I have been eagerly waiting on news on the next Park Chan Wook film and Thirst (which follows an internally conflicted vampire priest) could really step up next to the flawless work of the directors previous film, Oldboy, based on what path he could take this seemingly pure character down alone.

Thirst follows Sang-hyun, a saddened priest who is obsessed with the unhappiness in society. In hopes of saving at least one life, he participates in an experiment to find a vaccine for the deadly F.I.V. virus in Africa. Of course, the experiment goes horribly wrong and the priest is infected - but he recovers completely and his church is elated with his new healing abilities. The feeling doesn't last, though, and he relapses and awakens with a thirst for blood and a fear of the sun. If he doesn't drink blood, the F.I.V. symptoms come rushing back, so he steals blood transfusions and lives the life of a vampire. Sang-hyun tries to live a life free from sin but a failed suicide attempt and forbidden attraction to his friends wife lead this new vampire priest down the road plotting murder.

Twitch has a collection of great new stills from Thirst below:



Thirst Footage:



Behind The Scenes:

Cheerleader Camp is a place to make friends and eat the intestines of that bitchy girl from Westside High who stole my boyfriends heart... literally. With her teeth. Ugh, this is such a cute idea, I'm having a hard time deciding which zombie I love more, Nazi zombies or Cheerleader zombies. This low budget film is out on DVD and available for your purchasing pleasure on their official site where you can learn more about our leggy, high kickin' undead squad. The story is pretty self explanatory, cheerleaders turn into zombies at their summer camp, end scene. The trailer and some adorable pictures are below. Thanks to Joblo for filling us in on the release.

Metropia's collection of beautiful yet sickly characters made me do a double- and triple- take. Set in a not-so-distant future, the world is running out of oil and, in response, the government creates a massive subway system that spans across Europe. The main character, Stockholm suburbanite Roger, discovers that his life is being controlled in every detail and tries to break free with the help of the lovely Nina (seen in a lacy number below).

Vincent Gallo and Juliette Lewis have signed on as the lead voice actors for the English-language version, which is like throwing gasoline on an already amazing independent film fire. I cannot wait for this movie to come out Stateside; it's unlike anything I've seen before. A short promo has been released on the internet where the filmmaker breaks down how they created this film shot for shot. It's pretty fun - enjoy, and thanks to Quiet Earth for pointing this out.

Metropia footage

The next trailer for super dark futuristic action film Eden's Log is out. It starts with the awakening of Tolbiac, who snaps into consciousness in a dark and deep cave. He's in the middle of an ancient underground world that is haunted by phantoms and wild creatures, all which seem to be tied to actions made on the surface of this planet. Tolbiac journeys to the surface to find out who he is and how he got forced down into the dark.

And finally Twitch has pointed out one amazing blood spilling zombie from Tak Sakaguchi. Do not screw with a zombie that is fluent in the Samurai fighting style. The Samurai Zombie trailer is below:

This Is My Milwaukee:
A new ARG has been released, about the re-population of Milwaukee now that it's been decontaminated and cleansed from all the terrible things that the company Dark Star unleashed with their "God Seed". It's actually quite cute; here's a commercial they filmed, encouraging people to move back to the fair city, but also reminding them to stay out of certain areas and always carry a rebreather and a flare gun. Also check out their book, Milwaukee: A Reasonable Heaven.

Ricky:
What would you do if your baby grew wings and started to fly about (selling him to the circus not being an option)? A poor woman deals with this conundrum in the foreign film Ricky. I don't really have much else to say other than, why aren't there more movies like this?
Ricky teaser

Afterville:
This short movie shows what happens after the disaster. Afterville takes place 50 years following a collection of UFOs plummeting to the Earth, but remaining dormant; life went on and people lived around the large structures, building around and or on top of the the objects. But eventually people figure out that the discs that cover the globe are all linked on a countdown that end in 2058... but what could it be counting down to? It's actually quite beautiful and the CG objects fit in quite nicely on the world's horizon; thank you to Quiet Earth for pointing out this gem.

Sigh, no one does magazine covers like this anymore. Evy Kasseth Røsten, Charlotte Frogner and Jenny Skavlan look amazing, and this movie will do amazing at Sundance mark my words. Check out the latest trailer and learn how to slaughter an attacking group of undead jerks.

