To whoever’s in charge of distribution at Disney’s motion picture department, an open letter. Rather, a note. Okay, just one scream of frustrated rage:
Enough with the sequels already!
Popularity: 8% [?]
All right! We got fresh content coming in from Korea this time around, and that means a good chance at another fantastic scary movie. And this time, the chance is better than normal. Check out the plot of Black House: an insurance claims adjuster investigates a decrepit house, and what he finds will blow his mind. Suicides. Murder. And the farther into the horrible, horrible house he gets, the more terrifying things will get. Finally, we’re promised a downright “blood-soaked ending”.
Now, when I hear that a horror flick is coming out of Korea, I’m usually skeptical. Korean horror movies have something of a dubious track record based on what I’ve seen so far. The good ones are downright fantastic, with lots of blood and action and everything you could hope for in a solid horror movie. The bad ones, however, aren’t bad…they’re boring. Bad Korean horror is universally (that I’ve seen so far, anyway) unnecessarily heavy in dialogue. Don’t believe me? Just try getting through Whispering Corridors sometime. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Popularity: 4% [?]
With little Ellen Page being the hottest commodity on the young Hollywood market today, it was a little surprising when news leaked that Sam Raimi had nabbed her for his newest film. Sure, Raimi has a certain amount of pull, but he’s essentially a cult figure, and the entire world was utterly disgusted with Spider-Man 3. With Page in the position to take any part she wanted, why this? Why now?
Raimi’s return to horror, Drag Me to Hell, was listed as one of Page’s upcoming projects, along with the Drew Barrymore-directed Whip It. Quite the mismatched pair, to be sure, and many speculated on precisely what kind of Hell we were in for.
Popularity: 7% [?]
One of the few good things about the original Blade movie was Stephen Dorff’s solid, smirking menace-laden portrayal of bad guy Deacon Frost. So it’s going to be a fair bet that he’ll bring that same skill to his work in Warner Home Video’s upcoming direct-to-video Botched. Dorff plays a professional thief pulling a heist in Russia. Just based on the title, you can tell that it won’t go right at all. If you’re actually calling the film Botched, you’re not expecting a whole lot of success in it. Besides…if it doesn’t turn out to be good, you’re just making yourself a total nuclear whipping boy for snarky critics who will, inevitably, say that “Yes, indeed…Warner finally gives us some truth in advertising as Botched describes both the quality of Dorff’s character’s heist and the quality of the film itself. Man, did they ever botch this one. Thanks for stamping it right on the front of the box so everyone would know that this film was utterly, irrevocably, BOTCHED.”
Man, am I glad to be the first on that one. Everyone else who says it is just ripping me off now! Unless someone already said it that I don’t know about…man, being first to market is tough!
Popularity: 3% [?]
By now, you might have heard of an enterprising writer who attempted to sell her (his?) very own script for Juno 2 on eBay. screenwriter_in_paradise certainly has a unique way of marketing scripts, but chances are, it wasn’t picked up by a major motion picture studio.
But what if it was? What if screenwriter_in_paradise has the right idea? Maybe I should look at beginning my career on eBay. I can see it now…
Popularity: 2% [?]
If Sony Pictures Entertainment has its way, this will likely be the last Presidential election we ever see as 2012 is going to be the date the world comes to a screaming, horrible end. Roland Emmerich has already been attached to direct, and Sony has committed to green light the film, slated to be produced starting in late summer / early fall for a summer 2009 release. The budget is already expected to hit two hundred million dollars, which means there will a whole lot of special effects and such in what is described as an “ensemble disaster epic akin to The Day After Tomorrow”.
So brace yourself, because we’ll get yet another popcorn chewing, huge, loud disaster epic just in time for the hottest time of the year. Don’t expect any quality acting or writing, but it should at least be a survivable two-star sort of affair. You know, exactly the kind of thing you want to watch during a brain-boiling heat wave when air conditioning and a cold Coke or Pepsi is the first thing on your mind rather than plots that make sense or acting that isn’t just chewing on scenery.
Popularity: 4% [?]
We’ve all known the feeling of being a tiny fish in a very big ocean. One way or another, we can all relate to the plight of the little clownfish in Finding Nemo - his desire to explore places he knows are forbidden, and the danger that ensues.
Finding Nemo was equally popular with kids, teenagers, and their parents, due to its charming humor and relateable themes. Featuring voice talents like Albert Brooks, Ellen DeGeneres, Willem Dafoe, Geoffrey Rush, it quickly became a Disney classic.
Popularity: 7% [?]
All right, all right—everyone calm down and get your betting slips out. Remember the pool I started back here? Well, I got a bona fide update here that’ll knock out some of the competition. Basically, we’re all trying to figure out how Tobin Bell, playing the now-dead Jigsaw, is going to manage to appear in both Saw V and Saw VI, since he’s, you know, DEAD and all.
I gave you a variety of choices and laid odds accordingly, and we’ve even got a couple choices eliminated, so thusly, we need a new betting board!
Popularity: 4% [?]
Okay…brace yourselves, kids…Bruce Campbell’s actually doing a movie for a change! Yeah, no voiceovers, no cartoons, no video games—he’s actually taking the advice the good folks at Film Threat threw his way in this year’s Frigid Fifty and doing a movie!
Oh, sure, it’s not Evil Dead Four, which is what a lot of fans were waiting for—it’s called The Horribleness. Featuring not only a cast list that is just downright amazing—not only is Bruce Campbell in it, but so is Ellen Sandweiss, Ted Raimi, and Sam Raimi himself—but a plot that must be seen to be believed, The Horribleness looks like it’s going to be the movie to beat for quite some time.
Popularity: 4% [?]
Charming badass nurse Sarah Polley from that sorry little Dawn of the Dead remake is looking to get some new horror action on with Splice. Splice features two young scientists out to make their mark by illegal and unethical experiments into combining human and animal DNA. Of course, you don’t have to be a serious horror buff to know what will happen following that ridiculous combination, but it helps. For the neophytes in the crowd I’ll go ahead and explain. All sorts of nastiness will happen, lots of people will get torn to teeny little bloody chunks and, only possibly, the half-human animal-thing will be killed in a loud and grotesque fashion as the climax of the film.
There’s also an outside possibility said half-human animal-thing will survive and slink off into hiding to create a sequel possibility.
Popularity: 4% [?]
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