Tuesday, July 16, 2019

Crawl (2019, USA)

A Quiet Place was a big horror hit, so now Paramount wants more scary movies to strike box office gold. Enter Crawl, a new horror-thriller produced by Evil Dead filmmaker Sam Raimi and directed by High Tension director Alexandre Aja. The film focuses on a woman trapped in a house during a hurricane, and being forced to deal with fierce predators.

The horror business is booming, and that’s a good thing. Last year saw films like Get Out and It becoming bonafide blockbusters, and this year has seen the success of A Quiet Place. Paramount, who distributed A Quiet Place, wants more of that sweet, sweet horror success, and who can blame them? The Hollywood Reporter reveals that Paramount will release the “self-contained” horror film Crawl, which is said to be low-budget and thus pretty much a sure-fire box office hit if they market it right. Alexandre Aja, who directed High Tension and The Hills Have Eyes remake, is going to helm the film. Horror master Sam Raimi is set to produce.

The story “centers on a young woman who, while struggling to save her father during a Category 5 hurricane, finds herself trapped inside a flooding house and fighting for her life against Florida’s most savage and feared predators.” THR doesn’t say what those “savage and feared predators” are, but  ComingSoon seems pretty sure we’re talking about alligators here. So there you have: this is a movie about a woman fighting off both a hurricane and some alligators. And maybe some other nasty creatures, too.

Shawn and Michael Rasmussen, who wrote the John Carpenter film The Ward, wrote the initial script for the film. Aja has since rewritten their draft. Aja is a fairly good director when it comes to style – he often crafts slick-yet-gritty looking films with a nasty streak. But I’m a little so-so on his storytelling. High Tension was almost a great movie until an utterly ludicrous final twist destroyed everything that came before it, and his Hills Have Eyes remake felt like it was ultimately missing something. But I really like the idea behind this film – one woman facing off against the elements. There’s a lot of room there for something great, especially if Aja can land a particularly strong actress for the part. I also love that Sam Raimi is involved in this, if only as a producer. Maybe someday he’ll decide to return to horror filmmaking as well.



Crawl original 2019 trailer.

The toothy thriller, written by Michael and Shawn Rasmussen, is one lean, mean machine.  It doesn’t waste much time setting up the blessedly simple physical and psychological stakes for these characters. Physically, Dave and Haley must flee the imminent danger before being digested and mentally, they must overcome personal anguish over the strain of divorce in order to survive this ensuing disaster. The filmmakers don’t over-complicate the monster-on-the-loose mayhem either, which keeps the snappy pace moving.

Aja utilizes the widescreen format brilliantly – so much so, if you were to watch this with the sound off, you could still follow the story. Subject placement plays a large role as does the camerawork. He evokes the “God’s eye” perspective to ramp up tension when an alligator pens her in the shower. At another point, the camera takes the gator’s POV – as a loving homage to JAWS. Plus, the filmmakers build in a nod to JURASSIC PARK.

























ALLIGATOR FACTS:

1. Alligators continue to grow throughout their lifetimes.
Male American alligators average 8 to 10 feet long, while females tend to be slightly smaller. Very old males can get quite large, up to 15 feet long and weighing over 1,000 pounds.

2. They can use tools. 
American alligators have been observed using lures to hunt birds. They balance sticks and branches on their heads, attracting birds looking for nesting material.

3. Alligators have two kinds of walks.
Besides swimming, alligators walk, run, and crawl on land. They have a "high walk" and a "low walk." The low walk is sprawling, while in the high walk the alligator lifts its belly off the ground.

4. Alligators are ecosystem engineers.
Alligators play an important role in their wetland ecosystems by creating small ponds known as alligator holes. Alligator holes retain water during the dry season and provide habitats for other animals.

5. Alligators are apex predators that also eat fruit.
 Alligators are carnivorous opportunists, eating fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals. What they eat is largely determined by their size. However, they were recently reported to also eat fruit such as wild grapes, elderberries, and citrus fruits directly from trees. Alligators may help spread the seeds of these fruits throughout their habitats.
















