hills have eyes Tagged Articles at Cinematical

With "geek" stuff like comics, sci-fi, and horror taking over the mainstream, ComicCon has become one of the biggest film events of the year. The studios really take it seriously, and this should be an excellent week for major film announcements. Today, the fairly new studio Fox Atomic, an offshoot of Fox targeting the 17-24 demographic, announced what festival goers can expect from them this year. It looks like their biggest push is for the upcoming revenge thriller Death Sentence. There will be an online sweepstakes to win a 1969 Ford Mustang featured in the film, starting when ComicCon opens its doors tomorrow. If you can't make it to the festival you can enter at the official movie website, http://deathsentencemovie.com, up until the film is released on August 31st. Death Sentence stars Kevin Bacon as a man out to avenge his son's death, and co-stars John Goodman and Kelly Preston. James Wan (Saw) directed. Bacon, co-star Garrett Hedlund and Wan will be signing autographs at ComicCon this Saturday at 3PM.

Also, be on the lookout for a contest to win a Fender Stratocaster guitar signed by the cast of the upcoming comedy The Rocker. You can read more about that movie here and here, it tells "the story of a failed, over-the-hill drummer who is given a second chance at fame." Rainn Wilson plays the drummer and Christina Applegate will be his love interest. Only in the movies, folks! Fox Atomic is understandably putting a big focus on their graphic novel publishing arm at ComicCon as well. Signings and giveaways are scheduled for Joe Harris and Stuart Moore's The Nightmare Factory, due out on September 4th, as well as their film-based graphic novels -- 28 Days Later: The Aftermath by Steve Niles and The Hills Have Eyes: The Beginning by Jimmy Palmiotti and Justin Gray. It looks like just about all of the artists and authors will be in attendance. We've got all sorts of ComicCon news, announcements, and goodness coming your way from San Diego (which, of course, is German for "whale's vagina") all this week and through the weekend, so stick around and stay classy.

One of my very favorite topics of film-related conversation would have to be that of the infamous "horror remake." Could be a J-horror re-imaganing, a revisit with truly classic material, or a quick-buck PG-13 junkpile that shames the name of its predecessor. (Heck, I posted a similar article last March, and I even went as far as to bang out a master list of horror remakes at my very own website!) Well, apparently the movie geeks over at Premiere.com are also big time horror nerds as well, because they've just posted their list of the 15 Best Horror Remakes.

OK, having just perused their 15 choices, I gotta say: I know it's got to be hard coming up with 15 really good horror remakes, but jeeeeez. Just lower it to a Top 10 and get The Fog, The Amityville Horror and 13 Ghosts OUTTA there. And ... am I on crack or did the Premiere squad neglect to mention Cronenberg's The Fly AND Carpenter's The Thing??? I mean, good job on throwing some love towards The Blob, Dark Water and the 1978 version of Body Snatchers, but come on! You guys omitted the two best horror remakes ever made!!!

(I'll include their full list after the jump, just to incite some discussion, but definitely check out the Premiere article before you dive in, you crazy gorehounds, you.)

If there's one thing the media really loves to do, it's lump a bunch of barely-connected people into an ill-fitting group -- and then give that group a clever name. Whether it's The Rat Pack, The Brat Pack or The Splat Pack, I just get irked whenever a new "pack" makes it into the cultural lexicon. Oh, you're not familiar with that last one? Yeah, it's a moniker that's been given to a bunch of "new" horror filmmakers, one that seems to imply that these guys get together every weekend to smoke weed and watch Halloween 2 together.

According to a recent article in Time Magazine, one that seems to approach horror flicks the same way a prissy schoolmarm would approach some inappropriate comic books, the members of "The Splat Pack" are Eli Roth (Cabin Fever, Hostel), Neil Marshall (Dog Soldiers, The Descent), Alex Aja (High Tension, The Hills Have Eyes), Rob Zombie (House of 1000 Corpses, The Devil's Rejects), and James Wan, Leigh Whannell and Darren Lynn Bousman of the Saw trilogy. (Apparently Wolf Creek director Greg McLean was part of the original pack, although he goes unmentioned in the Time article, probably because he hasn't made much money yet.)

