2 part French crime thriller MESRINE finally coming to the US

It looks like the two Jean-Francois Richet's two part crime thriller Mesrine films may finally be getting released in the US this April, courtesy of a small distributor called New American Vision. The two films, starring Vincent Cassell as Jacques Mesrine, a famous French criminal in the 60's and 70's, were originally set to be released last year by Senator films, but Senator went out of business and had to sell off the films in it's catalog. The two films, Mesrine: Killer Instinct and Mesrine: Public Enemy Number One were picked up by NAV and are currently scheduled to be released on April 16th, under the name Public Enemy Number One with the subtitle A Film In Two Parts. The April 16th date is apparently "not 100% locked in" yet, but if the date changes, you can be sure we'll let you know about it.

This is great news. Mesrine garnered a whopping ten nominations at last year's Cesar Awards (France's equivalent to the Oscars) and went on to win awards for Best Director, Best Actor (Vincent Cassel) and Best Sound. We can't wait to see it on the big screen ourselves.

 

Read the 24FPS UK Blu-Ray review

Official US release website

Check out the trailer

Via The Playlist

The Cottage director moves to CHERRY TREE LANE

Familiar to some as director of British horror comedy ‘The Cottage’ and the writer behind Tom Shankland’s effective little scare fest ‘The Children,’ Paul Andrew Williams is back in the big chair for his latest horror thriller, Cherry Tree Lane. Now well into post production we’ve just scared up a teaser poster and some stills from the film, that Williams describes as “tense, harrowing and even disturbing at times.” Sounds very promising. Stills at the link.

Synopsis: Christine and Mike are your average parents. They live in an ordinary house on a regular street with their teenage son Sebastian. It's early evening and like many working parents there's still dinner to prepare, a phone call to be made and a bottle of wine to be opened. They settle in and unwind from the hustle and bustle of everyday life. Then there's a knock at the front door. The door is answered by Christine, who reappears with a knife at her throat, and a gang of teenagers at her back. Sebastian has grassed one of them up and they are here to exact the worst revenge imaginable to a parent. They settle in to wait for Sebastian to come home.

 

Cherry Tree stills

The Cottage trailer

The Children trailer

PANDORUM: R2 DVD review

Director: Christian Alvart. Review: Adam Wing.

The last twelve months have been pretty kind to science fiction cinema. District 9 and Moon proved that there’s plenty of space left for intelligent, thought provoking drama alongside the action spectacles of warp factor 2009. There’s a good chance you missed sci-fi horror Pandorum on its theatre run though, to say it bombed would be like saying Mr. Spock’s ears are kind of pointy. Two astronauts (Dennis Quaid and Ben Foster) awaken from hyper-sleep aboard a seemingly abandoned spacecraft. Its pitch black and they’re disoriented, worse still; they can't remember a thing about their previous existence. Cpl. Bower (Ben Foster) ventures deep into the ship and uncovers a terrifying reality, anyone familiar with films like Event Horizon will know what to expect. Slowly the spacecraft's shocking, deadly secrets are revealed, the ones that you can see that is.

Pandorum is a new film from director Christian Alvart, more disturbingly perhaps; Pandorum is a new film from producer Paul W.S. Anderson. Though to be fair, I actually quite liked Event Horizon and Death Race was a lot more fun than I’d anticipated. Perhaps it’s time to give Pandorum a chance on DVD, then again; perhaps I should stop listening to the voices in my head. Your enjoyment of Pandorum can be assessed by answering the following question, don’t worry; it’s not going to turn into a test or anything. Do you like your horror tinged with sci-fi, or your sci-fi masked by horror? There are aspects of Pandorum that work really well, and as you may have attained, there are key elements that fall flat on their collective arses. I’ll give you a clue, Paul W.S. Anderson was the producer… yup, I think we’re on the same page...Continue reading review here. 

Pandorum trailers

DESCENT 2 heading straight to DVD in the US

Perhaps not the biggest of surprises considering it’s less than stellar performance in UK - that’s what happens when you release a horror movie in December, with minimal advertising - cinemas, The Descent 2, Jon Harris’s sequel to the 2005 hit British horror is to be dumped straight to DVD in the U.S by Lionsgate Films. Even on DVD, it should do good business in the States, where a second film actually makes narrative sense. The UK ending of the movie made a sequel movie nigh on impossible to pull off logically, and even horror fans can only push their ability to suspend disbelief so far. The Descent 2 goes on sale in the U.S on April 27th and the UK April 12th.

Synopsis: Dazed, bloodied and speechless with trauma, Sarah Carter emerges alone from the Appalachian cave system where the events of The Descent took place. Local Sheriff Redmond Vaines forces her back underground to help the rescue team which is desperately searching for her five missing girlfriends. As the team move deeper into the caves, Sarah’s flashes of fractured memory intensify and she begins to realise the full horror of the would-be rescue mission. Only Sarah knows the terror which lurks in the shadows of the caves. But they are about to encounter a new tribe of Crawlers, inbred, deformed and even more viciously feral than those Sarah faced before.

