A making-of featurette has gone online for producer Alexandre Aja (Piranha 3-D) and director Franck Khalfoun’s (P2) POV remake of of William Lustig’s controversial 1980 slasher Maniac. The clip provides interesting insight from the film’s players, a little nudity and plenty of gruesome action.

Elijah Wood stars as Frank Zito in the remake, a maniac out to scalp the pretty women he meets online to deal with the emotional torment caused by his dead hooker mother, portrayed toplessly by Playboy model America Olivo (Bitch Slap).

Co-stars include Nora Arnezeder (Safe House) as Zito’s love interest Anna, Genevieve Alexandra (Piranha 3-D), Liane Balaban (“Supernatural”), Megan Duffy (Your Name Here), Steffinnie Phrommany (Gingerdead Man 3: Saturday Night Cleaver) and milfy Jan Broberg (”Everwood”).

Peep the making-of here.

Universal Home Entertainment has set a Oct. 8 DVD release date for Curse of Chucky, the fifth installment in its Child’s Play franchise. The film picks up after the events of Child’s Play 3, skipping over the comedic sequels Bride of Chucky and Seed of Chucky in favor of a darker story.

Directed by franchise creator and writer Don Mancini, Curse of Chucky once again features Brad Dourif as the voice of Chucky and introduces his sister Fiona Dourif (”True Blood”) as Nica, a woman grieving the suicide of her mother while playing host to her domineering older sister’s family.

Things get gruesome when her niece discovers an old Chucky doll in the house. Soon a string of murders take place and Nica is convinced that the Good Guy Doll may not be so good after all. Co-stars include Danielle Bisutti (Insidious: Chapter 2), A Martinez (”Santa Barbara”) and Brennan Elliott (Double Jeopardy).

Canadian starlet Jessica Cameron plays a slutty real estate agent willing to open her legs to close a deal in director Brian Troxell’s (Intrusive Behavior) upcoming torture flick Open House. While that sounds like the premise of a feel-good movie, things get ugly when her kid grows up to become a serial killer.

The synopsis reads:

When Wardell Subotsky (Russ Forga) was 8 years old, his mother (Cameron) made ends meet by working as a real estate agent. After witnessing her countless sexual favors to get the properties sold, he grows up believing all agents are whores.

Now in his late 40’s, Wardell puts his own home on the market but is thrown into a mental tailspin as the selling agent (Mel Heflin) is a spitting image of his mother. Convinced she, too, is a whore, Wardell abducts her in an attempt to show her the error of her ways.

Wait a minute… maybe this is a feel-good movie after all!

Horror fans may recognize Cameron from Anchor Bay’s Silent Night remake and its 2011 creature-feature Camel Spiders. She will next be seen in director Toby Osborne’s gleefully twisted family-abduction thriller Virginia Obscura and in her own directorial debut, the gruesome slasher titled Truth or Dare.

Peep the trailer here.

Lionsgate has set an Aug. 27 DVD and VOD release date for scream queen Danielle Harris’ directorial debut Among Friends. Set in the ’80s, the horror-comedy centers on a dinner party that goes terribly wrong when embittered friends turn on each other.

Harris produced the film with co-stars Jennifer Blanc-Biehn (The Victim) and Athena Lobit. Additional co-stars include Alyssa Lobit (The Things We Carry), Brianne Davis (ChromeSkull: Laid to Rest 2), Dana Daurey (Lucky), Tanya Newbould (Skyline) and Kamala Jones (”Good Christian Belles”).

Peep it:

Anchor Bay has released a trailer for its upcoming viral outbreak thriller The Demented. It opens with shots of hot chicks in bikinis. Well played, Anchor Bay, well played.

The Demented centers on six college friends attempting to survive a viral outbreak caused by a terrorist missile attack on a town near the vacation home they happen to be staying at.

The film marks Christopher Roosevelt’s directorial debut and stars stunners Kayla Ewell (”The Vampire Diaries”), Brittney Alger (21 jump Street) and horror-fav Sarah Butler (I Spit On Your Grave). It arrives on DVD July 30.

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Warner Bros. and Legendary Pictures have released the first trailer for Noam Murro’s 300: Rise of an Empire, a companion film to the Zack Snyder-directed blockbuster 300. The film is produced by Snyder, who adapts the Frank Miller graphic novel with screenwriter Kurt Johnstad (300, Act of Valor).

Rise of an Empire follows Athenian general Themistokles (Sullivan Stapleton) as he battles Persian king Xerxes (Rodrigo Santoro) and his vengeful navy commander Artemesia (Eva Green). The events occur at the same time that King Leonidas is leading his 300 Spartans into the Battle of Thermopylae.

This looks awesome:

A trailer for Sony Pictures’ new psychological frightener Magic Magic has appeared online. Set in a remote part of Chile, the film’s story revolves around a girl’s mental breakdown while vacationing with friends too drunk on life to notice.

Magic Magic is helmed by Chilean director Sebastian Silva and stars Juno Temple (Killer Joe), Emily Browning (Sucker Punch), Catalina Sandino Moreno (Twilight Saga: Eclipse) and Michael Cera (“Arrested Development”) as a sadistic creep.

Going by the trailer, Magic Magic looks pretty solid. Temple and Browning are excellent nude actresses and Cera, last seen in This Is the End having his salad tossed while getting blown in a bathroom, is doing an impressive job of embracing darker roles. Magic Magic arrives on DVD Aug. 6.

Peep it:

“Following” and “Justified” star Natalie Zea is set to go “Under the Dome,” a 13-episode miniseries produced by Steven Spielberg and Stephen King, and based on King’s post-apocalyptic novel of the same name.

Executive producer Neil Baer tells TVGuide:

We’ve cast the beautiful Natalie Zea as a woman who makes an alarming appearance in a few episodes beginning in Episode 9. She plays Maxine, and if you think [the show’s big baddie] Jim Rennie (Dean Norris) is trouble, you haven’t seen trouble yet. And she’ll be connected to a number of our characters.

Directed by Niels Arden Oplev (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo), “Under the Dome” follows the havoc caused by a mysterious force field that drops over the small New England town of Chester Mill.

“Under the Dome’ premieres June 24 on CBS.

Warner Bros. released today a trailer for The Desolation of Smaug, part two in Peter Jackson’s new Hobbit trilogy. The two-minute clip provides a glimpse at elf hero Legolas (Orlando Bloom) and introduces new woodland elf Tauriel (Evangeline Lilly). The dragon Smaug is also teased.

All-in-all, The Desolation of Smaug looks far more exciting than last year’s The Hobbit: An Unexpected Snorefest. The film opens in 3D and once again at 48 frames-per-second on Dec. 13.

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Christina Ricci is set to star in Lifetime’s upcoming biopic based on the notorious life of Lizzie Borden, the acquitted suspect in the 1892 hatchet murders of her parents Andrew and Abby Borden. The film is directed by Nick Gomez (“Flash Forward”) and produced by Sony Pictures Television.

Ricci’s last genre project was 2009’s After.Life, in which she toplessly played the victim of an automobile accident who wakes up in the morgue, but is told by the mortician that she is dead.

Ricci’s creds include a string of memorable frighteners and thrillers, including Tim Burton’s Sleepy Hollow, Wes Craven’s Cursed, the sexy abduction drama Black Snake Moan and the biopic Monster, based on serial killer Aileen Wuornos and her lesbian lover.