Tuesday, August 24, 2010

Moldy (Not-So-Old) Update

Undead Backbrain previewed the imminent release of a nice bit of moldy exploitation back in May when Avery Guerra interviewed Mold! director Neil Meschino.

Mold! (US-2010; dir. Neil Meschino).



Now we have the first teaser trailer for you, which should thoroughly enthuse all the putrescence-horror fans out there. Putrescence horror boasts a venerable tradition, full of slime, decay, gore and (of course) mold (as well as scientific and political corruption), that includes such classics as Body Melt, Street Trash, The Stuff, and the Toxic Avenger films. This one fits right in.



More Posters (and some concept art):


 
Source: via Avery. Written by Robert Hood

Sunday, August 22, 2010

Posters and Cast of The Scout

The Scout is, you may recall, the most recent Thai giant snake movie by Vengeance director Pleo Sirisuwan. It has just been released to DVD in Thailand.



The Scout [aka Bit Pi-Pop Ta-Lu Lohk] (Thailand-2009; dir. Pleo Sirisuwan)

Synopsis:
Scouts visit an ancient temple to witness a lunar eclipse. Hearing campfire stories of the legendary god who protects the temple, they decide to go on a treasure hunt. Finding themselves lost in a parallel universe, they must find the way back before the end of the eclipse traps them.

Full Trailer:



Here are another couple of posters, one in English:


Below are some pictures of the cast and crew (at a premiere event) and in character:


Bogus:
Ing:
Sara:
Oat:

The Hulk As A Really Big (Indian) Kid

Comment is probably superfluous here.  

Athisayan (India-2007; dir. Vinayan T. Rajendarum) is about a kid who for some reason gets angry and Hulk-like grows very large. Unlike the Hulk he appears to stay that way. Naturally it all ends in tears.


There's a touch of King Kong in this Malayalam-language Indian fantasy-comedy, too.

Gird your loins and check it out:


Source: TarsTarkas via Avery

Tuesday, August 17, 2010

New US Trailer for MONSTERS

The US theatrical trailer for Gareth Edwards' classy giant monster flick, Monsters, has been released. Here it is:


Via Avery Guerra.

For more about the film, see the previous Undead Brainspasm article.

Friday, August 13, 2010

More from Monsters

Monsters (UK-2010; dir. Gareth Edwards) comes to cinemas in the US (October 19) and UK (November 12). Australia? Who knows? Madman Entertainment might. They have the rights, so it's very likely. The film did screen recently at the Melbourne Film Festival.

Here's the new poster:


Monsters takes a "realistic" approach to the giant monster genre, and as such looks like it's definitely worth watching. At the very least I'll be hanging out for the DVD. It reportedly cost only US$15,000 to make.

Synopsis:
Six years ago NASA discovered the possibility of alien life within our solar system. A probe was launched to collect samples, but crashed upon re-entry over Central America.

Soon after, new life forms began to appear there and half of Mexico was quarantined as an INFECTED ZONE. Today, the American and Mexican military still struggle to contain "the creatures"...

Our story begins when a US journalist agrees to escort a shaken American tourist through the infected zone in Mexico to the safety of the US border.
 

You can check out the trailer for the movie as well as other posters, plus there's links to earlier articles featured on Undead Backbrain and Undead Brainspasm here.

Thursday, August 12, 2010

Spike Comes to DVD


The modern-day Gothic fairytale, Spike (US-2008; dir. Robert Beaucage) has arrived on DVD. In case you haven't been paying attention, check out this article on Undead Backbrain to find out what it's about.


Synopsis:
Tales of beasts in love with beauties are as old as recorded history, spanning from the myth of Cupid and Psyche to The Hunchback of Notre Dame; from Hades and Persephone to The Elephant Man to King Kong. While Spike nods at the archetypal precedents, it twists and overturns genre conventions to explore previously untapped strata of the fairytale turned nightmare.
Spike is the monstrously mutated suitor who builds a forest lair in which he dwells for several years while awaiting the arrival of his “beauty” - a girl with whom he shares a history, and whom he has idolized his entire life.
The girl and a group of friends find themselves, by no coincidence, stranded in Spike’s forest. The Beast kidnaps his Beauty. Spike also injures her boyfriend and holds him hostage. Thus begins the girl’s quest to recover her ill-fated lover from Spike -- whether through reason, charm, coercion, or violence -- while her friends try to recover her.
Spike maneuvers through the dark tensions of a monster’s love and the depths to which a beauty may sink to evade it, arguably becoming monstrous herself. In the end, we must uncomfortably agree that, as Spike himself says, “There is always some madness in love.” Spike gives that madness life. (Wonderphil Productions website)

Trailer:



Here's some more stills, in a video format:


Three very short clips from the film can be seen on the spikethemovie YouTube channel. One of them is below:


Fangoria quotes director Beaucage on the subject of his film's atypically cynical attitude toward Spike's romantic theme as saying, "That derives from my own pessimistic outlook. If a real-life Beast fell in love with a Beauty in a modern world without magic or enchantments, the resultant events, for all parties concerned, would be nothing short of dreadful.”

The monster itself was created via physical and makeup FX by Jordu Schell. Commented Beaucage:
Schell specializes in photorealism in building creature characters. I don’t want anyone thinking ‘monster suit’ while watching SPIKE; I want them to think, ‘What is that thing?’

