The house from the 1979 movie The Amityville Horror is going up for sale in New York at a steap $1.15 million, no word on if evil spirits are included in that.
The five-bedroom house is the exact same house that the DeFeo family murders took place in and seen the Lutz family leave the house 28 days after they moved in because they claimed to be terrorized by the DeFeo spirits.
The new owners of the house refurbished parts of the house, especially the outside so people wouldn’t compare it to the old version that most of us know.
Would you be able to move into a house that somebody has been murdered in? There is no way in hell I would ever do it, especially if it was a whole family and then hearing the stories from the Lutz family.
[Click thumbnails for larger view]
source: ‘Amityville Horror’ home for sale in NY for $1.15M [Yahoo News]
On the day that we find out Britney Spears has renewed her contract to remain the face for Candie’s and Kohl’s department stores, we have also been giving a new promo photo for this deal and it is looking pretty horrid.
Yes that image above is what we should apparently be expecting from the new bunch of ads that will be sure to pop up in the coming weeks and yes I believe they are serious.
On renewing her contract, Britney said “I had a great experience working with Candie’s and Kohl’s last year and I am thrilled to be asked to sign on again for a second year. We’re planning some very cool photo shoots and I can’t wait for my fans to see them.”
I refuse to believe that Annie Leibovitz was the photographer of this campaign, surely she could have comiong up with better stuff than this?
Britney Spears looks like she has received some terrible news or she is just bored shitless and her hair looks like a birds nest. I actually prefer the extremely photoshopped photos we got in the past for this campaign. Which you can see here, hereand finally here.
image source: NEW BRITNEY CANDIES PROMO PHOTO [BS Weekly]
Halloween is coming up on us quicker by each passing day, so the guys at ScFi Wire have come up with 10 of the most gruesome movie posters ever.
Film critic Gene Siskel walked out on this 1980 splatter film about a scalping serial killer, sickened by the gore in the first half hour. What was he expecting from a movie with a poster like this? Jane freakin’ Austen?
The poster for the original Italian release of the 1972′s L’etrusco uccide ancora was tasteful and dignified, but when the film came to the U.S., those qualities went right out the window, disappearing just like this poor guy’s skin.
Unwary tourists turn into dinner in this 1980 movie banned in the UK for 18 years. Bon appetit!
John will never eat shish kebab again—and after seeing the poster for this 1981 Canadian slasher film, we don’t think we will either!
We have no idea what we’re looking at here in the poster for Eli Roth’s 2007 sequel. We just know that we starting to feel a little … urp! … queasy …
After Cannibal Holocaust premiered in Italy in 1980, the director was was arrested on obscenity charges. And they let the painter of the poster go free?
This image promoting the 2004 release of the first film in the Saw series is one of the few posters as nausea-inducing as the picture it promotes.
This 1985 film was meant to be a satire, but there’s nothing funny about the nightmares caused by its poster.
Nazi! Zombies! Chainsaws! All the right ingredients are there in this 2009 film and poster.
Tobe Hooper torment teens again in this 1981 movie set in a funhouse. Oh, demented killer, you’re way overdue for a dental checkup.
I have only seen Hostel and Saw and agree that the posters are horrific, thoughts?
source: 16 horror movie posters so gruesome they make our eyeballs bleed [ScFi Wire]
With Sorrority Row being the latest slasher movie out now and because it is a cast full of women, Rotten Tomatoes have decided to throw together a list of the top 25 women from slasher films.
Janet Leigh — Psycho (1960)
Alfred Hitchcock’s seminal slasher took Janet Leigh, already a star, and made her an immortal — by killing her off early in the indelible shower scene. Leigh got an Oscar nomination for her work, remained a big star through the 1960s and, importantly for the genre, gave birth to Jamie Lee Curtis, with whom she’d co-star in 1998′s Halloween: H20. Meanwhile, Psycho’s Vera Miles, who played “final girl” Marion, worked only sporadically in B-grade flicks until she took a role in 1983′s Psycho II. A lesson here: sometimes it pays to die big.
