Model-turned-actress Bjanka Murgel may have only been credited as “Arm Candy” in the 2008 Marvel Studios’ actioner Punisher: War Zone, but one look at the 5-foot-8 Canadian stunner will convince most guys that she’s a star (Photo: Erwin Loewen).
One such guy is director Antoine Thomas. His feature film debut The Hidden 3-D (not to be confused as a remake of the awesome 1987 sci-fi thriller The Hidden starring Kyle MacLachlan and bombshell Claudia Christian) stars Murgel as part of a group of people terrorized while exploring an old medical facility.
The synopsis reads:
When Brian Karter’s mother dies; he is surprised to learn that he has inherited The Sanctuary, home to her controversial experimental addiction treatment center. During a tour of the decrepit building with his friends and a mysterious associate of his mother, it becomes clear that something sinister lies beneath the surface.
Despite their misgivings, the group follows a secret passageway underground and comes to a terrible realization: Brian’s mother built a revolutionary machine that cured people of their addictions but, as a side effect, caused those addictions to materialize in the form of mutant children hungry for human flesh, now living in the bowels of the abandoned building.
With the mutant children hunting the group as prey, Brian and his friends fight to stay alive against the inconceivable and soon realize that some things are better left hidden.
There isn’t much info on Murgel’s character, but she at least has a name this time: Kimberly. And, judging from a couple of stills from the movie (see below), Kimberly wears sexy stockings.
The Hidden 3-D also stars Sean Clement (Bikini Party Massacre), Simonetta Solder (Mother of Tears), Jason Blicker (The Day After Tomorrow), and pretty up-and-comer Jordan Hayes (House at the End of the Street).
Here we have Oscar nominee Jennifer Lawrence as young Mystique in 20th Century Fox’s highly anticipated X-Men: First Class. As you can see, the film’s makeup team has taken the 20-year-old stunner and transformed her into a acne-riddled Na’vi with a ginormous forehead.
X-Men: First Class is an origins story directed by Mathew Vaughn (Kick Ass). The film costars January Jones (Emma Frost), Rose Byrne (Moira), Kevin Bacon (Sebastian Shaw), James McAvoy (Charles Xavier), and Michael Fassbender (Magneto).
Actress Erin Carufel, last seen in the Matthew McConaughey/Marisa Tomei vehicle The Lincoln Lawyer, has scored a part opposite Amanda Seyfried and Jennifer Carpenter in Lakeshore Entertainment’s new serial killer drama Gone.
Written by Allison Burnett (Untraceable), Gone is Brazilian director Heitor Dhalia’s (Adrift) American film debut and stars Seyfried as a woman who discovers that her sister has been kidnapped by the same man who attempted to murder her two years prior.
No word on what role Carufel will be playing, but Gone is the 32-year-old’s first thriller since 2008’s Untraceable.
Gone is set to shoot this month in Portland, Oregon.
TV starlet Leven Rambin (“Grey’s Anatomy”) and Jack Quaid are the latest to sign up for Lionsgate’s big screen adaptation of author Suzanne Collins’ young-adult series “Hunger Games.” They join a cast that includes Jennifer Lawrence (X-Men: First Class), Josh Hutcherson (Journey 2: The Mysterious Island), Liam Hemsworth (Knowing), and Elizabeth Banks (The Uninvited).
Hunger Games finds child survivors of an economically and socially collapsed America competing in televised death games in a new country named Panem. Two kids from each of Panem’s 12 districts are chosen by lottery each year to participate. Rambin and Quaid will portray District One players Glimmer and Marvel, respectively.
Rambin, a 20-year-old Texas native, is best known to genre fans as Riley Dawson on the short-lived Fox series “Terminator: The Sarah Conner Chronicles.” Quaid’s claim-to-fame is that he fell out of Meg Ryan’s vagina around the time she was hitched to Dennis Quaid.
Elizabeth Banks is set to join Lionsgate’s big screen adaptation of author Suzanne Collins’ best-selling young-adult book series “Hunger Games.” The 37-year-old looker will star opposite Jennifer Lawrence (X-Men: First Class), Josh Hutcherson (Journey 2: The Mysterious Island), Liam Hemsworth (Knowing), Amandla Stenberg (Colombiana) and Dayo Okeniyi.
Hunger Games finds child survivors of an economically and socially collapsed America competing in televised death games in a new country named Panem. Two kids from each of Panem’s 12 districts are chosen to participate by lottery each year.
Banks will play Effie Trinket, the District 12 bureaucrat who chaperons 16-year-old Katniss (Lawrence) and her partner Peeta (Hutcherson) throughout the games. Gary Ross (Seabiscuit, Pleasantville) directs from a script by Billy Ray (Flightplan, Color of Night).
Banks creds include the Guard Brothers’ J-horror remake The Uninvited, James Gunn’s creature-feature comedy Slither, and Sam Raimi’s Spiderman trilogy.
