Movies
SCREAMBOX – Cult Classics ‘Chopping Mall’ and ‘Magic’ Now Streaming!
Three horror classics have just landed on the Bloody Disgusting-powered SCREAMBOX streaming service, which already is celebrating a massive August that kicked off with the Ghostbusters-inspired Ghastly Brothers.
Richard Attenborough’s Magic (1978) starring Anthony Hopkins and a psychotic ventriloquist dummy is the first of three movies added to SCREAMBOX, courtesy of Shout! Factory.
“Written by William Goldman (The Stepford Wives, The Princess Bride), adapted from the novel he also wrote, Magic revolves around a ventriloquist seeking to renew a relationship with his former high school sweetheart,” Meagan Navarro previously wrote about the classic. “The only problem is that his dummy is the jealous type. That ventriloquist, Corky, is played by Anthony Hopkins. Unlike most killer doll horror movies, Magic favors the psychological, and Hopkins brings intensity to this twisted love story.”
She notes that this movie served as an inspiration for Don Mancini’s original Child’s Play screenplay and is currently celebrating its 45th anniversary!
Also added is Jim Wynorski’s cult classic Chopping Mall, a 1986 slasher featuring Barbara Crampton (Re-Animator, You’re Next) that kicks off when a bad thunderstorm causes a direct lightning strike, putting security robots on the fritz and making them a deadly problem for the group of eight mall employees who have decided to stay after hours to party and have sex.
The film is currently celebrating 37 years of staying power. Zachary Paul wrote about its anniversary five years ago.
“Chopping Mall is effortlessly entertaining. It’s easy to see why this became a cult hit over the decades,” Meagan previously wrote. The cast is clearly having a blast, the killer robot angle feels fresh, and the mall setting (it was filmed after hours in Sherman Oaks Galleria) is an ‘80s time capsule- Glendale, California-based store Licorice Pizza was sold to Musicland Group the same year Chopping Mall was released, so its existence is immortalized here in a small way.”
There’s no shortage of amusement from this happy, comfort food cult classic. Watch it HERE.
Lastly, Bloody Disgusting’s critically acclaimed The Woman had a prequel made back in 2009 and it’s now on SCREAMBOX. Andrew van den Houten directed Offspring, which also starred Pollyanna McIntosh as The Woman.
The film, another Jack Ketchum adaptation, takes place against the backdrop of grisly murders and child abductions where a clan of cannibalistic savages is after an unsuspecting family and their innocent baby girl. Do they have what it takes to survive?
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.
The original screenplay and storyline come from Jade Sandberg Wallis.
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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