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13 articles from 2009

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Will shark movie, The Reef, help or hinder Australia's tourist trade?

4 November 2009 3:17 AM, PST | Boxwish.com | See recent BoxWish news »

It’s 34 years since Jaws first put sharks on cinema’s scare-o-meter and since then we’ve spilt our popcorn over other predators of the deep in the likes of Deep Blue Sea and Open Water. And it looks like we could once again be giving the sea a miss thanks to The Reef, a new Australian thriller scheduled for release in 2010. The low-budget movie, which is being touted as a true story and is supported by the country’s State Government, follows a group of youngsters who find themselves fighting for their lives when their sailboat capsizes along the Great Barrier Reef and a great white takes a dislike to them. It’s classic disaster movie fodder and yet there are concerns that it might damage tourism in the Queensland area, where it’s being filmed. »

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The Blair Witch Project: Ten Years On – Part 2

30 October 2009 5:01 PM, PDT | HeyUGuys.co.uk | See recent HeyUGuys news »

It’s the ten year anniversary of The Blair Witch Project, which was released in the UK to coincide with Halloween a decade ago. On Thursday, i looked at the impact it’s release had at the time in The Blair Witch Project: Ten Years On – Part 1, and yesterday reviewed the movie itself in Did you ever see… The Blair Witch Project. Now, on Halloween night, we’ll see how Blair Witch still impacts the movie industry even now.

Blair Witch immediately set small independent filmmakers off attempting to recreate/replicate the success of the movie. Indeed, a sequel, Blair Witch 2: Book of Shadows was also produced. Inevitably, no success was found in any of these endeavours. Blair Witch had come at the end of the nineties low budget independent film boom. Perhaps more surprisingly, Hollywood executives wisely resisted the temptation to commission a raft of imitations. Common sense »

- Barry Steele

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Richard Harrah Takes Us Deep Into The Canyon

21 October 2009 7:34 AM, PDT | MovieWeb | See recent MovieWeb news »

Yvonne Strahovski and Eion Baily team up with Will Patton for a terrifying honeymoon nightmare this Halloween season

With The Canyon, Richard Harrah has crafted a sly little thriller that comes at you like a donkey kick in the kidneys. Starring Yvonne Strahovski and Eion Baily as recently married lovebirds headed deep into to the Gran Canyon, Harrah's Halloween treat is an intense, cautionary travelogue that offers up the best kind of nightmare scenario for any honeymooning couple. When you throw Will Patton into the mix as Henry Theodore Roosevelt Pritchard, a wily old coot with a pick-ax and a couple of spare donkeys, you know this trip isn't going to end well. The couple gets lost, they run out of food, coyotes attack them, and nothing is more dangerous than trying to find a cell phone signal. We recently caught up with Harrah to chat about this exciting new project. »

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Vampires, "Antichrist"...and It's Not Even Halloween Yet

19 October 2009 8:48 AM, PDT | ifc.com | See recent IFC news »

This week finds early awards season contenders lining up alongside a queer cinema double bill, a troupe of unorthodox vampires and a horror movie franchise that's become torturous in more ways than one.

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"Amelia"

Awards season takes flight with celebrated director Mira Nair's biopic charting the early life and rise to prominence of pioneering aviatrix Amelia Earhart. Hilary Swank produced and stars as the elusive Kansas-born pilot as she perilously navigates the skies, the trappings of fame and her romances with publisher George Putnam (Richard Gere) and Gene Vidal (Ewan McGregor). Christopher Eccleston, Cherry Jones and Mia Wasikowska join the heavyweight cast in this pic whose Oscar-friendly subject matter may allow it to fly under the Academy's expanded Best Picture tent.

Opens in limited release.

"Antichrist"

Controversial from the word go, Danish »

- Neil Pedley

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Oren Peli’s Paranormal Chronicles

13 October 2009 12:22 PM, PDT | Fangoria | See recent Fangoria news »

Recent film history is littered with exciting and ambitious genre films that wound up bypassing theaters and going straight to video instead; Michael Dougherty’s Trick ’R Treat and Thomas Jane’s would-be 3-D Dark Country are just two of the more recent examples. And for a couple of years after chilling audiences at festivals, Oren Peli’s Paranormal Activity seemed destined for the same fate. DreamWorks snapped up the $11,000 production following a Slamdance Film Fest screening in January 2008—and then announced its intentions to remake Activity on a bigger budget, consigning the original to be seen only on DVD, if at all.

