Nights Of Frights

It's October! We should be getting our bodies ready for Halloween, shouldn't we? The second I'm done with NYFF (in about a week) I'll feel better situated to get myself spooky (and the Brooklyn Horror Fest kicking off this weekend should help) but for now I do have some spookiness to share -- for Mashable I made a list of "The 11 Scariest Movies Streaming For Free," go check it out right here. I went through all of the streaming sites and found the scariest titles and lemme tell you what -- narrowing it down to 11 from the over 100 titles I started with was a chore. But I did it. I cut off slivers of flesh like some Seven shit and I did it. I mixed genre classics with personal faves -- they just had to be movies that legitimately scared me. Lord knows different things scare different people but I made this list so these scared me! I think it's a good list though, if I do say so myself, so go check it out.

I Heart Fantasia

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My beloved Fantasia Film Festival out of Montreal has announced that 2020's edition, running from August 20th through September 2nd, will be, by necessity given you know the world and whatnot, going exclusively online for this year's edition. That comes with one big caveat for yours truly and I imagine a lot of you reading this, too -- it's only going to be available across Canada. So if you were thinking about heading Due North and becoming Mr. or Mrs. Justin Trudeau now's the time (actually 2016 was the time) for this fest will prove a sweet bonus to all that. (Swoon.) Anyway since MNPP does have some Canadian readers and I live for what Fantasia does every year I will share some of their first announcement of titles -- it's, per usual, kicking ass. Especially...

... since they're premiering the new flick from Neil Marshall! The director of The Descent has mostly been doing TV like Game of Thrones as of late, and since we are one hundred percent pretending last year's Hellboy movie, which I couldn't even finish, never happened, this one, called The Reckoning, marks his triumphant return to Cinema... or so we hope. Even better it's about The Plague! The Black Plague, to be specific. I posted about it back when it was announced last year -- it's about an accused witch (Charlotte Kirk) becoming a witch witch, and co-stars Joe Anderson, an actor I like very much and find severely under-used.

Other highlights -- the second film from Japanese director Shinichiro Ueda following up his wonderful worldwide zombie sensation One Cut of the Dead (reviewed here), called Special Actors; a horror movie about fracking (!!) called Unearth that stars Buffy's Marc Blucas and (drum-roll please) Adrienne Barbeau; a documentary about Tiny Tim (the terrifying ukulele-strumming singer, not the Dickens character); a haunted house flick from Germany called Sleep that stars Toni Erdmann's great Sandra Hüller; a junkie-nurse thriller called 12 Hour Shift that stars our beloved Angela Bettis... point being I recommend you check out the entire list here! This is only the first wave of titles and I already wanna see like a dozen things. I Heart Fantasia -- every year it feels beamed straight outta my brain. See all of our coverage from previous years at this link.

Out of the Ruins, a Reckoning

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Carter Smith's 2008 horror flick The Ruins has been on my brain a lot lately, and I've been meaning to carve out the time for a re-watch -- the film is super cheap on blu-ray not to mention streaming on Amazon so I really don't have an excuse not to! Every time I see Jonathan Tucker or Jena Malone or the real (eventual) subject of today's post the actor Joe Anderson, seen above, I think of this film and how it got, pardon the pun given the film's nature, under my skin. 

Anyway The Ruins aside I did indeed read Joe Anderson's name this morning and it's for something we want to will into being, hence being here yammering about it -- director Neil Marshall, fresh off the steaming pile of his flop Hellboy remake... and listen, Hellboy flopped for a reason....

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There are theoretically worse movies that have been made and that I have sat through, but the problem with Hellboy is I love too many people involved with making it, it's too embarrassing, it makes you cringe, you have to avert your eyes like your bff just puked on his date

— Jason Adams (@JAMNPP) July 10, 2019

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Not that crap doesn't often succeed (look at this past weekend's big winner for proof of that sad hard fact) but I think it's best that everybody just forget that movie happened. Anyway Neil is working on a new movie, and given the strength of his not-Hellboy track record -- The Descent, Dog Soldiers, Doomsday, some smashingly good episodes of Game of Thrones -- I want him to make another damned movie! So let's talk about it.

