Much Like District 9, Cloverfield and Paranormal Activity before it, Monsters exists in a world where filmmakers with a singular vision just decide one day to go out and make the film they’ve always wanted to make. Packing his cast and a small crew into a van, writer/director Gareth Edwards traveled for several months throughout Central America in an attempt to realize that vision. Monsters is the result.

Part alien invasion, part road movie and part love story, Monsters balances all three well and manages to entertain and generate quite a few thrills and suspenseful moments. It also has other moments of genuine humor, emotion and character which are often lacking in other more mainstream films and doesn’t rely on heavy-handed spectacle to get its points across.

It’s also the strength of the developing relationship between the two leads, Kaulder (Scoot McNeary) and Sam (Whitney Able), which gives Monsters its emotion center. Perhaps it’s because the two leads developed a real romantic relationship over the course of making the film that their onscreen relationship works so well. You believe it because it’s actually happening.

As they go through the ordeal of the film, you trust they are experiencing what is happening to them and as they do, this brings them closer together. At first, of course, they are far apart but as the film progresses and the danger increases, they draw closer and must fight together to survive. Adversity, as it often does, brings people closer together, and these two are no exception.

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Tucker & Dale Vs Evil is a film I went into with low expectations and, for the most part, I was not disappointed. Showing at midnight on the first day of SXSW, it was a perfect way to start off the late night screenings. However, the film works best and can be most enjoyed if you don’t take it too seriously or expect too much from it.

While the two leads, Tucker (played by Firefly and Dollhouse’s Alan Tudyk) and Dale (Tyler Labine, recently of Reaper and the upcoming Sons of Tucson), are immensely likable and have good chemistry and banter, the film falls short and doesn’t live up to their potential. This is unfortunate on many levels because given more effort and time, it probably would have turned out a lot better and been a more fitting vehicle for these two actors.

The premise of Tucker & Dale is very simple and in most cases when it comes to filmmaking, simple is a good thing. Sadly, a simple premise alone does not a complete movie make and as the movie progresses, the slender thread of that premise starts to unravel. This is where this film chiefly falls in that while it does have a simple premise, it doesn’t expand much beyond it and instead offers a string of somewhat uninspired and progressively repetitive “accidents” that go along, leading the film to its inevitable conclusion.

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I had a chance to see George Romero’s Survival of the Dead last September during Fantastic Fest in Austin, TX. You can read the full review here. Or, if you don’t want to click a link, I will sum it up by saying I wasn’t in love with the movie.

That’s not to say the movie doesn’t have its good points and isn’t any fun, it does and is. It’s just not a great movie and I was hoping for more.

My opinion aside, the movie will finally be released and to begin the push for that, the studio has dropped the first poster from the film on us. It contains your typical mix of unholy zombies bent on one thing: brains.

Plus, a tag line that actually does a pretty good job of relating one of the central premises of the movie. Nice work marketing team.

Check out the full sized poster after the jump. Survival of the Dead premieres on VOD, Amazon, Xbox Live and Playstation April 30 and in theaters on May 28th.

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It is getting more and more difficult for filmmakers to breathe new life into the tired zombie genre as of late. The most successful zombie movies in recent memory are infused with humor (Zombieland) or introduce a new spin on the classic tale (Pontypool.) The Crazies is a cool little horror film that works because its zombies are not quite typical zombies, which I found more believable and thus more scary than a true zombie movie.

Time for me to fess up. I haven’t seen George Romero’s 1973 film that was the original source material for this film, so this was all a new concept to me.

The Crazies opens with a nifty juxtaposition of small town tranquility and calm (the whole town is watching a local baseball game) with modern day horrors, as a man pointedly walks across the baseball field with a shotgun. He doesn’t look like a zombie.

Instead, he appears to be channeling Michael Douglas’ character from Falling Down. As the horrified crowd looks on, the local sheriff  David (Timothy Olyphant) shoots the man before he can harm anyone.

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Warner Bros. has released the second trailer over at MySpace for the upcoming horror remake A Nightmare on Elm Street, which stars Jackie Earle Haley as the iconic Freddie Krueger. And folks, it’s a pretty damn good one.

Not only does this trailer give us a bit more insight into the look and feel of the film, it also provides more than enough horror and terror for three trailer. In short, it makes me even more interested in seeing this movie when it comes out.

The remake, directed by Samuel Bayer, in addition to Haley features Rooney Mara, Kyle Gallner, Katie Cassidy, and Thomas Dekker as a group of suburban teens being haunted and killed in their sleep. See, this is why I try never to sleep.

Check out the full trailer after the break. A Nightmare on Elm Street opens April 30, 2010.

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Are you excited for the remake of the horror classic A Nightmare on Elm Street? If so, this post is for you. Today, a new poster for the remake was relased into the wild at MySpace and features a better look at Jackie Earle Haley in the iconic role of your worst nightmare Freddy Krueger.

