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Interview

Sundance ’11 Interview: ‘Vampire’ Director Iwai Shunji

Movies
Posted by Chris Eggertsen on February 01, 2011 @ 5:58pm
Category: Movies / Interviews

Debuting at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival was Japanese director Iwai Shunji’s Vampire (review), a film about a young schoolteacher (Kevin Zegers) who develops a taste for human blood and seeks out suicidal women in online chat rooms in order to quench his unconventional thirst. B-D reporter Chris Eggertsen recently chatted via email with Shunji about the low-key movie, which veers away from the usual cinematic vampire clichés to give viewers a de-romanticized perspective on the bloodsucker sub-genre. See inside for the full interview.
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Kevin Smith to Trim ‘Red State’ for Theatrical Tour

Movies
Posted by MrDisgusting on January 31, 2011 @ 9:45pm
Category: Movies / News

Ryan Daley was one of the first ever to catch Kevin Smith’s Red State when it premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. He wasn’t a fan. While not hating the movie, he thought it moved too far away from horror and focused too much attention on hefty dialogue. Maybe Smith agrees?

During a podcast interview with the Kevin and Josh Movie Show, Smith revealed he plans on removing nearly 10 minutes of footage before taking it on the road March 5. You’ll find a taste of the interview inside.
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Sundance ’11 REVIEW: Enter a First-Person ‘Jurassic Park’ With ‘The Troll Hunter’!

Movies
Posted by MrDisgusting on January 28, 2011 @ 4:39pm
Category: Movies / News

Said to be getting a theatrical run and VOD release this coming June from Magnet, Bloody Disgusting scored an early look at the Norwegian creature feature The Troll Hunter, which premiered this past weekend at the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah. Just how good was it? How about crazy awesome!?

“With all of the troll roaring, people chasing, and mythological elements, ‘The Troll Hunter’ is easily the ‘Jurassic Park’ of first-person horror.”

You can click the title above for the full review or catch up on all of our previous Sundance Film Festival reviews, interviews and news here.

Sundance 11 REVIEW: Enter a First Person Jurassic Park With The Troll Hunter!

Movies
Posted by Ryan Daley on January 28, 2011 @ 4:30pm
Category: Movies / News

One of my top 10 films of 2010 was Kim Jee-woon’s I Saw the Devil, which opens in limited theaters March 4 from Magnet Releasing.

A hard-boiled thriller, I Saw The Devil stars Choi Min-sik (Oldboy) as a psychopathic serial killer up against Lee Byung-hun as a special agent whose fiancée becomes one of his victims. Lee’s cool-headed and intelligent character in turn becomes a monster in order to avenge the killing.

Ryan Daley has chimed in with a review of his own and can be read by going beyond the break. Just how good is this thriller? Read on to find out. Don’t forget to catch up on all of our previous Sundance Film Festival reviews, interviews and news here.
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Sundance ’11 REVIEW: ‘Vampire’ Turns Ryan White With Boredom

Movies
Posted by MrDisgusting on January 28, 2011 @ 4:30pm
Category: Movies / News

Sliding under the radar during most of production was Iwai Shunji’s Japanese Vampire, which just premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. The film drained Ryan Daley of all energy.

“The ingredients for a ‘Martin’-like cult classic are certainly present…but this is one of those movies that inexplicably abandons compelling subplots in favor of boring ones. ‘Vampire’ is too self-indulgent to be taken seriously. It’s a film with a complete disregard for its audience.”

You can click the title above for the full review or catch up on all of our previous Sundance Film Festival reviews, interviews and news here.

Interview

Sundance ’11 Interview: ‘The Silent House’ Team Chris Kentis & Laura Lau!

