Remember the other day when I reported that Diary of the Dead was moving forward despite previous reports that the production would be delayed because of director George Romero's health? Sure you do; if not click here. Anyway, there's finally some casting news. Apparently Romero likes the idea of having a familiar face around; Shawn Roberts, who played Mike in Romero's long awaited and crushingly disappointing 2005 film Land of the Dead. Roberts also had the life nearly sucked out of him by Anna Paquin when he played Rogue's boyfriend in X-Men, and he's also got several other horror flicks on the verge of release including Stir of Echoes: The Dead Speak, a werewolf movie called Skinwalkers, and Left For Dead, which apparently involves frat boys and a machete wielding maniac. Fun!

But it doesn't stop there. Hot on the heels of Variety reporting Roberts' involvement comes news from Dread Central that he will be joined by Joshua Close (from The Exorcism of Emily Rose and a pretty neat Dawn of the Dead knockoff called The Plague), Michelle Morgan (Alien Fire), Jon Dinicol (from Weirdsville and The Virgin Suicides), Phillip Riccio (Rent-A-Goallie), and Scott Wentworth (Elizabeth Rex). No big names here, but certainly a better known cast than The Blair Witch Project, to which this film has often been compared. Romero is, of course, the creator of the modern zombie movie, with his zombie tetralogy sporting a 50% success rate in my book. Night of the Living Dead and Dawn of the Dead are bona fide horror classics, and while Day of the Dead and Land of the Dead have their admirers, I am not one of them. Although I've seen conflicting reports, the Dread Central story indicates that this film will not take place in the universe established in the previous films, making Diary of the Dead a sort of zombie reboot. Diary of the Dead, which started shooting this week in Toronto, marks a return to independent film making for Romero, and I'm very interested to see where it takes him.

[Via Coming Soon]

Like many fans of the original film, news that Michael Bay's production company Platinum Dunes was planning to remake the 1987 contemporary western/vampire film Near Dark caused my intestines to explode made me wince. An Armageddon-esque sensibility just doesn't seem to jive with this little indie horror flick. The original film was directed by Kathryn Bigelo and starred Adrian Pasdar (currently playing a Congressional candidate who can fly on NBC's Heroes) as a young man who is bitten by and falls in with a dysfunctional vampire "family" roaming America's heartland. The vampires were played by three recent alumni of James Cameron's Aliens: Lance Henriksen, Bill Paxton and Jenette Goldstein, as well as Jenny Wright and young Joshua Miller who was particularly memorable in River's Edge.

According to Sci Fi Wire, though, one person who is excited about the remake (which has been discussed previously on Cinematical) is Lance Henriksen. The veteran actor of many a horror flick and TV shows was quite tickled at the notion. "Oh, man, I hadn't heard that," Henriksen said in an interview. "It's one of my favorites, Near Dark. If they were smart, what they would do is get a hold of Bill Paxton, Jenette Goldstein and me, and do something that starts as a prequel to Near Dark. They need to have a conversation with us, because, man, Billy Paxton and I have been talking about this, about what we would do, if we did a prequel. And really great stuff came up. So it would be very wise of them to connect us."

I'm not clear on how this would work since these supposedly immortal vampires are now twenty years older than they were when the first film was shot, and Henriksen is talking prequel. Still, Bay's company could do a lot worse than get some input from the actors who originated these characters, right?

Following in the tradition of such Pakistani horror films as ... umm, OK gimme a sec here ...

Well, just because I can't name a horror film from Pakistan doesn't mean there aren't any, but however many may have come before, Zibahkhana (Hell's Ground) is the latest. This project has caught my interest specifically because it is being co-produced by Mondo Macabro, a UK-based DVD company that has released such magnificently bizarre examples of world cinema as Girl Slaves of Morgana Le Fay, For Your Height Only and Lady Terminator. And who better to co-produce a film about a zombie plague than Mondo Macabro's partner in this venture, Bubonic Films. The film is being directed by first-timer Omar Khan, who is a film historian and owner of a chain of ice cream shops.

The hot and damp Pakistani summer made for an uncomfortable shoot for the cast which was composed of veterans of the local film industry as well as some newcomers. That was part of Khan's plan all along, though. "I wanted to use heat, sweat and flies as part of the film," Khan says. "People on the crew were not used to this level of nastiness, which was very exciting for me." The story involves a group of teens who, while on their way to a rock concert, run afoul of a group of psychos reminiscent of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. The film is also said to feature the world's first Muslim zombies.

