DeadSnow Tagged Articles at Cinematical
Northern Exposures: FanTasia Report #1
Filed under: Comedy », Documentary », Horror », Independent », Sci-Fi & Fantasy », Thrillers », SXSW », Mystery & Suspense », IFC », Festival Reports », Shorts », Fantastic Fest », Other Festivals »
After a long flight on my part and a far longer drive for both of us, Scott Weinberg and I have finally arrived in Montréal for the FanTasia International Film Festival (their thirteenth, our first). The genre-heavy festival lasts for nearly three weeks; alas, we've but one to spare, so without much further ado, here's a look at what I've seen already and what I hope to see before Scott tips his own hand with a title or two to recommend.
Of the features playing, I can highly recommend Michael Paul Stephenson's Troll 2 doc, Best Worst Movie; the Aussie revenge thriller, The Horseman (not to be confused with the barely-seen Dennis Quaid vehicle, Horsemen); and Paul Solet's beautifully bloody baby horror, Grace. Those looking for something a bit stranger might end up being a bit more fond of Black and The Immaculate Conception of Little Dizzle than I was, though I also seemed more easily pleased by the Nazi zombies of Dead Snow than most, so I guess it all balances out. My enthusiasm for the ultra-kitschy likes of Alien Trespass and Lesbian Vampire Killers, not to mention the admittedly boundary-pushing Deadgirl, is all a bit less than what's already been mentioned, so let's just leave those at that.
Read the rest at HorrorSquad!
Crazy Short Film 'Treevenge' Now Online!
Filed under: Horror », Shorts », Fandom », Trailers and Clips »
Back at Sundance, our own Scott Weinberg absolutely fell in love with the short film that played before Dead Snow called Treevenge. Here's what he had to say at the time: "The short that preceded Dead Snow is a miniature classic of comedy and horror. It's called Treevenge and it comes from the Canadian knuckleheads that gave us Hobo With a Shotgun. Suffice to say that Treevenge is just about the finest film ever made about homicidal Christmas treees. Silly, splattery, hilarious stuff." Now the film has finally made its way online, and Peter Martin brings it to us over at Horror Squad)Christmas only comes once a year, but you can take revenge on the holiday any time you want, thanks to Jason Eisener. The filmmaker first splashed into our consciousness with Hobo with a Shotgun, his hilarious, spot-on 70s exploitation faux trailer for Grindhouse, and then returned with a vengeance, making a really good, original short film, Treevenge. The horror short made the festival rounds, garnering guffaws and general acclaim, and became something of a word-of-mouth sensation.
Read the rest and watch Treevenge over at Horror Squad
Trailer Park: The Road to Pandorum is Lined With Bad Chipmunks
Filed under: Action », Horror », Sci-Fi & Fantasy », Trailer Trash »
The Road
This bleak tale of one family trying to survive the apocalypse is based on a Pulitzer Prize winning novel by Cormac McCarthy, author of No Country For Old Men. After some kind of global cataclysm (it's not clear if it's a nuclear war), a man played by Viggo Mortensen must help his son to survive by whatever means necessary. Charlize Theron, Guy Pearce and Robert Duvall also star. This looks darkly fascinating and probably would have gone well with a Cinematical Seven I did not long ago. This one comes out on October 16.
Pandorum
This new trailer reveals quite a bit more than the teaser we saw awhile back. Two men awaken aboard a space craft wondering what's become of the thousands of other crew members. Other people show up as do some scary monster types who may be the mutated crew. Looks like an intersting take on the Alien formula. Watch for this one on September 4.
Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakuel
I didn't see the first film because it looked pretty awful, although the ridiculous amount of money it made showed that not everybody thought so. This teaser, which involves Alvin, Simon and Theodore doing their rendition of the 20th Century Fox Fanfare is pretty cute and the film should presumably please those who enjoyed the original. This one scurries into theaters on Christmas Day.
