Kent Nichols and Douglas Sarine, the duo responsible for the awesome “Ask a Ninja,” are writing a remake of Attack of the Killer Tomatoes. Nichols will direct.

I just wrote that, didn’t I.

Oh man. Can’t help but find this horribly funny. If anyone could make awesome of lame juice it’d be the “Ninja” crew. Certainly there’s no place to go but up. I mean, Attack of the Killer Tomatoes isn’t exactly Citizen Kane so I doubt very much many people will bemoan a remake. I’m actually slightly looking forward to this. I think it would be a real mistake to try to sex it all up with modern effects and one of them young, CW type casts. Tomatoes has to be full of genre, pulp (I pun, I pun), a lots of B-movie fun.

[Via Hollywood Reporter]

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Hotel Transylvania will be the latest addition to the star-crossed lovers story we just can’t seem to get enough of. Simon Van Helsing falls in love with Dracula’s daughter. When the two realize that their families are sworn enemies, they attempt to mend the hatred between monsters and human. If this sounds slightly cheesy, it should be little surprised that this will be a Sony Animation feature.

I’m not inherently opposed to seeing the star-crossed lovers story again. Romeo Must Die was a lot of fun. West Side Story is still one of my favorite musicals. And I dare say the Romeo and Juliet with Leo and Claire was immensely entertaining. It’s one of those classic stories that stands the test of time and if it’s done well, an animated interpretation could be quite good.

I have to see the character designs before I can support this. It’s such an obvious pairing, I’m just surprised no one has thought this one up before.

[Via Hollywood Reporter]

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Hasbro unveiled it’s official Cloverfield monster toy at Toy Fair 2008. Not as cute as my lil guy nomming on Lady Liberty (which is featured on the front page of Bountee where you can purchase the shirt, nudge nudge).

Seeing him bit by bit through shaky cam with a full on shot from the perspective of a meal made Clovie appear to be truly monstrous and powerful. Now that we get a clear look at the beasty, he somehow isn’t as impressive as he was on screen. Reminds me a spindly bat-faced land strider. You kinda just wanna wrap him in a blanket to keep him warm for the winter.

Just goes to show you less is more sometimes.

[Via Figures.com]

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Do you have an idea for a great horror film that is guaranteed to scare the ever loving shit out of audiences? Is your idea truly original and not a cheap rehash of an older horror flick? Then get your elevator pitches ready because you could be a producer on Ghosts in the Machine! Enter Massify.

Massify hopes to revolutionize community film making by putting its users in charge of the big decisions. Massify is partnering with After Dark Films to make Ghosts in the Machine. The feature will be included in After Dark Film’s Horrorfest 2008. If you have an idea for an awesome horror flick (Dead of Summer gang, looking at you), from now until March 17, you can pitch your idea to the Massify community. You can vote for your favorites from March 5 - 17. The top ten will go on to a second round of voting to select the winning pitch from March 18 - 25. Auditions for the cast begin March 12 and go until April 21. Two men and two women will be cast to play a lead role in the movie (hmmm… that actually could be some fun…). Voting for the cast goes from April 8 - 21. The top ten men and women will be flown out to a location for a screen test April 22 - May 12. Finally, you get to vote for the final cast from May 13 - 26. The two top man and woman will land lead roles, the two runners-up will land supporting roles.

This could be quite a lot of fun. It’s the ultimate democratization of entertainment, movie by interweb community. It’ll be interesting who the public decides to cast. Does the horror community want a diverse cast? Will ethnicity even matter? Will a regular guy or girl with a webcam be the next horror movie star? And will this attract any A-list or B-list actors?

Of course, this could be a disaster. Anyone remember when MTV asked us to choose a VJ? We gave them Jesse who turned out to be a completely insane and unintelligible freak.

However, I’m willing to bet that horror fans will genuinely want to create something awesome. Looking forward to seeing some of those audition tapes.

[Via Massify]

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Nick over at Dead of Summer railed against news that Michael Bay will revamp (so to speak) Nightmare on Elm Street:

Well, there comes a time where even the best in show will get copied. Halloween and Chainsaw were well…fucking terrible, in comparison to the originals. Pardon my french. Now when you take the wheel and want to reinvent it, your going to end up with the fucking wheel again. Except you can only change the appearance while the function must remain the same. I am already pissed off about this news.

Upon further investigation, not only are they tampering with a perfectly awesome horror franchise, they will proceed without Robert Englund returning as Freddy Kruger.

I agree with Nick. This is some dumb shit.

