Case39 Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Did you know that back in 2006, Renee Zellweger took on a horror film? The project was Case 39, a creepy, kid-centric thriller that started off with bad luck in production when a fire scene torched the entire set and most of the crew's equipment, and continued when the film just couldn't get a distribution break. It was supposed to be out last summer, but just like Mandy Lane, it was a no-go. Now it is said to hit theaters sometime this year, and a trailer has finally been released.

Zellweger plays a social worker who thinks she's saving a kid (Tideland's Jodelle Ferland) from her evil parents trying to send her to hell (one of whom happens to be the excellent Callum Keith Rennie). So this woman takes the kid into her home, but then realizes that this little 10-year-old isn't exactly innocent.

One would imagine that a horror film would have to be pretty decent to get Renee Zellweger on board, and that it can't be all that bad with the talents of Ferland and Rennie. However, Shock Till You Drop says that this puppy has "been through the test screening wringer," so there might be a really good reason we haven't seen it yet, and not just Mandy Lane bad luck. It looks like your basic thriller set-up in the trailer, but looks can be deceiving ... and if they are, could someone give Ferland a break and put her in something that gets a little more love?

Coming up on the new year, it's interesting to see which films we had thought would've been released by this point. In the summer of 2007, I recall myself and several colleagues showing up for a press screening of Jonathan Levine's lauded slasher, All the Boys Love Mandy Lane, only to discover it was canceled just that morning and the film had been sold from the Weinstein Company to Senator that afternoon. (The film has since landed at Sony, whose indie arm, Sony Classics, already saw Levine's follow-up, The Wackness, to a proper theatrical reception.)

At least the Weinsteins gave something up for a change. The oft-shuffled Killshot and Fanboys are tentative January and February releases at the moment, respectively, and I just want to see for myself if The Poughkeepsie Tapes has been worthy of its modest reputation following a BNAT '07 screening -- the same BNAT that featured the reportedly sweet Trick 'r Treat that WB continues to hoard.

A perhaps more morbid curiosity has me keeping an eye on Paramount's Case 39, just to see if it's really that bad, and who knows what similar straits Assassination of a High School President, The Accidental Husband (originally last March), and Possession (originally last February) are in following Yari Film Group's bankruptcy -- not that I have much invested in the last two, but Assassination is a perfectly release-worthy noir take-off that deserves a home.

So what do you guys and girls think? Which of these are you most dying to see? What was the longest you ever waited to catch something, and were you ultimately disappointed or satisfied by the time it came your way?