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To celebrate Luc Besson’s action thriller classic Nikita, for the first time in stunning 4K, in this definitive and strictly limited edition 3-disc SteelBook available from 23rd September, we are giving away a copy to a lucky winner!

Studiocanal and Gaumont announce a superb brand-new restoration, supervised by Luc Besson himself, of the must-see classic thriller about a vicious street punk turned sexy, sophisticated and lethally dangerous assassin. Starring Anne Parillaud (Innocent Blood), Jeanne Moreau (BAFTA-winner for Viva Maria!) and Jean Reno (star of Besson’s Leon), the beautifully designed collectable 4K SteelBook also includes a Blu-ray, as well as a whole disc of new bonus material and interviews.

Written and directed by Besson (The Fifth Element), and produced by Gaumont, the film was a smash hit that spawned an American remake, a TV series, not to mention numerous imitations, and turned Parillaud (who won the César Award for...

After Blue (Paradis sale)The lineup for the 2021 festival has been revealed, including new films by Bertrand Mandico, Axelle Ropert, Abel Ferrara and others, alongside retrospectives and tributes, and much more.Piazza GRANDEBeckett (Ferdinando Cito Filomarino)Free Guy (Shawn Levy)Heat (Michael Mann)Hinterland (Stefan Ruzowitzky)Ida Red (John Swab)Monte Verità (Stefan Jäger)National Lampoon's Animal House (John Landis)Respect (Liesl Tommy)Rose (Aurélie Saada)Sinkhole (Kim Ji-hoon)The Alleys (Bassel Ghandour)The Terminator (James Cameron)Vortex (Gaspar Noé)Yaya e Lennie — The Walking Liberty (Alessandro Rak)Tomorrow My Love (Gitanjali Rao)Lynx (Laurent Geslin)Zeros and OnesCONCORSO INTERNAZIONALEAfter Blue (Paradis sale) (Bertrand Mandico)Al Naher (The River) (Ghassan Salhab)Espíritu sagrado (The Sacred Spirit) (Chema García Ibarra)Gerda (Natalya Kudryashova)I giganti (The Giants) (Bonifacio Angius)Jiao ma teng hui (A New Old Play) (Jiongjiong Qiu)Juju StoriesLa Place d'une autre (Secret Name) (Aurélia Georges)Leynilögga (Cop Secret...

Indigenous Love Story Stellar Underway

Exclusive: Principal photogprahy is underway on Stellar, Darlene Naponse’s love story starring Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers and Braeden Clarke. The news coincides with National Indigenous Peoples Day. Based on the short story of the same name written by Naponse, the film follows two Indigenous characters in a chance encounter that sets off a cosmic and environmental connection that seeks to restore the past, while bringing hope to the future. Naponse is an Anishinaabe from Atikameksheng Anishnawbek – a First Nations people from northern Ontario, Canada – and is the founder of Baswewe Films. Her previous work has screened at festivals including Sundance and Toronto. Stellar is also produced by Jennifer Weiss of Nice Picture and Paula Devonshire of Devonshire Productions. Co-starring with Tailfeathers and Clarke are Rossif Sutherland, Kc Collins, Rh Thomson, Tina Keeper and Billy Merasty. Pic is financed by Telefilm Canada, The Northern Ontario Heritage Fund Corporation,...

The Locarno Film Festival will pay homage to genre-bending U.S. director John Landis with its Pardo d’onore Manor lifetime achievement award.

The “Blues Brothers” and “American Werewolf in London” director will be presented with the award on the last day of the August festival’s 74th outing. It will be presented to him at the Festival’s Forum talk venue, before he joins an audience-based panel discussion.

Landis’ career spans a range of genres, although comedy is a common thread – from the irreverent, biting satire of “National Lampoon” and “Saturday Night Live”– via the cult movies that brought him auteur status in the ‘80s and ‘90s, such as “The Blues Brothers” and “An American Werewolf in London,” the festival said in a statement Monday.

The latter attracted the attention of late pop singer Michael Jackson, who hired Landis to direct his groundbreaking 1983 music video “Michael Jackson’s Thriller,...

Comedy directing legend John Landis, whose credits include National Lampoon’s Animal House (1978), The Blues Brothers (1980), and Trading Places (1983), will be honored by the Locarno International Film Festival with its lifetime achievement honor, the Pardo d’onore Manor award.

Landis will receive the award on Saturday, August 13 at Locarno’s Piazza Grande. The festival wills screen three of his films during the festival: Animal House, Trading Places, and the 1992 vampire crime comedy Innocent Blood (1992). Landis will also take part in a Q&a session with the Locarno audience.

The 70-year-old filmmaker has directed some of the most successful and influential comedies of all ...

Comedy directing legend John Landis, whose credits include National Lampoon’s Animal House (1978), The Blues Brothers (1980), and Trading Places (1983), will be honored by the Locarno International Film Festival with its lifetime achievement honor, the Pardo d’onore Manor award.

Landis will receive the award on Saturday, August 13 at Locarno’s Piazza Grande. The festival wills screen three of his films during the festival: Animal House, Trading Places, and the 1992 vampire crime comedy Innocent Blood (1992). Landis will also take part in a Q&a session with the Locarno audience.

The 70-year-old filmmaker has directed some of the most successful and influential comedies of all ...

Filming of the project will take place between Lanzarote, Hamburg and Luxembourg from February 2021 until the beginning of April. Luxembourg's Laura Schroeder is now preparing her new project, a drama entitled Maret. The helmer, an alumna of the Sorbonne and of Beaconsfield's National Film and Television School, is best known for Barrage (2017), Luxembourg's bid for the best foreign language film at the 90th Academy Awards. The script of Maret, penned by the director herself, follows the titular woman, played by German actress Susanne Wolff. A groundbreaking brain surgery to be performed in a clinic in Lanzarote may be her only hope to get her memory back. The problem is: does she really want to remember the person she once was? The technical crew attached to the project includes DoP Laurent Brunet, editor Andrew Bird, composer Pascal Schumacher, sound designer Carlo Thoss, production designer Christina Schaffer,...

Stars: Susanne Wolff, Dragos Bucur, Alexia Lestiboudois, Teun Luijkx, Jan Bijvoet, Therese Affolter, Mark Rietman, Kim Hertogs, Leny Breederveld, Dennis Rudge, Murth Mossel, Valentijn Dhaenens, Martijn van der Veen, Anna Tenta | Written and Directed by Lennert Hillege, Guido van Driel

The Netherlands is not a country that is very well known for its movies. Off the top of my head the only one I can actually think of is Christmas horror movie Sint/Saint (which is pretty good so check it out next December), so Bloody Marie enters a very small list of my movie watching entitled ‘Dutch cinema’.

Bloody Marie is the story of (unsurprisingly) Marie. A woman who was once a successful comic book artist but is now struggling to make a living through her art and lives in the Red Light District of Amsterdam. She is mostly drunk and walks the streets at night almost looking for...

In their hometown of Osaka, a group of teenagers celebrates their graduation from school and their road into adulthood. Led by loudmouth Riichi (Koji Chihara), the three boys try to make ends meet collecting debts from local businesses, offering their services as bodyguards and eventually attempting to take on more solid jobs when, for example, Kotetsu (Kyosuke Yabe) gets a job as a bartender.

However, especially Riichi struggles with the reality after school. While his girlfriend manages Ryoko (Sarina Suzuki) to get a job at a local hair salon, his attempts at a regular job fail. When he cheats on her with a childhood friend of his, he becomes estranged from Ryoko as well as the other friends. Eventually, the separation and the fact he is beaten up several times by his former enemies, result in Riichi being severely depressed and lacking the necessary drive to move on in life.

“Wherever we go…however far we walk…everything will stay the same.”

If we take a body of work as diverse as Takashi Miike, quite naturally one asks the question whether the director has a favorite. As Miike has repeatedly stated in the past, this particular honor goes to his 1998 film “Young Thugs: Nostalgia”, a prequel to “Young Thugs: Innocent Blood” released the year before and also based on the autobiographical novel by Riichi Nakabana. Considering films like “Blues Harp, “Ley Lines” and the “Dead or Alive”-series explored themes like origin, identity and growing up, the choice of this project, along with the finished product being Miike’s favorite film should not come as a surprise.

In general, both films, “Innocent Blood” and “Nostalgia”, define what has become the side of Miike, which is at times forgotten among the wildness of his other films, a tendency...

Daniel Kurland Oct 9, 2018

We pick out the best of what the Warner Archive has to offer in terms of top shelf Halloween programming so that you don’t have to!

This article is brought to you by Warner Archive.

As we once again enter the Halloween season, there are more services than ever that cater to scary season programming. In fact, there are almost too many macabre programming blocks to choose from. While there are many available streams out there—and a true horror savant will utilize multiple services to consumer as much content as possible—the ever-growing Warner Archive offers up a robust lineup of material. Whether this Warner Bros. service has been on your radar or not, it’s time to take it seriously because it covers a wide array of horror-friendly films. In order to assure that you spend more time watching horror films than you do searching for them,...

The man who gave us cinema’s greatest werewolf now brings us a pretty lady with deer legs.

I love John Landis. I know not everyone shares this opinion. He has been controversial ever since his involvement in the Twilight Zone: The Movie accident that claimed the lives of his leading man, Vic Morrow, and co-stars Myca Dinh Le and Shin-Yi Chen, both of whom were children. It’s an impossible discussion to have in any kind of satisfying way here; there was an entire book written about it (Outrageous Conduct by Stephen Farber and Marc Green) and a lengthy court case at the end of which Landis was absolved of legal responsibility. Clearly it was still a tragedy, and clearly Landis shares in the blame for an accident that could have been avoided. I only bring it up here to provide some context for Landis’ career and to let you,...

When horror and film fans think of special FX legends, they usually lean toward Rob Botttin and Rick Baker, just to name a few. But there is one man who not only worked alongside these men, but became a master himself with work on films like An American Werewolf In London, The Howling, Big Trouble In Little China, Ghostbusters, Species and The Abyss, among so many others.

He helped create the lovable Slimer, did the make-up of a wicked ancient who was in search of women with green eyes to resurrect himself, and gave us the the feral vampires we love in films like Fright Night and Innocent Blood, as well as Blade II. His is a true story of a young passionate kid from Texas making a name for himself. The man is honest about his career, his wilder days in the business, and the ups and downs of...

By Fred Blosser

The Warner Archive Collection has released John Landis’ “Innocent Blood” (1992) in a new, remastered Blu-ray edition. The Blu-ray incorporates two minutes of footage that appeared in overseas prints but were not included in previous U.S. releases. The film opens with a montage of the Pittsburgh skyline after dark, scored with Jackie Wilson’s lush 1960 ballad, “Night.” French vampire Marie (Anne Parillaud, in a lengthy nude scene) sits alone in her hotel room, deliberating on where to find her next sanguinary meal. She opens a newspaper to an article about a local Mafia crew headed by Sal “The Shark” Macelli and smiles: “I thought -- what about Italian?” She allows herself to be picked up by one of Sal’s henchmen, Tony (Chazz Palminteri), whose CD player is loaded with Sinatra discs. Just as Tony thinks she’s going to have sex with him, she chomps into...

One of the most underrated films by one of America’s most underrated filmmakers just arrived on Blu-ray in the form of Warner Archive’s 25th-anniversary release of John Landis’ Innocent Blood. To call Landis underrated might seem perverse given that he’s directed some of the most successful and enduring movies of the late 1970s and early 1980s – National Lampoon’s Animal House, The Blues Brothers, An American Werewolf in London, Trading Places, Coming to America – but I still think his body of work has never quite gotten its critical due in this country, partly because his movies are so damn […]...

Warner Archive just offered up a wonderful early Halloween treat having just released John Landis‘ vampire/gangster pic Innocent Blood on Blu-ray! Available for order here, the Blu-ray is an HD remaster in 1080p delivered in 16×9 Letterbox. The biggest surprise, however, is that it contains scenes not previously seen in North America! “John Landis revisits vampire […]...

Although it's not as well-known as An American Werewolf in London, John Landis' 1992 film Innocent Blood also mixes humor and horror to eerie effect, and soon horror fans will be able to experience it like never before when Warner Archive releases a remastered version of the vampire movie on Blu-ray.

Announced on Facebook by Warner Archive Collection, a new 2017 1080p HD remaster of Innocent Blood will be released sometime soon, including two minutes of footage that was never released in the Us.

An official release date has not been revealed, but we'll be sure to keep Daily Dead readers updated on further details. In the meantime, you can check out the synopsis, trailer, and cover art below. Will you be adding this one to your collection?

From Warner Archive Collection: "Innocent Blood (1992)

New 2017 1080p HD Remaster

Run Time 115:00 International Version (Unrated)

Subtitles English Sdh

DTS HD-Master Audio 2.0 Stereo - English

16 X 9 Widescreen,...

Re-Animator

Blu-ray

Arrow

1985 / 1:85 / Street Date August 8, 2017

Starring: Jeffrey Combs, Barbara Crampton

Cinematography: Mac Ahlberg

Film Editor: Lee Percy

Written by Stuart Gordon, Dennis Paoli, William Norris

Produced by Brian Yuzna

Music: Richard Band

Directed by Stuart Gordon

Released in 1985, Stuart Gordon’s Re-Animator remains the grandest of Grand Guignols, a viscerally entertaining comedy that is just grindhouse enough for fans of Blood Feast and arthouse enough for connoisseurs of Francis Bacon’s more grisly canvases.

