In Tree of Life, Jessica Chastain played a mother who could float. In Mama, she's attacked by one. Chastain shot this dignified little thriller in fall 2011 during the stretch when literally every arthouse theater played at least two of her pictures—between Tree, Coriolanus, The Help, Take Shelter, Texas Killing Fields and The Debt, she was indie cinema's inescapable new queen. Universal intended to release the Guillermo del Toro-produced Mama last October, but shelved it until the week after Chastain was nominated for an Oscar for Zero Dark Thirty. Is this her reputation-besmirching Norbit? Pshaw — for my money, it's her best performance yet.
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Ti West (House of the Devil, The Innkeepers) delivers a slow burn with a killer pay-off in his contribution to this weekend's horror anthology V/H/S, a road trip-cum-nightmare starring fellow indie veterans Joe Swanberg, Sophia Takal, and Kate Lyn Sheil. Before departing to Georgia to film his next feature, The Sacrament, West rang Movieline to discuss his V/H/S short, filmed on the road with a camera and no crew other than his three actors, how to recreate their L.A.-to-the-Grand Canyon V/H/S adventure, the creative struggles involved in making personal independent films at increasing scale, and — of course — the magical phenomenon that transforms strangers into compatriots within the confines of a karaoke bar.
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You loved the Blair Witch Project, the Paranormal Activities, and all of the knockoff faux-doc horror pics that followed, so now ladies and gentlemen, here comes a Christian horror pic entitled Harmless. Shot, according to the film's website, "in the popular found footage style," the film tells the freaky tale of one wholesome family torn asunder and terrified... by a box of porn. Behold the horrors that await (in terribly staged, lo-fi scenes of temptation and terror) in the trailer for Harmless.
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Continuing along the theme of projects that make you feel unsafe within the confines of your own house/cabin/local bed and breakfast, Innkeepers director Ti West has been tapped to script Bedbugs, adapted from Ben H. Winters' 2011 novel of the same name. The tale follows a woman who moves into the perfect Brooklyn brownstone with her family, only to be plagued by an infestation of bugs... that only seem to be biting her. Is your skin crawling yet?
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A movie about childhood nightmares that plays too much like an actual, incoherent nightmare to make a good movie, Intruders is a psychodrama divided against itself. Little kids don’t need a reason to get worked up about what’s in their closet, or to be told to worry. When it comes to being scared their imaginations are half cocked at all times, more than prepared to fill every blank with the bogeyman. Although Intruders, much like last year’s Insidious, is framed as a sins-of-the-father spook-fest, it assumes too little of its audience — specifically that we too need only contemplate a darkened wardrobe or the outline of a giant, grabby dude to want to jump out of our skin.
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Back in January, MGM/Screen Gems tapped director Kimberly Peirce to helm their remake of Stephen King's Carrie, updating the supernatural tale after Brian de Palma's iconic 1976 film adaptation. The current frontrunners to play Carrie White, the sexually repressed telekinetic teen who wreaks bloody revenge on her classmates at the high school prom? Kick-Ass star Chloe Moretz and actress Haley Bennett (The Haunting of Molly Hartley, Marley & Me), according to Vulture. Can either fill Sissy Spacek's shoes?
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Because Jennifer Lawrence's StarMeter is sky-high during this glorious Hunger Games weekend, why not take a look at her next venture, the indie horror pic House at the End of the Street? Katniss Everdeen this ain't; JLawr (JenLaw? JLa? Did we ever figure this one out?) stars as a teenager who befriends a new neighbor (Max Thieriot) whose family was murdered years ago. In the first image from the pic, a tank topped Lawrence discovers something mysterious and, from the look on her face, probably horrifying. Where's that bow and arrow when you really need it...?
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Three days into SXSW and the biggest winner so far has been Joss Whedon and Drew Goddard’s geek-pleasing meta-horror pic Cabin in the Woods, which Lionsgate releases in April. But also in town in search of a SXSW buzz bump is Lionsgate/Summit's Ethan Hawke-starring haunted house pic Sinister, which debuted as a “secret screening” Saturday night – not the most spectacular secret title possible, especially in contrast to hopeful speculation for a sneak Avengers or Hunger Games debut, and not entirely secret, but fine enough.
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Talking about Joss Whedon and Drew Goddard’s savvy and surprising genre deconstruction Cabin in the Woods, the opening night film of SXSW 2012, is a tricky thing partly because nobody involved wants any part of the film spoiled for their opening weekend audience and also, more importantly, because those surprises really are best left discovered by virgin eyes. So rest assured: All spoilery plot details, character developments, casting choices, kills, and surprises that follow in this piece have been redacted for the preservation of discovery, leaving only all the vital bits of information up for discussion. Like, after filming in 2009 and being delayed for so long that star Chris Hemsworth is now kind of famous, is Cabin in the Woods actually any good?
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Three pretty young friends find themselves trapped by a shadowy stranger -- in an ATM vestibule! -- in David Brooks' directorial debut, ATM. Get a glimpse of the single-location thriller, from the writer of Buried, in an exclusive clip and new images.
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Film festivals have emerged as one of the best, most fertile grounds for discovering new voices in genre filmmaking, so much so that just about every fest these days has a midnight sidebar for edgier, darker fare. Among the just-announced midnight selections at this year's SXSW Film Festival (held March 9-17 in Austin, TX): Tales of killer lady bartenders, faceless spooks, space-traveling Nazis, a deadly virus, VHS tapes, and the most evil kind of nightmare-inspiring villain imaginable, feral children. (Shudder.) Let's rundown the freakiest-sounding offerings of the SXSW Midnight slate!
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In director Juan Carlos Fresnadillo's horror tale The Intruders, Clive Owen investigates spooky happenings at home and discovers that something supernatural may be haunting his young daughter. How scary is this mystery perpetrator who makes things go bump late at night? Well, just hit the jump to get a good look at what it did to poor Owen's handsome face.
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Last year, Sundance It Girl Elizabeth Olsen had two notable films debut in Park City. One was Sean Durkin's Martha Marcy May Marlene, which earned Olsen raves and new fans for her central turn as a paranoid cult survivor. Now comes Olsen's second Sundance '11 pic, Silent House, in which poor Olsen finds herself spooked by bumps in the night and possibly more insidious forces while stuck in a darkened abandoned house. Was it really shot in a single continuous take, as co-directors Chris Kentis and Laura Lau claim? Is there any young actress quite as watchable in moments of terror as the younger Olsen? Watch the trailer and let us ponder these questions together.
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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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Genre fans already know Kevin Sorbo for his long-running stints on Hercules: The Legendary Journeys and Andromeda, two shows for which he's earned international stardom on the small screen, and in recent years the erstwhile Hercules/Dylan Hunt has branched out by adding Christian flicks to his resume. But are audiences -- not to mention fans of his faith-based work -- ready to see Sorbo as the ultra-violent, masochistic lady-hunting sociopath he plays in P.J. Pettiette's horror satire Julia X 3D?
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