Happy Halloween – Have a good one

Well Halloween is almost over here in the UK and we’ve have had a pretty good one.

The kids loved it. My 3 year old daughter was a ghost, my son was a zombie, my Wife was a witch and I was a werewolf. We had some family over for chilli and duck apple. Lots of fun was had by all and the kids are now asleep.

You can see the pumpkins I carved for the night. I am chuffed with the Witch and Hellboy one. If you have any good pumpkins you made send me a pic and I’ll post it on the site.

The Legend of Boggy Creek, 1972 – Movie Review – 31 Days of Horror

Director: Charles B Pierce
Starring: Vern Stierman
Score: 5/10

This great review by Rich Payne.

Picture the scene: the sleepy town of Fouke, Arkansas, population 350. Nestled deep in swamp country near the Louisiana border, Fouke is an insular but essentially clean-living southern American community of hunters and fishermen. This lonely, ramshackle cluster, flanked on all sides by the sodden rot of thickly wooded Boggy Creek, is the perfect setting for a standard hillbilly scarefest. But this is a different proposition entirely; an at times baffling blur of lo-fi horror and narrator-led documentary.

The boggy backdrops are mostly real locations where sightings of the mysterious creature have occurred. The on-screen faces reenacting reported close encounters with the Monster of Boggy Creek are often the very witnesses themselves. What is lost in finesse is made up for in humble authenticity. Amateur director and ad man Charles Pierce intersperses reconstructions of numerous sasquatch-like encounters in the bottomland of Fouke with his occasionally comical, grandfatherly voiceover, chronicling years of alleged sightings of the foul-smelling, six-foot beast.

Pierce made this film for next to nothing, and it shows. That it has since generated millions of dollars as an underground classic is more likely testament to the original concept than its final execution. Like American Splendor, The Legend of Boggy Creek is for the most part drama, with genre-bending forays into the realm of the documentary. There’s no escaping the lack of refinement, but at times this works in the film’s favour, with mistimed cuts and awkward acting producing a truly unnerving spectacle. Like Mark Borchardt’s Coven, a raw eye for filmmaking and bags of originality compensate for the self-funded indie production values.

From the opening line of, ‘I was seven years old when I first heard him scream,’ Pierce is using his limited resources and experience to good effect. He employs witness accounts to fashion the legend of a monster spotted and heard regularly by Fouke locals for over twenty years. The content of these accounts? Farm animals butchered, huge footprints discovered, and lonesome wails late at night, deep in the stagnant mist of the woods.

It’s easy to see why The Legend of Boggy Creek has become such a cult hit. It’s creative, endearingly rough around the edges and great fun, whether intended or not. Here we have a marvellous concept that struggles to fill the mould it’s carved for itself. It’ll appeal to a certain niche this Halloween, but despite its honesty and quirky creativity, The Legend of Boggy Creek is, like the mythical creature at its heart, destined to fade into obscure folklore.

Classic Scenes from Bad Movies – Ghost Ship

Psychosis – Charisma Carpenter gets dragged to hell…sorry wrong film

Source: STYD

Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightning Thief – New Poster

Mortis Rex – Roman Soldiers vs Lovecraft style beastie

This has he potential to be very, very good, but then again so did Outlander. However, the concept art for Hellboy co-writer Peter Briggs supernatural action thriller Mortis Rex is lovely. Jim Jacks is producing it.

Speaking to Bloody Disgusting Briggs shed some light on how the story developed. “I had the idea for “Mortis” just prior to “Brotherhood of the Wolf” being released. At that point it was simply called “Untitled Roman Monster Movie”…the name “Mortis Rex” came out of something one of the characters says about half an hour into the story. In the early concept, our hero — Cassius Virius — had a female African sidekick, who was mute and did martial arts with a giant carved elephant bone. As soon as I saw “Brotherhood”, I tossed that notion right out the window! And, really, I was glad I did, because the story evolved into something less fantasy-oriented, and became a more grounded and gritty story. Visually, it’ll hopefully be like Ridley’s earlier work. Much more “Gladiator” than “300″. I bumped into “Brotherhood’s” director, Christophe Gans, at Warners a few years ago and told him how I’d had to change my characters…we had a laugh about it.”