Originally scripted for Chicago’s Organic Theater Company by Gordon and co-writers Dennis Paoli and William Norris, Re-Animator was based on H. P. Lovecraft’s short story, Herbert West – Re-Animator, first published in 1922. Set in the blandly generic college town of Arkham, Massachusetts, the action revolves in and around the classrooms of stately Miskatonic University’s medical school and the sterilized atmosphere of the academy’s dank morgue evoked so well by Mac Ahlberg’s lush cinematography.

*Updated with the new 35th anniversary Blu-ray cover art.* “Keep clear of the Moors,” because Universal Pictures Home Entertainment will be releasing An American Werewolf in London on a restored, 35th anniversary edition Blu-ray this fall.

Scheduled for a September 27th release, An American Werewolf in London 35th anniversary Blu-ray comes with new cover art (see below) and features a restored version of the film, giving viewers a better look at John Landis’ lycanthrope mayhem and Rick Baker’s incredible, Oscar-winning makeup effects.

So far, the list of special features for the anniversary Blu-ray are the same ones that were included on the 2009 Full Moon Edition Blu-ray, making the restoration the only new element, but we’ll keep Daily Dead readers updated on future announcements regarding this release. In the meantime, we have a list of the special features and a look at the new cover art below. Will the...

Takashi Miike is an acquired taste, as we all know. The man has directed 98 projects ranging from tv to feature films, making an average of 3 projects s a year. That is, in a word, insane. The word insane often follows Miike’s name when referring to his work, which more often than not banks very heavily on the bizarre and/or graphic. Some Miike films are less out there than others, and not many in the past 10 years have done anything for me because of that. Yakuza Apocalypse is a return to “form” if there is such a thing, a kitchen sink of yakuza, vampires, Kung-fu, and animal-human hybrids. Naturally it’s a mess.

Boss Kamiura is the most unstoppable mob boss alive…because he’s undead. Being a vampire and an underworld leader is a powerful mix, but it turns out not unstoppable. A vampire hunter and a badass...

Evil Dead director Sam Raimi is best known for his work behind the camera, but the truth is that he loves to act. Not in the Hitchcockian way, by cameos in his own films... he’s actually played roles great and small in tons of genre fare. Blink and you’ll miss him in the live action The Flintstones (in a crime scene re-enactment) and in John Landis’s Spies Like Us, where he plays alongside his pal Joel Coen as a guard: Sam & Joel Coen in "Spies Like Us" Sam has actually been friends with the Coen Brothers since Joel was an assistant editor on The Evil Dead, and at one point Sam, the Coen Brothers, and award-winning actresses Frances McDormand and Holly Hunter even shared living quarters. It’s no surprise then that Sam has been in two of the Coens' films: The Hudsucker Proxy and Miller’s Crossing.

As is creator Ryan Murphy's way, it is not confirmed that the recently booked actresses are going to be witches in the upcoming season of American Horror Story, but with a subtitle of Coven and a largely female cast, I'm playing the odds here.

First up is Angela Bassett, best known for her Academy Award-nominated portrayal of Tina Turner in What's Love Got to Do With It. Films that FEARnet readers are likely more familiar with include Critters 4, Innocent Blood, Boyz in the Hood, and Malcolm X.

 

 

 

 

Next is Patti LuPone. Best known for her work on Broadway (she won Tonys for roles in Evita and Gypsy and starred in Broadway productions of Sweeny Todd and Les Miserables, among others), LuPone has appeared in films (Summer of Sam and Heist to name a few) and had memorable guest roles on TV shows like 30 Rock. 

 

 

 

Finally, we have an...

It's no secret to anyone who knows me that I am a big fan of Scotland, and that I would move there in a heartbeat if we didn't have these dumb things called international borders. Edinburgh in particular is a breathtaking city that still has architectural remnants of the middle ages, with windy little cobbled streets, claustrophobic closes and even a castle atop the hill right in city centre.

It's also a city proud of its morbid history bodysnatchers Burke and Hare have a bar and a strip club named after them (not to mention a booklet made out of Burke's skin on display at the Royal College of Surgeons), a sprawling, noticably lumpy city park sits atop masses of graves left over from plague times, and the ghost-walk business is booming.

But as if this weren't enough to lure me to Auld Reekie every year, it's also home to...

