It’s officially the longest possible wait until next Halloween and that bums me out a bit, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t have a ton of horror news for you! This week, we’ll talk about a new Irish horror, an exciting-sounding shark flick, a secret project from Darren Lynn Bousman, Dancing With The Stars(???) and much more!
Darren Lynn Bousman (Saw 2, 3, 4, and Spiral) has just completed filming on a secret, unnamed project with “an Academy Award winner”, according to the director’s Twitter.
Bousman’s been filming in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Vienna, and Prague for the last 120ish days on the secretive movie, and also gave a shoutout to his (unnamed) collaborator:
While we don’t know what the film is, or who he’s working with, it’s pretty safe to say that Bousman’s hush-hush project will fall squarely into the horror realm, based on this bloody shot from the director’s Insta.
In more ‘in production’ news, The Hollywood Reporter revealed this week that New Line has picked up an environmental horror called Thaw, from Jeremy Passmore (San Andreas). This sounds super interesting, and I hate cold/icy weather, so this sounds particularly terrifying to me. More details on this one as they come online!
With Rob Zombie, Fred Durst, and various rockers including the dude from Papa Roach delving into the horror realm, it shouldn’t be too surprising that Korn lead singer Jonathan Davis is following suit. The singer, best known for that song where he’s all ‘OOOM AH AH OOM YAMMA DEBBA’ will star as The Pet in a film called The Devil’s Tree from VFX artist Joshua Petrino.
In The Devil’s Tree, “After visiting a landmark tree rumored to be a gateway to hell, a group of friends hold a pitiful house party where, without explanation, they realize they mentally can’t bring themselves to leave. Shortly after this revelation, torment and slaughter begin at the hands of a supernatural killer with a warped, sadistic sense of humor.”
Check out a clip from the film right here!
Variety reports that Josh Lucas will be starring in a new shark attack movie called The Black Demon, from director Adrian Grunberg (Rambo: Last Blood).
The Black Demon “follows oilman Paul Sturges (Lucas) as he takes his family on vacation to Bahia Azul. There, the coastal town he and his wife once knew has mysteriously crumbled and the locals are nowhere to be found. Paul starts off his day with a routine visit to inspect his nearby oil rig, but before he knows it, his entire family has landed with him on the rotting metal tower. From the depths of the ocean rises a massive megalodon known only by its name: the Black Demon. Under constant threat from this primeval species of shark, Paul must find a way to get his family back to shore alive.”
The Black Demon will kick off principal photography in the Dominican Republic in December.
Jon Wright’s Grabbers really put Irish horror on the map back in 2012, with shriekingly funny banter and top-notch creature effects. Wright is back with a new project called Unwelcome, which aims to “bring this new spin on an age-old Irish legend to North American horror fans, who may or may not know about the legend behind this mysterious group of faerie folk,” according to distributor Well Go USA, which is handling the film.
Unwelcome stars Hannah John-Kamen (Red Sonja, Black Mirror, Ant-Man and The Wasp, Ready Player One) and Douglas Booth (Loving Vincent, hit Netflix film The Dirt, Jupiter Ascending, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies) as “a couple who escape their urban nightmare to the tranquility of rural Ireland only to hear stories of mysterious beings who live in the gnarled, ancient wood at the foot of their new garden. As warned by their new neighbors, in Irish mythology, the Redcaps will come when called to help souls in dire need of rescue, but it’s crucial to remember that there is always a dear price to pay for their aid.”
The film co-stars Colm Meaney (Star Trek: DS9), Kristian Nairn (Game of Thrones), and Jamie-Lee O’Donnell (Derry Girls), We’ve got the first trailer for Unwelcome, which is set to hit theatres on March 17, 2022 from Well Go, with an exclusive release on Shudder later in the year.
Director James Wan revealed some sad news on Instagram this week about his recently-terminated horror film, The Trench, which was about monsters emerging from the underwater Mariana Trench. Wan said that, “I’ll let you in on a secret, the canceled Trench spin-off movie was really going to be a secret Black Manta movie.”
While it’s a bummer that the Aquaman villain won’t have his own movie, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II will reprise the Black Manta character in Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom, which is slated for release on December 16, 2022.
Robert Eggers adds another much-anticipated horror to his resume with Viking revenge film The Northman, which has a fresh release date this week. The film has one of the most exciting casts of any project in 2022, reuniting Eggers with his collaborators Willem Dafoe (The Lighthouse) and Anya Taylor-Joy (The Witch), as well as Alexander Skarsgard, Nicole Kidman, Ethan Hawke, and musician Björk.
Eggers co-wrote the screenplay with Icelandic screenwriter and poet Sjon, and The Northman will be ready for your eyes on April 22, 2022 from Focus Features and New Regency.
I’m fairly confident that this is the first, and very likely the last appearance of both ABC’s Dancing With The Stars and YouTube star Jojo Siwa in this space, but here we are. Siwa and her dance partner Jenna Johnson offered an incredibly unsettling performance of Cole Porter’s ‘Anything Goes’ on the show, with Johnson playing Georgie and Siwa playing Pennywise from Stephen King’s IT. Mad respect to the pair, not just for being the first same-sex couple on the series, but also for re-creating the arm amputation! Check out the performance here!
