Movies
Stanley Film Festival Announces ‘Doc of the Dead’
By Erik Myers: Returning to the hotel that inspired Stephen King’s The Shining, the Stanley Film Festival announced today Doc of The Dead as the festival premiere. Set at the Stanley Hotel in Estes Park, CO, the festival – dubbed Chapter II in its second year – has promised via Facebook the full programming lineup in coming weeks.
Set to take place April 24-27 2014, the festival describes its mission of “procuring the most imaginative tales of fright from around the globe, we will proudly present short and feature films that offer a vast spectrum of tantalizing thrills and ghastly delights throughout the weekend.”
Doc of The Dead, from Colorado-born director Alexandre O. Philippe, explores the rise of zombies in popular culture through a wide variety of interviews including Bruce Campbell, Simon Pegg, World War Z author Max Brooks and the undisputed godfather of the genre George A. Romero. The film made its U.S. premiere at SXSW 2014 earlier this month. Check out the clip below for a sneak peek of the film and stay tuned for updates as the festival reveals its full line-up of programming in the next couple of weeks.
Movies
‘Abigail’ on Track for a Better Opening Weekend Than Universal’s Previous Two Vampire Attempts
In the wake of Leigh Whannell’s Invisible Man back in 2020, Universal has been struggling to achieve further box office success with their Universal Monsters brand. Even in the early days of the pandemic, Invisible Man scared up $144 million at the worldwide box office, while last year’s Universal Monsters: Dracula movies The Last Voyage of the Demeter and Renfield didn’t even approach that number when you COMBINE their individual box office hauls.
The horror-comedy Renfield came along first in April 2023, ending its run with just $26 million. The period piece Last Voyage of the Demeter ended its own run with a mere $21 million.
But Universal is trying again with their ballerina vampire movie Abigail this weekend, the latest bloodbath directed by the filmmakers known as Radio Silence (Ready or Not, Scream).
Unlike Demeter and Renfield, the early reviews for Abigail are incredibly strong, with our own Meagan Navarro calling the film “savagely inventive in terms of its vampiric gore,” ultimately “offering a thrill ride with sharp, pointy teeth.” Read her full review here.
That early buzz – coupled with some excellent trailers – should drive Abigail to moderate box office success, the film already scaring up $1 million in Thursday previews last night. Variety notes that Abigail is currently on track to enjoy a $12 million – $15 million opening weekend, which would smash Renfield ($8 million) and Demeter’s ($6 million) opening weekends.
Working to Abigail‘s advantage is the film’s reported $28 million production budget, making it a more affordable box office bet for Universal than the two aforementioned movies.
Stay tuned for more box office reporting in the coming days.
In Abigail, “After a group of would-be criminals kidnap the 12-year-old ballerina daughter of a powerful underworld figure, all they have to do to collect a $50 million ransom is watch the girl overnight. In an isolated mansion, the captors start to dwindle, one by one, and they discover, to their mounting horror, that they’re locked inside with no normal little girl.”
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