Margot Kidder — Black Christmas (1974)
Bob Clark’s hugely influential slasher flick, which anticipated Halloween’s seasonal title and stalker-cam, as well the he’s-calling-from-inside-the-house of When a Stranger Calls, offered two lead scream queens. Olivia Hussey, already a star for Franco Zeffirelli’s 1968 Romeo and Juliet, played “final girl” Jess. But it was up-and-comer Margot Kidder, as the boozy, foul-mouthed and soon-to-die Barb that audiences remembered. While Hussey’s star waned, Kidder’s soared, thanks to the Superman movies and The Amityville Horror. Her career derailed in the mid-1990s due to her bipolar disorder, but she returned to acting and popped up recently as Laurie Strode’s headshrinker in Rob Zombie’s Halloween II. Another lesson: old scream queens never die, they just do cameos.
Jamie Lee Curtis — Halloween (1978)
Arguably the most enduring and liked scream queen in cinematic history, Jamie took a leaf from her mom’s book by making her name with her debut in John Carpenter’s terrifying Halloween. While Laurie was in danger of being overshadowed by her more sexed-up co-stars, particularly P.J. Soles, her nice-gal virgin status meant she lived to see the end credits. And Curtis wasn’t above making more genre flicks — and for the next five years she did nothing else, with The Fog, Prom Night, Terror Train, Halloween II (pictured) and Road Games. Realizing she needed to move on, Curtis successfully branched into comedy with hits Trading Places, A Fish Called Wanda and Freaky Friday, and also showed us how good she could look in True Lies. Not forgetting her roots, the actress also returned to the Laurie Strode role in Halloween: H20 and Halloween Resurrection.
Carol Kane — When A Stranger Calls (1979)
By the time Carol Kane made this film, she was a very respected actress who’d starred in The Last Detail, Dog Day Afternoon and Annie Hall, and who’d been Oscar-nominated for 1975′s Hester Street. It was an unusual choice, but the film was a minor box-office hit, largely on the strength of its opening 22 minutes. But after that Kane’s career trajectory saw her take more supporting roles, and not always in successful films, with Transylvania 6-5000 and Joe Versus the Volcano stinking up her resume. Things weren’t helped by Kane reprising the Jill Johnson role in 1993′s TV movie When A Stranger Calls Back. Possible lesson: if you’ve worked with Woody Allen, Sidney Lumet and Hal Ashby, you probably don’t need to do a slasher film.
Adrienne King — Friday the 13th (1980)
Having seen what Halloween did for Jamie Lee, no doubt Adrienne King had her sights set on stardom when she landed the “final girl” role of Alice in Friday the 13th. She survived the film — memorably chopping off mama Vorhees’ head — and starred in 1981′s Friday the 13th: Part 2. Problem was, her screen presence inspired a deranged stalker, who tried to break down the door of her apartment. The life imitating art angle of this impressed Adrienne not at all, and she instead carved out a career as a voice actress and artist. Her role in this year’s horror Walking Distance marks her first screen appearance in 28 years.
Melissa Sue Anderson — Happy Birthday To Me (1981)
What’s a 1970s TV star to do when falling ratings finally mean you get evicted from The Little House On The Prairie? In Melissa Sue Anderson’s case she took the lead in this Canadian slasher, whose poster memorably promised death by shish kebab. Tastier is that Melissa played both Ginny, the “final girl”, and her doppelganger, the birthday-obsessed wack job. Look for a new generation of fans when it’s re-released on DVD this year, with the original artwork intact. But Happy Birthday To Me didn’t break Melissa Sue Anderson into the big-screen business, with her subsequent acting in either TV movies (10.5 Apocalypse) or obscure indies (1990′s Dead Men Don’t Die).
