At last, the film adaptation for Anne Rice’s fourth installment of  The Vampire Chronicles is currently under development as a feature film. Ron Howard and Brian Grazer’s production company, Image Entertainment, has taken an interest in the project.

The company has optioned the rights to the book in which popular anti-hero Lestat de Lioncourt has chosen to temporarily trade bodies with a human psychic for another chance at feeling human. Unfortunately, the deal goes South when the human doesn’t want to trade back and Lestat must track down his former body in order to regain his immortality.

The production is working in partnership Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci (Star Trek, Eagle Eye) and Lee Patterson,
an upcomming writer who will be writing the screenplay. The film will be treated as though main character Lestat has not been previously been introduced to audiences. The producers hope to present the script to studios within a month.

Lestat was first introduced to film audiences in 1994′s Interview with the Vampire starring Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt, and Kirsten Dunst. The film was distributed by Warner Bros.

The second installment, Queen of the Damned, featured Stuart Townsend in the role of Lestat and deceased R&B songstress Aaliyah as Akasha (the mother of all vampires).

One thing we’ve always supported is independent production of film, tv, comics and games. As an independently operated news site, we understand how hard it is to break through to that next level. It is also great to hear when one of The Flickcast’s supporters gets an opportunity to bring one of their artistic visions to life.

Alex Greenfield is one of those supporters. Alex is best known for being the former lead writer on WWE’s SmackDown brand as well as two TV movies, Street Warrior and Jack’s Family Adventure. Last week, Alex and his writing partner Michael K Eitelman released The Temple through Amazon Studios.

We got the chance to talk briefly with Alex and he told us about both his inspiration behind The Temple as well as a little bit of the creative process.

My dad read me “The Rats in the Walls” when I was like five, literally sitting around a campfire. Let’s agree to ignore the parenting questions that anecdote raises and skip right to the fact that I became a Lovecraft addict before I could read. It was only a matter of time before I would dip my pen in the Mythos well.

Continue Reading →

If there is one franchise that has managed to live up to its very low standard, film after film, it would have to be Paul W.S. Anderson’s Resident Evil. Since the first one back in 2002, this franchise has managed to keep up with the technology, while hardly losing any of the excitement that fans are piling in to see with every new release.

With that comes Retribution, the fifth film in the franchise. This time, we’ve got a full group of folks joining from across the decade-spanning films. Joining lead Milla Jovovich this time around is Michelle Rodriguez (returning from the first film), Oded Fehr (Apocalypse & Extinction), and Sienna Guillory (Apocalypse & Afterlife).

A pretty stellar cast, given the heavy mythos of this world. And speaking of heavy, here’s the synopsis (as if you needed one):

The Umbrella Corporation’s deadly T-virus continues to ravage the Earth, transforming the global population into legions of the flesh eating Undead. The human race’s last and only hope, Alice (Milla Jovovich), awakens in the heart of Umbrella’s most clandestine operations facility and unveils more of her mysterious past as she delves further into the complex.

Without a safe haven, Alice continues to hunt those responsible for the outbreak; a chase that takes her from Tokyo to New York, Washington, D.C. and Moscow, culminating in a mind-blowing revelation that will force her to rethink everything that she once thought to be true. Aided by newfound allies and familiar friends, Alice must fight to survive long enough to escape a hostile world on the brink of oblivion. The countdown has begun.

Take a look at the trailer after the jump, in which takes a fun jab at the world of tablets we’ve come to live in. Catch Resident Evil: Retribution in theaters and in 3D on September 14th.

Continue Reading →

If you’ve been keeping with our previous posts, you can see that this year is going to be quite the melting pot of horror films. In today’s installment, we sum it all up with the final films of 2012.

Check out Part 1 and Part 2 if you haven’t yet. Now onto the rest.

October 5, 2012 – The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 3D

(Distributed by Lionsgate Films) This film is intended as somewhat of an alternate sequel to the original 1974 film directed by Tobe Hooper and advances thirty five years into the story.

