“Monster” is a psychological thriller that tells the story of a young doctor who saves the life of a little boy only to find out a few years later that the life he saved was that of a brilliant killer. The doctor must then track down the young killer and solve a larger conspiracy.
“Monster” is a psychological thriller that tells the story of a young doctor who saves the life of a little boy only to find out a few years later that the life he saved was that of a brilliant killer. The doctor must then track down the young killer and solve a larger conspiracy.
Guillermo del Toro is partnering with HBO to bring Monster to life, per Deadline. While things are only just now entering the development stage, the series will be based on an 18 volume Japanese Manga by author Naoki Urasawa.
It sounds like Del Toro will co-write the series outline with Steven Thompson (“Dr. Who”, “Sherlock”). Thompson will then script the pilot and it’s planned that del Toro intends to direct it and set up the world (like Eli Roth did in “Hemlock Grove”).
The book “is about the worldwide search by a young doctor for the most evil sociopath that has ever lived. He is a 12-year old boy, and the doctor’s decision to save his life has unwittingly unleashed a Pandora’s Box that leaves the doc battling to stop a plot of mass genocide.”
Del Toro will also be executive producer and Thompson co-executive producer, with Angry Films’ partners Don Murphy and Susan Montford executive producing with Exile’s Gary Ungar. “Monster” was originally set up at New Line, but the lengthy nature of the book dictated that it would be a better fit for TV.
Ever wonder how Chucky would stack up against Godzilla or the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man? I mean, you know he’s super small so he couldn’t really compare – but were you ever curious about the proportions?
How about King Kong, The Rancor or – for some reason Megatron? Then head inside for the infograph and to find out which monster is supposedly bigger than Godzilla! READ MORE
Reviewed by Patrick Cooper
Night of the Tentacles opens with a couple having doggy-style sex. Then some people masturbate and a dog licks up cum. This barrage of humorously explicit scenes sets the stage for a film whose aspirations reach no further than the toilet bowl. Written, directed, edited, and scored by Dustin Mills (Bath Salt Zombies), Night of the Tentacles is a low budget horror-comedy in the vein of Little Shop of Horrors and Basketcase only not nearly as effective. If you go into the film not expecting too much though, you might have a good time.
Dave (Brandon Salkil) is a lonely graphic artist who specializes in erotic horror art. When we first meet him he’s arguing with a client on the phone about the appropriate amount of gloss to add to alien semen. He walks around in pajama pants all day and eagerly waits for his pregnant neighbor Esther to get home from work so he can jerk off to the sounds of her performing the female equivalent. This ritual happens regularly until one day he has a heart attack. Turns out he’s got a bum ticker and he’s going to need a transplant. His freelance graphic artist insurance is pretty weak, so it looks like this is it for Dave.
Then Satan shows up and offers a deal to Dave: a new heart in exchange for his soul. Because this always sounds like a good idea to humans, Dave accepts. Satan leaves behind a small wooden chest with Dave’s new heart in it. I’ve been trying to come up with a way to describe Satan in the film and the best I’ve got is that he’s a fat version of the rabbit from Donnie Darko, with LED light eyes and no ears.
If the heart dies, so does Dave. The only problem is that the heart needs human flesh to survive and it speaks in a British accent (so it always sounds condescending). In order to stay alive and pursue his romantic interest in his neighbor Esther, Dave has to sacrifice his other neighbors. That’s not so bad at first, since they’re all pricks, but what happens when Dave runs out of neighbors?!
There’s no suspense or tension surrounding these kills. Dustin Mills goes for comedy and effects more than anything and it doesn’t always work. If you’re a fan of toilet and sex-related humor, however, then you’re in luck. Personally, that stuff is fun but it can wear thin very quickly (like it did in this film). Actor Brandon Salkil is respectable in this role, although he takes it unnecessarily over-the-top several times. Mills does allow some tender moments between Dave and Esther and there seems to be some attempt at making them developed characters, but any progress is cut short by cum or dick jokes.
The effects are decent and there’s a surprisingly low level of gore. Once it’s revealed, the heart-tentacle monster is awfully silly looking, but some of the kills are cool – in particular the first one involving Dave’s bitchy neighbor and her toilet. Overall, the film’s got a lot of heart even if it falls flat of its aspirations. It’s worth the rent.
