check it out - beyond the black rainbow

pretty sweet, right? that's the trailer for beyond the black rainbow, the debut film from canadian filmmaker panos cosmatos. it premiered at the 2010 whistler film festival and is currently making the rounds at various other events.

beyond the black rainbow is set in a mysterious laboratory called the aboria institute, where a beautiful young girl named elena is held captive by a deranged doctor in search of inner peace. with her brain controlled by evil technology, she waits for her next session, unaware of her true potential. eventually, elena makes a break for it, journeying through the darkest expanses of the institution. however, her doctor won't easily part with his most gifted and dangerous creation.

if the epic trailer isn't enough, a title like beyond the black rainbow should pique the interest of even the most hardened of moviegoers. the film is a science fiction drug-induced atmospheric trance with disturbing horror elements and has been getting rave reviews thus far. definitely try to check it out once you get the chance!

check it out - entrance

what do you think? that's the trailer for the new horror film entrance, which debuted at the l.a. film festival back in june.

set in the silver lake district of los angeles, entrance follows a beautiful hipster barista who has grown disenchanted with the big city life. unable to connect with anyone other than her pet dog and tired of her job, she ponders leaving while a sense of dread takes over her life. she hears things in her house while she showers. guys stalk her on her way home. and then her dog goes missing. having had enough of the city lifestyle, she plans to return home to michigan. unfortunately, an uninvited guest crashes her farewell party and all hell breaks loose.

part psychological character study and part indie slasher flick, entrance is a "slow burn" type of movie with a big payoff. be on the lookout for it!

check it out - alyce

welcome to the first installment of "check it out," where i hope to enlighten you and give you something to look forward to. pretty sweet video, huh? this is the trailer for the upcoming horror movie alyce, which is finally gearing up to debut at cannes this year.

the film revolves around best friends alyce and carroll, hipster chicks in l.a. with a taste for sex, booze, and drugs. after getting shitfaced, they head up to the roof of their building. bad idea! carroll falls several floors and is left in a vegetative state. alyce is relentlessly haunted by the memories and to shut them out, she finishes off her best friend. but that's only the beginning.

alyce is already getting lots of buzz on the internet and with a trailer and synopsis like that, i'm not surprised!

retrospect - scream

when the first scream came out during the holiday season of '96, it was anyone's guess that a slasher with a meager budget would become such a monster. it literally is the little movie that could.

i still remember when it hit theaters. it had been an awful decade for horror; everything had seemingly been done to death (pun intended) and producers were growing less and less likely to invest in a dying genre.

originally entitled scary movie, the first scream was penned by gay (natch) screenwriter kevin williamson, after being inspired by the heinous case of the gainesville ripper. the draft went up for sale in june of '95, which brought about an intense bidding war.

after finding a home with dimension (then a part of miramax,) the film was retitled scream and quickly went into production with a seasoned genre director at the helm, wes craven.

drew barrymore liked the script enough to agree to sign on for the lead role of sidney prescott. with a big name actress attached, scream finally started to gain momentum as casting began. when schedule conflicts would prevent barrymore from the lead role, she instead opted for a smaller but equally important part. other notable stars from popular sitcoms at the time rounded out the cast and cameras started rolling. a few months later, the film was released to rave reviews.

in essence, scream is a simple bare bones slasher about a person in a mask terrorizing a group of teenagers in a small town. what sets it apart from the other droves of guttural garbage (and this is coming from a horror fan,) is that scream reinvented the genre by breaking the fourth wall and defining the rules of survival.

scream starts off with what is undoubtedly one of the finest opening sequences of modern cinema and from then on it is a guessing game up until the blood-drenched finale. if you've yet to see it, there's a decent chance you're not originally from this planet.

retrospect - mommie dearest

welcome to the first installment of "retrospect," where i honor timeless classics that are either unbelievably epic or notoriously bad. and what better cult favorite to start with other than the MOTHER OF THEM ALL, mommie dearest?! that's right; there isn't one!

if you were either raised by wolves in the woods or spent your entire life trapped in an underground dungeon, you may not have ever seen this 1981 "biographical drama" starring faye dunaway as joan crawford. these are really the only excuses one can possibly have for not seeing this one at least once. it fails miserably as a dramatic film but it earns high marks as a side-splitting comedy!

as soon as the movie starts, with that old 80's soap opera atmosphere and dunaway's crawford battering her epidermis with a ridiculous daily regimen, you know you're in for quite a treat. it is in these opening segments that dunaway delivers her first of many one-liners to come in regards to her boyfriend's socks and her clean floor.

the film only gets better with the introduction of crawford's foster children. though christina manages to bring the laughs with her macaroni hairdon't and smart mouth, christopher is strangely absent and must be insane or something, as he spends the whole movie strapped to his bed like a mental patient. a race in the swimming pool and infamous "NO WIRE HANGERS" scene really stand out!

later on, christina (working the same haircut she has had her entire life) is sent to reform school for her attitude problems, only to be dramatically yanked out for kissing a boy, to which crawford boldly insists that headmistress mrs. chadwick is "underreacting!"

that evening, mother and daughter duke it out old school with a journalist in the house. smooth move! the fight scene should have received awards for the great choreography; the double slap and christina's granny panties are especially epic!

years later, christina has found some success as an actress on a soap opera, only to fall ill and have her mother take over the role. in the end, crawford gets the last laugh and so, too, does the audience. enough with all of the big hollywood cg bullshit; just remake this treasure trove of comedy gold already!