Legendary Horror Composers Team Up for London Show

horror composers

Claudio Simonetti’s Goblin and Simon Boswell will be coming together for a one-off concert, Horror Music Legends, in London in December. Between them, the horror maestros have scored some of the most memorable soundtracks in the history of terror cinema such as Suspiria, Dawn of the Dead, Shallow Grave, and Santa Sangre.

Boswell and Goblin first crossed paths in 1984 to score the Dario Argento film Phenomena, but the show at London’s EartH Theatre on December 11th marks the first time they have been together on a live bill and is going to be a treat for fans of horror music.

The current Goblin line-up consists of Claudio Simonetti on keyboards, Bruno Previtali on guitars, Cecilia Nappo on bass and Federico Maragoni on drums.

Simon commented: “Claudio and I have much in common. We met in Rome whilst both of us were working on Dario Argento’s ‘Phenomena’. Soon after, he scored Lamberto Bava’s first ‘Demons’ film whilst I scored ‘Demons 2’. From that moment on our paths diverged, but over the years I have liked and respected Goblin’s film music hugely. It will be fantastic to appear on the same bill and share with a London audience a varied evening of horror and Giallo tunes with full video backdrop.”

Presented by Born Again Concerts in arrangement with Etrurian Legion Promotion, Simon Boswell and Claudio Simonetti’s GOBLIN will perform at EartH Theatre, 11-17 Stoke Newington Road. London N16 8BH on Saturday 11th December 2021. Tickets are available from Ticketweb.

 

FrightFest Prepares to Draw NEW BLOOD Once More

new blood

This year’s Arrow Video FrightFest and Queensbury Pictures’ Giles Edwards will see its New Blood initiative return with its quest to find the best emerging UK-based genre writers and bring their projects from script to screen.

The scheme has already successfully brought two projects to completion. Broadcast Signal Intrusion – written by Phil Drinkwater and Tim Woodall and directed by The Signal’s Jacob Gentry will be screened at this year’s festival following its world premiere at SXSW, and Carina Rodney’s The Change, which was brought to the screen by producer Jennifer Handorf (The Borderlands).

The shortlisted writers will get a chance to workshop their ideas with a group of industry professionals and genre experts. This year’s panel include Prano Bailey-Bond, director of the eagerly-awaited Censor, Jed Shepherd, co-writer of Host, Najarra Townsend, star and producer of The Stylist, and Giles Edwards from Queensbury Pictures.

Edwards said of New Blood: “Having already achieved the initial aim of New Blood, with the discovery of the phenomenal script Broadcast Signal Intrusion from Phil and Tim which then exceeded our wildest expectations as a finished feature, and the amazing Jennifer Handorf falling for Carina’s absolutely wild The Change, we’re more adamant than ever that the cream of UK genre writing talent is out there, just waiting for the opportunity to wrench our collective gut with their visions of true terror.”

FrightFest co-director Greg Day added: “For FrightFest to be continuing to support and enable aspiring scriptwriters to have this opportunity is very gratifying, especially as Giles and Queensbury Pictures have proved that they really mean business and are not just playing industry lip-service. Good luck to the New Blood class of 2021.”

The workshop will take place on Thursday, August 26th, the opening day of the festival, and applications open on Monday, July 12th. A dedicated application page is available on the FrightFest website for hopefuls to submit their 400-word proposal. If selected, the writer will then send the first 10 pages of their script idea. The deadline is Sunday, July 26th and successful applicants will be notified by July 31st.

For more information on Arrow Video FrightFest, head over to www.frightfest.co.uk.

Voice Cast Revealed for BLADE RUNNER Animated Series

blade runner animated

Largely flying under the radar since the project was announced in 2018, the Blade Runner animated series is finally set to debut later this year, and has today revealed its English language voice cast.

Playing the lead character of Elle, a mysterious female replicant, is Jessica Henwick, who will be familiar to most readers for her roles in Star Wars: The Force Awakens (as Resistance pilot Jessika Pava), Game of Thrones (as Nymeria Sand), and Marvel shows Iron Fist, The Defenders, and Luke Cage (as Colleen Wing).

Other notable names joining Henwick include Will Yun Lee (The Wolverine), Samira Wiley (The Handmaid’s Tale), Stephen Root (True Blood), Wes Bentley (The Hunger Games), Josh Duhamel (Transformers), and Brian Cox (the legendary actor, not that physicist fellow). Cox will portray the founder of the Wallace Corporation, the company that succeeded the Tyrell Corporation of Ridley Scott’s original film and would go on to continue the manufacturing of the controversial Nexus replicants.

