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Post by fenris on Feb 21, 2012 19:35:06 GMT
Have recently watched a low-budget entry in the current wave of medieval horror/action movies ( Solomon Kane, Black Death and Season of the Witch). It's called Dark Relic, and concerns a group of Crusader knights being pursued by supernatural forces as they return to Europe from the Holy Land. It was commissioned by the (American) Syfy channel, and the premiere screening took place in late March 2010 (about the same time that Season of the Witch was originally supposed to be released in cinemas, suggesting that Dark Relic was at least partly conceived as a cash-in). Recognisable faces amongst Dark Relic's cast include James Frain as Sir Gregory, Samuel West as George, Demons and Trinity's Christian Cooke as Paul, and Clemency Burton-Hill (who's got form when it comes to sword & sorcery, having previously starred in Dungeons & Dragons: Wraith of the Dragon God) as Rebecca. I bought the German Region 2 DVD of Dark Relic several months ago (it can be played in English without subtitles), but according to Amazon, it's finally being released on Region 2 in the UK on 2nd April 2012.
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Post by fenris on Feb 23, 2012 17:59:42 GMT
From the SFX website: Johnny Depp could shift from playing a vampire to hunting them. Disney wants him to star as Carl Kolchak, a journalist who investigates the supernatural, in a movie version of the ’70s US TV series The Night Stalker.Oh. My. God. Shaun of the Dead helmer Edgar Wright has been chosen by Disney to shepherd a big-screen version of The Night Stalker. Inspired by the 70s TV movies and series, The Night Stalker will feature Johnny Depp as quirky paranormal investigator Carl Kolchak. In case you're unfamiliar with the character (shame on you!), Kolchak (played originally by the great Darren McGavin) was a rumpled beat reporter who investigated strange supernatural cases, going up against vampires, aliens, and everything in between. Predating The X-Files by 20 years, the show is still an inspiration to countless 'monster of the week' imitators. Though no screenwriter is on board yet, it's understood that Wright and Depp will be instrumental in molding The Night Stalker (one can probably assume that Wright will ultimately be one of the screenwriters). And, as this is set to be a big Disney tentpole, a PG-13 is in the offing. I'm fairly confidant two clever blokes like Wright and Depp will know how to handle the material in a way that's scary and fun, so this is one "remake" I can actually get behind. [/color] Source (the Arrow in the Head website)
Although I enjoyed Shaun of the Dead, I think it's a teeny bit over-rated. However, Wright's subsequent two movies Hot Fuzz and Scott Prigrim vs the World were both simply incredible, so the news that he's handling Night Stalker is beyond great. I'm grinning like an idiot as I type this.
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Post by fenris on Mar 5, 2012 16:50:45 GMT
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Post by fenris on Mar 13, 2012 17:22:20 GMT
The big Hollywood studios are busying themselves making revisionist versions of classic fairy tales. Next year we can expect Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters with Jeremy Renner and Gemma Arterton as the grown-up siblings. The Syfy Channel in America has responded by commissioning it's own reimagings of several fables. Syfy's 'Hansel & Gretel as adults' movie, starring Shannon Doherty, Paul McGillion, Sarain Boylan and Emilie Ullerup, was announced as Hansel, filmed as Witchslayer, and is apparently going to be screened in November 2011 as Gretl. The cinema release of Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters may have been pushed back to early 2013 (see my post dated 12/01/12 on this thread), but the Syfy channel's version - having undergone one last retitling to become Witchslayer Gretl - was finally screened in America on 25th February 2012. Link to the (extremely brief) trailer for Witchslayer Gretl.