It's called The Reckoning and it's set during "the witch hunts and the great plague in England in 1665" and it's about a woman accused of witchcraft by a spurned man who actually begins to dally with the devil. Joe Anderson's role sounds small (I don't want to spoil it but that link above does if you need to know) but he got me thinking about The Ruins and yadda yadda here we are. Let Neil Marshall make another movie, please!
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David Harbour Four Times

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David shot for British GQ (via) -- they feel very High School Portrait circa 1994 don't they? Anyway I guess if I wanna see Hellboy I better be quick about it, given how very very poorly it did this weekend with both critics and the box office. I know I shouldn't given what I read -- how it apparently got yanked out of Neil Marshall's hands (he's the only reason I wanna go) and butchered by know-nothing producers -- but I'm still holding out hope it's secretly worth seeing. So many people had their knives out when the thing was first announced, given the abandonment of Guillermo Del Toro & Co. Did any of you actually see it?

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Abominable Says What

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There are a big bunch of movies to see out this weekend! Too many, in fact! I've thankfully got a little bit of a head-start having already seen Sauvage/Wild (reviewed here) and Her Smell (reviewed here) but there's also Neil Marshall's new Hellboy (which sadly is getting absolutely scathing reviews -- I hope Neil has another The Descent in him one day) and the Elle Fanning neon-pop musical Teen Spirit (seeing that tonight; here's the trailer) and Molly Shannon's Emily Dickinson flick Wild Nights With Emily. But most of all there is a new Laika film out, the Bigfoot adventure Missing Link. I wasn't nuts about ML's trailer but the reviews have been very good, phew. Crisis averted. We want Laika to keep up their masterpiece pace for a very very very long time. Speaking of...
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Excluding #MissingLink since I ain't seen it yet what's the best Laika film?

— Jason Adams (@JAMNPP) April 12, 2019

Drag Me to Hellboy

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I immediately adopted a defensive tone when it came to the new Hellboy movie when it was announced because lord knows the fanboys had their claws out over Guillermo Del Toro & Co getting brushed off -- I love me some GDT and I enjoy both his Hellboy adventures but man this is Neil Marshall directing! That is not a thing to be scoffed at! Neil Marshall who gave us Dog Soldiers and The Descent, and all of the best episodes of A Game of Thrones! Anyway I was just now realizing I have this defensive tone but I haven't really seen much push-back to warrant that stance, so perhaps I should just get the chip off my shoulder and straight up say WHEE this looks fun. Also...

... yup I am very much going to be crushing on Hellboy now with David Harbour inside there -- his lovingly shot hirsuteness is only stamping that deal for certain. Oh and they're giving us a shape-shifting Daniel Dae Kim to boot???

I'm gonna need to hold a large bucket of popcorn in my lap while watching this movie. Hellboy is out on April 12th -- here's the full, fully insane, trailer:
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Reboots From the Depths of Hell to Outer Space

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Let's quick check in on a couple of trailers that popped up in the past 24 hours, shall we? The trailer for the rebooted Hellboy is here, starring Stranger Things surprise sex symbol David Harbour as the titular red menace this time around - more importantly the reason for caring is that this was directed by Neil Marshall, whose Aughts Trilogy of  D movies (Dog Soldiers and The Descent and Doomsday, oh my) still stands the test of time and who's mostly been doing TV (good TV, as in "the best episodes of A Game of Thrones") since. Here is the trailer:

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American Honey star Sasha Lane makes for an inspired sidekick right? Excited about this one, which is out on April 12th. Next up is another reboot, one I'm a little less sold on - the new Men In Black has a truly killer two-some with its Ragnarok reunion of Chris Hemsworth and Tessa Thompson but I'm not seeing much here that looks new? Winking nods to old aliens? Bah. And more than that...

