LITERAL REMAINS

The Road is officially (for now) hitting theaters October 16th.  You can see the trailer for the long awaited, and long delayed, film here.  It’s based on the Pulitizer Prize winning novel by Cormac McCarthy, the author of No Country for Old Men.

Remakes, remakes, remakes…is that all that’s being done these days?  Of course I don’t really mind the remakes, especially when I’ve not seen the original.  Good or bad, they usually compell me to seek out the orignials.

The remake 1982′s The House on Sorority Row ready to roll on October 2nd.  Shortened to simply Sorority Row, it is concerned with the accidental death of a sorority sister after a prank goes bad.  Not long after, a hooded psycho begins cutting down their numbers.  Included among the cast is Carrie Fisher.  That’s right, Princess Leia herself.  It also stars Briana Evigan, recently of S. Darko.

 And it’s rumoed that the 1985 classic Fright Night is being considered for a remake.  News on this one is very, very, limited, in fact it may only be a rumor.  But there you go.  In case you’ve never seen and have no idea what it’s about:  a teen discovers his next door neighbor is a vampire and he inlists the help of an aging horror show host to combat him.  It’s a lot better than it sounds, trust me.  It also spawned a sequel that was pretty good.

Recent Friday the 13th star Derek Mears (he played Jason), is rumored to be the choice to play the Predator in the relaunch of the series which has a tenative release date of July 7th, 2010. 

This guy looks kind of creepy.  In person, though, he doesn’t look so psycho.

Director Abel Ferrara is making his return to horror with a new telling of the classic Robert Louis Stevenson tale starring Forest Whitaker and Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson.

Apparently Whitaker is going to play Dr. Jekyll and 50 will be Mr. Hyde.  The one with Keanu Reeves is looking better and better.

Gothic Babe of the Week

Producer Ed Bass is making his directorial debut with the movie Belle, about Belle Gunness.

Who the hell is Belle Gunness?

I’m glad you asked, because I didn’t know either.  Apparently she was a prolific serial killer.  It’s believed that  she killed more than forty people, including her two husbands and her three children, before her death in 1908.  At least it is believed she died in 1908; the body that was found was headless, and it was decided to be her based on the height and clothes.  Though there were reported sightings of Belle long after her supposed death.

The movie is currently in development.

The prequel movie Underworld: Rise of the Lycans tells the story of how the war between the vampires and lycans began.  If you’ve seen Underworld and/or Underworld: Evolution, then you already know how the war began.  To quote the Rolling Stones, “Love, it’s a bitch.”

Rise details Lucian’s birth and his rise from being vampire Viktor’s pet to his nemesis as leader of the lycans.  Along the way Lucian falls in love with Sonja, Viktor’s daughter.  Love between bloodsuckers and werewolves is forbidden, the lycans are slaves to the vampires.  Sure, the lycans are trained to guard the vampires during the day while they sleep, but there is to be no fraternizing with the forced labor.  The main problem with Rise of the Lycans is that it doesn’t really give us anything new.  Fans of the series already know how this story is going to turn out, we know who lives and who dies.

Evolution’s opening scenes took place in the Dark Ages, and that whole sequence was cool.  I thought, when I saw it, that if they set an entire movie in the Dark Ages it would be so awesome a film.  I was wrong.  Rise has none of the go-for-the-throat guts and glory of Underworld: Evolution’s opening sequence.  This is more of a mild uprising.

Rhona Mitra (Sonja) and Bill Nighy (Viktor), great actors both, look bored most of the time when they’re not staring off into the distance.  When they do stare off into the distance (which they do quite a lot), they just look constipated.  Michael Sheen (Lucian), another great actor, is saddled with a werewolf version of Braveheart.  The CGI werewolves are tedious and the final battle is flat.

If you’ve never seen any of the Underworld movies, or know nothing of their universe, you may like it better than I did; start here and work your way up to better things.  For fans of the series, it’s nice to look at.

2.5 out of 5
the_novacula

Liam Neeson (yes, Liam Neeson) stars as Brian, a former spy, who has retired to California to try to repair his relationship with his teenage daughter Kimmy.  His ex-wife and her uber rich new husband don’t make it easy for him.  At his daughter’s 17^th birthday party, he gives her a karaoke machine because she wants to be a singer; her stepdad gives her a horse that’s the equivalent of a sports car.  Suffice it to say, she forgets about the karaoke machine.

When he receives a call from her for lunch, it looks hopeful that father and daughter may be on the right track to recovering their estranged relationship.  She only wants his signature so she can go to Paris for the summer with her friend.  Initially opposing the idea, and suggesting he tag along, he eventually relents.

Upon arriving in Paris, Kimmy and her friend meet a stranger who makes them swoon and before they can get settled in to their new digs, men arrive.  Men in masks.  Their hot stranger works for human traffickers.  Kimmy is kidnapped while talking on the phone to her dad.  Brian tells the kidnappers over the phone if they let his daughter go right then, he’ll leave them alone; but if they take her, he warns them that he will hunt them down and kill them.  They don’t heed his warning.  Brian makes them wish they had.

Taken is the kind of surprise I like; it could have easily delved to the lowest common denominator but didn’t, thankfully.  Neeson is relentless in his search for his daughter; he asks questions, and busts heads even after getting his answers.  The former spy has a dogged determination.  There is plenty of action, but for all of its running time, Taken feels like it’s running a little light.  It’s not as kinetic as it should be, or as it seems to be aiming for; it’s in the style of the Bourne films, but falls just below them.

I’ve heard some people complain about Neeson, that it should have starred someone else, someone known to be an action star–I disagree.  Neeson is great here, proving he can hold his own in a action flick and not just play Michael Collins or Rob Roy.  He really rocks the shit in this one.

4.5 out of 5
the_novacula

The Sacred is the tale of several students who get in over their heads while trying to research local Native American folklore. It’s not really the locals who give them much grief, instead that task is up to the land itself, which can materialize the dead, sins and past mistakes.

THE SACRED- TRAILER- DIALOGUE VERSION- NEW

Learn more about it here.

Back in the day, the heyday when Freddy and Jason ruled the slasher box office, my middle school was on Elm Street.  My friends and I always found that cool.

Here’s a photo from the set of The Nightmare on Elm Street remake, Springwood High.  You can see some more shots of it at Bloody-Disgusting.

“We’re taking the iconic image of a mother, the most comforting and nurturing person in the world, and perverting that into something that is punishing and sadistic,” Genre’s Richard Saperstein said.

The 1980 Troma cult classic Mother’s Day has been given the go-ahead for a remake.  Darren Lynn Bousman, director of Repo! The Genetic Opera and three of the, seemingly, kazillion Saw entries is set to direct.  The plan, as of now, is aiming for a Mother’s Day 2010 release.

I’ve not seen the original, but apparently the two crazy sons rape and murder and commit all manners of ill deeds to please their deranged, crazy, momma.

Director Alex Proyas and actor Nicolas Cage seem unlikely bedmates, but considering Proyas has worked with Will Smith, it eleviates some of the mind boggling.

The DVD of the critically divided film streets on July 7th.

Guillermo del Toro isn’t just a kick-ass filmmaker, he is now turning his writing talents to the world of literature.  He is the co-author of the new book The Strain with Chuck Hogan, the first of a new trilogy.  Read a Q&A with the authors here.

Or watch the video to hear del Toro discuss it.