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Post by fenris on Mar 20, 2012 18:01:25 GMT
The big Hollywood studios are busying themselves making revisionist versions of classic fairy tales. Next year we can expect Kristen Stewart in Snow White and the Huntsman. The second official trailer for Snow White and the Huntsman.EDIT (When I originally made this post, I didn't have time to add my thoughts about the second trailer. So for what it's worth, here are my ten cents); Hmm. The first trailer for this movie (I posted a link earlier in this thread) made Snow White and the Huntsman appear to be a dark, forbidding fantasy epic. But now we have footage of Snow cavorting with unicorns, woodland sprites and various other impossibly-cute forest creatures. It's all eye-searingly twee and very (' crosses self') Disney-ish. Based on what we see in the trailer, the purpose of that scene is - presumably - to emphasize that while the Queen represents all that is Evil, Snow represents all that is Good... personally though, I'd like to think that the audience is smart enough to work that out for themselves without the need for sugary-sweetness being laid on with the subtlety of a sledgehammer. It's also currently hard to equate that depiction of a tree-hugging Snow at-one-with-Nature with the armour-clad warrioress seen elsewhere in the trailer.
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Post by fenris on Mar 23, 2012 16:11:19 GMT
I'm not able to get out to the cinema any more, and the last film I saw on the big screen was Season of the Witch, in January of last year. However, this hasn't been as frustrating as I once thought it would, because truth be told the number of times I went to the cinema had decreased dramatically over the last few years anyway, due to me becoming increasingly jaded and cynical about the type of movies that the big Hollywood studios keep churning out: bland, sanitized, utterly predictable, formulaic, over-hyped and over-produced exercises in film-making-by-committee. In fact, there's only been one movie released in the last thirteen months that I actually regret not being able to see: The Raven, starring John Cusack as Edgar Allan Poe. To be honest, I've yet to read a single positive review of the film, and despite the fact that I live in a town with two large multi-screen cinemas and The Raven only opened two weeks ago, it's already been and gone here, which is hardly a good sign regarding it's popularity (whereas The Woman in Black, which was released over a month ago, is still playing). But I still want to see it, if only so I can form my own opinion. Will just have to wait for the DVD. Link to the trailer. The Raven isn't being released in America until 27th April 2012. One person who will probably be monitoring it's box office takings with interest is Sylvester Stallone, who for several years has openly stated his intention to make a bio-pic about Poe's life. If The Raven performs well in the States, Sly may get the funding and/or studio backing he needs to make his Poe movie.
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Post by fenris on Apr 5, 2012 19:07:43 GMT
It's official: Nazis are in. Later this month (April 2012) the independent sci-fi epic Iron Sky - in which Earth is invaded by the space-faring descendants of Third Reich fanatics who fled to the Moon in 1945 - is released in UK cinemas. And as night follows day, the inevitable cash-in by The Asylum is the upcoming & direct-to-DVD Nazis at the Centre of the Earth, starring Gary Busey. One movie that was ahead of this micro-trend was the low-budget British horror flick Outpost (2008), a creepy and enjoyable Predator/ Dog Soldiers-style effort in which Ray Stevenson (channeling the great Stanley Baker) led a group of mercenaries into a God-forsaken Balkans warzone and encountered an army of occult energy-enhanced Nazi ghost-soldiers. I've just discovered that a sequel - which appears to have crept under everyone's radar, due to the previous lack of any news or publicity - has already been filmed. Here is the Arrow in the Head website reporting on Outpost 2: Black Sun (starring Coupling and Strange's Richard Coyle!); If Nazi-horror is your thing, then OUTPOST 2: BLACK SUN is definitely for you. Looking surprisingly well-made, the film is a follow-up to the 2008's successful OUTPOST, which starred Ray Stevenson. Now the German-language trailer has invaded the 'net (no English subtitles available, though). Directed by Steve Barker, OUTPOST 2 goes like this: 'The year is 1945, the closing stages of WW2, and a German scientist by the name of Klausener is working on a frightening new technology the power to create an immortal Nazi army. Flash forward to present day, and a NATO task force is hurriedly deployed to Eastern Europe, where a sinister enemy appears to be mercilessly killing everything in its path. But this is no ordinary foe. Only Helena, a gutsy investigator on the trail of notorious war-criminal Klausener, accepts the reality of what they are facing a battalion of Nazi Storm-Troopers, a veritable zombie army on the march. With the help of Wallace, a man who's been chasing Nazi secrets for years, the two of them team up with a Special Forces Unit to venture deep behind enemy lines. Their mission to fight their way back to the source of this evil army and prevent the seemingly inevitable rise of the 4th Reich.' Pretty insane stuff. OUTPOST 2 stars Catherine Steadman, Julian Wadham, Johnny Meres and Richard Coyle. No word yet on a release date. Link to the article, including the German-language trailer.Richard Coyle versus Nazi zombies? Sold. And while I'm normally loathe to pre-judge a film based on it's trailer (I've been burnt too many times in the past), I have to say that Black Sun looks bloody fantastic.
