Wild Bunch | Through the Shattered Lens

It looks like we the makings of a new Scorsese/DeNiro combination with Nicolas Winding Refn and Ryan Gosling partnering up once again for another film after their critically-acclaimed neo-noir crime thriller with Drive.

Only God Forgives transplants Refn and Gosling away from the smog and seedy glamour of Los Angeles to the anything-goes locales of Thailand. Refn has described this follow-up to Drive as a modern Western set fully in the Far East with Gosling in the role of the cowboy antihero. The red band trailer once again shows that Refn will not be skimping on the beautifully shot violence and ramps up on the film’s look of heightened reality that made his previous film such a unique viewing experience.

There’s still no announced release date for Only God Forgives, but we will surely be on the look out for when it does finally come out.

There’s a film called Black Death that came out sometime around 2010 that seems to have fallen below the radar of most everyone. It’s a British historical horror film from upcoming genre filmmaker Christopher Smith. The film stars Sean Bean in the role of a knight during the Black Death era of Europe.

From what I’ve seen of the trailer and read about the film it seems to be a horror film that looks at the Black Death era of history with a slightly supernatural bent to it. Even the trailer gives gives the film a certain Wicker Man vibe to it. Holy warriors of the Christian faith coming into a village untouched by the Black Death. A village whose inhabitants might be dabbling with powers from a much older and earthy religion to keep the village safe. It definitely sounds like this film might have been influenced by that classic horror film starring Edward Woodward.

I like the look of the film as seen through the trailer. It almost looks black and white with splashes of vibrant colors here and there. Black Death hasn’t been announced as having a North American theatrical release date so this film looks like it will be a blu-ray release for me to finally see it.