Billy Burke, best known for his appearance in the “Twilight” series of movies, is set to play the lead in upcoming horror thriller “Outbreak.”

The zombie genre film, directed by Jeff Wolfe who co-wrote the screenplay with Lance Ochsner, has now been acquired by Premiere Entertainment Group (PEG), a Los Angeles-based production, financing, and sales company, which picked up international rights.

“Outbreak” follows a state park ranger (Burke) in search of his missing teenage son who is confronted with zombie-like people carrying an infectious disease following a virus outbreak. Alyshia Ochse, Taylor Handley, Raoul Max Trujillo, Jessica Frances Dukes, Dani Oliveros, and Kylr Coffman round out the key cast.

cross-posted from: https://feddit.uk/post/19488160

Fans of Peter Cushing are in for a Halloween treat, with the iconic Frankenstein star the latest to be resurrected by AI.

In Hammer: Heroes, Legends and Monsters, a Sky doc airing in two days’ time, viewers will be treated to a “powerful and poignant reveal of Hammer royalty,” Sky said, with what is being described as a “special homage” to Cushing.

Cushing, who died in 1994, played Doctor Van Helsing in five Dracula films and Baron Frankenstein in six movies from that franchise. He will be the latest celebrity given the AI resurrection treatment.

...

Narrated by Charles Dance, the doc is celebrating Hammer Films‘ 90th birthday and will track its progression from a back office in London’s Regent Street to its iconic status within the horror film genre. We first revealed news of the doc in August.

...

This isn’t the first time Cushing has been resurrected. His likeness was revived as Grand Moff Tarkin for 2016’s Rogue One: A Star Wars Story and a high court legal battle over the use of the image was recently ruled by a judge to go to trial.

Ben Field, who runs Deep Fusion, said the Hammer doc resurrection has secured all necessary permissions. The decision to resurrect Cushing is “tied to his significance to the Hammer legacy,” he added. “As a figure central to Hammer’s success, Cushing’s presence is crucial to telling the story authentically,” he added. “His work, particularly alongside Christopher Lee, was instrumental in shaping the brand and legacy of Hammer Films. Including him allows the project to honor the spirit and impact he had on the studio and its fans, creating a connection between the past and this new exploration.”

The use of deepfake technology has been approached with “great care,” Field added. “The team’s intent is not to manipulate or sensationalize but to use technology as a tool to bring audiences closer to the history of Hammer Films in an engaging and reverent manner.”

Hammer: Heroes, Legends and Monsters will follow other influential figures from the horror genre such as Lee. Tim Burton, John Carpenter, Joe Dante and John Logan will also feature. Through a series of fateful turns, the film will reveal how Hammer’s distinct visual style and storytelling continue to shape modern horror and inspire filmmakers around the world.

Milla Jovovich (Resident Evil) and Betty Gabriel (Get Out) have been set to star in Twilight of the Dead, the next feature from The Call and The Machinist director Brad Anderson.

The George A. Romero estate is teaming up with L.A.-based financier-producer Roundtable on the “seventh and final installment” of the seminal Living Dead franchise. Horror icon Romero had written a treatment for the movie before he died in 2017 and he regarded Twilight of the Dead as the conclusion to his epic saga, which comprised six movies and various spinoffs and remakes.

Fortitude International will present the project at next week’s American Film Market, with production being lined up for March.

Set on a tropical island, we’re told Twilight of the Dead will “delve into the dark nature of humanity from the perspective of the last humans on Earth who are caught between factions of the undead.”

...

Respected veteran makeup effects designer Greg Nicotero and his KNB EFX Group will create and lead the makeup effects. Nicotero began his career with Romero’s 1985 sequel Day of the Dead and was a frequent collaborator with the filmmaker. He also is known for working on the Walking Dead series.

...

Director Anderson explained: “I see this film in the same way as successful post-apocalyptic thrillers such as I Am Legend, A Quiet Place, The Road and The Last of Us — genre stories that are as emotional as they are intense. When I first read Twilight of The Dead, I teared up at the end. Which is weird for a film of this type. But it has that kind of pull, that combo of horror and heartbreak that I love.”

...

The team behind the project previously told us they haven’t closed the door on the possibility of additional movies in a new franchise, should this one go well.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/21510655

Finally, at long last, there’s a way to smell like Dracula.