The big question is whether the supernatural beastie will be worth watching.

“I’ve been working solidly the last month with our creature designer, Paul Mendoza, and our intention’s to portray onscreen the baddest, nastiest, Lovecraftian-level monstrosity you’ve ever seen,” Brings elaborates. “If you’re a fanboy, you’ll know Paul’s work…he sculpted Wayne Barlowe’s “Decurion” for Sideshow a while back, and the guy’s really a pocket genius. I’ve never seen anything like our creature, onscreen, ever. Period. I zap sketches to Paul, and he blasts finished renderings back over the internet, and then I scribble and Photoshop over them, and zap them back. I’ve had a vision in my head about what the thing should look like since I started writing “Mortis”, but right now we’re about 80% there, and our Big Chap just keeps looking scarier and weirder every time my email goes “ping”. He’s an extremely visually complex creation. He’d eat “Hellboy’s” Ogdru Jahad for breakfast.

The “Hellboy” writer grins evilly, “But our beastie is…very peculiar. Very singular. He’s a big sucker. Quite terrifying. People will be coming out of the theater with their heads blown off. I pity the poor Roman soldiers who have to go up against this thing with their steel toothpicks…”

Casting wise that is still up in the air, but we may get to see some familiar faces.

“Well, I originally wrote the part of Cassius Virius for Lawrence Fishburne, and we were actually down the road talking to him about it when he got pulled onto “CSI”, and we lost him. But Jim Jacks has broken-in or raised up a lot of good actors and stars over the years — Brendan Fraser and Dwayne (The Rock) Johnson spring to mind. And having Jim onboard obviously makes this movie very attractive to a whole other level of actor. So, I’m looking forward to seeing what Jim will bring to us. We’ve spent a long time talking cast lists. Interestingly I ran into Ron Perlman at the “Sons Of Anarchy” wrap party weeks back, and I just happened to have my laptop with me and showed him what we were doing. Obviously, I knew Ron from “Hellboy”, and I mentioned that I’d had a smaller role in “Mortis” — a rough, Roman drill Sergeant who gets to chew the scenery — written with Ron in mind. Ron really responded to the idea, and asked when we were thinking of shooting. It’d be fun having Ron onboard.”

All in all Mortis Rex sounds very cool. However, Briggs’ other project sounds equally interesting.

“Well, I’m racing to the finishing post on a rewrite-polish on “Panzer 88″, which is a screenplay by two American writers, Aaron Mason and Jim Cowan, that I discovered. I really wanted to use “Mortis” to springboard me onto a director slot with the studios…basically allowing me to get my hands on all the projects I’ve been writing for the majors for 19 years, like “Judge Dredd” and “Alien vs Predator”, that then got horribly mangled by others. But when I found this script, I knew I’d be nuts if I didn’t do it, even though it’s a much smaller piece even than “Mortis”. “Panzer” is another supernatural thriller: basically a character piece set in a German King Tiger tank in Russia in World War 2. It’s five guys in a tin can, and something’s trying to stop them making it home. It’s creepy, and smart. I’ll be directing that too. There are a bunch of producers jockeying to get their hands on this right now…I’ve had a few meetings with Gary Kurtz (“Star Wars”, “American Graffiti”, “Dark Crystal”) back in London, and I really like the idea of doing “Panzer” with him. I was surprised by Gary. For a producer with such All-American movies under his belt, he absolutely gets the very dark, European sensibility of the piece. I guess I’m very lucky with my producers right now.”

How do you like them apples? Does Mortis Rex float your boat? Who would you like to see star in it and any ideas what the creature will look like?

Dave has left the building

Today a good friend of mine and Live for Films has left our place of work.

A sad day.

Dave with his vast knowledge of obscure music, the internet and other weirdness will be missed. Like me he is blessed with Ginger hair and we are a dying breed. I still can’t believe he has never seen Star Wars.

