DonkeyPunch Tagged Articles at Cinematical

I know, it's been a while since I've written one of these gore-soaked missives, but the upside to that is ... we have a lot to talk about! And since I wrote this during a lazy Sunday (happy belated holidays, btw) I figure it's time to break out the candy-coated bullet points! Let's start out with a freaky fistful of upcoming DVD releases:

Currently strewn across shelves are Donkey Punch and Vinyan, two festival-heavy horror films that couldn't possibly be more different. One's about venal young jerks, and the other is about heartbroken (but stupid) parents. Really bad things happen to all of them.

This Tuesday we're getting the old-school-style monster movie Splinter, which is really quite good. If you like prickly monsters, that is. On the same day ... whoa. It looks like someone actually bothered to exhume flicks like Repossessed, Slaughter High, and My Best Friend Is a Vampire. That sound you just heard was my Netflix queue getting fatter.

Come the 21st we get J.T. Petty's The Burrowers, which played (and played well) at last year's Fantastic Fest, and Robert Hall's Laid to Rest, which is sort of like a non-snarky slasher throwback with a hint of Phantasm-style weirdness. Couldn't find a stranger double feature than these two, believe me.

And mark your calendars, gore-lovers, for April 28, because that's when Martyrs finally hits R1 DVD. According to the UK poster, Scoot Weinberg says it "makes Saw look like Sesame Street," which is one of the most shameless blurbs I've ever heard. Even if the guy is correct, brilliant, and really handsome. (Trust me, this is one rough horror movie.) Also on this Tuesday we'll get the unofficial Donnie Darko sequel, and a movie starring Amber Benson called One-Eyed Monster. I leave the jokes to you fine folks.

Doubt
Philip Seymour Hoffman is thrilling to watch as a priest accused of abuse by god-like nun Meryl Streep. Streep's highly-studied Bronx accent cracks me up, but this is a crackerjack stage play by John Patrick Shanley that he adopted for the screen and directed. Viola Davis makes a deep impression, and Amy Adams is a cute nun. Buy it.

Add to Netflix queue | Buy at Amazon | Read Jeffrey M. Anderson's review.

The Tale of Despereaux
Quoting myself: "A slapdash character study of two rodents ... a gentle and nurturing children's story, imparting lessons without being too condescending to its audience." This could become a family perennial. With the voices of Matthew Broderick, Dustin Hoffman, and Emma Watson. Buy it.

Add to Netflix queue | Buy at Amazon | Read my review.

The Day the Earth Stood Still
You've already seen the best bits in the trailer. Seriously. Even allowing for Keanu Reeves' intentionally blank slate and the prototypical "annoying kid," and crushing on Jennifer Connelly, this was a deadly bore that didn't come close to the far superior original. Skip it.

Add to Netflix queue | Buy at Amazon | Read William Goss' review.

Yes Man
Jim Carrey stars in what our man Will Goss described as "a minor lark in the Canadian comedian's career ... familiar and funny in about equal measure." Still, Carrey familiarity + Zooey Deschanel makes me want to check it out. Rent it.

Add to Netflix queue | Buy at Amazon | Read William Goss' review.

Bedtime Stories

Adam Sandler has always seemed child-like, but Jette Kernion said: "Watching Bedtime Stories is about as delightful as peeking into your Christmas stocking and finding it empty except for a few lint-covered peppermints." (Note: Released this past Sunday.) Skip it.

Add to Netflix queue | Buy at Amazon | Read Jette Kernion's review.

Pleasure and pain -- for any film to evoke either emotion takes a considerable effort, for better or worse, and to extract one sensation out of the other takes a defter touch yet. Olly Blackburn's Donkey Punch starts out with its characters indulging in all manner of proud debauchery, and when they come to bear the consequences of their behavior, their pain becomes our pleasure. That admittedly may not spell out 'entertainment' for everyone, but it wouldn't be entertaining in the hands of just anyone, and Blackburn takes one boat, one body, a rising tide of panic and a rising number of corpses and uses them all to craft the best bad news possible.

Friday the 13th
This is the new full length trailer for the reimagining of the classic horror franchise. Sexually active young adults being stalked by a big dude in a goalie mask. Aside from a Jason who is much faster than the lumbering killing machine in countless sequels I don't see anything new here. This hits theaters on Friday February 13.

Terminator Salvation
OK, this is really just a preview of the preview which is kind of lame. Entertainment Tonight is going to have the official first look at the full Terminator: Salvation trailer next tuesday, but this clip from the 12/4 shows some intriguing bits. Terminator 3 pretty much killed my interest in the series, but between this and the teaser trailer they've definitely got my attention. Salvation begins on May 22.

Donkey Punch
Despite a title that implies some bizarre form of animal cruelty (and the actual meaning of the term is even more disturbing) this is a horror suspense yarn about a good time gone very wrong. Three girls out partying in Spain meet some guys and go back to their yacht. One of the girls ends up dead after some rough sex games and the plot is off and running. The trailer makes me think of Wolf Creek, another young-people's-vacation-turns-to-horror movie. Look for this in theaters on January 23 in limited release.

I've done reports on the After Dark horror series, the Asylum assembly line, and the monumentally moronic Maneater collection -- so I see nothing all that strange about throwing a little genre love towards Magnet's new Six-Shooter Series. (The only difference this time around is that we're going to be talking about GOOD genre films.)

To those who demand to know what the hell phrases like "Magnet Six-Shooter" mean, here's an explanation: Magnolia Films recently kick-started a genre-intensive division (called Magnet Releasing), and the guys are pretty psyched about their next six flicks. There, I've just demystified the phrase "Magnet Six-Shooter." You all owe me three dollars. And here's what's coolest about a six-flick genre series that's run by Magnolia Pictures: You'll actually get something EXOTIC out of the mix.

