pontypool Tagged Articles at Cinematical

We've some new writers shaking things up now and later at both Sci-Fi (not SyFy) Squad and Horror Squad, so this seemed like as good a time as any to shine a light on a couple of features making the rounds there.

Over on Sci-Fi: Erik updated us on the progress on a fan-made Star Wars re-creation that involved nearly 500 fans each tackling a scene, Peter Hall shared the original short film behind this week's feature-length 9, and Scott made a list of his top 100 sci-fi films of all time in the name of all that is twisting knickers.

Meanwhile, on Horror Squad: yours truly helped fill in the details regarding the shelf-sitting sequel to Cabin Fever, Peter Hall linked us to a free-for-all radio play incarnation of the clever and creepy Pontypool, and Weinberg made a list of his top 100 horror films of all time for the sake of causing ulcers the world over.

Do you have a favorite Canadian horror movie?

Okay, this might sound like a strange question -- until you realize how many horror films were made north of the 42nd parallel. Now Canada is, by no means, a horror mecca, but Horror-Movies.ca's list of Top 30 Canadian Horror Movies (ranked by fan voting) reminds us that there are more than we might think.

More recent contributions include Bruce McDonald's Pontypool, the horror flick that Salon called an awesome "claustrophobic, locked-in-the-barn zombie movie." (That I'm actually planning to slip into the DVD player tonight!) Not to mention Prom Night, Ginger Snaps, Screamers, Cube, Silent Hill... And then, well, almost anything that's come from the hands of David Cronenberg pops up on the list -- Shivers, Scanners, Videodrome, and the film that helped make Christopher Walken a paragon of irresistible creepiness, The Dead Zone. Without that director, any horror list wouldn't be quite the same, not to mention the horror industry as a whole.

But ol' David didn't grab the top spot. That went to Bob Clark and his Black Christmas -- the original, of course, not that quickly-forgotten remake. It probably isn't what you were expecting, eh? If it was all up to your vote, which film fraught with thrills and chills would reign supreme?

If you're anything like me, then you like fiddling around with the buttons on your cable remote. It used to be that you KNEW of all the options your remote could provide, but nowadays I have cable channels and VOD options I never knew existed. So a little while ago I clicked on a button that said IFC Festival Direct, which delivered unto me a pair of options: IFC Showcase and IFC Midnight. Yeah, try and guess where I started.

I saw a few familiar titles: Left Bank and Sauna, both of which I saw (and liked) at Fantastic Fest '08, as well as well-reviewed genre fare like The Chaser, Zift, and a Brit import called Hush that I may watch this very afternoon. Also on the docket for IFC Midnight: the indie thriller Dark Mirror, a gory South Korean offering called Cadaver, and a Dutch psycho story called Fear Me Not. Oh, and two I can definitely vouch for: the strange Canadian horror known as Pontypool and a Norwegian nazi-zombie fest called Dead Snow.

If you're looking for recent festival fare that's not horrific in nature, then you can sift through Joe Swanberg's Alexander the Last, the steamy erotica of L A'ventura, Sam Neill in Angel, or worthwhile options like Paper Covers Rock, Rain, or Three Blind Mice. Apparently this "VOD" thing is the wave of the future, and I find it very satisfying to know that the flick YOU just saw at the Florida Film Festival is also available from my own cable box for about six bucks. For a whole lot more on IFC's home-demand offerings, I suggest you click right here and flick around a bit. (They also offer some rather fine programming that's free with the IFC service, don't forget.)

I know, it's been a while since I've written one of these gore-soaked missives, but the upside to that is ... we have a lot to talk about! And since I wrote this during a lazy Sunday (happy belated holidays, btw) I figure it's time to break out the candy-coated bullet points! Let's start out with a freaky fistful of upcoming DVD releases:

Currently strewn across shelves are Donkey Punch and Vinyan, two festival-heavy horror films that couldn't possibly be more different. One's about venal young jerks, and the other is about heartbroken (but stupid) parents. Really bad things happen to all of them.

This Tuesday we're getting the old-school-style monster movie Splinter, which is really quite good. If you like prickly monsters, that is. On the same day ... whoa. It looks like someone actually bothered to exhume flicks like Repossessed, Slaughter High, and My Best Friend Is a Vampire. That sound you just heard was my Netflix queue getting fatter.

