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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Indie auteur Joe Swanberg has established himself as the reigning poster child of mumblecore, for better or worse, but as the most surprising filmmaker contributing to the Sundance hit horror anthology V/H/S (in theaters Friday) he begins branching out of his comfort zone with a newfound energy; his entry, The Sick Thing That Happened To Emily When She Was Younger, was filmed using Skype — and a script! — and is also one of the more memorable and inventive shorts in the midnight crowd-pleasing omnibus.
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Yet another Paranormal Activity sequel is heading to theaters this fall, but the increasingly repetitive found footage franchise is introducing some new elements to its scare tactics. For instance, a blonde chick, after three movies of brunettes! Even more original: Paranormal Activity 4 will deliver its spooks via Skype — so tech-forward, so of the moment — the likes of which we totally haven't seen before. Or have we?
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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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Legendary auteurs, they're just like us! When iconic filmmaker Ingmar Bergman passed away in 2007, he left behind one of the greatest bodies of work known to cinema -- and a vast, meticulously catalogued VHS collection, the subject of the upcoming Swedish documentary Bergman's Video. Among his tapes, somewhere between the Bunuel and the Tarkovsky: Jurassic Park, Ghostbusters, and The Blues Brothers, which at least partially explains the ghosts and Jake/Elwood-esque sibling dynamic in Fanny and Alexander. The dinosaurs, not so much. [Cineuropa via Movie City News]
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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Park City did indeed turn out to be a robust marketplace this year, with buyers snapping up over two dozen features and docs out of Sundance 2012. Ranging from genre pleasers to indie charmers to potential future Oscar picks and beyond – and veering from critical fest duds to overwhelming crowd favorites – the class of Sundance ’12 is an intriguingly mixed-but-mostly-promising bag of films that will be dotting the cinematic landscape in the year or so to come. Here’s an updated comprehensive look at what sold and which films you should be looking forward to.
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It may be a relatively quiet Sundance year – even Pixar’s Lee Unkrich, in town for the festival, Tweeted his dismay at the “mixed bag” of movies – but films are selling. Granted, they’re mostly the ones with name actors and mostly okay-to-decent reviews (with a few exceptions), but buyers continue to be getting busy in the snow. The latest batch of pick-ups (Olsens and robots and scares, oh my!) after the jump.
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As Sundance 2012 passed the halfway point, the celebs and hangers-on and people watchers started filtering out of Park City, leaving the sidewalks actually walkable and the shuttles downright spacious. I prepare to go home tomorrow, with many more interviews and reports to come, but the glorious peacefulness has me misty-eyed about the week that was; here's a quick rundown of highlights from the first week of the fest -- the movies I loved, the events that transpired, and yes, the time I met with Ice-T and Coco to talk hip-hop while they munched on pancakes.
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If you've grown tired of the gimmickry and diminishing quality of "found footage" horror, Sundance's Midnight program just delivered the cure: V/H/S, an anthology film comprised of shorts by six up-and-coming horror/indie filmmakers, each working within the parameter that their story be told via found media. The Devil Inside this ain't; V/H/S is fresh and pulse-quickening to the end, one of the best discoveries of this year's fest.
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What is this strange retro fascination the kids have these days with watching old crappy horror movies on -- what was it called again? V-H-S? The New York Times investigates. "I like putting it in the VCR and rewinding and pausing and fast-forwarding," said Lunchmeat founder Josh Shafer. "The best way to watch is to know nothing about how it was created, like it was a tape that was found buried in a ditch or was found unmarked at a Goodwill," explains Drafthouse Films' Evan Husney. See kids, once upon a time there were these things called videotapes... that you rented from video stores... before the internet existed. Yes, I know. That's a lot to digest. Let the nice Gray Lady explain it to you. [NYT]
Today at Fantastic Fest, Movieline got its hands on a VHS tape labeled "September 1988," packaged in an unmarked manila envelope. Perhaps (probably) not coincidentally, the date corresponds to recently released footage from Paranormal Activity 3, the forthcoming found footage prequel about spooky goings-on in the lives of a family haunted by unseen forces. Could this have something to do with tomorrow's hotly anticipated secret screening?
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Last week, Apple enthusiasts made the terrifying discovery that some iPhone 4 devices were surreptitiously taking photos of their users, then posting said spy pics during FaceTime calls without having been told to do so. Have smart phones become too smart? Is our collective dependence on rapidly evolving technology setting the stage for a SkyNet future? Movieline revisits the sinister history of gadgets and technology gone wrong in the movies for clues as to where and when the robot wars might begin -- and, hopefully, how humanity might be able to fight back.
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