Guillermo Del Toro has become the one filmmaker who seems to excite both the elitist cinephiles and the geek community whenever he comes out with a new film. He’s done both pop-friendly extravaganzas (Pacific Rim, Hellboy) to critically-acllaimed arthouse fares (Pan’s Labyrinth, The Devil’s Backbone). His name has been attached to so many projects of all stripe that one wonders if he ever gets time to rest.
Most of these projects never get past the concept stage, but when one does and he goes all out in directing such projects we get something that excites the fanbase like his upcoming gothic horror film Crimson Peak. It looks to be Del Toro’s love letter to gothic horror of the past with his own visual flair for the morbid and the beautiful in one package.
The film stars a who’s who of powerful performers from Jessica Chastain and Tom Hiddleston to Mia Wasikowska and Charlie Hunnam.
Crimson Peak is set to haunt the public this coming October 16, 2015
When will studios finally smarten up and realize that Guillermo Del Toro is one of the preeminent fantasists of our time. Just give him the money and talent to finally make his dream project for the bigscreen: At the Mountains of Madness.
Until that happens we shall have to wait with anticipation for every new project he does see through to completion. This time around he leaves the world of Jaegers and Kaiju and takes us into the world of gothic horror with his upcoming film Crimson Peak.
The most talented cast he has work with to date, Crimson Peak is Del Toro’s take on the classic gothic ghost story but with more than just a tad and smidgen of his own narrative and visual style when it comes to horror. It stars Tom Hiddleston, Jessica Chastain, Mia Wasikowska, Charlie Hunnam and Jim Beaver.
Crimson Peak is set for an October 16, 2015 release date. Just in time for Halloween.
What better way to end 2014 than through one of my favorite scenes from Kubrick’s film adaptation of The Shining.
For those who have watched the film they understand the impact of this scene. For those still needing to see this classic piece of horror filmmaking then what better way to open up the new year than making a resolution to finally sit down and watch The Shining.
It’s difficult to try and celebrate Halloween without at least remembering the classic John Carpenter film of the same name which help give birth to the slasher horror genre. Halloween has become a staple in my horror watching lists. It joins such other classic horror as the Romero’s Night of the Living Dead, Hooper’s Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Craven’s The Serpent and The Rainbow.
Filmed on a tiny budget of $325,000 and released in 1978, Halloween would introduce to the film world one of it’s most iconic horror figures in the Michale Myers. The film’s opening would become famous in it’s own right as it didn’t just give us a look into Michael Myers backstory, but make the film audience become almost active participant in the murder that introduced us to our killer.
This extended introduction scene let’s the audience see through Michael Myers’ eyes as he stalks through the house towards his sister’s room where he commits his first murder. This point of view through the eye holes of Michael’s mask would be repeated several times throughout the film.
There has always been an unwritten agreement that Hollywood films minimize the sort of violence inflicted on children on-screen. Something about children and pets being put into harm’s way that disturbs the majority of people going to see films. This hasn’t been the case with foreign cinema.
Films such as Battle Royale put children front and center when it comes to on-screen violence. Sometimes it’s to make a point and others it’s just a filmmaker channeling their inner exploitation bone.
One film which has been making the festival circuit is the Belgian horror film Cub (titled Welp in it’s home country) which brings the campfire spooky tale of yesteryear into a more modern setting.
From first-time director Jonas Govaerts, Cub tells the story of a group of young Cub scouts out camping and who end up becoming prey to a psychopathic woodman who has left devious and deadly traps in the very woods they’ve decided to camp in.
The trailer does a good job in not telling too much and also hinting at the sort of on-screen kid violence that makes people uncomfortable. For now, Cub has no release date in the US so for now here’s to hoping it at least hits the VOD market.
All I can say about this scene is that I guarantee every guy who watches this will want to cross their legs tight. They may just scream as well just as a reflex action to what happens in the end.
Yet, as one watches this torture scene of the main lead in the film the audience never really sees anything. Everything’s implied and we see signs of what’s about to happen throughout the segment.
The Serpent and The Rainbow continues to be one of my favorite horror films and one of my favorite Wes Craven offerings.
I know some people like and even love the vampire film Daybreakers when it arrived in theaters in early 2010. I’m not one of those who love Daybreakers as my review can attest, but I did like some of the ideas brought up by The Spierig Brothers who wrote and directed the film. One could say that I begrudgingly like the film despite its many flaws.
One of the things I did like about this film was how unabashed it was in keeping the whole affair a rated-R affair. Unlike most vampire films which have come out the last decade or so this one doesn’t shy from the grue that others have. Daybreakers was definitely not of the Twilight branch of the vampiric subgenre.
My favorite scene in the film happens pretty much around the end of it. It saved the film from becoming a total dull, boring affair into one worthy of being talked about if just for this one scene. One could come into the film just at this scene alone and forget that they’re watching a vampire film but a zombie one instead. The gore was just so over-the-top and it’s staging so well-done that I couldn’t stop from having a silly grin of enjoyment from escaping.
