Hello and welcome back to Hero Express, your stop off point for all superhero entertainment news. It has been a while since the last update and a lot of hero news has come our way so let’s crack on. Firstly, we look at what the Marvel Superheroes have been up to recently with some exciting news on the big and small screen.
Continue reading Hero Express: 1970’s Loki, Magneto/JFK Conspiracy & Suicide Squad Movie!
It was only a matter of time before the zombie genre turned its attention to Cheerleaders. Horror films set in schools are certainly not a new concept and zombies invading schools even less so, with films like Zombie High School, Boy Eats Girl and Dance of the Dead all covering similar ground. But the new film by directors Lucky McKee and Chris Siverston puts its own spin on the genre, mixing elements of witchcraft and revenge into your standard gut munching. If the title sounds familiar then you may have caught this title’s original release in 2001 – the upcoming 2014 film is a remake by the same team.
The synopsis, courtesy of Dread Central:
“When tragedy rocks Blackfoot High, rebellious outsider Mäddy Killian shocks the student body by joining the cheerleading squad. This decision drives a rift between Mäddy and her ex-girlfriend Leena Miller – a loner who claims to practice the dark arts. After a confrontation with the football team, Mäddy and her new cheerleader friends are sent on a supernatural roller coaster ride which leaves a path of destruction none of them may be able to escape.”
The trailer’s a bit of a slow burner. It starts out along the lines of most teen horror movies (There are very clear shades of I Know What You Did Last Summer in there) but after time and repeated viewings it actually looks pretty cool. It’s doubtful the movie will be anything mind-blowing but the fun factor certainly seems present. Little comedy scenes like the poor cat getting killed, mixed with some interesting looking attack scenes (The women all seem to have super strength so we get those great shots of people getting flung about all over the place) offer a lot of potential. Also everyone seems to be having fun with the format and so far the cast don’t instantly make me want to rip my hair out. There is a nice mix of dark humor and horror which could confuse people who don’t know what they’re getting into, but some of the best horror flicks have this combination (American Werewolf in London, Slither) and when done right it can pay off in spades. The filmmakers seem to be pretty with it and it looks like All Cheerleaders Die has a bit more wit to it than your mindless zombies movie. It’s just hard to tell from the trailer alone if this will hold up through the whole film, or if it’ll turn into the same old brain eater flick by the end. This is one to tentatively look out for in 2014.
Now some people may say John Claude Van Damme is back, but for me he never left.
Much like his brother in arms (though they may not see it that way) Steven Segal, they have toiled their trade in the DTV market with varying results. They were both a huge part of the 80s/90s action genre and they both still entertain audiences today. But it is Van Damme on this occasion that is having a more main stream popularity surge. We had the incredible JCVD movie and then it all went quiet until The Expendables 2 with a very nice villain turn which he also used in the fantastically dark Universal Soldier Day of Reckoning movie. But strangely it is his comedic turn in the Coors Light adverts which really grabbed people’s attention
Oh as well as the splits advert he recently did, showing off he still has the dexterity of his youth
This all culminated in Welcome to the Jungle (not the Dwayne Johnson one) where Van Damme really gets to play in the comedy sand pit.
Here the premise is simple, preppy style office workers go on a retreat to chill out and learn combat skills from none other than Van Damme himself. See the trailer below and be prepared for maximum chuckles.
Storm Roughchild, man that’s an awesome name. The great thing about this movie is that Van Damme gently mocks his own self-image but still manages to come off as generally rock hard. The scene where Van Damme’s anguished fight moan goes on a little too long is genius. Some of the other comedy elements fall a bit flat to be honest, though the Lord of the Flies scene has promise.