The film's producers are fairly certain, that Zibahkhana will not get past their native country's censors, but they have high hopes of marketing the film elsewhere. That plan seems to be off to a good start as the film has been invited to submit to the Sundance Film Festival with fees waived.

[Via Jo Blo]

Arrow in the Head, and several other sites reported on October 5 that George Romero, the 66 year old auteur behind Night of the Living Dead, Dawn of the Dead, The Crazies and several other damn fine terror flicks, had collapsed and been hospitalized for a non life threatening illness. As a result, Romero had to cancel several personal appearances and shooting of his new zombie film Diary of the Dead (mentioned previously here on Cinematical) was to be delayed by at least two months. However, a new report from Dread Central says the film is still on track with Romero at the helm and will probably have begun production by the time you read this.

This new film is said to be something of a cross between a standard Romero zombie film and The Blair Witch Project: While making a low budget horror film, several young filmmakers find themselves in the midst of a real zombie outbreak. The crew proceed to record the event for posterity, taking themselves into the thick of the zombie action. As the director told Dread Central when the project was first announced, "I want to do this from a subjective kind of view with no music. You know, something really raw. So it's kind of a stylistic experiment, a low-budget, under the radar kind of thing that's just sort of from the heart." There has been some talk that this film might go straight to DVD, and although that might carry a certain stigma, I think that might be gutsy move on the part of Romero and his distributors. This way he could make as gory a film as he wants, and it's kind of reminiscent of Romero and company's decision to circumvent the MPAA by releasing Dawn of the Dead unrated.

This particular Stephen King adaptation has been kicking around Hollywood for awhile. Based on the 1980 novella of the same name, The Mist will be written and directed by Frank Darabont, who of course is no stranger to Stephen King country, having written and directed The Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile. The big news right now, though, is that Darabont has found his star: Thomas Jane, who also has some of King's blood on his sleeve, having starred in Lawrence Kasdan's film version of Dreamcatcher, as well as the Marvel Comics adaptation The Punisher and, most recently, David Arquette's The Tripper.

While King has branched out into additional genres, The Mist is from what I think of as King's golden age of horror. The novella is pure horror with a Lovecraftian edge, and the prospect of it finally making it to the screen has my dander in an uproar (that's a good thing). King's novella tells the tale of residents of a lakeside community trapped in a grocery store when a thick and unnatural mist engulfs the town following a violent storm. It soon becomes apparent that there are things living in the mist.

"The script is done," Jane told MTV News at the recent premiere of The Tripper. "It has been for a bit now, and it looks like it might be over at Dimension." Jane also discounted rumors that Darabont plans to film in black and white to recall the creature features of the fifties. Personally, I think black and white can be highly effective and this might have been an interesting way to go. No word yet on when filming will start.

[Via Fangoria]

I sometimes like to show off my gift for alliteration with my post titles, but this one was like shooting fish in a barrel. The folks over at Grass Roots Films have posted a teaser trailer on You Tube and Video Google for the stop-motion animated feature adaptation of the underground comic classic The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers. The fabulous ones in question are Fat Freddy, Phineas, and Freewheelin' Franklin, along with the real brains of the operation, Fat Freddy's Cat. The comic, created by Gilbert Shelton, appeared in several forms from 1968 until 1992, with the newest Freak Brothers strip just recently appearing at the Freak Brothers official website. The Freaks' often hilarious adventures usually involved their battle against the establishment and several metric tons of the finest marijuana available.

The trailer seems more like animation test footage than an actual preview, but the potential is definitely there, and the footage looks sort of like an excerpt from Wallace and Gromit Meet Cheech and Chong (now why isn't anyone making that movie?). This trailer is quite a bit longer than the short sample that was posted back in July. The big question is: How well will the strip, which originated as part of the counterculture of the 60s and 70s, translate to a twenty-first century audience? Stoner humor is still around thanks to the likes of Harold and Kumar Go To Whitecastle, and the films of Kevin Smith, but the Freak Brothers as they appeared in the comics were often gleefully offensive. Personally, I'm dying to see where this goes. The film is obviously in the very early stages, as the Grass Roots Films site has information for anyone interested in investing in the film. For those of you with dreams of becoming a movie mogul, this may be your big chance.