But what do these guys have in common, really, other than the fact that they all make horror flicks? I see Americans, Brits, Aussies and a Frenchman in the mix, and while some of the guys are fresh-faced and 20-something, guys like Roth have been toiling away in backstage anonymity for years. Plus, c'mon, Rob Zombie is 42 years old, so how exactly does he tie in with these kids? And why is it that Neil Marshall never seems to be quoted in these articles? Is he just included because his horror movies are ... GOOD? Apparently the Splat Pack label was created by Alan Jones of Total Film, and I'm sure the guy's an absolute expert on horror flicks -- but labels create limits, exclusions and oversights. And, ultimately, articles like this one, I suppose. (Either way, I bet Jones bangs out a book called The Splat Pack by the end of 2008.)

The UK's Christopher Smith (Creep, Severance) is young and horror-heavy, so why isn't he a member of The Pack? Shouldn't (Dawn of the Dead screenwriter, Slither director) James Gunn be one of the den mothers? Lucky McKee has made only two feature films (May and The Woods), but they're both downright excellent pieces of horror. Why's he not a member? Uwe Boll's done a bunch of horror flicks that could be accurately described as " laden with torture," so why not throw him an invitation? You want a guy who loves the word splat? Try Jake West, the guy who directed Evil Aliens. Plus I read another article a while back in which Jonathan Liebesman (Darkness Falls, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning) was considered a member of The SP! Now, if that guy can be considered some sort of "future of horror," I'll eat my hat.

The common themes among the Splat Packers are ... what? They all like horror movies, they don't shy away from intense chills, harsh themes or copious gore, and they're all carbon-based life forms, I guess. But really: Does anyone out there think the work of Eli Roth is even remotely similar to that of Neil Marshall? Does a Rob Zombie flick remind you of what was seen in, say, High Tension? I mean, if you're going to define a term, then define it. And as a big fan of just about all these movies, I just gotta scratch my head when I hear these guys lumped together in one basket.

And what happens when guys like Ryan Schifrin (Abominable), Adam Green (Hatchet), J.T. Petty (S&Man) Scott Glosserman (Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon), Jon Levine (All the Boys Love Mandy Lane) and Adam Mason (Broken) start to make their way up the ranks? Will we have the arrival of Splat Pack 2: The New Generation? Back in the late '70s/early '80s, did we need a goofy little heading to remember names like Carpenter, Hooper, Craven, Dante, Landis and Cunningham?

Ultimately, I have no real point. I'd just seen the phrase "Splat Pack" one too many times and felt the need to vent. Opposing viewpoints are welcome, as long as they agree with my own opinions.

Well, this is weird. For the bulk of my 30+ years on this planet, there's been no such thing as a "televised horror awards" presentation, and now, not 15 minutes removed from geeking out over the newly-announced Fangoria Chainsaw Awards nominations -- I come across the Spike TV Scream Awards nominations! Cool!

Now, with all due respect to Spike TV and their cool new concept, I gotta say the Fango Chainsaw noms are just a little bit cooler. But hey, there's no law that says the horror freaks can't hang their hat on TWO new awards presentations. Frankly I think we could use a few more enthusiastic celebrations of juicy genre filmmaking.

Anyway, the Screams seem to run a lot like the Chainsaws do: Check out all the categories and nominees (after the jump) and then head on over to SpikeTV.com and cast your own votes! This is particularly amusing for the horror nuts -- because we're nothing if not passionately opinionated on which horror flicks rock and which ones suck the proverbial egg. Spike TV broadcasts their Scream Awards on the evening of October 10th.

According to the Gorehound's Bible, Fox has just announced a bunch of release dates -- and they're all for Part 2s. We recently shared with you the news on The Hills Have Eyes 2 (March 2nd, 2007), Alien vs. Predator 2 (December 21st, 2007), and Wrong Turn 2 (release date TBA), but now we also have a debut date for ... 28 Weeks Later!