Movies
Posted by Chris Eggertsen on January 26, 2011 @ 3:54pm
Category: Movies / Interviews

Just barely sliding into Sundance this year is the Laura Lau/Chris Kentis horror flick The Silent House (review), a last-minute addition that follows a young woman’s night of terror as she travels with her father and uncle to the family’s isolated summer home and comes to discover they’re not alone. Lau and Kentis, the husband-and-wife duo behind 2004 hit Open Water, based the story on the recent Uruguayan film La casa muda, duplicating that movie’s amazing – though not unprecedented – feat of being filmed entirely in one continuous take. B-D reporter Chris Eggertsen recently got on the phone with the couple to discuss the project’s astonishingly quick journey to the screen, the formidable challenge of shooting it all in one go, and working with star Elizabeth Olsen (the younger sister of Mary-Kate and Ashley). See inside for the full interview.

Sundance 11 Interview: The Silent House Team Chris Kentis & Laura Lau!

Movies
Posted by MrDisgusting on January 25, 2011 @ 6:37pm
Category: Movies / News

I wanted to start unrolling Ryan Daley’s Sundance Film Festival reviews tomorrow, but you guys have been clamoring for Bloody Disgusting’s official stance on Kevin Smith’s Red State. And for those of you expecting a biased review from a Smith hater, let it be known that Daley is a huge fan.

“‘Red State’ isn`t particularly fun to watch with a group. In fact, it`s not particularly fun at all. Perhaps if the horror aspects had been more prominent, instead of repeatedly shoved to the background in favor of heavy wads of dialogue, Smith would have had a future cult hit on his hands.”

To read Daley’s entire review all you have to do is click the title above. Watch for all of the reviews in the coming days, but until then catch up on all of our Sundance coverage.

Sundance 11 REVIEW: Kevin Smiths Red State is Dull

Interview

Sundance ’11 Interview: Lucky McKee Talks ‘The Woman’

Movies
Posted by Chris Eggertsen on January 25, 2011 @ 4:03pm
Category: Movies / Interviews

Amazingly, it’s been nearly ten years since director Lucky McKee first made a name for himself with the quirky character-based horror film May, which debuted at the Sundance Film Festival way back in 2002. McKee’s latest project is The Woman, a sequel to the 2009 Andrew van den Houten-directed cannibal horror movie that was based on the book of the same title by cult novelist Jack Ketchum. Adapted from a recent follow-up novel written by McKee and Ketchum in a to-die-for-collaboration, The Woman premieres at Sundance next week and looks poised to rattle our collective cages in its story of “disturbed family man” Christopher Cleek (Sean Bridgers) who captures the last surviving member of the cannibal clan and in the process endangers the lives of himself and his family. McKee recently took time out for an interview with B-D reporter Chris Eggertsen to talk about the project, including reuniting with Bettis, what it was like teaming up with renowned “splatter punk” novelist Ketchum, and whether the nerve-wracking Sundance experience ever gets any easier. See inside for the full interview.
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Sundance ’11 VIDEO: Lucky McKee’s ‘The Woman’ Causes Outrage!

Movies
Posted by MrDisgusting on January 24, 2011 @ 8:51pm
Category: Movies / News

East coast writer John Marrone just emailed me an amazing video from the halls of the Sundance Film Festival premiere of The Woman, Luck McKee’s Offspring sequel that follows a successful country lawyer who captures and attempts to “civilize” the last remaining member of a violent clan that has roamed the Northeast coast for decades. In the video you will see a theatergoer absolute lose his sh*t over the film: “This is not art, this is bullsh*t, this is degradation to women,” he screams adding that “the film outta be confiscated, burned; theres no value is showing this to anyone.” He then points to a woman and exclaims, “Did you see this woman? She passed out over disgust!” Classic!!!! What a drama queen LOLOL!
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Sundance ’11: The Night After: The Debacle That is ‘Red State’

Movies
Posted by MrDisgusting on January 24, 2011 @ 8:14pm
Category: Movies / News

