Today, a look into the trailer for the upcoming apocalyptic/rapture-cometh thriller “The Remaining” revolving around a group of close-knit friends at a wedding when all of the sudden the world starts to fall apart around them.
“The Remaining” hits theaters September 5th. I wonder how the blend of found footage and third person will take with this graphics heavy edition to the biblical-endings genre. Looks rather good with some good scares to be had. “The Remaining” stars Alexa Vega, Johnny Pacar, Shaun Sipos, Italia Ricci, Bryan Dechart, Kim Pacheco, John Pyper-Ferguson, Erin Murphy, Liz E. Morgan and Hayley Lovitt.
Nearly 30 years have passed since the last Mad Max film, Beyond Thunderdome, and now we’re graced the next installment from this years San Diego Comic Con – Mad Max: Fury Road.
Looks like carnage and bliss rolled into one fucked up fruit rollup. Tom Hardy is a great choice to help reprise the role of Max from Mel Gibson and you can’t go wrong with creator George Miller at the helm. Got to love the Aussies!
Adopted child Samantha Harris, now an adult woman, learns that her biological parents left her their family home and takes three friends on a trip to discover what she lost early in life. When they arrive, everything begins to go down hill as Samantha experiences realistic visions that compromises her reality and pits her agains’t her friends.
Talk about your micro budget horror! The Invoking is a prime example on how a film gets made on an estimated $11,000. That kind of money can’t even buy you a brand new car, yet you can make full-length feature film as director, screenwriter, cinematographer, and producer Jeremy Berg has proved. You just have to do everything yourself, pretty much. Accompanied with a few talented actors and actresses and you might just be able to pull off a good, low-budget horror film. Now, that begs the question, is The Invoking a good horror thriller?
In a word – watchable. The Invoking’s story lacks connectivity between the home’s caretaker, the home, and lead character Samantha. The girth of the whole movie lies hard on the story and much like a TV with a loose cable connectivity all you receive is visible static. This doesn’t necessarily mean Berg’s The Invoking is the worst film ever made as their are good highlights. For example, Samantha’s embarkment into madness with her visions are stimulating and creative.
The film’s title has multiple meanings as the supernatural grounds push the bond between the friends, the friends also push the bonds between each other as well. And we don’t know if the house is under the spell of supernatural forces either, but perhaps – just perhaps – Samantha actually has a psychotic episode as she slowly remembers, as painful as they were, her nightmare that was her childhood.
Don’t expect a big, on the edge of your seat, intense thriller, but The Invoking could work very well on stage with actors like Trin Miller, Andi Norris, Josh Truax, Brandon Anthony, and D’Angelo Midili. Not a bad freshman film for Jeremy Berg either as the man has talent in all the fields he worked on on The Invoking. Check out the DVD hitting retail shelves and online on May 12th from RLJ Entertainment!
Dustin Mills has become one of my favorite independent directors over the last two years with successful features such as Bath Salt Zombies (read review here), Zombie A-Hole (read review here), and Night of the Tentacles (read review here). Mills continues to course and has released a trailer for his next project – a bloody, body horror film – entitled Skinless which is full of practical, gooey effects.
Synopsis
He searched for a cure. What he found was a curse. Brilliant oncologist Peter Peel discovers a possible cure for skin cancer in the belly of an exotic parasite. When he tests the cure on himself, his world is shattered and a monster is born. Skinless is a sad tale of madness, murder, monsters, and love.
Cast favorite Brandon Salkil plays the male lead Dr. Peter Peele, which I’m guessing “Peele” goes with the whole “skinless” motif. Check out gory trailer down below.
The latest trend for independent horror filmmakers is to pay homage to the 80’s slasher. Bloody Homecoming is no different as one other review site said the film is “an unusually effective homage to the golden age of American slasher movies.” Is the Freshman of Brian C. Weed a worthy throwback of the “golden age of American slasher?” The elements are there and I can say that Weed gave it one hell of a try making a masked killer into a relentless murderer of teens that harks back to classic icons like Jason Voorhees or Michael Myers.
Football star Billy Corbin dies in a fiery deathtrap during his school’s homecoming. Three years later, the teens who were labeled responsible, but never held accountable, prepare for the school’s first homecoming since the tragic death of Billy Corbin. While in jubilation of their school spirit, a killer dressed in a firman’s gear hunts them down one by one during the homecoming dance; a killer hell fire bent on revenge for Billy.
And while director Weed makes a heartfelt attempt at a throwback horror movie, the characters are too shallow and need more work to make them more human. Robotic dialogue creates a kind of hatred that only a masked killer could exterminate. Thank goodness for the “fireman” killer. However, a handful of hopeful characters keep the film’s watchability right on the line between entertaining and dull. Bloody Homecoming does bring a unique way, a rare method, when deciding to who gets the axe. Every character is fair game to bite the dust and no one can argue with that as the usual suspects are token black guys, couples who’ve just had sex, and the comic relief – to be fair, all these characters were in this stereotyped high school teen horror film.
Other slasher films such as My Bloody Valentine or Scream come to mind when thinking about the “fireman” killer. I’m guessing the writer, Jake Helgren, gave the killer inspiration for using the fireman gear after the burning death of Billy Corbin. The outfit is a bit out of place, but the connection between the catalyst and killer can determined. The killer uses a sharpened spirit stick which doesn’t make a intimidating weapon, but effective none the less. Lets just say the spirit stick takes the spirit right out of the kids. The killer character’s depth could have been more extensive and more meaningful. The paper thin motivation from the killer does little for the character and the killer would just be labeled as another run of the mill killer.
Bloody Homecoming won’t knock your socks off, but the death scenes are graphic, bloody, and well timed in the scene. Brian C. Weed’s first attempt at horror is just the tip of the ice berg and we could see some great things from Weed if another opportunity presents itself. The editing is professional and well done so I see things could only get better from here and Bloody Homecoming’s UK DVD release is slated for March 10 from Image Entertainment.
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