Movies
Toho Going Creature Crazy With ‘Parasyte’!
Winning a fierce bidding war after New Line ceded its feature production rights, Japanese major Toho will make a two-part sci-fi-horror pic based on the popular 1990s comic Parasyte, Variety reports.
Shota Sometani, pictured below, who first came to international attention as a moody, violent teen in Sion Sono’s “Himizu,” will star as “a teenager whose body is invaded by an alien parasite that takes over his hand instead of, like many of his fellow humans, his brain. He ends up battling for survival in a world teeming with seemingly normal but potentially deadly alien-controlled hosts.”
New Line acquired the rights in 2005, with Takashi Shimizu (The Grudge) signed to direct, but the planned live-action pic never materialized.
Under Toho, the director will be Takashi Yamazaki, a CGI whiz who helmed the smash hit “Always” series, as well as the SF-fantasy hit “Space Battleship Yamato.”
The two-parter will begin production in Jan 2014, with the theatrical release of Part 1 set for December 2014 and Part 2 in 2015.
The original comic by Hitoshi Iwaki was published monthly in “Gekkan Afternoon” magazine from 1990 to 1995 and sold 11 million copies in paperback editions. Tokyopop of the US published 12 volumes of an English-language “Parasyte” comic, ending in 2005.
In the wake of Backrooms and Obsession, everyone is prowling YouTube for horror shorts to adapt and horror filmmakers to scoop up, so don’t be surprised to see a whole bunch of upcoming articles about YouTube success stories crossing over into theaters. One horror short that’s already been picked up for expansion is Dolly director Rod Blackhurst’s Alone Time.
The 12-minute short was uploaded in 2014 and has amassed nearly 2 million views at the time of this article being written, and Deadline reports that it’s getting a feature adaptation.
Witchcraft Motion Picture Company & Fever Dream will turn the viral short into a feature film.
Alone Time follows Ann Saunders, a young NY professional whose carefully constructed life begins to unravel following a devastating personal loss. “Seeking refuge from a collapsing relationship, a deteriorating family situation, and mounting emotional trauma, Ann reluctantly joins her closest friend on a remote camping trip deep in the Adirondack wilderness.”
The synopsis continues, “When her friend mysteriously disappears, Ann becomes convinced that an unseen figure is stalking her through the forest. What begins as a survival nightmare slowly transforms into something far more disturbing as fractured memories, conflicting realities, and hidden truths force Ann to confront the possibility that the greatest threat may not be lurking in the woods at all, but buried deep within her own psych.”
“Alone Time has quietly followed me for over a decade,” director Rod Blackhurst said in a statement. “What began as a short film about isolation and the weight of life now feels more relevant than ever. The original short found its audience organically online long before that was considered a legitimate path for filmmakers. Bringing it to life as a feature allows us to explore those themes on a much larger and more psychologically unsettling canvas.”
Blackhurst is directing the feature length expansion.
You can watch the original Alone Time short film below.
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