Below is some test footage of man and monster suit:


For reviews of the film -- some very positive indeed, go to the Maverick Entertainment website.

The DVD can be bought from Amazon.

Pilot Trailer for Empires of the Deep

The following video is rough and of rather poor quality (as someone has filmed it off their computer), but it gives an idea as to how good Empires of the Deep might actually be. If you're unsure what Empires of the Deep is, check out this Undead Backbrain article.


I must say that the spectacular nature of this rather surprises me. The film is starting to look as though it could meet its own hype.

Sunday, August 8, 2010

Snakes on a Plain?

The alien and iconic nature of snakes has attracted filmmakers since Adam spent a sunny afternoon making his rather candid video of Eve and a snake tussling over an apple in the Garden of Eden -- and then uploaded it to YouTube.

This year we're expecting quite an invasion of slithery reptiles from Asian cinema. In the Thai film The Scout (dir. Pleo Sirisuwan), the snake is extremely large; in The Intruder (dir. “James” Thanadol Nualsuth and “Ping” Thammanoon Sakulbunthanom), also from Thailand, it's a Cobra spirit and is accompanied by hordes of smaller acolytes. Director Jennifer Lynch's foray into Indian cinema, Hisss!, offers us a snake that is a human-serpent hybrid -- a mythological creature of great antiquity.


Now we can add this one to the list -- Nanjupuram, directed by Charles, a Tamil thriller that is "the first of its kind". Here it's a horde of normal-sized snakes, but in such vast numbers that together they add up to one really big monster.

Teaser Trailers:




Clearly what the cobras in this poster are waiting for is a song from the movie's lead star, Raaghav Ranganathan, who is a big name popstar/rap artist in his home country. He also supplies the music for the film.



Funny how Indian male leads so often look like they've come direct from the set of a 1970s British cop show.

Trailers:



The plot concerns a man who is not at all scared of snakes, which is opportune as he lives in Nanjapuram village where snakes are worshipped as gods. When the village is invaded by thousands of snakes, Raaghav's character must find out what lies behind the strange and frightening events -- discovering in the process that some of the human inhabitants of the village can be more poisonous than the cobras.

Movie starlet Monika plays the love of his life. 


Images from the film concentrate rather heavily on the romantic aspect of the story, which clearly is a significant drawcard. Sites such as Kollywoodzone and way2movies: Tamil are repositories of dozens of them.


Director Charles has also indicated that the snakes used in the film are real ones, used with the permission of the Animal Welfare Board. CGI is not in evidence here (Source). He added:
Although the movie is about snakes, it will not promote the superstitious beliefs usually associated with serpents in Hindu mythology. The movie will also touch upon caste issues. (Source)
If your Tamil is up to scratch, you can hear more about the film and news of its progress here, here and here.

The Music:



Also in the film is South Indian actress Anuya, who performs in one of the musical numbers. She commented: "It’s a song that narrates the outline of this movie and there’s nothing to do with glamour here." (Source)


Addendum: Early Trailer

Friday, August 6, 2010

Hound of Hell?


Ghost or monster?

Either way, this new film from Active Entertainment looks like it has good production values, and with Robert Picardo in it doing his stuff it has plenty of potential. He seems impressed by something here.


The film has a release date of November 2010.

Monsterwolf (US-2010; dir. Todor Chapkanov)

Synopsis:
According to the writings of an ancient legend, a creature exists that is obligated to protect the balance of the Earth and kill anyone who threatens it. The spirit of the beast awakens when an oil-drilling operation threatens a sacred site.

Main HD Trailer:


Check out the Facebook page.

Gallery:


Another Shark Movie: Swamp Shark

Water monsters, and sharks in particular, are certainly riding the crest of a wave. Undead Backbrain recently highlighted Fred Olen Ray's latest monster flick, the awesome Super Shark, which ups the ante on Jaws and even Mega Shark vs Giant Octopus (though not, perhaps, Sharktopus) by offering us a mutant shark that is not only huge but walks on land and flies!

SyFy Channel's latest, however, is a shark that is apparently unique in that it "swims, kills people and is out there" ... out there being in the swamp with the alligators. The film has the frankly not-very-inspiring title, Swamp Shark (US-2011; dir. Griff Furst), though hopefully once the shark starts being more proactive it will fulfilled the promise of the general sense of urgency created by the trailer's gun-tottin' Kristy Swanson, the numerous shouting voices, the interestingly atypical fin and the brief climactic view of its large (though not unnaturally so) mouth.

At least the film's got Robert Davi's rugged visage in it. For me, his presence always offers a degree of credibility.


  • Source: io9 via Avery.
  • Written by Robert Hood

Tuesday, August 3, 2010

Amphibious Article (with Pictures)


Kaiju Search-Robot Avery has stumbled upon an article about the giant sea-scorpion flick Amphibious 3D (Indonesia/Netherlands-2010; dir. Brian Yuzna) in a French magazine. If your French is pretty good, you can read the text. If not, just look at the pictures. Click on the images to increase the pages to a readable size.

Here are the two two-page spreads:



Source: Celsius Entertainment; Previous Brainspasm article