In the Lobby

Archive for the ‘Horror’ Category

THIS year will see the release of a film called Crackula. It’s nothing to do with what it might sound like, but I bet the title has grabbed your attention.

It’s written and directed by Larry Simmons, who was among top 250 in Matt Damon and Ben Affleck’s Project Greenlight, the American TV contest for up-and-coming filmmakers, in 2004.

Simmons is CEO of Detroit-based production company At Risk Entertainment, which is releasing the bizarrely-named Crackula sometime this year.

Larry told me: “Crackula is a story about three college freshmen – all girls – who get involved in the world of psychic readings. That connection becomes deadly when it’s revealed that the psychic is part of a cult.

“Soon, one girl disappears and her friends fear the worst. Inside the world of the psychic, her brother and another man create a web of death. The leader of the cult is a bad-ass black man in a suit. It’s a cool film.”

Simmons says there are no known stars in the R-rated film but they have the attention of several distributors who want to screen it when post-production is complete.

The title sounded to me like a weird pun on Dracula and it doesn’t take much imagination to start thinking of other possible meanings for Crackula. I looked it up and found it’s urban slang for a crackhead who, like a vampire, stays up all night (feasting on drugs rather than blood) and sleeps all day.

But Larry responded: “Neither the title or the film has anything to do with drugs, crack, crackheads, etc., at all… it’s just the title. We have sparked tons of controversy with it, which has been great.”

Well, okay, I’m still none the wiser on why exactly the name Crackula was chosen but, admittedly, I am intrigued by it all.

Oh, these pesky, horror remakes and the people who have to direct them.  For some time, Breck Eisner (SAHARA) was attached to direct the long-gestating CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON remake.  He then moved on, instead taking on the upcoming remake of Romero’s THE CRAZIES.  Now, according to the LA Times, Carl Rinsch, the man who is set to direct 47 RONIN, is taking on the CREATURE project.

Eisner, meanwhile, has just been tapped to direct the remake of David Cronenberg’s 1979 film, THE BROOD.  The film, with the new screenplay being written by PRIEST screenwriter Cory Goodman, centers on a woman who has a telepathic link to her murderous children.

What do you think of these choices?  Are these films worth remaking at all?  Are these the right choices for director on each?  What would have been your thoughts had Peter Jackson ever gotten his vision of CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON off the ground?  Let us know by shooting us a comment in the section below.

I’m not exactly sure what direct-to-DVD masterminds The Asylum could add to their own version of Paranormal Activity. The film was already incredibly low-budget, so I’m thinking they’re just going to focus on doubling up on their special-sauce of shit. Now we have the trailer for Asylum’s Paranormal Entity, and it’s pretty much everything I expected: A mashup of Blair Witch meets Paranormal Activity, with little originality on the horizon.

The synopsis, courtesy of Quiet Earth:

Actual footage of the events leading to the 2008 “murder” of Samantha Finley. This DVD, released against the wishes of the authorities, proves that nothing human caused Samantha’s death.

It seems like Asylum is really pushing the found footage angle of this thing — so much so that they’re not even listing director or actor credits. Sadly, a lack of credits doesn’t do much to make this trailer seem like that of a true story.

Give it a look:

We get two Paranormal Activity-esque shots of a guy in a bed, then a woman standing in her underwear, all the while someone is making a “frantic” 911 call Blair Witch-style. Cut to shock imagery. Screams. Etc.

Despite how this film may look, it will still probably bring out the Paranormal Activity haters in droves. I’m not sure how some people can get nothing out of that film, especially when it’s one of the greatest examples of a modern film working purely on a primal level of suspense. Oh well.

Obviously somebody must be watching Asylum’s movies, otherwise I have no clue how they’re continuing to get made. They’re definitely the biggest name I can think for sub-B-grade movies today, so I suppose that niche is probably treating them well.

Paranormal Entity hits DVD on December 29th. 

• LOL: Princess of Mars Teaser Trailer, From The Asylum

IF IT has fangs and feasts on haemoglobin, then Hollywood is interested in it.

And the latest vampire project to be raised from the crypt and put on the big screen is the Dark Horse Comics title Damn Nation (published as a three-issue miniseries in 2005 and then collected into a paperback).

The Hollywood Reporter’s Heat Vision blog says Ashley Edward Miller and Zack Stentz – who scripted the film adaptation of Marvel’s Thor comic book – are to pen the Damn Nation screenplay for Paramount. This is the first update we’ve had since the studio said back in March that it wanted to fast-track the project.

In the Damn Nation comic, written by Andrew Cosby (creator of Eureka) and inked by Jason Alexander, the United States’ borders and ports are locked down against a terrible threat.

And, according to Dark Horse’s own synopsis of the comic: “The barbed wire and infantries are not positioned to keep an enemy out, but to protect the rest of the world from a vampire plague that’s spread over every inch of the country.

“Most of the living have fled the US, but a group of scientists remain behind, working on a cure.

“Now that they’ve succeeded, a military operation is launched from the President’s current offices in the US Embassy in London, to save the cure from the encroaching undead – but the real motivations of the military remain in question.”

Miller and Stentz are also writers on Fringe and Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles.