Working nine to five is a real killer, but teambuilding holidays can sometimes be even worse. A coach lurches out of the hustle and bustle of Budapest and heads towards the mountainous border. Aboard are seven employees of the international weapons manufacturer Palisade Defence, global suppliers of innovative weaponry for the past 75 war-torn years. The lucky group are being treated to a team-building weekend at the company’s newly built luxury spa lodge by their president, George Cinders. But things quickly go awry as the colleagues find themselves faced with the chop when their corporate weekend is sabotaged by a deadly enemy. Forget office politics, only the smartest will survive this bloody office outing.
STARRING: Danny Dyer, Laura Harris, Tim McInnerny, Toby Stephens, Claudie Blakley, Andy Nyman, Babou Ceesay, David Gilliam
DIRECTOR: Christopher Smith
STUDIO: Magnolia Films
RATING: R (For strong bloody violence, language, drug content and some sexuality/nudity)
Severance Trailer
Working nine to five is a real killer, but teambuilding holidays can sometimes be even worse. A coach lurches out of the hustle and bustle of Budapest and heads towards the mountainous border. Aboard are seven employees of the international weapons manufacturer Palisade Defence, global suppliers of innovative weaponry for the past 75 war-torn years. The lucky group are being treated to a team-building weekend at the company’s newly built luxury spa lodge by their president, George Cinders. But things quickly go awry as the colleagues find themselves faced with the chop when their corporate weekend is sabotaged by a deadly enemy. Forget office politics, only the smartest will survive this bloody office outing.
STARRING: Danny Dyer, Laura Harris, Tim McInnerny, Toby Stephens, Claudie Blakley, Andy Nyman, Babou Ceesay, David Gilliam
DIRECTOR: Christopher Smith
STUDIO: Magnolia Films
RATING: R (For strong bloody violence, language, drug content and some sexuality/nudity)
Bug Movie” - A lonely waitress with a tragic past, Agnes rooms in a run-down motel, living in fear of her abusive, recently paroled ex-husband. But when Agnes begins a tentative romance with Peter, an eccentric, nervous drifter, she starts to feel hopeful again - until the first bugs arrive… Probing the blurry lines between paranoia and nightmarish reality, Liongate’s “Bug” is an intense, mind-bending psychological thriller in which nothing is quite as it seems. “Bug” is directed by Academy Award winner William Friedkin (”The French Connection,” “The Exorcist”) and adapted by Tracy Letts from his hit off-Broadway play.
STARRING: Ashley Judd, Harry Connick Jr., Lynn Collins, Brian F. O’Byrne, Michael Shannon
DIRECTOR: William Friedkin
STUDIO: Lionsgate
RATING: R (For language, violence and scary situations)
Christmas break. A young woman catches a ride home from a stranger she meets through a college ride board. Racing to beat a severe winter storm, the two young travelers take a shortcut down a remote country road, only to find themselves forced into a snow bank by a mysterious vehicle that engages them in a dangerous game of chicken. Over the long night that ensues, an intense relationship develops between the pair as they must brave the elements and confront the road’s sinister legacy that dates back to the terrible events that occurred there in the 1950s.
STARRING: Ashton Holmes, Emily Blunt
“The Tripper” is a political horror film set in the Redwood Forrest at an outdoor music festival. The story centers around a group of young hippies as they set out on a drug-induced weekend of debauchery. Little do they know, in the woods lurks a crazed madman that is obsessed with Ronald Reagan.
STARRING: Jamie King, Thomas Jane, Lukas Haas, Jason Mewes, Balthazar Getty, Paul Reubens, Brad Hunt, David Arquette, Courtney Cox-Arquette
DIRECTOR: David Arquette
STUDIO: Kinerase
RATING: R (For strong horror violence and gore, drug content, language and some sexuality/nudity)
Dan, a solider recently discharged from the army, takes refuge in alcohol to escape from life and other people. Despite his tortured state, his fiancee Nicole still believes their a solid couple. Gaelle is desperately looking for love, but without any success. Her brother Thierry, an realestate agent, is very attracted to his colleague Charlotte. Her pious and devoted attitude masks the perverse game that she is playing with him. And, finally, there is Lionel. He combats his loneliness by dividing his life between his work as a barman and caring for his sickly father, Arthur.
STARRING: Sabine Azéma, Lambert Wilson, André Dussollier, Pierre Arditi, Laura Morante, Isabelle Carré, Claude Rich
DIRECTOR: Alain Resnais
STUDIO: IFC First Take
RATING: Not Rated
After his father’s death, Kale (Shia LaBeouf) becomes sullen, withdrawn, and troubled - so much so that he finds himself under a court-ordered sentence of house arrest. His mother, Julie (Carrie-Anne Moss), works night and day to support herself and her son, only to be met with indifference and lethargy.
The walls of his house begin to close in on Kale. He becomes a voyeur as his interests turn outside the windows of his suburban home towards those of his neighbors, one of which Kale begins to suspect is a serial killer. But, are his suspicions merely the product of cabin fever and his overactive imagination? - “Disturbia.”
