Good day, horror fans. Wondering about new releases that might get your spine tingling? You might want to look somewhere beyond David Gelb’s supernatural thriller Lazarus Effect, which has earned all the critical acclaim of a stubbed toe. Hitting VOD is Chad Archibald and Matt Wiele’s Ejecta, but that one isn’t exactly doing any better as far as audience responses go.
In smaller news, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Abigail Breslin’s zombified drama Maggie now has a release date of May 8. And speaking of Chad Archibald, his next flick The Drownsman is getting a May 12 DVD and Blu-ray release. Finally, Final Destination screenwriter Jeffrey Reddick will make his directorial debut with the intriguing-sounding thriller The Final Reel, which is about a director whose movies can change reality.
And now, Rick and Coral’s Wild Ride.
This Walking Deceased Trailer Spoofs…Well, You Know
With the rare exceptions like Black Dynamite and They Came Together, modern day spoof movies are fucking awful, going too far to ape the source material without actually building up any jokes or humor. So it should be no surprise that Scary Movie and A Haunted House star Dave Sheridan is back in the parody saddle for The Walking Deceased, a rip on The Walking Dead and other zombie-related fiction. It’s kind of weird that there haven’t been an assembly line of Walking Dead spoofs out there, but this trailer makes me so grateful that there aren’t.
Truth told, I did laugh a few times, which is a few more than I expected. Sheridan’s Rick Grimes impression is funny to me, as he nails Andrew Lincoln’s mega-machismo acting. Coral! It’s perhaps telling that the two funniest moments involve people who are perceived to be zombies that actually aren’t, leading to a child getting shot and the joke "That’s like pretending to be Jewish in the Holocaust." High class humor, this isn’t, but it’s certainly high humor. Even the last bit, where Sheridan and Joey Oglesby just keep one-upping other, had me smiling. Needless to say, I’ll be watching The Walking Deceased when it comes out on March 20, but first I’m going to check on WebMD to see if someone can groan themselves to death.
An X-Rated Island of Dr. Moreau Remake May Be On the Way
If you’re familiar with the 1996 remake of The Island of Dr. Moreau, then you’re probably familiar with the massive chaos that plagued the production, from Val Kilmer’s outlandish behavior to the firing of original director and screenwriter Richard Stanley just days into filing. Filmmaker David Gregory recounted the entire sordid affair for the documentary Lost Soul: The Doomed Journey of Richard Stanley’s Island of Dr. Moreau, and its critical success has led to Stanley getting involved with another remake, this time one that definitely isn’t suitable for children. Not that Marlon Brando in white-face was suitable for them. Here’s how he put it to L.A. Weekly.
It's too early for me to name the company involved, but I was actually put under contract in January to write a new draft of The Island of Dr. Moreau, which is already completed and delivered…They've always had the desire in the last adaptations to make it safe for the family. The script I've turned in now isn't so much R-rated as X-rated. And then the wrangling can begin after that as to how it will be put on the screen.
Holy shit, right? The reason why the 1996 version, which was given to John Frankenheimer, looked so gorgeous despite its myriad flaws is because Stanley was obsessed with the project during its entire pre-production process, including the casting, costume design and set design. His script was tossed after he left and a new one was piecemealed together as things went wildly out of control. Stanley’s vision needs to see the light of day, and it might just happen soon. He also shared that there will probably be a graphic novel version that precedes his feature version. Let’s just hope he eschews CGI for practical effects.
Zombeavers Trailer Reminds You This Movie Still Hasn’t Come Out
Hey, remember a year ago when Jordan Rubin’s horror comedy Zombeavers was announced and it made fun of Oscar ads? Well, the marketing campaign was also able to spoof this year’s Oscars, because the damned thing still hasn’t come out yet. Luckily, we now have a new trailer to watch in anticipation for the flick’s release on March 20. It’s going to be a damn good time, to use one of roughly seven million applicable puns. The trailer doesn’t stray too far from what we’ve seen before, but this…
There aren’t many movies out there in which one of the main human characters is turned into a beaver, much less an undead one. Zombeavers features the stereotype-heavy plot of a funloving group of friends heading out to a remote cabin for a weekend of drinks and sex time, only instead of anything but zombie beavers antagonizing them, it’s zombie beavers antagonizing them. No one should expect anything mentally straining here, but it still looks like a goofy good time at the movies. Or in a living room, more likely. March 20. Mark it on your calendar.
Fund Manborg Director’s Stellar Effects-Filled New Project
If you haven’t seen Manborg, Father’s Day, or the "W" segment in ABCs of Death 2, then you’re missing out on some of the wildest indie cinema out there right now. He and his special effects and screenwriting partner Jeremy Gillespie are moving forward with their next project, the action horror The Void, and they’ve started up an Indiegogo campaign to help out in finances. But they’re not even looking to get the entire film paid for. They want to keep all of the effects practical and in-camera, and they’re looking for $50,000 to do just that, creating the pretty awesome proof-of-concept video above. Sadly, no one yelled, "Get these triangle-head motherfuckers outta here." But maybe in the final cut…
The Void will basically tell the story of a cop who finds himself inside of a hospital where all of the patients and staff have turned into monsters for some evil reason. Kostanski and Gillespie’s goal is to bring back the monster movies of years past, like The Thing, and their visual arts work on projects like Hannibal, Pacific Rim and Crimson Peak (among others) are certainly proof that they can get the job done. And unlike their previous collaborations, The Void won’t be so tongue-in-cheek. It’ll hopefully be tongue bursting through the cheek in a fantastically bloody mess. Send them all the money.
Rob Zombie’s 31 Has Cast its Leads
We all know by now that Rob Zombie has no inclination to fill his films with movie stars, preferring to stick with genre actors. Such is the case with his upcoming Halloween-centered tale 31, which has landed German actor Torsten Voges as well as voice actress and 1980s starlet E.G. Daily. (The latter was reported by BloodDisgusting, though no other outlets seem to have picked up on it.) In the film, five carnival workers are kidnapped and brought to a secret compound called Murder World, where they’re forced to play the terrifying game of 31, in which a bunch of killer clowns, called Heads, are let loose to hunt the carnival workers down. Voges will play Death-Head, and Daily will reportedly play his partner Sex-Head.
Voges worked with Zombie for Lords of Salem, and is recognizable from roles in films such as 8MM and The Big Lebowski, in which he played Franz, the third Nihilist. Daily, who starred in Pee Wee’s Big Adventure and Better Off Dead, is probably best known for being the voice of Tommy Pickles on Rugrats and Buttercup on The Powerpuff Girls. 31 is currently shooting for crowdfunding on FanBacked, with filming set to kick off in March.