Anyone who have gotten to know me throughout the years (decades even) know one indisputable fact and that’s one of my favorite films of all-time is George A. Romero’s classic horror masterpiece, Dawn of the Dead.
This film is not just a great horror film, but just a great film. Sure, some have said that it hasn’t aged well, but those detractors only see the era it was filmed in. If one looks part that then they can see that Dawn of the Dead works just as well now as it did when it premiered in 1978.
One of my favorite scenes in the film is actually the beginning of the film. It’s rare that a film can fully capture and explain an overriding theme in the film’s narrative right from the beginning, but Romero did it and did it well.
The scene I’m talking about is the film’s intro that’s set in a chaotic Pittsburgh TV station. It’s a scene of chaos because the zombie apocalypse is already in full swing and people have begun to lose their trust in the fourth estate. In times of crisis the people depend on the news to bring to them answers or, at the very least, the correct information to survive said crisis. In Dawn of the Dead, the fourth estate has failed as in that they’ve become just as unreliable as the rest of the mechanisms which make civilization operate.
Even when the right information was being relayed by the the guest scientist in the scene, the audience reaction (the tv station crew themselves) was one of exasperation and disbelief. This scene would influence future zombie apocalypse stories both in film, tv and print in that the people would lose faith and trust in the very institution who were supposed to be trusted to be objective and informative.
This is just one of several scenes from Dawn of the Dead which I consider a favorite, but then the entire film I would consider a favorite scene as a whole in a story that hasn’t ended.
All Souls Day was part of the wave of zombie films that continues to flood the direct-to-video (and at times straight to cable) market. This particular zombie movie was written by Mark A. Altman who also wrote the campy and very B-movie-like House of the Dead 2. This was a zombie flick which actually improved on Uwe Boll’s own House of the Dead that doesn’t really come as a surprise. All Souls Day was Altman’s second try at another zombie movie and while this second attempt wasn’t as fun as his previous one it still managed to be a watchable and interesting zombie movie.
The film’s set in a dusty Mexican town that hides a dark secret from its past. A young couple (played by Marisa Ramirez and Travis Wester) happen upon what seems like an abandoned town. They soon come across a funeral procession and when they inadvertently interrupt the ritual all hell literally breaks loose. It doesn’t help the couple that the only person who seems to be real in this town was the sheriff whose own past ties in with the secret of the town. It was very good to see genre veteran David Keith in the role of the town sheriff. His limited time in the movie was pretty good.
When the town’s people (who by now have shown themselves to be zombies) begin to lay siege on the young couple in the town’s only hotel the rest of the movie gradually shows more of what made this particular Mexican town a death trap for any passerby who happen to come across it on All Souls Day. Soon enough help comes in the form of the young couple’s two friends who arrive in town only to get themselves stuck in the same dire situation the original couple find themselves in.
The resolution of the movie was handled well and it brought a nice supernatural origin and reason as to why the town’s population has turned into flesh-eating zombies. The performances in the film could be seen as being mixed. The more veteran performers like Jeffrey Combs, David Keith, Danny Trejo (as the town’s manipulative patriarch) and Laura Herring perform their roles well without being too over-the-top. The actors playing the pair of young couples on the other hand go from very good to awful in the span of moments in some of the scenes. It’s really this mixed bag in the cast’s performance which keeps All Souls Day from turning into one of those hidden gems in a hill of crap that most zombie flicks turn out to be.
The gore effects in this film was pretty good in the small amount of sequences where the zombies end up doing what they do best once they get a hold of someone. While I was hoping for more of the grue in this particular zombie movie I wasn’t too surprised why it didn’t have more. Other than the pair of young couple there really wasn’t much living people for these zombies to munch on. The film itself show’s it’s low-budget origins in that it looks like something one would see premiere on a random Saturday night on the SyFy Channel. The film actually did premiere on that channel when it was still called SciFi. It’s a look that says TV instead of film, but despite that little nitpick it doesn’t distract much from the experience.
Now, most zombie films of the low-budget variety tend to just have badly done make-up effects. With All Souls Day the filmmakers seem to have done an end-around that budgetary problem by taking a page out of the classic Italian zombie flicks of the 1980’s by making these undead dry, decayed creatures. It’s something that worked well for the Fulci zombies and here it works as well.
All Souls Day was not a great zombie film by any stretch of the imagination, but it had enough entertaining moments and some genuine scary sequences to make it an enjoyable hour and a half of horror viewing on any October night.
Lucky McKee is one of my favorite horror filmmakers since I first saw his 2002 film May. I’ve followed his career since and last year he premiered his latest horror film during the 2013 Toronto International Film Festival.
All Cheerleaders Die will have a limited release this summer and will most likely be available on Video On-Demand soon after. Whether I see it on the big-screen or in the comfort of my own home I know for a fact that my partner-in-crime, Lisa Marie, will be watching this as well. She won’t be able to resist after just seeing the title alone. It’s right up her wheelhouse, so to speak.
Through the Shattered Lens 