The horrifying events that took place in the Hoyt family’s vacation home at 1801 Clark Road on February 11, 2005, are still not entirely known.
Champagne. Rose petals. Candlelight. It was supposed to be a night of celebration for Kristen McKay (Liv Tyler) and James Hoyt (Scott Speedman). But after leaving a friend’s wedding reception and returning to the house, everything had collapsed for the happy couple.
Then came a 4 a.m. knock on the door and a haunting voice.
Is Tamara here?
Writer/director Bryan Bertino explores our most universal fears in The Strangers, a terrifying suspense thriller about a couple whose remote getaway becomes a place of terror when masked strangers invade. The confrontation forces Kristen and James to go far beyond what they thought themselves capable of if they hope to survive.
Review:
Not many movies freak me out or send a sense of dread down my spine. The Exorcist and Hellraiser have been the only movies to seriously freak me out, but they were on a supernatural level. Anything else, has just been enjoyable horror flicks with few moments that may have caused a jump here and there.
Jason Statham leads the cast of an action-thriller set in the post-industrial wasteland of tomorrow, with the world’s most brutal sporting event as its backdrop. A penitentiary full of felons has inspired the jailers to create a grisly pastime ripe for lucrative kickbacks. Now, adrenalized inmates, a global audience hungry for televised violence and a spectacular arena come together to form the Death Race.
Three-time speedway champion Jensen Ames (Statham) is an expert at survival in the harsh landscape that has become our country. Just as he thinks he has turned his life around, the ex-con is framed for a gruesome murder he didn’t commit. Forced to don the mask of the mythical driver Frankenstein — a crowd favorite who seems impossible to kill — Ames is given an easy choice by Terminal Island’s warden (Joan Allen): suit up or rot away in a cell.
His face hidden by a metallic mask, one convict will be put through an insane three-day challenge. Ames must survive a gauntlet of the most vicious criminals in the country’s toughest prison to claim the prize of freedom. Driving a monster car outfitted with machine guns, flamethrowers and grenade launchers, one desperate man will destroy anything in his path to win the most twisted spectator sport on Earth
9 is produced by Tim Burton (The Corpse Bride) and Timur Bekmambetov (Wanted, Nightwatch), directed by former WETA Digital artist ShaneAcker, and featuring the music of Danny Elfman. Based on Acker’s Academy Award-nominated 2005 film festival short (watch it on YouTube), 9 is a post-apocalyptic nightmare in which all of humanity is threatened.
Plot Synopsis:
As released courtesy of Apple, the first trailer for the feature remake of 9:
9 takes place in a world parallel to our own, in which the very legacy of humanity is threatened. A group of sapient rag dolls, living a post-apocalyptic existence find one of their own, 9 (Elijah Wood), who displays leadership qualities that may help them to survive. Score heard in latter half of trailer is “Welcome Home” from the band Coheed and Cambria.
(part of this article taken from the post on /Film by Peter Sciretta, view the article here)
In search of a good time Chris (Chris Sharp) drops in on a Halloween party thrown by pretentious Brooklyn artists in this satirical horror film. Without warning he becomes the object of their “Murder Party” an overblown art project that involves his torture and death. Naturally Chris isn’t so thrilled about this idea. However though stuck in an unwieldy cardboard costume Chris isn’t as helpless as he looks playing off hipster rivalries in a gory and often hilarious game of survival.
Review:
Murder Party is a fun little indie horror/comedy that I found myself enjoying a lot more than I thought I would. This little gem has just enough going for it to bring it up from the usual low-budget sludge that plagues the Horror genre.
These are more of my most anticipated movies of 2009.
X-Men Orgins: Wolverine
After Brett Ratner ran X-men into the ground with X-men 3, hopefully this will breathe new life into what we all loved about the first 2 X-men flicks.
Hugh Jackman reprises the role that made him a superstar – as the fierce fighting machine who possesses amazing healing powers, retractable claws and a primal fury. Leading up to the events of X-Men, X-Men Origins: Wolverine tells the story of Wolverine’s epically violent and romantic past, his complex relationship with Victor Creed, and the ominous Weapon X program. Along the way, Wolverine encounters many mutants, both familiar and new, including surprise appearances by several legends of the X-Men universe whose appearances in the film series have long been anticipated.
The Wrestler
This is in Limited Release this month, but will be released wide in January. Can’t believe Mickey Rourke may be up for an Oscar!
Back in the late ’80s, Randy “The Ram Robinson” (Mickey Rourke) was a headlining professional wrestler. Now, twenty years later, he ekes out a living performing for handfuls of diehard wrestling fans in high school gyms and community centers around New Jersey.
Estranged from his daughter (Evan Rachel Wood) and unable to sustain any real relationships, Randy lives for the thrill of the show and the adoration of his fans. However, a heart attack forces him into retirement. As his sense of identity starts to slip away, he begins to evaluate the state of his life — trying to reconnect with his daughter, and strikes up a blossoming romance with an aging stripper (Marisa Tomei). Yet all this cannot compare to the allure of the ring and passion for his art, which threatens to pull Randy “The Ram” back into his world of wrestling.
Director Darren Aronofsky presents a powerful portrait of a battered dreamer, who despite himself and the odds stacked against him, lives to be a hero once again in the only place he considers home inside the ring.
