Movies
Have a Snack With Dark Sky’s ‘Bitter Feast’
Dark Sky Films today announced that Bitter Feast, the first movie in its new production-distribution arrangement with Larry Fessenden’s Glass Eye Pix, will have its world premiere at the Los Angeles Film Festival in June. In the film James LeGros plays a New York Chef and TV cooking personality, who takes culinary revenge on the food critic (Josh Leonard), who recently savaged his restaurant in a review. Chef Mario Batali plays the owner of the restaurant. Check out new info and stills below.
BITTER FEAST, a cunning suspense tale about a vengeful TV chef, was written and directed by Joe Maggio, creator of the acclaimed indies Virgil Bliss and Paper Covers Rock. Larry Fessenden’s many works as producer or director include Wendigo and I Sell the Dead and the award-winning drama Wendy and Lucy. BITTER FEAST is the first release in a multi-film production agreement between Glass Eye Pix and Dark Sky Films, the horror subsidiary of the MPI Media Group.
James LeGros (Zodiac, The Last Winter) stars in BITTER FEAST as Peter Grey, an overzealous television chef. When notoriously snarky food blogger J.T. Franks (Joshua Leonard of Humpday and The Blair Witch Project) writes a particularly nasty review of Grey’s food, it pushes the temperamental chef over the edge. He kidnaps the writer and keeps him chained up in a basement, where he presents him with a serious of deceptively simple food challenges – from preparing a perfect egg over easy to grilling a steak precisely medium rare – then punishes him sadistically for anything less than perfection.
Larry Fessenden and renowned Chef Mario Batali also star in this tense thrill ride, which is served up with wicked wit and culinary flair.
Upcoming titles on the Dark Sky/Glass Eye slate include Stake Land, a horror film from Mulberry Street creators Jim Mickle and Nick Damici and starring Danielle Harris and Kelly McGillis; the sci-fi shocker Hypothermia, from James Felix McKenney (Automatons) and starring Michael Rooker and Blanche Baker; and The Innkeepers, Ti West’s follow up to the critically acclaimed The House of the Devil.
Click the image for the other still:
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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