[Via Ain't It Cool News]

Victor Rasuk, one of the stars of Lords of Dogtown, is the latest addition to the cast of William H. Macy's directorial debut Keep Coming Back. Rasuk will play the son of a stripper played by the talented (and downright heavenly) Salma Hayek. The story revolves around a clean-cut Southern teen whose heart condition prevents him from pursuing any form of excitement. Macy will play the doctor who has prescribed boredom as the only means of keeping the young man alive. Inventing a new bad-boy image for himself, the teen joins Alcoholics Anonymous just to be near Hayek's character, a woman twice his age with whom he has fallen in love. No word yet on who will be playing the youth with the bum ticker.

Now, given the description of this character's malady, I would think a single pole-dancing performance from Hayek would kill him on the spot, but I guess that would make for a pretty short film. Macy's eclectic resume as an actor certainly has me curious about what he can do as a director, so this is one I will be keeping an eye on. The screenplay is by Will Aldis,who also penned Black Cadillac and Avenging Angelo. Production is slated to begin in January.

There's more to X-Men's Wolverine than sharp claws and sideburns (though he's definitely got those), and it sounds like we're going to find out what makes this beast-like mutant tick when the Wolverine solo flick hits the screen. According to star Hugh Jackman, who can currently be seen in The Prestige, things are rolling along and the script is completed.

"We've now signed off on the script. If you know about the history of X-Men movies, that's a revolution for us. We're a year away from shooting the film and we have the script," Jackman said. "And, by the way, it is unbelievable. It's a David Benioff script. He's probably the hottest writer going around town, and he was beating down our door to write this movie. It was the most amazing thing."

Script writer Benioff does indeed seem to be in high demand. Having penned the screenplay for Troy, Stay, and 25th Hour, he is also attached to The Kite Runner (which is in pre-production), Alpha and Ender's Game, both of which are listed as "announced" by the IMDB. Jackman also mentioned that he hoped to be able to announce a director sometime in the coming months, although the IMDB currently has James Roddy helming the project. Since Jackman says this film will explain who the character is and how he became Wolverine, it seems obvious that the Weapon X mythos from the comics will serve as the film's springboard, but he also states that while this is definitely a prequel, it will not follow the Japanese elements of the storyline.

Related Posts:

X-Men 4 Update: Wolverine Comes First

Wolverine Script Review

Wolverine Movie Details Starting to Leak

This bit of news certainly had me raising an eyebrow in a display of Spock-like wonder. The one-man controversy machine (and to use my first oxymoron of the day, one seriously funny guy as well) Sacha Baron Cohen is reportedly in talks to star opposite Johnny Depp in Tim Burton's adaptation of Stephen Sondheim's Broadway hit Sweeney Todd, the musical tale of the "Demon Barber of Fleet Street." Depp plays Benjamin Barker (aka Sweeney Todd), a barber who leaves a trail of slit throats in his quest for revenge for his wrongful imprisonment. According to Production Weekly, if negotiations are successful, Cohen will play "The King of Barbers", Aldolfo Pirelli, who engages in a contest of skill with Todd to prove who the most capable barber is. Obviously the role of barber has changed quite a bit since the period in which the story takes place, as the contest includes a tooth-pulling event.

Fortunately I have two eyebrows, so while one was arched in surprise at the Cohen news, the other was free to leap up and join its compatriot upon hearing that Cyndi Lauper may also join Burton's cast. This news, which comes from Lauper's tour blog by way of Film Experience Blog is vague at best. Lauper simply says, "I went in to audition for Tim Burton for a movie which was exciting." Burton is casting for Sweeney Todd, and Lauper is a singer, so this doesn't require a huge leap of faith. No word on what part Lauper might play, but the Film Experience article points out that there are three female roles in the play: Mrs. Lovett the pie shop owner, Todd's daughter Johanna, and a mysterious Beggar Woman who wanders in and out of the narrative. Lauper is too old to be playing Johnny Depp's daughter, so it's probably safe to assume she is filling one of the other two roles.

For the record, my favorite interpretation of Sweeney Todd was the one performed as a school play by Ben Affleck, George Carlin, and little Raquel Castro in Kevin Smith's Jersey Girl. It was a hilariously gore-soaked scene in an otherwise mediocre film.

Production of Tim Burton's Sweeney Todd is set to begin in early February at Pinewood Studios in London.


