You know you've been spending too much time on your own when you have to double check to make sure what year it currently is! The monthly news round-up for April is a week late, mainly due to feeling a bit fed up last week and not in the mood to blog; something I can do if my schedule isn't too stuffed. My bloody news sack on the other hand is indeed too stuffed; over 200 emails about potential news bursting to get out. I will siphon some of that here. Onwards to the news.
Take From Me comes from first-time filmmaker, West Eldredge. It looks at themes of longing and addiction using vampiric motifs, I imagine in a similar way that cult horror The Addiction did back in the nineties. This horror has been picked up by BayView Entertainment, and has won awards on the festival circuit, including 'Best Feature Film' at the Red Rose Film Festival, 'Best Actor' at the Romford Horror Festival, and the 'Audience Award' at the Alexandria Film Festival. Take From Me is available to rent or buy on streaming services worldwide, and also out on region-free Blu-ray.
Also from Bayview Entertainment is Jason Pitts' The Forest Through The Trees. This cult-based indie horror has a trio out in woodland searching for a missing woman, who then stumble across a demon worshipping cult. This too is out now on streaming platforms worldwide.
Shane Aquino's horror - Blackout has been acquired by Uncork'd Entertainment, with the film having its digital and streaming premiere on May 5th. The film takes place in a world where the sun has inexplicably vanished, along with a global power outage. In this dark new world, the survivors are hunted by 'The Ushers' - entities who haunt the living. This does sound interesting to my rotted ears.
Sasquatch Within is a psychological horror film coming from Gregory Hatanaka (Samurai Cop 2: Deadly Vengeance). From the title alone, this sounded like a werewolf film but with a bigfoot instead. A slightly deeper look suggests it might be a film about a secret villain locked in a room with innocents. If that sounds like something you would want to watch, then you're in luck. The full film is currently streaming for free on Cinema Epoch's YouTube channel, with additional releases planned for Tubi and Fawesome.
Staying on the bigfoot theme, Freestyle Digital Media have acquired Squatch, an adventure horror that comes to VOD platforms on March 10th in North America. After a man inherits his father's estate that includes a remote woodland cabin, he travels there to spend the weekend with a potential love interest. Instead they come face-to-face with the titular creature, and so begins a desperate fight for survival. This is directed by Tom Chaney, and written by him and Bill Conger.
The official trailer for found-footage feature length horror, Last Look has been released. The film's intriguing premise has a high-profile social media influencer who discovers a unique deck of battle-style collectible cards. When he begins the game, he realises too late that each card summons a new monster into reality, and that, while streaming the whole thing, he must win the game to end the nightmare. Likened to a horror based Jumanji, this was directed by A.J Bennett.
The Plague was released on streaming platforms, including Amazon, Apple TV, Sky Store, YouTube Movies, EE TV and Rakuten from April 20th. Written and directed by Charlie Polinger in his feature length debut, and starring Joel Edgerton (The Gift), this had its debut at the Cannes Film Festival where it received an apparent 11 minute standing ovation and won 'Best Sound Creation Award'. This has been described as 'a tense, darkly humourous coming-of-age story about masculinity, peer pressure, and the horrors that fester when cruelty masquerades as a game'.
Finally for today, crowd-funded indie horror adventure Echoes of Dread arrives on Blu-ray and DVD this month thanks to Eagle Films, with a streaming release later this summer. This comes from filmmaker Philip Cook, described as a '...contemporary supernatural thriller rooted in digital-age terror'. The story follows a digital creator who discovers a cursed film that had been hidden for over a century. Sharing it online, she unknowingly spreads the curse to all who watch the film.
No comments:
Post a Comment