October 19, 2012 – Paranormal Activity 4

(Distributed by Paramount Pictures) The film is a continuation of the series.  If you’ve seen one then you’ve pretty much seen them all.

Continue Reading →

Just when you started to think that Walking Dead was slipping after a sub-par batch of episodes in Season 2, AMC wants to prove you wrong. The critically acclaimed network is bringing the show back in a few weeks with the rest of Season 2, but they’ve also just put in a massive order for another 16 episodes, which basically means we’ll be getting a third season.

Sure, Darabont may have left the project with a bunch of confused writers and lack of general direction, but that isn’t going to stop Kirkman, Nicotero, Gale Anne Hurd, and the rest of the producers and writers from trying to make this show the best damned zombie series on TV again.

Here’s what the network had to say about its favorite series in a recent press release.

Season 2 of the critically acclaimed global hit series continues to deliver the strongest telecasts for any drama in basic cable history against Adults 18-49, as well as, top international pay-TV ratings on Fox International Channels’ (FIC) major markets. The Walking Dead is based on the comic book series written by Robert Kirkman and published by Image Comics.

Continue Reading →

Take a look at Part One of the Horror 2012 movie preview here. We’ve already talked about Women wearing Black, Ravens, and a few other things that go bump in the night, but this spring and summer is when we’re going to get some true horror in theaters. Let’s get started, shall we?

April 13, 2012 – Cabin in the Woods

The Cabin in the Woods (Distributed by Lionsgate Films) Produced by Joss Whedon, this film promises a new spin on the basic remote thriller concept in this voyeuristic slasher.

April 20, 2012 – House at the End of the Street

(Distributed by Relativity Media) Based on a treatment and short story written by Jonathan Demme and Mostow, the story focuses on a girl’s discovery of the murder in the home across the street from her new home.  Things become complicated when she befriends the victim’s son.

Continue Reading →

Usually January is a wasteland for the box office, dominated by award bait films, studio dump offs and the sputtering remains of the Christmas blockbusters. This week, one new film braved these difficult days and came out with very respectable numbers.

The Devil Inside debuted on over twenty-two hundred screens, bringing in an estimated thirty-four and a half million dollars. The satanic possession horror film raked in the 3rd highest January opening ever behind Cloverfield and  the special edition re-release of Star Wars back in ’97. The movie had a production budget of only one million, which makes this weekend a pretty big win for Paramount.

Coming in second place this weekend was Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol , which continued it’s very impressive run. With another twenty million, it now is on pace to threaten Mission: Impossible 2 as the series’ top grosser. The movie has had several weeks of really solid holds and is proving to be the big winner of the crowded holiday season.

Continue Reading →

It is in fashion right now to bash on remakes and reboots. That line of thinking may or may not be warranted, but you should hear none of it when talking about the upcoming Evil Dead reboot.

Of all the horror franchise that have been revived in the last decade, none more than the Evil Dead series is more malleable. The franchise has always reinvented itself with each new installment, so a new, modern reboot shouldn’t cause immediate concern.

The movie is going to begin filming in a few months and Bloody Disgusting has the scoop on the first bit of casting:

Bloody Disgusting has learned exclusively that Lily Collins (The Blind Side, Priest, Mirror Mirror) is in final negotiations to play “Mia” in FilmDistrict’s reboot aiming for release on April 12, 2013.

In this version, the story centers on five friends (David, Natalie, Eric, Olivia, and Mia) holed up at a remote cabin where they discover a Book of the Dead with a demonic force unleashed possessing each until only one is left to fight for survival.

Lily Collins is a great young actress who shined in The Blind Side and even in the otherwise horrid Priest. We don’t know which of the characters is going to be the “Ash” archetype, but rumors have bubbled up that Raimi wanted a girl to fill that role. Could that be Lily Collins’ Mia? Only time will tell.