When will the balloon pop? Writer/director Kevin Smith’s ego has been inflating at such a rapid rate it’s only a matter of time until it bursts. The madness started when Smith suggested asking fans to fund his indie film – one which Smith openly admitted would be a tough sell – and then took to Twitter attacking journalists, critics and other forms of media. He’s basically stood on a rooftop and declared himself king, and all of us jesters. Why? Because he’s built a following around himself of ass-kisser and super fans who would buy a dried out piece of Smith-poop if it was auctioned off during a Smodcast. Anyways, last night Smith auctioned off his indie political horror Red State in a sad publicity stunt to himself, while also making bold statements about the state of independent cinema. I was laying in bed reflecting on this (it slowly dawned on me he was F.O.S.) and was happy to stumble across this fantastic rant – “Kevin Smith Isn’t Saving Indie Film, He’s Spitting In Its Face” – by Devin Faraci at Badass Digest. Inside you can watch the “auction” and listen to Smith’s perception on the matter, then go forth and read what Faraci had to say. He couldn’t have summed it up better.
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‘Hobo’ Director Discusses His Next Project – A Blood-Drenched Martial Arts Movie!

Movies
Posted by Chris Eggertsen on January 24, 2011 @ 4:38am
Category: Movies / News

While his feature debut Hobo with a Shotgun is playing to mostly positive reviews over at this week’s Sundance Film Festival, director Jason Eisener is already eyeing his next project – a bloody martial arts film that he hopes to make in the spirit of the gory classic 1991 Hong Kong film Riki-Oh: The Story of Ricky (one of the bloodiest films ever made!) Get the skinny inside!
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Interview

Sundance ’11 Interview: Jason Eisener on His Grindhouse-Inspired ‘Hobo With a Shotgun’!

Movies
Posted by Chris Eggertsen on January 24, 2011 @ 4:26am
Category: Movies / Interviews

For those who enjoyed director Jason Eisener’s award-winning faux-trailer Hobo with a Shotgun, not to mention his later blood-drenched short film “Treevenge”, you can thank your lucky stars because the feature-length version of Hobo – starring Rutger Hauer, no less! – will be coming soon to a theater or cable box near you, courtesy of genre distributor Magnet Releasing. B-D reporter Chris Eggertsen recently got on the phone with the Nova Scotia-based director to get his thoughts on the Sundance-premiering project’s unlikely rise, including what it was like to work with screen legend Rutger Hauer, how much gore we can expect in the film (answer: tons), and his ’70s and ’80s filmmaking inspirations. See inside for the full interview.
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Sundance ’11: Kevin Smith Purchases ‘Red State’ for $20, Road Show Dates!

Movies
Posted by MrDisgusting on January 24, 2011 @ 3:53am
Category: Movies / News

Updated with theatrical road show dates inside. Some interesting news out of the Sundance Film Festival world premiere of Kevin Smith’s Red State, his political horror film that follows a group of kids who encounter a crazed preacher who gives a whole new meaning to the term “extreme fundamentalism.” After kick-starting the screening with the widely publicized double protest, the screening was set to end with a live auction straight from the Eccles theater in Park City, Utah. In a shocker(?) Kevin Smith bought his own movie for $20 and will release it solo via his Smodcast Pictures Banner on October 19. Leading up to the release, Smith will take the pic on a road tour this coming March. As much as Smith turns my stomach these days, I have to say this is a quite impressive plan of action where he’s made a film FOR his fans that he’ll bring directly to them. Know your audience and cater to them. While this is nothing new per se (Repo! The Genetic Opera), could the man who began his career with the indie Clerks be the one to put a fresh spin on the old-school indie scene? This could prove to be quite interesting.
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Interview

Sundance ’11 Interview: ‘Catechism Cataclysm’ Director Todd Rohal

Movies
Posted by Chris Eggertsen on January 23, 2011 @ 6:29pm
Category: Movies / Interviews

One of the films premiering in the genre-friendly Park City at Midnight section of the Sundance Film Festival this year is directorTodd Rohal’s Catechism Cataclysm, a quirky buddy comedy/horror flick/absurd mash-up that tells the story of an “eccentric young priest” (Steve Little) and his ex-rock star childhood friend (Robert Longstreet) who embark on an ill-fated canoeing trip. B-D reporter Chris Eggertsen recently got on the phone with Rohal to discuss the hard-to-pin-down film, which according to the director was partially inspired (tonally, at least) by both Deliverance and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. (!) See inside for the full interview.
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Sundance ’11: Watch the Full Short Film ‘Something Left, Something Taken’!