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Post by fenris on Apr 9, 2012 14:31:08 GMT
As you've probably surmised from several of my previous posts on this thread, I'm fascinated by the current wave of sword & sorcery movies that are set in the supposedly 'real' medieval world (as opposed to mystical fantasy kingdoms populated by dragons, elves and goblins, etc), with war-weary knights and Crusaders battling against witches and the occasional demon. Key examples include Solomon Kane (2009), Dark Relic (2010) and Season of the Witch (2011). Have just discovered that another entry in this sub-genre, the Spanish-language movie Order of the Grail (2011), is being released in the UK on Region 2 DVD today (09/04/12). It's based on a Spanish comic book series called Capitan Trueno (English translation: 'Captain Thunder'), which was hugely popular in the 1950s and '60s. Trueno is a 12th century knight, fighting the forces of darkness across Europe and the Middle East, accompanied by his Norse lover Princess Sigrid of Thule, and his comrades Crispin & Goliath. The original comic was considered quite daring in it's day, as Trueno and Sigrid weren't married but were shown openly sleeping together. In Order of the Grail (original Spanish title Capitan Trueno and the Holy Grail), Trueno and his companions find the hiding place of the Holy Grail, and must ensure that the relic keeps out of the clutches of an evil sorcerer. Link to the trailer.
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Post by fenris on Apr 18, 2012 16:41:24 GMT
One of my all-time favourite horror movie series is the Maniac Cop trilogy of the late Eighties/early Nineties. If you're unfamiliar with the series, don't be fooled by the critic-baiting title - the three films (all directed by William Lustig and produced & written by the great Larry Cohen) are probably the most intelligent slasher movies ever made, exploring such topics as vigilantism, the limiting consequences of political correctness, how corruption is seemingly endemic in public office, the widening gulf between the law and what most of us would consider to be 'justice', trial by media, the unrealistically-high expectations placed upon the police, how official policy is dictated by the need for positive publicity, and how the respect & fear with which the public regard the police can be a double-edged sword. Each entry in the series is also noticeably different in tone: Maniac Cop (1988) is a police thriller with strong horror overtones, Maniac Cop 2 (1990) is a full-blown horror/action hybrid, and Maniac Cop 3: Badge of Silence (1993) is a creepy tale of urban gothic. A further sequel ( Maniac Cop: The Resurrection) was planned, but Lustig and Cohen were unable to secure enough financing. However, the trilogy's creators did subsequently make two similar movies that could be considered spin-offs: in The Ambulance (produced/written/directed by Cohen), another branch of the emergency services turns lethal, while Uncle Sam (directed by Lustig, produced & written by Cohen) condemns blinkered, knee-jerk American patriotism, as the resurrected corpse of a Desert Storm veteran causes murderous havoc during a small town's Fourth of July celebrations. The success of the Maniac Cop trilogy also resulted in an undemanding, no-frills rival series that ran to two films - Psycho Cop and Psycho Cop 2. Now comes the very surprising news, courtesy of the Daily Grindhouse website, that the Maniac may be coming back; You have the right to remain silent. Forever. Fortunately for us, those rules don’t apply to the psycho with a badge, because that menacing bastard is coming back in the form of prequel and he’s bringing some serious firepower this time around. In an exclusive interview with both William Lustig and Larry Cohen, DG has learned that Nicolas Winding Refn (Drive) is going to be joining Lustig as a producer of the new film. “It’s going to be more a prequel than anything else, I am really excited to come back to this world especially since Nick is going to be a part of it” said Cohen. “Nick (Winding Refn) has been talking to us about it for a