A/V
Night of the Tentacles is presented 1.78:1 widescreen. It’s obviously a low budget film and sometimes that shines through in the transfer. The 2.0 audio track sounds all right, although it can get muddled when people scream.
Special Features
COMMENTARY WITH DIRECTOR DUSTIN MILLS: This guy gives a pretty good commentary and he makes it interesting. He talks about casting off of CraigsList, why he changed the title, and, you know, masturbating.
TRAILERS
This is the Night of the Tentacles! In this obscene Faustian tale a young artists sells his soul to Satan for the new heart he so desperately needs. The only catch is that the heart is a tentacled monstrosity with a hunger for human flesh! Will Dave get the girl of his dreams? Will he run out of neighbors to feed his infernal heart? Will Delilah ever finish urinating?
Reviewed by Patrick Cooper
Tobe Hooper’s The Funhouse was released when slashers were booming. Rather than falling into the tropes of the age, The Funhouse is more of a throwback, atmospheric monster movie. The slasher genre is even poked fun of during the Halloween/Psycho homage in the beginning, when the little brother stabs Amy with a rubber knife. Whether it’s intentional or not, this acts as a humorous snub to the flood of slasher films in the ‘80s. The Funhouse is a slow burn that walks the fine line between suspense-building and just plain boring. Once the film starts moving at full speed though it whirlwinds into a nightmare ride of carnival thrills and kills, albeit a formulaic one.
Amy (Elizabeth Berridge) and her new main squeeze Buzz (Cooper Huckabee) head out to the traveling carnival with two friends for a night of dope smoking and freakshow peeping. Amy’s folks (an alcoholic mother and disinterested father) plead with her not to go – two corpses were found near the same carnival last year – but Buzz’s crooked smile coaxes her to the big top. They arrive at the carnival, stoned and glowing with adolescent hormones, and this is the part where people whine that it gets “boring.”
After they arrive at the carnival nothing happens for something like 45 minutes. But the devil’s in the details, you know? A lot of subtle, unnerving shit happens and all of it seems to be “marking” or summoning Amy in a way. Right when they arrive, Amy bumps into some hobo looking guy whose face is smeared in blood and filth. When her and Liz (Largo Woodruff) are arguing about Amy’s virginity in the bathroom, she playfully throws a paper towel at Liz. A second later, that bag lady with the jack-o-lantern teeth materializes out of nowhere and snatches up the towel. Why did she pick that one out of all the towels on the ground?! Every time they pass The Barker (Kevin Conway) he seems to single Amy out of the crowd. When the fortuneteller’s ball drops, it rolls right up to Amy then rolls quickly away. Maybe I’m reading too much into this but I think the carnival wants Amy’s ass!
The teens decide to have a slumber party in the funhouse and end up witnessing a bunch of horrible things, including a freak in a Frankenstein’s monster mask get a handjob. Once the action kicks in The Funhouse starts to follow a more traditional slasher/survival formula (murder death kill). The kills aren’t very creative. The best bit of violence involves axing a fellow who’s already dead (how much better would it have been if he was still alive when Buzz drops the axe?!).
What the movie lacks in blood splatter it makes up for in macabre detail and atmosphere. The production design drips authenticity. Hooper and cinematographer Andrew Laszlo (The Warriors) deliver some really inspired direction and photography. The HUGE crane shot following Amy’s little brother when the carnival is closing is incredible. Amy’s journey through the nightmarish funhouse labyrinth is terrifying. Slizabeth Berridge isn’t even the stand out performance! Kevin Conway is by a mile. He doesn’t get a ton of screen time, but he chews every second of it. You can practically smell his sweaty brow.
Besides the fact that it takes Gunther forever to die at the end, I really have nothing bad to say about The Funhouse. Fans are going to be thrilled with Scream! Factory’s Blu-ray. And if you’re not a fan of the film, I suggest giving it another shot.
A/V
The Funhouse is presented in 2.35:1 1080p with 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio. It looks freaking fantastic. Details are sharp and the contrast is great. There is so much incredible detail in and around the carnival and the transfer picks everything up real nice. It sounds terrific too. John Beal’s booming opening carnival score sets the stage, immersing the audience.