Dave, this one is for you. Keep in touch, stay lucky and keep watching the skies. One day LFF will have that office we spoke about.

Harvey Keitel is one of the Cut Throats Nine

Rodrigo Gudiño (Rue Morgue Magazine, The Facts In the Case of Mister Hollow) is to direct his first feature, Cut Throats Nine.

STYD have the news that Rue Morgue Cinema are behind the remake of the 1972 Spanish/Italian grindhouse western Condenados a vivir. Harvey Keitel (Pulp Fiction, Smoke, Bad Lieutenant, From Dusk Till Dawn and so much more), Mads Mikkelsen (Casino Royale, Valhalla Rising) and Roy Dupuis (La Femme Nikita).

Cut Throats Nine follows a wagonload of convicts as they travel the northern mountains to carry out their death sentences. Following a surprise attack from a gang of bandits, only the sergeant, his beautiful young daughter and seven of the most sadistic, murderous men alive survive the assault.

Cut Throats Nine is described as a “crowd-pleasing experience that pushes the relatively subdued excesses of both the western and the horror movie into creative new territory.” Now that sounds like my kind of movie.

Great cast, cool story with a grindhouse history to it. Sounds very good indeed. Has a touch of Inglourious Basterds, but sounds as if we would actually see the nastiness they commit in this film. Who else would you like to see in the film playing the rest of the nine?

Holy Shinzon! Tom Hardy is the new Mad Max. Charlize Theron is the pretty post apocalyptic female lead

Well, well, well. One of these internet rumours turned out to be true. Charlize Theron and Tom Hardy are in negotiations to star in the next Mad Max film, Mad Fax:Fury Road from writer-director George Miller.

According to Heat Vision blog Mel Gibson is not reprising his iconic role of Max Rockatansky.

The new Max is to be Hardy, the British-born actor who was Shinzon, the clone of Capt Picard in Star Trek Nemesis, Handsome Bob in Guy Ritchie’s RocknRolla, Charles Bronson in Bronson and he’s also working on Christopher Nolan’s Inception.

Charlize Theron is playing the female lead, but so far there’s no more info on her character.

Plot details are scarce but supposedly the movie does take place a short while after the story detailed in 1985’s “Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome,” which keeps Mad Max relatively young.

A shoot next summer in Australia is being eyed. The movie will be an Australian production which Warner Bros. will distribute.

“Road” has been in the works for more than a decade, with Gibson attached to star at one point. When the project finally began ramping up earlier this spring and summer, Miller began looking at and testing numerous actors who could step into the grim shoes previously worn by Gibson. Sam Worthington was the hot favourite, but it was not to be.

Not sure how I feel about Hardy playing Max. He is a good actor and Bronson shows he can really change for a role. Still it will be good to see a new Mad Max film.

How do you feel about Tom Hardy getting behind the wheel of the last of the V8 Interceptors?

Anthony Hopkins to play Odin in Thor

By the Holy Beard of Zeus! Wait, wrong pantheon. Bam Kapow out of left field. Looks like Thor has a daddy. Nope, not Brian Blessed, no sir. It is Hannibal the Cannibal.

According to Heat Vision Blog Anthony Hopkins is in negotiations to play the Norse god Odin in Thor, Marvel Studios’ adaptation being directed by Kenneth Branagh.

The movie’s story sees the god of thunder Thor, a powerful but arrogant warrior whose reckless actions re-ignite an ancient war. As punishment, Thor is cast down to Earth and forced to live among humans. Once here, he learns what it takes to be a true hero when the most dangerous villain of his world sends dark forces of Asgard to invade Earth.

Chris Hemsworth is Thor and the cast includes Tom Hiddleston as Loki, Natalie Portman, Jaimie Alexander, Colm Feore, Stellan Skarsgård, Robert De Niro and Jude Law.

One hell of a cast lining up for this one. By the way the photo of Hopkins at the top is from The Wolfman.

What do you think about Hopkins playing Odin?