6. Alligators are some of the most vocal reptiles.
Alligators have a variety of different calls to declare territory, signal distress, threaten competitors, and find mates. Although they have no vocal cords, alligators bellow loudly by sucking air into their lungs and blowing it out in intermittent roars. In addition to bellowing, alligators can growl, hiss, and make a cough-like sound called a chumpf.

7. Alligator courtship is sophisticated.
At the start of the spring breeding season, males bellow to attract females. The bellows have an infrasonic component that can cause the surface of the water around the male to ripple and dance. Other courtship rituals include head-slapping on the water's surface, snout and back rubbing, and blowing bubbles.

8. Female alligators are devoted moms.
Female alligators build nests made of vegetation, sticks, leaves, and mud near a body of water. As the vegetation decays, it heats up and keeps the eggs warm. She stays near the nest throughout the 65-day incubation period, protecting it from intruders. When the eggs are ready to hatch, the young alligators make high-pitched noises from inside their eggs. This causes their mother to start digging them out of the nest and carrying her babies down to the water in her jaws. She may protect her young for up to a year.

9. Their sex is determined by temperature.
The temperature at which the eggs develop determines their sex. Eggs exposed to temperatures above 93°F (34 °C) become males, while those at 86 °F (30 °C) become females. Intermediate temperatures produce both sexes.

10. Alligators are toothy.
They have between 74 and 80 teeth in their jaws at any given time, and as teeth wear down or fall out they are replaced. An alligator can go through over 2,000 teeth in its lifetime.


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Monday, July 15, 2019

George A. Romero (1940-2017)
























  
Director/writer George A. Romero monument display 
inside Monroeville Mall in Pennsylvania.
 
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Thursday, May 30, 2019

Pet Sematary (2019, USA) Sign Prop Replica

Looking for a sign for your family pet cemetery? How about your man cave? Look no further. Here we have a Pet Sematary sign custom built handmade horror prop replica.

This is made from a cedar plank. The dims are 24" x 5" x 1". It has 2 drilled eyelets in the top to mount with the added rustic string. This is handmade, all the details carved and cut in to age the look.

Hand stained and painted. Made to look like the sign from the 2019 remake Pet Sematary. These are made to order average ship time is roughly 2 days after order is placed. By Camp Horror Hound.

Pet Sematary is a 2019 horror film directed by Kevin Kölsch and Dennis Widmyer and written by Jeff Buhler. It is the second adaptation of the 1983 novel of the same name by Stephen King, after the 1989 film. 


Pet Sematary sign will be custom built to match the pics below.







 Actual screenshot featuring the sign from Pet Sematary (2019).












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Monday, May 27, 2019

The Wraith (1986, USA)

Directed by: Mike Marvin
Produced by: John Kemeny
Written by: Mike Marvin
Starring: Charlie Sheen, Sherilyn Fenn, Nick Cassavetes, Randy Quaid
Music by: Michael Hoenig, J. Peter Robinson
Cinematography: Reed Smoot
Editing by: Scott Conrad, Gary Rocklen
Distributed by: New Century, Alliance Entertainment
Release dates: November 21, 1986
Running time: 93 min
Country: United States
Language: English
Budget: $2.7 million
Box office: $3.5 million ($1,402,535 US)
Plot: After a young man is murdered by a road-racing gang of motor-heads, a mysterious fast-driving spirit descends from the sky to take revenge.
Info: The Wraith is a 1986 American independent action horror film produced by John Kemeny, written and directed by Mike Marvin, and starring Charlie Sheen, Sherilyn Fenn, Nick Cassavetes, and Randy Quaid. The film was released theatrically on 288 screens in the U.S. by New Century Vista Film Company (later New Century Entertainment Corporation). The Wraith tells the story of an Arizona teen who mysteriously returns from the dead as a supernatural street-racer intent on taking revenge on the gang who murdered him.

Production: While filming a chase sequence shot on a mountainside outside of Tuscon, a crew member was killed and another was critically injured. According to supplementary material on the DVD a camera car was overloaded and overturned. This was the only serious accident during the filming. The Wraith was shot entirely in and around Tucson, Arizona; shots of the hilly road leading into the fictional "Brooks, AZ" were filmed on Freeman Road on the city's south side. Keri's (Sherilyn Fenn) home is located at 2128 East 5th Street; "Big Kay's Burgers" was a set built especially for the film at 2755 East Benson Highway and no longer exists.


