Writer and director Bryan Bertino terrified us six-years ago with his feature film debut The Strangers. Since then, any unexpected knock on the door has been cause of anxiety. As far as Clatto is concerned, The Strangers is the most frightening home invasion film ever lensed.
Now, Bertino is back with another home-based frightener called Mockingbird. This time out, three families are in danger when they each receive a camcorder with instructions to record the events some madman has planned or… be killed. The film is a Blumhouse and Universal release, and is available now on VOD.
If you’ve seen Meghan Ory playing a scantly clad, grownup version of Little Red Riding Hood on ABC’s “Once Upon Time,” chances are you’ve been licking your chops to see more of the brunette stunner. It’s time to thank your lucky stars, your wish is coming true!
Ory is set to star in Sony and Legendary Entertainment ‘s Dead Rising: Watchtower, its upcoming adaptation of the successful Capcom video game about survivors trying to live through a zombie apocalypse. No word on Ory’s role, but here’s hoping the film employs her “Once Upon a Time” wardrobe people.
Deadline reportsLeprechaun: Origins director Zach Lipovsky is helming the picture from a script by Mortal Kombat: Legacy producer Tim Carter. The film is the first project produced under Legendary’s Digital Media division and will be released on Sony’s digital platform Crackle.
Dead Rising: Watchtower is currently shooting in Vancouver. Starring alongside Ory are Jesse Metcalfe (“Desperate Housewives”), Virginia Madsen (“Witches of East End”), and Dennis Haysbert (Sin City: A Dame to Kill For).
Katie Cassidy goes topless and Ashlynn Yennie goes totally nude in XLrator Media’s The Scribbler, arriving on DVD and Blu-ray Oct. 21. Reviews for the film haven’t been very good, but we’re pretty sure it’ll get thumbs—and other things (we mean penises)—up from Clatto readers.
Directed by John Suits and written by Daniel Schaffer, who adapts the story from his 2006 graphic novel, The Scribbler stars Cassidy as a woman risking her sanity with an experimental machine designed to eliminate her multiple personalities. Yennie plays an unstable woman with a fear of clothes.
Ashlynn Yennie afraid of clothes in Scribbler
Cassidy currently stars as Dinah “Laurel” Lance, aka Black Canary, on The CW’s “Arrow.” Her horror creds include Platinum Dunes’ A Nightmare On Elm Street, Dimension’s Black Christmas, Screen Gems’ When a Stranger Calls and the short-lived CBS mystery series “Harper’s Island.”
Yennie is best known for her role in Tom Six’s demented cult classic The Human Centipede and its even more outrageous sequel The Human Centipede: Full Sequence. In addition to The Scribbler, she’s also got Adam Gierasch’s Fractured (previously titled Schism) coming up… and, yes, she’s naked there too!
A trailer has gone online for the creature-feature Dark Was the Night, starring Kevin Durand (“The Strain”), Lukas Haas (Transcendence), and model-turned-actress and former “World Poker Tour” hostess Sabina Gadecki (pictured). Jack Heller (Enter Nowhere) directs from a 2009 Black List script by Tyler Hisel.
Dark Was the Night follows a group of desperate townsfolk as they attempt to survive an evil beast freed from the woods by a careless logging company. Durand and Haas play the town’s sheriff and deputy, respectively. The film will hold its world premiere Oct. 16 at this year’s Screamfest LA.
Syfy has released a trailer for its new six-hour sci-fi mini-series “Ascension.” The show stars Tricia Helfer as the Chief Steward on board a space ship secretly launched in 1963 by the U.S. government to populate a new world. Fifty years later, they remain lost in space and faced with an unexpected murder.
The synopsis reads:
In 1963, the U.S. government launched a covert space mission sending hundreds of men, women and children on a century-long voyage aboard the starship Ascension to populate a new world.
Nearly 50 years into the journey, as they approach the point of no return, a mysterious murder of a young woman causes the ship’s population to question the true nature of their mission.
“Ascension” is created by executive producer and showrunner Philip Levens (”Smallville”). Co-stars include Brian Van Holt (“The Bridge”), Andrea Roth (“Rescue Me”), and Tiffany Lonsdale (G.I. Joe: Retaliation). The series premieres Nov. 24.
Stage 6 has released a red band trailer for Home Sweet Hell, a murderous tale about a maniacal wife who would rather force her husband to kill his hot, blackmailing mistress than leave him. Unfortunately for him, that plan not only leads to more danger, but to the discovery that his wife is totally bonkers.