That’s thanks to a new perfume inspired by the upcoming Robert Eggers film “Nosferatu,” a remake of the gothic tale about a terrifying vampire who stalks a haunted young woman. Heretic Parfum founder Douglas Little concocted the custom scent, also called Nosferatu, through a scientific process that involved viewing the film, historical research and “time period understanding,” according to a press release.

The result is one that answers the age-old question that’s long haunted historians: What does a vampire smell like?

Described as “cold, pale and pellucid” and evoking “the uneasy chill of encountering an apparition,” the fragrance aims to conjure the aroma of the dark, possibly smelly, spaces inhabited by Count Orlok himself. Dubbed “Eau de macabre,” the perfume captures the odor of the eternal being with “top notes of lilac and ambrette seed that fall into a heart chord of violet, orris root and petrichor. The mysterious dry-down is woven around vegan ambergris and Oud absolute.” Obviously, garlic was a big no-no on the ingredients list.

Nosferatu, the perfume, is engraved with Count Orlok’s sigil and cost $125 for a 30ml bottle.

I had been a huge fan of the Hell House LLC series since I stumbled across the first instalment on Shudder during a lazy weekend a few years ago. I often question whether I should cancel my subscription to the streaming platform that’s dedicated to horror and save a few pounds each month, but then there’s always one film that draws me back in.

The first Hell House LLC, released in 2015, was that rare gem and my only regret is that I didn’t discover it sooner.

It had everything I love watching in horror: A group of friends who make silly yet entertaining decisions; a seriously creepy venue like a haunted house; or, in this case, an abandoned hotel and clowns.

I actually have a genuine fear of clowns so the fact that I love films like Hell House and Terrifier will always be a mystery to me.

When I realised Hell House LLC was also found footage, I could not grab my snacks and press play fast enough. And just like that, I was gripped...

Kyle Edward Ball, the writer and director behind 2023’s micro-budget horror hit “Skinamarink,” has teamed up with A24 for his next film, “The Land of Nod.”

Plot details are being kept under wraps, but Ball will write and direct the project, which will be released globally by A24.

...

Speaking to Variety in 2022, Ball teased two ideas for future projects: One is a take on the Pied Piper legend, the other about three strangers who all see the same house in a dream. It’s unclear whether either of those ideas evolved into “The Land of Nod.”

...

“The Land of Nod” joins A24’s slate of upcoming horror movies, including the Hugh Grant-starring “Heretic” and the comedy-horror “Y2K,” directed by Kyle Mooney. Variety also broke news of the studio’s upcoming horror film “Altar,” starring January Jones, Kyle MacLachlan, David Krumholtz, Lily Collias and Hudson Behling.

Some of the best folk horror movies of all time base their scares on the slow-burn creepiness of the rural setting. Others are terrifying movies about cults. David Bruckner's 2017 horror film "The Ritual" dabbles in both, and adds in a haunted house aspect with a strange settlement in the middle of a Swedish forest. Then, it becomes something else altogether.

As a group of hikers finds out to their detriment, all the folk horror elements in the movie come courtesy of a single entity: A supernatural beast known as Moder, which is both terrifying to behold and so utterly powerful that it might be able to go toe to toe with just about any other horror movie monster out there. Let's find out more about Moder, the animalistic horror movie god lurking at the center of "The Ritual"...

How do you like your horror? Elevated arthouse or sleazy splatter? Comfortably cliched or disturbingly groundbreaking? Disgustingly gruesome or so subtle you can’t work out why you’re uneasy? Do you limit your consumption of horror films to Halloween but steer clear the rest of the year? Or are you a horror fiend who just can’t get enough of it, whatever the season?

The good news is that the horror genre has been going strong for more than a century, so you’ll never run out of films to scare you. From early silents Le Manoir du diable (1896) and The Cabinet of Dr Caligari (1920) to this year’s genuinely gruesome slasher hit Terrifier 3 – which recently knocked Joker: Folie à Deux off the top of the US box office – there has never been any shortage of audiences lining up to be chilled, unsettled or downright freaked out. Just look at this year’s robust box office on Abigail, Immaculate and Longlegs, as well as artier offerings such as The Substance. The future of cinema, it seems, is horror. And not just in terms of profit, but in visual imagination, envelope-pushing and audience enjoyment.