It's no secret to anyone who knows me that I am a big fan of Scotland, and that I would move there in a heartbeat if we didn't have these dumb things called international borders. Edinburgh in particular is a breathtaking city that still has architectural remnants of the middle ages, with windy little cobbled streets, claustrophobic closes and even a castle atop the hill right in city centre.

It's also a city proud of its morbid history bodysnatchers Burke and Hare have a bar and a strip club named after them (not to mention a booklet made out of Burke's skin on display at the Royal College of Surgeons), a sprawling, noticably lumpy city park sits atop masses of graves left over from plague times, and the ghost-walk business is booming.

But as if this weren't enough to lure me to Auld Reekie every year, it's also home to...

What are these things? Find out inside!

For a couple of seasons, friend-of-the-site Elric Kane produced and directed a little weekly horror-themed internet chat show called “This Week In…Horror!” (You might remember a certain Tfh-themed episode featuring Our Fearless Leader.) That show went away, mutated, transmogrified and grew up a bit to become Inside Horror. Elric’s back producing and directing and, now, hosting (alongside genre press mistresses Staci Layne Wilson and Jenna Busch).

Their very first episode aired live and on the internet last night, featuring premier Tfh guru/legend John Landis. Ostensibly there to promote his really incredible book — have I mentioned this before? It’s really lovely — Monsters in the Movies, the topics wander and the conversation’s freewheeling, ranging from the scene in Innocent Blood that Tomas Alfredson ripped off in Let The Right One In to darkness of the ending of Weird Science and...

It makes sense that the enduring and magical "Harry Potter" franchise would rank high on our Entertainer of the Year list (last year the cast made No. 1!) The books and movies have been entertaining people for over a decade.

With the release of the first book, "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" in 1997, author Jk Rowling spurred the imagination of millions with her fantastical world of witches and wizards, centering on one boy who survives...

Whether you laugh or scream while watching his movies, John Landis loves an honest gut reaction. The 61-year-old director of National Lampoon's Animal House, The Blues Brothers, American Werewolf in London, Trading Places and Innocent Blood has happily walked the fine line between horror and comedy since his debut with the low-budget 1973 satire Schlock. One of Landis's most loved comedies is 1986's ¡Three Amigos!, which stars Martin Short, Chevy Chase and Steve Martin as three silent-film actors who mistakenly get bamboozled into fighting for a small Mexican village that is being oppressed by a gang of thugs. ¡Three Amigos! makes its Blu-ray debut on November 22 and includes deleted scenes, interviews and a booklet featuring dialogue from a recent reunion...

Read More...

To mark the release of his new book, Monsters In The Movies, we sat with John Landis to talk about horror and sci-fi cinema, and much more…

Look back over John Landis’ career as a director, and you’ll find not only some of the most successful comedies of all time, including Animal House, The Blues Brothers and Trading Places, but also some classic horror work, such as An American Werewolf In London, Michael Jackson’s Thriller video, and the underrated Innocent Blood.

Landis is well qualified, then, to compile a loving and lavishly illustrated guide to the creatures of genre cinema. Called Monsters In The Movies, and serves as an exhaustive compendium of aliens, zombies, atomic mutants and vampires.

With Landis in the UK to promote his book’s release, we jumped at the chance to talk to him about movie monsters, film making, and what he’s up to next.

In an interview yesterday, An American Werewolf In London and Blues Brothers director John Landis revealed his plans to shoot a new genre picture next year…

To mark the launch of his new book, Monsters In The Movies, we were lucky enough to catch up with the legendary film director John Landis for an interview about B-picture cinema, Hollywood, remakes and CG creatures.

We’ll be bringing you the full transcript of that conversation tomorrow, but in the meantime, we just had to share with you a brief bit of news that came up while we talked about his forthcoming movies.

First, there’s some sad tidings for anyone looking forward to what was thought to be Landis’ next film, The Rivals. Described as “a circus of lusty, bodice-ripping liaisons, dueling, rapiers at dawn, back street tavern brawls, deceit, double deceit and double double deceit”, it was based on a play by Richard Sheridan,...

Out this week on Blu-ray, the Brian De Palma’s gangster picture Scarface remains a classic. We find out what its cast and crew got up to in the years after its release...

Despite the iconic image of its star, Brian De Palma’s gangster epic Scarface has far more going for it than just Al Pacino’s megawatt performance as Cuban drug lord, Tony Montana.

Memorably scripted by Oliver Stone and boasting a fine yet often overlooked ensemble cast, Scarface is a big movie in every sense. But what happened to the key players, both in front of and behind the camera, once the fake gunfire faded and the theatrical blood was washed away? Join us as we find out.

