Posts Tagged ‘Thriller’
Posted by Bryan in DVD & Blu-Ray, Latest News on February 18th, 2010
Criterion has announced that it will release Fritz Lang’s classic 1931 thriller, M, on Blu-ray disc May 11th. The German-language film chronicles the exploits of a sinister child murderer run amok on the streets of Berlin, unforgettably played by Peter Lorre. Although the film is nearing its 80th anniversary, to this day it embodies, as Criterion puts it, “the blueprint for the psychological thriller.”
The film is the latest in the Criterion catalogue to be upgraded to Blu-ray, and if their past work is any indication, purchasers should be pleased with the restored high-definition digital transfer, with an uncompressed monaural soundtrack. As an added incentive for collectors, the new edition will include an exclusive “long-lost English-language version of M.”
M is currently ranked at #57 on the IMDb “Top 250″ and is widely cited as one of the most chilling films ever released — praised in particular for its unique fusion between the expressionism of Lang’s native Germany, and the popular film noir plotting made popular in America.
The remainder of the extensive extras may sound familiar to owners of the standard-definition version, and are as follows:
- Audio commentary by German film scholars Anton Kaes, author of the BFI Film Classics volume on M, and Eric Rentschler, author of The Ministry of Illusion: Nazi Cinema and Its Afterlife
- Documentary on the physical history of M, from production to distribution to digital restoration
- Conversation with Fritz Lang, a 50-minute film by William Friedkin
- Claude Chabrol’s M le Maudit, a short film inspired by M, plus an interview with Chabrol by Pierre-Henri Gibert about Lang’s filmmaking techniques
- Classroom audiotapes of editor Paul Falkenberg discussing M and its history, set to clips from the film
- Video interview with Harold Nebenzal, the son of M producer Seymour Nebenzal
- Stills gallery, with behind-the-scenes photos, and production sketches by art director Emil Hasler
- Plus: A booklet featuring an essay by film critic Stanley Kauffmann, a 1963 interview with Lang, the script for a missing scene, and contemporaneous newspaper articles
The two-disc set is listed with a SRP of $39.99. All details can be found on the Criterion home page.
Posted by Dominic in Events on July 19th, 2009
Is the world ready for this so soon after the King of Pops untimely death? You darn tootin we are!
Hot Toys has announced their second 1/6th scaled Michael Jackson collectible figure and it is nothing short of a Thriller! Yes, no matter how you feel about Michael Jackson, at one time, before he completely flipped his lid and rocketed into la-la land, he was a truly amazing performer. And in keeping with the zombie mood the world seems to be in lately this figure has arrived at the right time.
Again, this fits in the category of a really cool figure I probably wont buy, but I just had to post it for the coolness of it and also to make you kids laugh a little-it is pretty damn funny. I can’t stop thinking about all the possible stop-motion music videos you could do with Vincent Price performing the voice over, man-o-man, it’s limitless.
Check out the specs and when you’re finished head over to Cool Toy Review and view all the photos posted.
Michael Jackson Thriller collectible features:
-Hot Toys’ slim version TrueType body, over 32 points of articulation, stands approximately 30 cm high
-2 interchangeable heads – MJ head and Zombie head
-2 sets of costumes ( original red jacket and pants & the zombie suit)
-2 sets of white socks with black shoes
-Five (5) sets of interchangeable hands and one (1) additional posing right hand
-12 inches figure stand with the classic Thriller title and Michael Jackson nameplate
Release date: Q3, 2009
Artist info:
- Head Sculpt by Kang In Ae
- Head Art Directed by Yulli
- Head Paint by JC. Hong
Posted by dominie in Movies on April 11th, 2009
We’re all familar with Fritz Lang, but not ever like this. FM is happy to announce that Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment will present Fritz Lang’s 1941 classic thriller, Man Hunt, on DVD for the first time ever on May 19, 2009! Full details in the press release below!
