A loan officer ordered to evict an old woman from her home finds herself the recipient of a supernatural curse, which turns her life into a living hell. Desperate, she turns to a seer to try and save her soul, while evil forces work to push her to a breaking point.

Foreclosure would be a kinda scary title, too … Check out Sam Raimi, returning to the horror genre before travels back to Gotham City for a couple more Spider-Man movies. With a tip of the hat to George A. Romero, Raimi has found a way to comment on the housing crisis, and I can imagine his tones will be bitter, wicked, and (hopefully) subtle. No offense to Ellen Page, but I am relieved she opted out of the movie, making room for Lohman, who is starting to take on more mainstream roles, albeit ones that are offbeat and, like, interesting.

But what is the film going to look like? And will it be funny? Here’s proof that the answer to both questions is YES!

And a quote from this year’s South by Southwest festival: “Any inkling that Raimi’s soul might have been irretrievably chewed up by the Hollywood studio machinery — a well-founded concern after the disappointing Spider-Man 3 — quickly evaporates once the story gets underway.”

Rated PG-13 for sequences of horror violence, terror, disturbing images and language.

Director: Sam Raimi
Stars: Alison Lohman, Justin Long, Ruth Livier
Studio: Universal Pictures
Release Date: 29 May 2009 (USA)
Genre: Horror, Thriller

It was a summer night in 1957 in the quiet California desert town of Mojave. Local astronomer Ted Lewis (Eric McCormack) is making a special anniversary dinner for his wife Lana (Jody Thompson). A local diner waitress, Tammy (Jenni Baird) is in her trailer painting a horse scene while Dick (Andrew Dunbar) and Penny (Sarah Smyth) are necking at lovers lane. All are watching the light show from the annual August Perseid meteor showers when suddenly there is a blinding light and crash into the butte just outside of town. Ted attempts to investigate but Lana prevails in keeping him home at least until she falls asleep and he can sneak out to the crash site. In the meantime we see a gruesome alien creature (The Ghota) leaving the spaceship to slip away into the night. Soon after, a tall alien in a silvery metallic suit (Urp) appears from the ship. When Ted arrives at the butte he does not discover a smoking red-hot meteorite but rather a flying saucer imbedded in the hillside with its ramp down. He cautiously enters the saucer and is snatched up by the mysterious silver alien.

Townspeople soon start disappearing everywhere and the only remnant at the scene is a puddle of gurgling mud. Ted Lewis, having been body snatched by Urp, is now on the trail of the murderous Ghota. Urp, is actually a galactic Federal Marshal from another planet who was transporting the Ghota when his saucer crashed landed and the Ghota escaped. He needs to find and recapture the creature before it begins to divide or it will multiply exponentially until all life is consumed on planet Earth. After unsuccessfully trying to convince Lana to help him find the Ghota, Urp meets Tammy on the highway when she offers him a lift. Urp tries his best to convince Tammy of his plight and to help him track down the Ghota. But when they stop at an old derelicts cabin and find only a mud puddle of human remains, Tammy can take no more of the crazy talk and circumstances and leaves him in a huff.

The teens, Dick & Penny, are on their own track encountering first the Ghota and then the saucer, trying to convince anyone to believe them. Finally they tell their story in the diner to Tammy who now realizes that Urp was telling her the truth. She tries to convey this to the temporary police chief (Dan Lauria) who still refuses to believe there is any real threat, much less from outer space. That is until later when his senior deputy (Robert Patrick) is also dissolved by the Ghota.

The Ghota is now rampaging through the town dissolving people, cops (and even children) at will. Tammy encounters the Ghota herself while she is closing the diner and makes a narrow escape. Then comes the big scene in the local movie theater where Dick, Penny and Cody (Aaron Brooks) are watching the original 1950s version of The Blob. The Ghota appears at the rear of the theater and begins picking off its prey. All the patrons flee the theater except the teens who are trapped and now stalked by the Ghota. All seems hopeless until Tammy arrives and tries to help, only to become trapped herself with the teens when the Ghotas divided twin suddenly materializes.

