Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water, Academy Award-winning director Barry Levinson and newbie writer Michael Wallach give us The Bay, a found-footage frightener about water-bred parasitic invaders that consume human inside out.

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The film’s synopsis reads:

The quaint seaside town of Chesapeake Bay thrives on water; it is the lifeblood of the community. When two biological researchers from France find a staggering level of toxicity in the water, they attempt to alert the mayor, but he refuses to create a panic in the docile town.

As a result, a deadly plague is unleashed, turning the people of Chesapeake Bay into hosts for a mutant breed of parasites that take control of their minds, and eventually their bodies.

A cross between Jaws and Animal Planet’s “Monsters Inside Me,” the film stars Kristen Connolly (Cabin in the Woods), Kether Donohue (Pitch Perfect), Lauren Cohn (The Hitcher), Will Rogers (Nancy, Please), Stephen Kunken (Wolf of Wall Street), Frank Deal (Bourne Legacy) and Jane McNeill (“The Walking Dead”).

Roadside Attractions will release The Bay in theaters and VOD on Nov. 2

London’s Film4 Frightfest stirred up some controversy this year when it ran an anti-theater texting PSA in which a movie patron stabs a woman in the back of the head and then proceeds to rape the gaping wound after she rudely refuses to shut off her phone.

Now, I’m as much a fan of sexualized violence as the next degenerate, but this PSA—shown during a screening of Maniac—does seem a little over the top in its misogyny… then again, people that text and fiddle with their smartphones during movies do deserve a dick in the head, a big black dick.

For that reason (and the cum in the mouth is kinda hot)… I’ll allow it.

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Gemma Arterton (Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters) and Saoirse Ronan (Hanna) star in Oscar winning director Neil Jordan’s (Interview with the Vampire) new vampire frightener Byzantium. Written by Jane Eyre scribe Moira Buffini, the film details the lives of a mother/daughter bloodsucking team.

The film’s synopsis reads:

Two mysterious women seek refuge in a run-down coastal resort. Clara (Arterton) meets lonely Noel, who provides shelter in his deserted guesthouse, Byzantium.

Schoolgirl Eleanor (Ronan) befriends Frank and tells him their lethal secret. They were born 200 years ago and survive on human blood. As knowledge of their secret spreads, their past catches up on them with deathly consequence.

The lads at Empire scored the first clip.

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Heather Locklear has joined the cast of Dimension Films’ Scary Movie 5. If you’re too young to know who that is, ask your dad’s penis. It will regale you with stories of short, breath-taking Amanda Woodward power skirts, tight Caitlin Moore pencil skirts, clingy Sammy Jo gowns and skintight Stacy Sheridan uniforms.

Directed by Malcolm Lee (Undercover Brother) and co-written by Zucker, the horror-comedy spoofs Darren Aronofsky’s 2010 Oscar-nominated film Black Swan. Locklear will step into the looney mom role played by Barbara Hershey in Aronofsky’s film.

Locklear’s costars include Lindsay Lohan (Machete), Charlie Sheen (Machete Kills), Terry Crews (The Expendables), Marisa Saks (“Entourage”), Erica Ash (“MADTV”), Simon Rex (Scary Movie 4), Molly Shannon (“Saturday Night Live”) and Ashley Tisdale (High School Musical) in the Natalie Portman role.

Scary Movie 5 arrives in theaters on April 19, 2013.

Lorraine Nicholson (Soul Surfer), the 22-year-old daughter of Hollywood icon Jack Nicholson, costars in The Cottage. The film follows a financially strapped suburban couple (Kristen Dalton, Victor Browne) as they’re tormented by the romance novelist (David Arquette) renting the cottage behind their house.

The Cottage is directed by Chris Jaymes from a script by Nick Antosca and costars Morissa O’Mara (Machine Head), Alana O’Mara (Machine Head), Rome Shadanloo (Cougars Inc.) and Bellamy Young (“Criminal Minds”). It arrives on DVD on Oct. 9.

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Juno Temple (Killer Joe) is set to star in Alexandre Aja’s big screen adaptation of author Joe Hill’s “Horns.” The supernatural thriller stars Daniel Radcliffe (Harry Potter) as Ignatius Perrish, a man who grows horns out of his head and uses their mysterious powers to avenge the rape and murder of his girlfriend.