Holly Hunter — The Burning (1981)
Just as Halloween aped Black Christmas and Friday the 13th aped Halloween, The Burning was a close fit for Friday the 13th, being the story of kids at a camp where bad stuff once went down. Enter a killer named Cropsy. He has a molten face, a big pair of scissors and a very bad attitude. The Burning’s trailer, with its repeated voiceover warning “Don’t!”, was one of the inspirations for Edgar Wright’s hilarious fake trailer in Grindhouse. This is most notable for being the debut for Holly Hunter who, perhaps anticipating her Oscar-winning turn in 1993′s The Piano, was given no dialogue. Other fun facts — Jason Alexander, future George in Seinfeld, was in this, and it was the first flick produced by Bob and Harvey Weinstein under their Miramax banner. [Note: Holly's... not pictured.]
Heather Langenkamp — A Nightmare On Elm Street (1984)
Wes Craven’s slasher revitalized the ailing, hacky genre with the introduction of a new supernatural villain who was even freakier than Halloween’s The Shape, Friday’s Jason or The Burning’s Cropsy. But Freddy Krueger’s charisma was a problem for Heather Langenkamp, who played “final girl” Nancy Thompson. While popular in the original and two sequels, she wasn’t able to translate that success into mainstream success, with the nearest thing she got to fame again being a five-episode arc in 1980s sitcom Growing Pains. Not to worry, though, she found a niche running the environmentally friendly Malibu Gum Company.
Rose McGowan (scream)
After Elm Street, slasher-horror entered a decline until Wes Craven and scriptwriter Kevin Williamson turned the genre on its severed ear by sending up its conventions in the hyper-self-aware Scream. The Weinsteins put up the $14m budget — a fortune for such fare — and that meant it needed names, which it got in Drew Barrymore, Courtney Cox and Neve Campbell. But it was also the launch-pad for little known Rose McGowan, who’d until then been relegated to bit parts in Pauly Shore flicks and was the praised lead in underseen indie The Doom Generation. While her character Tatum’s mission to get brewskis from the garage would lead to Ghostface arranging her head-squashing with the roller door, McGowan’s career fared a bit better, with Charmed and Planet Terror earning her a devoted fanbase, if not yet a breakout mainstream hit.
Sarah Michelle Gellar — I Know What You Did last Summer (1997)
The success of Scream helped this straighter, duller slasher, also from the pen of Kevin Williamson, get into cinemas. Jennifer Love Hewitt was the “final girl” but before long her similarly tripled-barreled co-star Sarah Michelle Gellar would be the bigger star. That year saw her take on TV’s Buffy and the megahit Scream 2. A smart gal, she opted for a more serious route with Cruel Intentions and went for rom-com in Simply Irresistible. Thing is, audiences really want to see her spooked, whether for laughs in the massive-grossing Scooby-Doo flicks or in the likes of The Grudge, which raked in $110m. With her last few flicks (Suburban Girl, The Air I Breathe) tanking, it might be time for Sarah to face off once again against a creep in a yellow slicker, a creep in a ghost mask… or maybe just Edward Cullen.
Tara Reid — Urban Legend (1998)
Following the Psycho formula re-established by Scream’s early kill of Drew Barrymore, this one offed Natasha Gregson-Wagner in the opener. That left Rebecca Gayheart, Alicia Witt and new cutie Tara Reid in the picture to be killed off. Playing a college sex therapist helped audiences remember Tara, and she was soon on her way to the A-list with American Pie and Cruel Intentions. Even flops like Josie and the Pussycats and Dr. T and the Women weren’t career killers, and she was back at the top of the box office with American Pie’s sequel and early Ryan Reynolds’ hit Van Wilder. But then the Tara Reid car crash began, with her party-girl shenanigans making people forget how they’d warmed to her raspy comic appeal. The slide translated to the big screen, with her thereafter languishing in F-grade horror such as Uwe Boll’s Alone in the Dark and Incubus.