[via Big Screen Little Screen]

Sadly, it won't arrive until after Halloween, but the creepy little kid sub-genre will be well-represented when Devil Times Five makes its DVD debut on November 21. Regardless of how incorrigible your own offspring may seem, this oddity from 1974 should make even the most vicious of ankle-biters seem innocuous. A bus crashes on its way to an asylum and five homicidally insane kids escape to wreak havoc at a nearby resort hotel. Even if horror isn't your cup of tea, at least the eclectic cast should pique your curiosity. The film stars Sorrell Booke ( Boss Hogg himself from The Dukes of Hazard), Shelly Morrison ( Rosario from Will & Grace), Dawn Lyn (whose Dodie character signaled the shark-jumping of My Three Sons), Joan McCall (Grizzly), and Tierre Turner (Foxy Brown). Perhaps most remarkable of all, though, is the fact that the film stars former teen idol and Tiger Beat cover boy Leif Garrett.

I haven't seen this one, but I'm a sucker for newly excavated horror flicks from yesteryear. Code Red has been putting out some noteworthy horror releases and is promising more in the future like 1974's Italian Exorcist rip-off Beyond the Door and 1973's Love Me Deadly. The company describes itself as "a start-up company dedicated to releasing '70's & '80's drive-in movie types onto dvd for your retro viewing pleasure!"

The Devil Times Five Disk includes:

• New widescreen transfer from original (long thought to be lost) vault materials
• Audio Commentary by Dawn Lyn, Joan McCall, Mickey Blowitz and David Shelton moderated by film historian Darren Gross
• On camera interview with cast members Tierre Turner, Joan McCall and Dawn Lynn, and producer Mickey Blowitz and co-Director David Shelton
• Alternate titles
• Still gallery
• Trailer

If you've read Terry Prachett and Neil Gaiman's hilarious fantasy novel Good Omens , and if you're at all familiar with the films of Terry Gilliam, it's easy to see how the two must come together at some point. There's been talk of Gilliam directing the film version for some time, and while nothing appears to be set in stone, there remains a spark of life in the project. "I've been working on it for quite a while, but it's a big budget," Gilliam said in an interview posted to Sci Fi Wire. "I was doing this before The Brothers Grimm, before Tideland, but it needs A-list stars to work -- to get the money is what I mean -- and none of the A-list stars are right for the part. That's what's frustrating."

The novel is basically a humorous look at the coming of the anti-christ, told with a marvelously absurd British wit. Gilliam is American, but his nightmarishly bizarre cartoons for Monty Python's Flying Circus meshed seamlessly with the contributions of his British colleagues. Gilliam says he's frustrated with the Hollywood system. "Here's my beef with Hollywood," he says. "Before The Brothers Grimm, we went out to Hollywood to get [Good Omens] made. We had raised $45 million from the rest of the world, and we needed $15 [million] out of Hollywood. I had two actors, Johnny Depp and Robin Williams. I couldn't get $15 million out of Hollywood with those two people. They said, 'Johnny, nah, he does those European art movies, Chocolat, The Man Who Cried, and Robin -- his career is finished.' And now there's Pirates of the Caribbean."

Dobby, the house elf who got no respect (and now that I think about it, he does look like Rodney Dangerfield) in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets continues to be dissed by the powers that be behind the Potter films. The good-hearted but troublemaking imp has appeared in all of J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter novels since his first appearance in Chamber of Secrets, but has not appeared in the film adaptations of the subsequent books. Now, according to actor Toby Jones who gave voice to the character, it's been revealed that Dobby will not be appearing in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, the David Yates directed sequel that's due in 2007.

"I know that the filmmakers have a problem with each new film because the books are getting longer - there's so much to include in them," Jones has said. True enough. The longest book in the series is Order of the Phoenix with a page count of 870. I suspect when the as yet untitled seventh and final book in the series is released it will be thick enough to choke a hippogriff, and with stories this rich in detail some elements just won't survive the translation to the screen. Harry's abusive Uncle Vernon Dursley and his family were missing from the film version of Goblet of Fire, as was Molly Weasley, matriarch of the ginger-haired Weasley clan. Like Dobby, all of these characters lent nuance to the story, but while the hardcore Potter fans may be willing to sit through a twelve-hour movie, the average filmgoer will not.

While MTV News is pointing out the fact that Dobby's absence from the new film will require another character to perform certain crucial actions to propel the story, this is hardly a new issue. In the book version of Goblet of Fire, Dobby was the one to give Harry the gilly weed that allowed him to breath underwater during the Tri-Wizard Tournament. The filmmakers found a way around Dobby's absence from the film, and I'm sure they can do it again.

Jones appears to be taking it all in stride. "The thing I feel very, very proud of is the fact that I get mail just about every week of the year from all parts of the world -- very nice mail thanking me for that way I voiced the character and saying how accurately I did it," Jones commented. "So it's a great addition to my life and a very unexpected one. I had no idea that the character would have that much impact."