The show will not be the first animated story to be told in the Blade Runner universe, of course, with a trio of excellent shorts released alongside Denis Villeneuve’s Blade Runner 2049 in 2017. This new 13-part series – entitled Blade Runner: Black Lotus – will be set directly after the events of one such short, Black Out 2022. If you missed it back then, here’s the short film in full:

Blade Runner: Black Lotus will make its debut at the upcoming San Diego Comic-Con on July 23rd, with a full release courtesy of Adult Swim later this year.

Source: Deadline

First Films Announced for Arrow Video FrightFest 2021

frightfest first

It’s back and in-person; this year’s Arrow Video FrightFest will take place at Cineworld Leicester Square in London from Thursday, August 26th to Monday, August 30th and the first wave of films has been announced ahead of tickets going on sale.

Opening the festival is the European premiere of Neill Blomkamp’s Demonic, filmed during lockdown in British Columbia, and promises “a unique voyage into a world terrifyingly similar to our own as he expertly juggles a thought-provoking crossover between forward-thinking science fiction and hi-tech horror”. The closing night film is an equally thoughtful piece, as Rob Jabbaz’s The Sadness gets its UK premiere at the UK’s most prestigious horror festival. “After a year of combating a pandemic with relatively benign symptoms, a frustrated nation finally lets its guard down. This is when the virus spontaneously mutates, giving rise to a mind-altering plague. The age of civility and order is no more. There is only ‘The Sadness’”.

The Sadness

Other high profile films announced include Sion Sono’s Prisoners of the Ghostland, starring Nicolas Cage, and Elijah Wood as an FBI profiler interviewing Ted Bundy in the European premiere of No Man of God.

The Show, directed by Mitch Jenkins and written by Alan Moore, gets its UK premiere, and there are world premieres of The Kindred, directed by Jamie Patterson and starring Samantha Bond, James Cosmo, and Steve Oram, Crabs!, written and directed by Pierce Berolzheimer, Samuel Gonzalez Jr. and Bridget Smith’s The Retaliators, which features a hard-rocking list of cameos amongst the gore – including Mötley Crüe’s schlong-swinging drummer Tommy Lee as a club DJ – and Dominic Brunt’s welcome return to FrightFest with Evie, his take on the Selkie myth that’s co-written and directed with Jamie Lundy.

More UK premieres include the first film to be created from the FrightFest ‘New Blood’ initiative, Broadcast Signal Intrusion, directed by Jacob Gentry. James Ashcroft’s thriller Coming Home in the Dark, time travel of sorts plays a part of Junta Yamaguchi’s Beyond the Infinite Two Minutes, while Kazakhstan makes its presence felt at FrightFest with Yernar Nurgaliyev’s Sweetie, You Won’t Believe It.

The UK premieres continue with Alex Noyer’s sonic slasher Sound of Violence, Lee Thongkham’s The Maid, starring Black Widow‘s Florence Pugh, Jaco Bouwer’s Gaia, Jeremiah Kipp’s Slapface, Patrick Ridremont’s The Advent Calendar, and Richard Bates Jr, writer/director of the brilliant Excision and Suburban Gothic, teams up once more with Criminal Minds’ Matthew Gray Gubler for King Knight.

Sound of Violence

International premieres include Rodrigo Fiallega’s The Exorcism of Carmen Farias, Julien Knafo’s Brain Freeze, and Mickey Keating’s Offseason.

Edoardo Vitaletti’s The Last Thing Mary Saw, Kevin Kopacka’s Dawn Breaks Behind the Eyes, and Rob Schroeder’s Ultrasound all receive European premieres at FrightFest.

Three fantastic shorts will be screened as part of the main Arrow Video FrightFest line-up, namely Mask of the Evil Apparition, from The Crow director Alex Proyas and set in his Dark City universe, which gets its world premiere, the musical Stuffed from Theo Rhys, and the world premiere of Scott Derrickson’s take on the home invasion, Shadowprowler.

Dawn Breaks Behind the Eyes

Alan Jones, the festival co-director said: “Like every other film festival this past year, the Arrow Video FrightFest has had to adapt to the difficult circumstances caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. Our last three events may have taken place entirely online but you can’t keep a commended vanguard of international genre cinema down for too long and Team FrightFest has been working tirelessly to make sure our banner 22nd event will tick every box you’ve been desperately missing. Let’s face it, for the past year it has felt like we’ve been extras in the longest, flattest and most boring sci-fi movie ever, but now we are free at last to meet up with our Arrow Video FrightFest friends and acquaintances again for a much needed and well deserved in person horror fantasy binge.”