Brian De Palma

A part of the New Hollywood generation of directors, De Palma had already scored several critical and commercial hits, including Carrie, Phantom Of The Paradise, Dressed To Kill and Blow Out,...

Before this weekend, Kevin Smith was always known as a comedy guy. "Clerks," "Chasing Amy," "Zack and Miri Make a Porno," plus his Smodcast podcast and Q&A-slash-stand-up films like "An Evening With Kevin Smith." He stretched himself a little into drama, animation, and acting, but until his new film "Red State" -- available now on VOD -- the scariest thing Kevin Smith had ever directed was "Jersey Girl" (I kid).

The transition from comedy to horror is rarely an easy one for directors. Few guys as entrenched in the comedy genre as Smith have ever tried to break out of it, and even fewer have made their break successfully. Here are five interesting -- and very different -- examples of horror movies made by guys we'd typically classify as comedy directors. We'll get to see soon enough how Smith's big move compares with theirs.

"Misery" (1990)

Directed by Rob Reiner...

An American Werewolf in London and Innocent Blood are creature features with a lot of bite and sharp wit, and it should come as no surprise that director John Landis is responsible for both. He is releasing a new tome entitled Monsters in the Movies, and if you are fortunate enough to live in Los Angeles, you can purchase a copy from Dark Delicacies in Burbank and he will be there in-person to give you his John Hancock. The signing will take place on October 6, 2011 at 7 p.m.

From B-movie bogeymen and outer space oddities to big-budget terrors, Monsters in the Movies by legendary filmmaker John Landis showcases the greatest monsters ever to creep, fly, slither, stalk, or rampage across the Silver Screen!

Landis provides his own fascinating and entertaining insights into the world of moviemaking, while conducting in-depth “conversations” with leading monster makers, including David Cronenberg, Christopher Lee, John Carpenter,...

There are some horror directors out there who ignore fans, some that mistake fans affections for stalking (Eli Roth why have you still not returned my phone calls?), and some who never seem to forget that fans should always be thanked. John Landis in my opinion is in the last category and I'll tell you why.

One lonely afternoon at my job, I wrote (well fine I typed) a letter to John Landis. I had decided enough was enough--where the fuck had he gone? Why was he not making any horror movies? Could he please make another horror movie before I gouge my eyes out with despair? I wrote this in a less caustic way of course and yadda yadda yadda, I mailed it in and sat lonely and heartbroken by my mailbox for months and months.

What had I thought would happen? Someone as big and important as John Landis...

John Landis hasn’t directed a horror film since 1992’s vampire flick Innocent Blood, but the filmmaker recently told website Bloody-Disgusting that he’s ready to return to his genre roots. Read on for the full details. Landis, who’s doing publicity for his upcoming black comedy Burke & Hare (which hits theaters on September 9th) tells the horror site that he’s currently hard at work on a new (and previously unannounced) monster movie with Alexandre Garvas. The director wouldn’t reveal any specifics about the project, but here’s what he had to say. When asked if he’d ever return to the horror genre, Landis says “You know what? Actually, I'm writing one with Alexandre Gavras and we're shooting it within the next...

Read More...

John Landis hasn’t directed a horror film since 1992’s vampire flick Innocent Blood, but the filmmaker recently told website Bloody-Disgusting that he’s ready to return to his genre roots. Read on for the full details. Landis, who’s doing publicity for his upcoming black comedy Burke & Hare (which hits theaters on September 9th) tells the horror site that he’s currently hard at work on a new (and previously unannounced) monster movie with Alexandre Garvas. The director wouldn’t reveal any specifics about the project, but here’s what he had to say. When asked if he’d ever return to the horror genre, Landis says “You know what? Actually, I'm writing one with Alexandre Gavras and we're shooting it within the next...

Read More...

Director, John Landis doesn't commit himself to one specific genre, but on occasion, he delves into horror. More recently on the horror front, he has directed an episode of 'Fear Itself' titled 'In Sickness and in Health;' and two episodes of 'Masters of Horror' titled 'Family' and 'Deer Woman.' His older horror films include 'Innocent Blood,' a segment in 'Twilight Zone: The Movie,' and 'An American Werewolf in London.' The director recently spoke with Bloody Disgusting, who asked him if he had anything going on horror-wise. He told them: "You know what? Actually, I'm writing one with Alexandre Gavras and we're shooting it within the next two years in Paris. Yeah, a little monster movie. It has no title [yet]...You're the first people to know about it." He wouldn't get too detailed otherwise, but he did say:  "It's interesting...my...

