February’s on its way out and horror news is all over the map this week, friends. I’ve got something new from the Ringu universe, a horror-themed music video, and a whole lot more. Check it out here!
Hideo Nagata’s 1998 horror Ringu unleashed the floodgates for Japanese horror, and introduced is to the iconic Sadako. The raven-haired tv addict first crawled across (and out of) our screens in that film and the American remake because of – how quaint – a haunted VHS tape which itself has become as iconic a horror prop as the puzzle box from Hellraiser, the Ghostface mask from Scream, and Freddy’s razor glove. Hisashi Kimura is set to breathe new life into the franchise – 14 sequels strong from both sides of the Pacific – with a brand new movie called Sadako DX which is now in post-production, according to Bloody Disgusting. The film stars Fūka Koshiba as Fuka Ichijo, “a college student with 200 IQ who tries to unravel the curse of Sadako.” More on this one when we have a release date!
The horror of sexual assault, gaslighting, and the inadequacies of the criminal justice system are all too real for women, and have been dealt with in films like Brea Grant and Natasha Kermani’s Lucky and Madeleine Sims-Fewer and Dusty Mancinelli’s Violation. Gia Elliott’s feature debut, Take Back The Night explores similar subject matter in new ways with the tale of Jane (Emma Fitzpatrick, who co-wrote the film), a woman who is “the victim of a violent monster attack” and “launches a vigilante campaign to hunt the beast that tried to kill her. Jane’s efforts intensify, but her troubling history of drug use and mental illness bubbles to the surface causing her family, community, and authorities to question the authenticity of her account. Suddenly alone in her fight, Jane starts to doubt her own memory of the attack. And to doubt if the monster exists at all.”
Take Back The Night arrives on digital and VOD on March 5 from Dark Sky Films, and you can check out the trailer here.
Director William McGregor (Gwen, His Dark Materials) has an interesting new horror project, according to Deadline. The film has a working title of Smile and has been described as “a vampire story in the spirit of Nicolas Winding Refn’s Drive.”
In the vampire tale, “teenager Millie’s life is turned upside down when she’s bitten by a vampire while traveling to Los Angeles with her school. Wanting nothing more than to be human again, Millie learns she can reverse the process if she is able to kill the man who bit her before the next sunrise.” This is definitely one to watch and we’ll have more details on casting and production when we have them.
Mickey Keating (Pod, Darling) has a new Lovecraftian-inspired nightmare that has one hell of a trailer that just dropped this week, courtesy of IGN. The film stars Jocelin Donahue (House of the Devil, Doctor Sleep), Joe Swanburg (The Sacrament, You’re Next), and Richard Brake (3 From Hell). In Offseason, “upon receiving a mysterious letter that her mother’s grave site has been vandalized, Marie quickly returns to the isolated offshore island where her late mother is buried. When she arrives, she discovers that the island is closing for the offseason with the bridges raised until Spring, leaving her stranded. One strange interaction with the local townspeople after another, Marie soon realizes that something is not quite right in this small town. She must unveil the mystery behind her mother’s troubled past in order to make it out alive.”
Check out this trailer ahead of the film’s release on March 11 on Digital and VOD from RLJE Films! And don’t sleep on the last shot, it’s a doozy.
While new heat from hip-hop superstars like Tinashe are usually my dude Jeromme’s beat, the new video for her new single ‘Naturally’ dropped last week and I’m pretty sure it’s bloody visuals belong squarely in this space. Perhaps unexpectedly for a video that released on Valentine’s Day, Tinashe basically made a shot-for-shot tribute to the Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) and it features more gore than half the movies I saw last year. Though I’m not sure our boy Leatherface ever looked this good (or ever had the chops for this kind of elaborate choreography).
Check out the video here, and when you’re done, Tinashe did a behind-the-scenes look at the video with her director Rosco Guerrero and Franc Fernandez for Horror in Color, which you can check out here.
I remain perplexed that Ben Wheatley (Free Fire, In The Earth, Kill List, High-Rise) is directing The Meg 2: The Trench, but with production underway on the Jason Statham-starring shark sequel, it’s starting to feel real. The Hollywood Reporter reported this week that Sienna Guillory (Resident Evil, Clifford the Big Red Dog), Skyler Samuels (The Gifted), and Sergio Peris-Mencheta (Snowfall) will be joining the cast. Additionally, “Cliff Curtis, Shuya Sophia Cai and Page Kennedy are reprising their roles [from the 2018 original], joining Statham” in The Meg 2. I have no idea what to expect from this but as a big Wheatley fan, you can bet I’ll be swimming up to it as soon as I can get my eyes on it.
Finally, my favourite trailer this week is from Charles Dorfman’s Barbarians. This one’s a home invasion movie with a twist, with dinner party drama thrown into the mix. It stars Iwan Rheon (the repellent Ramsay Bolton from Game of Thrones) and takes place over the course of 24 hours, where a group of friends gathers for dinner before tensions arise, and escalate. Check this wild trailer out ahead of Barbarians release in theatres and on demand on April 1!