More of the line-up – including the Discovery and First Blood strands, as well as the Short Film Showcases and guest list – will be announced in coming weeks, as well as the all-important ticket details. There will also be a digital event this year, taking place between September 1st and 5th, for those who miss out on tickets or may not be ready to face in-person screenings. Watch this space or head over to the FrightFest website for more info!

PADDINGTON 3 to Film Next Year!

paddington 3

The 2021 Cannes Film Festival launched today and the first piece of news coming from the event is guaranteed to put a smile on many a movie fan’s face… Paddington 3 is officially a go!

We’d learned a sequel was in development in 2018, but Studiocanal has today confirmed that the film will go before cameras early 2022, presumably for a late 2023 release. Both previous movies have occupied the November slot, so circle that in your calendars.

With Paddington and Paddington 2 director Paul King busy with the upcoming Willy Wonka prequel film starring Timothée Chalamet (seriously), it’s currently unknown who will be calling the shots this time around, but he has worked on the screenplay with previous collaborators Simon Farnaby (Ghosts) and Mark Burton (Shaun the Sheep Movie: Farmageddon). Paddington Bear himself is presumed to be returning in the title role, though contract negotiations are ongoing.

Anybody else got a craving for a marmalade sandwich all of a sudden? More on Paddington 3 as it develops!

[Updated] SUPERMAN Opens The Royal Albert Halls’ FILMS IN CONCERT Series

superman in concert

UPDATE: The concert will now take place on Saturday, June 25th, 2022. Tickets are available here.

Celebrate Hollywood’s greatest cinematic superhero in 2021 as part of the Royal Albert Hall’s Films in Concert series, which starts with Superman the movie on July 16th.

Directed by Richard Donner, and showcasing a young Christopher Reeve, Superman (1978) features a star-studded cast including Margot Kidder as intrepid reporter Lois Lane, Gene Hackman as the villainous Lex Luthor, and the inimitable Marlon Brando as Jor-El.

Superman in Concert will see the film played in high-definition on the big screen, whilst John Williams’ triumphant original score is performed by the Royal Philharmonic Concert Orchestra live to picture.

Find out more by heading to the Royal Albert Hall page and book your tickets now!

Royal Albert Hall Presents Superman in Concert with the Royal Philharmonic Concert Orchestra on Friday, July 16th, 2021 at 7:30pm. Ticket are available for £34.00 – £80.50.

 

Book with confidence.

The Royal Albert Hall issues refunds/vouchers for cancelled and rescheduled events.

 

TM & © DC Comics. © 2021 WBEI
SUPERMAN and all related characters and elements are trademarks of and © DC Comics. © 2021
Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. All Rights Reserved

Sundance: London Presents Some Great Genre Titles

sundance london

The Sundance Film Festival: London, which offers a snapshot of the amazing indie cinema that comes out of the main festival in Utah, has announced some great genre titles for the 2021 event.

Sundance is one of the biggest events on the festival calendar and takes place from July 29th to August 1st at Picturehouse Central in London.

Among the films and panels of interest to STARBURST readers are the eagerly-awaited Censor, directed by Prado Bailey-Bond, which is set in the early eighties with the video nasty ‘scare’ in full swing, a film censor who thinks a banned horror film is a clue to her sister’s disappearance.

The Blazing World stars Udo Kier and features writer/director Carlson Young as a self-destructive woman returning home years after her sister’s death.

Cryptozoo is an animated feature from Dash Shaw set in an alternate reality in which cryptids exist.

Scare Tactics – Making Modern Horror is a panel event to discuss the topic of contemporary horror. Prano Bailey-Bond and Rob Savage (Host) will be part of the panel.

The Sparks Brothers is an acclaimed documentary about the cult US band Sparks and is directed by Edgar Wright (Shaun of the Dead), who will be taking part in a live Q&A following the film.

There’s also a retrospective screening of John Hancock’s superb Let’s Scare Jessica to Death (1971), which is one not to miss!

For more information about the films, head over to the Picturehouse website.

Tarantino Teasing KILL BILL: VOL 3… Again!

kill bill 3

Currently aboard the hype train publicising his first book – Once Upon a Time in Hollywood: A Novel – filmmaker Quentin Tarantino has been dropping hints as to what’s in store next, in particular his plans for his final film. Yep, it seems he’s still adamant that he’ll tap out after ten movies, and with that leave an untainted legacy of highly regarded titles rather than go the route of too many other directors who lose their touch, eventually taking gigs simply for the paycheque and thus littering their IMDB profiles with lesser works and outright guff.