Come the 21st we get J.T. Petty's The Burrowers, which played (and played well) at last year's Fantastic Fest, and Robert Hall's Laid to Rest, which is sort of like a non-snarky slasher throwback with a hint of Phantasm-style weirdness. Couldn't find a stranger double feature than these two, believe me.

And mark your calendars, gore-lovers, for April 28, because that's when Martyrs finally hits R1 DVD. According to the UK poster, Scoot Weinberg says it "makes Saw look like Sesame Street," which is one of the most shameless blurbs I've ever heard. Even if the guy is correct, brilliant, and really handsome. (Trust me, this is one rough horror movie.) Also on this Tuesday we'll get the unofficial Donnie Darko sequel, and a movie starring Amber Benson called One-Eyed Monster. I leave the jokes to you fine folks.

And boy does it taste awesome! As you probably know, and with all due respect to the Austin Film Festival, the two coolest film festivals in Austin have combined their cinematical magic ... and the result is six more flicks that will tickle the eyeballs of any self-respecting genre fan. This is the first year that Fantastic Fest has contributed to the SXSW slate, and it sure looks like the partnership is off to a great start.

The six flicks are: French action flick Black, Thai mayhem sequel Ong Bak 2, the world premiere of The Haunting in Connecticut, a blisteringly good Aussie thriller called The Horseman, the awesome-sounding British import Lesbian Vampire Killers, and the Canadian zombie effort Pontypool, which played Toronto last September and got some rather good notices.

Of the six, I've only see The Horseman, and I think it's a damn good film. DAMN good. It's about a father whose runaway daughter is found dead after appearing in a homemade porno flick, so he goes on a ruthless road trip of revenge. Only he didn't expect to pick up a young female hitchhiker along the way. (It's not a comedy.)

For more info on these flicks, I refer you to post-jump and / or the official SXSW website.

We've got another bushel or so of trailers for films just over the horizon. How promising are they? You tell us.

Monsters Vs. Aliens
Dreamworks latest animated feature has a group of terrestrial monsters (a blob, a fish man, a giant bug, a human-sized cockroach/mad scientist and a very tall woman named Susan) fighting off an alien attack. This homage to 1950s sci fi features the voices of Seth Rogen, Will Arnet, Paul Rudd, Hugh Laurie, Reese Witherspoon, Kiefer Sutherland, Rainn Wilson, Stephen Colbert and looks flat out awesome. It opens on March 27 but I really want to see it NOW.

Pink Panther 2
While it's hard for me to work up much enthusiasm for a sequel to a remake I didn't see which was based on a series that had pretty much run out of steam by the end, Steve Martin's Inspector Clouseau does have an endearing charm and I found myself hoping the damn fool doesn't get himself killed falling down stairs, impersonating the pope and brawling with eight year old karate students. Also, this time Inspector Dreyfus is played by John Cleese who I think is one of the funniest guys on the planet. Pink Panther 2 hits theaters on February 6.

Cadillac Records
Set in 1950s Chicago, this one follows the lives of musical legends such as Muddy Waters, Leonard Chess, Little Walter and Howlin' Wolf and Elvis Presley, with a cast that includes Beyonce Knowles, Adrien Brody and Mos Def. Cadillac Records comes out on December 5.

Bruce McDonald's Pontypool, which is a horror film that played TIFF but not in the regular horror section, now has a trailer. Get the info and a trailer link over at Twitchfilm. Flick looks pretty cool to me. Speaking of promo clips, Shock has one for Jamie Blanks' remake of Long Weekend, which is viewable right here.

Ji-woon Kim's very good A Tale of Two Sisters is about to spawn a remake of its own. It's called The Uninvited, it stars Elizabeth Banks, and MTV Movies Blog has an exclusive clip. And Bloody-D has new photos from Dread, the upcoming Clive Barker adaptation, while Arrow has some new shots from this weekend's Splinter.

Dread Central reports that Dominic Sena's graphic novel adaptation Whiteout, which stars mega-hottie Kate Beckinsale, has been pushed back to next September. And Shock has some news on the DVD front regarding Eden Lake and a handful of old-school WB double features.

And yes, the guy who directed the mega-harsh Martyrs will now be the guy behind the Hellraiser remake, says THR. Lastly, here's a pretty cool list of relative obscurities from the genre freaks at Bloody-D.