Happy New Year and welcome to another year of your favorite films here at Monday Picks. This week’s feature to ring in the New Year is the 1972 Spanish horror classic Horror Express a.k.a. Panic on the Trans-Siberian Express. The film stars both Hammer Films greats Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee who battle an alien life form which has existed on Earth for millions of years.

The film opens in 1906 Manchuria where English naturalist and explorer Alexander Saxton (Lee) has discovered an ape-like creature that has been frozen for thousands of years. Convinced he has found the missing link, Saxton and his party crate up the fossil and prepare to transport the cargo by train to Moscow, Russia.

While in Shanghai, Saxton encounters his fellow Royal Society member Doctor Wells (Cushing) who also plans to board the train bound for Moscow. While under guard, Saxton’s crate is picked by a thief who turns up dead on the station platform, his eyes turned white. A crazed monk and spiritual advisor to a Polish Count believes Saxton’s cargo is unholy. Saxton dismisses the monk’s ranting as spiritual nonsense.

Continue Reading →

Stop-Motion animation is a craft, it takes time and true artistry to create convincing motion with tangible puppets. The end result is a rich, textured world that is more immersive than traditional animation. Next year promises to be a good year for the medium with two new stop-motion movies on the way.

The most intriguing of the two is called ParaNorman, which got an incredibly stylish and moody teaser a while back. Now we have are first taste of the story and some of the characters in a new teaser that was just released. In case you were unaware of what ParaNorman is all about here is a synopsis:

“In ParaNorman, a small town comes under siege by zombies. Who can it call? Only misunderstood local boy Norman (voiced by Kodi Smit-McPhee), who is able to speak with the dead. In addition to the zombies, he’ll have to take on ghosts, witches and, worst of all, moronic grown-ups, to save his town from a centuries-old curse. But this young ghoul whisperer may find his paranormal activities pushed to their otherworldly limits.”

The film looks tremendous and is high on our must see list for 2012. ParaNorman is set for a September 14th, 2012 release date.

You can check out the gorgeous new teaser after the jump.

Continue Reading →

In celebration of the holiday season, this week’s pick is the 1984 cult classic Night of the Comet written and directed by Thom Eberhardt. Night of the Comet is a terrific throwback to 1950′s horror and sci-fi with a unique 80s spin to it. The film stars Catherine Mary Stewart, Kelli Maroney, Robert Beltran, Mary Woronov, and Geoffrey Lewis.

With Christmas right around the corner, the world prepares for the arrival of a comet that predicts a stellar light show that will be seen all around the world. As billions gather to await the arrival of the comet, a group of scientists have secured themselves in a secret research facility in the California desert fearing that the last time a comet like this arrived on Earth, spelled extinction for the dinosaurs.

Stewart stars as Regina Belmont, a movie theater usher who awakens the morning after the comet passes over a deserted LA. Things seem amiss when Reggie gets locked out of the theater and discovers that her boyfriend, who went to pick up some rare film cans belonging to the theater, has not yet arrived back.

Reggie sees Larry’s (Michael Bowen) motorcycle still parked in the alley and she is attacked by a zombie in overalls. Regina fights him off and takes off on the motorcycle.

Continue Reading →

This week’s Monday Pick is the classic “animals run amok” monster movie Alligator (1980). The film stars Academy Award nominee Robert Forster, Robin Riker, Michael Gazzo, and Henry Silva.

Alligator is a well written, tongue in cheek horror film centered on the old urban legend of alligators that are flushed down the drain and thrive in the subterranean jungle of the city sewer. The film was penned by writer/director John Sayles who helped write the 1978 Joe Dante Jaws homage Piranha and would also help to write the upcoming release of The Howling. Sayles crafts another horror classic that pits man against a marauding beast with an insatiable appetite.

Robert Forster stars as policeman David Madison who has been investigating some grizzly murders committed in the sewers of a Missouri city. Madison begins investigating further after a pet store owner’s remains ended up in the city’s sewage treatment facility. One other baffling discovery is a women’s small dog that appears to have grown in size substantially after it was reported missing.

Continue Reading →