ParanormalActivity Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Time for a new horror series on FEARnet.com! This one's called The Dark Path Chronicles, and it comes from director Mary Lambert. And if I have to remind you that she directed the first Pet Sematary, then I question your legitimacy as a horror geek. So far they've posted two episodes and a pair of behind-the-scenes clips. All I know is that it's got vampires in it!

...and the journey of Mandy Lane continues. Screen Daily reports that Sony has acquired the video rights to all of Senator's upcoming releases, and that also includes Clock Tower, Splice, and the Bret Easton Ellis adaptation The Informers. Also from Screen Daily: News on the excellent Paranormal Activity, which is getting sold all over the planet and (yes) being remade.

Curious about that Jason Voorhees documentary you've been hearing about? Get the scoop here. Also, Twitch indicates that the sequel to the fantastic [REC] begins shooting next week. Did you miss the trailer for the next Clive Barker adaptation. Jessica covered it yesterday: Book of Blood.

And frankly there are so many random little tidbits floating around thanks to all the horror geeks' coverage of the American Film Market ... I don't even know where to begin. Instead of linking to each news niblet individually, I'll link you to the AFM ONLY pages at Dread Central, Bloody-Disgusting, and Shock. Lots of random goodness to click through there, horror nerds.

Random question for the experts: Which is the scariest video game?

Despite having previously established my feelings about this weekend's Quarantine, I must confess a new willingness to give it a fair shot later tonight. Regardless, this week's Cinematical Seven is all about first-person horror movies, with a couple of oh-so-subjective stipulations:

• We're leaving The Blair Witch Project (1999) out of this. It might not have been the first of these movies, but it was undeniably the most successful and influential. There are only seven slots here, and I feel like everyone has already made clear whether they find this scary or just stupid (I fall in the former grouping, though I say this having not seen the flick since my teens). If you still feel the need to take BWP to task, comment away.
• Also omitted will be The Last Broadcast (1998), which drew mild controversy at the time of its release for its similarity to Blair Witch. I'm only not writing about it because the copy of it sitting just over on my shelf here has remained unwatched. My bad.
• The previous film by the guys behind Quarantine is The Poughkeepsie Tapes (2007), which -- being in the hands of the Weinsteins -- has not yet seen the light of day beyond a couple of festivals. Having not attended any of said festivals myself, I'll just sit here and guess that it'll get dumped to DVD (probably under the Dimension Extreme label), and not any earlier than next year at that.

Now, on with the list...

Each of the trailers we're looking at this week are for a film with an element of the fantastic. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you The Fantastic Five.

Hellboy 2: The Golden Army
As excited as I was after seeing the teaser trailer, this new preview for Guillermo del Toro's Hellboy sequel has me wanting to see the movie right now. There are tons of supernatural beasties on display here, making this kind of look like Pan's Labyrinth on steroids. We hear Abe Sapien talk, and I still miss David Hyde Pierce's voice, but I imagine once I'm in the thick of the film it won't be a problem. Here's what Eugene thought.

Paranormal Activity
The trailer is shown from the perspective of a home video camera, though I'm not sure how much of the film uses this first person perspective. The whole thing looks awesomely creepy. A woman believes she has been followed all her life by a supernatural entity, and her husband sets up his camcorder in hopes of proving or disproving the phenomenon. The idea seems kind of like The Blair Witch Project meets The Entity, and I'm anxious to see this one. The official website for this low budget scare flick carries some promising review excerpts, including one from Cinematical's own Kim Voynar, and you can read her full review right here.

I have a big "Park City genre report" on the way, but here's some good news that has forced me to jump the gun just a little bit. One of the coolest surprises I saw last week was a Slamdance entry called Paranormal Activity. Now, being that I'm a ravenous horror nerd, I'd already heard (and read) a little bit about the flick -- and I was aware that there was strongly positive buzz from the hardcore horror hounds -- but I wasn't really prepared for how quietly, confidently creepy the flick would be.

I won't spoil anything, but I will say that Paranormal Activity is a great little horror flick, and it sure looks like the people at DreamWorks agree with the horror press. According to Variety, DW has acquired all domestic and remake rights to Paranormal Activity, which basically means we'll see a solid DVD release for the original, and a glossier remake that's not bad, but not as good as the original. The horror fans get two movies, everyone involved gets paid, and it's a nice story all around. Score one for the little guy who made a good movie. (Feel free to check out Kim's review here, and my full review right here.)

Congrats, Oren!

You thought that with all the love we've been throwing at Austin's Fantastic Fest we'd probably forget all about good ol' L.A. Screamfest. Not with me on horror watch! The event runs from October 12 to 20, and if you happen to be located anywhere near the legendary Mann's Chinese Theater -- you just might want to duck inside to see what sort of murderous mayhem is going on.

And the Screamfest looks to be starting off on the right foot this year: Last night's opening night film was George A. Romero's Diary of the Dead! After much praise from the audiences at Toronto and Fantastic Fest, the master's latest zombie opus will hit the west coast with much excitement and gore. And the fun doesn't stop there. The festival will also offer Robert Rodriguez's director's cut of Planet Terror (which is awesome) and a 25th Anniversary screening (and cast reunion) of Friday the 13th Part 3. Yes, in 3-D!

Attendees will also get to check out the long-awaited DVDquel Return to House on Haunted Hill, a screening of the great-looking 30 Days of Night (and the video prequels Blood Trails), David Arquette's festival fave The Tripper, and a variety of genre titles of various shapes, sizes and nationalities. Of the Screamfest flicks we've seen, we've already given a strong seal of approval on the quiet but creepy Alone, the robust zest of Wrong Turn 2, the Pakistani lunacy known as Hell's Ground, , the freakishly ferocious Inside, and the apocalyptic awesomeness that is The Signal. Plus I keep hearing that Shrooms is pretty amusing, Buried Alive is gruesome, and Storm Warning is really solid.