Editorials
2011 HORROR MOVIE PREVIEW: VARIOUS FILMS
My favorite of the preview pieces is always the random studio releases. This year there are so many crazy films getting limited releases, courtesy to IFC Films and Magnet Releasing/Magnolia Pictures. Then we’ve got Mother’s Day and the remake of Fright Night from other studios, not to mention 11-11-11, The Troll Hunters, A Horrible Way to Die, The Howling Reborn and MANY more! What are you most excited for?
–VARIOUS FILMS 2011 HORROR MOVIE PREVIEW–
PARAMOUNT / UNIVERSAL / DIMENSION / RELATIVITY / VARIOUS
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Dates Subject to Change
When a massive power blackout causes the population to inexplicably vanish, a small handful of survivors (Hayden Christensen, Thandie Newton, John Leguizamo) band together inside a desolate tavern struggling to survive as the darkness hones in on them. From director Brad Anderson (Session 9, The Machinist, Transsiberian) comes an apocalyptic thriller with a terrifying vision of our world’s end and a story that wrestles with the nature of existence itself.
Medieval England has fallen under the shadow of The Black Death. In this apocalyptic world, filled with fear and superstition, a young monk called Osmund is charged with leading a fearsome knight, Ulric (Sean Bean) and his group of mercenaries to a remote marsh. Their quest is to hunt down a necromancer – someone able to bring the dead back to life. Torn between his love of God and the love of a young woman, Osmund discovers the necromancer, a mysterious beauty called Langiva. After Langiva reveals her Satanic identity and offers Osmund his heart’s desire, the horror of his real journey begins….
When a spell is cast on a handsome egocentric young man (Alex Pettyfer) that physically transforms him into everything he despises, he has one year to find a young woman (Vanessa Hudgens) who will love him despite his hideous form or the spell will last forever.
Hilary Swank plays a doctor who moves into a Brooklyn loft. Becoming suspicious that she’s not alone in her new home, she discovers her landlord is a stalker.
From Saw II-IV director Darren Lynn Bousman, three brothers on the run from the law head for home, only to discover that their mother lost the house in a foreclosure. Mother ingeniously orchestrates her sons’ escape, teaching the house’s new owners and their guests a few lessons along the way.
Described as an origin story, Apes is set in present day San Francisco and deals with the aftermath of man’s experiments with genetic engineering that lead to the development of intelligence in apes and the onset of a war for supremacy. Franco will play a driven scientist who becomes a crucial figure in the war between humans and apes.
Senior Charlie Brewster (Anton Yelchin) finally has it all going on: he’s running with the popular crowd and dating the most coveted girl in his high school. In fact, he’s so cool he’s even dissing his best friend. But trouble arrives when Jerry (Colin Farrell) moves in next door. He seems like a great guy at first, but there’s something not quite right–but everyone, including Charlie’s mom (Toni Collette), doesn’t notice. After observing some very strange activity, Charlie comes to an unmistakable conclusion: Jerry is a vampire preying on the neighborhood. Unable to convince anyone, Charlie has to find a way to get rid of the monster himself in this Craig Gillespie-helmed revamp of the comedy-horror classic.
From Saw II-IV director Darren Lynn Bousman, on 11-11-11 a gateway will open and something from another world will pass into ours.
42 high school students are forced to kill each other on an uninhabited island.
Sarah is starting life over. After her last relationship ended with a revelation that sent her boyfriend, Garrick, to a life sentence in prison, Sarah had no choice but to leave her past behind. Now that she’s been relocated to a small town and given a new identity, Sarah’s embracing the opportunity to start life fresh. Unfortunately for Sarah, the past won’t let go. Garrick escapes prison and discovers Sarah’s new location, then blazes a violent trail across the country to track her down and disrupt her seemingly perfect new life.
