Sadako vs Kayako - Shudder Exclusive - A Review

The worlds of “The Ring” and “Ju-On : The Grudge” collide in “Sadako vs Kayako”, which is available exclusively through AMC’s streaming service Shudder UK this month.

 A couple of University students, Yuri (Mizuki Yamamoto) and Natsumi (Aimi Satsukawa), purchase an old video recorder from a second hand junk store to transfer some VHS tapes onto DVDr.

Unfortunately, the machine contains a VHS tape of the old Ring curse film and Natsumi inadvertently ends up watching it. Attempts to prevent the curse from taking effect go disastrously wrong, resulting in a hilariously botched exorcism, amongst other calamities. But the good news is, help is at hand.

A demon hunter named Keizo (Masanobu Ando), who specialises in vanquishing vengeful spirits, has a cunning plan. A high school student named Suzuka (Tina Tamashiro) has entered the cursed Saeki House, and the spirits within are now after her. So he figures if both girls enter the house and watch the tape, it will prompt both sets of evil spirits, Sadako (from the Ring) and Kayoko (from Ju-On) to appear and they will destroy each other.

I mean, what could possibly go wrong, right?

Now, to my shame, I’ve only ever seen the first Ring movie and have never seen any of the Ju-On films, so wasn’t sure what to expect from this, but was pleasantly surprised. If you liked “The Ring”, “Ju-On”, or any of those Japanese supernatural horrors, then you’ll love this, which will also have you laughing at the juxtaposed scenes of black humour. But don’t be fooled into thinking this is a comedy, this one is bound to send shivers down your spine.

"Sadako vs Kayako" is available from Jan 26, exclusively on Shudder UK.

View the trailer on YouTube. 

Visit http://www.shudder.com.

Fright-Rags' ALFRED HITCHCOCK Collection On Sale Now

In the history of cinema, few figures are held in higher regard than Alfred Hitchcock. The Master of Suspense is responsible for countless classic films that still thrill audiences today. Fright-Rags is proud to present the Alfred Hitchcock Collection.

The collection consists of four new shirts: Nathan Thomas Milliner's design features references to many of Htichcock's works, Justin Osbourn pays homage to Psycho's iconic shower scene, Abrar Ajmal conjures up The Birds, and Christopher Franchi will give you Vertigo. Osbourn's art is also available on hoodies and baseball tees.

The Alfred Hitchcock Collection is on sale now at Fright-Rags.com. All four designs are in stock and ready to ship, but quantities are limited.

Fright-Rags has such sights to show you throughout 2017, including releases from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Goosebumps, The Thing, An American Werewolf in London, Dawn of the Dead, Madballs, and more.

Buy the Alfred Hitchock collection at Fright-Rights.Com

FREE FIRE - Exclusive Preview screening and Q&A tour announced

From British filmmaker Ben Wheatley comes the all guns-blazing FREE FIRE - a unique and heart-pounding tale of a brokered gun deal that takes an unexpected turn.

FREE FIRE will open nationwide across the UK on 31st March, BUT you can see it first at a series of special previews with the director Ben Wheatley in attendance. 

Full list of locations and dates can be found below:

WEDS 25 JAN - Truro, The Plaza

THURS 26 JAN - Plymouth, Plymouth Arts Centre

FRI 27 JAN - Exeter, Exeter Phoenix

TUES 7 FEB - Cardiff, Chapter

WEDS 8 FEB - Bristol, Watershed

WEDS 15 FEB - Birmingham, The Electric

THURS 16 FEB - Liverpool, FACT

FRI 17 FEB - Manchester, HOME

WEDS 22 FEB - Glasgow Festival, GFT

THURS 23 FEB - Dublin Festival, Savoy

MON 27 FEB - Inverness, Eden Court

TUES 28 FEB - Edinburgh, The Cameo

WEDS 1 MARCH - Newcastle, Tyneside Cinema

THURS 2 MARCH - Leeds, Hyde Park Picture House

MON 6 MARCH - Leicester, Phoenix

TUES 7 MARCH - Nottingham, Broadway

WEDS 8 MARCH - Sheffield, Showroom

TUES 21 MARCH - Belfast, The Queen’s Film Theatre

THURS 23 MARCH - Dingle Film Festival, The Phoenix Cinema

FRI 24 MARCH - London, Curzon Soho 

TUES 28 MARCH - Norwich, Cinema City

WEDS 29 MARCH - Cambridge, Arts Picturehouse

THURS 30 MARCH - London, Ritzy Brixton and Hackney Picturehouse

FRI 31 MARCH - London, Picturehouse Central

SAT 1 APRIL - Brighton, Duke of Yorks

Tickets are on sale at selected venues with more available very soon. More info at.. http://scnl.co/FreeFireTour