Special Features
Audio Commentary with Tobe Hooper, moderated by Tim Sullivan: Hooper talks about what drew him to the film, his love of classic movie monsters, and covers a lot of the standard commentary ground like casting and whatnot. Sullivan does a great job of keeping the conversation going. There’s rarely a moment where they’re sitting there in silence or simply narrating what’s happing in the film.
“The Barker Speaks!” An Interview With Actor Kevin Conway (11:15): He explains how it was his suggestion that he plays all three barkers. He talks about working with Tobe and his coke (a-cola) habit, looking back fondly on the production.
“Something Wicked This Way Comes” An Interview With Executive Producer Mark L. Lester (8:44): He discusses how the film transitioned from a low-budget film to a $3 million picture with Universal. He talks about setting up the carnival and constructing the funhouse.
“Carnival Music” An Interview With Composer John Beal (10:01): He talks about his background as a musician and how he got into composing. Explains how prevalent synthesizers were in film scoring at the time, but they chose to use an orchestra so the film wouldn’t feel dated down the road. Wise choice!
Audio Interview With Actor William Finley (3:25): This is a snippet from an audio interview with the great Finley conducted in 2005. He discusses working with Hooper and how much fun the shoot was. RIP, Mr. Finley.
Deleted Scenes (5:26): These scenes were added to the film’s network television run to meet the minimum required running time and to compensate for all the sex and violence cut out. There’s a bit of Buzz meeting Amy’s parents and more of them in the car together. There’s a great scene with Amy’s little brother reading about a witch, which foreshadows the bag lady at the carnival.
TV and Radio Spots
Reversible Cover
Diving into the world of hip-hop, we’re looking towards Kanye West and his video for “Monster” for this edition of Twisted Music Video Of The Week. The song comes from Kanye’s critically acclaimed My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, which came out in 2010. The album won the Grammy Award for Best Rap Album.
Definitely NSFW, this video features West and “dead” women. Like, a lot of them. Women hanging from their necks, women laying on beds, beheaded women, oh my! It’s a veritable smorgasbord of dead women! Check out the video below and make sure to leave a comment with your suggestion for the next edition of Twisted Music Video Of The Week! READ MORE
This summer, brace yourself for non-stop action, suspense and edge-of-your-seat thrills as something unknown strikes terror into our hearts from 8,000 feet under the deep sea.
On June 26, 2012, Shout! Factory, in collaboration with CJ E&M, will unleash Korea’s first 3D sci-fi thriller Sector 7 on Blu-ray 3D and DVD, as well as being made available on digital entertainment platforms. Sector 7 Blu-ray 3D includes the movie in high-definition 3D and on high-definition 2D. Both Blu-ray 3D and DVD editions boast English and Korean audio tracks, English subtitles and insightful bonus content including a “Making-of” Featurette and Original theatrical trailer.
Movie fans and collectors can pre-order Sector 7 now on Amazon before the Blu-ray 3D and DVD hit store shelves nationwide.
Starring popular international female action star Ha Ji-Won and directed by Kim Ji-Hoon, Sector 7 delivers blockbuster home entertainment, boasting fierce action, daring stunts and spectacular CG and 3D technology. Hae-jun (Ha Ji-Won) is working as a marine equipment manager on an old oil prospecting platform stationed at Sector 7, the mining area in the vast open sea located off the southern tip of Korea’s Jeju Island. One day, a new recruit sinks to the bottom of the sea. Evidence suggests that it was not an accident, and other crew members begin to turn up dead. The few survivors soon discover an underwater creature roaming the rig. The viral monster infiltrated the ship through the drilling pipe and has been feeding on crew members to survive. As Hae-jun and her remaining crew lose all communications to the outside world, a frantic fight for their lives begins. READ MORE
Entertainment group Shout! Factory has secured rights to the horrid 3D thriller Sector 7 and action/adventure Quick for all packaged media, home entertainment and digital distribution in the U.S. and Canada, reports Deadline. The deal is part of a multi-year agreement with Korean film and distribution company CJ E&M in which Shout! will be the exclusive North American home entertainment distributor for the two titles.
Sector 7 revolves around the crew of an oil prospecting ship that are terrorized by an underwater creature directed by Kim Ji-Hoon.