The Wraith original 1986 trailer.

Film Facts: The black car featured in the movie was a real-life technological wonder, the Dodge M4S. A joint effort of the Dodge Division of Chrysler Motors and PPG Industries, one of the highly sophisticated PPG Pace Cars for the PPG-CART Indy Car World Series. The M4S was designed and constructed at an estimated cost of $1.1 million, and featured performance and technology to match that lofty figure. The innovative body design was developed in the Chrysler studios, while PPG developed the finish - a special bronze pearl paint job formulated just for this car. The M4S was powered by a Chrysler 2.2 liter four-cylinder one-of-a-kind engine that exceeded 194 mph. According to Gary Hellerstein, transportation coordinator for this film, a total of seven versions of the M4S were needed for filming. The original, on loan from Dodge, was used for close-ups and details. Two more "drivers", consisting of perfectly detailed bodies on dune buggy chassis, were used for stunt driving chores. There were four "shells", empty bodies on bare, towable frames, that were sacrificed in various crash scenes.

The "futuristic" weapon wielded by The Wraith is a Franchi SPAS-12 shotgun, with a folding stock. It was a 12-gauge tactical shotgun made in Italy, and has the unusual property of functioning in both pump and semi-automatic modes. The odd hook on the weapon is for firing the weapon one-handed with the stock extended, as it wraps around the forearm.

Packard Walsh drove a late-1970s Chevrolet Corvette with a custom paint job and nose clip, with the tail of an 84 Vette; Oggie drove a 1986 Dodge Daytona Turbo Z; Minty drove a 1977 Pontiac Firebird with a highly-visible (but apparently non-functional) supercharger; Skank and Gutterboy drove a beat-up 1966 Plymouth Barracuda; Rughead was driving a late-70's GMC pickup. The couple who are cheated out of their car in the first race were driving a similar Daytona Turbo Z. The police drove a variety of mid-1980's Plymouth Caravelles and Gran Furys, as well as early-1980's Chevrolet Malibus; Sheriff Loomis drove a "civilian" Plymouth Caravelle.

Although listed as Plymouth Caravelles in other notes. The cop cars and Loomis's car are Dodge 600s as Caravelles have a plain grille and 600s have the cross-hair grille. Rugheads truck is not a Chevrolet, as noted before, but a GMC as can be seen by the GMC emblem on the grille.

The dual-sport motorcycle is a Honda XL600R. It features the renowned 600cc RFVC engine with four valves in a radial configuration. It also has an unusual setup with dual carburators, which some say is the reason why the bike is a pig to start lukewarm. The motorcycle in the film has its characteristic single-cylinder thumper note dubbed with an electronic high-revving warble.

Dedicated to the memory of Bruce Ingram, who worked on the film as an assistant cameraman. He was the single person killed when the camera car overturned.


















Johnny Depp, who was then dating Sherilyn Fenn, was present during filming and was living in the film crew's hotel with Fenn. Johnny Depp was considered for the roles of Jake Kesey and Oggie.

Bears a lot of similarity in plot to a TV movie Charlie's father made in 1974 The California Kid. Sherilyn Fenn, Charlie Sheen and his future ex-wife Denise Richards all went on to play in different episodes of Friends (1994). A 16 year old Brooke Burke Charvet has a small part in the film as a waitress.

The beginning of the chase scene where Skank & Gutterboy chase Keri Johnson & Jake on Jake's motorcycle was 500 feet (150 meters) south of a Lindy's burgers which was showcased in Man v. Food: Tucson, AZ (2009).

Shot in 27 days. The movie was filmed during the American winter of January 1986. When police are chasing Packard Walsh and The Wraith at the end of the movie, at background can be seen a rainbow. It was purely incidental.

The place where The Wraith arrives to Earth is a desert crossroad. In several beliefs and superstitions a desert crossroad is considered a place to meet supernatural beings, in addition to deal treats with The Devil.


