Movie news: Atlantic psycho? Raging bull shark?

A intriguing little tidbit of news from the Hollywood reporter. Take it away, Borys Kit:

Iconoclastic filmmaker Paul Schrader is teaming up with nihilistic author Bret Easton Ellis for the shark-infested psychological horror project Bait.

Schrader, the writer behind Taxi Driver and Raging Bull and the writer-director of American Gigolo, has signed to direct the picture, and will collaborate with Ellis on the latest draft of the script, which follows a young man itching to take his revenge against the wealthy.

The man, who works at a posh beach club, angles his way on to a yacht filled with the obnoxious elite, commandeering it into waters filled with the finned man-eaters.

There's not much more to the article than that. Production's aimed to start this year.

News: " Frankly, I've heard alot of wild stories in the media . . . "

Is this the next gen proton pack?

I'm somewhat hesitant to post this as the ANTSS staff has been hoodwinked by hoaxers before. I'm thinking specifically about the perennial "London After Midnight found" brouhaha of last year. Falling for that was a pretty boneheaded move, but I managed somehow to tap a vast and previously undiscovered source of boneheadness and pass the "news" on to you, my loyal and unsuspecting Screamers and Screamettes.

So, in that long tradition of handing you poorly vetted and highly questionable information as if it were genuine, I direct your attention to Ghostspy: A blog that's supposedly run by a crew member working on Ghostbusters 3.

There's no reason yet to assume that this is anything but a prank. I picked up the link from the fine folks at Bloody Disgusting and even they claim that the site makes their "journalistic instincts scream "bullsh*t." Anything that makes the folks at BD claim they have "journalistic instincts" is immediately dubious, so lector caveo.

Movies: Apparently it's the "porn" part of "torture porn" that makes it acceptable to the MPAA.

As a general rule, I try to avoid bringing up politics in this blog. We're talking about blood and gore and cannibals and the like and I guess I just don't see why I should drag down the level of conversation to the gutter of politics. Sure, in a general way, I touch on issues when they pop up, for better or (more usually) worse, in the films and books I review. But mostly I reckon you didn't come here for my views on politics – after all, I'm just some dude who blathers on about horror stuff, what the hell are my qualifications to tell you what to think about politics?

Besides, there are few pits of rabid prejudice, poisonous spite, and crippling ignorance deeper than the political-blogosphere.

I say this all as a preemptive apology for linking you to a political blog in this entry. Today's story is important enough, I think, to merit the act; but that doesn't make doing it any less unsavory.

Think Progress, a liberal issues blog, posted an interesting story recently on a MPAA decision regarding the one-sheet for a recent documentary on the death of an Afghan taxi driver identified only as "Dilwar." According to the documentary makers, Dilwar was captured by US forces in Afghanistan and, thought he had no ties to terrorist groups or activities, was tortured to death by interrogators at the US prison at Bagram Air Force base in Afghanistan.

The poster for the film (shown above) features a doctored image of two soldiers leading away a hooded man in handcuffs. The image contains pieces from two different journalistic photos.

Variety reports that the MPAA declared that the poster was unsuitable and that the documentary makers would have their rating revoked if they used the poster in their advertising. The MPAA objected to the image of the hood.

The point is this: this poster, with its allusion to the actual practices of torture currently condoned by the government of the United States, is considerably more restrained, tasteful, and socially significant than more violent torture-themed posters approved for horror flicks like Hostel and Saw. The one-sheet for the latest flick in the Saw franchise features a woman strapped into a torture device and wearing a hood made of red fabric and a boar's-head mask.

What's the lesson? If your film features torture, you'd best make sure it is gratuitous and, if possible, pointless. There's nothing less acceptable in film then the ugly truth.

News: How many remakes of Blood Sucking Freaks does a man need?

Rough times for Hollywood's splat pack. Not long after Grindhouse's poor box office showing handed out notices to numerous folks on the young auteur A-list, Eli Roth (partial director and dubious actor in said flick) get's a stinker to call his own: apparently Hostel II is an underwhelming box office performer. Today, The New York Times asks if the horror boom, fueled by young directors like Roth, is finally running out of petrol. The Times doesn't waver on the issue:

Moviegoers put a nail in the coffin of a dying horror boom this weekend, as 'Hostel: Part II' opened to just $8.8 million in ticket sales, far behind the crime caper 'Oceans' Thirteen' in a three-day period of relatively soft box office performance.

Is horror tired? Are we headed into another lull? I open to the floor to the Screamers and Screamettes. Sound off.

Movies: Blood: How far will you go to get it?

According Bloody Disgusting, the horror news site, a director has been attached to the upcoming Dracula sequel currently titled Un-Dead. Un-Dead is being pitched as a direct sequel to the Bram Stoker novel. It picks up the thread of the plot 20 years after the novel closes and, as far as I can tell, ignores the famed Universal franchise and the innumerable "Dracula" pictures Lugosi and Browning inspired.

I think this project sounds like a great idea. After all, Coppola managed to provide the old vampire with some fresh blood by revisiting the original novel and making what, so far, is the closest filmic adaptation (and even that is pretty wide from the mark – adding the whole Mina/Drac backstory that is completely absent from the source text). Revisiting the original novel, even in such a roundabout way, might make for a solid script.

What gives me pause, though, is the choice of directors. According to B-D, Ernest Dickerson, who shot the post-Boyz in da Hood thriller Juice ("how far will you go to get it?"), will be helming the new pic.

Don't get me wrong. I actually kinda liked Juice. As far as the late 90's glut of neo-blaxploitation films went, it was a stylish, thoughtful, and remarkably restrained flick. Compare its slow build and carefully drawn character interactions to the over-the-top violence and repeated lectures of the more famous Menace II Society and you might be forgiven for thinking Juice was actually the better flick. But since then, Dickerson cranked out Surviving the Game (an Ice-T-centric reworking of The Most Dangerous Game), Tales from the Crypt: Demon Knight, and skateboarding-meets-basketball sci-fi sports flick Futuresport ("starring" former television Superman Dean Cain, singer turned movie un-star Vanessa Williams, and Wesley "I'll be Blade one of these days" Snipes). After that short and unhappy decline, he's mostly done television stuff. Some of it, including stints on HBO's fine crime drama The Wire, is good stuff; but we know what they say about second acts . . .

Movies: The girl next to the girl next door.

Seems I misled all you Screamers and Screamettes when I said that the film adaptation of the Ketchum novel (itself based on a true story) The Girl Next Door was coming out under the title An American Crime.

In fact, it appears that there will be two different films dealing with the Likens torture case. The first, An American Crime, already discussed in this blog, is directly based on the Likens case. The second film, The Girl Next Door, will be based on the novel of the same name, making it something like an adaptation of an adaptation.

I have a hard time believing we need two flicks about this crime out there at once – especially as this second flick looks like it will get stomped by the star power and A-List behind-the-camera talent of American Crime - but that's why these folks are the filmmakers and I'm just the blogger.

Movies: Holy $@#&ing @$%#!

I don't want to get folks unduly excited about what may turn out to be just so much hot air, but word on the street is that a third film in the Ghostbusters is on its way. This bit of tinsel town gossip comes from a curious source: CISN Country, a contemporary country station out of Edmonton. I kid not. Seems on of the CISN jocks had Dan "Ray Stantz" Aykroyd on his show and Aykroyd let drop that an all-CGI animated Ghostbusters flick was in the works. He also let drop that Bill Murray was going to be contributing his voice to the CGI Venkman.

For the confirmation, go to the second part of the interview.

This might all be pie-in-the-sky B.S. – but a man can dream can't he?