THE HUNTER BECOMES THE HUNTED
MAN HUNT
Fritz Langs Vintage World War II Thriller Arrives On DVD For The First Time Ever May 19 From Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment
Loaded With Exclusive Bonus Features Including A Restoration Comparison,
Still Gallery, Interactive Pressbook And More
CENTURY CITY, Calif. Hand-picked from the vault and meticulously restored and remastered Fritz Langs (Metropolis, M) classic 1941 Nazi war film, MAN HUNT, arrives on DVD for the very first time May 19 from Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment. Set in Nazi Germany, MAN HUNT stars Oscar nominee Walter Pidgeon (How Green Was My Valley, Forbidden Planet) as Captain Thorndike, an English big-game hunter who conceives the fantastic notion of stalking Adolph Hitler for sport. With The Führer in his sight, Thorndike hesitates and debates with himself whether or not to pull the trigger, ultimately being apprehended by the Gestapo during this brief moment of reflection. Thorndike is interrogated and tortured by Nazi officer Major Quive-Smith (George Sanders; All About Eve, Hangover Square). Left for dead, his body thrown over a cliff, Thorndike survives and makes his way back to the safety of England. But Quive-Smith pursues Thorndike back to London, where he goes into hiding with a young prostitute (Joan Benett; The Woman in the Window, Scarlet Street) who has the Nazi spies close in on him. Best known for his groundbreaking silent films and contributions to the Film Noir genre and dubbed The Master of Darkness by the British Film Institute, MAN HUNT is Langs first anti-Nazi feature. Loaded with commentary by author Patrick McGilligan, Rogue Male: The Making of Man Hunt and more, the MAN HUNT DVD will be available for the suggested retail price of $14.98 U.S. / $16.98 Canada. Prebook is April 22.
Synopsis:
Based on Geoffrey Household’s best-selling 1939 novel, “Rogue Male,” a British game hunter takes aim at the biggest prize of all, Adolf Hitler. Captured and tortured, the hunter becomes the hunted as Nazi spies pursue him back to England in a desperate fight to the death.
DVD features:
The MAN HUNT DVD will be presented in full screen format with Mono sound and English and Spanish subtitles.
Special Features:
Commentary by Author Patrick McGilligan
Rogue Male: The Making of Man Hunt
Restoration Comparison
Man Hunt Trailer
Interactive Pressbook
Still Gallery
Posted by Dominic in Movies, Reviews on April 4th, 2009
Kim Basinger hasn’t had a lot to do on film the last few years so she took on the feminist revenge thriller While She Was Out, serving as not only star but executive producer. Also being an exec was Guillermo del Toro so you begin watching the 86-minute with high expectations that this will rise above the cookie cutter collection of one woman against a gang.
Written and directed by Susan Montford, based on Edward Bryant’s short story, one would also have expected that being a female, her attention to character and story coherence would be stronger than the competition.
In every way, the thriller, available on DVD April 28 from Anchor Bay, disappoints.
Basinger plays Della, a suburban housewife who appears incapable of keeping her home organized, her finances current, or her cell phone charged. On Christmas Eve, just as her abusive husband comes home from work, Della realizes she needs wrapping paper. There’s nowhere else to get the paper than the mall, which of course was mobbed and by then, her things began to go wrong. She couldn’t find a close-by parking, her cell phone ran out of juice, her credit card gets declined and so on. Along the way, she spots a car taking up two spots and in a show of life, leaves a note on the windshield.
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Posted by dominie in Movies on March 30th, 2009
Here’s another way to connect with with genre fans that will take social network yet to another level. According to Variety, Paramount and Gaumont are partnering to produce a made-for-Internet series via the MySpace outlet titled, Section 8.
Classified under thriller, Section 8 “will have elements designed to allow viewers to use various functions of the social networking service while watching the segs. Viewers will also be able to vote on the ending of the series.”
Paramount has announced they plan to shoot in Los Angeles this June in time for a premiere in the fall. Twelve episodes have been confirmed to date, each running six to nine minutes long.
After the segments bow on MySpace, the project will be shopped to digital and TV buyers. Paramount and Gaumont also plan to redistribute the webisodes as a theatrical feature followed by a DVD release.
Section 8 is shaping to be very attractive force. Keep it her for updates!
Posted by Dominic in Reviews on February 23rd, 2009
When a movie with a recognizable cast goes direct-to-DVD you automatically think the film has to suck. These days, though, so many go to DVD because the market timing may mean the conditions are not conducive for the mass audience a particular film needs to be worth the tens of millions of dollars for prints and marketing.
Anchor Bay has certainly rescued its share of worthy films and not-quite-good ones, releasing them to the niche audience. Walled In, coming March 17, certainly fits the bill.
The movie is based on French author Serge Brussolo’s bestseller Les Emmeures and marks the American debut of director Gilles Paquet-Brenner, who apparently is well liked over in Europe. From what we have to work with, it appears he has a nice visual sense but was not entirely sure of himself shooting this in the latter weeks of 2007 in Saskatchewan, Canada.
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Posted by dominie in Movies on February 4th, 2009
Just yesterday we announced Sam Raimi may be taking his upcoming remake of the thriller, Room 205 over to Michigan in order to take advantage of the state’s 42% tax rebate. And now it looks like the project is really getting off the ground since Bloody Disgusting’s first announcement of the project a year and a half ago.
