Magnolia Pictures has picked up the North American rights to Grand Piano, a high-concept thriller from Spanish filmmaker Eugenio Mira (Agnosia) and screenwriter Damien Chazelle (The Last Exorcism Part II). Elijah Wood toplines the film as a disgraced concert pianist making a comeback after a five-year hiatus.
As if that weren’t pressure enough, a madman lies hidden in the concert hall with a sniper riffle aimed at his wife. If he screws up, she will be shot dead.
Grand Piano co-stars John Cusack as the killer, British stunner Tamsin Egerton (“Camelot”), Alex Winter (Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure) and Argo and Red State starlet Kerry Bishé (pictured above) as the wife. Magnolia will release the film in 2014 through its Magnet Releasing label.
Gone Dark is an indie revenge thriller that at its worst resembles a scripted porn feature minus the anals, but at its best trumps Harmony Korine’s Spring Breakers by keeping the gun-toting bikini babes and losing the pretentious artsy-fartsy crap.
Gone Dark follows Jack, a notorious drug syndicate criminal who fakes his death with the help of his hooligan friends. Unfortunately for them, Jack’s sister, Kim, is an FBI agent eager to settle the score with those she thinks killed her brother. The film hits VOD on Nov. 1 and DVD on Jan. 7, 2014.
Osiris Entertainment has set an Oct. 22 DVD release date for Bad Behavior, a babysitter-in-peril thriller starring “ER” alumna Hallee Hirsh (Dr. Greene’s daughter), Linda Hamilton (Terminator) and national treasure Ted McGinley (Revenge of the Nerds).
Hirsh plays Zoe, a babysitter tormented on the job by a fat kid with a crush and not enough pizza. Making matters worse is Zoe’s bum knees and/or asthma. There’s no mention of either in the trailer, but I’m guessing there must be a reason why she can’t outrun the tubby terror.
See No Evil 2 finds serial killer Jacob Goodnight awakening from the dead in the city morgue after being killed off by survivors of his Blackwell Hotel murder spree. The eye-gouging madman wastes no time as he gets to work on slaughtering a group of med school students now trapped in the building.
Horror fans will recognize Simmons, who made her acting debut at age eight in Stephen King’s It, from roles in Final Destination 3, Tucker and Dale vs. Evil, Steven R. Monroe’s Ogre and the sci-fi TV series “Kyle XY.” Her stalkers fans will also know her from the creature features Chupacabra Terror, Malibu Shark Attack, Snakehead Terror and Monster Island with Carmen Electra.
The Boy Next Door, a micro-budgeted erotic thriller from Blumhouse Productions and director Rob Cohen (Alex Cross, The Fast and the Furious), is starting to shape up like a Bang Bros. MILF fantasy… minus the anal… I think.
Tony-winning singer and “West Wing” star Kristin Chenoweth has been tapped to co-star alongside Jennifer Lopez in the film, which goes into production this fall.
The Boy Next Door finds Lopez playing a newly separated MILF who starts banging her son’s friend, a young teenager new to the neighborhood. Things go wrong when she decides to end the relationship. Chenoweth plays Lopez’s BFF.
IFC has released a red band trailer for Plus One, a sci-fi thriller from Last House On the Left director Dennis Iliadis and screenwriter Bill Gullo. Set to hit selected theaters and VOD on Sept. 20, the film stars Ashley Hinshaw (Chronicle) and Natalie Hall (“Pretty Little Liars”) in her nude debut.
Plus One is set at the biggest party of the year and finds three college friends struggling to save their relationships and lives after a meteorite crashes nearby, screwing up the space-time continuum. Co-stars include Rhys Wakefield (The Purge) and Logan Miller (Would You Rather).
Magnet Releasing has released a trailer for Focus Features International’s new sci-fi thriller The Last Days On Mars. The film marks the feature film debut of Ruairi Robinson and stars Liev Schreiber (”Ray Donovan”), Olivia Williams (”Dollhouse”)and Romola Garai (pictured).
The Last Days On Mars follows a group of astronauts who run into trouble when they discover a bacterial life form during an excavation mission on Mars. The film opens on Dec. 6.
Anchor Bay and Cinetel Films’ have released a final trailer for Steven R. Monroe’s I Spit On Your Grave 2, a sequel to Monroe’s 2010 remake of the controversial 1978 Meir Zarchi rape-revenge thriller. The film will play Los Angeles on Sept. 20 and hit DVD, Blu-ray and VOD on Sept. 24.
I Spit On Your Grave 2 stars Jemma Dallender (”Hollyoaks”) as an aspiring model lured to a photo shoot in New York to be raped, tortured and taken to a foreign country where she endures more horrors before being buried alive and left for dead.
Katharine Isabelle (above) and Danielle Harris (below) have been tapped by American Mary directors Jen and Sylvia Soska to star in WWE Studios’ new slasher See No Evil 2, a sequel to the 2006 sleeper hit from ex-porn pioneer turned legitimate filmmaker Gregory Dark.
The film’s synopsis reads:
See No Evil 2 revives the nightmare of the first film when Jacob Goodnight rises from the dead in the city morgue after his killing spree at the Blackwell hotel.
In this ominous, underground locker for the dead, a group of medical students fight to survive as this deranged psychopath once again starts to pick them apart one by one.
See No Evil 2 stars WWE wrestling champ Kane as Jacob Goodnight and co-stars Michael Eklund (The Call). The film is slated to roll cameras this fall.
Isabelle is coming off as the lead in the Soska’s critically acclaimed medical frightener American Mary. Her creds include the Ginger Snaps franchise, Freddy Vs. Jason, Chris Nolan’s Insomnia, Uwe Boll’s Rampage, and the Katie Holmes’ vehicle Disturbing Behavior.
Harris got her start in horror at the age of 11 in Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers and returned to the franchise nine years later in Rob Zombie’s Halloween. She’s also the lead in Adam Green’s popular Hatchet series and the director of Among Friends.
Here’s hoping someone told Twilight Saga star Christian Serratos that the zombies on AMC’s hit series “The Walking Dead” don’t sparkle. Serratos is joining the show’s fourth season as stunning zombie apocalypse survivor Rosita Espinosa.
Rosita Espinosa was introduced in issue 53 of the Robert Kirkman comic book series. Serratos will recur as the character in the upcoming fourth season with the option to return as a series regular in season five. “The Walking Dead” returns on Oct. 13.
In addition to Serratos’ casting, AMC has announced that it will produce a “Walking Dead” spinoff series focusing on “an entirely new story and cast of characters.” The series is slated to debut in 2015 with Kirkman on board as an executive producer.
