Greetings, true believers! We’re right in the middle of two of the biggest venues for new horror of the year – the Sundance and South By Southwest (SXSW) film festivals, and that means we’ve got a lot of new releases to chat about. Big announcements and bigger trailers in this week’s edition of The Week in Horror!
It sure seems that after only a few weeks of release, Scream (2022) is looking to be a massive hit for Paramount. On the heels of that success, Deadline reports that Ghostface will be back for yet another outing, in the form of another sequel. Directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett will be back and James Vanderbilt and Guy Busick will co-write the screenplay.
One of my most anticipated movies of the year is A24’s slasher film, Bodies Bodies Bodies by director Halina Reijn. The plot details are still pretty scant on this one, but we know that “when a group of rich 20-somethings plan a hurricane party at a remote family mansion, a party game turns deadly in this fresh and funny look at backstabbing, fake friends, and one party gone very, very wrong.” Bodies Bodies Bodies has already amassed a pretty great cast that includes Lee Pace (Guardians of the Galaxy, Halt and Catch Fire), Maria Bakalova (Borat Subsequent Moviefilm), Amandla Stenberg, Pete Davidson, Rachel Sennott, Myha’la Herrold, and Chase Sui Wonders.
Bodies Bodies Bodies debuts at this year’s South By Southwest that comes to Austin, Texas from March 11-20. Halina Reijn directed Bodies Bodies Bodies for A24, from a script by Kristen Roupenian, Sarah Delappe, Chloe Okuno (V/H/S/94, Watcher), Joshua Sharp, and Aaron Jackson.
Speaking of Chloe Okuno, her film Watcher was the talk of Sundance this year, and Bloody Disgusting reported this week that the film has been picked up by IFC Films and Shudder for a release sometime in 2022. Watcher stars Maika Monroe “as a young woman who moves into a new apartment with her fiancé and is tormented by the feeling that she is being stalked by an unseen watcher in an adjacent building.” Okuno has been having a huge year, having also directed the best (sorry, we’re not taking input on this one) part V/H/S/94, the “Storm Drain” segment. Hail Raatma!
Ti West’s X is coming to SXSW this year as well, and the film’s Twitter gave us the reveal of a set of character posters for the slasher film by way of an amateur porn shoot. Take a look at stars Brittany Snow, Jenna Ortega, Scott Mescudi (Kid Cudi), Mia Goth, and Martin Henderson ahead of the film’s release on March 18!
Coralie Fargeat’s Revenge is one of my favourite modern horrors, flipping the script expertly on the rape-revenge subgenre with it’s brash, unapologetic take on what is understandably grim fare for the most part. Fargeat will be back with her second feature, The Substance, soon, according to Deadline, with Demi Moore and Margaret Qualley on board as the first casting announcements. Universal and Working Title are backing the pic. No plot details yet, except that it will be a “feminist take on body horror”, which is good enough for me. Shooting on The Substance kicks off in Paris in March.
I’ve gotta say I didn’t expect to be talking about Joseph Marcell, The Fresh Prince of Bel Air‘s Geoffrey this week, but the prolific actor is in a brand new film called The Exorcism of God which has a slick new trailer this week. In the film, “Peter Williams, an American priest working in Mexico, is considered a saint by many local parishioners,. However, due to a botched exorcism, he carries a dark secret that’s eating him alive until he gets an opportunity to face his own demon one final time.”
The Exorcism of God stars Marcell alongside María Gabriela de Faría, Will Beinbrink, Hector Kotsifakis, and Irán Castillo. The film is directed by Alejandro Hidalgo, from a script by Santiago Fernández Calvete and Hidalgo. Check out the trailer for The Exorcism of God ahead of it’s release on March 11!
The most mind-melting trailer I saw this week comes from an upcoming film called Sin Eater from director Carmelo Chimera (After Masks). Sin Eater stars Jesse Nerud as Christine, who “[a]fter suffering a terrifying injury, she finds herself alone and stranded in a remote town harboring a dark secret. As she tries to recuperate, she slowly begins to discover intense, bizarre religious phenomena occurring around her. With no one to trust and her time running out, Christine realizes that she will have to fight her inner demons as well as the actual demons who are trying to take her soul in order to make it out alive.”
The trailer is full of squicky mouth-based body horror and a whole lot more, so watch this one at your own risk ahead of Sin Eater‘s DVD and VOD release on March 15 from Indiecan Entertainment.
