Movies
[Slamdance ’12] Review: ‘Ghoul’ An Above-Par Adaptation With An Unusually Rich Plot!
Chiller TV’s made-for-TV production, Ghoul, premiered last week at the Slamdance Film Festival. Yesterday we announced that it had an air date for Friday, April 13th. And today we have a review!
John Marrone writes in from Slamdance, “As so often explored by Moderncine creations such as ‘The Girl Net Door’, ‘Offspring’, or ‘The Woman’ – what worse beast is there, than man? Genre crawlers looking to see a corpse eating beast or rape scenes in the tunnels beneath the graveyard should take note – this is not a hard-R film… With children engaging problems that would traumatize adults, and an acoustically driven soundtrack by Sean Spillane, Ghoul feels very much like a less offensive version of something between ‘The Woman’ and ‘The Girl Next Door’.”
Click here for the full review.
Brian Keene’s Ghoul is based on a horror novel of the same name, which follows a group of young friends who risk their lives to stop a rash of disappearances in their town. Directed by Greg Wilson and penned by William M. Miller, the adaptation stars Nolan Gould (“Modern Family”). Wilson also directed Jack Ketchum’s The Girl Next Door. The feature is part of Chiller’s new original productions. The film was produced by MODERNCINÉ’s Andrew van den Houten (The Woman, The Girl Next Door) and Robert Tonino. 
Movies
‘Abigail’ on Track for a Better Opening Weekend Than Universal’s Previous Two Vampire Attempts
In the wake of Leigh Whannell’s Invisible Man back in 2020, Universal has been struggling to achieve further box office success with their Universal Monsters brand. Even in the early days of the pandemic, Invisible Man scared up $144 million at the worldwide box office, while last year’s Universal Monsters: Dracula movies The Last Voyage of the Demeter and Renfield didn’t even approach that number when you COMBINE their individual box office hauls.
The horror-comedy Renfield came along first in April 2023, ending its run with just $26 million. The period piece Last Voyage of the Demeter ended its own run with a mere $21 million.
But Universal is trying again with their ballerina vampire movie Abigail this weekend, the latest bloodbath directed by the filmmakers known as Radio Silence (Ready or Not, Scream).
Unlike Demeter and Renfield, the early reviews for Abigail are incredibly strong, with our own Meagan Navarro calling the film “savagely inventive in terms of its vampiric gore,” ultimately “offering a thrill ride with sharp, pointy teeth.” Read her full review here.
That early buzz – coupled with some excellent trailers – should drive Abigail to moderate box office success, the film already scaring up $1 million in Thursday previews last night. Variety notes that Abigail is currently on track to enjoy a $12 million – $15 million opening weekend, which would smash Renfield ($8 million) and Demeter’s ($6 million) opening weekends.
Working to Abigail‘s advantage is the film’s reported $28 million production budget, making it a more affordable box office bet for Universal than the two aforementioned movies.
Stay tuned for more box office reporting in the coming days.
In Abigail, “After a group of would-be criminals kidnap the 12-year-old ballerina daughter of a powerful underworld figure, all they have to do to collect a $50 million ransom is watch the girl overnight. In an isolated mansion, the captors start to dwindle, one by one, and they discover, to their mounting horror, that they’re locked inside with no normal little girl.”
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