Michelle Williams — Halloween: H20 (1998)
Between Brokeback Mountain, I’m Not There and Wendy and Lucy, Oscar nominee Michelle Williams is shaping up as one of the finest actresses of her generation. But her first big box-office hit was this belated resurrection of the franchise. In it, she stars as Molly, a horny student at the exclusive school run by Jamie Lee Curtis’ Laurie Strode. Of course, Michael, aka, The Shape comes a-calling. Getting chased by him did Michelle’s career no harm but, that said, it’s unlikely she’ll be back ducking psycho blades at any time in the future. Unless, of course, you count Scorsese’s Shutter Island.
Brittany Murphy — Cherry Falls (2000)
In this under-rated and sly comic take on the slasher genre, the kids scramble to lose their virginity because the maniac only kills the pure, hence the title. Having then-rising star Brittany Murphy, fresh off Girl, Interrupted, didn’t help Cherry Falls’ prospects and this $14m production, which had to go to the MPAA five times before they approved a cut, didn’t even make it to theaters. Brittany’s climb would continue for a while — with 8 Mile, Just Married and Sin City — but the misses soon outnumbered the hits. As her pay packet has shrunk, she’s returned to horror-tinged thrills with Deadline, Abandoned and Something Wicked.
Katherine Heigl — Valentine (2001)
No-one can accuse Ms. Heigl of being an overnight success, and she’s been working solidly since 1992. During the ’90s she played daughter roles to Gerard Depardieu and Steven Segal, and in 1999 signed on to this, director Jamie Blanks’ follow up to Urban Legend. In it, Heigl, who supposedly later claimed she wouldn’t have done it if she’d read the script properly, plays Shelley, a med student who has her throat slit early in proceedings. Fun fact: Tara Reid and Jennifer Love Hewitt were originally cast in the roles that went to Jessica Capshaw and Denise Richards. As for Heigl, despite being dead, she passed her med school exams and graduated to mega-stardom in Grey’s Anatomy and then Knocked Up, 27 Dresses and this year’s The Ugly Truth.
Jessica Biel — The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003)
Like any number of slasher starlets before her, Jessica Biel jumped from a successful TV series — in this case, 7th Heaven — to “final girl” in Marcus Nispel’s forceful remake of Tobe Hooper’s ferocious original. Dudes who wouldn’t be caught dead watching 7th Heaven became overnight Biel fans. But it has been a rocky-ish road since then for the actress. After Blade: Trinity, Biel broadened her horizons but hasn’t often found the right material to suit her talents. She was good in The Illusionist, but seemed out of place in I Now Pronounce You Chuck And Larry and Stealth. Horror’s not on her immediate horizon, but her next flick Nailed sounds like it could be on offcut from an offal-spiller. In it, she plays a girl who gets a nail stuck in her head, which causes her to act erratically but leads her into the arms of Jake Gyllenhaal.
Shawnee Smith — Saw (2004)
This $1.2m indie, which generated a franchise worth half-a-billion, added “torture porn” to the psychotic killer mix, with controversial results. A considerable degree of Saw’s impact was thanks to a cunning viral campaign which featured Shawnee Smith with her mouth about to be ripped off by an explosive face trap. Despite having done a lot of movies in the 1980s and 1990s, including Summer School and The Desperate Hours, Smith was at the time of Saw’s production best known as “the dumb girl from Becker”. This movie changed all of that, and she’s appeared in each of the sequels (see Saw II, pictured). As for whether she’ll break from horror, well, if she’s getting back-end each time a Saw is released in time for Halloween, she’ll probably never need to work again.
Paris Hilton — House of Wax (2005)
The loose remake of the 1933 early-Technicolor experiment Mystery of the Wax Museum and 1953 3-D hit House of Wax had one special effect: Paris Hilton’s ability to generate publicity. Producer Joel Silver admitted the heiress had been cast for just that reason. In fairness, she wasn’t terrible in the film, but the death scene, which mocked her infamous home video, was just, well, weird. Happily, this one’s box-office failure just as effectively killed off Paris’ serious big-screen hopes. But if you really want to be frightened by a film she’s in, just try to sit through The Hillz or The Hottie and the Nottie.