The Unborn
This movie looks messed up, but interesting. Nothing like scary, evil ghost kids.
Sometimes the soul of a dead person has been so tainted with evil that it is denied entrance to heaven. It must endlessly wander the borderlands between worlds, desperately searching for a new body to inhabit.
And sometimes it actually succeeds.
Writer/director David Goyer (Blade: Trinity, The Invisible, Batman Begins) gives a terrifying glimpse into the life of the undead in The Unborn, a supernatural thriller that follows a young woman pulled into a world of nightmares when a demonic spirit haunts her and threatens everyone she loves.
Casey Beldon (Odette Yustman) hated her mother for leaving her as a child. But when inexplicable things start to happen, Casey begins to understand why she left. Plagued by merciless dreams and a tortured ghost that haunts her waking hours, she must turn to the only spiritual advisor, Sendak (Gary Oldman), who can make it stop.
With Sendak’s help, Casey uncovers the source of a family curse dating back to Nazi Germany—a creature with the ability to inhabit anyone or anything that is getting stronger with each possession. With the curse unleashed, her only chance at survival is to shut a doorway from beyond our world that has been pried open by someone who was never born.
Dead Snow (aka Død Snø)
Nothing like a Norweigan horror flick about Nazi Zombies!
A group of eight friends drives to a cabin in northern Norway where German troops where slaughtered by angry locals living there in 1945. Now the undead zombie Nazi soldiers feast on whoever comes there way.
Some say that Pathology is a window to God. As doctors, they see the perversion and corruption of the flesh by all means unnatural…by violence…by toxin…by madness…to determine the cause of death. As a result they are the experts in all signs of foul play and the best in the field can uncover all means of killing, even those that are seemingly undetectable.
When med school student Ted Gray (Heroes’ Milo Ventimiglia) graduates top of his class he joins one of the nation’s most prestigious Pathology programs. With talent and determination Ted is quickly noticed by the program’s privileged and elite band of pathology interns who invite him into their crowd. Intrigued by his new friends he begins to uncover secrets he never expected and finds that he has unknowingly become a pawn in their dangerous and secret after-hours game at the morgue of who can commit the perfect undetectable murder. As Ted becomes seduced into their wild extracurricular activities the danger becomes real and he must stay one step ahead of the game before he is the next victim.
Review:
I found myself interested in this movie mainly because it is the first starring vehicle for Milo Ventimiglia (who stars as Peter Petrelli in the popular series Heroes, and played Rocky Balboa’s son in Rocky Balboa). The fact that this was a psychological horror flick involving doctors was also intriguing.
2009 is shaping up to be a pretty kick ass year for movies. Here are a few flicks I’m looking forward to! This is the first in a series of posts.
Watchmen
A complex, multi-layered mystery adventure, Watchmen is set in an alternate 1985 America in which costumed superheroes are part of the fabric of everyday society, and the “Doomsday Clock” – which charts the USA’s tension with the Soviet Union – is permanently set at five minutes to midnight. When one of his former colleagues is murdered, the washed-up but no less determined masked vigilante Rorschach sets out to uncover a plot to kill and discredit all past and present superheroes. As he reconnects with his former crime-fighting legion – a ragtag group of retired superheroes, only one of whom has true powers – Rorschach glimpses a wide-ranging and disturbing conspiracy with links to their shared past and catastrophic consequences for the future. Their mission is to watch over humanity…but who is watching the watchmen?
Star Trek
From director J.J. Abrams (“Mission: Impossible III,” “Lost” and “Alias”) and screenwriters Alex Kurtzman & Roberto Orci (“TRANSFORMERS,” “MI: III”) comes a new vision of the greatest space adventure of all time, “Star Trek,” featuring a young, new crew venturing boldly where no man has gone before.
Explores the early Starfleet careers of future Enterprise officers Kirk (Chris Pine), Spock (Zachary Quinto), Scotty (Simon Pegg), Amanda Grayson (Winona Ryder), Uhura (Zoe Saldana), McCoy (Karl Urban), Sulu (John Cho), and Chekhov (Anton Yelchin). A Romulan, Nero (Eric Bana), and a much older Spock (Leonard Nimoy) are influences, as well as Captain Pike (Bruce Greenwood), the first captain of the USS Enterprise.
Terminator: Salvation
In the highly anticipated new installment of The Terminator film franchise, set in post-apocalyptic 2018, Christian Bale stars as John Connor, the man fated to lead the human resistance against Skynet and its army of Terminators. But the future Connor was raised to believe in is altered in part by the appearance of Marcus Wright (Sam Worthington), a stranger whose last memory is of being on death row. Connor must decide whether Marcus has been sent from the future, or rescued from the past. As Skynet prepares its final onslaught, Connor and Marcus both embark on an odyssey that takes them into the heart of Skynet’s operations, where they uncover the terrible secret behind the possible annihilation of mankind.
I Love You, Man
At first I thought this movie would be lame. But…with Paul Rudd you can’t go wrong.
After getting engaged, Peter Klaven (Paul Rudd) realizes he’s short on guy friends. In order to correct the issue, Peter begins to go on man-dates.