That takes us to Van Damme’s return to his action roots with Enemies Closer. Check out the trailer below…
With hair that Doc Brown would be jealous off and a relaxed approach to random killings Van Damme really shines in this trailer. Tom Everett Scott and Orlando Jones come out of this pretty good too, with some nice action scenes throughout the trailer, but it is once again Van Damme’s show. He gets some great action here, especially with him dressed in a Mountie uniform kicking ass and taking names. This film has a ‘Ten Little Indians’ feel to it with the two guys being hunted by Van Damme’s militant group. The thing I liked about Van Damme here is he plays a character very similar to the type of people he would normally be fighting against. The complete lack of interest in the deaths around him as well as the mad glint in his eye makes this all come together nicely.
Welcome to the Jungle and Enemies Closer have a 2014 release date. With all this going on it looks like Van Damme is going to be a busy man and this reviewer cannot wait to see what he round house kicks our way in the future. Until then here are the posters for both movies to keep you going until 2014.
Nurse 3D is a film that has been on a bit of a slow burn since it was completed over 2 years ago. For whatever reason Lionsgate felt the need to hold this back, maybe they wondered how the hell they were going to market this type of movie. This is a fair point because it is not your typical horror flick, feeling more like the slew of crazy female stalker movies from the ’90s, with echoes of Fatal Attraction and Single White Female.
They have finally decided now is the right time for us to see some killer nurse action, and ‘the killer nurse movie’ is certainly not a new concept. They have been a staple of the horror genre on and off for years in the low-budget arena of film making. Quentin Tarantino was obviously influenced by the sub-genre, as is evidenced by Kill Bill.
The official synopsis:
[quote]Paz de la Huerta (HBO’s “Boardwalk Empire”) turns up the body heat in this wickedly entertaining story of a fatal attraction. By day, nurse Abby Russell (de la Huerta) lovingly attends to the patients at All Saints Memorial Hospital; by night, Abby prowls nightclubs, luring unfaithful men into dangerous liaisons. After Danni, a young, sensitive nurse, joins the hospital staff, Abby pursues her friendship. But when the friendship turns to obsession, Danni spurns Abby, unleashing Abby’s fury and a rampage of terror[/quote]
And the trailer…
Paz de la Huerta (Boardwalk Empire) as Abby Russell certainly has an alluring quality to her. Something seems off with her whenever she glances at a character, it’s a surprise they don’t figure out sooner that she is absolutely bonkers. She certainly seems engaging and though personally, I do not feel drawn to her strange charms, there is definitely something about her which drags you in. I am still not sure if this is an amazing piece of acting or if she is just crazy. Having missed Boardwalk Empire it is hard to know either way. Katrina Bowden (30 Rock, Dale and Tucker vs Evil) as Danni seems to play the role of the confused new comer well enough, and her tumble into this new and weird world grabs your attention for long enough to be interested in what will happen to her. The notion of Abby maybe being an escaped loony seems a tad cliché and unnecessary to be honest, but this may be a throwaway line without too much relevance to the movies outcome. Judd Nelson pops up for 2 seconds with one hum-dinger of a mustache which if nothing else should be a joy to behold.
The use of 3D actually does not gel well in the trailer, taking away from the tone they had built up, turning it from erotic horror to generic jump bait. There are certainly elements of interest here, with plenty of brief shots of syringe action which sometimes gave this film a feel of Audition by Takashi Miike. The use of sex and death seem to have a foreign film feel to it with elements of films like Nekromantik and Dario Argento’s movies slipping in there (the scene in the morgue with the bone saw seems like it could mix elements of both of these movies). But for tone and even content this felt a little like American Mary, the 2012 film about underground surgery.
The general feeling after watching this is that the dark mix of horror and sexuality will be a good thing. The film is set to release sometime in 2014. This may be one to keep your eye on in the near future.