Speaking of Sundance, I'm also incredibly interested in Paul Solet's film Grace, which will also be premiering at the snowy festival. Solet worked very closely with Eli Roth and is known for his work on Means To An End. Grace is about a mother who loses her baby in the womb but decides to carry it to term. After the delivery, the baby comes back to life - but now has an insatiable thirst for blood. Poster from /Film.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Quiet Earth pointed out the amazing trailer to a movie that looks like "The Descent meets The Hills Have Eyes" (the latter of which apparently inspired the director). A couple goes on their honeymoon but ends up having to fight some nasty beasties in the woods. The trailer is a trip, especially when the hubby kills a creature, rips off it's face, and then wears it. It' directed Lola Wallace and according to QE it was shot in a mere 5 days with no script.

Official Synopsis of The Trek:

When Keith and Kim Russell head into the mountains on an adventure packed honeymoon, they find much more action than they were expecting. When the newlyweds stumble upon a pair of cave dwelling savages, their romantic getaway quickly becomes a tragic nightmare as each couple tests the limits of how far they are willing to go in order to protect the ones that they love.

What if your best friend was a zombie? Would you be brave enough to hold an intervention? News about George's Intervention circulated in October, but I missed the trailer. From the looks of it, the little B film could be pretty funny. The comedic timing is pretty spot on and the gore looks pretty fantastic, but the trailer is NSFW so beware. George's Intervention is set to release in 2009.

Here's the official synopsis:

George's friends have gathered for an intervention... George's intervention. You see, George is a zombie. And his friends are hoping to convince him to stop eating people. Plus, it's unhealthy. The meat is raw. And who knows where these people have been.

With the help of a professional interventionist George's friends confront George regarding his "addiction." But over the course of the night his friends begin to disappear. Have they given up hope that George's Intervention will be successful? Or have they become dinner?

Hells Angels brings together Yoshiki Yamakawa (who worked on the manga version of Star Wars: Return of the Jedi) as the director, Yasushi Nirazawa (one of the minds behind the Hellboy beasties) and character designer Kazita Nakagawa (who worked with Shinichiro Watanabe on Samurai Champlo). As of right now, I can't tell what this flick is about... but I will tell you that the demon Elvis is outstanding.

Trailer:

In other creature news, Deep in the Jungle is bringing us even more sexy snake ladies. The Thailand film follows a secret service agent who falls for a snake lady, and I can only assume the snakey sex and hilarity ensue. Here is the official synopsis:

Nawin, an army secret service agent decided to withdraw from a scientific investigation because of unlawful procedures that involved International forces. Although he had tried desperately to avoid the illegal acts of the armed forces, it seems the harder he tried the more involved he became. He was constantly under surveillance no matter where he went or what he did which made him realize there was more to the situation that meets the eye.

Jin, a young woman who Nawin once saved from a brutal attack is undergoing a strange transformation within her body as her blood circulates through mutation. This transformation on Jin, is what Nawin believes the International forces are after. The half breed mix between animal and human.

Nawin decides to help Jin by taking her back to her birth place. As he leads her home, her illness seems to subside. They will soon grow close and fall in love. When it comes time for Nawin to choose between her and his life, he awakes to find that it has all been an image of his imagination…or was it?

Trailer

We found an adorable little short about two boys who stumble across a magical toaster that turns ordinary breads into solid gold! The Toaster That Toasted the Golden Toast was written and directed by Danny Bourque and can be viewed in its entirety here. We grabbed a few fun pics below.

In other funny scifi indie news, we've got the trailer for Thor At The Bus Stop (Thanks to Quiet Earth for pointing out this little gem). Don't let the generic indie guitar music fool you, this looks like quite a little cutie. The film follows Thor, the Norse God, on his last day on Earth, as he knows he must die to save the planet. On his final day, the fearless warrior traverses about a little suburb meeting people and causing a chain reaction through each character.

Thor At The Bus Stop Trailer:

And finally, feast your eyes on the amazing new trailer from Russian scifi epic Inhabited Island. This is how you make a space movie: Find a pretty boy, put him in space, and then get him all dirty and angry. In Inhabited Island Maxim Kammerer crashlands on a planet wasted by nuclear destruction and ruled by unknown "fathers" who govern with mind-control towers.

Inhabited Island
The new Inhabited Island trailer is out, shedding some light as to what sort of alien creatures our hottie hero will encounter on the foreign planet. It's the year 2157, and a pretty-boy space pilot wrecks his ship on Saraksh Planet. Now it looks like he's going to have to fight werewolves and other beasties.

Splice
New pictures from Guillermo del Toro's Splice have arrived over at Shock Til' You Drop. This lovely bald baby is Dren who was conjured up by the mad scientists played by Adrien Brody and Sarah Polley. Dren is an unethical combination of both human and animal DNA.