All that changed in the last couple of months. After previewing the movie to enthusiastic audience response, Paramount (which had taken over handling Activity) decided to send the movie into high-profile midnight bookings and give the public the chance to Demand It! for their areas via the official website. »

- no-reply@fangoria.com (Michael Gingold)

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'Twilight' Producers Close To Casting Halle Berry For Thriller 'Dark Tide'

9 September 2009 3:00 PM, PDT | MTV Movies Blog | See recent MTV Movies Blog news »

By choice or not, Halle Berry has stayed on the outskirts of Hollywood's radar in the last few years, appearing in just two relatively low-profile films, with a third indie still awaiting release. The folks behind the "Twilight" franchise, conversely, are at the epicenter of the pop culture zeitgeist.

Variety is reporting that the thriller "Dark Tide" will have Berry and two "Twilight" producers, Marty Bowen and Wyck Godfrey, joining forces. Nothing's set yet — the Oscar-winner is still in those mysterious "advance talks" — but if everything works out, Berry will sign on to play a diving instructor who suffers a near-fatal accident with a great white shark and then decides — screw it! — to head back to the ocean.

The script comes from newbie Amy Sorlie, a screenwriter and journalist who — if her Twitter account is an accurate representation — is a committed beach bum based in Los Angeles. Clark Johnson, a »

- Eric Ditzian

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Frightfest 09: Review of Christopher Smith's labyrinthine yachting horror Triangle

27 August 2009 8:00 PM, PDT | QuietEarth.us | See recent QuietEarth news »

Year: 2009

Directors: Christopher Smith

Writers: Christopher Smith

IMDb: link

Trailer: link

Review by: Ben Austwick

Rating: 8.5 out of 10

[Editor's note: And so begins our Frightfest coverage thanks to our awesome London correspondent Ben!]

Christopher Smith is one of the rising stars of British Horror, his so-so debut “Creep” knocked into a hat by the success of his second feature, the very funny horror comedy “Severance”. They're very different films, but have in common a brazen, magpie attitude to their influences and a trashy, ironic feel. Triangle similarly flies its influences with no apology, but swaps the gore and laughs for tightly plotted thriller tension and a complicated, twisting storyline that could annoy if it wasn't so bizarre. The lengths it goes to to confound and confuse make this a very exciting film and a big step forward for Christopher Smith, despite an empty feel familiar in films that rely solely on plot mechanics.

I'd like to coin the term Yachting Horror to explain Triangle's set up, »

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6 Films to Celebrate Shark Week

6 August 2009 4:11 PM, PDT | FilmSchoolRejects.com | See recent FilmSchoolRejects news »

A wise man once said, "Live every week like it's Shark Week," and we've adhered to that rule religiously for 51 weeks. Now, we're lucky enough to live like it's Shark Week during Shark Week. In fact, we're so crazy for the Discovery Channel feature that we're DVRing most of it in order to watch its programming throughout the year. And to throw a massive shark-themed party. That's a massive party with a shark theme, not a party with a theme of massive sharks. Actually, I guess it could go either way. Since we are celebrating this week in a big way, we've decided to throw together a list of movies that you might want to check out when you're not watching wall-to-wall shark footage on television. Because you know what goes great with sharks? More sharks. Shark! (1969) The Pitch: This is by no means a good movie. It's not even close to being a good movie. But »

- Dr. Cole Abaius

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'Surviving Crooked Lake' trailer - 4 Girls, 2 Canoes, 1 Body

18 July 2009 8:00 AM, PDT | Pretty/Scary | See recent pretty-scary news »

Another female-empowered, coming-of-age terror/thriller (think All the Boys Love Mandy Lane) is here: Surviving Crooked Lake in U.S. theaters July 24th.

In this sensual, intense, indie feature, a quartet of teenage girls embark on a canoe-and-camping trip with a slightly older male guide in the endless wilderness of the Canadian Shield. His younger sister Steph – who is desperately afraid of the water – is one of the campers. Once the group is underway, romantic tensions erupt and disaster strikes, forcing the girls to face a grueling and desperate trip back to civilization...

