catacombs Tagged Articles at Cinematical

In addition to being a fine horror site (where you can watch full movies for free if you like!), FEARnet is also a movies-on-demand channel that's available to Comcast subscribers. Generally the FEARnet cable channel offers old-school time-wasters like Leprechaun, Wishmaster and Child's Play ... which is great when you're in the mood to flip through some options and settle in for a nasty little horror flick.

Anyway,as of right now FEARnet is offering their very first "original" movie! It's a flick called Catacombs -- and yes, horror fans, it's that one with Shannyn Sossamon that's been sitting on a shelf at Lionsgate Central for the past two years. I haven't seen the movie yet (probably later tonight!), but I think it's pretty nifty that the channel has a "first-run" title to offer the viewers. Even if it sucks, Catacombs is definitely a horror movie you haven't seen yet, plus it's a freebie anyway.

Here's what the IMDb says about Catacombs: "On her first trip to Paris, a young woman hits a party in the Catacombs, the 200-mile labyrinth of limestone tunnels under the city that's lined with the remains of 7 million people. Separated from her friends, she becomes convinced that someone or something is chasing her." The flick was cooked up by writer / directors Tomm Coker and David Elliot. (The former is a comic book artist and the latter wrote The Watcher.) It's also a Twisted Pictures production, which means it comes from the same checkbook that birthed the Saw series. (Lionsgate will release the flick on DVD early next year.)

So let's say you're dying to see Catacombs now ... but you don't get the FEARnet cable channel. Well FEARnot, because if you really want to watch the flick (online, for free), you can do so right here starting on October 31. (Full disclosure: I write horror reviews for the FEARnet website, just so you know. But I'd be sharing the news on FREE NEW horror movies no matter where they were hosted.)

I have to admit -- I never heard of the Catacombs of Paris until this year. Lounging at a friend's place, we somehow ended up watching one of those informational shows on the French city, and I finally got a primer on the eerie miles of tunnels underneath Paris. For the uninitiated -- the Catacombs is a network of tunnels and rooms underneath France that were converted into gigantic tomb at the end of the 18th century. The city was suffering from disease, so mass exhumations were performed, and remains were carefully placed in the tunnels, building walls of human bone and skulls. Considering the eerie story, it's surprising that it took all this time for someone to throw together a horror flick.

Will it be good? I'm not so sure. We first told you about Catacombs a year ago, because Pink was playing one of the sisters caught in the Catacombs. Then, Scott Weinberg blogged about a trailer and the inclusion of Shannyn Sossamon as the other sister. The clip has since been taken down, but an official Lionsgate trailer has gone up over at Terrorfeed. The premise: a young woman (Pink) and her sister (Sossamon) go to an illegal rave in the Catacombs. When the cops raid the party, everyone flees, and the girls and their friends get caught in the maze of bones, hunted by a creepy creature whose head looks like a skinned donkey head or something similarly icky. It's kind of a bummer to have a scary beast be the culprit, because is there any place that would be better for a scary ghost story? You can't get much more ghostly potential than the Catacombs. Otherwise, Sossamon seems alright, but I'm not too sure on Lady Pink. At the very least, they shouldn't have her do the voiceover explaining the history -- it doesn't have much creepy impact. The trailer also gives a rundown of who died, which could seem spoilery if it wasn't completely inevitable. Although the movie was made ages ago, it has an ambiguous release date for sometime next year. Will it actually get released? Your guess is as good as mine.

As an insatiable horror freak, I maintain a strong affection for both Lionsgate and Bloody-Disgusting.com, so imagine my delight when the two combined for a tantalizing peek at next year's horror slate! Yep, it seems that BD.com does a "horror preview" for each studio every December -- and they logically chose Lionsgate as the first distributor to earn a few spotlights. Nobody snatches up grass-roots film-fest horror titles like Lionsgate does, and I can personally assure you that a good portion of the upcoming genre flicks are actually quite good! Well, a few of 'em, anyway...

Aside from the well-established and obvious titles (like Hostel: Part 2 and Saw 4), Lionsgate will unleash a virtual torrent of horror-style offerings next year. Not to steal any thunder from the BD.com boys (cuz they've done a fine job with their research!), but here's how I break down next year's LG offerings:

• Borderland -- Sean Astin and Rider Strong star in a tale of human sacrifice. I know next to nothing about this one.
• Boy Eats Girl -- Been waiting a while for this one. Love the title.
• Bug -- Saw it at Fantastic Fest -- and was really surprised by how much I liked it. This Shannon guy is a force of nature.
• Catacombs -- Wow, I almost forgot about this one! It's been sitting on a shelf for what, three years?
• The Eye -- Another Asian horror remake, this one allegedly starring Jessica Alba. Pass.
• Fido -- All the Cine-staffers who saw it agree: Fido is fun!
• Isolation -- Saw it at Toronto '05! And I definitely look forward to seeing it again. It's creepy.
• Right at Your Door -- Missed it at Sundance. Heard mixed things. Dig the concept.
• Skinwalkers -- Another one that's been "coming soon" for quite some time now. Still fairly psyched to see it...

(And this isn't including the deluge of After Dark Horrorfest titles that LG is releasing (to DVD) next March! Or their as-yet-undetermined parade of low-low-end DTV titles. Heh)

Some time over the past year or two, Shannyn Sossamon flew out to Romania to shoot a horror flick for Lionsgate, and the studio still hasn't come close to announcing a release date yet. The flick's called Catacombs and it comes from the filmmaking team of (former Marvel artist) Tomm Coker and (Four Brothers screenwriter) David Elliot. I distinctly remember hearing a few rumblings about the project (it was set up at Twisted Pictures, aka The House That Saw Built) but it had pretty much fallen off my radar untl a few minutes ago.

This unofficial trailer/promo clip for Catacombs just recently hit the interweb, and it looks like the set-up for a potentially cool horror flick: A gal wakes up after a rowdy rave, only to discover that she's locked underground all by herself. Actually, it gets worse: She's not by herself. Anyway, the clip reminds me a lot of Christopher Smith's Creep, and that flick was a fairly decent little shocker. Just something about the subterranean location works exceedingly well in most horror movies. Go buy a ticket to The Descent or give Raw Meat a rental and you'll see what I mean.

I'll let you know when Catacombs gets a DVD release date. Oh, and Pink is in the movie too. Weird, eh?

Unbeknownst to the rest of us, Pink spent some time in Romania last spring, filming a movie called Catacombs. Produced by the sick, rich minds who brought us both Saw and Hostel, the movie is reportedly about "sisters caught in the underground catacombs of Paris." It's unclear where the horror comes in -- I'm assuming that, these days, just being lost isn't quite scary enough -- but there's surely some sort of very angry man with lots of sharp objects down there with them. I'm also going to go way out on a limb here and hazard a guess that, at some point in the movie, one of the girls (the other sister is played by Shannyn Sossamon of Wristcutters: A Love Story) is either raped or threated with sexual assault.

The film was written and directed by Tomm Coker (a comic book artist making his film debut) and David Elliot and is currently in post-production. Billboard, because they're nice, write that "no release date has been set for the film." What they mean is that it doesn't have a distributor, because Lionsgate only picks up horror that will make them piles of money, and no one else seems to want it.

[via TMZ]