Antibody
This weekend saw the New York Horror Film Fest, which debuted a few new indie shorties including a 20 minute short film called Antibody. This short focuses on patients being kept in a crappy prison for being infected with something that sounds like a zombie infestation. The main character is locked up in a prison with a wheezy next door cellmate and a penchant for vomiting. The audience experiences the whole zombie outbreak from inside the cell of one poor victim. You can watch the entire short movie here.

Burying The Ex
And finally, another zombie flick screened this weekend was Alan Trezza's Burying The Ex. Which has the adorable John Francis Daley from Freaks And Geeks and Bones, as Zak the boy who can't seem to get over his ex girlfriend, especially when she rises from the dead. I'm all aboard for scifi horror comedies as long as the continue to use stellar actors like Daley, and keep it short and funny. There is no need for any more Eva Longoria "back from the dead" romcoms.

First, Twitch Film has the latest trailer for Cem Yilmaz's seriously funny A.R.O.G (the sorta sequel to G.O.R.A.). This time, it's all about time travel, and Yilmaz (who penned the movie) has us following around a poor carpet salesman sucked into a time vortex. I know many of you are big fans of Spaceballs, but give me wacky Turkish humor any day. Plus, it looks so well done that I'm really excited about this film and promise to send you all more information the second we find it (as of right now it's just opening in Turkey and Germany in December). Also, if you haven't seen him front and center for the birth of his alien baby, well, I've included that below as well.

New Trailer For A.R.O.G.:
First Three Minutes Of A.R.O.G:

In other new sci-fi comedy news, Max Evry has come out with a sci-fi comedy titled Blue Lollipop that follows a bathrobed man who is forced to both work and live inside a cubicle where he remotely pilots a big old space truck over dangerous planets filled with monsters. But what's the point of working all day if you can't share your wealth with the space ladies? So buckle up and watch as the main character tries to get laid and get paid, space style.

Trailer For Blue Lollipop:

Blue Lollipop is screening on November 16th in Brooklyn, NY, at the Petri Space along with "When Midnight Comes" by Jeff Burns. Doors open at 8 PM.

Even though the original Ho-Tep writer Don Coscarelli was connected to Bubba Nosferatu, Bruce Campbell's decision to pass on the idea seemed to doom this picture to development purgatory. But this week, Ain't It Cool News brings us news from Paul Giamatti that hope is not lost. And it sounds like instead of doing a story about an Elvis impersonator, they are thinking about doing a fake story about an actual "lost" Elvis movie.

I don’t want to give too much of it away! So yeah I’ll be playing Col. Parker, who… You know part of the great thing about this is not only are these wonderful genre movies, but he’s actually taking a weird, interesting take on the whole Elvis myth and kind of investigating the whole Elvis myth in a really interesting way, so it’s got a lot of stuff about Col. Parker being responsible for a lot of what happened to Elvis and kind of literally making him a vampire in some ways, you know? A kind of a blood sucker… It plays on a lot of things, this movie, in a great way and it’s got Sitting Bull in it and there’s a peyote trip in it that is amazing and it’s just a big leap beyond the other movie. It’s ten times more insane and bizarre and it’s great and hilarious, too. It’s funnier than the other one is even. It still ends up being this great character study of this Elvis guy.

But more importantly tam all of this is the news that Ron Perlman is being vetted for the role of Elvis:

And his movies are amazing. They are totally unique, you know? So then he asked me if I was interested in doing this one and I was just like “You have got to be kidding me. Yeah, absolutely!” I said, “I have a little production company and we can help you guys do this” and he brought me in onboard and now we have got Ron Perlman interested in playing Elvis.

Now, I know that Campbell played the aged Elvis impersonator, but I'm not entirely sold that Perlman can pull off The King. I wish they would just approach Campbell again to play Elvis as he did such an amazing job last time, and it would be pretty hard to top. Perlman is great and all, but I dunno - Is there really an actor out there that can fill the shoes of Campbell? His chin alone would take at least 4 actors. I mean, Perlman can deliver playful lines as Hellboy, but does he have the snide and charisma of Campbell? Does anyone? I put it to you dear readers: Who do you think can top Bruce?

Sadly though it sounds like Giamatti and friends did everything they could to get Campbell involved and he just wasn't interested. Sad.

Bubba Ho-Tep Trailer:

Erasure Children:
But not to leave you trailer free, we've got word of a crazy new low budget called Eraser Children, and just the name sounds like a total trip. The movie takes place in the future where Misner Corporation runs the land and will fine you for any violation they see fit (even if you laugh too loud). In this dystopia, you can buy your dreams... but you may be subjected to a few police beatings. Check out the trailer below, and for more information check out the official Erasure Children site.