Room 205 has hired The Grudge scribe, Stephen Susco, to pen the screenplay about a haunted dorm room. Sam Raimi, who will produce under Ghost House Pictures banner, describes the story as “a neat screenplay that will become a lovely, bright Midwestern university and tell about how kids become adjusted to their new surroundings. In the midst of that, the supernatural will rear its terrifying head.”
In the original 2007 Denmark story, the premise of the story goes something like this:
“Wanting to start a fresh, Katrine moves from the province into a dormitory in Copenhagen and enrolls at the University. But when she crosses conniving Sanne by getting together with Sanne’s ex, all hell breaks loose. Sanne and her friends try to bully Katrine out of the dormitory. They frighten her with an old myth surrounding the ghost of a former resident. Yet the myth very soon becomes a reality. By accident, Katrine sets the ghost free, who then starts a terrifyingly gruesome attack on the dormitory’s residents. Only Katrine knows the fate of the remaining residents if she doesn’t stop the actions of the ghost. However, no one believes Katrine’s story and they accuse her of the series of mysterious murders. She seeks help in the former resident Rolf. While the residents continue to die around them, Katrine and Rolf embark on a desperate struggle to stop the ghost before it kills those that are left…”
Shooting for Room 205 begins in Michigan this summer!
Posted by dominie in Movies on February 2nd, 2009
Just over a week a go, we announced that Shuttle, the Edward Anderson directed thriller you may remember that ran through festivals last year, has found a home at Magnet Releasing. The distribution company, which handles Magnolia’s genre acquisitions, has slated Shuttle for limited theatrical release on March 6th. Today Magnolia announced a DVD release date of April 7th, only shortly after its theater release. The DVD art is provided to the left.
Starring Peyton List, Cameron Goodman, and Tony Curran (Midnight Meat Train), Shuttle will take you for a ride you never wished for. Attempting to return home from a girls-only weekend vacation, Jules and Mel find themselves stranded at the airport, late on a rain-drenched night. Hoping to just get home safe and sound, they board an airport shuttle with a helpful, and seemingly friendly driver behind the wheel, but the peaceful trip turns out to be their worst nightmare. 
Posted by dominie in Movies on January 30th, 2009
Hammer Films has been busy developing several pictures for the relaunch of Hammer Films Production. After wrapping on The Wake Wood, the group immediately began prepping for the suspense/thriller The Resident. In early December, two-time Academy Award winner Hillary Swank was cast. Today, Bloody Disgusting revealed that Watchmen star Jeffrey Dean Morgan will play opposite Swank in the film. Shooting begins soon in the East Coast with Antti J. Jokinen at the helm for his first feature debut. You can read below for a detailed synopsis of The Resident, co-written by Jokinen and Robert Orr (Savior) and re-written by Erin Cressida Wilson (Secretary, Fur).
Synopsis: The Resident is inspired by the fact that every year, millions of single women in America move into apartments for the first time. They do not know who lived in the apartment before them, they do not know their landlords, and they don’t bother to change the locks. This is the story of one such woman, a pretty, young doctor Juliet Dermer (Swank), who is settling into a new life and a new loft in Brooklyn when mysterious occurrences lead her to suspect that she is not alone in her home. Her fears quickly become all too real, and in a chilling revelation she discovers that her seemingly charming, young landlord, Max (Morgan), has developed a dangerous obsession with her. A terrifying game of cat and mouse ensues as Juliet fights to free herself from Max’s sinister intentions.
Hammer is producing the film for its parent company Exclusive Media Group (EMG), the global filmed entertainment group combining Hammer and L.A. based Spitfire Pictures, backed by strategic Investment Group Cyrte Investments. Exclusive Film Distribution will be handling worldwide sales and distribution for the film. Stay tuned for more updates.
Posted by dominie in DVD & Blu-Ray, Movies on January 30th, 2009
The following press release just came in from Anchor Bay Entertainment. Bring home Crowley on DVD March 10, 2009.
“One of the most bizarre films to come out of a British studio in recent years.
Simon Callow … gives a barnstorming performance.” – Philip French, The Guardian
ANCHOR BAY ENTERTAINMENT PRESENTS THE DIABOLICAL SUPERNATURAL THRILLER CROWLEY
Something Wicked This Way Comes to DVD March 10th
BEVERLY HILLS, CA – What happens when ancient evil marries 21st-century technology? Behold Crowley. Also known under its international title Chemical Wedding, Anchor Bay Entertainment will unleash this one-of-a-kind supernatural shocker on DVD on March 10, 2009. Pre-book is February 5 and SRP is $26.97.