Written by Amy Jump and Ben Wheatley and produced by Andy Starke of Rook Films, FREE FIRE boasts an all-star cast featuring Sharlto Copley, Armie Hammer, Brie Larson, Cillian Murphy, Jack Reynor, Babou Ceesay, Enzo Cilenti, Sam Riley, Michael Smiley and Noah Taylor. Music by Ben Salisbury and Geoff Barrow.

Funded by the BFI and Film4, with Martin Scorsese serving as executive producer, FREE FIRE is an original and visionary film that is set to become a talking point of 2017!

Synopsis

Justine (Brie Larson) has brokered a meeting in a deserted warehouse between two Irishmen (Cillian Murphy, Michael Smiley) and a gang led by Vernon (Sharlto Copley) and Ord (Armie Hammer) who are selling them a stash of guns. But when shots are fired in the handover, a heart stopping game of survival ensues.

View the Official UK Trailer on YouTube.

For further news and updates on the release, please visit www.freefirefilm.co.uk

Follow the film on  Facebook, Twitter and StudioCanal's Twitter feed. 

 

RAW gets slot at FrightFest Glasgow

Due to unforseen circumstances, FrightFest has had to cancel the Glasgow screening of PATIENT ZERO.

However, the good news is that the replacement attraction is the much lauded French movie RAW, heralding the no-hold-barred return of extreme French horror cinema and debut director Julia Ducournau as a major genre talent to watch

 SAT 25 FEB – GFT Screen 1

18:55 RAW (Preview)

The Cannes Critics Week winner of numerous awards at every major fantasy festival, director Julia Ducournau’s debut feature about one woman’s awakening to the pleasures of the flesh both returns French horror cinema to genre extremes. 

Bold, daring, provocative and shocking, shy vegetarian Justine attends her first year at vetinarian college and is forced into eating raw liver in a vicious hazing process by older students. But soon she develops an unhealthy taste for meat and her new carnivore persona drives her to commit acts of increasing savagery as her unquenched sexual urges turn into an appetite for human flesh.

Frightfest Glasgow takes place between Thurs 23 Feb to Sat 25 Feb at the Glasgow Film Theatre, as part of the Glasgow Film Festival.

For more info visit http://www.frightfest.co.uk

 

DEATH WALKS - Available Digitally NOW!!!!

The worlds first genuinely ZERO budget zombie film "Death Walks" has been released digitally, to rent or buy, on Vimeo and Amazon, with more VOD services to follow.

For those who have missed my previous announcements on this title, the film was shot in 2013. Made entirely using volunteers and was filmed, edited and scored without spending a single penny on production.

Plot summary from the press release... As a London suburb prepares for Christmas, a shopping centre receives an unexpected visit. What begins as a series of isolated incidents quickly turns into a full scale invasion. Have the undead risen from the grave or is it something far more sinister?

Cannibal Holocaust's Francesca Ciardi appears, along with Lucinda Rhodes (Dead Cert, Fall of the Essex Boys) and Jordan Grehs (Lake Placid 3).

You can read my review of the film HERE

A burn-on-demand DVD, with exclusive special features, will be released on Amazon.co.uk, but right now the place to see it is on Vimeo and Amazon VOD services. If you are an Amazon Prime customer, you can view it for free. 

Rent or buy on Vimeo

Rent or buy on Amazon.co.uk

Visit the official Facebook and Twitter pages
 

 

"Santa Clarita Diet" - Launching on Netflix Feb

Launching globally on Netflix Feb 3rd, Timothy Olyphant and Drew Barrymore star in horror-comedy series "Santa Clarita Diet".

Joel and Sheila are husband and wife realtors leading vaguely discontented lives in the L.A. suburb of Santa Clarita with their teenaged daughter Abby, until Sheila goes through a dramatic change sending their lives down a road of death and destruction...but in a good way.

"Santa Clarita Diet" stars Drew Barrymore (Scream, Donny Darko) as Sheila Hammond, Timothy Olyphant (The Crazies, Die Hard 4.0) as Joel Hammond, Liv Hewson (TV's Dramaworld) as Abby Hammond and Skylar Gisondo (The Amazing Spiderman) as Eric Bemis.

