Paramount Insurge has picked up the rights to Australian horror film The Loved Ones, and is expected to hit theaters as soon as this summer. This film has garnered a lot of buzz since it’s Australian release in 2009.

This is the first feature for writer-director Sean Byrne.  The film stars Robin McLeavy, who currently has a recurring role on AMC’s Hell On Wheels.  She will also be starring in the upcoming historical-horror Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter.

In The Loved Ones, high school senior Brent Mitchell wraps his car around a tree, killing his father. Constantly confronted by his mother’s emotional collapse after the accident, Brent escapes into a marijuana fueled world of loud metal music to block the pain and guilt. Dejected and out of sorts, he has a shot at happiness with his girlfriend Holly, a grounded, caring girl with drop dead good looks. Unfortunately, Lola Stone asked Brent Mitchell to the prom,and when Brent said no, Lola snaps and decided to take what she wants. She enlists her daddy’s help to throw a prom of her own where she is queen and Brent is king, whether he likes it or not.

The film is touted as a mixture of Sixteen Candles and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

Paramount is taking a cue from the success of Paranormal Activity, which was released due to fan demand. You can go to the official website for The Loved Ones and you can enter to bring the movie to your local theater.

Take a look at the trailer after the jump.

Continue Reading →

Usually, I shy away from these types of tribute videos. They normally can’t do the person in question justice or often minimize their contributions in some way. Or, they are just plain bad and poorly put together. Fortunately, that’s not the case with this particular video.

In this one, YouTube user cpfilm has put together a great set of clips from most of John Hughes’s top films of the ’80′s, set to The Who’s song Baba O’Riley which, of course, includes the very appropriate “teenage wasteland” lyrics. Among the films represented are most of the ones I found inspirational and highly amusing as a teenager growing up in the 80′s including The Breakfast Club, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Weird Science, Pretty In Pink, Some Kind of Wonderful, Planes, Trains and Automobiles and Sixteen Candles.

This video took a great deal of time and effort and I, for one, appreciate what went into it and the feelings it evokes. You can say whatever you want about John Hughes and his post-80′s career, but in his prime, he made some of the most entertaining, influential and eminently quotable films of all time. For that, and much more, I raise my fist silently in the air. RIP Mr. Hughes and thanks for all the great memories.

Click through to watch the video.

Continue Reading →

We are just getting word now that John Hughes, director of such 80s films as Pretty in Pink, The Breakfast Club, Sixteen Candles, and Ferris Beuller’s Day off has died of a heart attack during a morning walk today in New York City. He was 59 years old.

Hughes was an icon to many who grew up with the films of the 1980s and 1990s including The Breakfast Club, Weird Science, Home Alone, Sixteen Candles, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off and many, many more. The story is still developing, and we plan on having more to you as it comes in.