Just when you thought it was safe to go on a cruise, a teenage girl goes psychotic and tries to kill you with her handheld video game machine. That's the basic premise of the upcoming Japanese teen horror flick Twilight Syndrome: Dead Cruise, whose unusual twist is that "a vindictive bullying victim named Eri (Saki Terashima) ... traps her classmates in a deadly virtual reality game while on a class trip ... controlling it through her DS [Nintendo DS Lite] touchscreen," as described by Kevin at Nippon Cinema. Yup: death by Nintendo.*

The trailer, which you can see at Nippon Cinema, does not make the game's use by a killer the only selling point of the movie, but it's clearly seen in two or three scenes, and Nintendo gets screen credit at the end of the trailer.

The movie is based on a creepy video game from several years ago. According to our good friends at DS Fanboy, a new version of the game, Twilight Syndrome: The Forbidden Urban Legend, is due out on July 26. (They have the trailer too.) That might explain the Nintendo DS product placement, but it's still very odd. The game will be followed by Dead Cruise and then another film in the series -- Twilight Syndrome: Dead Go Round -- two weeks later.

The official site has more information. Twilight Samurai: Dead Cruise splashes onto Japanese screens on August 2. Don't expect an official US DVD release anytime soon.

* UPDATE: Spelling error corrected. Thanks to Cesaria.

Since most people expect don't expect much from video game flicks, it can't come as much as a surprise that the big screen version of Castlevania has already been sent back to the drawing board. Back in 2005, Paul W.S. Anderson had signed on to write and direct, and up until January 2007 he was still committed to the project; promising a spring start date for production. But the lure of Anderson's next project, Death Race, must have been strong, since he dropped Castlevania to work on it full time.

Bloody Disgusting is reporting that Rogue Pictures has hired Ian Jeffers to completely re-work the script and Sylvain White to helm the flick. White was the director behind the straight-to-video horror I'll Always Know What You Did Last Summer, and the teen dance flick Stomp The Yard. Jeffers is relative newcomer, and Death Sentence was his screen writing debut.

For those not familiar with the best-selling Konami game series, Castlevania focused on The Belmonts, a family sworn to protect the human race from Dracula. The game has evolved over the years, but the producer for the film, Jeremy Bolt, told IGN back in June that the film has "a fair amount of references. We always try to give the fans something that respects their love of the game but also give them something completely new. So we've added a whole new spin to Castlevania". According to Bloody Disgusting, the addition of Jeffers means that Anderson's original script for the project has probably been scrapped -- which might come as a relief to die-hard fans out there. Castlevania is set for release in late 2008.

Even though Peter Jackson might have been among the first directors with designs on "conquering the console", Steven Spielberg has become the next big-name director to catch the gaming bug. Play.tm has an interview with EA's Neil Young about the studio working closely with the famed director on 3 different games. Details are sketchy on the titles, but Young did say that one game will be about an "end of the world" type of event. Young also said that another game is being designed for the Nintendo Wii. The real shocker was that according to Young, "Steven's in the studio about once a week, anywhere from 1 to 4 hours; he swings by and he's in the office by about 8:30 and usually leaves like 11:00 or midday, it's everything you'd hoped the relationship would be but were nervous to ask upfront. It's really wonderful spending time with him...".

Spielberg obviously doesn't have a problem with multi-tasking; the latest Indiana Jones film has announced a "solid" start date, and he will also be bringing Tintin to Dreamworks. You have to wonder if those projects could suffer in light of his new passion for gaming. It really looks like Spielberg is a kid at heart, because like every other kid, he's busy playing video games when he has work to do.