Crowley stars Simon Callow (Four Weddings and a Funeral, Shakespeare in Love, Phantom of the Opera), two-time BAFTA Award nominee and SAG Award winner and is directed by Julian Doyle (editor of Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life and Terry Gilliam’s Time Bandits and Brazil). Doyle co-wrote the screenplay with Bruce Dickinson, the lead singer of the legendary heavy-metal rock group Iron Maiden. Dickinson also co-wrote the film’s music score with Dave Howman, Andre Jacquemin and Rod Melvin.
Aleister Crowley (1875-1947) was the most notorious occultist who ever lived. A man whose appetites for corruption, sadism, sexual excess and moral degradation knew no bounds. His sphere of influence extended far beyond England to the world at large, and some believed to the very depths of hell itself. When Crowley died, the world breathed a collective sigh of relief. But for those versed in the black arts, death is only the beginning…
As the year 2000 closes, Cambridge University is one of the most prestigious institutions of higher learning in the world, and ground zero for a scientific experiment in which a state-of-the-art Virtual Reality suit is connected to the Z93, the most efficient super-computer on the planet.
The computer, however, has been programmed with the teachings and philosophies of Aleister Crowley, and when meek classics lecturer Oliver Haddo (Simon Callow) dons the suit, he undergoes an incredible and shocking transformation as the computer floods his brain with unspeakable occult images. When Haddo emerges from the suit, he is in fact the living, breathing — and fornicating — reincarnation of Crowley. And now, he is hell-bent on performing the ultimate in unholy ceremonies – the “Chemical Wedding.” (more…)
Posted by dominie in Movies on January 21st, 2009
Good news for fans looking for that extra kick in a film. Magnolia’s genre arm, Magnet Releasing, will release Edward Anderson’s Shuttle in limited theaters in March followed by a DVD release on April 7, 2009. Magnet acquired the film in November as part of the SXSW Film Festival in Austin, Texas.
The film has received marks as “one of the most compelling denouements of any genre film” according to one reviewer for Bloody Disgusting. “It’s tragic and brutal and for eagle-eyed fans it is satisfying in that the film hints and pokes and prods the audience toward the conclusion… I don’t think genre fans can ask for more than that when they sit down in a darkened theater, board the Shuttle, and demand to be transported into a terrifying new world.”
Written and directed by Anderson, the film is a story about two friends, “Jules (Cameron Goodman) and Mel (Peyton List) [who] return late at night from a ladies-only vacation. They find themselves at the airport on a rainy night that seems darker than usual. Wanting to get home but with limited options, they board an airport shuttle with a driver (Tony Curran), hoping for a safe and short ride.”
You can head over to Lightning Entertainment to watch the trailer.
Posted by dominie in Movies on January 8th, 2009
Bloody Disgusting reports that Magnet Releasing has acquired US distribution rights to Mutant Chronicles, a sci-fi/action epic encompassing an ensemble cast including Thomas Jane (The Mist), Ron Perlman (Hellboy), Devon Aoki (Sin City), and John Malkovich. Set in a post-apocalyptic world, the film boasts incredible special effects and action-packed battle sequences.
Mutant Chronicles is set in the year 2707, on an unrecognizable Earth where a war is raging between four giant corporations who control the planet as they battle over the planet’s dwindling resources. This war is soon rendered irrelevant when an errant bomb shatters an ancient buried seal, releasing a horrific mutant army from its prison deep within the earth. As the mutant scourge threatens human extinction, a squad of ragged soldiers, led by Mitch Hunter (Thomas Jane), descends into the earth in a last ditch effort to destroy the mutants and save mankind.
“Mutant Chronicles is a blast,” said Magnolia Pictures President Eamonn Bowles. “It’s an action-packed thriller with a dynamite cast and very impressive production values. We’re thrilled to add it to Magnet’s slate of quality genre pictures.”
“Simon Hunter is an exciting cinematic talent who has created a provocative world for Mutant Chronicles,” said producer Edward R. Pressman. “I see in Simon the rare visionary quality that was evident to me when working with Sam Raimi, Alex Proyas, and Brian De Palma on their early films. Mutant Chronicles is just the beginning for him.”
As part of the Wagner/Cuban Companies’ Ultra VOD program, the film will premiere on VOD on Friday, March 27th, 2009, followed by a theatrical release in select cities on Friday, April 24th.
