Warhouse is found, not missing!

Here's one I hadn't heard of before: Warhouse. And it looks squaddie-tastic! As we all know, all the best British horror films have squaddies in them. Check out the great design artwork by Chris Wildgoose.

Warhouse is described as a "film about a soldier who is repeating the same day over and over working towards becoming one of a chosen few to fight a final battle" and "Gladiator meets Groundhog Day" although to me it sounds more like TrashHouse meets Deathwatch. It stars Joseph Morgan (The Vampire Diaries), Matt Ryan (Blood Monkey!) and William Troughton.

Synopsis
In the role of Royal Marine, A.J. Budd, Joseph Morgan stars in this brutal psychological and supernatural thriller, in which he finds himself trapped in the Warhouse. Imprisoned, he is forced to fight for his life against grotesque, inhuman opponents. He must kill every day or die himself. His one glimmer of hope comes in the form of a diary, left by a former occupant of the house, WWI Lieutenant Edward Sterling, played by Matt Ryan.

This is being described by some sites as Luke Massey's debut feature but here at British Horror Revival we know it's actually his third. As a teenager he made two amateur feature films: violent rape revenge thriller The Found Not Missing and one of several dozen zombie films called Within the Woods. I don't know whether either of those got finished.

Warhouse is his first proper movie, with real actors and everything, and looks great. It has been produced and co-written by Benjamin Read whose day-job is publishing reprints of 19th century illustrated children's books!

Warhouse on Facebook
www.warhousethemovie.com

Image let 'Don't Let Him In' out

Via Dread Central comes news that Image will release Kelly Smith's Don't Let Him In on US DVD on 3rd January. Not to be confused with Hammer's Let Me In, this is an indie horror flick which was screened at this year's Festival of Fantastic Films, but only after I had left so I haven't seen it, though I have heard good things.

It was released in the Netherlands in August and in France (cover-mounted on a magazine!) in September. No news of a UK release yet.

www.dontlethimin.com

Synopsis

What if you invited a serial killer on holiday by mistake?

Handsome, charming and arrogant, Tristan has picked up Mandy on a one-night stand. The love-struck girl invites him to a rural getaway with her brother Calvin and his girlfriend Paige, an emergency room nurse.

But Tristan has secrets. He needs to get out of the city. And suspicions grow when a local police officer warns the group that a sadistic serial killer is plaguing the area.

Dubbed the Tree Surgeon, this brutal psychopath ritualistically slaughters his victims, hanging their severed body parts in the trees as unholy offerings.

That night a delirious, half-dead stranger arrives, his stomach slashed open. Paige saves his life – but is Shawn the innocent hitchhiker he claims?

Doubts begin to breed. Then the killings begin, and suspicion spirals into paranoia, climaxing in a shocking revelation and a punishing battle for survival as the Tree Surgeon drags his final traumatized victim into his lair…

DON’T LET HIM IN is a nerve-bludgeoning horror thriller which combines slow-burning suspense with visceral, graphic shock.

Film 57: Snuff Movie

Dear God, I have to sit through some crap in the name of research. It's from the guy who made Candyman, surely it should be at least okay.

It's not. It fails utterly. It tries to be clever meta-fiction about the levels of reality involved when a Polanski-clone director recreates his wife's murder in his hidden-camera-filled house with unwitting, improv-ing actors. It ends up just being a huge mess that doesn't make a lick of sense. What should have been a clever, intricate narrative just flaps around helplessly like a stranded porpoise.

In Rose's defence (and he appears to have never spoken about the project), it looks very much like a film that has been ruined by producer interference, with lots of random scary bits bolted on, never mind whether they make any sense or not.

The Reverend trailer

I really can't wait to see Neil Jones' The Reverend (I missed a preview at the British Horror Film Festival but hope to get my paws on a screener soon). The cast list alone is to die for: the wonderful Emily Booth (Doghouse, Evil Aliens), the extraordinary Giovanni Lombardo Radice (A Day of Violence), the brilliant Mads Koudal (Footsteps), the incomparable Doug Bradley and the one and only Rutger Hauer (not to mention Tamer Hassan, Simon Phillips, Stuart Brennan, Dominic Burns...). Oh, and Shane Richie! In British Horror Revival terms, that's an all-star cast list.

www.thereverendfilm.com

Here's the trailer:

Savini returns to British horror in Silent Night of the Living Dead

Shock Till You Drop reports that FX legend and occasional actor Tom Savini has been cast in Silent Night of the Living Dead, the Christmas zombie film currently being developed by director Paul Davis (who made American Werewolf docu Beware the Moon) and Severance writer James Moran. Legendary poster artist Graham Humphreys has done this teaser poster for the project.

Savini's previous acting gig in this country was Johannes Roberts' Forest of the Damned which is not one of his greatest hits. STYD also reports that AJ Bowen (House of the Devil, Hatchett II) has signed up for Davis' film.

Another STYD report from a couple of weeks ago says that FX bloke Dave Elsey will be handling prosthetics. Elsey is also attached to something called Zombie Carnage and, if your stomach can take it, you can see that project's Elsey-designed zombie version of Craig Charles.

A curious final paragraph says:

"Next year will also see the release of Davis' FAB Press book 666 Horror Movies to Die For: The Essential Guide To Screen Terror. He'll also be seen as the monster in The Otherside, starring Nick Moran (Lock Stock & Two Smoking Barrels), hitting the festival circuit in 2012."

I can't find any other reference anywhere to The Otherside (or a monster film with Nick Moran) and have no idea what that is.

Film 56: Devil's Harvest

The few reviews of this film on the web assume that it was produced in 2003/04 but it's actually much older than that.

Back in 1998 I visited a dubbing studio in Shepperton to report for SFX on the completely new dialogue track which was being recorded for the UK theatrical release of Shusuke Kaneko's Gamera: Guardian of the Universe. While I was there, the young chap in charge showed me footage from a supernatural horror film which he had made with Brian Blessed and Julie T Wallace.

Seven years later, Devil's Harvest suddenly and inexplicably emerged on DVD on both sides of the Atlantic. The UK distributor retitled it Don't Go Into the Attic. The sleeve image bears no relation whatsoever to the film, which is something to do with the resurrection of the sea-god Dagon. Or something. Good characterisation and nice locations (Devon and Somerset, pretending to be Cornwall) doesn't make up, sadly, for an incomprehensible plot.

Third Contact - philosophical sci-fi/horror feature

Third Contact, which had a preview screening on 3rd November, has been described as "an atmospheric psychological thriller exploring madness and depression and achieving a fresh take on the topical issue of euthanasia." It has been shot mostly in black and white and is pretty much a one-man effort by Simon Horrocks who wrote a short thriller in 2005 called Callback.

The cast includes Simeon Willis who was in StagKnight and the excellent zombie feature The Invisible Atomic Monsters from Mars.

Synopsis
Dr David Wright's emotional torment now prevents him from functioning as a therapist. The woman he has loved has vanished from his life 'forever'. Rene Maurer, one of his regular patients, has died - an apparent suicide. Rene's sister, Erika, travelling to London to sort out his things, discovers something curious - his apartment is almost empty. A cup, a spoon, a fork, a knife, frames without pictures, torn photos... One more curiousity - a list of memories. Four dated descriptions of moments in Rene's life.

Another patient dies. Another list of memories. There's something strange going on. Something sinister behind these 'suicides'...

Here's the trailer and a three-minute short explaining the concept of 'quantum suicide'. It all looks fascinating.

www.thirdcontactmovie.com
www.facebook.com/thirdcontactmovie