An outbreak of zombie-like symptoms plagues the residents of a waterfront town in The Bay, but I can't get over the fact that Barry Levinson, the Oscar-winning director of Rain Man and the maker of such resume-tipping hits as Diner, Good Morning, Vietnam, Bugsy, and Wag the Dog is doing a found footage creature feature that doesn't seem to offer terribly much new or fresh within the genre. Are things that bad, Barry?
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The horror anthology V/H/S was one of the freshest genre discoveries to come out of Sundance '12, and this fall it finally arrives in theaters and on VOD. Revel in the found-footage conceit — done particularly well here, spanning short segments by the likes of Adam Wingard, Ti West, Joe Swanberg, and more filmmakers to keep on your radar — with a look at the official poster, itself a clever, cryptic spin on the old hand-marked VHS tapes some folks still have lurking in dusty closets and basements.
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With an imminent debut at one of the numerous, unrelated Riviera events orbiting the Cannes Film Festival, The Lucifer Effect has issued a trailer and a press release detailing the horrific, publicity-friendly happenings undergirding what its makers seem to believe will be the industry's next found-footage phenomenon. It has footnotes and everything — as though David Foster Wallace and William Castle collaborated on some sincerely unholy afterlife marketing effort. You should see this! The pitch, that is, not the movie (though maybe that, too).
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I’m pretty sure I ruined the night of a pair teenage boys huddled in the back row of a recent screening of Project X, a party disaster movie targeted at kids who find the Hangover franchise too sophisticated. All I did was sit down beside them, but I may as well have poked my head up into their treehouse. Girls ruin everything, especially the unmitigated enjoyment of a new Todd Phillips movie. A few seconds after the lights went down, as a shrill junior impresario named Costa (Oliver Cooper) was shouting 2 Live Crew lyrics about wanting pussy, the one beside me began twisting in an agony I came to enjoy much more than the movie we were watching.
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This just in from Nikki Finke: Paramount's cheap wannabe found footage hit The Devil Inside -- which drew reports of audible grumbles and boos as the credits rolled at sneak screenings in Los Angeles and New York last night -- has already made back double its acquisition costs. "The Devil Inside acquired for $1M opened with $2M midnights from 1,400 theaters. It goes wide into 2,300 theaters today," Finke writes at Deadline, adding that "the genre film plays very young and very ethnic so it will probably be frontloaded." Nice. Very young and very ethnic. If the pic turns into a Paranormal Activity-esque hit, you know who to blame. [Deadline, @STYDnews, Moviefone]
The very existence of Paranormal Activity 3 may induce a few eye-rolls, but at this point it's hard to deny the sheer effectiveness of "found footage" horror films. After Time featured a cover story on The Blair Witch Project in '99, it appeared we'd be in for years and years of copycats, but there have been more than a handful of inventive twists on the young genre. What's your favorite?
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Horror remakes and sequels are a dime a dozen, but low-budget flicks like Paranormal Activity have boosted interest in making yet more moneymakers, no matter how redundant they sound on paper. Enter The Amityville Horror: The Lost Tapes, a new "found footage" sequel to the classic horror pic that will shoot this summer for a January 2012 release. What say you, Movieliners? Will this familiar concept be drawn thin or reinvigorated by the whole "found footage" shtick?
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Looks like The Weinstein Co. has discovered a new release date for the Timur Bekmambetov-produced "found footage" moon landing pic Apollo 18. (In the immortal words of Bob Weinstein, "Found, baby!") The bad news is that the mystery project, originally slated to open next month, is moving aaaaall the way from April 22 to Jan. 6, 2012. Yeesh. A last-minute nine month delay doesn't bode terribly well for any film, but then again, so little is known about Apollo 18 just yet that maybe it doesn't matter much. At least this gives the Weinsteins plenty of time to add ReleaseQuest™: Apollo 18 to their slate of upcoming video game adaptations. [Deadline]