Mary Elizabeth Winstead — Final Destination 3 (2006)
This franchise cast Death his bad self as a serial killer, whose favorite method is inescapable fate, directed mostly at teens via insanely complicated series of events that culminate in spectacular terminations. Mary Elizabeth Winstead — who’d been noticed in kiddie comedy Sky High — landed the role of the final girl, the one who lives long enough to see her pals suntanned to death, impaled and nail gunned. She wasn’t so lucky in 2006′s Black Christmas remake (above), which saw her blood spray all over a car, but she at least avoided such a fate in 2007′s Death Proof. Winstead’s next role — as love interest Ramona V. Flowers in Edgar Wright’s comic fantasy Scott Pilgrim Vs. the World — sounds just the change of pace.
Scout-Taylor Compton — Halloween (2007)
Once Mr. Zombie had established the whys-and-whats of Michael Myers’ “backstory” in his reimagining of Halloween, he switched over to more familiar ground — The Shape stalking Laurie Strode on Halloween. Compton held her ground well enough against her big, bad brother well enough that she was brought back for Halloween II. The daughter of a mortician, she’s a true believer in the genre and happy to tell fans about her love for Chucky, Jason and, of course, The Shape. She has another teen thriller in the can — Triple Dog, which looks a cross between Sorority Row and Dead Man’s Curve — but after that, Scout’s smartly diversifying as Lita Ford, opposite Kristen Stewart and Dakota Fanning, in The Runaways.
Jaime King — My Bloody Valentine 3D (2009)
This blonde beauty’s career started with a bang — her third film was Pearl Harbor — but there’s been a lot of whimper since and she has struggled to nail leading lady status on the big screen. Her turn as Goldie in Sin City helped keep her in fanboy hearts but critically panned flicks like White Chicks, Bulletproof Monk and The Spirit did her few favors. Redemption, perhaps, has been found in the slasher genre. As Sarah in this year’s 3-D My Bloody Valentine remake, she was the last girl standing, with the film clocking up an impressive $51m at the box office. Realizing she’s on a good thing, King has signed on for Saw sequel director Darren Lynn Bousman’s remake of Mother’s Day.
Danielle Panabaker — Friday the 13th (2009)
Like Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Danielle got her start in Sky High. She then gravitated toward the killer-thriller with a supporting role as Kevin Costner’s daughter in the nutty but enjoyable Mr. Brooks. She embraced the role of Jenna in Friday the 13th but didn’t quite make it out of that one alive. She did however impress enough that her next two flicks are horrors. Panabaker co-stars opposite Timothy Olyphant in next year’s remake of George A. Romero’s viral horror The Crazies and she’s now shooting The Ward, Halloween director John Carpenter’s long-awaited return to fright features.
Rumer Willis — Sorority Row (2009)
We won’t spoil it for you by revealing when/if/how the daughter of Bruce and Demi buys the farm in this week’s Sorority Row. But we’re thinking that after playing support roles in her parents’ movies — 1996′s Striptease; 2005′s Hostage — this is Ms. Willis’ way of announcing herself to the world. But we can’t really foresee a scream queen future for her, with her next film supposedly a quirky comedy called Slightly Single in L.A. As for her star prospects, we’d rate them as pretty good. It’s in the genes, you know. And in the address book.
Briana Evigan — Sorority Row (2009)
For our money, Briana Evigan is the one to watch out of the current crop of slasher starlets. Like Rumer, her dad was an actor, most famous as B.J. McKay in B.J. and the Bear (where, one asks, is the big-screen version of that?). Briana made her debut in 1997, aged just 10, opposite him in horror flick Spectre, but really impressed with both her dancing and acting in last year’s Step Up 2 the Streets. As moral center Cassidy in Sorority Row, she’s a knockout, and it helps that the movie is shaping up to be one of the more enjoyable slashers in years. But it’s the one-woman film she already has in the can that really could prove her breakthrough. Burning Bright (above) has her as a teenage girl who has to protect her autistic brother from a tiger loose in their house in the chaos after a hurricane. “Briana is authentically Briana,” Bright’s director Carlos Brooks told RT. “That’s why both the fanboys and the girls love her. She’s got huge crossover appeal — she’ll be a star because she’s got the guts to be herself.”
