Movies
October 2nd Is a Legendary Day In Horror!
Ironic that Sony just got behind the long-delayed Zombieland (review) sequel as today marks the 5th anniversary of Ruben Fleischer’s hilarious horror comedy that starred Jesse Eisenberg, Emma Stone, Woody Harrelson and Bill Murray (who had the most epic cameo of the decade). The film was a monster success taking in $100M worldwide, which is why a sequel was quickly put into development, even if it never came into fruition. One of the best little gimmicks in the film are the “rules”. Which rule would be your flaw? Too bad the Amazon television pilot was so awful because we could have had a world of Zombieland…
Also released in 2009 was Filmax and Magnet’s incredible found-footage sequel [REC]2 (review), which originally premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival. This was in the early days of VOD platform pushes, and was considered an exciting moment for horror fans to be able to rent it the same day as it was in theaters. The coolest aspect of the sequel was how Jaume Balaguero and Paco Plaza evolved the story so that these zombies were actually possessed by demons.
What really makes October 2 so special is it’s the day DreamWorks took a big chance on The Ring, one of the first remakes that started the reboot fad and also the J-horror trend. Nothing ever came close to the success The Ring had both financially and in terms of quality horror. Gore Verbinski’s visual style is what set the tone for this terrifying reboot of the Japanese franchise, Ringu, which racked in $250M worldwide. It’s also one of the rare horror films to break $100M in the states, actually pulling in a shocking $129M. I remember DreamWorks setting up early screenings across the country, which is what started the hype train a rollin’. It’s too bad the sequel was so awful, even though the home video release came with a kickass short film
October 2 was even better, though, sharing the day with Dee Snider’s criminally underrated, way ahead of its time 1998 Strangeland, about teenage girls who are victimized by a psycho (named Captain Howdy) who lures them using the Internet. The film was a box office disaster, but has found life among us horror fans on home video.
In 1987 Kathryn Bigelow’s revolutionary vamp flick, Near Dark, blasted into theaters. Starring Lance Henriksen, Adrian Pasdar, Bill Paxton, Jenny Wright and Tim Thomerson, “Country boy Caleb Colton (Adrian Pasdar) whittles away the quiet rural nights hunting local girls – but when he falls prey to the mysterious and beautiful Mae (Jenny Wright), Caleb unknowingly becomes the hunted. Mae is no ordinary girl, Caleb soon learns; she is part of an outlaw band of vampires, and their love is about to lure him into a terrifying world of bloodlust, mayhem and absolute horror. Will Caleb pay the ultimate price for love and eternal life – or will he find a way to defeat the evil growing inside him each night NEAR DARK?” The film is insanely bloody and features some wicked special effects work.
Of these aforementioned films, which is your favorite, and which are you going to revisit this coming weekend? I feel like re-watching them all is in order…
After pulling in $28 million at the worldwide box office this month, director (and star) Dev Patel’s critically acclaimed action-thriller Monkey Man is now available to watch at home.
You can rent Monkey Man for $19.99 or digitally purchase the film for $24.99!
Monkey Man is currently 88% Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes, with Bloody Disgusting’s head critic Meagan Navarro awarding the film 4.5/5 stars in her review out of SXSW back in March.
Meagan raves, “While the violence onscreen is palpable and painful, it’s not just the exquisite fight choreography and thrilling action set pieces that set Monkey Man apart but also its political consciousness, unique narrative structure, and myth-making scale.”
“While Monkey Man pays tribute to all of the action genre’s greats, from the Indonesian action classics to Korean revenge cinema and even a John Wick joke or two, Dev Patel’s cultural spin and unique narrative structure leave behind all influences in the dust for new terrain,” Meagan’s review continues.
She adds, “Monkey Man presents Dev Patel as a new action hero, a tenacious underdog with a penetrating stare who bites, bludgeons, and stabs his way through bodies to gloriously bloody excess. More excitingly, the film introduces Patel as a strong visionary right out of the gate.”
Inspired by the legend of Hanuman, Monkey Man stars Patel as Kid, an anonymous young man who ekes out a meager living in an underground fight club where, night after night, wearing a gorilla mask, he is beaten bloody by more popular fighters for cash. After years of suppressed rage, Kid discovers a way to infiltrate the enclave of the city’s sinister elite. As his childhood trauma boils over, his mysteriously scarred hands unleash an explosive campaign of retribution to settle the score with the men who took everything from him.
Monkey Man is produced by Jordan Peele’s Monkeypaw Productions.
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