Some indie nibbles for the new week:

• Before Totally F***ed Up or The Doom Generation, Gregg Araki filmed The Living End. The 1992 film followed a gay hustler and a movie critic, both with HIV, who head out on a dangerous journey with the motto: "F*** the world." Over 15 years later, indieWIRE reports that Strand Releasing and Fortissimo Films have teamed up to bring together The Living End: Remixed and Remastered. The film screened on Friday at Sundance, and will be screened again at Berlinale. Since the DVD has pretty much disappeared since its release in 2002, I imagine that this new remastered copy will soon hit those shiny little discs -- hopefully with some tasty special features to boot.
• Back in April, I told you about Finnish band Lordi's upcoming monster movie called Dark Floors. Set in a hospital, the masked band members play monsters who stalk the film's heroes. Now Variety reports that their English-language flick is getting its world premiere February 6, at the Energia Areena in Oulu, before hitting Finnish screens on February 8. On these shores -- well, you'll have to wait and see what happens at Berlin, where the movie will be shopped around. In the meantime, you can check out the trailer through last month's Trailer Park.
  
• Finally, Vertigo Films has been busy buying up a couple of features. First, Variety reports that they've signed on for writer/director Rupert Wyatt's film The Trail, which will shoot this spring in New Mexico. There's no word on what the film is about, but there's a ton of coverage on Polish sites that I (unfortunately) can't read, so I'm wondering if that's a sign. Beyond this mysterious, new, $10 million movie, there's also Wyatt's directorial debut, The Escapist, which Vertigo also picked up. (The world premiere was yesterday at Sundance.)

Hallelujah! Or rather: Hard. Rock. Hallelujah! That happens to be a song by Finnish monster rock band, Lordi. If you haven't heard of them and wonder what they're all about, you can check out the song I referred to here. It's almost like they're straight out of the 80's, with the bad girl all sad in high school, the bitchy cheerleaders, the hard music and over-the-top costumes. But they're not. They're actually a band that's hitting the world by storm, gaining huge success in Europe and now moving out to tour Asia and North America. And that's not all, folks! They're also going to star in a monster movie.

From an advertising and promotional standpoint, how better to gain recognition then to hit your core audience by means of a blood-fest flick? Hell, they've already got the ghoulish costumes -- consisting of armor and skeleton/zombie masks. According to frontman Tomi Petteri Putaansuu: "It will be a full-blooded horror flick, where our characters bluntly butcher people." And, as if it needed to be said: "It will not be for kids." According to Variety, the picture will be called Dark Floors and will shoot this May with pre-sales to begin at Cannes. According to esctoday.com, the Lordi frontman co-wrote the script with Veli-Pekka Hänninen, which is said to be "an American-type slasher thriller with a sprinkle of Japanese style," and it will be set in a hospital. That last bit is really too bad. I think it would've been fun to have a musical horror movie where the band travels around, wreaking their monster-fury and songs on the innocent populace.