Alex Aja’s Mirrors Red Band Movie Trailer
When the first trailer for Alexandre Aja’s Mirrors premiered, with the exception of Slashfilm and a few horror sites, the Net issued a collective “meh, pass.” The trailer even purportedly received loud guffaws at a press screening, and we received four death threats just for suggesting that the film itself might actually be creepy. Scarier than email/gchat death threats from nerds, even. A friend and source close to the production tells me that the film will definitely deliver and give Alex Aja (Haute Tension) the industry cachet to keep kids up at night for many years. He compares what he’s seen of the film to Jacob’s Ladder meets Poltergeist III (and P3 was fucking scary, admit it), and says that even this trailer doesn’t do the film justice.
IGN received the red band and suddenly the Net consensus has pulled a uniform “maybe I was wrong.” The red band offers a nice round-up of the recurring psychotic optical “jaggies” and too-real throat slits that Aja is great at. We also see co-star Amy Smart, or a reflection thereof, removing her mandible. No big deal. The scenes with tykes are cliche, sure, but the tone is inherently spooky and a welcome return to the horror genre for Kiefer Sutherland. Summer ‘08 is offering a great mix of films, and I think we’ll include Mirrors as a fun contribution when all is said and done.
Mirrors opens August 15th.
Hollywood to Award Reality Show Winner with Starring Movie Role?!
With the success of American Idol, I knew it would be only a matter of time before Hollywood would auction off film roles in reality television shows. VH1 has greenlighted a new reality series called Scream Queens which will involve 10 unknown actresses competing for a “Major Role” in a upcoming horror film from Lionsgate Films. The series will consist of eight hour-long episodes, and is set to premiere in the fall.
The horror genre isn’t taken seriously in the first place, but this is a new low. Giving a starring role to a reality show contestant? Am I wrong? I guess you could argue that it isn’t that much different that Project Greenlight. But for some reason the idea of giving a writer/director the funding to make his movie seems a lot less tacky than this. Maybe because the logic of rewarding a contest winner with a starring role instead of finding the best actress for said role, goes beyond all logic. But I guess that happens all the time in Hollywood…
Source: THR
Michael Bay Boards Ouija Flick
Michael Bay sees dead people.
The Armageddon director is planning to summon up a feature film based on Hasbro’s supernatural Ouija board game.
Per the Hollywood Reporter, Bay and scribe David Berenbaum (Elf) have set up the movie at Universal as part of the studio’s whopping six-year megadeal with the toy giant.
No word yet on the Ouija, but we’re asking the spirits to make sure the flick won’t take its cues from Tawny Kitaen’s 1986 campy thriller Witchboard.
Hasbro conjured up its take on the legendary divination method in 1966 and has since sold millions of the board game.
Bay’s production company, Platinum Dunes, has become a big player in the horror genre, with recent remakes of The Amityville Horror, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and The Hitcher. Bay’s redo of Friday the 13th is currently shooting for a 2009 release.
Additional projects in the pipeline include a remake of Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds and an updated version of Wes Craven’s A Nightmare on Elm Street.
Harper’s Island: it’s the new Moonlight - VIDEO
OK, before you Moonlight fans come after me, I’m kidding with the post title … mostly. The similarities are rather striking though. Remember when team Moonlight brought in former Angel producer David Greenwalt, and most of the original cast was sent packing? Well, now comes word that former Angel producer Jeffrey Bell has been brought in as the new showrunner for Harper’s Island, and Elaine Cassidy is the only actor being held over from the pilot. Eeerie, isn’t it?
I’m still not exactly bullish on the idea that serialized horror/drama is something that CBS can pull off, but you never know. That’s what makes TV so fun. And I’m enough of a fan of things in the horror genre that I’ll certainly be game to give this one a look. Bell, who also counts X-Files, Alias, and Day Break among his credits, will be sharing executive producer duties with Jericho’s John Turteltaub. Here’s hoping things go better for Mr. Bell than they did for Mr. Greenwalt. If you haven’t seen the preview for Harper’s Island yet, it’s embedded, after the jump.