Rooney Mara — A Nightmare On Elm Street (2010)
Rooney’s the wild card because so little is known about her work. She did make her debut in 2005′s straight-to-disc Urban Legends: Bloody Mary and has a part in the upcoming Michael Cera comedy Youth in Revolt. What we do know is that she’ll take on the Nancy Thompson role and that she has apparently signed on for a sequel. Lesson: learn from the Langenkamp.
Normally I hate sequels, especially when it comes to horror movies, but sometimes there is some good sequels out there. Take a look at this list and let me know if you agree or disagree…
10. Psycho 2
It takes a lot of chutzpah to add a chapter to one of the most iconic films in history — either that or you’ve got to be, ahem, crazy — but all things considered, 1983′s Psycho 2 didn’t turn out too badly; it boasted the return of the original’s star, after all, and although critics were generally less than thrilled to be revisiting a story that seemed to be wrapped up pretty neatly in Alfred Hitchcock’s 1960 original, a surprising number of them were willing to concede that the sequel exceeded expectations (Vincent Canby of the New York Times, for one, praised its “exuberantly macabre craftsmanship”). Taking advantage of the long gap between installments, Psycho 2 returns a supposedly rehabilitated Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins) to the inn where he committed his crimes in the first film — with predictably bloody results. Fittingly, given the Psycho-inspired wave of slashers raking in box office coin during the early ’80s, Psycho II was one of 1983′s biggest hits, soundly defeating The Sting 2 in the year’s battle of the long-delayed sequels — and earning Perkins the chance to make his directorial debut with 1986′s slightly better-received Psycho III.
9. The Devil’s Rejects
Now here’s how you put together a sequel that surpasses its predecessor: You make the original (in this case, 2003′s House of 1000 Corpses) an object of such seething critical scorn that there’s literally nowhere to go but up. After Corpses earned back its budget despite taking a savage beating from critics (it currently stands at 16 percent on the Tomatometer), a sequel seemed pretty much unavoidable — but what nobody outside director Rob Zombie’s immediate family suspected was that the second installment, 2005′s The Devil’s Rejects, would be such a substantial improvement. And okay, so maybe 55 percent on the Tomatometer isn’t really anything to write home about, but bear in mind that we’re talking about the sequel to a gore-splattered movie about a murderous family of psychopaths whose gleeful tagline was “this summer, go to Hell”; in that context, anything above, say, 25 percent would have been a shattering success. As Bob Grimm of the Sacramento News & Review wrote, “It’s an exceptionally well-done sophomore effort from a man who made one of the worst movies I’ve ever seen. That’s a pretty decent accomplishment.”
8. Blade 2
Under normal circumstances, you wouldn’t think a studio would want to greenlight a sequel to a movie about a shades-wearing vampire buster unless it was looking for a hefty tax writeoff. However, 1998′s Blade racked up over $100 million in worldwide grosses, and with years of Marvel comics to draw on for stories (not to mention Guillermo del Toro behind the cameras), it’s unsurprising that the 2002 sequel was not only made, but that it raised the critical and commercial bar set by its predecessor. Actually, given that Blade II’s storyline revolves around a vampire war fought with UV grenades, maybe it is a little surprising, but in the end, what mattered to critics — and the audiences who helped it rack up $155 million — was that the movie was fun. Michael Szymanski of Zap2It.com reflected the views of many of his peers when he wrote, “The story is thin, the plot is predictable, but Wesley Snipes carries this comic book character off with enough clever humor and self-indulgent pathos to carry it off.”