... I don't want Chris to star in a movie famous for its clothes. I want Chris Hemsworth to star in movies famous for its NOT clothes, know what I mean? Emma Thompson looks pretty fierce, at least. We'll see come June, I guess. Watch:
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5 Off My Head: Siri Says 2006

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It's time to fire up the iPhone and ask our old friend Siri to choose a number between 1 and 100 for our "Siri Says" series, huzzah, celebration, et cetera et cetera. And today the lil' lady was feeling devilish and gave me the number 6, so today we will look back at the Movies of the year 2006, and name our favorites. 

Truth be told glancing back 2006 was kind of a shit year, you guys? It was an excellent year for Horror Movies (we have Cheney & Friends to thank for that) but I didn't have a very hard time narrowing everything down to this Top 5 - a great Top 5, for sure. But normally with a year so recent I have trouble narrowing down a Top 10, and while technically I could make a Top 10 most of them would just be likes, and not emphatic loves. Hmmm. You decide.

My 5 Favorite Movies of 2006

Children of Men

(dir. Alfonso Cuarón)

-- released on December 25th 2006 --

Pan's Labyrinth

(dir. Guillermo Del Toro)

-- released on December 29th 2006 --

The Descent 

(dir. Neil Marshall)

-- released on August 4th 2006 --

Marie Antionette

(dir. Sofia Coppola)
-- released on October 20 2006 --
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Notes on a Scandal

(dir. Richard Eyre)

-- released on December 25th 2006 --

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Runners-up: The Departed (dir. Scorsese), Talladega Nights (dir. Adam McKay), The Fountain (dir. Darren Aronofsky), Perfume: The Story of a Murderer (dir. Tom Tykwer), The Hills Have Eyes (dir. Aja), Hostel (dir. Eli Roth), Monster House (dir. Gil Kenan), Little Children (dir. Todd Field), Silent Hill (dir. Christopher Gans), Final Destination 3 (dir. James Wong)...

... Little Miss Sunshine (dir. Dayton & Faris), Idiocracy (dir. Mike Judge), Crank  (dir. Neveldine & Taylor), Volver (dir. Almodovar), The Devil Wears Prada (dir. David Frankel), Casino Royale (dir. Martin Campbell), For Your Consideration (dir. Christopher Guest), The Lives of Others (dir. Florian Henckel Von Donnersmarck)

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What are your favorite films of 2006?

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All I Need To Know...

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... is how much of this first look at our new Hellboy, played by David Harbour, is actually David Harbour. Cuz I know he's been working out (see below) but still, that's... a lot of working out. Where does the make-up and prosthetics end, and David begin? And David, my friend, we can  totally clear this up quick-like by just letting me come over and poke at your muscles. (ETA another pic here.)

Jin Goes To Hell

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Jin & Sun were always my favorite characters on Lost and I've been irritable ever since the show ended... well, for one because of that ending (God what a terrible ending! Still not over it!) but also because Hollywood has not done right by Daniel Dae Kim & Yunjin Kim at all. So it is with some glee that I greet today's news that the former is in talks to take the role in Hellboy that Ed Skrein just recently bowed out of because he hadn't been aware it was an Asian character in the comics. This is good news! Now I can go back to loving all the casting decisions that director Neil Marshall's been making again, as Kim's set to join David Harbour and Milla Jovovich and Sasha Lane and Ian McShane, an underrated bunch indeed.

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I Am Link

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--- Everybody Wants Chaos - Tom Holland posted a picture on his Instagram from the set of Chaos Walking the other day (he also posted that picture to the left, which is way more interesting) calling attention to the fact that it had begun shooting finally, which is news we have waited a very long time to hear, so yippee for that. And an even bigger yippee to today's news that no less than David Oyelowo has just joined the film's cast! He is playing another bad guy alongside Mads Mikkelsen, whose casting we celebrated (along with Nick Jonas) the other week. Add on Daisy Ridley and that is one super cast that Doug Liman is gathering up here.