while now and I had an idea that would work so we’re going to do it.” Cohen said that the film will still maintain the noir-ish comic book feel of the first three films but “with a bigger budget than the others have had.” Lustig cautioned that “the project isn’t 100% signed off on but it’s pretty close.” It is unclear who will be taking over the director’s chair but we have three options and all of them look good for the dormant franchise: Option 1: These films have inspired a huge cult-following that is even bigger in Asia than it is here. With such a huge foot-print it’s not going to be difficult to find an exciting director to pick this up… which of course leads us to option 2. Option 2: Nicolas Winding Refn! After using a little clip from Lustig’s Vigilante in Drive, it would be cool as hell to see this guy jump behind the wheel and direct this bad boy himself. Option 3: Nobody knows this series better than Larry Cohen and William Lustig. Lustig hasn’t directed since 1996, Cohen hasn’t been behind the camera since 2006, it would be great to see one of those guys get back into the game. Personally, I think Cohen is more comfortable with a pen these days, but I would be surprised if Lustig hasn’t kicked around the idea of doing this himself.Source
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Post by fenris on Apr 23, 2012 17:02:08 GMT
I'm normally loathe to pre-judge a film based on it's trailer, but I have to say that Outpost: Black Sun looks bloody fantastic. Blimey. Nazi zombie sequel Outpost: Black Sun doesn't even have a confirmed release date yet, yet the Arrow in the Head website reports that a third entry in the series is already being filmed; Now that's showing confidence in your movie franchise - while Outpost: Black Sun, the second installment in the Nazi zombie series, isn't even out yet, the folks at Content Film have already announced that a third flick had moved into production. Outpost: Rise of the Spetsnaz is currently shooting on location in Glasgow and Yorkshire.
Here's the official statement from the producers; Kieran Parker (Outpost, Outpost: Black Sun) directs from a script penned by Rae Brunton (Outpost, Outpost: Black Sun). The cast includes Bryan Larkin (Battleground) as the lead Russian Dolokhov, and James “The Colossus” Thompson – Ultimate Combat World Heavy Weight Champion - as The Berserker. In the third installment of the hit Nazi Zombie action horror movie series, Outpost: Rise Of The Spetsnaz, we discover the horrifying origins of these supernatural soldiers and see them in ferocious gladiatorial battle against the most ruthless and notorious of all military special forces: the Russian Spetsnaz. Produced by Arabella Page Croft and Kieran Parker for Black Camel Pictures and Executive Produced by Nigel Thomas from Matador Pictures and Jamie Carmichael from Content, the film is backed by Matador Pictures, Creative Scotland, Creative Film Finances and SWSSC.Source
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Post by fenris on Apr 29, 2012 16:57:31 GMT
It's official: Nazis are in. Later this month (April 2012) the independent sci-fi epic Iron Sky - in which Earth is invaded by the space-faring descendants of Third Reich fanatics who fled to the Moon in 1945 - is released in UK cinemas. And as night follows day, the inevitable cash-in by The Asylum is the upcoming & direct-to-DVD Nazis at the Centre of the Earth, starring Gary Busey. Have stumbled across another entry in the gonzo sci-fi Nazi sub-genre. Here's the trailer for The 25th Reich, probably the finest Australian time-traveling Nazi movie featuring giant robot spiders that you'll ever see. According to Amazon, it's being released on Region 2 DVD on 21st May 2012. And I've also found yet another Nazi zombie movie, the novelty being that this one's actually set during WWII, with a platoon of American and Finnish commandos battling zombie German soldiers (the result of an abandoned SS experiment) on the Russian/Finnish border. Here's the trailer for War of the Dead (spot the familiar British faces), which Amazon reports is being released on Region 2 DVD on 28th May 2012.