Earlier this week Tarantino revealed that he considered ending his run where he began 29-years ago with a remake of his first film, Reservoir Dogs. Ordinarily, the very idea of a remake would cause film fans to riot, but Tarantino himself reassessing his own material? He had our curiosity… but now he has our attention! Sadly, however, it wasn’t to be, and he eventually nixed the idea. (Though it sounds like we might eventually get a Tarantino-penned Reservoir Dogs novelisation in the same vein as Once Upon a Time in Hollywood: A Novel, which would be great. Please get Steve Buscemi to read the audiobook version!)

Though Dogs is off the table, another film Tarantino routinely teases a return to is Kill Bill. Even as far back as 2004 when Vol 2 was released, the writer/director talked of a speculative Vol 3 picking up the story a few decades later, when the daughter of Vernita Green (codename: Copperhead) seeks revenge upon Uma Thurman’s Beatrix Kiddo for the death of her mother, a murder she witnessed when she was 4-years old. In fact, Kiddo even sets the sequel up, inviting the young girl to come find her when she’s grown up, if she “still feels raw about it”…

17-years down the line, it appears Tarantino never soured on the idea, and had this to say about a possible Kill Bill Vol 3 on the new episode of The Joe Rogan Experience:

“The Bride and her daughter B.B. had 20 years of peace – and then that peace is shattered and then they’re on the run. The idea of casting Uma and casting her daughter, Maya [Hawke], and the thing would be fucking exciting.”

It would indeed, and the idea of casting Stranger Things 3’s breakout Maya Hawke, an actor he’s already worked with on Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, is perfect!

Maya Hawke in Stranger Things 3

Elaborating on the possibilities, Tarantino continues…

“Elle Driver is still out there, Sophie Fatale got her arms cut off, she’s still out there. They all got Bill’s money. Gogo had a twin sister, Shiaki, so her twin sister could show up...”

By the sounds of it, Tarantino has spent some considerable time thinking about the world of the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad, so let’s hope he pulls the trigger on the project one day soon. Maya Hawke herself must be similarly enthused to see Vol 3 materialise!

Before we get too psyched though, it’s worth remembering that QT has been promising Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair (the fabled 4+ hour re-edit of the film, reinstating it to its originally conceived form) for 17-years also, and we still never got that. And don’t get us started on The Vega Brothers!

With Tarantino in no rush to deliver his final film, we’ve got a long wait ahead before we learn of Beatrix Kiddo’s fate, if we ever do at all!

NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD Being Re-ANIMATED by Warner Bros!

night of the animated dead

Thanks to a copyright loophole, there’s been countless iterations of George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead since its release in 1968. Tacky colourisations, pointless remakes, shoddy DVD reissues, even musicals… but today comes news of a version that may bring a new lease of life to a very dead horse…

Warner Bros Home Entertainment has been quietly working on Night of the Animated Dead, a feature-length animated retelling that is set to star Josh Duhamel (Transformers) as Harry Cooper, Dulé Hill (The West Wing) as Ben, Katharine Isabelle (Ginger Snaps) as Barbara, James Roday Rodriguez (Psych) as Tom, Katee Sackhoff (The Mandalorian) as Judy, Will Sasso (Harley Quinn) as Sheriff McClelland, Jimmi Simpson (Westworld) as Johnny, and Nancy Travis (Mr Mercedes) as Helen Cooper.

Heading up the project is director Jason Axinn. A seasoned animator, Axinn made his first feature in 2019 with the animated comedy-horror movie To Your Last Death starring genre icons William Shatner, Ray Wise, and Bill Moseley, the trailer for which you can find below.

Let’s hope that this is a rare Night of the Living Dead remake that doesn’t have Romero turning in his grave…

Source: THR

Hallelujah! GOOD OMENS is Returning for a Sequel Series!

In some hugely surprising but very welcome news, it’s been announced today that 2019’s warmly embraced adaptation of the Neil Gaiman/Terry Pratchett novel Good Omens will be continuing in 2022 with a second series!

All principal cast and crew will return for Season 2, which will continue the story of angel Aziraphale and demon Crawley (played by Michael Sheen and David Tennant respectively), following their successful averting of the apocalypse.

good omens 2

Although never published, Pratchett and Gaiman plotted out a sequel thirty-two years ago, which, according to the latter creator, will see the characters “back in Soho, and all through time and space, solving a mystery, which starts with an angel wandering through Soho, with no memory.”

The new season will comprise of six episodes and will shoot in Scotland later this year. Though the first season was a joint collaboration between the BBC and Amazon, the Beeb will not be involved this time out.

Expect more news on Good Omens 2 as production develops…

Source: THR