Summit Entertainment has released a trailer for director Chris Gorak’s alien invasion frightener The Darkest Hour. Set in Moscow, the film follows five young people as their holiday trip is ruined by invisible extraterrestrial beings of light that disintegrate human flesh upon contact—and you thought cloudy weather was a vacation killer.
The Darkest Hour is produced by Timur Bekmambetov and stars Olivia Thirlby (Dredd), Rachael Taylor (Transformers), Joel Kinnaman (Girl with the Dragon Tattoo), Max Minghella (The Social Network) and Emile Hirsch (Speed Racer). It arrives in theaters on Dec. 23.
Cameras are set to roll in New Orleans this week on Significant Pictures’ Vipaka, a voodoo psych-thriller starring Sanaa Lathan (Contagion), Anthony Mackie (Real Steel) and Forest Whitaker (Repo Men). Philippe Caland (Ripple Effect) is directing from a script by Shin Shimosawa (“The Ringer”).
The film centers on an emotionally unstable contractor (Whitaker) who abducts his newly hired life coach (Mackie) and torments him and his wife (Lathan) and family while twisting the spiritual lessons he learned in therapy to do harm. Mike Epps (Resident Evil: Extinction) costars as Mackie’s brother.
Horror fans may recognize Lathan (pictured above) as vampire slayer Blade’s hot mom in New Line’s 1998 big screen adaptation of the Marvel comic. She also toplined the 2004 monster mash-up Alien vs. Predator. Next up for the 39-year-old looker is a role in Steven Soderbergh’s viral outbreak thriller Contagion.
“30 Rock” star Katrina Bowden is set to show off her bedside manner in the upcoming Lionsgate frightener Nurse 3-D. Marketed as a psycho-sexual thriller, the film is directed by Douglas Aarniokoski (The Day) and stars “Boardwalk Empire’s” Paz de la Huerta as its homicidal head nurse Abby Russell.
Bowden, who recently wrapped Piranha 3-DD and can be seen in the hill-billy horror-comedy Tucker & Dale vs. Evil, will play a nurse who discovers that Abby is murdering male patients she believes are cheaters and liars.
Nina Dobrev, the pretty female lead on The CW’s runaway hit series “The Vampire Diaries,” used her hiatus from the show to shoot the Sam Jackson sci-fi actioner Arena. The film marks the directorial debut of FX guy Jonah Loop (A Perfect Getaway, Transporter 2).
Jackson plays the evil mastermind behind a website that pits abduction victims against each other in a virtual gladiator arena. The fate of each loser is decided by an online audience which, most often than not, chooses death as a penalty.
Peep it:
My mom says Arena is just a $10 million rehash of 2009’s Gamer and other countless fight-to-the-death thrillers. She says the visuals look shitty and that Tony Giglio, the guy who wrote the similarly plotted Death Race 2: Frankenstein Lives, doesn’t inspire much hope.
But, what does she know? Parents just don’t understand. Arena doesn’t just star Dobrev; it costars Orbitz gum babe Vanessa Branch and sexy senorita Mayra Leal, the curvy naked chick from Robert Rodriguez’s Machete!!!
Hell, even the film’s vagina-less costars are an impressive lot: Daniel Dae Kim (“LOST”), James Remar (“Dexter”), Derek Mears (Friday the 13th) and Kellan Lutz (Twilight Saga). I don’t know. Maybe, I’ll just wait for the third season of “The Vampire Diaries” to begin on Sept. 15.
Bill Bennett, the director who once tried to make a romantic leading man out of Dennis Leary in 1996’s Two If by Sea, has got an island-getaway thriller prepped to hit UK DVD on Aug. 15. Uninhabited stars skinny-cute Aussie Geraldine Hakewill and Henry James as lovers terrorized by a ghost while on holiday.
Vacation-based thrillers such as Uninhibited, Turistas, Perfect Getaway, and National Lampoon’s European Vacation are why the little lady and I have picked the less popular—but much safer—city of Darwin, Minnesota for our yearly romantic retreat (the world’s biggest ball of twine is breathtaking in the moonlight).
Tanit Phoenix, host of Cinemax’s new anthology series “Femme Fatales” and star of Uni’s Death Race 2: Frankenstein Lives, posed in her undies last week for the lucky bastards over at IGN. I don’t know what kind of voodoo those guys are working, but all Clatto has ever gotten from approaching hot starlets are restraining orders … and herpes (that time we passed ourselves off as Bloody-Disgusting).
Phoenix, who was recently up for the lead in writer/producer David E. Kelly’s failed NBC pilot “Wonder Woman,” can also be seen in the Wesley Snipes zombie-frightener Gallowwalker and the Corey Feldman meal-ticket Lost Boys: The Thirst. She’ll next appear in the upcoming Denzel Washington/Ryan Reynolds action-thriller Safe House.