If you just can't bear the idea of another Potter film without a house elf, fear not -- Kreacher, servant of Sirius Black's family will be appearing in Order of the Phoenix.

[via VH1.com]

Following in the tradition of horror film anthologies like Dead of Night, Tales from the Crypt, and Creepshow; 1985's Night Train to Terror provides an interesting spin by having each of the film's three stories distilled from a feature film. Granted, packing a full-length movie into a twenty-five minute or so segment doesn't leave a lot of room for characterization, motivation, or plot even. The film distills the horror elements of these three features into a concentrated and highly flavorful B-movie paste that goes down well with nachos and beer. The disjointed narratives lend a dream-like quality to the stories, and while they ultimately don't make a lick of sense, they sure make for a fun ride.

To connect the three tales, God and Satan are meeting on the titular train to discuss the damnation or salvation of a handful of mortal souls. The train is also carrying a jaw-droppingly awful pseudo-80s pop band, resplendent in their headbands and Flashdance-style sweatshirts. The young musicians seem perpetually stuck in music video mode, repeatedly singing an infectious (though certainly not good) tune that you'll be humming for days.

Alan Moore has stated that he wrote Watchmen to be the last word in superhero comics. Now that the modern comic book film has come into its own (The Weinstein Company even has a parody of the genre in the works called Superhero!), a successful Watchmen adaptation might be just the thing to shake things up, to blow the genre's conventions out of the water before they become cliched. The world is ready for a decent film based on an Alan Moore work. If there is any cosmic balance in the universe, the dreadfulness that was Stephen Norrington's League of Extraordinary Gentlemen could in theory be balanced by (fingers crossed) Zack Snyder's Watchmen. Snyder surprised me with the Dawn of the Dead remake and I'm hearing good things about 300, so I can dare to dream, can't I?

Snyder has been attached to the project for some time, and he recently spoke with Empire online about where the proposed film stands. "We're getting ready to turn a script that we like into this studio," says Snyder. "They're pretty excited about it...I think the script that Alex (Tse) has done for us is the closest to the graphic novel it's been [since development started], for better or for worse. I feel like Alex has done an awesome job. It's keeping all the things that are cool about the comic."

My first posting here on Cinematical was about a month ago when I shared news of the first Region 1 DVD release of Gojira, the Japanese film that was drastically re-edited for its U.S. release as Godzilla: King of the Monsters. According to DVD Drive-in, Classic Media is continuing the coolness with its DVD release of the Big G's second outing (and his last in black and white) 1954's Godzilla Raids Again (Gojira no gyakushû in Japanese), or as it was called during its 1959 U.S. release, Gigantis the Fire Monster. Not as somber as its predecessor and with less of an emphasis on the nuclear weapons metaphor, this film truly set the tone for kaiju films for many years to come, with Godzilla squaring off against another monster (a spiny fellow named Angilas) for the first time. As with the Gojira disk, each version of the film will be featured on a separate disk of a two DVD set, with the Japanese version presented with English subtitles. Godzilla historians Steve Ryfle and Ed Godzizsewski will provide an audio commentary as they did on Gojira, with other extras including a photo gallery, international poster gallery and the Japanese theatrical trailer.

And of course, just as soon as Tokyo recovers from the devastation, it happens all over again with Classic Media's release of the Japanese version of 1964's Godzilla Vs. Mothra which is being released on a two-disk set with its American release version Godzilla Vs. the Thing. In this film Godzilla comes home to find that someone has chewed holes in his favorite sweater, and large urban areas are trampled as our hero tracks down the moth responsible. OK, not quite. In this film Godzilla is still a badass and not the heroic creature he became later in the series, and when the world needs saving its up to Mothra to make things right. Extras include another commentary from Ryfle and Godzizsewski and a photo gallery, international poster gallery and the Japanese theatrical trailer.

The differences between the Japanese and American versions of Gojira were quite profound, so I'm curious to compare the different versions of these two films as well. Both of these two-disk sets will release on November 7. In the not too distant future Classic Media will be releasing the likes of Ghidrah the Three-Headed Monster, Monster Zero, Godzilla's Revenge, Terror of Mechagodzilla, Frankenstein Conquers the World and War of the Gargantuas. Conspicuously absent is Godzilla's third film King Kong Vs. Godzilla which received an Americanization just as drastic as that of Gojira. Maybe there are rights issues with King Kong, but I'm still hoping one day for a side by side comparison of the U.S. and Japanese versions.