Alien Trespass … read more »

After kidnapping and brutally assaulting two young women, a gang led by a prison escapee (Dillahunt) unknowingly finds refuge at a vacation home belonging the parents of one of the victims — a mother (Potter) and father (Goldwyn) who devise an increasingly gruesome series of revenge tactics.

The original Last House was a semi-remake of Ignmar Bergman’s The Virgin Spring, was viewed as commentary on the Vietnam War, and earned comparisons to Straw Dogs. Wes Craven, who seems bent on remaking each classic from his back catalog, has tinkered with the original film’s premise: gone is the urban setting, the rock and roll, and the dual murders, but at least it didn’t wuss out for a PG-13 rating. Can Rogue Pictures replicate the success it had with The Strangers before the studio is bought by Relativity Pictures?

Rated R for sadistic brutal violence including a rape and disturbing images, language, nudity and some drug use.

Director: Dennis Iliadis
Stars: Garret Dillahunt, Monica Potter, Tony Goldwyn
Studio: Rogue Pictures
Release Date: 13 March 2009 (USA)
Genre: Horror | Thriller

Aidan Breslin is a bitter detective emotionally distanced from his two young sons following the untimely death of his devoted wife. While investigating a series of murders of rare violence, he discovers a terrifying link between himself and the suspects in a chain of murders that seem to be based on the Biblical prophecies concerning the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse: War, Famine, Pestilence, and Death.

Jonas Åkerlund’s oft-delayed thriller, the music video director’s first feature since 2003’s Spun, looks like the recent X-Files bore and, call me lazy, but brings Se7en to mind. And despite a promising cast (including Zhang Ziyi going all Audition on us?), the trailer is anemic at best. Rumor has it the reshoots here wiped out Neal McDonough’s character entirely, but to me it sounds like he avoided career suicide. (Oh, wait: He’s in the new Street Fighter movie!) And though the studio doesn’t seem behind this one at all, gore hounds might lap up Åkerlund’s limits-pushing scenes of abuse and torture. But I thought this genre was dead?

Rated R for grisly and disturbing content, some sexual images and language.

Director: Jonas Åkerlund
Stars: Dennis Quaid, Ziyi Zhang, Lou Taylor Pucci
Studio: Lionsgate
Release Date: 6 February 2009 (Italy)
Genre: Drama | Horror | Mystery | Thriller

Young friends Whitney (Amanda Righetti), Mike (Nick Mennell), Richie (Ben Feldman), Amanda (America Olivio), and Wade (Jonathan Sadowski) end up missing in the woods near the abandoned Camp Crystal Lake (made famous by the original 1980 film), after allowing their curiosity to get the better of them and visiting the site where a physcopathic killer resides. Meanwhile Trent (Travis Van Winkle) invites friends Jenna (Danielle Panabaker), Bree (Julianna Guill), Chewie (Aaron Yoo), Chelsea (Willa Ford), Lawrence (Arlen Escarpta), and Nolan (Ryan Hansen) to his cabin on the lake for a weekend of sex, booze, and drugs. However their seemingly fun weekend soon escalates into a nightmare after lone traveler Clay (Jared Padalecki) shows up looking for his missing sister Whitney and the young adults soon find themselves face to face with evil reborn, reimagined, and rebooted, and his name is Jason Vorhees (Derek Mears).

Most of the behind-the-camera dudes who made the well-received Texas Chainsaw Massacre are present here, including director Marcus Nispel and producers Andrew Form and Brad Fuller. Form and Fuller sneaked some footage and addressed fan concerns at Comic-Con this year, a sign of their commitment to the horror genre and its never-ending barrage of remakes and reboots. Expect to be treated to an old-school horror movie, heavy on slasher tension and a more aggressive Jason — Derek Mears described his take on Voorhees as more of a fast-moving predator who sets up his prey. Also, Jason’s mom figures into the action somehow!

Rated R for strong bloody violence, some graphic sexual content, language and drug material.

Director: Marcus Nispel
Stars: Jared Padalecki, Amanda Righetti, Derek Mears
Studio: Warner Bros. Pictures
Release Date: 13 February 2009 (USA)