Image Credit: 20th Century Fox Guillermo del Toro spent 20 years trying to bring horror author H.P. Lovecraft’s novella At the Mountains of Madness to the big screen. Why did Ridley Scott’s Prometheus finally force him to abandon the project earlier this year? And might Mountains—like the book’s ancient monsters—yet come back from the dead?
(Warning: This article contains Prometheus spoilers.)
You could put together a decent-sized horror film festival of movies which feature demented clowns. And then you could trick a busload of people with a morbid fear of circus entertainers into attending the event by saying it was a coulrophobics convention.
But enough about THINGS I PLAN TO DO AFTER I BECOME A SUPERVILLAIN!!!
Stitches is the latest movie to try and cram facepaint-related macabre-ness into its duration like, well, a lot of clowns attempting to squeeze into a comically small car. Director Conor McMahon’s currently-screening-at Cannes film stars acclaimed British standup comedian Ross Noble as kids’ birthday clown Richard ‘Stitches’ Grindle who, years after being the victim of a fatal party mishap, returns to avenge his death.
Image Credit: Previews
Paranormal Activity creator Oren Peli’s latest horror outing follows a group of tourists trapped in an abandoned city near the site of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, and despite rumors before the first trailer was released, the film is decidedly not found footage. EW chatted with Peli and co-producer Brian Witten about what we can expect from their newest chillfest (released May 25), how they kept the plot secret, and what scares them.
Some people regard 3D as the future of cinema. And some think its only useful purpose is to enhance the kind of low budget horror movie in which people say things like, “There’s a twelve foot great white shark in here!” Those of the latter persuasion are unlikely to change their view any after seeing the new red band trailer for the Australian movie Bait 3D, not least because someone actually does say, “There’s a twelve foot great white shark in here!”
Who is responsible for what appears to be a gloriously shlock-tastic fusion of Jaws and The Mist? The credit for the film must in large part go to cowriter Russell Mulcahy, who most recently helped oversee MTV’s Teen Wolf but back in the day directed cult classic monster-pig flick Razor Back (for more on which I would encourage you to check out the terrific Ozploitation documentary Not Quite Hollywood).
Image Credit: Catherine Ashmore
It’s alive! On screen! Again! Fathom Events announced today that on June 6 and 7, it will rebroadcast into select movie theaters the 2011 filmed U.K. stage production of Frankenstein, starring Benedict Cumberbatch and Jonny Lee Miller, written by Nick Dear, and directed by Danny Boyle.
When the production played last spring at the Royal National Theatre in London, it won wide acclaim for Cumberbatch and Miller, who alternated playing Dr. Frankenstein and his Creature. (They shared an Olivier Award for Best Actor.)
The National Theatre already broadcast the play into U.S. movie theaters on two separate nights last March. But with the second season of Cumberbatch’s Sherlock pulling in great ratings on PBS – not to mention the actor’s villainous role in the upcoming sequel to 2009′s Star Trek – the fabulously monikered Brit’s star is very much on the rise. You can check out the creepy trailer for last year’s screening of Frankenstein below: READ FULL STORY »
Image Credit: Valerie Macon/Getty Images
Oscar would like to ask you out on a date.
While the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences may seem like a highly restrictive group — and it is, if you want to win one of those golden statuettes — the organization is expanding its outreach to regular moviegoers by announcing a summer-long series of outdoor movies.
“Oscars Outdoors” will showcase films on Fridays and Saturdays on a 40-by-20 foot screen in a park the organization built in the heart of Hollywood specifically for the sake of showing movies under the stars. The public is welcome, and the Academy is especially hopeful tourists will take advantage of it.
“The idea is to tie this in to the world, to let people know they can come here and see movies,” said Academy president Tom Sherak (pictured). “I’m telling you — come. Come bring your blankets, come bring your beach chairs, and come just enjoy two hours of getting away from those rigors of life. Those nights here are beautiful in the summertime.”
Image Credit: Peter Mountain
It doesn’t come as a huge surprise to discover horror movie-lovers Alice Cooper and Tim Burton had plenty to talk about when the rocker turned up to film a cameo in the director’s new, Johnny Depp-starring movie Dark Shadows. “We had dinner one night in London and we both knew every point of reference,” Cooper recalls. “If he would say, ‘Suspiria’ I would say ‘Dario Argento.’ I see the humor in horror as much as Tim or Johnny does, so we really do fit together.”
The “School’s Out” star plays himself in Burton’s big budget adaptation of the bizarre, supernatural soap opera, which opens May 11. It says a great deal about the eccentric nature of the rock star’s filmography that Dark Shadows is likely to stand as one of its less insane entries. In this week’s Entertainment Weekly, Cooper talks at length about appearing in such cinematic curios as the Mae West vehicle Sextette, the infamous musical Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, and the werewolf farrago Monster Dog — as well as his roles in better-received projects like Prince of Darkness and Wayne’s World. READ FULL STORY »
Dimension Films rebooted its Scream franchise last year and now its sister spoof series, Scary Movie, is getting another installment: EW can exclusively confirm that Malcolm Lee (Roll Bounce, Undercover Brother) will direct Scary Movie 5, with production slated to begin this summer. Casting is underway but David Zucker, who wrote and directed both Scary Movie 3 and 4, will also be returning to co-write and produce the fifth installment alongside Lee.
Follow Tim on Twitter: @EWTimStack
Read more:
‘Sin City’ 2 officially underway
‘The Cabin in the Woods’ review
Image Credit: David Stone
Twilight author Stephenie Meyer is pushing further into the world of filmmaking, optioning the movie rights to Lois Duncan’s 1974 YA horror/suspense novel Down a Dark Hall. Meyer is developing the film through her Fickle Fish production company, along with Twilight producer Wyck Godfrey’s Temple Hill Entertainment. (Variety first reported the story.)
The story follows 14-year-old Kit Gordy as she enrolls in the creepy Blackwood boarding school, which has only four students. READ FULL STORY »
Image Credit: Diyah Pera
“I still smell the blood in my sleep,” says Drew Goddard. The filmmaker is talking about the psychic aftershocks of shooting his debut movie, The Cabin in the Woods, a horror comedy he co-wrote with Buffy the Vampire Slayer creator and Avengers director Joss Whedon. That Goddard’s subconscious is still haunted is testament to the volume of fake red stuff in his movie, which is released tomorrow and stars Chris Hemsworth, Bradley Whitford, and Richard Jenkins. Why? Because Goddard shot Cabin in Vancouver way back in 2009, only to see its release delayed by more than two years due to the bankruptcy of the film’s original studio, MGM. That’s long enough for Hemsworth to have played the role of Thor twice, the second time in Whedon’s Avengers, which arrives in cinemas just three weeks after Cabin. “We shot the film and had an amazing time,” says the Australian actor. “Then it disappeared for three years.”
