Movies
Kill of the Week: Bigfoot Bites Face in ‘Abominable’
Every week, we spotlight a kill that we just can’t get enough of. This is Kill of the Week.
Countless horror movies about Bigfoot have been released over the years, from 1972’s The Legend of Boggy Creek to more recent films like Exists. Unfortunately, there seems to be a dark cloud hanging over the whole damn sub-genre, as most of those Bigfoot horror movies just aren’t worth your time.
My personal favorite? That’d be Ryan Schifrin’s Abominable, released in 2006. The film centers on Preston Rogers (Matt McCoy), a paraplegic man who can only watch helplessly as Bigfoot brutally devours a group of young co-ends in the remote forest community he’s escaped to.
So it’s basically Rear Window… with a big, nasty ass Sasquatch in the mix.
It’s interesting that Schifrin’s Abominable was released the same year as Adam Green’s Hatchet, because both films are driven by the same sense of over the top, throwback fun. Both films are also loaded with insanely gruesome bits of practical effects carnage, carried out by cool-looking monsters that hearken back to the ’80s.
In Abominable‘s most memorable moment of bloodshed, the angry Bigfoot unleashes the full fury of his bite on a man who’s just buried an ax in his back and called him an “ass monkey.” He lifts the man off the ground and bites directly into his face, chomping down on his skull like you or I would chomp down on an apple.
Let this be a lesson. If you ever see Bigfoot, don’t call him an ass monkey.
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
You must be logged in to post a comment.