that honour). Here are the six titles worth checking out.

Coraline movie poster
Coraline
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THE DESCENT: PART 2 ...??!!

May 10th 2009 23:51
The Descent: Part 2 Shauna MacDonald
What a blatantly ill-conceived excuse for a movie: The Descent: Part 2 (2009). If you haven’t seen Neil Marshall’s The Descent (2005), then read no further: big-time spoiler alert!

The Descent is one of the scariest, most intense horror movies of the past ten years. There haven’t been many horrors in the past decade that have genuinely impressed me, and left a lasting impression. The Descent was one and Ils (2006) was another


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WHETTING YOUR BLOODLUST

March 24th 2009 23:34
Megan Fox in Jennifer's Body
Here’s four trailers to salivate over, being released either on DVD or theatrically during the year; Martyrs (2008), a savage French revenge “chick-flick”, The Last House on the Left (2009), a slick Hollywood remake to a capital B-grade revenge flick, Pandorum (2009), a stylish sf shocker, and Dead Snow (2009), a Norwegian Nazi-zombie comedy (yup).

Martyrs:
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A Night Of Horror International Film Festival 2009
Now in its third year the Sydney-hosted International Film Festival A Night of Horror continues to cut deep and splatter fresh blood across the independent horror movie scene. If you’re a gorehound, terrorfreak, or all-round horrorphile, the ten-day film festival is the city’s hottest ticket; more macabre movie wonders than you can shake a severed leg at, and this year’s line-up of features looks pretty damn impressive; I’m salivating like a rabid dog to see some of these nightmarish delights.

The Broken French movie poster
Festival directors and founders Dean Bertram and Lisa Mitchell are joined by associate programmers Grant Bertram and Shane K, plus exploitation specialist, curator Jack Sargeant. Special guest programmers are veteran psychotronic cine-freaks Jamie & Aspasia Leonarder, aka Jay Katz and Miss Death. It’s good to read how Dean’s life was changed by a movie that we both agree is a seminal cinema experience in modern horror: John Carpenter’s Halloween (1978


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The THRILL of TALKIN' HORROR

February 10th 2009 03:53
Friday the 13th (2009) teaser poster
Every Friday from 5pm til 6pm Sydney’s AFTRS (Australian Film, Television & Radio School) hosts an hourly talk with screen and broadcast industry folk offering insight and perspective on different topics. It’s called "Friday on My Mind".

This Friday is the 13th, so the discussion is called Thriller Night
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I was surfing on youtube, searching for something or rather, as you do, and inadvertently discovered a couple of semi-precious gems, as you do. Those brief little vignettes put together by someone with perhaps a little too much time on their hands; little crazy raisins lost in the giant fruit salad that is youtube. But I found them. And I’m putting them up on the Horrorphile pedestal.

I’m sure there are countless other raisins like these, but these little wrinkled grapes tickled my fancy. If you like your J-Horror, in particular the brilliance that is Ju-On and Ringu, then you’ll love these cleverly contrived pieces of editing and After Effects which appear to be viral ads for a tutorial site called www.homegrownhorror.com. I’m not sure quite how they do it, but it’s very impressive all the same


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Bad Lieutenant (2009) teaser poster
German maverick filmmaker Werner Herzog, who has made some powerful documentaries (Lessons of Darkness, Grizzly Man, Encounters at the End of the World) and some startling features (Aguirre, Fitzcarraldo, Nosferatu), turns his curious hand to crime and addiction. In a very bold and rather dubious move he has decided to tackle a deeply subversive and challenging movie and remake it. Actually there’s nothing new there, Herzog does this stuff all the time … but Bad Lieutenant (1992)?!

That’s right, Herzog’s remake of Abel Ferrara’s searing, blistering, uncompromising character study of despair and desperation, addiction and corruption, resignation and redemption is currently in post-production and due for release in the coming months. The movie is being re-titled Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans (2009) and Nicolas Cage is in the titular role


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Underworld: Rise of the Lycans Rhona Mitra
The silly season is officially upon us. I love this month; partly because it’s my birthday in a couple of weeks, but also ‘tis the season to be merry, and I love merriment. Horror and merriment go severed hand in severed hand.

So to celebrate the good stuff here are six pretty narly trailers to movies being released overseas in January and February next year, expect them down under not too long after. We’ve got a prequel and two remakes, a directing debut from respected screenwriter David Goyer, a Japanese director making a Clive Barker story in Hollywood, and an Oscar-nominated newbie adding his own stylistic touch to the horror-thriller genre


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Horrorphile on SCREENWRITING LEAVE

October 31st 2008 05:37
The screenwriter's original friend
My fellow horrorphiles and True Believers, I am talking a hiatus from my blog for a couple of weeks to delve deep into the dark and wicked pool of my imagination to conjure an exciting and provocative new draft to a feature screenplay I started four years ago.

Actually the concept was born back in the early 90s when I was at university doing film and drama studies. It was only a paragraph or two, a loose premise – an erotic nightmare - that concerned a male artist and a female demon. I had a title, imagery, and narrative ideas


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zombieeeeeeeee!
Here's something to get excited about! George Romero began shooting a new zombie flick at the beginning of the month in Ontario. It’s an independent production with a cast of mostly unknowns; although several of the actors have Saw III (2006), IV (2007) and/or V (2008) on their resume, which gives me great concern for the calibre of acting.

Alan Van Sprang
Saw III's Alan Van Sprang
The screenplay is by Romero; the plot involves inhabitants of an isolated island off the North American coast who find their relatives rising from the dead to eat their kin. The leaders of the island feud over whether or not to kill their reanimated relatives or preserve them in hopes of finding a cure to the zombie plague.
Athena Karkanis
Saw IV and V's Athena Karkanis

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WICKED NASTY TEASER TRAILER TRASH

August 4th 2008 06:23
Wicked Lake ladies
I’m dealing with Mondayitis. So what better substance abuse than posting a trailer to a new piece of deep trash. Wicked Lake (2008), director Zach Passero's debut, is a low-rent indulgence in backwoods violation mayhem that should’ve been shunted straight to DVD, but apparently has managed to secure a theatrical mean season Stateside.

In a nutjob, err nutshell; four girls gone wild head to the woody hills for a little carpet lickin’ r&r, however their fun time is interrupted by four demented men who have a little last house on the left intent. Cue misogynistic behaviour from hillbillies ("Suck the nub!"), and then at the stroke of midnight, cue ladies who lunch


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