[AICN and Quiet Earth]

The first clip is Automated Assets written by James Dastoli and Robert Datoli. That's the full adorable robot short where you get to see the silver faces of the customer service industry.

Lone:
Lone is so adorable, it could almost be a live action Wall-E origins short. The flick shows at the Imagine Festival and was directed by Andrew Nowrojee principle photography was by Stefan Duscio. The short follows what is seemingly the last man on Earth and his desire to build a new friend.

"LONE" Trailer from Imagine Science Films on Vimeo.

Transgressions:
Far and away my favorite short of the Imagine Festival, this 15 minute journey into our future shows the severe consequences that we'll all have to face even for merely scratching another persons car.

TRANSGRESSIONS from Imagine Science Films on Vimeo.

Apollo 10.5
According to this shoft, before we sent men to the moon, NASA sent a 6-year old boy into space just to check it out. Directed and written by Lance Gambis (and starring his son), it's a sweet little tale about launching kids into outer space.

Apollo 10 1/2 from Imagine Science Films on Vimeo.

Dod Sno:
Fresh off the internet is the Norwegian horror film Dod Sno where the Nazi undead attack a poor group of unsuspecting teens on a snowy holiday.

Alice's Birthday:
Twitch Film found this totally crazed Russian animated movie called Alice's Birthday (or День рождения Алисы, if you can speak Russian). The film is directed by Sergey Seryogin, and adapted from the children scifi books by Kir Bulychev. There has already been an 80s animated feature and a miniseries based on Bulychev's books, but this is the big feature film undertaking. This world looks like crazy wild fun and has moments of spooky aliens trying to inject little Alice. I long for the return of pre-teen space life. I feel like we haven't had a great scifi kids show or movie since the early 90s.

Trailer And Behind The Scenes Look:

Hover Board Riding:

Meet All The Aliens:

1/One Human Minute:
Peter Sparrow is making a movie based on the ideas in Stanislaw Lem's One Human Minute. This should be very interesting, as Lem's work has a lot of gigantic ideas and I hope we get to see more than just one translated on the screen. This feature is currently in post-production. A few stills and "mood boards" are below. If the mood boards full of historical photographs are any indication of what awaits us in 1 then this should be an extremely gripping feature. Here is the official synopsis:

A bookshop renowned for its rare works is mysteriously and completely filled with copies of a book entitled 1, which doesn’t appear to have a publisher or author. The strange almanac describes what happens to the whole of humanity in the space of a minute. A police investigation begins and the bookshop staff are placed in solitary confinement by the Bureau for Paranormal Research (RDI Reality Defense Institute). As the investigation progresses, the situation becomes more complex and the book increasingly well known, raising numerous controversies (political, scientific, religious and artistic). Plagued by doubts, the protagonist has to face facts: reality only exists in the imagination of individuals.

For more stills check out Quiet Earth.

The Horde:

Yannick Dahan and Benjamin Rocher mash-em-up horror is currently filming right now and finally has an official synopsis:

North of Paris. In order to avenge the murder of one of their own by a group of ruthless gangsters, four corrupt cops go on a rampage in a condemned building serving as the mobster’s hideout. Now trapped, the officers are about to be executed when the unimaginable occurs: hordes of bloodthirsty, cannibalistic creatures invade the building, savagely attacking everyone. Unexpected alliances are made when their lives are threatened by the unthinkable.

My original response to reading this is, it's about damn time we infused more mafia zombie movies. There's nothing like escaping the arms of the undead while building bridges with unlikely partners. Hopefully, there will be more updates in this film soon. Fingers crossed for set pics.

Feast III Footage Screened:
Hooray! Director of the fantastic Feasty trilogy, John Gulager, screened some footage of his latest film Feast III: The Happy Finish (which is supposed to be appearing on DVD this February). According to Shock Till You Drop, Feast III is even more gruesome than its two predecessors (which is hard to believe):

The scene featured Diane Goldner's Biker Queen - and her tattooed, armed companions - following "Hobo" (a character encoring from part 2) into his school bus somewhere underground (?!).

A monster attack ensues, it appears as if one of Biker Queen's gals doesn't live to see another day (or maybe they both don't, it was hard to tell). Nevertheless, the school bus is started up and propelled topside where the other survivors are waiting (spotted: Hanna Putnam's "Secrets" and Juan Longoria García's "Lightning").

Hooray for underground beast furry!

Block 66
Quiet Earth uncovered the poster and trailer for Hungarian bio-terror scifi movie Block 66. It's a lot of fast cuts with little information, but still, I'm excited for more foreign flicks that can hopefully bring a different set of eyes to weapons of mass destruction.

