Playing House with Mayra Leal is a lot of fun, especially if you grew up watching flicks like Body Chemistry and Scorned on Cinemax when the folks were away. Directed by newcomer Tom Vaughan, the film centers on a young married couple whose relationship is suddenly threatened by a homicidal seductress hellbent on living the American dream.

Mitch and Jen McKenzie (Craig Welzbacher, Sarah Prikryl) have just moved into their dream house. He’s a doctor looking to make partner at the private practice where he works. She’s a professional chef about to land her own kitchen at an upscale restaurant. Despite their promising careers, the duo find themselves in a financial pinch and so decide to rent out a room to Mitch’s friend Danny (Matt Lusk).

Danny is a good-natured slob who likes to spend his time playing PS3 with Mitch because it helps to keep his mind off Debbie, the cute girl who dumped him after a three year romance. Jen, figuring she’ll do everyone a favor, tells Danny that he should try online dating. Enter Blair (Mayra Leal), a beautiful dark-haired girl with a mysterious past and an aversion to clothes.

Blair, infatuated with Mitch and his big house, sets out to seduce him. It’s not hard to do. She’s beautiful and he’s sexually frustrated due to his and Jen’s work schedules. Jen’s lack of sexual spontaneity since Danny’s arrival isn’t helping matters much either. Against his better judgement, Mitch goes from peeping a nude Blair in the pool to pawing her in the shower.

To say anything more would be to take away from the fun of watching Vaughan’s ode to old-school erotic thrillers. Just know that Mayra Leal does get naked (and it is wonderful), a cute pet is brutally murdered, and there are two awesome scenes of girl-on-girl violence.

Leal, best known for her memorable—and very naked—turn as a deadly, double-crossing chica in Robert Rodriguez’s Machete, plays the femme fatal role with gusto, but still manages to keep her performance grounded despite the outrageous goings-on in the story. Sarah Prikryl as Jen is sympathetic and Craig Welzbacher infuriates as clueless husband Mitch—a credit to both actors’ skills.

Playing House is a guilty pleasure that—thanks to Leal and a solid script from Vaughan and Kristy Dobkin—is surprisingly better than many of the ’90s erotic thrillers it pays homage to. The film is now available on DVD and can be purchased at Amazon.

For more info, visit the Playing House website.

Production on Paramount Pictures’ big screen adaptation of author Max Brooks novel “World War Z” is currently underway in Valletta, Malta. Photos from the set featuring lead Brad Pitt—and some mysterious corpses—have hit the web.

World War Z is set ten years after a zombie apocalypse and follows a UN researcher (Pitt) as he collects testimonials from survivors around the world. The film is directed by Marc Forster (Quantum of Solace) and costars Mirielle Enos (”The Killing”), Julia Levy-Boeken (Road Trip: Beer Pong), James Badge Dale (The Grey), Ed Harris (The Abyss), and Matthew Fox (“LOST”).

Peep the pics (courtesy of Zimbio):

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Lauren Cohan is going to be surrounded by stiffies this October when AMC’s hit zombie series “The Walking Dead” returns for its second season. The 28-year-old actress has been cast as Maggie Greene, daughter to veterinarian Hershel Greene (Scott Wilson) and love interest to Glenn (the Asian guy).

Cohan tells TV Guide:

If Maggie’s entrance is anything to go by, we have a lot to look forward to. She wears jeans, kick-ass boots and rides a horse. She’s very steely and views Glenn as a leader and the cutest of the bunch. When you walk in [the farm], you get a sense of the happy family memories that were there and the desperation of how they live now.

Season two of “The Walking Dead” will find the show’s survivors seeking refuge at the Greene’s farm. Along with Maggie and Hershel, the group will meet the Greene’s old ranch hand Otis (Pruitt Taylor Vince). Production on the 13-episode series is already underway in Atlanta, Georgia.

Cohan currently plays recurring baddie Vivian Volkoff on NBC’s “Chuck.” She’s also starred as relic thief Bela Talbot on The CW’s “Supernatural” and Rose, a 500-year-old vampire, on the network’s sister series “The Vampire Diaries.”

Cohan can also be seen opposite Tanit Phoenix and Danny Trejo in Universal’s home-video original Death Race 2: Frankenstein Lives.

British actor Ben Barnes is set to headline director Sergei Bodrov’s Seventh Son, an adaptation of young-adult novelist Joseph Delaney’s “The Wardstone Chronicles,” the first volume of the series “The Last Apprentice.”

The 29-year-old actor, best known for his role as Prince X in The Chronicles of Narnia films Prince Caspian and The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, will play exorcist-in-training Tom Ward. He joins a cast that includes Jeff Bridges as exorcist Master Gregory (AKA: The Spook) and Julianne Moore as evil witch Mother Malkin.

The Warner Bros. and Legendary Pictures’ production will roll cameras on Sept. 13 in Vancouver.

The Texas Killing Fields, a serial killer drama produced by Michael Mann (Miami Vice) and directed by his daughter Ami Canaan Mann, is slated for an October release. The film is inspired by a series of real-life unsolved murders discovered in a stretch of land in Galveston, Texas.

The film’s synopsis reads:

Inspired by true events, this tense and haunting thriller follows a local homicide detective in a small Texan town and his partner, a transplanted cop from New York City as they track a sadistic serial killer dumping his victims’ mutilated bodies in a nearby marsh locals call “The Killing Fields”.

The killer changes the game and begins hunting the detectives, teasing them with possible clues at the crime scenes while always remaining one step ahead. When a familiar local girl, Anne goes missing the detectives find themselves in a race against time to find the killer and save her life.

The Texas Killing Fields stars Sam Worthington (Avatar), Jeffrey Dean Morgan (The Tenant), Chloe Mortez (Let Me In), Stephen Graham (“Boardwalk Empire”), Jason Clarke (Death Race), Sheryl Lee (“Twin Peaks”) and Jessica Chastain (pictured above).