In 1987 the film was released to VHS video by Lightning Video, then on LaserDisc by Image Entertainment; it was then released in 2003 on DVD by Platinum Disc Corporation (now Echo Bridge Home Entertainment). In spite of having no special features and only being available in the pan-and-scan format, there is missing footage on the original VHS and LaserDisc releases. LionsGate released a widescreen Special Edition DVD on March 2, 2010, which included this previously missing footage.
 

Monday, February 11, 2019

Creepshow: New Series Coming Soon on Shudder!

Everyone’s favorite horror anthology is set to return in 2019 with Shudder’s new incarnation of Creepshow, which will see makeup master Greg Nicotero (The Walking Dead) directing the premiere. Ahead of this weekend’s New York Comic-Con,  Shudder premiered the first poster that hearkens back to the original 1982 film directed by George A. Romero. The poster is designed by artist Tim Bradstreet and Nicotero, who will also executive-produce and supervise the show’s creative elements. His KNB EFX Group will handle the show’s creature and makeup effects. Each episode will tell original stories and be helmed by a different filmmaker. A homage to the horror comics of the 1950s, the original Creepshow featured segments written by Stephen King and was directed by a fellow horror legend, George A. Romero. Some huge names will be part of Creepshow, including both Stephen King and son Joe Hill, as well as Bubba Ho-Tep writer Joe R. Lansdale. 

Creepshow will premiere on Shudder later this year and will feature episodes written by some of the biggest names in horror:
  • “By the Silvery Waters of Lake Champlain” by Joe Hill (NOS4A2)
  • “House of the Head” by Josh Malerman (Bird Box)
  • “The Companion” by Joe Lansdale (The Bottoms)
  • “The Man in the Suitcase” by Christopher Buehlman (The Lesser Dead)
  • “All Hallows Eve” by Bruce Jones (The Hitchhiker)
  • “Night of the Paw” by John Esposito (The Walking Dead: Webisodes)
  • “Bad Wolf Down” by Rob Schrab (Monster House)
Creepshow is produced by Monster Agency Productions, Taurus Entertainment, and Striker Entertainment. Stan Spry, Jeff Holland, and Eric Woods are serving as executive producing along with Greg Nicotero, Brian Witten, Robert Dudelson, James Dudel, and Jordan Kizwani. Russell Binder and Marc Mostman are co-executive producing for Striker Entertainment.

Pet Sematary (2019, 4K 30th Anniversary)

Universal Pictures UK has detailed its upcoming 4K Blu-ray release of Mary Lambert's film Pet Sematary (1989), starring Denise Crosby, Fred Gwynne, Miko Hughes, Dale Midkiff, and Blaze Berdahl. The release will be available for purchase on March 26, 2019. Mary Lambert, director of the 1989 adaptation of Pet Sematary, had noted late last year that she was working with Paramount to restore the film, so we assumed that a 4K Ultra HD release was coming in time for the new adaptation in April.

Synopsis: Dr. Louis Creed, having just moved to Maine with his wife and two children, is heartbroken when he finds that his daughter's beloved cat has been hit by a truck and killed. Thankfully, a strange, elderly neighbor called Jud knows a secret that may spare the young girl's tears. He takes the dead cat to an ancient Indian burial ground that lies hidden in the surrounding hilltops; and when he buries the feline there, it comes back to life a few days later. But Louis can't be trusted with the secret, and, despite strong warnings that something horrible will happen, he uses the power of the burial ground to bring his son back from the dead.

Special Features and Technical Specs:

4K BLU-RAY
  • BRAND NEW 4K REMASTER OF THE FILM SUPERVISED BY DIRECTOR MARY LAMBERT
  • NEW A look back at this classic with the cast and crew of 2019's Pet Sematary
  • NEW Revisualization - interview with Mary Lambert
  • NEW three behind the scenes galleries, including never before seen storyboards
  • Director Mary Lambert shares memories of the movie
  • Fear and remembrance
  • Audio commentary by director Mary Lambert
BLU-RAY
  • NEW and vintage bonus features
  • Stephen King Territory. The characters. Filming the Horror. - Featurettes
  • Optional English SDH, Danish, Dutch, German, Italian, and Swedish subtitles



















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