Directed by Anthony Burns (Skateland), Home Sweet Hell stars Patrick Wilson and Katherine Heigl as married couple the Champagnes and Jordana Brewster (pictured) as the home-wrecking hottie. The red band trailer doesn’t contain any nudity, but it does have an undie-clad Heigl hacking away at her victim.
Stuart Gordon’s “Re-Animator: The Musical” springs back to life for a limited Halloween engagement set to run at the Steve Allen Theater in Hollywood, CA Oct. 17 through Nov. 2, Fridays through Sundays at 8 p.m. Adapted from Gordon’s beloved 1985 film, the production follows the grisly havoc caused by med school students Herbert West and Dan Cain after they set out to reanimate human corpses.
The show earned six awards, including Musical of the Year and Best Original Music, at the LA Weekly Theater Awards in 2011. We at Clatto were besides ourselves when we caught the musical last year… twice. From the fun, mind-blowing performances to the outrageous violence and gore, and Mark Nutter’s maniacal score and gut-busting lyrics, “Re-Animator: The Musical” is an experience no horror fan should miss. Read our review.
From the press release:
Re-Animator: The Musical tells the story of Herbert West, a brilliant young medical student who has created a glowing green serum that can bring the dead back to life. What should be a medical breakthrough results in hideous monstrosities and ghastly consequences.
Graham Skipper, who won a Best New Performer Award at the New York Musical Theater Festival for his crowd-pleasing turn, returns as the demented young genius. And operatic Jesse Merlin is back as Dr. Carl Hill, who loses his head for Meg, the dean’s beautiful daughter, only to actually lose it at the hands of Herbert West.
“Re-Animator: The Musical” plays at the Steve Allen Theater located at 4773 Hollywood Blvd. in Los Angeles from Oct. 17 through Nov. 2, with special preview performances running Oct. 10 – Oct. 12. Tickets to all shows are now available and can be purchased here. Be warned… first couple of rows are splatter zones! Follow “Re-Animator: The Musical” on Twitter and Facebook.
The 14th annual Screamfest horror film festival is set to rise once again in the city of angels. Running Oct. 14 – Oct. 23 at the TCL Chinese 6 Theater, the event will see the premiere of a variety of features and shorts from around the world. Tickets and movie schedule can be found on the Screamfest LA website.
World premieres include Laid to Rest director Robert Hall’s Fear Clinic, starring Robert Englund and Slipknot singer Corey Taylor, Dark Was the Night with Kevin Durand (“Strain”), Parlor with Robert LaSardo (Human Centipede 3), and Jen and Sylvia Soska’s eagerly anticipated slasher sequel See No Evil 2.
U.S. premieres will also be held for Julia, a revenge thriller starring Ashley C. Williams (Human Centipede) and Girlhouse, a Halloween-inspired slasher about a college coed turned webcam girl stalked by a fan whose hacked into her network and discovered her location.
Screamfest LA is a star-studded event where it’s easy to spot actors and directors chatting the horror genre up with each other and the public. An opening night party kicks off the event, and it ends with the Skully Awards. The entire experience is a blast and not to be missed. See you there!
It’s game on for SAW fans! The James Wan-directed horror classic returns to the big screen this Halloween for one week in honor of its 10 year anniversary. Starring Tobin Bell in the iconic role of John Kramer, AKA Jigsaw, and Shawnee Smith as his apprentice Amanda Young, the film spawned six sequels, earning more than $800 million worldwide.
In 2010, the SAW franchise was named the Most Successful Horror Movie Series by Guinness World Records. Talk of a reboot has been ongoing since the series drew to a close four years ago with the release of SAW VII. The SAW re-release could be a testing of the waters, designed to measure public interest.
Clatto, for one, would give its left foot to see a Jigsaw comeback, but Bell and Smith need to be a part of it. SAW hits theaters this Halloween on Oct. 31. See ya there!
Brain Damage Films will release its revenge anthology Dead Girls Oct. 2 on VOD and Nov. 4 on DVD. Written and directed by Del Harvey and Neal Fischer, the movie tells three stories of “abused and forsaken girls who return from the dead to take their revenge.”
The synopsis reads:
Three stories of horror connected through the pages of dead girls’ diaries. In one a ghostly apparition seeks revenge upon the man who betrayed her love and is responsible for her death.
In another a mystical object helps a young woman reach out from beyond the grave to exact her revenge against the stuck-up sisters of a college sorority. And in the third a young woman who has lost her way and her faith finds the answer to her prayers in the last place she would have expected.
Dead Girls is described by the filmmakers as being in the vein of Creepshow, Tales from the Crypt, and The Twilight Zone. The cast features a cast of upcoming starlets, including model/actress Jax Turyna (pictured), who is the female equivalent of Fabio having appeared on the cover of numerous romance novels.