--- For The Love Of Alf - That list of the 100 Greatest Comedies of All Time that the BBC collated from a bunch of critics has been hogging all the attention this week which is a shame because there's another list worth a look-see - Rolling Stone came up with the Top 40 Science-Fiction Movies of the 21st Century, and it's filled with super picks! (And my real world friend Sean T. Collins wrote up a few of them so keep your eyes peeled for his name.) I've been in a big sci-fi mood thanks to MoMA's amazing summer series, which I pray they make an annual thing.

--- Bad Hellboy Bad - I kind of wanted to avoid this news in hopes it would go away - Neil Marshall & Co were doing so well in casting their Hellboy reboot! David Harbour and Milla Jovovich and American Honey's Sasha Lane and Ian McShane! Very good! But now they have gone and cast Ed Skrein - who I like a lot, mind you - to play a character that is half-Japanese in the comics, which is a terrible, terrible decision. Why won't they learn already? Ugh!

--- Break Forth - I figure I should give you the heads-up on this one since I reviewed it at Fantasia Fest a couple of weeks ago and it's not half bad - the trippy Cronenbergian horror movie Sequence Break, which I called "a love letter to films like Videodrome and the practical effects of 80s horror," has been picked up by Shudder (along with five more horror movies), the online streaming service, so stay tuned for that.I imagine I will help you do so by mentioning it when it has a date and a trailer.

--- David Hears You - Every time I have done one of these link round-up over the past couple of months I have said the same thing at some point therein - I could make this whole damn thing nothing but Twin Peaks writing! And here we are again. I'll just give you two though, and there's related even more specifically - here is an interview with David Lynch in the New York Times where he talks about creating the show's soundscape, which anybody who's ever seen anything from David Lynch knows is like way important. And on that same front the fine folks at the site Welcome to Twin Peaks uncovered a fun little aural Easter Egg in the new season's premiere. Oh wait here's another one - Lynch chatting with ZZ Top's Billy Gibbons about industrial noise for The Guardian. Sure, okay!

--- The Tippi Point - Because I've only been doing one of these posts per week lately (they're so time consuming because I can't stop myself from rambling) (case in point) some of this news is a little old, like this - the BBC is remaking The Birds! Well, they are making a miniseries from Daphne du Maurier's novella anyway, which is incredibly different from the movie Alfred Hitchcock ended up making. The only thing they have in common... is birds.

--- Call Me Luca - I haven't had a chance to listen to this yet myself but The Playlist shared a Q&A with director Luca Guadagnino at the Melbourne Film Festival last week where he apparently talks about both Call Me By Your Name (which was screening there) and his upcoming remake of Suspiria (which probably won't screen anywhere until next year is my guess). Somebody listen to it and tell me the good parts!

--- And Finally I thought about making gifs from this but I think it probably works better as video, uninterrupted - Sam Taylor-Johnson directed a commercial for Givenchy (thx Mac) starring her gorgeous slab of husband Aaron Taylor-Johnson and it's a real joy; it's easily the best thing I've ever seen her direct. But then I only made it halfway through 50 Shades of Grey and I only watched one episode of Gypsy before giving up so what do I know? (I'd say I know a lot.) Wisely she got Aaron to dance, channeling that REM music video he starred in - he needs to make a musical, obviously. Watch!
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Proud of what we made here. @aarontaylorjohnson @aarondoucette @mr_stephengalloway @thestylecouncilparis #givenchy #givenchybeauty #aarontaylorjohnson #elizabethsalt @lucyhalperin @gunning8

A post shared by Artist & Director (@samtaylorjohnson) on Aug 22, 2017 at 12:32pm PDT