When the lights go down … The Moon will rise … And a Legend will be REBORN. On the eve of his high school graduation, unremarkable Will Kidman finally bonds with the girl he has long yearned for, reclusive Eliana Wynter. But he also discovers a dark secret from his past… that he is about to become a werewolf. Now, in an effort to fight destiny and save their love as well as their lives, they must battle not only Will’s growing blood lust but an army of fearsome beasts bent on killing them… and then, us all.
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.
Shot in a vérité style, The Troll Hunter is the story of a group of Norwegian film students that set out to capture real-life trolls on camera after learning their existence has been covered up for years by a government conspiracy. A thrilling and wildly entertaining film, Hunter is said to deliver truly fantastic images of giant trolls wreaking havoc on the countryside, with darkly funny adherence to the original Norwegian folklore.
One family left destitute when her father and leader, from the time his three sons and his widow facing a storm. The four will have to face him his worst nightmare: getting food into their own hands. Continue with its rituals is vital to eat human flesh to survive. Now, by decree, the eldest brother, a teenage misfit, must lead his people to preserve their cannibalistic tradition, unaware that, in the attempt, will have to sacrifice their own lives.
A 12-person centipede. The only information IFC Films and the producers are revealing is that this time there is a new villain on the scene named Martin, and that the premise is 100% medically inaccurate!
Cheng Lai-sheung, a young, upwardly mobile professional finally ready to invest in her first home. But when the deal falls through, she is forced to keep her dream alive — even if it means keeping her would-be neighbors dead. Pang Ho-Cheung’s disturbingly imaginative violence unfolds against a backdrop of lifestyle fetishization and the housing market crisis in this metropolitan spin on Guignol horror.
A group of kids encounter a crazed preacher (based on Fred Phelps, founder of the Westboro Baptist Church) who gives a whole new meaning to the term “extreme fundamentalism.
Sally Hurst (Bailee Madison), a lonely, withdrawn child, has just arrived in Rhode Island to live with her father Alex (Guy Pearce) and his new girlfriend Kim (Katie Holmes) at the 19th-century mansion they are restoring. While exploring the sprawling estate, the young girl discovers a hidden basement, undisturbed since the strange disappearance of the mansion’s builder a century ago. When Sally unwittingly lets loose a race of ancient, dark-dwelling creatures who conspire to drag her down into the mysterious house’s bottomless depths, she must convince Alex and Kim that it’s not a fantasy–before the evil lurking in the dark consumes them all.
An American Werewolf in London director John Landis’ Burke & Hare is a comedic take on the true story of the 1828 Edinburgh body-snatchers William Burke (Simon Pegg) and William Hare (Andy Serkis). These two Irish entrepreneurs discover that a dead body can fetch a hefty price when the demands of the leading medical professors Dr. Knox (Tom Wilkinson) and Dr. Monroe (Tim Curry) reach beyond that of the local supply.
The Woman in Black follows a young lawyer, Arthur Kipps, who is ordered to travel to a remote village and sort out a recently deceased client’s papers. As he works alone in the client’s isolated house, Kipps begins to uncover tragic secrets, and his unease grows when he glimpses a mysterious woman dressed only in black.
Milosh, a retired porn star, now leads a normal family life with his beautiful wife Maria and six year-old son Petar, in tumultuous Serbia, trying to make ends meet. A sudden call from his former colleague Laylah will change everything. Aware of his financial problems, Laylah introduces Milosh to Vukmir – mysterious, menacing and politically powerful figure. A leading role in Vukmir’s new production will provide financial support to Milosh and his family for the rest of their lives. Milosh is hesitant at first because the contract insists that he know nothing about the script before they shoot. But finally, he agrees. From then on, Milosh is drawn into a maelstrom of unbelievable cruelty and mayhem devised by his employer, ”the director” of his destiny – Vukmir, relentless in his attempt to make an ultimate artistic porn film. Vukmir and his cohorts will stop at nothing to complete his vision. In order to escape the living cinematic hell he’s put into and save his family life, Milosh will have to sacrifice everything – his pride, his morality, his sanity, and maybe even his own life.