Let’s not beat around the bush here: people like their cyborg movies. With the new Robocop on the way and movies like Manborg catching audience’s attention, it seems that director Rolfe Kanefsky wanted in on this action as well. His response is the film Megafoot where a cyborg Bigfoot goes toe to toe with your standard garden variety Bigfoot. Now the timing for this film is perfect. Since Sharknado and Wolf Cop, people have been more and more intrigued by movies that wear their love of the trashy movie genre on their sleeves and don’t try to be anything other than some good old B movie fun. Though little information is known about the movie at this time, it seems from the artwork already published online that this film fits into that category. Below is some concept art taken from the Megafoot Facebook page showing a potentially awesome scene from the movie.
I don’t know much about director Rolfe, but boy does he have an impressive resume in the low budget horror field. Just a brief look on his IMDB page reveals his involvement in some cheesy classics like There’s Nothing Out There (1991), The Killer Eye (1999) and The Hazing (2004)
Rolfe had this to say about the release of his poster which you can see below.
“Thought I’d share the poster for hopefully my return to the horror genre. A new script that I wrote and, if all goes well, will be directing in the Spring. Let me introduce you to my creature feature, Megafoot! What do you think?”
Now we all know looks can be deceiving and whether we actually see this monster look as awesome as he does on screen as he does in the poster is something we will have to wait for. Rolfe certainly seems like the guy to pull it off, so fingers crossed we might have a cult classic on our hands. Keep checking here at Grizzly Bomb for more updates as they arrive as this could give Bigfoot the biggest entertainment resurgence since Harry and the Hendersons!
This past Sunday, an eagle-eyed Twitter user named Jeser Piedra snapped the following photo of a promo banner for The Amazing Spider-Man 2, which depicts a much broader threat than Jamie Foxx‘s villain Electro:
Intriguingly, Foxx’s character, who has been touted about as the sequel’s primary villain, is pushed to the far right of the poster to share space with Rhino (Left) and an heretofore unmentioned Goblin villain (Center). As far as I can tell, this is the first official promo showing Rhino and the new Goblin in full view.
As expected, Rhino has been kept in line with the Ultimate Spider-Man series, opting for a man inside a mechanical suit rather than a giant grey Pachyderm with a human face. It’s a much better fit for the grounded movies and the design actually does look somewhat interesting.
The juicy part, however, is this new Goblin who hadn’t been officially confirmed as appearing in the second movie. While we’ve known Chris Cooper and Dane Dehaan would be playing Norman and Harry Osborn respectively, we’ve heard no mention of a Goblin transformation taking place so early in the new franchise. On top of that, a second Twitter user going by the handle Tupacca zoomed in and unveiled a closer look at the villain:
..And it’s pretty clearly not Chris Cooper on the glider. This would seem to indicate that Amazing Spider-Man 2 will do away with Norman’s role in the Goblin story and make Harry the Green Goblin from the beginning. It’s not much of a blasphemous change in my book, although it will be interesting to see how, if this is the case, they handle Harry’s evil motivations.
On another note it’s hard to tell from the grainy photo if this version of the Goblin succumbs to any real physical mutations, or, like the original film trilogy, it’ll just be a guy in a suit. Personally I thought Willem Dafoe’s Gobby was as good as you can do with the character in live-action, though I much prefer the flesh Goblin (New nickname for my junk!) from Spider-Man of yore. The image above also bears a striking resemblance to James Franco’s Harry Osborn in Spider-Man 3, but again, I can’t think of how else you could handle the translation without it looking goofy. Although…
Finally, let’s go back to the character placement in the banner. Screen Crush makes a good point in directing attention to the tagline, “His Greatest Battle Begins”. The poster seems to be a pretty strong push toward the eventual Sinister Six, and with the success of Marvel’s team-ups and criss-crossing story lines we now know it can be done. However director Marc Webb’s biggest challenge will be continuing to attempt a believable interpretation of some of the most cheesy villains in all of comics. Spider-Man is a great character but for the most part, his villains are incredibly dumb — There’s a wonderful opportunity with Mysterio for some mind-bending, hallucinogenic inward-facing madness, but good luck to anyone trying to convince me to fear Kraven the Hunter.
Grizzly Bomb 