Descent 2 official site

HARD REVENGE MILLY: DVD Review (Part 2)

Director: Takanori Tsujimoto. Review Tim Irwin.

Milly is back, in a slightly longer story than her previous outing, Hard Revenge Milly: Bloody Battle is about twice as long as the first movie and still a wonderfully short feature, clocking in at just over 70 minutes. The perfect length to tell a quick story, provide some action, and not dawdle on the way. This second instalment takes the opportunity to expound on the subjects and characters in the first movie. There is a short recap at the beginning, for those who may not have seen Hard Revenge Milly. It isn't necessary to have seen the first to enjoy the second, but some of the plot points will be more easily understood. This time around, more is learned about Milly and her strange cybernetic body as she attempts to protect herself from another roving band of killers...Continue reading review here.

 

 

Bloody Battle trailer

Lawrence Gough’s UK horror SALVAGE finally released

Director Lawrence Gough’s stunning debut film Salvage is to finally get a UK theatrical release next month. A big hit at both the London FrightFest and the Edinburgh film festivals last year, this small budget gem packs punches well above its class. Intelligent horror, with plenty of scares. Oh go on, we’ll force ourselves. Salvage hits British cinemas March 19th and then DVD a week later on March 22nd. Good news for you region free ready folk, outside the UK, eager to see it. No official trailer for the film as yet, but you can take a gander at the original red band promo, used for the Edinburgh film fest.

Synopsis: Christmas Eve. When a ship container washes ashore nearby to a sleepy cul-de-sac, the residents are plunged into a world of violence, terror and paranoia. A group of heavily armed military personnel storm their road ordering them at gunpoint to retreat inside their homes. Unsure if this is the sign of a terrorist attack, or something much worse, one local mother finds it in herself to desperately fight to save her estranged daughter stranded across the street. However, with growing dread, the residents soon discover that the threat is more monstrous than any of them could possibly imagine, and survival is no longer a guarantee...

Salvage trailer (Not work safe)

Pre-order the DVD here

Full bloody trailer for Aussie horror PRIMAL

No doubt in readiness for its screening at the European Film Market in Berlin this week, the full trailer for Aussie survival (with more a hint of creature feature thrown in) horror Primal has arrived. Chock full of gore and bloody action, first time director Josh Reed has done a really bang on job at filling the movie with what the gore hounds love….by the bucket load. Here's hoping we'll hear good news on its sale outside Oz, soon.

Synopsis: Anja and four friends join anthropology student, Dace, on a journey to study a remote, ancient rock painting. Their excitement vanishes when Mel becomes delirious after skinny-dipping in the waterhole. Feverish, bleeding, confused, she physically and mentally regresses to a vicious predatory state. Mel has gone primal. Mel's lover and friends realize they are the prey as she savagely hunts them down. Before they can escape another one of them starts to regress, posing a hideous choice; kill their friends or be killed by them. Their only hope of survival is through a cave, where Anja learns too late the meaning of the ancient rock art they came to study.

 

Primal trailer

Via DigitalR

Brit gangland flick SHANK gets a trailer

Whilst we aren't really digging the poster - which seems more Goonies than gangland - all that much, the newly launched trailer on the official site for Mo Ali’s future set gangland flick Shank, is an altogether better looking proposition. If you want some background on the film you can find it here and here. Or head on over to the website to see some gritty gang wars, Brit style.

Plotline: In a London of the future, the gap between rich and poor has grown to epic proportions and food has replaced drugs and guns as a priceless commodity. Junior (Kedar Williams- Sterling) and his gang the Paper Chaserz trade in ‘munchies’ but stay away from the territory disputes and the violence. A tip off about a food delivery leads to a conflict with a rival gang and the death of one of their own. Now Junior has to decide whether to stay true to his principles or whether to drag them all into a quest for revenge that could get them killed.

Shank official site 

Via QE

Korea goes vigilante in THE OUTLAW

The serial killer thriller seems a genre very much in vogue at the moment with both Korean movie makers and the local cinema going public alike. But the latest of the line, The Outlaw - directed by first timer Kim Cheol-han - takes the usual cat and mouse detective formula and stands it on its head. Actor Kam Woo-Seong (‘R-Point,’ ‘Big Bang’) takes the title role as our vigilante anti hero detective Jeong, a homicide detective searching for a particularly vicious women killer. The twist….One day he has had enough of seeing young women die, and decides “to hell with this legal by the book BS, I’m just going to hunt the evil bastard down & kill him.” Dirty Harry, Korean style? Sure does sound that way so far. Outlaw opens in Korean March 18th. Trailer at the link.

 

The Outlaw teaser trail

New teaser trailer and poster for 9: SECRET SUNDAY

New poster and teaser trailer time for Thai horror 9: Secret Sunday. It all starts quite well, production values appear pretty high, it looks well shot, but then the last 30 seconds hit and it all seems to go more than a little “B” horror on you? Hmmm. We’ll try and keep an open mind, until we get to see a full trailer. Check it out on the films official site.