7. Gremlins 2: The New Batch
Six years after the original Gremlins delighted children of all ages (and helped inspire the creation of the PG-13 rating in the process), the Joe Dante-directed scamps returned to theaters — original stars Zach Galligan and Phoebe Cates in tow — for Gremlins 2: The New Batch, a surprisingly subversive sequel that took fuzzy little Gizmo and his leathery offspring, set them loose in a Manhattan high-rise, and tossed in a dizzying barrage of pop-culture satire targeting everything from Rambo to Donald Trump. Given complete creative control by the studio, Dante decided to turn Gremlins 2 into a satire of sequels themselves, in the process earning the appreciation of critics like About.com’s Fred Topel, who called it a “brilliant postmodern horror-comedy.” Audiences, unfortunately, were either ill prepared for the sequel’s tonal shift or had simply moved on after the long delay between films; The New Batch earned a mere $41 million in the States, failing to recoup its budget and preventing the existence of a third Gremlins. Still, it’s difficult to find too much fault with the movie that inspired Gregory Weinkauf of the New Times to write, “Simply: This is Christopher Lee’s 200th film. He plays a character called Dr. Catheter. I love movies.”
6. 28 Weeks Later
The vast majority of horror movies come with endings that either suggest or beg for a sequel — but Danny Boyle’s 28 Days Later told a story that actually deserved one. Though Boyle’s work on Sunshine prevented him from helming 28 Weeks Later, he remained behind the scenes for this second installment, which follows the struggle to keep the virulent Rage virus from spreading beyond Great Britain onto mainland Europe. Complicating matters is the discovery of people who carry, but exhibit few symptoms of, the virus — and who can then unknowingly pass it on to others. Though not all critics deemed Weeks a success (Big Picture Big Sound’s Joe Lozito wrote it off as “more of the same, with decidedly mixed results”), the majority applauded its visceral thrills and timely subtext, such as Lou Lumenick of the New York Post, who called it “an exciting, well-directed thriller that, while providing more than enough action and gore to satisfy genre fans, also offers the political commentary that has characterized zombie movies.”
5. Scream 2
1996′s Scream revitalized the horror genre by satirizing its fossilized conventions — so for its inevitable second installment, what could be better than sending up the many inferior slasher sequels? Following the “rules” of horror sequels — bigger body count, bloodier and more elaborate deaths, and never assume the killer is dead — Scream 2 served up loads of stylized violence while adding to the original’s tongue-in-cheek self-awareness. From the film-within-a-film (Stab, directed by Robert Rodriguez) to the many cameos and references to its stars’ real-life projects, it proved that horror sequels could be smart, funny, packed with gore, and outrageously successful at the box office — much to the appreciation of critics like Film Blather’s Eugene Novikov, who wrote, “I truly hope that Scream 2 proves to all of the doubters that horror movies are not all the same. They are not all equally bad, and by God, they are not all equally good. However, they don’t get any better than Scream 2.”
4. Dawn of the Dead
After George A. Romero’s 1968 Night of the Living Dead added subversive political subtext to the zombie horror subgenre — and turned an absolutely ridiculous profit in the process — you’d think studios would have been lining up to make a matinee franchise out of it, but things didn’t work out that way. In fact, it wasn’t until the mid-1970s that Romero started thinking about a sequel, and when he shopped his screenplay — which brilliantly posited that the undead would probably really dig hanging out at the mall — it took the involvement of fellow cult auteur Dario Argento to secure financing. Of course, once it reached theaters, Dawn of the Dead proved immensely profitable as well as critically sound, racking up $55 million worldwide and earning the praise of scribes like Roger Ebert, who applauded, “Dawn of the Dead is one of the best horror films ever made — and, as an inescapable result, one of the most horrifying. It is gruesome, sickening, disgusting, violent, brutal and appalling.” The rest is zombie history: Romero’s Dead series now stands at six successful films, with the latest, Survival of the Dead, set to debut at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival.
