Movies
‘Ghoul’ Haunts Foreign Box Office (Trailer)
Ghoul, a supernatural thriller/horror film from Czech actor and filmmaker Petr Jákl, broke box office records this past weekend, raking in the highest opening for a horror film ever in the Czech Republic and its U.S. premiere is just weeks away.
In the Czech Republic, Ghoul has already surpassed ticket sales for previously released horror films like Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones (2014), Insidious: Chapter 2 (2013), Maniac (2012), The Exorcism of Emily Rose (2005) and Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning (2006).
Shot on location in Ukraine, Ghoul is a blend of fact and fiction.
Ghoul follows a group of broke fictional American documentary filmmakers traveling to Ukraine to report on the real-life Andrei Romanovich Chikatilo, known as the Rostov Ripper. Chikatilo terrorized more than 50 young victims in the late 70s and 80s and then ate parts of their bodies. He was executed in 1994.
Weaving in real archive video, the movie also follows the documentary filmmakers as they investigate how cannibalism swept through Ukraine during the notorious famine of 1932. After being lead deep into the vast Ukrainian forest for an interview with one of the last known survivors of the cannibalism epidemic, they are plagued with a series of unexplainable supernatural encounters and come face-to-face with the evil spirit of Chikatilo, who was born in the Soviet Union and was the most violent serial killer and cannibal of all time.
The film opens in Los Angeles and New York on March 20.
Before updating the video nasty Faces of Death, director Daniel Goldhaber and writer Isa Mazzei explored the dangers of online life in tech-thriller Cam, their feature debut that was acquired by Netflix in 2018 after making waves on the festival circuit.
At the end of last year, the Netflix exclusive quietly departed from the streaming platform, left without another streaming home.
It’s not an isolated story; Mike Flanagan’s Hush also left streaming entirely for a period until it was finally picked up on both physical media and other streaming services.
While the tech-thriller currently isn’t available to watch on Netflix, Tubi, Hulu, or any other platforms, that’s not a problem for Cam thanks to a very cool move by Goldhaber: the director has made his breakout film accessible to watch online for free via his website.
As his site notes: “CAM is unfortunately not currently available to view on any platforms, so you can watch it here if you like :).“
No subscriptions or fees necessary, just hit play.
Cam follows Alice (Madeline Brewer), who works as an online cam girl obsessed with her ranking on the cam site. The higher her ranking goes, the more it draws unwanted attention, and Alice soon finds herself replaced on her own show with a doppelganger.
Written by Mazzei, a former camgirl, it uses the horror thriller premise to examine the life of a sex worker; Alice’s career ambition is directly at odds with the shame it brings to her family, and how she tries to spare them from it by keeping them in the dark. It only compounds her danger when the doppelganger enters the equation in Goldhaber’s engaging thriller.
For a deep dive into the treacherous world of Cam, listen to Horror Queers’ episode on it now.
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