Movies
New Casting Call for ‘Halloween’ Suggests Return to Iconic Location
Speculation is always fun, and the latest casting call for David Gordon Green’s now-filming Halloween sure leaves room for some of that healthy speculation.
Via Project Casting, the production is seeking actors to play “criminally insane patients” for the shoot this Friday; specifically, “1 African American and Hispanic Male.”
What we can glean from this casting call is that the new film will *potentially* return us to Smith’s Grove Sanitarium, an iconic location from the original Halloween film. That’s of course where Michael Myers was housed in the wake of killing his sister as a child, and where he escaped from before going on his Halloween night killing spree.
Smith’s Grove Sanitarium is also where Michael and Dr. Loomis met. Will we be seeing Dr. Loomis in the film? We wouldn’t count on it. After all, it takes place 40 years after the original Halloween, so it’s pretty safe to assume Loomis is no longer with us!
Jamie Lee Curtis is back as Laurie Strode in this year’s Halloween, which will take place after the original classic and disregard *all* of the sequels. Judy Greer has been cast to play Karen Strode, Laurie’s daughter, while Andi Matichak recently landed the coveted role of the film’s young lead (daughter to Greer and granddaughter to Curtis).
The cast also includes Virginia “Ginny” Gardner (Project Almanac, Marvel’s “Runaways”), Miles Robbins (Mozart in the Jungle, My Friend Dahmer), Dylan Arnold (Mudbound, Laggies, When We Rise), and Drew Scheid (“Stranger Things”, The War with Grandpa). They will be playing the friends of Matichak’s Allyson.
Nick Castle will return to the role of Michael Myers, while stunt performer and actor James Jude Courtney has also been cast to play Myers!
Will Patton (Armageddon) has been cast to play a cop.
In Halloween, co-written by Danny McBride, “Laurie Strode comes to her final confrontation with Michael Myers, the masked figure who has haunted her since she narrowly escaped his killing spree on Halloween night four decades ago.”
Michael returns home on October 19, 2018.
Movies
‘Herbert West: Reanimator’ First Look Introduces Contemporary H.P. Lovecraft Reimagining
A contemporary reimagining of H.P. Lovecraft’s short story Herbert West: Reanimator is on the way, and Deadline has unveiled the first look at the new Herbert West and the pathologist drawn to his orbit.
Adam Simon (The Haunting in Connecticut, “Salem”) and Tim Metcalfe (The Haunting in Connecticut, Kalifornia) penned the script. The original screenplay and storyline come from Jade Sandberg Wallace.
Michael Grossman (“The Originals”, “Pretty Little Liars”) directs.
The new images introduce star Joseph Morgan (“Vampire Diaries“), who plays “brilliant surgeon and scientist Herbert West, who is obsessed with creating a serum to reanimate the dead.” Katie Cassidy (Speed Demon) stars opposite as the pathologist with a troubled past who joins his efforts.
Together, they prove that conquering death may be the ultimate sin against life itself.
The film’s official synopsis: “As a child, Herbert West watches his father Peter reanimate his dead mother Judith in a secret basement lab — only for Judith to mortally wound Peter and nearly kill Herbert before Peter shoots her. The trauma leaves its mark on Herbert, but so does one final image: his mother’s finger, twitching after death. Thirty years later, Herbert West is a brilliant, secretive surgeon still chasing his father’s obsession.
“Pathologist Kate Locke arrives in town and is drawn into his orbit — first through a spark at a hospital fundraiser, then through his secret lab, where he reveals a serum capable of reanimating severed tissue. Kate, hiding a dark past of her own, is thrilled rather than horrified, and moves into West’s mansion to work alongside him. Their early experiments on a cadaver succeed only briefly. West concludes that dead tissue is the problem — they need something fresher.”
Supporting cast includes Scott Aiello, Ira J Amyx, Randall Newsome, Emma Reinagal, James D. Bryce, Kathryn A Bentley, Jack Lancaster, Amy Holland Pennell, John Pierson, Mindy Shaw, Eric Dean White, Tristan Wilder Hallet, Adrienne Lamping, Aaron Crippen, and Drew Patterson.
Makeup artist Jeff Lewis (“Star Trek: Voyager,” “Star Trek: Enterprise”) and cousin Roger Lewis are heading the production via their newly established Woodlake Entertainment.
Lovecraft’s short story, first serialized in Home Brew magazine in 1922, is the first among his works to mention the fictional Miskatonic University. It was most famously adapted into a 1985 horror movie from Stuart Gordon, starring Jeffrey Combs as Herbert West.
Herbert West: Reanimator is set in Alton, Illinois, where production is now underway.

Herbert West: Reanimator. Photo credit: Matt Lief Anderson

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