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I Am Link

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--- Queers Queued - I mentioned this here once before and then I mentioned watching it on Twitter but now you'll all get the chance, and it's worth the chance -- BBC America is going to air the series of eight short monologues titled Queers that the plain ol' BBC just got done airing in the UK. They will show them in October. Each one is around 20 minutes and features a single actor (including Ben Whishaw, Russell Tovey, and Dunkirk's Fionn Whitehead, among them) giving us a little piece of gay history in the form of some character's experience in a different time period. Like Ben Whishaw plays a WWII era soldier who tells us about falling in love with another soldier (and he is typically brilliant while doing so). (thx Mac)
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--- Bozo the Gay Basher - I started to re-read Stephen King's It earlier this year but I'm no good with books that are too big to lug around on the subway and It is way too fucking big to lug around so I only made it part of the way through, much to my chagrin. I've got to give it another go before the movie comes out next month, and this piece my pal Tom Blunt wrote up on one specific scene in the book is giving me some renewed vigor - head over to Signature to hear his spin on the importance and strength of the gay-bashing scene in the book. Honestly I don't even remember the scene it's been so long since I read it and that scene obviously wasn't getting anywhere near the TV movie.
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--- Just Say Milla - We were already on board with the Hellboy reboot the second that they announced Neil Marshall was doing to direct it - while he's been relegated to TV for a few years (just little things like Game of Thrones, ya know) his "D" trilogy of the Aughts - Dog Soldiers, The Descent, and Doomsday - are all super duper genre works. Then they stuffed chunky-bummed David Harbour in the lead and we signed on for that too. But now the underrated and delightful Milla Jovovich has joined the cast and we feel even smarter about our early enthusiasm than before.

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--- Libraries Are Literally Heaven - This is probably the coolest thing that has happened to NYC cinephiles this year (and we get some pretty spectacular stuff here, let's be real) - the public library system has teamed up with a streaming service to offer free movie streaming to anybody with a library card. (thx Mac) I've admitted this before but for all my supposed big-time library fetish I don't have a library card - it's a dumb long story - but this got me over it real quick.
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--- Nic the Destroyer - Super happy to hear that Karyn Kusama is getting together her next project after The Invitation blew me away, and super happy to hear she might get Nicole Kidman to star in the thing! If it does happen (it hasn't been officially announced yet) the movie is called Destroyer and it's a "crime thriller" that Kusama says is "another chapter in investigating how we come to face ourselves as lonely people on this planet." Mkay.
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--- Ah Woo Hoo - It feels really very weird, getting old enough to have the silly cultural artifacts of your childhood become the stuff of very serious attention in somewhat serious magazines, but here we are and it's the year 2017 and Vanity Fair has written up an oral history of sorts of the theme song from DuckTales. What a world, what a world. It also feels weird to me because my DuckTales fandom happened in the most solitary period of my life when I had less than zero friends in Junior High School, and so it always surprises me that other people were watching too. If I'd had the internet back then i could've known I wasn't nerding out all alone.
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--- Everything After Adam Bomb - And as long as we're talking about my child nerd obsessions here's something even better - the documentary about the Garbage Pail Kids is finally coming out! I'm too lazy to look up the last time we posted about this but it was quite awhile back. BD says the movie will actually get a small theatrical run on August 18th (and I'm guessing that means it will play here in NYC somewhere since we are the place of small theatrical runs so I will keep my eyes peeled) and then it will hit VOD on September 30th.
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--- And Finally I forgot to share this a couple of weeks ago when it dropped but today's "Siri Says" post where I listed my favorite movies of 2017 (so far) reminded me - the trailer for My Friend Dahmer was finally released, and you can see it below. The movie is out some time this fall. I reviewed it out of Tribeca, and I highly recommend it. (thx Mac)
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Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

... you can learn from:

The Descent (2005)

Beth: How do you give a lemon an orgasm? 

You tickle its citrus!

A happy 47th birthday to the director Neil Marshall today -- it was announced that he's going to reboot the Hellboy franchise last week (with Stranger Things star David Harbour under the horn-stumps) to much fanboy consternation. As I said then, even though I'm totally Team Del Toro I've never been a huge fan of his Hellboy movies, so I'm fine with this news. Marshall hasn't made a motion picture in seven years! Whatever it takes to get him on the big screen again.