Long-dormant franchise Final Destination will have a new sixth installment coming, and a new writer is on board! Deadline reports that “[Lori Evans Taylor] is currently writing Final Destination 6. Other recent writing credits include I Am Still Alive, starring and produced by Ben Affleck, the 21 Laps-produced I-5, and Small Price To Pay. She has previously produced stories for such television shows as Lucky Dog, Welcome Home, and others.”
Final Destination 6 has been in the works for a while, according to franchise creator Jeffrey Reddick last year, but the production was put on hold for ~the situation in the world~.
If you’d like a taste of what Lori Evans Taylor brings to the table, her directorial debut Bed Rest, starring Melissa Barrera, will be coming soon from STXfilms.
In Bed Rest, “after years of struggling to start a family, Julie Rivers (Barrera) is pregnant again and moving into a new home with her husband as they embrace a fresh start. After being ordered to mandatory bed rest, Julie begins to slowly unravel as she suffers through the monotony and anxiety of her new constraints. Soon, terrifying ghostly experiences in the home begin to close in on Julie, stirring up her past demons and causing others to question her mental stability. Trapped and forced to face her past and the supernatural, Julie fights to protect herself and her unborn baby.”
Train to Busan‘s Yeon Sang-Ho will be back on Netflix on November 19 with Hellbound, which I wrote about here after it’s premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival. What I’ve seen of the series is fantastic, and it was downright cruel to reveal the first three episodes and leave me hanging for two months to see the rest. Anyway, the series has a fresh new trailer for you to get a taste ahead of it’s release in a couple of weeks. Is this the next Squid Game? I sure hope so, because it whips.
Whether you said his name three times or not, Nia Dacosta’s Candyman will be coming home this month, and it won’t be coming empty-handed! After earning just shy of $80M in box office worldwide, Candyman will have a digital release on November 2 (that’s tomorrow!) and will also come to DVD, Blu-Ray, and 4K Ultra HD on November 16. Both editions will be packed with extra features, including an alternate ending and deleted/extended scenes!
Here’s a list of what to expect in the new package:
- Alternate Ending
- Deleted and Extended Scenes
- Say My Name: Filmmakers and cast discuss how the horror at the center of Candyman is both timely and timeless, which is a tragedy in and of itself.
- Body Horror: We explore director Nia DaCosta’s influences in the subgenre of body horror, and what Anthony’s physical transformation means to the story.
- The Filmmaker’s Eye: Nia DaCosta: Take a closer look at director Nia DaCosta, and how her singular voice and perspective were perfect to tell this story.
- Painting Chaos: Filmmakers reveal how Anthony’s artwork evolves throughout the film and how they strived for authenticity in recreating Chicago’s vibrant art scene.
- The Art of Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe: Composer Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe reveals some of the unconventional methodology he used to create the unique and haunting soundscapes sounds of the film.
- Terror in the Shadows: A behind-the-scenes look at how the analogue shadow puppetry scenes were created and an unpacking of why this ancient artistic medium was the most conceptually relevant for depicting the legends’ cycle of violence.
- Candyman: The Impact of Black Horror: A roundtable discussion moderated by Colman Domingo about the nuanced relationship Black Americans have with Candyman, the horror genre and the overall idea of monsters and victims.
According to Deadline, new folk horror is on the way from director William Brent Bell (The Devil Inside, The Boy) and writer Tom de Ville (The Quiet Ones) called Lord of Misrule. Production has started on the film, which stars Tuppence Middleton (Downton Abbey) and Ralph Ineson (The Green Knight).
“[Lords of Misrule] takes place in a town in rural England and is centered around the disappearance of a young girl. The girl’s mother, Rebecca Holland, leads the locals’ search for her daughter, and uncovers disturbing secrets about the village along the way. Eventually, Rebecca is forced to make enormous sacrifices to save her daughter from the clutches of evil.”
Bell says about the film that, “Tom de Ville’s wicked script has given us the foundation to build the kind of talented cast and crew who will bring to life a film that will haunt audiences for years to come.”
Finally, we’ve got a brand new trailer for the upcoming shopping horror Black Friday, which stars Devon Sawa and Bruce Campbell as toy store employees battling a group of crazed holiday shoppers that have been turned into rampaging creatures by aliens. Casey Tebo’s film has also got Ivana Baquero (Pan’s Labyrinth), Ryan Lee (Goosebumps), Stephen Peck, and Michael Jai White (Spawn) on board, with Fall Out Boy’s Patrick Stump doing the score.
Check out the trailer here, ahead of the film’s release in theatres on November 19 and on VOD on November 23!
One Reply to “The Week in Horror: ‘Unwelcome’, ‘The Devil’s Tree’, ‘Final Destination 6’, ‘Hellbound’, + more!”