You almost get a pass if you use Robert Englund. Without him, there’s really no reason to make a Nightmare on Elm Street anything, sequel or remake. The argument for these remakes and revamps is usually something along the lines of “Well, we’re doing it for a new generation of fans.” Guess what, if these “new fans” can’t appreciate the frightful awesomeness of the first film and the campy fun of the sequels then maybe it’s not for them. If they’re not watching Nightmare on Elm Street, maybe they don’t want to watch Nightmare on Elm Street.

Just find another Japanese horror flick to remake you lazy fucks and leave our classic America (strange to call Freddy a classic but there you go) horror well the fuck alone.

Note: Thanks D-W for the correction. Man, I need to sleep more.

[Via Dead or Summer, Occasional Superheroine, and Shock Till You Drop]

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It’s always dangerous when I want a sequel. I was so hyped up on the Matrix, I was just begging for more. Yeah, that worked out well. So it’s with mixed feelings that I clamor for more Cloverfield. But here’s hoping for the best.

Cloverfield director Matt Reeves is in talks with Paramount to direct a second Cloverfield film. Let the speculation begin!

In an interview with ComingSoon, Matt Reeves hinted at a possible direction for the sequel:

This was so fun ’cause we’d never done anything like it, and I think we’d want to find a similar challenge, to find a way to have its roots in this but be fresh and new, otherwise you’re just repeating yourself. There’s a moment on the Brooklyn Bridge, and there was a guy filming something on the side of the bridge, and Hud sees him filming and he turns over and he sees the ship that’s been capsized and sees the headless Statue of Liberty, and then he turns back and this guy’s briefly filming him. In my mind that was two movies intersecting for a brief moment, and I thought there was something interesting in the idea that this incident happened and there are so many different points of view, and there are several different movies at least happening that evening and we just saw one piece of another. That idea sort of tickled me. We’ll have to see if anyone would want a sequel. If the movie does well and we find a compelling reason to do so then it would be fun to do a sequel.

It’s clear that we want one. If the sequel is filmed in shaky cam, I really hope more is revealed about the Clovie’s backstory. Another movie where random idiots that we don’t particularly care for run around and probably die just wouldn’t cut it. We want more of Clovie and we want to know more about it/him/her. That’s the only way a sequel would make any kind of sense.

[Via Variety and ComingSoon]

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Awe… it just wanted a chew toy!

Cloverfield rates decently on the Jam Scale. The main cast is diverse enough for me as are the supporting players. You really get a feel for the people of New York which is quite nice. Shaky cam almost made me nauseous, but I get that way after playing FPS’s for too long anyway. Overall, quite enjoyable.

And now, for my super spoily review!
(more…)

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Funny Games premieres at the Sundance Film festival this week. Turns out that this version is a shot for shot remake of Michael Haneke’s original 1997 film of the same name. Haneke is also directing the remake which kind of makes me wonder why he’s doing it shot for shot. Normally I’d be panning this outright. Why remake something that’s as poignant and disturbing as Funny Games when it stands so well on its own? For that matter, why shoot an exact duplicate with different actors? But in this case, Haneke has something up his sleeve and I’m actually looking forward to seeing this.

Don’t let the music in the trailer fool you, there’s nothing remotely humorous about this home invasion thriller. Two seemingly clean cut and unremarkable youth enter the vacation home of a family, take them hostage, and torture them while forcing them to play a game with rules that constantly change and have little basis or formula. Even though all the truly violent acts occur off screen, the original 1997 movie disturbed the absolute fuck out of Audrey and me.

The rest of this discussion goes behind the cut. I don’t want to spoil anything because I think it’s a movie that should be experienced fresh for the first time. I don’t know who you recommend highly disturbing films to, but we quite enjoyed it and encourage people to see it. If you have seen it, rented it, or are at Sundance and have seen the remake, venture forth.

(more…)

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Reader Paul Jang pointed me to this horrifying article that details a remake of Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds set to be released in 2009. The remake is rumored to be directed by none other than Michael “Boom Boom” Bay and set to star Naomi Watts as Melanie Daniels.

For the love of… I mean I like me some Naomi Watts just fine. She made both Ring remakes watchable and she was quite enjoyable in that giant ape movie. I almost expect something like this from Bay but there’s got to be something better for her out there than this ill conceived remake. Yuck.

Thanks for the link, Paul.

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Holidays are usually the best time to catch up on movies. And there’s nothing better than sharing awesome movies with friends and family. So I thought I’d share a short list of flicks you should check out this holiday weekend.

Current Flicks

For Rental or Net Flicks

I hope you all have a great holiday season! Stay safe, stay warm, and get lots of awesome loot!

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