“Trash or Treasure” is a recurring feature at Gordon and the Whale in which I return to a film that holds a special place in my heart (for a multitude of possible reasons) - and see if it is still deserving of that place. Have I been holding on to a piece of trash, or are my beloved films still bonafide treasure?

Read more on Trash or Treasure: Innocent Blood...

Paul Merton's Birth Of Hollywood, Human Target, Lead Balloon and lots of Doctor Who in our look ahead at the UK TV week...

The holiday weekend telly schedule starts tonight, Friday, May 27th, with Paul Merton's Birth Of Hollywood at 9:30pm on BBC2. In the first of three episodes in a new series, the comedian looks at the early silent comedies of Charlie Chaplin and the pre-Police Academy Keystone Cops, and also reveals the first 'cliffhangers', for those not familiar with the serialised start of much of the earliest motion picture entertainment, with an unflinching look at the career of Dw Griffith, all in celebration of Hollywood's hundredth anniversary.

Human Target enjoys a season 2 double-bill tonight, Friday, May 27th at 8:00pm on Syfy. The first episode, Ilsa Pucci, is followed by The Wife's Tale at 9:00pm, in the first two of thirteen last ever episodes.

Fresh off back-to-back lead roles in The Asylum's ghost flick A Haunting In Salem and Drew Daywalt's 18th-century horror film Naked, actor Bill Oberst Jr. has been cast as a demon in the upcoming feature film The Last Supper opposite Oscar-nominated veteran actor Robert Loggia. 

The film relates the Biblical story of the Last Supper as told through the eyes of the Apostles. Gabriel Sabloff directs from a script by Tommy Blaze. The film shoots this month in Los Angeles. The Last Supper is produced by David A.R. White for Pure Flix Entertainment, whose founders include singer and actor Randy Travis. Robert Loggia plays the Apostle Peter, who narrates the film. Oberst was tapped by casting director Billy DaMota, Csa to embody the role of the ageless demon who appears to Peter in one-on-one scenes with Loggia.

Loggia, who famously danced with Tom Hanks in Big and was nominated...

They’ve had their successes, and they clearly have talent. Yet all hasn't been going to plan. Luke looks at 10 directors in need of a critical and financial hit…

You know how it is. You’re latest feature goes down well with critics and audiences alike, and before you know it, the scripts are flying through your door.

Your last film went down well, too, and thanks to this momentum, men in suits are asking you to make films now, whereas previously all your work had been attained via a complex and degrading system of begging, selling your principles and lying in the foetal position outside film studios, weeping and yammering in desperate gibberish, until a passing producer took pity and on you and gave you a lowly job as second assistant director on a small film of questionable promise or merit.

So, you’ve finally made it, eh? Fantastic.

True Blood! Spiral! Channel 4's new comedy, Campus! And lots and lots of movies on UK TV in the coming days...!

The third season of vampires, werewolves and shapeshifters in the Deep South comes to a finish with Evil Is Going On, the finale of this season of True Blood, tonight, Friday, April 1st at 10:00pm on FX. Friends and foes part company, some solemnly, some violently and some are left standing in the dust as the pickup drives away. But it does leave a lot to wonder about until season 4 arrives, as fairies join the citizens and denizens of Bon Temp. You can leave your thoughts on the season's close here, see a few season 4 trailers here , and we'll bring you news of the show's return to the UK when we learn of it.

On Saturday, April 2nd at 9:00pm, the French police series, Spiral, begins a third series,...

It is that time of year again when Dread Central pays its respects to those who have worked in our beloved genre and made it to the red carpet on Oscar night 2011. The genre was in rare form when it came to the nominations. Darren Aronofsky's Black Swan was up for the gold in multiple categories (best picture, best actress, cinematography, and direction); even The Wolfman was on the short-list for best make-up. And win we did.

But let’s not get ahead of ourselves because therein lie the gems of VHS past for a large share of both the winners and folks who were nominated. Highlights include a win for Melissa Leo (nominated two years ago for Frozen River), whom we remember best as Judith 'MaMa' Baer in Deadtime Stories. And who could forget Christian Bale as Patrick Bateman in American Psycho? My fellow fright fiends, he brought home the gold last night.

In Their Sleep is an intriguing psycho-thriller bordering on the horror genre. Starring Anne Parillaud (La Femme Nikita, Innocent Blood) this short, sharp drama is directed by brother and sister team Caroline and Eric Du Potet.