Every genre fan knows Dracula and Frankenstein, King Kong, The Exorcist, Carrie, An American Werewolf in London, The Silence of the Lambs and so on. But behind every gamechanger, there are antecedents and influences, both direct and indirect. And however beloved the canon, there are always less familiar treasures to be unearthed. So here I have traced the evolution of the horror genre in 10 films. For the most part I have avoided the big beasts and instead highlighted some less familiar, but no less significant efforts in the long history of the genre.

If the most recent title in this selection is from 2001, it doesn’t mean 21st-century horror is in decline. On the contrary, the genre is thriving, with film-makers such as Jordan Peele exploring new avenues, more female directors adding their voices to the mix, and subgenres overlapping in surprising new ways. It takes time for trends to coalesce; it wasn’t until 30 years after its release that The Wicker Man (1973), and films with related themes, were given the label “folk horror”. But of one thing you can be sure: the genre is a constantly evolving beast, and horror films will continue to shock, delight and terrify us for many years to come...

• Monsters: Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror (1922)
• Mad science: Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1931)
• Satanism: The Seventh Victim (1943)
• Dreams and hallucinations: Dead of Night (1945)
• Aliens: Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956)
• Slashers: Peeping Tom (1960)
• Sadeian cinema: Two Thousand Maniacs! (1964)
• Zombies and gore: Dawn of the Dead (1978)
• Body horror: Videodrome (1983)
• Techno horror and ghosts: Kairo, AKA Pulse (2001)

Nick Frost both writes and stars in the folk horror comedy Get Away – a movie originally going by the name Svalta. The synopsis reads as follows:

"Looking forward to a vacation on the small Swedish island of Svälta, the Smith family is unsettled by the unfriendly mainlanders who advise them to avoid the island at all costs, especially during the Karantan festival. But the 4-member family is in deep need of some time away & stubbornly decides to take the ferry anyway. On the island, the locals are rather rude & unwelcoming, and their behavior suggests that some big event is about to happen. Is it a cult? Is there a sacrifice in the works? Seemingly unbothered by so much discourtesy and drama, the family enjoys a swim in the sea, treks in the woods, and, oh, the silent isolation… which turns out to be a pretty perfect situation for the Smiths, who have special plans of their own."

Get Away will be available to watch on Sky Cinema from the 10th January.

Watch the trailer...

The trailer for Mike Wiluan’s historical monster film, Orang Ikan, has been unveiled, ahead of its world premiere in the Tokyo International Film Festival’s Gala section.

Set in 1942 in the Pacific, the film follows a Japanese soldier named Saito and a British prisoner-of-war named Bronson, who are stranded on a deserted island, hunted by a deadly creature known as the “Orang Ikan.”

Orang Ikan is directed and written by Mike Wiluan, who also helmed Buffalo Boys, Losmen Melati and co-produced Crazy Rich Asians.

The film stars actor-musician Dean Fujioka (Fullmetal Alchemist) and Callum Woodhouse (All Creatures Great and Small).

...

The film will have its European premiere at the Trieste Science + Fiction Festival in the Asteroid Competition and its Southeast Asian premiere at the Singapore International Film Festival.

“Orang Ikan is a creature horror that draws its inspiration from the early monster films such as Jack Arnold’s 1954 Creature from the Black Lagoon combined with a popular Malay Folklore and actual reports of sightings by Japanese occupying forces in East Indonesia during the war,” said writer-director Wiluan.

“Orang Ikan is an Asian interpretation of the creature theme set during the tragic real life occurrences of WW2. Aside from the horror, the film accentuates the theme of brotherhood and humanity against devastating reality of survival. This particular theme was inspired by John Boorman’s 1968 classic Hell in the Pacific.”

Trailer

IMDb

I love horror movies, and I don't want to filter or block this community, but 80% of the articles here are pure clickbait "top 10 horror movies you need to see" crap that you can find anywhere on the Internet.

It makes it hard to want to engage with the community when this is all it is right now.

... You may have already seen some of those movies. But if you’re looking for more cinematic scares, here are 10 killer films that may have sneaked past your radar but are worth a scream, ahem, stream, in time for Halloween.