Shot in tight close-ups with a fluid camera that sees the landscape first as an embodiment of desire and second as a distortion of reality, Surviving Crooked Lake crackles with suspense and intrigue. It will leave you wondering about the mysteries of the adolescent heart and mind, the bonds of family, and to the looming influence of nature and landscape. »

- Superheidi

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‘The Blair Witch Project’ And Other Movies That Make You Reach For The Dramamine

14 July 2009 9:00 AM, PDT | MTV Movies Blog | See recent MTV Movies Blog news »

It’s been ten years since “The Blair Witch Project” crept its way into the national consciousness. The movie, which follows three students making a documentary about the legendary Blair Witch, managed to hit the sweet spot of viral marketing and word-of-mouth buzz through an extensive online campaign that had movie fans scratching their heads over whether or not the footage was real.

In fact, writer/directors Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sánchez went to great lengths to convince investors, and eventually potential viewers, that their movie was a documentary. They did so through the use of cleverly staged “found” footage and an extensive back story. In the end, “The Blair Witch Project” was such an effective horror movie because of what it didn’t show — and because the use of unsteady handheld cameras often left audience members feeling dizzy and nauseated. So whether shaky camera work is used or abused in the name of art, »

- Jenni Miller

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Lists of Doom Xv: Mika of Eryn Non Dae

12 June 2009 10:01 PM, PDT | Fangoria | See recent Fangoria news »

It's time for another installment of Fangoria Musick's Lists Of Doom - the column where we track down some of your favorite (or soon-to-be favorite) bands to get their thoughts on on the world of horror.

For number 15, we caught up with Mika Andre, bassist of the French band, Eryn Non Dae, whose Stateside debut Hydra Lernaia will arrive in-stores on June 23rd via Metal Blade Records. Mika's List of Doom is a bit different than what we usually see, with a strong lean toward Asian Horror.

Mika, the stage is yours...

I’m really into Asian horror movies because of their very calm and restrained atmosphere. Even if it’s a bit overrated now, there’s something very unique Ring had brought at the beginning; a kind of deep esthetic beauty in the horror.

Shutter

(Thai version, by Parkpoom Wongpoom and Banjong Pisanthanakun)

Another Asian ghost style movie but »

- no-reply@fangoria.com (James Zahn)

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A Russell Mulcahy 3-D Shark Movie Should Really Be Bigger News

15 May 2009 8:02 AM, PDT | Cinematical | See recent Cinematical news »

I demand that people pay attention to this. I know that Russell Mulcahy isn't exactly a hot property these days, but still. Mulcahy has been reliably churning out B-movies for more than two decades now. Recently he even managed to make the Resident Evil franchise rebound a little from the unwatchable second film. He's got a movie with the year's coolest title in the pipeline, Give 'Em Hell, Malone. And before all that, of course, came Highlander. Come on, people. Highlander. (Yes, yes, I know, also Highlander 2: The Quickening. Shut up.)

Mulcahy has signed up for an Australian shark movie called Bait, which will shoot on the Gold Coast this summer, and will be in 3-D. Yes, yes, I know: Jaws 3-D. Shut up. We haven't had a good shark movie since Deep Blue Sea ten years ago (Open Water, though awesome, does not count), and I'm hankering to see one. »

- Eugene Novikov

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[DVD Review] The Burrowers

2 May 2009 3:56 PM, PDT | JustPressPlay.net | See recent JustPressPlay news »

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In recent years, riding on the popularity of the Saw franchise, Lionsgate has come up with a veritable assembly line model for horror film marketing. That's not to say they haven't been surprisingly selective in the kind of material they put out; High Tension, Open Water, and The Descent have all been relatively well-received and have found a decent audience, particularly Neil Marshall's nerve-racking cave-dweller horror film. The Burrowers, a straight-to-dvd release from the studio, is a surprise, in that it offers not only a novel setting but also more than competent acting and eye-catching cinematography.

A horror western is a unique concept that requires a masterful balancing act, utilized to great effect in Alex Turner's disturbing Dead Birds, released in 2004. Whereas Dead Birds focused largely on a single location and functioned as a psychological thriller, The Burrowers is much more in vein of a western, »

- Mark Zhuravsky

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2009 | 2008 | 2006 | 2005 | 2004

13 articles from 2009

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