Yes, that's right, the sequel to Danny Boyle and Alex Garland's fantastic sci-fi horror film will be opening on May 11th, 2007, a month that includes such heavy hitters as Spider-Man 3, Pirates of the Caribbean 3, Shrek 3, and the Stephen King adaptation 1408.

The (potentially) bad news is that neither Boyle nor Garland will be involved with the writing and/or directing of the sequel. Both fellas, along with producer Andrew McDonald, are still connected as producers, but we have a new director (Juan Carlos Fresnadillo) and a new screenwriter (Rowan Joffe) on board. Mr. Fresnadillo directed the rather cool Intacto, while Mr. Joffe is the writer of two flicks I've never heard of.

Also coming from Fox's horror division is Turistas (December 1st, 2006), which was helmed by actor-turned-director John Stockwell and stars Josh Duhamel, Melissa George, and the lava-hot Olivia Wilde. (Apparently it has to do with horrific organ harvesting in Brazil!)

And the cycle continues. If last year's trend was "horror remakes," then this year's is "prequels/sequels to horror remakes." I could use as my examples the upcoming Return to House on Haunted Hill or The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning, but there's yet another one on the horizon.

Longtime music video director Martin Weisz is about to direct a sequel to The Hills Have Eyes for Fox Searchlight -- despite the fact that there already WAS a Hills Have Eyes Part 2, and also despite the extra fact that it sucked powdered sugar off french toast. Original Hills creator Wes Craven is attached as a producer and co-screenwriter. It was previously believed that Deathwatch director Michael J. Bassett would land the gig, but according to Fango, Weisz is the guy. And he better get crackin', because Fox apparently wants the flick ready for next March.

BD.com tells us the story's about a bunch of National Guard misfits who stumble across the cannibalistic mutatoes on their final day of military service. (So don't expect Hills 2 to be a glowing endorsement of the U.S. National Guard, basically.)

Hey, horror fans. When I mention the title The Hills Have Eyes Part 2, what do you think of? That's right: a stunningly inept movie that Wes Craven slapped together in 1985 when he was struggling in between the successes of A Nightmare on Elm Street and Scream. (His other "mid-point" flicks included Deadly Friend (1986), The Serpent and the Rainbow (1988), Shocker (1989), and The People Under the Stairs (1991), some of which still have their share of fans, although very few horror hounds consider 'em any sort of underrated masterpieces.) Indeed, Hills 2 was so cheap and silly that the only thing its still remembered for is a flashback/dream sequence delivered by a canine. (Yes, seriously.)

So then what are we to make of Fango's recent report that not only does Fox Searchlight want a sequel to Alex Aja's The Hills Have Eyes remake, but they also want it ready for release by next March -- one calendar year after the remake was released? (We'll call it the "Saw release pattern," although Police Academy pulled it off for like six consecutive Aprils.) Plus it seems that Aja (also beloved for his High Tension) has passed on the sequel, which means that Mr. Craven will enlist relative newcomer Mike Bassett to helm the sequel. (Astute genre freaks will remember Bassett's surprisingly good Deathwatch from a few years back, plus he's got a new one called Wilderness that's about to hit the scene.) Craven plans to pen the sequel's screenplay with his son.

But what of plot? Fair question.

“We want to continue the story of the miners,” Craven tells (Fangoria). “This time, a group of National Guard screw-ups come face to face with the mutants on their last day of training in the desert. We will take the audience underground [into the mines] as well ... I wrote Last House on the Left in three days, so this shouldn’t be so tough.”

Someone might want to ask Mr. Craven how many days it took him to write his previous Hills sequel.