The pic is centered around the final two employees working in a haunted hotel before it goes out of business. After over one hundred years in business, The Yankee Pedlar Hotel is about to close its doors for good. The last remaining clerks, Claire (Sara Paxton), a twenty something that has come to terms with her lot in life, and Luke (Pat Healy), a computer-smart loner, are convinced that the hotel is haunted and are determined to prove it. As time ticks down to the final days of operation, mysterious guests check in including Leanne Rease-Jones (Kelly McGillis), a former TV actress turned psychic, and an old man insistent on staying in room 353. As several strange occurrences begin to add up, both Claire and Luke must make the crucial decision on what to believe and what not to believe…
Shortly after moving into their ideal new home, a couple grows concerned when their young daughter begins encountering mysterious strangers that no one else can see. The couple’s greatest fear is realized when they themselves begin to witness terrifying phenomena in and around the house, providing clues that could unlock a chilling mystery that has remained a closely guarded secret for generations.
Judging from the unprecedented box office success of Kane Parsons’ Backrooms adaptation, you’ve likely already seen the liminal horror hit that managed to make audiences afraid of empty hallways and bad wallpaper. And now that so many of us have already entered the yellow labyrinth (some of us more than once), the time has come to discuss the spoiler-filled details that make the movie so fascinating in the first place.
And if there’s one element here that makes the Backrooms movie stand out from any previous lore/mythology, it has to be the genius addition of the Still Life entities. Warped recreations of real people that somehow wandered into the Complex, these misremembered creatures are responsible for some of the most disturbing imagery of 2026 – as well as laugh-out-loud memes created by one of the film’s very own concept artists.
However, true to Parsons’ word that the movie would rely heavily on practical effects, each of these distorted monsters was brought to life by real actors under heavy layers of makeup and prosthetics (with the occasional splash of CGI enhancements). While Anora and If I Had Legs I’d Kick You actress Ivy Wolk wasn’t among these performers, despite what Letterboxd might have you believe, the creature cast did benefit from veteran players with plenty of genre experience.
For starters, Alien: Romulus alumni Robert Bobroczkyi (who previously brought that film’s horrific Offspring to life during its most memorable sequence) plays the flick’s main antagonist, the Still Life version of Captain Clark. And though there was some obvious CGI involved in making the character’s peg-leg and nightmarish face more believable, Bobroczkyi’s monstrous performance and his natural 7’7″ frame helped to make that final chase sequence a clear highlight among this year’s genre offerings.
The film’s Texas-Chain-Saw-inspired “dinner” scene also features a freaky collection of less-aggressive Still Life creatures in the form of the Bearded Man, the Red-Headed Woman and, strangest of them all, the cheekily named “Archibald Leland Sutter Still Life” (who earned this title among fans and crewmembers as a reference to his apparent affinity for lamps).
While this was the first major horror outing for both Patrick Baynham (The Bearded Man) and Dana Mahmood (Archibald), Rhiannon Roberts has worked as a stunt performer in everything from Yellowjackets to HBO’s The Last of Us adaptation – which is probably why The Red-Headed Woman is the most active out of Clark’s impromptu “family.” That being said, the Archibald Leland Sutter Still Life is my personal favorite of the bunch simply because his anachronistic outfit suggests that the Backrooms phenomenon might be a lot older than the Async Foundation. I also love how hard he tries to be helpful with that little light of his!
That might be it for the Still Life entities, but I think horror fans will also be pleased to hear that the film’s Found Footage prologue stars none other than Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City star Avan Jogia as Naren Warne – and American Mary herself Katharine Isabelle also shows up in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cameo at Mary’s house party towards the middle of the story (though I have a feeling that she originally had a bigger part that was likely cut for time).
At the end of the day, Parsons’ Backrooms may have been an auteur-driven project motivated by the young director’s unique take on the classic creepypasta, but film has always been a collective artform, so it’s fun to see just how many talented performers it takes to bring this kind of supernatural nightmare to life in a way that connects with so many people.
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