Horror news! It’s news you can use! This week, I’ve got scoops about Chloe Zhao’s unique adaptation of Dracula, plot details about Evil Dead Rise from Bruce Campbell himself, and much more!
Chloe Zhao isn’t resting on her Eternals laurels and took to Instagram this week to tease her upcoming adaptation of Dracula. The Best Picture and Best Director winner for 2020 previously revealed that her version of the original vampire tale would be a sci-fi western. It sure looks like ol’ Drac is saddling up in this photo!
It feels like forever since a Stephen King adaptation hit Netflix, doesn’t it? No? Well, smart guy, there’s one more in the pipe from Blumhouse and Ryan Murphy Productions. Mr Harrigan’s Phone is based on a tale from King’s If It Bleeds short story collection from 2020. According to Deadline, “the story centers on Craig (Martell), a young boy living in a small town, who befriends older, reclusive billionaire, Mr. Harrigan (Sutherland). The two form a bond over books and an iPhone, but when the man passes away, the boy discovers that not everything dead is gone, and finds himself able to communicate with his friend from the grave through the iPhone that was buried with him.”
Mr Harrigan’s Phone is written and directed by John Lee Hancock, and stars Jaeden Martell, Donald Sutherland, Joe Tippett, Kirby Howell-Baptiste, Colin O’Brien, and Cyrus Arnold.
Argentinean horror Alone has a new trailer, and it looks fantastic. Strong Pan’s Labyrinth vibes and some brutal body horror seem to be on the menu in José María Cicala’s film, which earned top honours at the Montreal Independent Film Festival and the Berlin International Art Film Festival this year.
In Alone, “Laura Garland has lost her husband in the war while she’s pregnant. She lives in a sprawling estate that has since been divided in two. But now the government contacts her, claiming she must occupy the whole house, and if she doesn’t, they will take it from her. With no other options, Laura leases the other half of the house to Ricky, an outlaw who brings violent trouble into her life. But Laura has other plans…”
Alone stars Araceli González, Miguel Ángel Solá, Fabián Mazzei, Mariano Martínez, Luis Machín, Mónica Antonopulos, Rodrigo Noya, Florencia Torrente, Mica Suárez, Tomás Kirzner, Alfredo Casero, Roberto Peloni, Peter O’Brien and Griselda Sánchez. Check out the trailer here!
Jordan Peele’s new film NOPE is still very much under wraps until it’s release on July 22, 2022, but Will Mavety on Twitter reports that the horror has signed on a heavy hitter in the cinematography department. Hoyte Van Hoytema, whose credits include Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk and Interstellar, and Spike Jonze’s Her, will shoot the film. Besides Hoytema’s involvement, we also know that Daniel Kaluuya will reunite with Peele in NOPE, and will be joined by Keke Palmer and Steven Yuen.
Finally, Bruce Campbell did an interview with German horror outlet BlairWitch.de and spilled some deets on Evil Dead Rise. The actor, who insists that he will not actually appear in the film, revealed that:
“[The movie is about] a single mom who now has to deal with this book. These days it’s more about the book. That book gets around. Passed along, people try and get rid of it, they try to bury it or destroy it and they really can’t. So this book just keeps popping up, so really it’s just another story of what happens if this book appears in this particular group of people’s lives and how it intersects.”
“[T]his family is not the same at the end of the movie. They’re gutted. The whole family is destroyed. These people get possessed. Brothers and sisters, sons, daughters, you know. So yeah, it’s a family affair, this one’s a family affair. They’re all related in this one. I think that makes the possession and killing your siblings – things like that, even harder. Because in the original Evil Dead, there was only one brother/sister combo, Ash and his sister Sheryl. The rest were just friends. Now this is all, they’re all related in this household. Much more excruciating.”
Evil Dead Rise recently wrapped production and, by all accounts, it sounds like an exceedingly bloody affair. Director Lee Cronin (The Hole In the Ground) confirmed as much on Twitter a while back.