As you probably know, the original film was directed by horror legend Wes Craven and released in 1984. It spawned several sequels and imitators and propelled the character of Freddy Kruger into infamy. The remake, which is directed by Samuel Bayer and hits theaters on April 30, features Rooney Mara, Kyle Gallner, Katie Cassidy, and Thomas Dekker as a group of suburban teens being haunted and killed in their sleep.

Even though I’m not always a big fan of remakes, this one looks pretty darn cool. More and more Haley seems like an inspired choice to take over as Freddy Kruger. If he brings to the role the killer intensity he showed as Rorchasch in Watchmen, he might just be able to pull it off. The more I see of the new film, the more I hope he can.

Click through for a look at the full poster. Seeing this, what do you guys think of Haley as Freddy Kruger and are you excited for the remake?

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I had some major reservations going into the screening of The Wolfman. For those of us who followed the film’s production, there were frequent rumors of strife on the set, and then there was an ominous release date switch at the last moment. However, once the film began, those reservations were put to rest. I had a blast seeing this new vision of the classic movie monster brought to life.

Director Joe Johnston manages to deliver an atmospheric Gothic thriller, full of foggy London moors, mythical beasts, and buckets and buckets of blood and gore. When all was said and done, I was willing to forgive some story flaws, because this was just so much fun for the horror fan in me. The film is a nice throwback to the monster movies of the 40’s, and has a distinctly nostalgic feel.

A perfectly cast Benicio Del Torro (who has a very feral look in real life) plays Lawrence, who has been living in America, but has been summoned to return to London because his brother has gone missing.  By the time Lawrence reaches his family’s dilapidated mansion, his brother’s mutilated body has been found in a ditch.  Lawrence’s father (a diabolical Anthony Hopkins) seems curiously nonplussed by the whole ordeal, and clearly harbors a deep-rooted dislike of his remaining son.

Lawrence makes a promise to his brother’s grieving fiancé Gwen (Emily Blunt) that he will solve the mystery of what happened to his brother.  His quest takes him to a nearby gypsy camp that has fallen under the suspician of the townspeople. While he is talking to some of the gypsies, a creature attacks the camp with undiscriminating zeal.  Sheer mayhem occurs as decapitations, amputations, and slashed throats lay in the wake of the beast’s assault.

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According to Heat Vision Blog, Mary Elizabeth Winstead (Grindhouse) and Joel Edgerton (Attack of the Clones) are set to star in the latest incarnation of The Thing, Universal’s take on “the shape-shifting alien who terrorizes a group of people in a remote facility.” Oh yeah, that one.

Winstead will play a Ph.D. candidate who joins a Norwegian research team in Antarctica after it discovers an alien ship frozen in the ice. When a trapped organism is freed and begins to kill, she is forced to team with a mercenary helicopter pilot (Edgerton) to stop the rampage. Matthijs Van Heijningen is directing the movie, which was written by Ronald D. Moore and Eric Heisserer.

Sadly, Van Heijningen has never directed a big budget feature film before, so he’s probably the best choice for this one. Yes, that was sarcasm.

The Thing has, of course, been made into a film at least twice before. The best (and best-known) of these is probably the John Carpenter version from 1982 which featured Kurt Russell as the titular “mercenary helicopter pilot.” That film was a contemporary remake of 1951’s The Thing From Another World, directed by Howard Hawks and featuring pre-Gunsmoke James Arness as the creature.

A March 15 start date in Toronto is planned with a very short theatrical run and swift trip to your local video store probably soon to follow.

The Crazies, a remake of the 1973 George Romero film of the same name, has gotten it’s second theatrical trailer and it ups the creepy factor. The first trailer set up a great mood of unsettling psychosis that pervades a town; even if it might have given a little too much of the movie away.

The story is, “a small town in Iowa, starts seeing it’s inhabitants go crazy, after a mysterious toxin infiltrates their water supply.” The new film stars Timothy Olyphant, Radha Mitchell, written by Scott Kosar (The Machinist) and Ray Wright (Pulse), and directed by Breck Eisner (Sahara).

The second trailer, lives up to the name of “crazy” as there’s psycho laughter; crazed, zombie-looking people, and the always great black and white fade out freeze frame. One of the best parts of the trailer is towards the end, when I actually jumped out of my own seat – if you’re a guy, you’ll probably know which moment I’m referring to.

Overall, though, I’m pretty interested in seeing this when it comes out in February of 2010. All I can say is, this is why I only drink Diet Coke.

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About a week ago a colleague of mine asked why in the world I wanted to go see The Box. I explained that I found the premise fascinating. What if you were told that if you pushed a certain button, you would get a million dollars, but there is a catch. When you push the button, somebody you do not know will die. What would you do?

Therein lies the premise of The Box. This is the third film by Richard Kelly, who garnered cult-like status with Donnie Darko (2001), then wide ridicule for his follow up Southland Tales (2006). Lots of movie types were looking toward this movie to determine whether Kelly is a gifted director, or a one hit wonder. I’m sorry to tell you after viewing this convoluted mess, it seems like a case of the director having no clothes. It’s one thing to be a little avant-garde  with your vision, another entirely to just throw weird crap in your movie and hope that it sticks.

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