• In a Violent Nature
• MadS
• It’s What’s Inside
• Red Rooms
• Out Come the Wolves
• Caddo Lake
• Daddy’s Head
• What You Wish For
• Infested
• Oddity

It’s scary movie season, a time when many people watch films about zombies, serial killers, werewolves, magic and mysterious monsters who are impossible to kill.

However, as far as I know, there’s only one film that features all of those elements – and you’ve probably never seen it.

Made in 2007, “Trick ‛r Treat” consists of four interconnected horror stories, each about 15 to 20 minutes long, that all take place on a single Halloween night.

While characters from one story sometimes appear in other segments, the unifying force in the film is Sam, a mysterious creature wearing a burlap mask. He takes umbrage whenever a character disrespects a Halloween tradition, whether it’s by scaring away trick-or-treaters or blowing out a jack-o’-lantern before Halloween is over. Each meets a gruesome end.

Horror buffs eventually discovered the film. Today, it’s hailed as a modern classic...

Horror is the movie genre most positioned to take advantage of the fears and desires in the deepest parts of the human psyche. It’s also the genre that has pushed the boundaries of what can and should be seen on the screen, particularly in recent years. Horror films, particularly those released in the 1980s and afterward, have worked very hard to plumb the hearts and minds of viewers, bringing out those things that many people are afraid to face in their everyday lives and laying it all out on the screen. These films stay in the mind long after the final scene, demonstrating horror’s enduring power...

• 'Bone Tomahawk'
• 'The Wicker Man'
• 'Speak No Evil'
• 'The Witch'
• 'The Fly'
• 'Tusk'
• 'Jeepers Creepers'
• 'In a Violent Nature'
• 'Saint Maud'
• 'Funny Games'
• 'A Serbian Film'
• 'Martyrs'
• 'Cannibal Holocaust'
• 'The Human Centipede'
• 'Hostel'
• 'The First Omen'
• 'Get Out'
• 'Annihilation'
• 'Hereditary'
• 'Midsommar'

Horror movies often thrill audiences with their high-stakes tension, but a unique sense of discomfort comes from a movie where no one makes it out alive. Instead of a great "Final Girl" braving her way through a scary situation, nihilistic endings strip away any hope of survival, leaving viewers with a chilling sense of dread. Horror movies where absolutely everyone dies highlight the genre's darkest, most unforgiving conclusions.

Whether it's through ritualistic sacrifices, supernatural forces, deadly creatures, apocalyptic circumstances, or deadly viral outbreaks, a horror film may present a relentless march toward doom with a story that refuses to let anyone escape death. They don't just frighten with jump scares and gore but also emphasize the inevitability of death by creating movie endings so bleak that they linger even longer. Some horror movies don't let anyone escape, instead reminding audiences that sometimes the greatest terror is the absence of hope...

• The Thing (1982)
• Quarantine (2008)
• Unfriended (2014)
• The Blair Witch Project (1999)
• Dead Silence (2007)
• Cabin Fever (2002)
• House Of 1000 Corpses (2003)
• Final Destination 5 (2011)
• Night Of The Living Dead (1968)
• The Cabin In The Woods (2011)

cross-posted from: https://feddit.uk/post/19132374

Filming has already wrapped on Danny Boyle’s 28 Years Later, the long-awaited sequel to 28 Days Later and 28 Weeks Later that intends to launch a brand new trilogy. In fact, Ralph Fiennes spills the beans in a chat with IndieWire that the first TWO movies have been shot!

Fiennes also served up some plot details for 28 Years Later that were previously under wraps.

He tells the outlet, “Britain is 28 years into this terrible plague of infected people who are violent, rabid humans with a few pockets of uninfected communities. And it centers on a young boy who wants to find a doctor to help his dying mother. He leads his mother through this beautiful northern English terrain. But of course, around them hiding in forests and hills and woods are the infected. But he finds a doctor who is a man we might think is going to be weird and odd, but actually is a force for good.”

That doctor, you might have guessed, is played by Ralph Fiennes.

...

28 Years Later arrives in theaters on June 20, 2025 from Sony

... Before remains more of a mood piece than a full-on ghost or gory horror story. It is at least as interested in the manifestations of guilt in real life as it is using them as fuel for the supernatural narrative, and maintains the grief-stricken atmosphere as well as it does the spine-tingling stuff.