Movies
Posted by MrDisgusting on January 23, 2011 @ 6:04pm
Category: Movies / News

Can’t make it to Sundance for your true crime fix? No worries. Bloody Disgusting festival reporter Corey Mitchell has posted the entire awesome short film, Something Left, Something Taken, from animators Ru Kuwahata and Max Porter. It’s the story of a couple named Ru and Max who go on vacation to visit a friend and believe they have been kidnapped by the Zodiac Killer. Ryan Daley is on hand at the festival preparing an onslaught of reviews, while Chris Eggertsen has been sending in the interviews. As always, Bloody Disgusting has got you covered!
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Interview

Sundance ’11 Interview: ‘The Oregonian’ Star Lindsay Pulsipher

Movies
Posted by Chris Eggertsen on January 23, 2011 @ 5:34pm
Category: Movies / Interviews

Actress Lindsay Pulsipher’s first brush with horror was in Calvin Reeder’s (interview) short film Piledriver, about a sweet romance that develops between a young couple before things take a macabre turn. She went on to appear in a series of Reeder’s increasingly bizarre shorts, including the infamous Little Farm and The Rambler, before landing a regular role first as “Rose Lawrence” on A&E Patrick Swayze series The Beast and later HBO’s True Blood as “were-panther” Crystal Norris. Pulsipher reunites once again with boyfriend Reeder for his solo feature debut The Oregonian, one of the most exciting horror entries premiering at this year’s Sundance Film Festival and destined to prove just as outlandish as his previous work. In the film Pulsipher plays the title character, a young woman running from her past whose involvement in a terrible car accident kicks off a strange journey into the unknown. See inside for the full interview.
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Sundance ’11: A Trio of Blood-Draining ‘Vampire’ Clips

Movies
Posted by MrDisgusting on January 23, 2011 @ 5:24pm
Category: Movies / News

While no trailer is available, inside you’ll find three clips from Iwai Shunji’s Vampire, which premieres at the ongoing Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah. In the Japanese film, Kevin Zegers plays a schoolteacher with a taste for human blood, who searches for suicidal young women as his victims; all of whom he falls in love with before their deaths.
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Interview

Sundance ’11 Interview: Festival Darling/’King of Weird’ Robert Longstreet

Movies
Posted by Chris Eggertsen on January 21, 2011 @ 6:54pm
Category: Movies / Interviews

Mainstream filmgoers may not be familiar with actor Robert Longstreet, but hopefully for him that will change after this year’s Sundance, where he’s appearing in four different movies screening in the festival’s Park City at Midnight section: Michael Tully’s Septien, Todd Rohal’s Catechism Cataclysm, Calvin Reeder’s The Oregonian, and Jeff Nichols’ Take Shelter. Needless to say, he and B-D reporter Chris Eggertsen had a lot to talk about when they hopped on the phone to discuss these myriad projects, and you can check out the full interview inside (helpfully broken up into sections for those only interested in certain films).
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Sundance ’11: Trailer Debut for Comedy ‘Septien’

Movies
Posted by MrDisgusting on January 21, 2011 @ 1:02am
Category: Movies / News

This Friday IFC will release Michael Tully’s (exclusive interview) horror comedy Septien on VOD in conjunction with the Sundance Film Festival’s premiere (full details and images). While we’re told it’s really not THAT horror, we’ve already pushed it this far, so you might as well dig on the official festival trailer that just premiered online. The pic follows a reclusive sports hustler returns home to his family farm after years of absence to reunite with his two eccentric, unhinged and emotionally damaged brothers.
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Interview