3. Evil Dead II: Dead by Dawn
Part remake, part sequel, 1987′s Evil Dead II: Dead by Dawn expanded on the low-budget promise of Sam Raimi’s 1981 original, adding a series of lunatic set pieces and a heaping helping of pitch black humor to the first installment’s tale of a group of Michigan University students who unwittingly use the Necronomicon to unleash a sadistic evil spirit. Wickedly over the top, Evil Dead II was far from a theatrical hit, but it rescued Raimi from the studio purgatory of 1985′s misbegotten Crimewave, kicked off the cult of star Bruce Campbell, and provided the basis for the third chapter in the series — and one of the definitive cult films of the ’90s — Army of Darkness. In the words of DVD Clinic’s Scott Weinberg, “Evil Dead 2 is a grade-A masterpiece of morbid mayhem. Find me a horror geek who doesn’t agree and I’ll take a chainsaw to a body part of your choice.”
2. The Bride of Frankenstein
Frankenstein director James Whale resisted Universal’s entreaties to helm a sequel for years — and then fussed over multiple iterations of the script before finally settling on a story, lifted from a subplot in Mary Shelley’s original novel in which the monster demands a mate. In the end, all that deliberation paid off: 1935′s Bride of Frankenstein went down as one of the greatest horror films of all time, earning the coveted 100% Fresh rating on the Tomatometer and cementing the neck-bolted wonder as a cornerstone in the studio’s stable of classic monsters. Future installments in the series would cross the line into outlandishness or abject silliness (1948′s Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein, for instance), but Bride retains the white-knuckle chills of the first Frankenstein, as well as its touches of subtle humor and pathos. Empire Magazine’s Simon Braund chalked it up to what he called “Whale’s erudite genius,” writing, “He sculpts every nuance of self-parody, social satire, horror, humour, wit and whimsy into a dazzling whole, keeping every one of his fantastical plates spinning until the tragic, inevitable finale.”
1. Aliens
It seems absurd now, but for a time, execs at 20th Century Fox weren’t interested in a sequel to Ridley Scott’s Alien — they didn’t think it had been profitable enough to justify a second chapter — and even after James Cameron’s persistence earned Aliens a green light, a pay dispute between Sigourney Weaver and the studio almost threw the whole thing off the rails. And even after it officially got started, the production had more than its share of bumps in the road; everything from on-set strife to the sequel’s tonal shift (“more terror, less horror,” to paraphrase Cameron) had the potential to render Aliens just another unnecessary sequel. The end result, of course, was quite the opposite: Ripley’s action-packed return captivated audiences, dominating the box office for a solid month, and earned a perfect score from critics, who showered it with praise as both a terrific follow-up (Dave Kehr of the Chicago Reader said it “surpasses the original,” while Combustible Celluloid’s Jeffrey M. Anderson called it “everything a sequel should be”) and a solid chunk of sci-fi in its own right (Empire Magazine’s Ian Nathan declared it “truly great cinema”). Subsequent chapters in the quadrilogy weren’t as well received — by audiences or critics — but Aliens remains, in the words of Needcoffee.com’s Widgett Walls, a fine example of “what happens when you take a premise, soak it in a combination of adrenaline and kerosene, then light the sucker.”
source: Total Recall: Respectable Horror Sequels [Rotten Tomatoes]
“Friday The 13th” brought in a pretty nice weekend take with $42,245,000. That left chick flick “He’s Just Not That Into You” with second place at $19,610,000. “Taken” took third place with a nice $19,250,00. Newcomer “Confessions Of A Shopaholic” brought in $15,406,000 it’s first week at fourth place. Bringing in the tail end of the top five movies of this past weekend was “Coraline” with a $15,323,000 take.
The horror remake stars Jared Padalecki as Clay Miller, a man who is searching for his sister, Whitney. His only lead was that she was heading towards Crystal Lake. Even though the police and all of the locals have warned him against going any further, he shuns their advice in order to save his sister.