And Crystal is brilliant. His commitment to the part and this new mode is total. He never takes refuge in his comedy persona, and he utterly convinces as a man struggling with experiences he never imagined he would have to go through. His pain is both acute and chronic as he learns more about his wife, how he failed her, and how she turned to others to help her process what he could not. What kind of man, what kind of husband, what kind of therapist would allow that are questions that haunt him as deeply as Noah’s visions do him. Speaking of whom – as someone old enough to remember when the sight of a child actor made the spirit quail because children couldn’t act, I remain beyond grateful that those days are behind us and that Jupe only adds to the lustre of the new age. I don’t know what mighty forces are responsible for the change, but thank you, thank you.

Halloween is just around the corner so it's safe to say that we're firmly into spooky season. For some of us, it means binging some classic horror movies before the Christmas vibes kick in.

For others, it's an appropriate time to lean into the scary vibes and delve deeper into the lore behind these horror flicks. That can mean visiting haunted locations that inspired some of our favorite movies, like The Conjuring and The Amityville Horror.

Below is a list of 15 horror movies accompanied by the real-life haunted locations that inspired them. Although some of them remain private residences, there are others that you could actually visit!

• The Amityville Horror - The Amityville House (Long Island, New York)
• Lizzie - The Lizzie Borden House (Fall River, Massachusetts)
• American Horror Story: Coven - The LaLaurie Mansion (New Orleans, Lousiana)
• The Shining - The Stanley Hotel (Estes Park, Colorado)
• The Conjuring 2 and The Enfield Poltergeist - The Enfield Poltergeist House (London, UK)
• The Axe Murders Of Villisca - The Villisca Axe Murder House (Villisca, IA)
• Haunting Of Queen Mary - The RMS Queen Mary (Long Beach, CA)
• The Conjuring - The Conjuring House (Burrillville, RI)
• 1408 - Hotel del Coronado (Coronado, CA)
• American Horror Story: Hotel - Cecil Hotel (Los Angeles, CA)
• Bram Stoker's Dracula - Bran Castle (Transylvania, Romania)
• An American Haunting - The Bell Witch Cave (Adams, TN)
• Winchester - Winchester Mystery House (San Jose, CA)
• The Changeling - Henry Treat Rogers Mansion (Denver, CO)
• The Innkeepers - Yankee Pedlar Inn (Torrington, Connecticut)

‘FILMFEAR’ COLLECTION – STREAMING ON CHANNEL 4 UNTIL 2ND NOVEMBER

• ENYS MEN
• SMILE
• IN THE EARTH
• THE LODGE
• AMULET
• FIRESTARTER
• BULL
• X
• ALONE
• WEREWOLVES WITHIN
• A BANQUET
• THE THING (2011)
• THE INNOCENTS
• FRESH

‘COMPLETELY BEN WHEATLEY’ COLLECTION – STREAMING ON CHANNEL 4 UNTIL 15TH NOVEMBER

• DOWN TERRACE
• KILL LIST
• SIGHTSEERS
• A FIELD IN ENGLAND
• HIGH-RISE
• FREE FIRE
• THE DUKE OF BURGUNDY

Is there anything better than a truly terrifying movie? One that gets your heart pounding, makes you jump out of your seat or sleep with the lights on?

We don’t think so, but with streaming services giving us an endless supply of horror films at our fingertips, it can be hard to know which can give you a true fright night, and which are child’s play.

That's why in 2020 we founded the Science of Scare Project, an experiment to categorically find the scariest movies in existence, based on what gets hearts pumping and pulses racing.

Now in its fourth year, the Science of Scare is back and bigger than ever tracking the scariest movies ever made...

cross-posted from: https://feddit.uk/post/19066860

For a good scare with a local twist, look no further than Haunted Ulster Live — a new Belfast-based spookfest that is streaming on Amazon Prime Video and Apple TV. When interviewed last year by this newspaper about the comedy-horror film, director Dominic O’Neill had described it as being a bit like “UTV meets The Blair Witch Project”.

Now he has referenced it as also being a love letter to Northern Ireland in the “90s, and local community television”.

