FEARNET via Hollywood reporter is stating that the next (third) season of Ryan Murphy’s “American Horror Story” will have a different tone for next for the show. Possibly one that will have more of a horror romance -ala ’True Blood Perhaps”? However, some fan favs will surely be back in the forms of Evan Peters (Kit Carson), Sarah Paulson (Lana) as well as Jessica Lange who, according to Murphy, the next season will revolve around. Lange is also reportedly a non-credited producer of he show now.
Murphy is also reportedly in talks with other actors that had appeared in the season 1 that had NOT returned for 2 to bring them back.
The next season of “American Horror Story” won’t hit the airwaves until October.
The much anticipated sequel to the 2010 faux-documentary film “The Last Exorcism” is finally coming out this March. Love or hate the found-footage genre in horror movies today, it did take a relative simple storyline -that of a lost faith preacher as he tries to prove that the way that people take god is WAY to seriously and that they would follow someone off a cliff who had a good enough spiel (Jim Jones anyone?). The first film -for those of you have not seen it- followed Reverend Cotton Marcus (Patrick Fabian) as he tried to “exorcize” a demon from the body of a young girl.
Now the whole first half of the movie paints the picture that this girl, Nell (Ashley Bell), is not in fact possessed, by in reality suffers from metal problems and is possibly being molested, if not by her father, then, definitely her brother if not by both. However, Nell’s father comes off as a confused man living in the backwoods of Louisiana, and suffers his own metal problems, in addition with his deep seated beliefs, as he tries to deal with the death of his wife and raise his family from the evils of the world when he is convinced that his daughter is in fact possessed because she has wild mood swings and has supposedly been eviscerating the live stock on the farm.
As Cotton Marcus goes through the motions, for not only Nell’s father, Louis (Louis Herthum), but for the documentary crew as well, strange things start to unfold leading to the fact that Marcus begins to rediscover his faith as he starts to think that Nell might actually be possessed by the demon, Abalam. As the facts of the case start to unfold we learn of a large conspiracy that involves the local church as well as Nell’s brother, Caleb. Leading to a confrontation of what looks to be actually a demon. The confrontation, as a result, also leads to the death of the crew and possibly Cotton Marcus.
Flash forward now to the sequel entitled: “Last Exorcism 2”, producers Eli Roth and the gang at STRIKE have now dumper the found-footage, POV style of filming and have gone the route of the traditional film as we find Nell somewhat safe and sound living in a halfway house in New Orleans. Nell seems to have limited knowledge (or at least portrays herself that way) of the events that took place and how she got to where she is (according to the trailer), but she knows that she is being perused by forces unknown.
While a lot of the movie goers that saw the first film were less than impresses, I in fact was a fan of the film. I thought that “The Last Exorcism” made good use of a style of filmmaking that has, over the years, been way over done and pretty much thrown into effect for movies that had very poor scripts to begin with. Like somehow using POV/Docu-style filming was going to fix the fact that their scripts sucked or they had a good idea and no money to get real actors that can act. Now I am not saying that they needed big or known names. Just people that had acting chops and not just a buff body or a nice pair of tits.
The trailer for “The Last Exorcism 2” has me interested to see where they can take this storyline. While the message boards do not really care for the “Christian” and religious horror films that use good and evil in the subtext of angels and demons -they may be right on some occasions- but some of the best horror films -in my mind- have used religion very effectively in the way they have created a real feel of dread in the theater. (“Omen”, “The Exorcist”, “Hellraiser” just to name few).
The fact is the horror genre will always fall on one two types of movies: The religious angle or that of the masked villain (ie Freddy, Jason, Leatherface). While both styles have been WAY over used they can and are still affective if done the right way. But each to their own.
Ah, yes. What I am sure is going to be the next “low-rent” re-hash of one of my favorite horror flicks makes it’s way to the movie theaters today. “Texas Chainsaw Massacre” has had some worthy notes to the franchise and some rather full fledge duds as well. And this latest incarnate of Leatherface has me feeling that this is on the latter side of the sequel/remakes.
This time around “TCM” gets a name makeover to the awesomeness of “Texas Chainsaw 3D” (yes, for whatever the fucking reason we get to see Leatherface in all his gory glory in 3D… yay! And yes I am being sarcastic when I say “YAY”). Hollywood seems to still have a hard-on for that for some moronic reason. Sure we have the supper hot Alexandra Daddario for our heroine but is that enough to make me cough up ten plus dollars to sit in the theater, and in January no less. Because we all know that January is the dumping ground for crap movies. That and I have been fucked over too many times with these updates/reboots that have just sucked. (“Friday the 13th” anyone?)
Hey. I am all for a good telling of the same old story. (Just ask any of my friends who get to sit through one of my drunken retellings of days gone by to anyone new and/or willing to listen.) I think with how horror has finally jumped mediums and moved into television we can truly explore some of the old 80s villains. (Hell, they already have Norman Bates & Hannibal “The Cannibal” Lector cued up, ready to go.) Just look how widely respected “American Horror Story” and “Walking Dead” have become. This makes me think that it might be time to explore that thinking. How good of a story do you think can come out of story lines like “Hellraiser” if given a 13 episode run instead of trying to pound 3 lbs of shit into a 80-90 minute flick? Same goes to Freddy, Jason, and the aforementioned Leatherface.
Hopefully Hollywood is watching and taking note if “Bates Motel” takes off. Imagine the great TV horror fans and fans of the great masked villains would be given.
Okay. I admit it. I was not a fan of Hollywood remaking “Evil Dead”. Not even with the fact that Raimi had something to do with it. However, I am now eating those words after watching the REDBAND trailer for it.