IFC's Next Batch of On-Demand Horrors: Canadian Radio & Zombie Nazis
Filed under: Action », Comedy », Drama », Foreign Language », Horror », Independent », IFC », Festival Reports », Distribution », Home Entertainment »
If you're anything like me, then you like fiddling around with the buttons on your cable remote. It used to be that you KNEW of all the options your remote could provide, but nowadays I have cable channels and VOD options I never knew existed. So a little while ago I clicked on a button that said IFC Festival Direct, which delivered unto me a pair of options: IFC Showcase and IFC Midnight. Yeah, try and guess where I started.I saw a few familiar titles: Left Bank and Sauna, both of which I saw (and liked) at Fantastic Fest '08, as well as well-reviewed genre fare like The Chaser, Zift, and a Brit import called Hush that I may watch this very afternoon. Also on the docket for IFC Midnight: the indie thriller Dark Mirror, a gory South Korean offering called Cadaver, and a Dutch psycho story called Fear Me Not. Oh, and two I can definitely vouch for: the strange Canadian horror known as Pontypool and a Norwegian nazi-zombie fest called Dead Snow.
If you're looking for recent festival fare that's not horrific in nature, then you can sift through Joe Swanberg's Alexander the Last, the steamy erotica of L A'ventura, Sam Neill in Angel, or worthwhile options like Paper Covers Rock, Rain, or Three Blind Mice. Apparently this "VOD" thing is the wave of the future, and I find it very satisfying to know that the flick YOU just saw at the Florida Film Festival is also available from my own cable box for about six bucks. For a whole lot more on IFC's home-demand offerings, I suggest you click right here and flick around a bit. (They also offer some rather fine programming that's free with the IFC service, don't forget.)
The Scary Bits: Raimi's Return, Jason's Resurrection & Some New 'Thing'
Filed under: Horror », The Scary Bits »
So after years of wondering and months of alleged deals, it finally looks like Universal is dusting something off for a remake. SomeTHING I should say, so if you're a fan of Christian Nyby's The Thing (From Another World), John Carpenter's The Thing, or John Campbell's source material Who Goes There?, then you should be suitably elated to learn that Universal has tapped a writer and a director for the new-fangled version. Me, I'm fine with it. But if you come into my house and mess with my The Thing DVD, I may have to cut you. (More from Pete right here.)
Sam Raimi's long-awaited return to horror is called Drag Me to Hell, and while I won't get to see it for a few more weeks (sadface), the early buzz from the L.A. horror hounds is nothing but enthusiastic. I refuse to read ANYthing about this movie, but you can click around Bloody, Shock, and Dread to see what those gorehounds thought.
Oooh, next week we get a bunch of new Friday the 13th DVDs! (I wonder why.) Check out my little report on those platters right here. Directly opposite of next week we have last week, which is when we saw a few new horror flicks at Sundance. Those films were Grace (Snider's review / mine at FEARnet), The Killing Room (mine), and Dead Snow (Snider's / mine), and while it's not horror at all, Moon is just damn cool enough to warrant another mention. Here's James' review and here's mine. (It's old-school science fiction, in that it's about ideas AND technology. How very cool.)
Random bits on: Joss Whedon's Cabin in the Woods; that remake of The Crazies; the availability of the awesome [REC] on R1 DVD; and our multiple affectons for Sean Ellis' The Broken. (Ooh, the Martyrs DVD cover!)
Sundance Review: Dead Snow
Filed under: Comedy », Foreign Language », Horror », Independent », New Releases », Sundance », Theatrical Reviews », Festival Reports »
The main thing Dead Snow wants you to know is that it's a splatter film about Nazi zombies. You like zombies, and Nazis add kitsch value, so you're sold. But once you get past the relative novelty of it (they're ZOMBIES, but they're also NAZIS!!), Dead Snow is only so-so. The only thing that separates it from the zombie movies you've already seen is that it's in Norwegian.
It's from director Tommy Wirkola, who, with co-writer Stig Frode Henriksen, had a huge hit in Norway with the 2007 Tarantino parody Kill Buljo. Dead Snow offers more proof of Wirkola's fondness for Tarantino, and you get the feeling he's seen plenty of Sam Raimi and George Romero, too. Those are all good ingredients, but without some kind of new spice all you're doing is serving leftovers.
Hungry now? Good. Let's talk about flesh-eating zombies. These ones are Nazi officers and soldiers whose frozen bodies, long hidden beneath the snow of Norway's hinterlands, have now been reanimated for reasons that Wirkola barely bothers to explain. Their victims are a group of college students who have trekked to a remote cabin for a weekend of wintertime merriment.
Sundance in 60 Seconds: Sunday, January 18, 2009
Filed under: Sundance », Festival Reports », Cinematical Indie »
Sunday may be a day of rest, but not for the intrepid Cinematical crew, who cranked out reviews and posts between screenings and interviews. They weren't the only busy ones, of course!
