The Week in Horror is back with the latest on a unique marketing gimmick for Smile, a possible collaboration between John Carpenter and Godzilla, and much more!
I’ll admit that I haven’t really stayed up on Eli Roth’s ‘A Ghost Ruined My Life’, which as the title suggests, is about people who are being fucked around with by the supernatural but it seems like it’d be up my alley. In the series, producers interview those affected by supernatural hauntings, as well as their family and friends. who corroborate the stories.
Says Roth about the show, ” I don’t watch a ton of ghost shows. I’ve seen them, but in general, I find them all very similar. When I try to do something in horror I always want to put my own spin on it, whether it’s a film like Cabin Fever, which is just full of very weird, weird things, disturbing imagery, or Hostel, which is just me pushing the brutality as far as I possibly can within an R-rating. With ghost shows, I had this idea of a supernatural stalker — what if you’re on a date and you have this crazy stalker or ex that’s obsessed with you, but it’s a ghost and ruining all aspects of your life?”
The series also takes testimonials from the creators of the show who attest to strange happenings as they put the series together. The series airs on T+E here in Canada, and Season 2 kicks off on October 14 at 10pm.
Creepy new horror Smile is out this week (September 30) and is one of the most eagerly-anticipated horrors of the fall season. In a very bizarre marketing strategy, it seems that the producers placed some of the incessantly-grinning figures from the movie in public places. Most notably, at baseball games this weekend.
I don’t know how much they’re paying these folks, but whatever it is, it’s not enough. Check out Smile when it hits theatres this Friday, or you might be one of them!
I’m not exactly sure what this is about, but Fangoria posted a short video to their Twitter this week that features horror master John Carpenter sitting down in a theatre to tease his next project, and it sure af seems to be Godzilla related! That signature roar sure signals a collaboration of some sort between the two, and my goodness, this kaiju fan is HERE FOR IT.
You can see Carpenter next with his hands all over David Gordon Green’s Halloween Ends, which is said to wrap up the Laurie Strode arc of the long-running horror series. No word yet on whether Godzilla is involved.
Criterion Channel has a whole host of horror on offer this October with it’s 80’s collection, kicking off on October 1. All the stars of one of the golden ages of the genre are here, including John Carpenter, Dario Argento, Ken Russell, David Cronenberg, and more. What I’m most excited about is the fact that Kathryn Bigelow’s seminal vampire tale, Near Dark is included. This one’s been hard to find for years, so it’s great to see that see it land on Criterion.
Here’s the full lineup of the 80’s Horror Collection, which streams on Criterion Channel starting in October.
- Inferno, Dario Argento, 1980
- The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Miss Osbourne, Walerian Borowczyk, 1981
- Dead & Buried, Gary Sherman, 1981
- The House by the Cemetery, Lucio Fulci, 1981
- The Funhouse, Tobe Hooper, 1981
- Strange Behavior, Michael Laughlin, 1981
- Wolfen, Michael Wadleigh, 1981
- Scanners, David Cronenberg, 1981
- Road Games, Richard Franklin, 1981
- The Fan, Ed Bianchi, 1981
- Basket Case, Frank Henenlotter, 1982
- Next of Kin, Tony Williams, 1982
- Cat People, Paul Schrader, 1982
- Q: The Winged Serpent, Larry Cohen, 1982
- The Slumber Party Massacre, Amy Holden Jones, 1982
- The Keep, Michael Mann, 1983
- Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer, John McNaughton, 1986
- The Hidden, Jack Sholder, 1987
- Prince of Darkness, John Carpenter, 1987
- White of the Eye, Donald Cammell, 1987
- Near Dark, Kathryn Bigelow, 1987
- The Vanishing, George Sluizer, 1988
- Brain Damage, Frank Henenlotter, 1988
- Dream Demon, Harley Cokeliss, 1988
- The Blob, Chuck Russell, 1988
- Lair of the White Worm, Ken Russell, 1988
- Vampire’s Kiss, Robert Bierman, 1989
- Society, Brian Yuzna, 1989
- Tetsuo: The Iron Man, Shinya Tsukamoto, 1989
Brandon Cronenberg’s sci-fi horror followup to Antiviral (2012) and Possessor (2020) is called Infinity Pool and will star Pearl‘s Mia Goth as well as Alexander Skarsgard (The Northman). We learned this week that the film has garnered an NC-17 rating for “some graphic violence and sexual content.” There’s an appeal pending with the MPA, since many theatres will not release a film with that rating.
In Infinity Pool, ““James and Em are young, rich, in love, and on vacation. Their all-inclusive resort boasts island tours and gleaming beaches. But outside of the hotel gates waits something much more dangerous and seductive, beyond the edge of paradise.”
We got the new trailer for M. Night Shyamalan’s new film Knock at the Cabin this week, and even though I haven’t been excited for a Shyamalan in a minute, this one looks pretty damn cool. Knock at the Cabin is an adaptation of Paul Tremblay’s “The Cabin at the End of the World” and will hit theatres in 2023.
In Knock at the Cabin, “while vacationing at a remote cabin, a young girl and her parents are taken hostage by four armed strangers who demand that the family make an unthinkable choice to avert the apocalypse. With limited access to the outside world, the family must decide what they believe before all is lost.”
Knock at the Cabin stars Dave Bautista (Army of the Dead), Rupert Grint (“Servant”), Nikki Amuka-Bird (Old), Ben Aldridge (“Pennyworth”), and Jonathan Groff (“Mindhunter”) and is set for a theatrical release on February 3, 2023 from Universal.
Finally, in exciting TV news, David Cronenberg’s Scanners is coming to HBO as a TV series, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The classic 1981 film starred Michael Ironside as an evil genius who wanted to take over the world with an army of superpowered individuals with psychic powers. The new series is said to be “a visceral thriller set in the mind-bending world of Cronenberg’s film. It will focus on two women living on the fringes of modern society who are pursued by relentless agents with unimaginable powers and thus must learn to work together to topple a vast conspiracy determined to bring them to heel.”
William Bridges (“Black Mirror”) will be the showrunner and writer on Scanners and Yann Demange (“Lovecraft Country”) will produce and direct. Cronenberg will be an executive producer on the project.