Sundance ’11 Interview: Calvin Reader on the Ultra-Hyped ‘The Oregonian’

Movies
Posted by Chris Eggertsen on January 20, 2011 @ 7:10pm
Category: Movies / Interviews

Out of the dozen or so horror films premiering at Sundance this year, one of our most highly-anticipated is director Calvin Reeder’s The Oregonian, a macabre story about a lost young woman who “enters the unknown” after being involved in a horrific car accident. B-D reporter Chris Eggertsen recently got on the phone with Reeder – the director of several fantastic short films including blood-soaked mini-classics like Little Farm and The Rambler – to discuss his latest invention, which features his actress girlfriend and frequent collaborator Linsday Pulsipher (True Blood) in the title role. During the lengthy interview the idiosyncratic director discusses his filmmaker influences, claims he has no interest in going digital, and even asserts that he doesn’t consider any of his movies to be a part of the horror genre at all. Get the full story inside.
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Interview

Sundance ’11 Interview: ‘Septien’ Director Michael Tully

Movies
Posted by Chris Eggertsen on January 19, 2011 @ 8:46pm
Category: Movies / Interviews

Debuting simultaneously at the Sundance Film Festival and on VOD this week, writer/director Michael Tully’s Septien is the dark, quirky story of a reclusive sports hustler who returns to the family farm after 18 years and reunites with his two emotionally damaged brothers. B-D reporter Chris Eggertsen recently got on the phone with Tully to discuss the film’s journey from bizarre conceit to fully-fleshed out Sundance entry (with a pre-fest distribution deal!), why he purposefully conceived it to alienate the majority of the moviegoing public, and how the little-known 1974 made-for-TV oddity ‘Bad Ronald’ served as one of his major influences. See inside for the full story.
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Sundance ’11: Grindhouse-esque ‘Hobo With a Shotgun’ One Sheet

Movies
Posted by MrDisgusting on January 15, 2011 @ 11:46pm
Category: Movies / News

After winning the short film competition back in 2007 for Grindhouse, Jason Eisener is already heading to Sundance with Hobo With a Shotgun, which has been accepted into the “Park City at Midngiht” portion of the Sundance Film Festival, taking place January 20-30 in Park City, Utah. Starring Rutger Hauer, a hobo hops from a train with dreams of a fresh life in a new city, but instead finds himself trapped in an urban hell. When he witnesses a brutal robbery, he realizes the only way to deliver justice is with a shotgun in his hands and two shells in the chamber. The trailer was AWESOME, now dig on a sweet new one sheet made for the festival.
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Sundance ’11: Blood-Soaked ‘I Saw the Devil’ One Sheet

Movies
Posted by MrDisgusting on January 14, 2011 @ 10:50pm
Category: Movies / News

Included in my top 10 of 2010 was Kim Jee-woon’s masterful I Saw the Devil (review), the Korean serial killer thriller that I caught uncut at this past September’s Toronto International Film Festival. Magnolia Pictures acquired the film for release this year, and will let Sundance audience get a taste of the gore this month. The boys at AICN scored an exclusive look at the official one sheet that asks you to “Abandon all compassion.” Don’t you even think about missing this when it hits VOD/theaters/DVD/Blu-ray.
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Sundance ’11: Meet Crazy Clan Member Mordechai in Latest ‘Red State’ Poster

Movies
Posted by MrDisgusting on January 12, 2011 @ 3:37pm
Category: Movies / News

Spinoff Online bid $850 to South East Queensland flood relief cause in less than 30 minutes in order to receive the chance to premiere the latest dumping looking Red State poster, this time featuring James Parks as “Mordechai”, one of the crazy clan members. Premiering this month at the Sundance Film Festival, Kevin Smith’s Red State is a horror film in which a group of misfits encounter fundamentalism gone to the extreme in Middle America.
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