STARRING: Shia LaBeouf, Carrie-Anne Moss, David Morse, Sarah Roemer, Kurt David Anderson, Elyse Mirto
DIRECTOR: D.J. Caruso
STUDIO: Paramount Pictures
RATING: PG-13 (For sequences of terror and violence, and some sensuality)
Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez each directed a 90-minute horror tale for “Grindhouse”. Rodriguez’s part, “Planet Terror,” is a zombie movie, while Tarantino’s section, “Death Proof,” is a slasher film. Faux trailers and ads will run between the two pics as an intermission.
“Grindhouse” - noun - A downtown movie theater - in disrepair since its glory days as a movie palace of the ’30s and ’40s - known for “grinding out” non-stop double-bill programs of B-movies. From groundbreaking directors Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez comes the ultimate film experience: a double-bill of thrillers that will recall both filmmakers’ favorite exploitation films. “Grindhouse” is presented as one full-length, two hour feature comprised of two individual films helmed separately by each director.
Tarantino’s film, Death Proof, is a rip-roaring slasher flick where the killer pursues his victims with a car rather than a knife, while Rodriguez’s film explores an alien world eerily familiar to ours in Planet Terror. Welcome to the “grindhouse” - it’ll tear you in two - “Grindhouse.”
Originally scheduled for a November 2006 release, (see poster, below), “The Reaping” finally has a new date for theaters!
Katherine Winter (Hilary Swank) doesn’t believe in miracles – she believes in facts. A former minister, Katherine turned her back on the cloth after losing her young daughter and husband while doing missionary work in the Sudan, and now seeks answers through scientific investigation rather than prayer. As a university professor, she has become the foremost debunker of supposed miracles, called to sites all over the world to investigate weeping statues, wall stains resembling saints and palms that bleed. And so far, there is no divine mystery she hasn’t solved. But when small-town schoolteacher Doug Blackwell (David Morrissey) seeks her help with a series of bizarre occurrences the townspeople believe to be sent by God, Katherine and her partner Ben (Idris Elba) come to learn that sometimes miracles can be treacherous, and the line between faith and superstition is dangerously thin. Hidden among the woods and swamplands of Louisiana, Haven is a town where the rules of reason seem to have been rewritten. A child has died and the river has turned to blood, which is only the beginning of what appears to be a revisiting of the Biblical ten plagues upon the town. For the first time in her professional career, Katherine can’t explain these phenomena with science. The townspeople believe an enigmatic child named Loren McConnell (AnnaSophia Robb) has brought God’s wrath to their doorstep, but what they see as a harbinger of evil, Katherine sees as a lost child needing her help. The more she is drawn into the dark heart of the mystery, the more Katherine discovers her own role in a conspiracy that threatens to shroud the world in darkness - “The Reaping.”
STARRING: Hilary Swank, David Morrissey, Idris Elba, AnnaSophia Robb
DIRECTOR: Stephen Hopkins
STUDIO: Warner Bros.
RATING: R (For violence, disturbing images and some sexuality)
The sequel to the 2006 horror re-make, “The Hills Have Eyes,” which grossed over $41 million at the domestic box office, was written by horror legend Wes Craven and Jonathan Craven and was directed by Martin Weisz. The storyline of “The Hills Have Eyes 2″ follows a group of young National Guard trainees who are attacked by mutants during a training mission in the New Mexico desert. We admit, in full disclosure, that we never watched the original. Nor will we be seeing the sequel. Fox Atomic is neither screening it for critics or promotional audiences. Somehow, however, we have a feeling its going to kick ass during its first day in theaters.
STARRING: A BUNCH OF ABSOLUTE NOBODIES - including, Jessica Stroup, Reshad Strik, Michael McMillian, Daniella Alonso, Lee Thompson Young, Ben Crowley, Eric Edelstein, Michael Bailey Smith, David Reynolds, Derek Mears, Tyrell Kemlo, Javier Nieto, Gáspár Szabó, Jeff Kober, Jay Acovone, Archie Kao, Philip Pavel
DIRECTOR: Martin Weisz
STUDIO: Fox Atomic
RATING: R (For alleged grotesquerie that our eyes have never laid upon, tits and ass (of the female persuasion, we assume, only), language worthy of four bars of soap and young adult stars who may never be welcomed home for Thanksgiving or Christmas ever again)
While lecturing in Brazil, Dr. Taylor Briggs, an authority on memory diseases is asked to consult on a patient found at the headwaters of the Amazon. During the examination, Taylor is accidentally exposed to a mysterious substance which unlocks a series of genetically stored memories inside his brain; memories that are not his, but may be glimpses into the life of a nefarious killer: a killer who has been committing nefarious tasks for over three decades.
STARRING: Billy Zane, Ann-Margret, Dennis Hopper, Tricia Helfer, Terry Chen
DIRECTOR: Bennett Joshua Davlin
STUDIO: Eastgate
RATING: R (For language and frightening images)