It seems a  fairly obvious observation, but horror flicks are pretty "hot" these days. The current cycle of scary flicks can be attributed to box office hits like Zack Snyder's Dawn of the Dead, Marcus Nispel's The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, James Wan's Saw, and probably a half-dozen others, but moreso than any other genre, the popularity of horror movies seems to arrive in "waves." Apparently we're knee-deep in one of those waves right now. And now with one quarter of 2006 behind us, it's time for the first of four "progress reports," in which you and I wade through all the horror flicks presented in January, February, and March, and then decide if the studios and the indies have been treating the Gorehounds kindly.

1/6/06 -- BloodRayne (Romar) -- Kristanna Loken, Ben Kingsley, Michelle Rodriguez, and Michael Madsen humiliate themselves through the latest hilariously bad offering from the adorably inept filmmaker known as Uwe Boll. (It's a horror movie in that it features vampires -- and it's an absolute horror to sit through.) Jam-packed with laughable dialogue, dime-store costumes, non-sensical plot-churnings, and hyper-inept editing, BloodRayne is the kind of flick that should be required viewing for any and all film students. It's precisely the sort of movie that's so bad it's good -- although I suspect Boll is beginning to do "amazingly awful" on purpose, which sort of takes some of the fun out of it... Grade: D- (DVD release: 5-23)

The box office as a whole was be up an estimated 10% from last weekend, led by a trio of new releases that filled the top spots. Easily topping the list was Failure to Launch, which took in $24.6 million - not bad for a movie that, after having its release delayed, got mostly bad reviews from critics. Filling the second and third spots this weekend were two remakes: Disney's The Shaggy Dog made $16 million, while The Hills Have Eyes came it at just under that number, with $15.5 million. As the AP report points out, the fact that this weekend's three new releases are so different means they appeal to different viewers, so they tended to take audiences from older films, rather than from one another.

Filling the fourth spot was 16 Blocks which, in only its second week of release, was down to just over $7 million. Madea's Family Reunion, meanwhile, earned nearly $6 million, thus bringing its three week total to $55.8 million, or nearly 10 times its budget. Who thinks we'll be seeing another movie about the life of Miss Madea? Of the other top earning films this weekend, only Eight Below made more than $5 million - ah, the power of puppies. (The complete numbers are after the jump.)

One would think that with a name like Wes Craven - his real name, by the way - that a life as a director of horror films would be the man's inescapable fate from the very start. While the 66-year-old Cleveland-born Renaissance man has created some of the most revered films of the modern genre like A Nightmare On Elm Street and the breakout Scream trilogy, there is more to him than that. He studied writing, psychology, philosophy and literature at Wheaton College and Johns Hopkins University, taught college, and did not even start working in the film industry until the age of 31 as a sound editor.

It was in 1971, though, when his path would intersect with that of another future horror legend - Friday the 13th creator Sean S. Cunningham. Their meeting first resulted in the largely forgotten Together, footnoted only because it starred a 19-year-old woman named Marilyn Briggs (who consequently met brothers Artie and Jim Mitchell, who rechristened her Marilyn Chambers and made her a porn icon in Behind The Green Door). However, the collaboration made fellow tyro Cunningham want to work with Craven again. The next year saw the release of the Cunningham-produced, Craven-directed The Last House On The Left, a remake of Swedish titan Ingmar Bergman's The Virgin Spring, believe it or not, a raw and grimy low-budget effort about a pair of murdering rapists who unknowingly hole-up in the house of the parents of one of their victims. The film became a cult favorite and launched Craven's career in movies.

Craven's second film, the savage and effective 1977 survival tale, The Hills Have Eyes, was about a family who, while traversing the desert, encounters a group of inbred maniacs who prey on these seemingly helpless castaways. Nearly three decades later comes the first remake of Craven's own work, with the new version helmed by French it-director Alexandre Aja (High Tension), released in the U.S. on March 10. Craven, who produced the film for Fox's boutique arm Fox Searchlight, was cool enough to call me at home for an impromptu chat. After I insulted his parentage and suggested a scenario in which he couple with a Cheerio (thinking I was being pranked by my friend Eric), I apologized and basked in fanboy glory for the remaining 22 minutes of our phoner.