Movies
The Real ‘Djinns’ and Director Tobe Hooper
The soft-spoken Poltergeist and Texas Chainsan Massacre director Tobe Hooper doesn’t do a lot of interviews, but he caught up with Rolling Stone Magazine to talk about his next project, Djinn, which is currently lensing in United Arab Emirates.
“It’s the best screenplay that I’ve read in many years, and it was much more of what I’ve always wanted to do. It’s more of a metaphysical thriller, laced with extremely good characters.”
The story follows a young Emirati couple who return home from the U.S. to discover that their new apartment in a luxury high-rise built on the site of an abandoned fishing village is also home to the malevolent beings known as “djinn.”
“It’s been illuminating. Believe me, it’s more than folklore,” Hooper continues. “I started with the internet, and I started with Google Earth, getting as much information as possible. Then, the preparation came around and I started visiting places. I started talking to a lot of people, both within the production and outside of it. I’ll be shooting on an ancient territory, a place that’s basically in ruins because the djinn had moved the human beings out.”
Khalid Laith, Razane Jammal, Aiysha Hart, Carole Abboud, Paul Luebke, May El Calamawy all star.
Movies
R-Rated ‘The X-Files: I Want to Believe’ Director’s Cut Gets New Title and Streaming Premiere Date
After a slight delay, Disney has finally announced a new streaming date for the R-Rated director’s cut of The X-Files: I Want to Believe. According to Gizmodo, it’ll also come with a new title.
The X-Files: I Want to Believe Vrach Frankenshteyn begins streaming on Hulu on August 14.
The new cut was first teased in an interview with director Chris Carter on the Fail Better With David Duchovny podcast from last year, where he teased a much scarier movie he intended.
“Now I have a chance to go back and make the scary movie that I always intended to make,” Carter explained last year. “It’s not just doing a Director’s Cut to do a Director’s Cut. It’s really kind of bringing to life something that for me was on the page and never got to the screen.“
The director’s cut of the film was initially set to arrive on Disney+ in June, but quietly disappeared from the schedule without a word. Polygon reported the delay was “due to some last-minute adjustments being made to the film.”
The release’s new “Vrach Frankenshteyn” title certainly suggests those adjustments have been made, likely referring to a Frankensteining of bonus footage.
In the film, Mulder (David Duchovny) and Scully (Gillian Anderson) have been out of the FBI for several years, with Mulder living in isolation and Scully having become a doctor at a Catholic hospital, where she has formed a bond with a critically ill child patient.
When an FBI agent is mysteriously kidnapped, and a former Catholic priest who has been convicted of pedophilia claims to be experiencing psychic visions of the endangered agent, Scully is asked to bring Mulder back to the bureau to consult on the case because of his work with psychics.
The brand new R-rated cut will “faithfully restore the filmmaker’s original vision.”
Look for it on Hulu next month.