After helming the 2005 Syfy original creature-feature Pterodactyl, many assumed director Mark L. Lester had swallowed some shotgun candy and called it a life. As it turns out, the man behind Class of 1984 (1982), Firestarter (1984), Commando (1985), Armed & Dangerous (1986), and Showdown in Little Tokyo (1991) is only dead on the inside.
The 64-year-old filmmaker is back with a new ridiculous psycho-bitch thriller entitled Groupie. The film stars Taryn Manning (Manson Girls) as a woman out to avenge the accidental concert death of her boyfriend by killing off the members of The Dark Knights, a rock band on the comeback trail. Costars include “90210’s” Hal Ozsan as the band’s lead singer, Eric Roberts as the group’s manager, and horror hottie Betsy Rue.
Guys who watch movies with their hands down their pants will recognize Rue as My Bloody Valentine 3-D’s ill-fated motel victim who fights off her assailant in the nude for 8-minutes. Her additional creds include Rob Zombie’sHalloween 2 and guest roles on HBO’s “True Blood,” Fox TV’s “Bones,” and the CBS crime series “The Mentalist.”
Betsy Rue's the day she forgot to wear pants!
Manning and Rue’s participation in this flick automatically earn it a spot on my Netflix queue. But, also drawing me in is the possibility that screenwriters Michael Feifer and Randall Frakes may have gotten inspiration for their story from the tragic 2003 Great White concert fire at The Station nightclub in Rhode Island.
Groupie arrives on DVD on June 14 from Allegro Entertainment.
Winona Ryder is bringing crazy back to the theater in indie-writer/director Jay Anania’s recently announced psychological thriller The Stare. The film stars Ryder as a playwright haunted by strange dreams and a sensation that she’s being watched and plotted against while attempting to launch her new production.
The Stare, which goes into production on May 6 in New York, costars Oscar nominee James Franco (127 Hours) as an actor performing in Ryder’s play. Franco also serves as producer on the Waterstone-produced project.
Ryder is coming off director Darren Aronofsky’s critically acclaimed psych-thriller Black Swan. Her genre creds include such notable films as Tim Burton’s Edward Scissorhands, Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s Alien: Resurrection, Richard Linklater’s A Scanner Darkly, and Francis Ford Coppola’s Dracula.
Gorgeous “Hollyoaks” star Tiffany Mulheron is joining hot up-and-comers Sara Paxton (Last House On the Left, Shark Night 3-D) and Gillian Zinser (Manson Girls, “90210”) in writer/director Brian Brightly’s feature film debut Liars All (previously entitled Truth or Dare).
Set in London on New Year’s Eve, Liars All centers on a game of truth-or-dare that spins out of control for a group of friends. The Indie Entertainment and Sundial Pictures production is set to roll camera on Monday in Los Angeles.
Mulheron’s genre creds include the rock-and-roll nightmare Dark Journey and the horror-comedy Lesbian Vampire Killers. She is best known, however, for her role as mean-bitch Natalie Osborne on the outrageously sexy British soap “Hollyoaks.”
Liars All costars Matt Lanter (The Roommate), Torrance Combs (“The Tudors”), Randy Wayne (Grizzly Park), and Alice Evans, who played a young Eloise Hawking on ABC’s “LOST.”
Against all odds, director Srdjan Spasojevic’s porn-snuff frightener A Serbian Film is set to hit the U.S. for a limited run in selected theaters on May 13. The controversial film will play in R and NC-17 rated edits, but an unrated version will be available on FlixFling.com on the same day.
A Serbian Film follows a downtrodden ex-porn star trying to make ends meet for his family by taking on a role in a privately funded fetish video that involves acts both immoral and illegal. The film’s most controversial scenes include machete sex, eye-socket rape, torture, and—wait for it—newborn rape.
“LOST” star Tania Raymonde (pictured above) and “True Blood’s” Brit Morgan will make their nude debuts in director Susanna Lo’s Manson Girls, a bio-pic that follows the violent and psychosexual lives of eight female Charles Manson cult members. The sexy duo partake in an orgy and share a girl-on-girl sex scene.
Raymonde and Morgan play convicted murderers Leslie Van Houten and Patricia Krenwinkel, respectively. In an interview with Lo for the website StayThirsty, the starlets reveal the lies they told themselves to justify going butt-nekid for the roles.
Raymonde says:
You can’t make a movie about the Manson girls without showing how the girls related to one another. They shared sexual connections as well as emotional ones. They were coerced and brainwashed into group sex situations that they more or less enjoyed.
Sex was the glue that held their family together. It’s important to show how these girls lived. I’m only portraying a character as accurately as I can, as I would with any role. As far as the nudity is concerned, I’ll get over it.
Morgan echoes Raymonde’s sentiment:
I have been avoiding nudity, for almost everything, so far in my career as well. So the sex scenes are new territory for me, but I am not as concerned as I imagined I’d be.
Probably because this is one of the only films I’ve read where it seems like it’s necessary and integral to the authenticity of the story. Sexuality was such an important factor in the 1960’s and in the lives of these girls, so I am willing to express that part of myself.