Deals. Nothing closed, but Gregg Goldstein of Movie City News reported (very early) that David Mackenzie's sex comedy Spread, starring Ashton Kutcher and Anne Heche, excited distributors because of its commercial appeal. The Jim Carrey "gay prison love story" I Love You Phillip Morris premiered tonight and distribs are expected to be circling.
Cinematical Reviews, and An Interview. Erik Davis says Marc Webb's 500 Days of Summer, with Zooey Deschanel and Joseph Gordon Levitt, is "an anti-fairytale" romantic comedy. (Did you watch the teaser trailer? Fox Searchlight will release it in July.) Erik was super impressed by the teen detective antics of the Derrick Comedy troupe in Mystery Team, which he calls "a silly, stupid, ridiculous comedy." Paul Solet's Grace inspired the inimitable Eric D. Snider to opine: "If you are the sort of person who might enjoy an effed-up gore-fest about a woman [Jordan Ladd] who delivers an undead baby, you can rest assured that Grace lives up to its potential." Scott Weinberg wrote about killer trees, Nazi zombies, and a cool celeb .
James Rocchi interviewed Antoine Fuqua, director of Brooklyn's Finest, a few hours before the film sold to Senator Entertainment. James was cool toward Doug Pray's doc Art & Copy ("essentially, an ad for advertising") but warmed up to Sophie Barthes' Cold Souls, with Paul Giamatti giving "what may be his best performance" as an actor who stores his soul. James also saw a "French-style ... transgendered revenge comedy," and lived to tell about it.
Blog Talk. My favorite quotes of the day, if you have a few more seconds, after the jump.
Sundance '09: Our 12 Most Anticipated Films
Filed under: Sundance », Fandom », DIY/Filmmaking », Lists »
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It's just about time for myself and a few trusty Cinematical cohorts (James Rocchi, Scott Weinberg and Eric D. Snider) to pack up our bags and head for the mountains of Park City, Utah -- home to, of course, the Sundance Film Festival. Once we're on the ground, we'll be posting reviews, interviews, scene/party coverage, photos, videos and whatever else there is to throw online that way you, our most loyal readers, will feel like you're right smack in the middle of the biggest film festival of the year. And to get the ball rolling, here are our 12 most anticipated films of the 2009 Sundance Film Festival.
12 Most Anticipated Sundance Films
1. Big Fan
The Wrestler screenwriter Robert D. Siegel returns to New Jersey as director for this drama about a hardcore NY Giants fan (Patton Oswalt) who suffers major consequences when he's beaten up by his favorite player.
We Say: Hey Giants fans, at least we can watch them beating someone ...
Sundance Film Festival
2. 500 Days of Summer
A quirky, offbeat comedy about a girl who doesn't believe in true love and the guy who falls head over feet for her.
We Say: Cliché? Maybe. But when else will we get to see indie darlings Zooey Deschanel and Joseph Gordon-Levitt star opposite one another?
Sundance Film Festival
3. Brief Interviews with Hideous Men
Based on the collection of short stories, Hideous Men follows a female grad student who, following a breakup, decides to interview men in an attempt to uncover the secrets behind their unpredictable behavior.
We Say: Fans of The Office's John Krasinski (who wrote and directed) will get to see his debut as a filmmaker.
Sundance Film Festival
4. Moon
A character study about a lone astronaut (Sam Rockwell) stationed on the moon for three years who begins to unravel physically and mentally.
We Say: A whole film of just Sam Rockwell? Sign us up!
Sundance Film Festival
5. Art & Copy
Doug Pray directs this documentary which delves deep inside the advertising industry to reveal the hidden secrets behind some of the most successful and innovative campaigns of our time.
We Say: Pray's Surfwise was one of the greatest (and most overlooked) docs of 2008, and so we'll gladly welcome his next outing.
Sundance Film Festival
6. Sin Nombre
A social-political thriller set on the Mexican border about three teens whose fates collide on a train heading for the United States.
We Say: Writer-director Cary Joji Fukunaga is one to watch having taken home a student Academy Award for his previous short film, Victoria para chino.
Sundance Film Festival
7. I Love You Phillip Morris
The writers of Bad Santa make their directorial debut with this story about a cop-turned-con man (Jim Carrey) who falls for a fellow inmate (Ewan McGregor) while in prison. But is it all just one big con?