Synopsis: No one can remember what they have done in a past life, but the one we hurt will never forgive….. At his mother’s insistence, Nat, a young architect unwillingly takes a journey to 9 different temples in order to cleanse his bad Karma. He is accompanied by Poon, his beauty columnist girlfriend and Sujitto, a young monk who is responsible for the chant to purify bad Karma. All three have different reasons for taking the trip, but later on they discover they have been thrown together for unforeseeable reasons. A karma committed by one person can relate to that of others. Horrifying acts done in their previous lives reveal themselves as the journey goes by. The more they try to cleanse Nat’s Karma by making merit, the closer they get to “THEM.”

 

9 official site

US release of Jeunet’s MICMACS set for May

No idea why Sony Pictures Classic wants to wait so long, but it looks like Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s bizarre and probably amazing Micmacs is going to be hitting US theaters in May of 2010. 3 months after our brothers across the Atlantic get it. Tsk. Guess we'll have to watch Jeunet's previous movies Amelie, Delicatessen, A Very Long Engagement and The City Of Lost Children again for the bazillionth time while we wait.

May 28th is the currently scheduled date of release in the Los Angeles area, but it could still be moved around. No word yet on how wide (or narrow) the release will be. Stay tuned.

Official UK website

Watch the trailer

A handful of Criterion titles going out of print soon

Get 'em while you can! Today, the Criterion Collection announced that a number of their titles will soon be going the way of the dodo. Sort of. At the end of March 2010, the rights to over 20 titles in Criterion's catalog will lapse and will end up, presumably, in Lionsgate's hands. Titles on the list include Jean Renoir's Grand Illusion (spine #1!!!), Marcel Carné's Port Of Shadows and Michael Powell's Peeping Tom. You can check out the full list here.

It's expected that Lionsgate will be releasing most, if not all, of these at some point in their own editions as part of their StudioCanal Collection starting up this month with Blu-Ray releases of Kurosawa's Ran (as previously reported here), the original The Lady Killers and Godard's Contempt. Reviews of the European versions of those discs have been mixed and it's rare that anyone tops Criterion's special features, so if you're interested in owning these DVDs, now's the time to get them.

Eden Lake director takes on THE WOMAN IN BLACK

Cue the classic Brit horror fanboy backlash. ‘Variety’ has reported that UK production house Exclusive Media has announced it has just bought the film remake rights to Susan Hill's bestselling Gothic chiller The Woman in Black. Originally filmed for television by Herbert Wise in the late 80s, local helmer James Watkins - who directed the very acceptable 2008 horror ‘Eden Lake’ - is set to direct the reboot, from a new version of the screenplay written by Jane Goldman ('Stardust').

The story of The Woman in Black revolves around a young lawyer is sent by his firm to settle the estate of a recently deceased widow. The lawyer finds the townspeople reluctant to talk about or go near the woman's dreary home and no one will explain or even acknowledge the menacing woman in black he keeps seeing. Ignoring the towns-people's cryptic warnings, he goes to the house where he discovers its horrible history and becomes ensnared in its even more horrible legacy.

We loved Wise’s screen version, and Watkins will have his work cut out to even come close to matching the desolate, eerie and down right creepy feel of the original. If you’d like to check it out before the remake arrives, you will have a job. Despite its cult status, the only way we ever got to see it was on a very grainy VHS. Never released on DVD in the UK, the film had a short run on R1 DVD in the U.S and was then de-listed. Original discs of the film now change hands for about $200 a pop...Ouch.

More on the remake, as we get it.

The Woman in Black IMBD page

 

The horrific price of beauty. Korean horror YOGA on DVD

We’ll grant you it might not sound the most likely of premise to produce some good scares, but ‘Whispering Stairs’ director Yoon Jae Yeon’s latest horror Yoga School showed real promise on its release last year, and now you can own it on DVD. Exploring the dark side of the fanatical pursuit of beauty, Yoon assembled a bevy of Korean popular actresses as his stars, including Eugene, ‘Wishing Stairs' star Park Han Byul, ‘Forever the Moments’ Jo Eun Ji, and ‘Memento Moris’ Lee Yeong Jin. Babes in peril, trapped in a creepy house run by a mysterious, enigmatic and more than likely deranged nutcase. Ohhhh I think so. Yoga goes on sale Feb 23rd.

Synopsis: The Yoga School was the answer to their dreams. A perfectionist career woman who had been successful until she was outshined by a younger co-worker, a former popular actress who faded into obscurity, a girl battling weight issues, and a woman beset by numerous personal misfortunes including a divorce and a failed plastic surgery procedure. All of them have something in common: a belief that beauty will help them overcome the difficulties they face. They all are told to abide by several rules when they sign up for the yoga class. Cutting themselves off from the outside world for seven days of rigorous training, a period in which they are not allowed to see themselves in a mirror or eat without permission. But soon they discover that the quest for beauty, has a terrible price.

Yoga official site

Pre-order your copy here

Now that has gotta hurt! The ONG BAK 3 teaser has arrived

We said it was coming and lo it has arrived. Tonys back with a first teaser trailer for Ong Bak 3, featuring more nose bone crunching action, than you can shake a bloodied stick at. Check out the action over at - purveyor of all fine things Thai - WiseQwai's film blog here.

 

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