A synopsis for the movie says: “On Halloween night 1998, Northern Ireland TV veteran Gerry Burns teams up with popular new children’s presenter Michelle Kelly to investigate poltergeist activity in a reputedly haunted house in Belfast. Light entertainment turns to horror when an unseen terror reveals itself.

“Combining found footage horror, folklore and a nostalgia for regional television, Haunted Ulster Live recreates a familiar world of 90s light entertainment which, much like Belfast itself during the Northern Ireland Troubles, is haunted by something unseen and sinister.”

Haunted Ulster Live premiered at FrightFest 2023, with a local premiere at the Belfast Film Festival.

...

Having been released on streaming services on October 14, Dominic said the film has had “a really good reception and great print reviews”, including glowing reports from The Guardian, and movie/fantasy magazines such as Total Film, SFX and Filmhounds.

...

​Viewers can buy/stream Haunted Ulster Live now on Prime Video, Apple TV or Google Play

Previously:

• 'Haunted Ulster Live' Exclusive Clip: A Strange Case of Sleepwalking
• 'Haunted Ulster Live' Trailer- Chilling Mockumentary Compared to 'Ghostwatch' and 'Late Night With the Devil'

cross-posted from: https://feddit.uk/post/19065770

You have to hand it to Godzilla – he doesn’t look 70. The greatest movie monster of all time continues to age oh-so-gracefully. And given the Oscar success of the astonishing Godzilla Minus One, and the gleefully colourful carnage of Godzilla X Kong: The New Empire, you could even say the radioactive lizard is at the peak of his powers right now. Since the original Godzilla was released back in 1954, it’s now officially been seven decades since he first stomped his way to big-screen glory – and to celebrate, Japanese studio Toho has released an epic tribute montage to the big guy, spanning several decades and eras of kaiju storytelling. Give it a watch here:

Video

No matter how many scary movies you’ve logged on your Letterboxd account this October, Stephen Follows has you beat.

The British film researcher has devoted his career to the quantitative study of film, using data to identify trends in the entertainment industry from a bird’s eye view. His latest work, the second edition of “The Horror Movie Report,” saw him analyzing every existing horror movie that he could identify — 27,000 by his count — with the hope of offering artists, executives, and fans some clarity about what he sees as a criminally misunderstood genre.

Follows authored the first edition of “The Horror Movie Report,” which analyzed a mere 10,000 movies, in 2017. He was recently prompted to revisit the topic by his colleagues at the Guinness Book of World Records, where he offers his services as a consultant on all things related to movie data. Internet cinephile resources have increased exponentially in those seven years time, and access to Letterboxd and other websites allowed him to nearly triple his sample size. The result is what Follows believes is one of the most comprehensive studies of horror movies ever released.

During a recent conversation with IndieWire conducted over Zoom, Follows opened up about his methodology and offered a few lessons about scary movies that he learned during the journey.

“There aren’t many people who run away to do the accounts for the circus,” Follows said when asked about how he stumbled into this unique intersection of art and science. “I can wrangle both the film industry and an Excel spreadsheet. I think that there’s a lot of areas that I look at that no one’s looked at before because no one’s looked at it, not because it’s impossible. I use the data analysis to try and understand what’s actually going on rather than what should go on.”

Follows cautioned that it would be mathematically impossible for him to watch every movie that he includes in his studies. As such, he avoids weighing in on the artistic merits of individual films. Instead, he looks at larger trends in supply, demand, and subject matter that offer insights into the media that scares us.

...

“Horror operates like no other genre. The audiences act differently, the filmmakers act differently. There’s lots of things that are true for most other genres that are not the case for horror,” he said. “Even the correlation between how good it is according to critics and how much money it makes, there’s almost no correlation for horror, and there is for almost everything else.”

...

“I looked at all the movie-themed podcasts, and horror is by far and away the most popular genre that people make podcasts about. You look at websites and newsletters, and you don’t find the same fanaticism for rom-coms, or westerns, or whatever,” he said. “That is, as far as I can see, a growing, thriving audience that maybe has been undersupplied.”

...

One consistent source of horror’s appeal is its ability to adapt to the anxieties of a given cultural moment. Follows explained that recent years have seen a spike in films about chaos theory and the breakdown of societies — a clear sign, in his view, of the lack of control that so many people feel over their everyday lives.