Temple has scored the role of Perrish’s dead and raped girlfriend. She joins a cast that includes Joe Anderson (“The River”), Max Minghella (Darkest Hour) and Kelli Garner (“Pan Am”). The Mandalay Pictures’ release is executive produced by Hill, son of horror author Stephen King.

Temple is coming off Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight Rises and William Friedkin’s gleefully deranged Killer Joe. Her previous creds include the arthouse sci-fi comedy Kaboom and the long-delayed lesbian werewolf thriller Jack and Diane.

WE Productions has released a new teaser for its upcoming French sci-fi series “Metal Hurlant Chronicles.” The show, which will premiere in France and possibly expand to the U.K. and Germany, is already green-lit for two seasons, each made up of 12 26-minute episodes. 

Directed by Guillaume Lubrano, “Metal Hurlant Chronicles” stars Rutger Hauer (Hobo with a Shotgun), Michael Jai White (Black Dynamite), Scott Adkins (Universal Soldier: Day of Reckoning), James Marsters (”Buffy the Vampire Slayer”) and the very lovely Kelly Brook (Piranha 3-D).

The show is a live action adaptation of the 1974 French comic book series “Metal Hurlant Chronicles.” It was adapted as “Heavy Metal Magazine” in the U.S. in 1977, and produced in 1981 as the animated feature Heavy Metal.

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Production has begun on Universal 1440 Entertainment’s Curse of Chucky, the fifth installment in the outrageous Child’s Play franchise. The film, said to be a return to the series darker roots, picks up after the events of Child’s Play 3, skipping over comedic sequels Bride of Chucky and Seed of Chucky.

Directed by franchise creator and writer Don Mancini, Curse of Chucky once again features Brad Dourif as the voice of Chucky and stars his sister Fiona Dourif (“True Blood”), Danielle Bisutti (pictured), A Martinez (“Santa Barbara”) and Brennan Elliott (Double Jeopardy).

The official synopsis reads:

Nica (Dourif) is grieving over the gruesome suicide of her mother when her domineering older sister, Barb (Bisutti), arrives with her young family in tow to help settle their mother’s affairs.

As the sisters butt heads over Nica’s plans for the future, Barb’s young daughter comforts herself with a grinning, red-haired talking doll named Chucky that recently arrived mysteriously in the mail. But as a string of brutal murders begins to terrorize the household, Nica suspects the doll may hold the key to the bloodshed.

What she doesn’t know is that Chucky has a personal score to settle. He’s determined to finish a job he started more than 20 years earlier, and this time he’s going to see it through to the bloody and shocking end.

Curse of Chucky is being shot in Winnipeg and will be released as a DVD original by Universal Home Entertainment.

Paramount Pictures and MGM have released the first trailer for Dead Snow director Tommy Wirkola’s Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters, a steam-punk version of the classic fairy tale that finds the siblings hunting down supernatural forces for profit.

Jeremy Renner (Bourne Legacy) and Gemma Arterton (Clash of the Titans) are toplining the film, which is now set to open on Jan. 11, 2013. Costars include Famke Janssen (X-Men), Zoe Bell (Death Proof) and Norwegian actress Ingrid Bolsø Berdal (Cold Prey) as evil witches.

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Spy Kids franchise child star Alexa Vega is all growns up and eager for the movie-going world to take her breasts seriously. That is why the now 24-year-old Latina is playing whore house hitwoman KillJoy in Robert Rodriguez’s Machete Kills, a sequel to the director’s 2010 grind-house actioner Machete.

Vega, who tweeted the above photo of her costars in July, told THR that she took the sexy role in an effort to embrace her sexuality, recanting how Rodriguez, who directed her in Spy Kids, approached her for the part by saying “I have a role for you, but I don’t know if you’re ready to do this.”

Vega told THR:

I’ve never done anything like this. I’d never felt comfortable enough, and I never thought this would be the project where I’d take a step forward.

The first time I walked out in my outfit on set, everyone was like, ‘Wow, you’re not allowed to wear that!’

This was all about owning my sexuality. I worked really hard for it in a way that I never had to work hard for something before.

Machete Kills follows ex-Federale Machete (Danny Trejo) as he’s recruited by the U.S. government to bring down a billionaire arms dealer (Mel Gibson) threatening global warfare with a high-tech space weapon. Costars include Charlie Sheen, Sofia Vergara, Zoe Saldana, Amber Heard, Vanessa Hudgens, twins Elise and Electra Avellan, Lady Gaga and returning players Jessica Alba and Michelle Rodriguez.

The film is slated for release next year.