Living in the idyllic French countryside and renovating a house with her husband (a rather knowing cameo from Jean-Hugues Anglade) turns to tragedy when Sarah’s teenage son kills himself. Traumatised and separated from her husband Sarah is travelling home late one night from her nursing job at the local hospital when new events take a terrifying turn.

In the dead of night, driving on an isolated road, she almost runs down a young teenager who claims he’s been attacked by a burglar. Given the age of the boy, her maternal instincts kick in and she helps him out. Big mistake.

Is the burglar really a burglar or a psycho killer? Is Arthur all he seems?...

Qi comes to an end, True Blood season three arrives in the UK, Hugh Dennis launches Fast And Loose, and we've got lots and lots of movies coming up on UK TV too!

We start our viewing week by saying goodbye to the current series of Qi, the Stephen Fry-hosted panel show that forever ruined sunsets for me and millions by revealing in a recent episode that the gorgeous glowing orb we see on the horizon isn't really there. It's already gone, leaving behind a mere optical illusion to trick us all and make us feel stupid when we learn the truth. I'd rather know than be fooled for a lifetime, but it still smarts. The ninth series concludes tonight, Friday, January 14th at 8:30pm on BBC1, or catch the Xl version, with extra bits, on BBC2 at 10:30pm on Saturday January 15th.

Following on Qi's heels is The Tick,...

Congrats to the "Harry Potter" cast for making the top spot in "Extra's" Entertainer of the Year poll!

It makes sense that this enduring, magical franchise would rank the highest, since the books and movies have been entertaining people for over a decade. With the release of the first book, "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" in 1997, author Jk Rowling spurred the imagination of millions with her fantastical world of witches and wizards, centering on...

As "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part I" appears in theaters this Friday, Harry Potter-ites begin their own journey to the end.

To commemorate the last decade with Harry, Hermione, Ron and all the characters, "Extra" has collected some of the best quotes from the last six films.

The Best 'Harry Potter' Quotes'Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone'

Hagrid (Robbie Coltrane): "You're a wizard, Harry." Harry (Daniel Radcliffe): "I'm a what?...

Jimmy Carr, Raising Hope, and a whole host of movies are coming up on UK TV in the next week to keep you busy...

Well, it was a good couple of weeks prior, with a bountiful amount of new shows and finales. Now we've hit a cold spell, but worry not as two new shows are braving the frost to keep us toasty with auto-generated warmth via laughter.

First, Jimmy Carr performs for us in our very own front rooms in a taped tour from London earlier this year. He's never let us down before and there's always more to come, as we learned in our interview here. This private living room gig takes place on Tuesday, November 16th on Channel 4 at 10:00pm. Heckle all you like. He won't mind a bit. And you may be chuckling enough to lose the Snuggie.

The straggler of the week is...

A couple of weeks ago, we featured a seriously random list here -- Demonstrating the Importance of Directors by Highlighting the Failures of Screenwriters -- that was inspired by Peter Hanson's documentary, Tales from the Script, a thought-provoking doc that examines, through interviews with screenwriters, the scriptwriting process and how a screenplay morphs on its way to the big screen. What we came away with was the perception that even the most successful screenwriter often has no control over the finished product.

Writer/Director Peter Hanson was nice enough to submit to an email interview with us and eloquently discuss his documentary, his thoughts on the screenwriting process, and the role -- ultimately -- of the screenwriter in the development of the film.

To get the ball rolling, can you provide some information on your background, what you do, and what makes you an expert in the art of screenwriting?...

I never heard of Erica Cox until someone sent me a link to her sex scene from the vampire flick Bitten. The clip reminded me of 1992's Innocent Blood for some reason. Fangoria gave the movie a luke warm review, but from the video I saw, it may be worth a look for the nudity alone. The movie is directed by Harvey Glazer, stars Jason Mewes and is currently available on DVD.

It’s that time of year again, kids. Dread Central’s 2010 Horror at the Oscars coverage. Horror was indeed present this year and in black-tie. While Roger Corman and Lauren Bacall were honored a few months back at the Governor’s Award Ceremony, it was an unexpected delight to see Corman, recipient of the lifetime achievement Oscar, enjoy a standing ovation on national television.

I was, however, very disappointed that neither of them were allowed to speak. Roger Corman’s contributions to modern cinema are too vast for him to just stand up and wave. James Cameron was one of many Corman acolytes present, and his nomination speaks to Corman’s tremendous legacy. On the Terminator DVD Cameron mentions, "I trained at the Roger Corman Film School.” Jonathan Demme, Martin Scorsese, and Francis Ford Coppola, among many others, were also former students.

The terror continued with a spoof of Paranormal Activity...