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Post by fenris on May 9, 2012 14:01:22 GMT
From the SFX website; Universal Pictures has given the green light to a Kick-arse sequel, but the original films’s director Matthew Vaughn will only write and produce the film, not direct. Instead, Vaughn has “hand-picked” Jeff Wadlow (Never Back Down) to direct the project instead. Vaughn has written the script for the follow-up, which adapts not only the Kick-arse 2 comic book storyline but also the Hit-Girl spin-off series that goes on sale next month. The Hit-Girl storyline will be the first act of the movie. The original Kick-arse film, which was distributed by Lionsgate and self-financed by Vaughn, was made for $30 million and earned $96.2 million worldwide in 2010. The film is expected to start shooting in September with Aaron Johnson, Chloe Moretz and Christopher Mintz-Plasse all rumoured to be reprising their roles.SourceGood news. I thought Kick-arse was an absolute hoot, and it also sparked off a mini-wave of similar 'real-life, non-superpowered hero' movies such as Defendor, Super, and Griff the Invisible. If the quality of the original film can be maintained, a sequel is a welcome prospect.
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Post by fenris on May 18, 2012 16:46:41 GMT
I've also found another Nazi zombie movie, the novelty being that this one's actually set during WWII, with a platoon of American and Finnish commandos battling zombie German soldiers (the result of an abandoned SS experiment) on the Russian/Finnish border. Here's the trailer for War of the Dead (spot the familiar British faces), which Amazon reports is being released on Region 2 DVD on 28th May 2012. Nazis! Nazis! Nazis! Lunar Nazis in Iron Sky. Time-traveling Nazis in The 25th Reich. Walking dead Nazis in two upcoming Outpost sequels, War of the Dead and The Asylum's Nazis at the Centre of the Earth. And now the Arrow in the Head website reports that yet another Nazi zombie movie is about to enter production. And what an incredible cast; Brace yourself, THE 4TH REICH is coming. After over two years in pre-production hell, Shaun Robert Smith's Nazi-zombie flick has finally picked up steam, as well as a stellar new cast member with the one and only Sean Bean! The actor will play a charismatic British sergeant major. Mr. Bean joins an already impressive cast, consisting of Jason Flemyng, Sean Pertwee, Doug Bradley, Tom Savini, Axelle Carolyn, Craig Conway, Sebastian Street, Simon Bamford, Jay Sutherland, Patrick Toomey, and Clayton Fussell.
Official synopsis: The 4th Reich takes place during the early hours of June 6th 1944, as a bloody but victorious offensive took place in occupied Western Europe that would claim thousands of lives. Codenamed 'Operation Overlord' the armies of the combined allied forces would begin their long push to Berlin, with the aim of bringing down the despised Nazi regime. But the chilling realities of Hitler's true intentions are exposed, to create a force that can never be beaten, a 4th Reich - The New World Order. A team of Nazi doctors and scientists were charged with generating a superior race. Their experiments and research would produce unspeakable evil and change the face of humanity forever. A small select brigade of soldiers from the British 3rd Infantry Division, under the command of the battle hardened Captain Bathurst embark on a dangerous quest to liberate Europe. Fighting their way through the French countryside, villages and war ravaged towns...
The film is scheduled to shoot this summer.SourceHmm. It's eye-opening but sadly predictable that the film's makers felt it necessary to have a large chunk of the synopsis explaining what D-Day was. Kids these days need to start reading war comics, that'll educate them.
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Post by fenris on Jul 14, 2012 19:40:03 GMT
Have stumbled across another entry in the gonzo sci-fi Nazi sub-genre. Here's the trailer for The 25th Reich, probably the finest Australian time-traveling Nazi movie featuring giant robot spiders that you'll ever see. According to Amazon, it's being released on Region 2 DVD on 21st May 2012. For reasons unknown, the Region 2 DVD release of The 25th Reich was delayed, but according to Amazon it will be available from 16th July 2012.
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Post by fenris on Aug 4, 2012 15:37:38 GMT
The low-budget British horror flick Outpost (2008) was a creepy and enjoyable Predator/ Dog Soldiers-style effort in which Ray Stevenson led a group of mercenaries into a God-forsaken Balkans warzone and encountered an army of occult energy-enhanced Nazi ghost-soldiers. And I've just discovered that a sequel has already been filmed - Outpost 2: Black Sun, starring Richard Coyle! Sadly, Outpost 2: Black Sun is bypassing cinemas & will be directly released on Region 2 DVD in the UK on 27th August 2012.
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