To use the finest example imaginable, it is Magnet Releasing that was lucky enough to land U.S. distribution rights for the stunningly awesome Let the Right One In, which is dazzling people all over the festival circuit. (And that was a great roll of the dice, as Magnolia grabbed it well before it was earning 5-star reviews across the board.) The film will open in limited release on October 24, but be sure to keep an eye out for the DVD as well. This flick is a keeper for sure.

Above: Jasper Sharp, author of Behind the Pink Curtain; the Alamo Drafthouse; Sean Donnelly (blue shirt), director of doc I Think We're Alone Now; Rian Johnson (glasses), director of The Brothers Bloom; Devin Faraci (glasses and beard), writer, CHUD.com, in the midst of debate; Jay Slater, English writer, ready to resolve a debate by boxing.

What qualifies a mainstream comedy like The Brothers Bloom to screen at Fantastic Fest, a festival reknowned for its horror, science fiction, fantasy, and other hard-core genre entries? One answer might be: 'Because co-founder Harry Knowles said so,' but even Knowles wondered if the film belonged in the program. The better answer might be: 'Why the heck not?' The best film festivals in the world are programmed by knowledgeable people who are passionate about presenting films they love to audiences who are eager to discover great new work.

In his introduction to the film, which was presented as the first "secret screening" of the festival (titles not revealed in advance; the shows always sell out anyway) on Tuesday evening, Knowles expressed his conviction that writer/director Rian Johnson "creates his own worlds." Certainly there are fairy-tale aspects to Johnson's featherweight con man tale, but I doubt anyone present really cared if the film "belonged" at the festival or not. The steady stream of visual gags drew near constant laughter, though I agree with James Rocchi that the film drags too long and, for me, edged too far into sentimental obscurity. The Brothers Bloom opens wide in January.

My screening day began with horror thriller Donkey Punch, a conventional yet refreshingly hard-edged dive into depravity that could be summed up as "threesomes never end well for anybody," a modern updating of the 80s slasher film notion that sexually active teens must pay for their sins by dying in repulsive ways. It's due for limited release in January.

(from left to right) Fantastic Fest programmer Zack Carlson, Fantastic Feud co-hosts Devin Steuerwald and Scott Weinberg, and Not Quite Hollywood director Mark Hartley

With the weekend came no sure rest for Fantastic Fest attendees. Saturday kicked off with, among other things: a screening of Conquest of the Planet of the Apes shown from an HD master of a cut unseen in over thirty-five years; initial screenings of the very popular Tiffany stalker doc I Think We're Alone Now and the very anticipated Swedish vampire drama Let the Right One In (which can now fall firmly in the former category); and a boat party held in honor of Donkey Punch, in which several youthful types face some serious consequences after their high behavior on the high seas. Did life end up imitating art on that front...?

Our pals from Magnolia Pictures were up at Sundance 2008 in support of their Timecrimes acquisition -- but it looks like someone from the distribution department caught a few of the midnight screenings: According to Variety, Magnolia Pictures has acquired Olly Blackburn's UK thriller Donkey Punch, and they plan to release it through their newly-created Magnet division. (You can check out my DP review right here at FEARnet.)

The story of some sea-bound debauchery that goes horribly wrong (think Very Bad Things, only not as absurdly amusing), Donkey Punch is a handsome and tight-knuckled chiller -- even if it is more than a little beholden to movies like Dead Calm and Shallow Grave. It's about seven young adults who take off on a stunningly massive yacht, but when one partier ends up (accidentally dead), it sets off a series of events that leaves most of other the partiers, well, dead. (It is a horror flick after all.)

Donkey Punch will open in the UK (courtesy of Optimum) some time this summer. No word yet on when Magnolia aims to unleash this one -- but bet on a very limited release pattern before the arrival of a satisfyingly packed DVD. Also on the horizon from Magnolia: Big Man Japan, The Signal, Kiltro, Mirageman, Eden Log and (of course) Timecrimes.

Here's a D-licious, highbrow collection of news for the weekend:

• A few years ago, there was a little German horror comedy called Night of the Living Dorks. Three dorks do a voodoo ritual, later die in a car accident, come back as zombies and then try to make the most of their condition. Since zombies are so hot right now, it was only a matter of time before we got a remake, and now it's here, at the hands of Warner Independent Pictures and Chris Bishop, who will write the script. I'm sure it will be whatever you think it's going to be. The group of producers on the film hail from Vertigo, who are responsible for remakes like The Departed, so that bodes well for the flick.
• Continuing with the ultra-mature and serious fare, there is Donkey Punch. Yes, that's the real title. A debut feature for Warp X, as well as writer/director Olly Blackburn, the film follows a group of people delighting in a hedonistic weekend in Spain. One afternoon, too much drugging and sexing leads to an accidental death on a yacht, which results in them having to fight to survive. Whether there will be an actual "donkey punch" in the film, I don't know. The flick will start shooting in South Africa next week, and it stars Jaime Winstone (who is in the just-picked-up Daddy's Girl), Tom Burke, Nichola Burley and Julian Morris.
• Rounding out this collection of D-starting horror, we've got The Demonology of Desire. It's a second film from Rue Morgue founder-turned-short film director Rodrigo Gudino, and Twitch has some gory stills to feast on. The premise: Ramona makes a wish that is answered when she meets Eric. However, there's "dark fantastical depths" to the boyhood crush, and the film reportedly mixes fable, romantic thriller and artcore horror. Vague, eh? The stills show a cage and some bloody flesh, if that helps clear things up for you.