Hell in the Harbour

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I think we can all agree that David Harbour is awesome. He's been one of "those guys" for over a decade now -- when Jack Twist eye-fucked him across that table while Anna Faris prattled on obliviously I knew twas love but it was three years later in Revolutionary Road where he really took control; he was the best thing in a movie where Kate Winslet was very very good indeed. I actually like that movie more than most and I thought Leo was very good too, and Michael Shannon of course. But Harbour was best in show. It's been a slow build for him since he's not typical Movie Star material, but Stranger Things finally gave him the role where people learned his name, and now...

I think we can all agree that the director Neil Marshall is awesome. His D trilogy in the Aughts - Dog Soldiers, The Descent, and Doomsday - were all to varying degrees big-time kicks in the pants; The Descent especially but I unreservedly adore the other two as well. I mean would we have gotten Mad Max Fury Road if Neil hadn't kept the flame alive with Doomsday? I'd love a double-feature. Marshall bizarrely hasn't directed a feature since he directed Michael Fassbender in the okay Centurion in 2010 but he's been no slouch - he's been turning in series-best installments of Game of Thrones and Hannibal on TV.

So those two? Those two are awesome. But last night's news that the two of them are teaming up to reboot the Hellboy series... well it's not so much a "but." It's more like a... long pause... long pause... I don't don't how to react. Another long pause. 

Cuz the thing is, to be honest I don't entirely adore the original Hellboy movies. While this is still a highly esteemed place to be they're among the lower rungs of my Guillermo Del Toro loves. But Del Toro did some of his best monster designs ever in them...

... and Ron Perlman... well David Harbour must have king-sized - like painfully call-the-doctor-quick sized - nuts to walk into that role when the fans of those movies are still clamoring for more Perlman. Physically I think Harbour could do it. He's a big dude, with a big presence. And I am dying for Marshall to make another movie. This just kind of feels as if they're wading into a mine field.

What do you guys think? 

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Good Morning, Francis

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If you follow me on Instagram you'll know that 1) I am kind of boring to follow on Instagram (I'm no Nico Tortorella, that's for sure) and 2) that I've spent the past week touristing my ass off in the Upstate New York region I grew up in. I took the boyfriend to see all the big beautiful sites my homeland's got to offer that he'd never seen, a la Niagara Falls. And yet, even as I stared at the wonders of the world before me, in the back of my head...

... I really wanted to crawl into a bed, any bed, and watch this week's episode of Hannibal, which finally got to the Red Dragon story with Richard Armitage (and directed by Neil effing Marshall!), which we've been very much looking forward to. Well I finally got around to it last night and thankfully it did not disappoint. I'm not even speaking of the twisted homage to American Psycho seen here (although that didn't hurt; my boyfriend whispered, "Wow he's so much hotter than Lee Pace" in the middle of it)...

... the entire introduction to Francis Dolarhyde and his very specific horrors was just balls out unnerving, from the teeth to his film-stock psychosis to Will Graham's horrific recreation of the main murder scene... this was horror, great horror. Good goddamn why won't anybody pick this show up? All the television channels, all of them, should be ashamed of themselves. Anyway hello folks, I'm back. Hit the jump for the rest of Armitage's twisted up and terrifying howdy-do...

Thursday's Ways Not To Die

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The Descent (2005)

Neil Marshall's modern masterpiece of claustrophobia -- which turned 10 yesterday! -- starts off with a violent act disrupting the familial cocoon, literally penetrating the Alpha Male and leaving Mother to fend for herself. Or something such. Mainly it's a wicked shock swiped from the Final Destination handbook, which sets the tone for all the screen-popping fuckery to come. Ooga booga, boo bitches!

The Descent took quite awhile to make it to the US -- IMDb says it wasn't until August 2006, nearly a year after it wowed UK audiences. And by the time it made it here they'd slapped on a silly unnecessary "less dark" ending. But I still went and saw it, here's my original review from then. I have incredibly vivid memories of seeing this in a theater - of the entire cavernous theater space feeling transformed around me, as if we'd climbed into the cave of horrors along with these poor doomed gals. In other words, god I wish this movie would get re-released! Seeing it in a theater on a big screen is an EXPERIENCE. (Imagine it on IMAX? Shivers.) 

Hit the Jump for links to the Previous Ways Not To Die