Cinemacabre

[While we were generally able to avoid mentioning it in the Wicker Man retrospective that serves as the backbone of our British horror issue (RM#133, on stands now!), there comes a time when one must discuss Neil LaBute's 2006 remake. The time is now and the duty has fallen to Phil Brown, who contributes this rundown of the film's top five offenses. Stiff upper lip, Phil...]

One of the greatest tributes to Nicolas Cage’s insanity was his personal quest to produce and star in a remake of The Wicker Man – which he dedicated to Johnny Ramone, no joke. Cage took one of the greatest horror movies ever made and transformed it into a piece indeliberate camp that launched a thousand memes. Cage and writer/director Neil LaBute now claim their multimillion dollar mistake was always intended to be a tongue-in-cheek comedy. Regardless the film is practically a clinic on how not to remake a classic of British horror cinema. Or any cinema for that matter. In case you haven’t been subjected to it, here are five moments that ensure the 2006 Wicker Man will live on in unintentionally hilarious infamy…

The Guillermo del Toro-produced Mama hits DVD and Blu-ray this week (May 7, to be exact), so it seems like a perfect time to share this video Sinister Seven with director/co-writer Andrés Muschietti. The interview was conducted by Fabien Delage, the voice of Rue Morgue France, at this year’s Gérardmer International Film Festival. Fabien and Andrés chatted about turning the director’s popular short into a feature film, working with del Toro, and pulling the strings on Mama‘s freaky human puppets…

[Paul Counelis, our resident expert on pint-sized terrors (he has eight of his own), checks in with a look back at the year we left behind.]

Since 2013 has been a slow year for Monster Kids so far, it’s made me nostalgic for the good ol’ days – like, you know, last year.  Yeah, yeah, I know – most “best of” and retrospective lists come at the end of the year in question, or early in January of the new year. Well, that’s okay. Because here at the Corner, we’re too busy watching long past, future Corner contenders like Mom’s Got a Date With a Vampire and How My Dad Killed Dracula to worry too much about the internet status quo.

Still, better late than never. Horror cinema as presented in 2012 featured a few animated family films that weren’t complete pablum, and even a couple of masterpieces. Yes, masterpieces. Don’t laugh…

This Thursday is CineMacabre Movie Night! We’ve got an extra-special treat in store for you this month: to celebrate the 30th anniversary of PSYCHO II, we’ve tracked down a 35mm print and we’ll be unspooling it for you Thursday, April 25 at 9 p.m. at the TIFF Bell Lightbox Theatre (Reitman Square, 350 King Street West).

Decades after Alfred Hitchcock’s iconic film, director Richard Franklin (Patrick, Road Games) teamed up with Psycho stars Anthony Perkins and Vera Miles to show us Norman Bates after he’s released from the asylum. Written by Tom Holland (director of Fright Night and Child’s Play), PSYCHO II gives us a seemingly cured Norman getting a job, meeting a girl (Meg Tilly) and returning to the Bates Motel. A series of murders place Norman as the prime suspect – is he still under Mother’s grip? Tense, savage and full of twists, PSYCHO II still slays 30 years later…

The folks at Millennium Entertainment have given us an exclusive clip from Spiders 3D, full of creepy crawly, flesh-eating arachnid goodness. The latest film from Tibor Takács (The Gate) is getting its Toronto premiere at tonight’s CineMacabre movie night (9pm, Bell Lightbox Theatre in Toronto), complete with 3-D glasses, prizes and a Skype interview with the director! More details on the screening and a trailer here: http://www.rue-morgue.com/events/cinemacabre. Time to get creature feature crazy!

[Rue Morgue contributor and 3-D expert Jason Pichonsky checks in with a look at the latest tech treat for 3-D fans, 3-D TV, to see what it offers horror fans. This time: a 3-D restoration of a silent horror classic.]

For horror geeks and 3-D nuts, Carl Hernz’s upcoming stereoscopic release Le Fantôme de l’Opéra: Version Stéréoscopique is monumental. While exploring a film archive, the 3-D enthusiast stumbled upon a stereo image pair (that’s both the left- and right-eye views needed to create a 3-D image) separated and concealed from the public within two different prints of a classic silent horror film. The film in question was The Phantom of the Opera starring Lon Chaney Sr., released in 1925 and again in 1929. Hernz’s discovery led him to search all prints of The Phantom that he could get his hands on. Two years later, he’s released a work-in-progress of the 3-D restoration project.

[RM contributor Derek Emerildo Nieto reviews A Fantastic Fear of Everything, which had its Toronto premiere tonight at the Toronto After Dark Film Festival.]

Simon Pegg: check. Snappy title: check. Comedic psychological mystery premise: check. So how could this particular concoction fail to amaze when the funny formula sounds so right? One answer: uneven pacing.

Co-directed by former Kula Shaker frontman Crispian Mills and production designer Chris Hopewell, this film has a couple of nice shots and use of camera language, an aptly muted colour palette, some great performances – most notably from Pegg, who gives his portrayal of Jack everything he’s got, but also from the lovely Amara Karan, whose character is almost shoehorned in and could have been given more to do – and some fun cameos by British character actors Clare Higgins and Paul Freeman.

[Lime Blake checks in with a review of Toronto After Dark selection In Their Skin.]

There’s nothing scarier to me than the thought of being woken up by a deranged psychopath who has broken into my home, wishing to harm my family for personal gain. Director Jeremy Power Regimbal effectively captures this nightmarish concept in his debut film In Their Skin.

[RM intern Vanessa Furtado offers her thoughts on Toronto After Dark selection My Amityville Horror.]

Given our ongoing fascination with the Amityville tragedies and the controversies surrounding them, it’s not surprising how many documentaries have tackled the subject. My Amityville Horror attempts to give us a fresh look through the eyes of someone who experienced those events directly. Daniel Lutz, oldest son of George and Kathy Lutz, whose experiences inspired the controversial book The Amityville Horror and ten feature films, finally speaks out after almost 40 years of silence about what he saw and experienced in the house during the 28 days he and his family lived there. This documentary shadows Danny as he revisits those memories and returns to the location where these disturbing events took place.

[RM contributor Patrick Dolan serves up a combo splatter platter from the Toronto After Dark Film Festival. Domo arigato, Mr., um, Dolan. Jeeze, Patrick, why isn't your last name Roboto?]

It’s a movie about killer sushi; immediately, you should know whether or not you’re going to like it. But if you’re still on the fence, allow me to set the table.

Beginning more like a hard luck tale than a hilarious horror, Keiko (Rina Takeda, High Kick Girl!, Karate Girl) runs away from the borderline abusive tutelage of her sushi chef father and takes a server job at a secluded inn. On her first day, executives from a large pharmaceutical company show up to stay for the night and pig out on sushi. Dinner is spoiled, however, when a disgruntled ex-employee of the company shows up with a serum that brings dead cells back to life (a discovery he was unjustly fired for, as it makes the reanimated subject crazy). He injects it into the sushi and, you guessed it: the sushi attack!