We Say: There's nothing about this on-screen recipe that doesn't reek of fun festival flick.
Sundance Film Festival
8. Reporter
Executive produced by Ben Affleck, Eric Daniel Metzgar's documentary travels deep into the Congo following New York Times reporter Nicholas D. Kristof on a mission to expose the affect this kind of journalism has on the rest of the world.
We Say: Definitely a worthy watch during this, the age of the disappearing journalist.
Sundance Film Festival
9. The Missing Person
Starring Michael Shannon, Amy Ryan and Frank Wood, The Missing Person tells of a private investigator/alcoholic who lands the case of his life ... if he can just stick around long enough to crack it.
We Say: The promise of a smooth noir caper with a few sweet performances has more than piqued our interest.
Sundance Film Festival
10. World's Greatest Dad
In an attempt not to feel shame following his son's death, a father (Robin Williams) writes a fake suicide note which ultimately gets published and becomes a huge hit – leading him to dive into a career as a fake author.
We Say: It's directed by funnyman Bobcat Goldthwait, whose keen eye for devilishly dark comedy (see: Stay) has us very interested.
Sundance Film Festival
Headless Poster for Nazi Zombie Flick 'Dead Snow'
Filed under: Horror », Sundance », Fandom », Movie Marketing », Posters »
Our Norwegian friends over at Rush Blogg got their hands on the exclusive international poster for Dead Snow (or Død snø), that Sundance midnight film about a group of teenagers who go on a ski trip and accidentally have a run in with a whole host full of bloody Nazi zombies. (Don't you hate it when that happens?) One of the films on our 12 most anticipated list (which goes live a bit later on), Dead Snow looks to be the definite cultish talked-about midnight flick in Park City this year, especially if we can get a nice blizzard the day of its premiere. The poster itself -- which you can view in full over here -- features some dude with a bloody chainsaw standing over the head of, well, a Nazi zombie. If ever there was a film to top off the list of recent Holocaust-related movies, this has to be it. Dead Snow premieres at the famed Egyptian Theatre in Park City this Saturday night at midnight.
The Scary Bits: Violent Valentines, Halloween Rehash & Scary Santas
Filed under: Horror », The Scary Bits »
Woohoo, let's check one horror remake off the list for 2009! Yes, I was fortunate enough to experience the 3-D splatteriness of My Bloody Valentine at the jam-packed BNAT 10 last weekend -- and while I was equal parts skeptical and intrigued, I'm pleased to opine that this is one fun little gore-fest. Feel free to check out my review at FEARnet and / or Devin's over at CHUD for some specific thoughts. (Big fan of the original Valentine? Then check out this interview re: the new DVD!) Oh, and here's the newest teaser trailer:
Hmm, what else happened while I was down in Austin? Ah yes, Rob Zombie was officially locked in to directing Halloween 2, which excites me in the same way that would Uwe Boll directing a remake of The Thing. With all due respect to Robby Z. and his legions of fans ... I just hate his movies. Despite actively trying to enjoy each flick (more than once!), each one feels like a sweaty barbecue with the world's most disgusting inbreds. Not scary, just ugly and unpleasant. And since Halloween 2 holds a strange little place in my heart, I think I'll just forget about this project until it hits the screens this October.
Hey cool: Looks like that geek-friendly Outlander flick is finally touching down on January 23. Sounds good. Also in January? Sundance and Slamdance! My red-penciled genre flicks are as follows: Dead Snow, Grace, The Killing Room, and Moon (from Sundance), plus Conjurer, I Sell the Dead, Mum & Dad, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Undead, and Zombie Girl: The Movie (from Slamdance). Oh, and all the dramas and comedies and such...
True or False: There is such a thing as too many Bruce Campbell interviews. (Answer: False.) And Happy Horrodays! Here's a list of cinema's ten scariest Santas! Last and probably least: Anyone out there want to see Steven Seagal as a vampire slayer? This might cure you.
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James Cameron Never Wanted to Make 'Titanic'
Their Best Role: Brad Pitt and 'Fight Club'_thumbnail.jpg)
Megan Fox's Scratched SNL Hitler/Michael Bay Joke
Quick List: Five Favorite Ice-Bound Movie Moments
Blu-ray Review: Funny People