Riffing on Aliens, “The film dates back to 1985 where a worker goes missing at an underwater oil base. It flashes to present day where the protagonist is the daughter of the missing worker, and now working as a marine equipment manager on an old oil prospecting ship called Eclipse. After 3 weeks of preparation the new recruit sinks to the bottom of the sea when the equipment fails. Evidence suggests that it was not an accident and points at one of the crew as a saboteur. Crew members begin to turn up dead – one by one – their bodies viciously mutilated. To make matters worse, the ship is isolated in a typhoon. It is soon revealed that they’re all about to become food for a transparent underwater creature.” READ MORE
IFC Midnight – a distributor that is definitely in tune with what genre fans would call “films of interest” – has acquired U.S. rights to director Padraig Reynolds’ kidnapping thriller Rites of Spring, which stars genre faves AJ Bowen (The Signal, House of the Devil, A Horrible Way to Die, Hatchet 2) and Anessa Ramsey (YellowBrickRoad, The Signal). It also features creature design by Aaron Sims (A Nightmare on Elm Street: The Dream Child, Wrong Turn, The Mist, I Am Legend, Clash of the Titans, The Thing). Color me intrigued (whatever shade that is).
No release date has been announced yet. Judging from the trailer, which you can check out after the break, it looks like a killer scarecrow flick, but I could be way off-base.
In the film, “A group of kidnappers abduct the daughter of a wealthy socialite and hide out in an abandoned school on the edge of town. But feelings of guilt soon overtake the kidnappers, dividing the group and putting their entire plan in jeopardy. The evening further spirals out of control when their poorly chosen hideout becomes a hunting ground for a mysterious creature that requires springtime ritualistic sacrifices.” READ MORE
Chuck star Yvonne Strahovski, who also toplined the horrid The Canyon, is in final negotiations to join I, Frankenstein, the action monster movie starring Aaron Eckhart, writes Heat Vision. Miranda Otto, best known for playing Eowyn in The Lord of the Rings movies, also is on board.
Stuart Beattie is directing the Lakeshore/Lionsgate movie, which follows Frankenstein’s monster (Eckhart) vacillating between humanity and monsterdom while being pursued by demons wanting to gain the secret of his reanimated corpse.
Strahovski will play the female lead, a scientist working on reanimating the dead and tricked into working for demons seeking to create an army of the undead.
Otto is playing the queen of the gargoyles who wants to help Frankenstein.
Bill Nighy is already in negotiations to play the leader of the demons while Socratis Otto (no relation to Miranda) is his right hand man.
The movie, based on a comic by Kevin Grevioux, is due to shoot this winter in Australia.
Australian actress Otto also starred in the pilot for “Locke & Key”, which adapted the Joe Hill comic book. READ MORE
Premiering Saturday, Oct 22 at 12:00 PM (get tix here) at the Screamfest Film Festival in Hollywood, CA is Director Padraig Reynolds’ Rites of Spring, which stars genre faves AJ Bowen (The Signal, House of the Devil, A Horrible Way to Die, Hatchet 2) and Anessa Ramsey (YellowBrickRoad, The Signal).
Reynolds has supplied Bloody with a new look at the monster flick that had its creature designed by Aaron Sims (A Nightmare on Elm Street: The Dream Child, Wrong Turn, The Hills Have Eyes II , 30 Days of Night, The Mist, I Am Legend, Clash of the Titans, The Thing)! The clip features star Anessa Ramsey hiding from said creature.
In the film, “A group of kidnappers abduct the daughter of a wealthy socialite and hide out in an abandoned school on the edge of town. But feelings of guilt soon overtake the kidnappers, dividing the group and putting their entire plan in jeopardy. The evening further spirals out of control when their poorly chosen hideout becomes a hunting ground for a mysterious creature that requires springtime ritualistic sacrifices.”
READ MORE
World Exclusive: One of the most anticipated films premiering at this month’s Screamfest Film Festival in Hollywood, CA is Director Padraig Reynolds’ Rites of Spring, which stars genre faves AJ Bowen (The Signal, House of the Devil, A Horrible Way to Die, Hatchet 2) and Anessa Ramsey (YellowBrickRoad, The Signal).