The original “Evil Dead” (the Bruce Campbell ones) I found, while shot on a low budget, pure masterful. Even though they were of more a dark comedy than actual horror (especially 2 & 3) per say. And when I heard the rumor mills start with Hollywood looking to remake the classic from my teen years I was appalled. Because lets face it. Most of the remakes, especially of the horror variety, have pretty much sucked balls. Then they went and attached Diablo Cody’s name to the new version & I was ready to jump out a window. Now its not like Cody is a bad writer and all (I found “Juno” quite good, and I even defended her at times when people talked shit about her), I do believe that she is slightly overrated especially when she talked about being such a huge horror fan and that how she really wanted to do a horror film then gave us the god-awful “Jennifer’s Body” I felt that she should have been taken out and flogged. A little extreme I know, but I really disliked that movie that I had such high hopes for. When I heard Cody’s name pop up with he rewrite for “Evil Dead” I was really starting to think that this remake was going give us tremendous levels suckage.
But all is starting to be forgiven. And I’ll admit that I will be more than happy to eat any amount of crow for thinking and bitching the way I did about the remake of “Evil Dead” if it lives up to what the trailer is promising.
Rob Zombie’s long awaited return to the big screen (his last 2 endeavors where the sad cartoon film “Superbeasto” and that sorry mess of a film “Halloween 2” back in 2009) as his latest film “Lords of Salem” gets a release date.
Anchor Bay (along with Alliance & Haunted Films) is shooting for late April. April 26th, 2013 to be exact. Also in the works will be a novelization of the film penned by Zombie (along with B.K. Evenson) from the script & is slated to hit book shelves a month prior (March 2013).
Zombie has been touting “Lords” as being his biggest project to date and it is starting to look that way.
Class warfare seems to be the theme of the day whether it is real life or that of Hollywood productions, so it should come to no surprise that the Sci-Fi genre is going to follow suit with Matt Damon’s new flick “Elysium”.
The film centers around an orbital space station named -surprisingly, Elysium- where the rich seem to live the life as they always have for centuries, while they orbit around the an apocalyptic 22nd century diseased ridden Earth. Damon plays the central character Max, an ex-con who is trying to get up to the space station because he is dying, and he is given a mission that will, hopefully, not only save his life but equality to the world and people as a whole.
“Elysium” Also stars Jodie Foster as Secretary Rhodes, an evil and twisted government official that will stop at nothing to enforce Elysium’s anti-immigration laws and so in effect keeping the luxurious lifestyles that the rich have come accustom too… oh, yes, the have-nots so want to be part of the haves.
Sound familiar?
It should, also, come to no surprise that “Elysium” was written and directed by “District 9’s” Neill Blomkamp who based a lot of that film on the way the South African government treated blacks and Apartheid. So, I believe, a lot of what “Elysium” rings with is Arizona and their immigration laws (and I believe a lot of Secretary Rhodes’ character can be said comes from Arizona’s governor). After reading the over-all plot synopsis, it seems that we have been down this route of sociopolitical ideas before (Think George Romero’s zombie films, “Escape from New York” (John Carpenter), even that of the “Resident Evil” franchise, to name a few).
Do we need another film like this? One that appears to be -a much better and grittier, but sort of the same premise- “Judge Dredd” meets “Total Recall” retread? I don’t know about you but I for one is getting a little tired of it. But it might be fun to see Matt Damon back to a grittier, tough guy role in the realm of Bourne.
Originally slated for a March release, but it appears that it might get pushed until August.
Update April 10th, 2013
Here is the first trailer for the film. It looks it'll hit theaters on August 9th
Holy shit, time to break out your Zombie Survival Handbooks because here it is, the trailer for the big screen adaptation of Max Brooks’ “World War Z”
Don’t worry if haven’t read the novel because from the first looks of it, “World War Z” is going to be nothing (even more than the “Walking Dead”) like the book. Which really is not a bad thng. In case you don’t know the novel, that version of the story is set 10 years after the great war with the undead as Agent Brooks of the United Nations Post War Commission travels around the world gathering information and facts from the years of battle to reclaim the Earth. Whereas the big screen version from Brad Pitt’s production company (Plan B Entertainment) takes us what is sure to be wild ride as UN agent Gerry Lane (Pitt) searches the globe of what the origin is that has brought of this onslaught of the dead and for a way stop it from destroying the world.
Originally set for release at the end of 2012 (because, hell, who doesn’t like death, destruction and the end of the world during the holiday season) “World War Z” seemed to be plagued (pun untended) with problems from almost the start. Everything from production shutdowns to being WAY over budget. Then there were the rumors that the ending was a complete disaster in its own right. Causing the Studio to have Pitt hire a new screen writer to re-write the end and re-film. When I heard that and how the movie was pushed from the Christmas release list I had figured this movie to be a dead issue, maybe finding the light of day either in movie Purgatory of January (that seems to be the time when studios that have little faith in their projects and since most people are recovering from the holiday season they are not typically heading to the movies, so usually there is little or no quality films be put so a movie like this would find no competition and perhaps might make some of it’s budget back) or just dumped on DVD. But with a movie this size and amount to produce the latter would be unlikely with out a big screen release. Then there comes the fact that the “Hobbit” looked slated to be released, if not on the same weekend, then, relatively close to “World War Z” which did not bode well either. So either from genus marketing or perhaps they have actually fixed whatever problems they have, “World War Z” is finally going to find it’s way to the theaters. And right in time for the summer blockbuster season, and reportedly going up against the revamped Superman franchise: “Man of Steel.”
Should be interesting, because the trailer makes it look pretty fucking awesome. However, I do have to note the zombie purists will not be happy as we have returned to the fast moving, rabid eater type zombies.
