Howdy, horror hounds! We’re a week removed from Halloween, so that candy hangover is definitely setting in. But that doesn’t mean that horror’s taking a holiday, and as we move into the end of 2021, we’ve got a ton of stuff coming up on the horizon from heavyweights like Darren Lynn Bousman, Rob Savage, and even the master himself, Dario Argento!
One of my all-time favourites, Dario Argento (Suspiria, Deep Red) is back with his new film since 2012’s Dracula 3D. The horror master’s new movie is called Dark Glasses and is said to be a return to the giallo roots that made him famous. ScreenDaily revealed the news this week, confirming that Wild Bunch will be distributing the Rome-set thriller. In Dark Glasses, “Ilenia Pastorelli stars as a prostitute blinded by a serial killer in a botched attack who takes in a young Chinese boy, whose life has also been abruptly altered forever by the maniac’s actions. He will become her ally in a terrifying struggle to see off the serial killer forever…Set against the backdrop of Rome and its surrounding countryside, it brings together the contrasting worlds of a high-class prostitute working in the chic hotels around Rome’s Via Veneto and a young boy hailing from the city’s Chinese community.” Andrea Zhang and Asia Argento will also star. Production’s just wrapped in Italy, so expect to see this one sometime in 2022.
The Stranger Things crew dropped a new trailer this weekend, ahead of the much-anticipated Season 4 of the series. The Netflix thriller is expected back around summer of 2022, and this new season will see Eleven transplanted to California and a new school. Will she and Mike be reunited for “the best spring break ever?” It sure seems unlikely, kids. With Robert Englund joining the cast this season and the Duffer Brothers confirming that this could be “the most frightening season yet”, it sure seems like Stranger Things hasn’t lost a step. Check out the teaser here!
After reporting on Darren Lynn Bousman’s secret project last week, Deadline reports that it’s a horror film (surprise) called Cello, and the Oscar-winner he’s working with is none other than Jeremy Irons. Irons and Saw star Tobin Bell will star with Samer Ismail (The Day I Lost My Shadow) and Saudi actress Elham Ali (Ashman), in “the story of an aspiring cellist who learns that the cost of his brand-new cello is a lot more insidious than he first thought.” Cello will be directed by Bousman from a script by Turki Al Alshikh, based on his novel. I’m always a fan of a horror featuring a haunted inanimate object, like the tire and the deerskin jacket in Quentin Dupieux’s Rubber and Deerskin, respectively, or the spooky dress in Peter Strickland’s In Fabric, so this one’s right up my alley.
Dread Central brought us an exclusive clip from the upcoming eco-horror, DM Cunningham’s The Spore this week. This one’s pretty gross!
In The Spore, “fleeing from civilization as a horrific plague ravages mankind, Meadow gets a lift from a stranger. When she sees that the driver is gruesomely infected, Meadow escapes and takes refuge in a cabin that’s abandoned…or is it? The apocalypse started days earlier when an evil spore, long-dormant beneath an ancient ice field, was awakened by global warming. Now, as ten strangers try to evade the madness, some must succumb to the hideously mutating fungus and claim the survivors as their bitter prey.” It’s available now on VOD and digital.
Rob Savage made horror history with his Zoom-based pandemic hit Host, and will be following up with the controversial Dashcam, but Deadline reports that the filmmaker will be working on an adaptation of one of Stephen King’s more harrowing stories, The Boogeyman. The story is about a man describing the murders of his family to a psychiatrist, and speaking personally, it’s one of the King stories that’s stuck with me since I read it as a teenager. Savage’s film will be a Hulu project.
I’ve got to admit, I wasn’t over the moon with the last trailer for Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City, but this new one is a marked improvement. For starters, at least it doesn’t feature a wildly inappropriate song, but it also seems to give a much better idea of the film’s tone. Check it out here ahead of the film’s November 24 release date!
We also got a delicious (?) new poster for the film!
Finally, with the holiday season fast approaching (wait, what? Already?) Scream Factory has something to put under the ol’ Yule shrubbery with a new release of Michael Dougherty’s 2015 seminal holiday classic, Krampus. This never-before-seen edition will be packed with goodies when it’s released on December 7 and will eschew the original (PG-13 rated) theatrical cut for Dougherty’s definitive version, which has a running time of about four minutes longer than the one we all know and love. It sounds like if you love you some Krampus, and who doesn’t, this is the edition to own.
Krampus: The Naughty Cut will include:
Disc 1 (UHD):
- NEW The Naughty Cut with additional scenes and adult language that were previously cut for the PG-13 theatrical version
- NEW Dolby Atmos track
- Audio Commentary with director/co-writer Michael Dougherty and co-writers Todd Casey and Zach Shields
Disc 2 (Blu-Ray):
- NEW The Naughty Cut with additional scenes and adult language cut to get a PG-13 rating
- NEW Dolby Atmos track
- NEW A Dash of Mischief – an interview with director/co-writer Michael Dougherty
- NEW Storm of the Centuries – an interview with producer Todd Casey
- NEW The Great Protector – an interview with actor David Koechner
- NEW Something Bad Happened on Christmas – an interview with actress Allison Tolman
- NEW Max’s Journey – an interview with actor Emjay Anthony
- NEW Lord of the Things – an interview with WETA’s Richard Taylor
- NEW Mapping Mythology – an interview with storyboard artist Simeon Wilkins
- NEW I, Krampus – an interview with performer Luke Hawker
- NEW A Winter Chorus – an interview with composer Douglas Pipes
- Audio Commentary with director/co-writer Michael Dougherty and co-writers Todd Casey and Zach Shields
- Krampus Comes Alive! – a five-part featurette on the making of the film
- Behind-the-Scenes at Weta Workshop: Krampus
- Deleted/Extended Scenes, not seen in the theatrical cut
- Gag Reel
- Alternate Ending
- Theatrical Trailers
- Photo Galleries – creature art, storyboards and more