Premiering Saturday, Oct 22 at 12:00 PM (get tix here), Bloody Disgusting has the world premiere of the trailer for the monster flick that had its creature designed by Aaron Sims (A Nightmare on Elm Street: The Dream Child, Wrong Turn, The Hills Have Eyes II , 30 Days of Night, The Mist, I Am Legend, Clash of the Titans, The Thing)! The trailer does not disappoint!
In the film, “A group of kidnappers abduct the daughter of a wealthy socialite and hide out in an abandoned school on the edge of town. But feelings of guilt soon overtake the kidnappers, dividing the group and putting their entire plan in jeopardy. The evening further spirals out of control when their poorly chosen hideout becomes a hunting ground for a mysterious creature that requires springtime ritualistic sacrifices.”
READ MORE
With images and trailers confirming an homage to James Cameron’s Aliens, a super clear monster image has made its way online from CJ Entertainment’s (The Host, Thirst, and many, many more) Korean creature feature Sector 7 (Mining Area 7) that echoes Ripley and the Queen Alien’s head-to-head battle.
Directed and produced by Kim Ji-hoon, the pic will be 3-D and is about a mutated creature runs amok in an oil prospecting ship. Ha Ji-won, who also starred in Youn’s disaster film Haeundae, will rejoin. Director Youn said that Mining Area 7 will be a Korean equivalent of the Alien films and the 3D visual will mainly be realized by converting, but considerable amount of footage will be shot in 3D from the beginning.
Check out the creature image inside!!
READ MORE
In an interview with the Daily Blam, Rosewood Lane director Victor Salva opened up about the long-gestured Jeepers Creepers 3: Cathedral, which is sounding more and more unlikely with each passing month/year.
“It has come close several times to going before cameras, and I hope someone sees the wisdom in shooting this, the third and final Creeper tale, I still can’t tell you what the fate of this third film will be,” said Salva sorta implying that he’s nixed the fourth film that was to shoot back-to-back.
“3D would absolutely devastate the script – since the added 2 to 3 million in production costs would strip the screenplay down to a point where it would be smaller in scale than the original ‘Jeepers Creepers,’ ” he added. “And then even that money dried up. I would say the film has been on and off the front burner at least nine times during the last few years.”
The film is said to take place 20 years after the last and would bring both Jonathan Breck and Ray Wise back into the mix.
READ MORE
Right before Super 8 hit theatres, a Drew Struzan-like poster for the film hit the web. It turned out to be fan-made, but it managed to capture Super 8‘s nostalgic whimsy pretty nicely and got a lot of attention.
When it was discovered that it was fake, I think a lot of people – myself included – wondered why the studio hadn’t made classic poster art for the Amblin flick and now we have an answer: they did.
According to Daniel Skubal, him and his girlfriend, Veronica LaPage, were asked by Bad Robot to come up with a poster design for the film, which sadly did not end up getting used – there doesn’t seem to be any sour grapes between the artists and the studio, though. You can read the full story here and check out the art after the break. While I like the two concept posters, I actually prefer the fan-made one (I mean, I guess these are technically fan-made, too). They’re very well done, but don’t capture the essence of the film and just seem like fully colored storyboards. That’s not the artists’ fault, though; they hadn’t seen the movie before they were asked to create them.
In the summer of 1979, a group of friends in a small Ohio town witness catastrophic train crash while making a super 8 movie and soon suspect that it was not an accident. Shortly after, unusual disappearances and inexplicable events begin to take place in town, and the local Deputy tries to uncover the truth – something more terrifying than any of them could have imagined.
READ MORE
Described as an homage to James Cameron’s Aliens, we’ve now received a second trailer for CJ Entertainment’s (The Host, Thirst, and many, many more) Korean creature feature Sector 7 (Mining Area 7), which scores the first look at the film’s monster!
Directed and produced by Kim Ji-hoon, the pic will be 3-D and is about a mutated creature runs amok in an oil prospecting ship. Ha Ji-won, who also starred in Youn’s disaster film Haeundae, will rejoin. Director Youn said that Mining Area 7 will be a Korean equivalent of the Alien films and the 3D visual will mainly be realized by converting, but considerable amount of footage will be shot in 3D from the beginning.
