TheCottage Tagged Articles at Cinematical
Tribeca Review: The Cottage
Filed under: Comedy », Horror », Tribeca », Sony », Theatrical Reviews »
Broad comedy and splattery horror are a pretty tough combo to pull off, but if anyone can do it ... the British can. There's no denying that the British are masters of comedy, and they also have a lot of skill with the scary stuff ... most of the time. One need only take another look at a flick like Shaun of the Dead to see how rare and how satisfying a great "horror comedy combo" can be. Which brings us to The Cottage, an enjoyably but fairly schizophrenic genre experiment that does a fine job with the horror and comedy as separate components -- but, as is usually the case, the combination of the two proves to be a very difficult feat to pull off.
Similar in tone and delivery to Chistopher Smith's Severance, The Cottage tells the story of two astoundingly different brothers who (stupidly) decide to kidnap a crime boss' daughter and hold the buxom blonde for ransom, only to discover that their forest hideout is the home of a typically horrific and mutated murderer. In a fashion that may prove familiar to fans of Robert Rodriguez's From Dusk Till Dawn, The Cottage spends about 45 minutes as a dark-hued kidnapping comedy -- and then it quickly changes speed before evolving into a rather energetic horror-fest. The tonal shift creates a flick that doesn't always work well as a whole, but definitely succeeds on the backs of a few strong performances and a handful of amusingly over-the-top gore-splatters.
Trailer Park: From a Laugh to a Scream
Filed under: Comedy », Horror », Trailer Trash », Movie Marketing », Trailers and Clips »
Some of the best times at the movies are spent either laughing or screaming, sometimes both at the same time. This week's collection of trailers are for films designed to frighten and/or amuse.
Son of Rambow
The MPAA tag says the film has earned its PG-13 rating in part because of "reckless" behavior," and some of the funniest bits in this trailer come from the stunts performed for a home made Rambo sequel. Set in the 1980s, two British school boys set out to make their own homegrown sequel to First Blood, the first of the Rambo films. One of the boys is from a strict religious family, and participating in the project conflicts with his faith. This looks like a hoot, and I was especially pleased to see Jessica Hynes (a.k.a. Jessica Stevenson) from the Simon Pegg TV series Spaced. Here's Monika's take on the trailer and James' review of the film. Check out the trailer right here:
Shutter
This remake of a Thai film deals with spirit photography, the process of photographing ghosts. There's a shot in this one of someone flipping through a series of photos, and the images act like a flip book, showing a translucent figure crawling across the floor. Yeah, that gave me the willies. There are some shots of Dawson's Creek's Joshua Jackson gettin' busy with some kind of other worldly entity that creeped me out, but I'm still feeling lukewarm about this one. I get the feeling this is yet another de-fanged PG-13 horror movie. Here's Patrick's take on the trailer.
Andy Serkis Enters The Cottage
Filed under: Comedy », Horror », Independent », Casting », Noir », Peter Jackson », Cinematical Indie »
After breaking into the big time playing (and modeling for) CGI characters Gollum (in The Lord of the Rings trilogy) and King Kong, it is time that Andy Serkis becomes recognized for his own face as much as for his versatile acting talents. You may have seen him in supporting roles in Hollywood fare like 13 Going on 30 or The Prestige, and you can see him as the villain in the upcoming fantasy Inkheart, but you probably haven't had the opportunity to see him carry a film mostly on his own. Fortunately you may get to soon, as he's just been cast as one of the leads in The Cottage. I say you may get to because The Cottage is being made by a hot, up-and-coming British director named Paul Andrew Williams, who has been receiving a lot of awards and acclaim abroad for his debut feature, London to Brighton, but who hasn't been given any attention from American distributors yet.
The Cottage is to be a black comedy horror film about a botched kidnapping of a crime boss' daughter. Serkis will be playing one of two brothers who perform the failed crime and who then find themselves mixed up in some kind of "rural secret". The other brother will likely be played by British comedy star Reece Shearsmith. Other cast members include Jennifer Ellison and Steve O'Donnell. Since there are no real international stars, the chances of The Cottage getting a release in the U.S. are low, but hopefully enough Peter Jackson fans will want to see Serkis in the spotlight and will give Hollywood a reason to pick this one up.
If Williams' work doesn't get a proper showing over here, there may be other chances to see Serkis in a starring role. It was just announced by HBO Films and the BBC that he will be playing Albert Einstein in a made-for-TV biopic. There isn't certainty that we will be able to easily see this film either, but it definitely shows that Serkis is on the right path to bigger and more well-known things.
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