BrianaEvigan Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Within five minutes, I suspected the movie was a stinker; within 15 minutes, my suspicions were confirmed. Yet I stayed until the end of Sorority Row, a horrid pustule on the hind quarters of horror, filled with self-described bitches, sluts, and hos, and not enough Carrie Fisher with a shotgun. "Admit it, these are horrible people," one character says, describing the sisters of Theta Pi sorority who are the ostensible stars of the movie. And why would you want to hang out with horrible people for any more time than is absolutely necessary? So why didn't I walk out?

I have, in fact, walked out of movies before: at this year's SXSW, for example, I walked out of my third movie of the day within 15 minutes because I wasn't laughing at the comedy and had two more movies to see later that evening. I wasn't assigned to review it, but it sounded interesting; when it fell flat for me, I cut my losses and got some fresh air. I walked out of a shorts program at Fantastic Fest last year because I grew weary of viewing so much blood and too many disgusting images. And I've stomped out of non-fest flicks due to technical problems (i.e. poor projection and/or sound) and demanded my money back.

Somehow, though, the idea that I'd already been dumb enough to pay $9.50 on a Friday night to see the umpteenth flaccid remake of an 80s horror flick made me dig in my heels.

It seems that a couple of horror trailers slipped through the proverbial cracks last week, so let's catch up, shall we? For starters, there's the creepy-kid thriller Orphan, in which Vera Farmiga apparently learns no lessons from Joshua and takes in an unusually mature girl with a knack for fatal shenanigans. We've embedded this and the other two trailers after the jump. Orphan opens on July 24th.

Next up is October's slasher remake, Sorority Row, in which a prank goes wrong and the girls who covered it up start getting picked off one by one. Come to think of it, I guess some kids haven't grown up on I Know What You Did Last Summer by this point, but hey, the tweens tend to turn out in droves for anything Carrie Fisher touches.

Last and certainly not least (probably my personal favorite of the bunch) is Funny or Die's mock trailer for Gobstopper, in which a crazed candy maker (played by a scary-perfect Christopher Lloyd) terrorizes Martha "Superbad" MacIssac and friends. I'm sorry to report that there's no word on domestic distribution yet, because I'm pretty sure that I'd rather sit through a full version of this than either of the two above.

I'm starting to believe that our Eugene Novikov can see into the future.

He knew that I was going to say that Donnie Darko, while somewhat overexposed, holds up to this day as a uniquely poignant coming-of-age drama and not so much the "psychological thriller" as claimed on the back of the box. He knew that I'd be a bit more obvious and say that the sister-starring spin-off, S. Darko, sounds like no better of an idea now that it has a direct-to-DVD release date in April as it did when it was announced back last May.

And he probably knew that this newly released trailer, featuring plenty of time tubes and recurring quotes (though only one returning character), really wouldn't do much to change my mind that this is a tangential-at-best follow-up looking to cash in on something truly, terrifically unique. The thing is: he called it two days ago.

I'd like to be wrong, I really would, but when Richard Kelly can't be convinced to bother lending any sort of hand, skepticism seems as strong a course of action as any. (Care to tip us one way or another, Gene?)

I think there was some illegal weed indulgence during the development of the plot for a new thriller called Burning Bright. The film focuses on, get this: "a woman who wakes in the midst of a hurricane to find a tiger roaming through her home. With her stepfather nowhere to be found, she is forced to drag her autistic young brother through the house in a desperate attempt at survival." All I can imagine is that someone wanted to set a thriller in a house, and then tried to think of as many wild and random challenges as they could -- a hurricane! An autistic brother! Wait ... a LION!

What girl could possibly deal with such hurricane-encased home tribulations? The Hollywood Reporter posts that it is none other than Briana Evigan (Step Up 2: The Streets). Younger readers will recognize the name from her recent work, but some of you out there are probably old enough to remember her Dad's work. THR mentions Greg Evigan's stint on BJ and the Bear, but we mustn't forget My Two Dads.

I wonder: Will this be a serious thriller, a film that should be ignored, or a modern, cheesy classic in the vein of films like Return of the Killer Tomatoes?