READ MORE
Here’s a story straight out of left field.
7-Eleven – who was exclusively selling Rocketpoppeteers Popsicles – has bonus footage (aka a deleted scene) from JJ Abrams’ Super 8 not seen by audiences in theaters.
The clip shows friends Joe (Joel Courtney), Charles (Riley Griffiths), and Cary (Ryan Lee) at their after school pitstop – 7-Eleven – discussing plans to shoot scenes for their super 8 movie.
Now in theaters, “In the summer of 1979, a group of friends in a small Ohio town witness catastrophic train crash while making a super 8 movie and soon suspect that it was not an accident. Shortly after, unusual disappearances and inexplicable events begin to take place in town, and the local Deputy tries to uncover the truth – something more terrifying than any of them could have imagined.”
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Being that it’s being described as an homage to James Cameron’s Aliens, I’m quite excited for CJ Entertainment’s (The Host, Thirst, and many, many more) Korean creature feature Sector 7 (Mining Area 7), which previously released a trailer that definitely has characteristics of Cameron’s epic sci-fi horror flick. Alongside the previous released imagery, a Korean website has now unloaded a trio of character posters that can be found inside. Hopefully it’ll premiere this year at one of the many forthcoming film festivals.
Directed and produced by Kim Ji-hoon, the pic will be 3-D and is about a mutated creature runs amok in an oil prospecting ship. Ha Ji-won, who also starred in Youn’s disaster film Haeundae, will rejoin. Director Youn said that Mining Area 7 will be a Korean equivalent of the Alien films and the 3D visual will mainly be realized by converting, but considerable amount of footage will be shot in 3D from the beginning.
READ MORE
Attempting to boost ticket sales, Paramount Pictures has leaked yet another video from J.J. Abrams’ Super 8 (review), his sci-fi horror adventure for the entire family.
The footage posted inside features a trip inside Area 51 where scientists experiment and dissect the creature. Spoiler warning? Let’s just say this clip is super, super sweet (with a candy shell).
“In the summer of 1979, a group of friends in a small Ohio town witness catastrophic train crash while making a super 8 movie and soon suspect that it was not an accident. Shortly after, unusual disappearances and inexplicable events begin to take place in town, and the local Deputy tries to uncover the truth – something more terrifying than any of them could have imagined.”
READ MORE
So much for eating my lunch.
Over the past few months we’ve been pointing you to the “editing room” hiding within the official website for Paramount Pictures’ Super 8 (review). There, clips were slowly being discovered and assembled to reveal some major secrets behind the J.J. Abrams-directed genre film.
After a tedious few months, inside you’ll now find the FULL, unedited footage that has just been declassified by the military, err Paramount. Be warned, there are some serious spoilers afoot.
“In the summer of 1979, a group of friends in a small Ohio town witness catastrophic train crash while making a super 8 movie and soon suspect that it was not an accident. Shortly after, unusual disappearances and inexplicable events begin to take place in town, and the local Deputy tries to uncover the truth – something more terrifying than any of them could have imagined. ”
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One of the most anticipated films of the summer is writer/director J.J. Abrams’ Super 8 (review), about a small Ohio town in 1979 that suffers a rash of bizarre occurrences following an explosive train crash nearby.
In anticipation of the release of the movie – which was produced by Steven Spielberg’s Amblin Entertainment and in many ways harkens back to the likes of early Amblin-backed films like E.T. and The Goonies – B-D’s Chris Eggertsen recently had the opportunity to attend a press roundtable with Abrams to get his take on the film, which comes out in theaters everywhere this Friday. Check out the full story inside.
JJ Abrams’ Super 8 is only days away from starting its theatrical run, and the reviews have been nothing short of phenomenal so far. There’s really nothing like seeing that Amblin logo float across the screen and then have the film make good on it. It has a great Goonies-like group of rambunctious adolscents thrust into this situation they can’t control as it completely reshapes their personalities and becomes the defining moment in their formative years. Like I said, it does the Amblin name proud.
A new poster hit the web today, courtesy of Cine1, featuring a montage with most of the central characters and several pivotal moments. Check out the poster art after the break, which is a breath of fresh air in an age full of crappy photoshopped ads.
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