Trailer:

Mock Up On Mu:
Splicing together archival footage to tell the secret tale of California based on rocket scientists, beatniks, Scientology and other urban legends to create a pulpy and surreal look into the sci-fi underground beginning of the great state of California, director Craig Baldwin's Mock Up On Mu focuses on three characters that generated a secret history for California. First up is Jack Parsons, the inventor of solid rocket fuel and other jet advances (and, according to Baldwin, also a follower of the crazy-like-a-fox Aleister Crowley), closely followed by his partner and self-styled "mother of the New Age," beatnik artist Marjorie Cameron, and finally, L. Ron Hubbard, famed sci-fi writer and creator of Scientology. Baldwin takes actual past footage and edits past reels of these three people together to create an secret history that run the range from crazed government paranoia to straight forward scifi conspiracy theories.

20th Century Boys:
Here's a new trailer for the mystery manga 20th Century Boys big screen live-action adaptation. Hero Kenji Endō and his pals have to remember bits and details from their youth in order to piece together the answer they need to stop the end of the world on New Years Eve, 2000, but as he ages, he starts to forget things little by little. Can Kenji and the rest of the fellas pull together in time?

They Came Back 2 (Les Revenants):
When the dead came back to life in the French film They Came Back they weren't covered in dirt, worms and decaying right in front of you. These zombies looked just like the living and tried to enter the living world again. But unfortunately for the zombies, many of their love ones had remarried, their jobs had been filled and the government didn't really know how to deal with all the undead back from the grave. The sequel kind of confuses me as I'm not sure how much further they are willing to take it, but I can see an oppressive government setting up zombie camps and shuttling them off for manual labor. Thanks to Quiet Earth for digging up the dirt on the sequel.

Trailer For Original Film They Came Back:

[NYFF, Quiet Earth and Twitch]

Dead Snow:
Norwegian flick Dod Sno (or Dead Snow, if you must) finally has a trailer. We've reported on the lovely posters and stills before, but now we get to see the unfrozen group of Nazi zombies feed on a small group of vacationing youths in action. First, off the Nazi zombies look fantastic, and the gore and blood spill seems like a great ratio. Bravo for coming up with the idea of freezing then unfreezing older zombies and bonus points for making them the Great Evil.

Splinter:
A hot young couple (including Paulo Costanzo from Road Trip, swoon) take to the wilderness for a romantic camping trip... but their holiday lovefest is brutally interrupted when they get car-jacked by an escaped convict and his lady. And wait, it gets worse: The two sets of lovebirds pull into a remote gas station and are attacked by a blood hungry parasite that absorbs people. All four are now trapped inside the gas station and have to fight their way out, careful not to become "splintered" by the beast.

Fallen Nation: Babylon Burning:
Invictus Films has picked up the rights to James Curico's apocalypse novel and is working on adapting it for the big screen. The story takes place during an apocalyptic war being fought "in the shadows," and follows a group of escaped mental patients as they become rock stars and slowly begin to take over the world. Sounds terrifying, and exceedingly (appropriately?) acid-induced.

[Splinter, Quiet Earth]

Dante 01
A new prisoner arrives in a maximum security space prison and is being processed in the prison psych ward, called Dante 01. This newest addition to the gang is the sole survivor of an alien attack, and apparently that turned him bad - so bad, in fact, that he starts a space prison riot. But is it his will being done, or some alien evilness? The cult French movie, the first solo directing job for Delicatessen's Marc Caro, will be released on January 2, 2009.

Abel
A deadly outbreak sweeps through Berlin slowly paralyzing the masses; infected inhabitants are quarantined in their homes while the virus slowly takes hold of their bodies for three days. As the disease spreads, some survivors lock themselves in their own homes while others go door-to-door preying upon the helplessly immobile. Abel looks terrifying and promises to contain all kinds of different end of the world human psyches. Trailer and stills NSFW.

The Substitute (Vikaren)
This Danish film features a chicken-eating sixth grade teacher, and we're not talking roasted with some nice root vegetables on the side, here. Her students aren't fooled by her niceness at all and, convinced that she's an alien, organize an assault on the creature. The Substitute will be released onto DVD October 14th.

Pink Eye
Patients in an New York insane asylum are being used as lab rats for a mysterious drug test. When one of the mutated psychotics escapes, he unleashes a whole new kind of hell on the closest town. Watch the trailer below to see the patients go crazy and claw at their eyes when exposed to the asylum's drugs. Pink Eye will be out on DVD Sept. 30th.