The CW has released online the footage reel it presented at Comic-Con this year to promote the upcoming third season of it’s hit series “The Vampire Diaries.” The clip recaps the events of season two and teases things to come.
Peep it:
“The Vampire Diaries” is writer-producer Kevin Williamson’s (Scream, “Dawson’s Creek”) adaptation of L.J. Smith’s popular book series of the same name. The show stars Ian Somerhalder, Nina Dobrev, and the guy who isn’t Ian Somerhalder.
“The Vampire Diaries” returns Thursday, September 15th.
An all-star cast featuring Harrison Ford and Daniel Craig. A tried-and-true director of big-screen spectacle. Cowboys. Aliens. If these things aren’t enough to rope you into theaters this weekend to see Universal Pictures’ epic sci-fi actioner Cowboys & Aliens, then how about the promise of some nude Olivia Wilde ass?
The beautiful 27-year-old actress revealed to Access Hollywood that her sexy little rump is on display (briefly I’m sure) in the PG-13 rated film. Wilde, who went topless in the 2006 drama Alpha Dog, tells the entertainment site:
There’s a little bit of nudity in this one. I feel like if I feel really safe and if I feel like the story calls for it then I’m not so shy.
Set in the mid 19th century, Cowboys & Aliens follows gunslinger Jake Lonergan (Craig), Ella Verity (Wilde), and Colonel Dolarhyde (Ford) as they set out to stop an alien race from enslaving humankind. Damon Lindelof (“LOST”) wrote the script with go-to collaborators Alex Kurtzman and Robert Orci.
The film costars Sam Rockwell (Iron Man 2), Walton Goggins (Predators), Clancy Brown (”LOST”), Abigail Spencer (Haunting in Georgia), Keith Carradine (“Dexter”), Paul Dano (Taking Lives), Ana de la Reguera (Nacho Libre), and Adam Beach (Flags of Our Fathers).
(Update: The butt has been cut. Despite the above quote, there is sadly no visible Olivia Wilde nudity. Fun film nonetheless though)
Paula Marshall, the pretty and unlucky star of such failed TV shows as “Gary Unmarried,” “Hidden Hills,” “Snoops,” “Cupid,” “Wild Oats,”and so-on-and-so-on, has been cast as wicked fairy godmother Malificent on ABC’s new fairy tale themed series “Once Upon a Time.” Uh-oh.
Created by “LOST” executive producers Edward Kitsis and Adam Horowitz, the show follows Emma Swan (Jennifer Morrison), daughter of Snow White (Ginnifer Goodwin) and Prince Charming (Josh Dallas), as she’s beckoned to the small New England town of Storybrooke to help free it from an Evil Queen’s (Lana Parilla) curse.
Marshall has guest starred on a few successful shows, namely “Californication,” “House,” “Nip/Tuck,” and “Veronica Mars.” Her genre creds include the Lindsay Lohan vehicle I Know Who Killed Me, 1993’s Warlock: The Armageddon, and 1992’s surprisingly good Hellraiser III: Hell on Earth, for which she went topless (just saying).
Writer/director Eli Roth is teaming up with the dreadful folks at Universal’s Halloween Horror Nights in Hollywood to create Eli Roth’s Hostel: Hunting Season, a gruesome new maze inspired by the sadistic and deadly exploits of the Elite Hunting organization seen in Roth’s terrifying Hostel films.
Read what’s in store:
“Hostel: Hunting Season,” for which Universal will build elaborate sets re-creating locations in Slovakia, will mark the horror auteur and star’s first effort at transforming his screen work into a live theme park experience.
The maze will re-imagine the film’s dehumanizing torture chambers and send guests on a spiraling journey through the corrupt halls of Elite Hunting’s torture factory. Elite Hunting, a secret society that tortures and kills American youth for sport in exchange for large sums of money, will prowl the factory and prey on its many maze visitors.
Roth, who also directed the 2002 flesh-eating bacteria frightener Cabin Fever and produced last year’s box office hit The Last Exorcism, is also threatening to participate in the maze as a torturer.
He warns:
I am so happy to join forces with the creative team at Universal. Our collaborative vision to bring ‘Hostel’ to life will give both fans of my movie and horror fans a scare they could never have imagined.
People will have a chance to experience some exact moments from their favorite ‘Hostel’ scenes, along with some new surprises.
This is something I’ve dreamed of for years. I may even dress up and appear in the maze one night as a torturer. So when you say ‘I scared you,’ you can literally mean that I scared you!
Halloween Horror Nights runs on selected nights from Sept. 23-thru-Oct. 31. This year’s frights will also include a maze based on Uni’s upcoming prequel to John Carpenter’s 1982 sci-fi classic The Thing.
To see pics from one of my many visits to the event, go here.
