Producer Joe Danteand director Nick Basile (American Carny: True Tales from the Circus Sideshow) have launched a Kickstarter campaign to raise funds for Dark, a psychological thriller set during the 2003 New York City blackout.
The synopsis reads:
Kate, a struggling 30-something model with a troubled past, has just moved into her girlfriend Leah’s Brooklyn loft but already doubts about their relationship have begun to loom.
When Leah leaves for the weekend, Kate unexpectedly finds herself alone in the apartment in the midst of the worst blackout in North American history.
As darkness falls over the city, Kate’s paranoia grows and she begins to believe someone in the building is stalking her. With no one to help her and escape out of reach, Kate is forced to confront her deepest fears as she fights to survive through the night.
If that’s not good enough to give up the skrilla you earn at your soul-killing job 40-hours a week, then keep in mind that the film stars “American Horror Story” babe Alexandra Breckenridge (she was the young maid) and Monsters stunner Whitney Able (pictured).
Vanessa Hudgens is currently in talks with Sony Pictures to star in The Kitchen Sink, a horror-comedy in which a group of teens join forces with vampires and zombies to fight off an alien invasion. As silly as that sounds, the Oren Uziel-penned script was part of 2010’s Black List.
The film is directed by Robbie Pickering (Natural Selection) and co-stars Denis Leary (Amazing Spider-Man), Nicholas Braun (Red State), Mackenzie Davis (Smashed), Josh Fadem (Miss March) and Chris Zylka (Piranha 3DD).
TheWrap reports that Hudgens will play a popular teen whose life is in danger when aliens invade earth. Hudgens, who came to fame in Disney’s High School Musical franchise, has starred in a string of genre offerings, including Beastly, Sucker Punch and the upcoming Frozen Ground and Machete Kills.
IFC Films has released a trailer for Haunter, a supernatural thriller from Cube and Splice director Vincenzo Natali, starring Abigail Breslin (The Call) as a girl trapped in her home, reliving the same day over and over up until ghostly visions tip her of the evil specter(Stephen McHattie) keeping her prisoner.
Haunter arrives in theaters and VOD on Oct. 18. Folks online are understandably describing the film as a horror version of Groundhog Day, but it also calls to mind an older and more subdued Freddy Krueger, one who’s lost his sense of humor and his razor bladed glove.
Magnet Releasing has crapped out a red-band trailer for Bad Milo, a horror-comedy from the Duplass Brothers, starring Ken Marino (“Childrens Hospital”) as a man who discovers an anxiety-driven demon living inside his intestines.
Things really start to stink when, at his therapist’s urging, he releases the demon, names it Milo and attempts to regain control of his life.
Bad Milo co-stars include Gillian Jacobs (pictured), Patrick Warburton (“Seinfeld”), Mary Kay Place (“Big Love”), Stephen Root (Office Space), Peter Stormare (Undocumented) and Diana Toshiko (Zomboobies). The film drops on VOD on Aug. 29 and in selected theaters on Oct. 4.
British actress Samantha Barks is set to co-star in Universal Pictures’ Dracula, an origins story about the world’s first and most infamous vampire. She joins Sarah Gadon (Amazing Spider-Man 2), Dominic Cooper (Devil’s Double), Charlie Cox (“Boardwalk Empire”) and Luke Evans as the Count.
Dracula tells the story of a Transylvanian prince who becomes the first vampire to save his wife and child from a Turkish horde, subjecting his soul to eternal damnation. According to THR, Barks will play a baba yaga, a beautiful young woman capable of transforming into a savage witch.
Dracula is Barks first horror film. Her big break came last year in Tom Hooper’s adaptation of Les Misérables.
Full Moon Entertainment released today on Redbox its new Charles Band-directed horror-comedy Unlucky Charms, starring Disney’s Tiffany Thornton (“Sonny with a Chance”), Alex Rose Wiesel (Switched at Birth), pin-up model Masuimi Max and Playboy Playmates Anna Sophia Berglund and Nikki Leigh (pictured).
Unlucky Charms tells the story of five hot chicks competing to win a spokesmodel gig for a high-end lingerie company. Making the competition more cutthroat are the group of creepy leprechauns running amok (exactly what “America’s Next Top Model” was missing).
Russian actress Svetlana Khodchenkova can currently be seen playing sexy villainess Viper in director James Mangold’s The Wolverine. The role, however, was originally meant for Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Total Recall star Jessica Biel.
As if Biel’s absence from the film weren’t bad enough, artist Joshua Min has now posted on his blog the early character concept art for Viper, depicting a naked Biel looking all hot and sticky while shedding her skin (posted above).
No offense to Khodchenkova, but it feels like we lost something when Biel passed on the role. Oh, well, there’s always Powder Blue… actually, this could just as easily been concept art for her character in that movie.
“Rome” and “Human Target” alumna Indira Varma is set to star in season four of HBO’s critically acclaimed fantasy series “Game of Thrones.” Varma will play Ellaria Sand, the sexually adventurous mother of Prince Oberyn Martell’s (AKA The Red Viper) four bastard daughters.
EW reports that the new season will find Ellaria accompaning Prince Oberyn (Pedro Pascal) to King’s Landing to avenge the murder of his sister by the Lannister clan.
Varma made her acting and nude debuts in 1996’s erotic drama Kama Sutra: A Tale of Love. She is best known for her role as Niobe, the wife of rogue Roman soldier Lucius Vorenus on HBO’s historical drama “Rome” and for recurring as billionaire widow Ilsa Pucci on Fox’s shortlived action show “Human Target.”
Magnolia Pictures has acquired U.S. rights to How I Live Now, an apocalyptic thriller from director Kevin Macdonald (The Last King of Scotland), starring Saoirse Ronan (Hanna) as an American teenager whose visit to the U.K. and love affair with a boy is like totally disrupted by war. Bummer!
Magnolia President Eamonn Bowles describes the film as:
Grandly scaled, beautifully crafted, with a terrific performance from the always great Saoirse Ronan, How I Live Now is equally successful as a tense apocalyptic thriller and a great teenage romance.
How I Live Now is based on English writer Meg Rosoff’s 2004 young-adult novel of the same name. Magnolia is eyeballing a fall release for the film through its Magnet Releasing shingle. Ronanis coming off Open Road’s The Host, an adaptation of Stephenie Meyers’ teen sci-fi novel.
ABC has cast kiwi actress Rose McIver to play Tinker Bell in season three of its fairytale series “Once Upon a Time,” returning Sept. 29. The new season will find Snow White, Prince Charming and their grown daughter Emma Swan heading off to Neverland to rescue Bella’s son from a sinister Peter Pan.
Producer Adam Horowitz teased the Tinker Bell character at SDCC, suggesting that she, like Pan, will be a darker character than people have known her to be in the past.
Horowitz said:
It’s taking an icon and putting our spin on it. How we introduce her, and who she is, is hopefully going to be surprising because we’re going to find she has a surprising connection to someone.
McIver played Ranger Yellow Summer Landsdown on the kid show “Power Rangers: RPM” and made her feature film debut opposite Mark Wahlberg and Saoirse Ronan in Peter Jackson’s 2009 murder mystery The Lovely Bones.