Check out the official series trailer below...

ADULT BABIES - Actress Joanne Mitchell, answers 10 scary questions

ADULT BABIES gets an exclusive preview at FrightFest Glasgow 2017. The film's creator, actress / producer Joanne Mitchell, answers 10 scary questions

 When did your fascination for horror films begin?

I’ve been interested in horror since being a young kid. I liked to be frightened, whether it be reading a scary book, or watching one of the Hammer House of Horrors. But it wasn’t until my 30’s that I really became fascinated with the whole genre after making ‘Before Dawn’ and watching back to back movies at FrightFest!! The fans are so loyal and open minded and really know their stuff.

What was the first horror film you saw?

I’m pretty sure it was ‘The Thing’. If I remember rightly my brother and his mates had managed to get a copy and I snuck in! I was terrified, but fascinated at the same time.

What are your favourite horror films?

There are so many! ‘The Exorcist’ (which I recently revisited) is just brilliant and so well constructed. Love ‘‘Nightmare on Elm Street’ and ‘The Shining’ and one that has really stuck with me is ‘The Orphanage’, directed by Juan Antonio Bayona. It made me go on such an emotional roller coaster of a journey and I still think about it now.  I also loved The Babadouk, again the sensitivity, especially of the mother and son relationship, something I could really relate to. And another Spanish film, ‘Sleep Tight’, probably more of a thriller I guess, but a very clever tense film full of ingenious twists and turns. Then there’s the Soska’s “American Mary” which I loved too - such a strong female protagonist. I have to mention a movie that I have only just watched too – ‘The Autopsy of Jane Doe’ with Brian Cox…

Your favourite genre director(s)?

Loads - Stanley Kubrick, Kathryn Bigelow, Alfred Hitchcock, Guillermo Del Toro, David Lynch…the list goes on and on! They all have their own unique gift in telling a timeless story. There is something to learn from all of them. I also must mention George A Romero. Having not previously been a Zombie Horror fan (until we made ‘Before Dawn’) he has to be one of the greatest in that department…with ‘Night of the Living Dead’ being one of the best and most terrifying.

Who are your genre inspirations?

I would say at the moment it’s the women who have pushed the boundaries within the genre. There are many men who inspire me too of course and will continue to do so. but within this genre it has always been very male dominated, so it is great that 

so many women are coming to the fore and expressing themselves creatively now. For example, The Soska Twins with ‘American Mary’ and Jennifer Lynch for ‘Boxing Helena’, and ‘Chained’. I’m also a fan of Alice Lowe and really respect her work and dedication especially within the genre, crossing again the boundaries of actress, director, writer.

What’s the worst thing you’ve done in a horror film?

Oh I think that has to be in ‘Before Dawn’. I was covered in cold sticky blood, I had prosthetic teeth in, contact lenses (which I could barely see through) and spent hours in a cold dark basement in my pyjamas, totally freezing. However, the shot looked great, so it was most definitely worth it

Horror on TV – are you a fan?

Yes, definitely. It’s gaining a massive following with the likes of ‘The Walking Dead,’ ‘Penny Dreadful and ‘American Horror Story’, which is definitely paving the way forward.  I think there should be more UK-based horror on TV though…

You and Dominic Brunt, must be the only husband / wife team working in horror films in the UK at the moment. Scary or what? 

Most of my friends think it must be a nightmare living and working so closely together but it’s the opposite. Each time we start on a project it’s the start of another exciting journey. We bounce a lot of ideas off each other (not always agreeing on them needless to say!) particularly with stories and characters. We watch a lot of movies together and try to go to as many film festivals as we can together. Dom really knows his horror, he’s like a walking encyclopedia on the genre and I have to say a lot of the more ‘gory’ ideas come from him. It’s a fun, sometimes crazy, scary journey!

Vampires or Zombies?

Zombies!!! However, ‘What We Do In The Shadows’ gave them a run for their money!

Finally, what really scares you…

Apart from some of the saddening atrocities happening in the world, in a genre sense it has to be my imagination. It’s night and dark…I’m on my own…in my house...I live in a very old house!

An exclusive clip from Adult Babies, introduced by director Dominic Brunt, will be screened on Sat 25 Feb at 18.55, before the screening of Patient Zero.

For more info visit www.frightfest.co.uk