Amicus Productions News

New Hi-Res Photo Gallery For It's Alive

2009-09-17T08:58:00.005-05:00

Bloody Disgusting has gotten their hands on a bunch of high resolution pics from the upcoming It's Alive remake. You can check them all out here.

Here's a synopsis straight from Bloody Disgusting:

"The film is a modern remake of the classic 1970s horror film and follows Lenore (Bijou Phillips, Choke, Hostel: Part 2), a young mother who’s newborn is suspiciously connected to a string of incredibly violent and inexplicable murders.

When a Lenore learns that she is pregnant, she leaves graduate school to set up a home with her boyfriend in the country. The fate of the happy new family takes a gruesome turn when animals and people end up brutally dead – all with a strange connection to their newborn. Could their new child be the monster responsible for the gruesome murders?"

New Trailer For It's Alive Remake

2009-09-17T08:48:00.006-05:00

A red band trailer has hit the net for the upcoming It's Alive remake, which will finally see the light of day on DVD October 6th in both rated and unrated editions. The film is being put out through First Look Pictures and was produced by the new Amicus production company.

Here's a synopsis straight from Bloody Disgusting:

"The film is a modern remake of the classic 1970s horror film and follows Lenore (Bijou Phillips, Choke, Hostel: Part 2), a young mother who’s newborn is suspiciously connected to a string of incredibly violent and inexplicable murders.

When a Lenore learns that she is pregnant, she leaves graduate school to set up a home with her boyfriend in the country. The fate of the happy new family takes a gruesome turn when animals and people end up brutally dead – all with a strange connection to their newborn. Could their new child be the monster responsible for the gruesome murders?"

The Land That Time Forgot Remake Review

2009-08-29T11:56:00.005-05:00

Here's the review I wrote of The Land That Time Forgot remake for my movie news website. Thought some of you might enjoy it or be interested. Here you go:

It is very hard for me to write this review of the remake / revision / new version / whatever of The Land That Time Forgot. I go into a viewing of a straight-to-DVD movie with certain expectations. This one did not meet them almost at all. How dare they? How dare a reliably cheesy company like The Asylum put something out that is actually pretty decent. There was barely any of the cheese I have come to expect from Asylum films. Nowhere near the amount of bad acting that is necessary for one of these flicks. And the special effects? While not Oscar-worthy or even close to ILM or WETA standards, they actually were tolerable. And there was a story. An actual story that actually made sense. Now don't get me wrong. You still had to stretch your suspension of belief, but there was a story. All of this is absolutely inexcusable.

As stated earlier, the special effects were not flawless by any means. They still looked pretty animated. But they were no worse than what you see in those Journey to the Center of the Earth or Lost World movies you see on the SyFy Channel on Saturday nights. I guess that's good, though, since that's where these movies are going to end up after their DVD run. There were a couple good scenes of people being eaten. There's one scene of a guy getting bitten in half and it actually doesn't look too bad. There are also scenes of a German submarine that was washed up onshore that look very believable.

The acting was pretty good, too. The actors actually looked like they cared about the material and gave pretty good performances. You had Pony Boy C. Thomas Howell himself playing the lead role in a film he also directed. Then, of course there was the veteran supporting actor and relatively well-known Timothy Bottoms (The Last Picture Show, Texasville, Land of the Lost, That's My Bush!) that they always stick in these movies to drum up their viewership and "legitimacy." Mr. Bottoms did play his role at times like a drunken hippie, but it suited him just fine. Even the actors who played the Germans were relatively convincing.

Was it better than the original Amicus produced film from 1975? I would say no. That one just has a classic and epic feeling to it that I don't think this one ever will. That one also has more elements to it's story. This one, while not in a bad way, really just focuses on the characters trying to get off the island. I do have to say that Howell really did a good job directing this. You can tell he really did care about the film and did his best with what he was given budgetwise and such. If you're looking for a good time-waster on a Saturday night and you actually don't hate the SyFy original movies, you should give some thought into picking this up at the video store. Or you can wait until it's actually on SyFy. You decide. (Review by Eric Shirey)

It's Alive Hitting DVD On October 6th!

2009-08-25T22:12:00.005-05:00

The remake of It's Alive is finally hitting DVD in the United States on October 6th. The film had already been released in several other countries, but for some reason never got a solid date until now in the States.

In the remake of It's Alive, a baby born to a human couple turns out to be a mutant monster with an appetite to kill when scared. It was originally supposed to be released over a year ago, but for some reason got held up. The movie is based on the cult classic of the same name from 1974 that was directed by genre director Larry Cohen (Q, A Return to Salem's Lot, It Lives Again, It's Alive III: Island of the Alive, Masters of Horror).

The DVD is listed as being the Unrated version and stars Bijou Phillips, Skye Bennett, Raphaël Coleman, Sigal Diamant, and Arkie Reece. It's directed by Josef Rusnak (The Thirteenth Floor, The Art of War II: Betrayal).

To order it through Amazon, just go here.

King's Buick 8 still looking for more financing

2009-03-31T22:06:00.005-05:00

Fangoria Radio's Tony Timpone reported this among his scoops:

"While co-writer Johnathon Schaech’s FROM A BUICK 8 Stephen King adaptation still looks for financing, he and co-writer Richard Chizmar are continuing to tweak the script for the Tobe Hooper film. 'We’ve done 15 rewrites,' Schaech said of the project, 'and Stephen King loves it. He says it’s a great screenplay, which is sort of THE GREEN MILE meets STAND BY ME meets FRIDAY THE 13TH.'”

You can also go to the Fangoria Podcast page on iTunes and download an interview with Johnathon Schaech, whre he discusses the screenplay.

Land That Time Forgot being remade

2009-03-31T21:19:00.003-05:00

It was bound to happen sooner or later with all the rumors of remakes and such. We knew Amicus would eventually be touched in some way or another. A new version (or remake, as it's being touted) of Edgar Rice Burroughs' The Land That Time Forgot is heading into production this week with actor C. Thomas Howell (The Outsiders, E.T., Red Dawn, War of the Worlds) behind the camera working from a script by Darren Dalton (The Day the Earth Stopped, Scanner Cop). The book was famously adapted for the screen in 1975 for Amicus Productions and spawned a sequel, which was also produced by one half of the original Amicus partnership - Max Rosenburg. It was also historically significant as the last film that original Amicus co-founders Milton Subotsky and Max Rosenberg worked on together, ending a partnership that was over 20 years old at the time. The new version will star Howell, Christopher Showerman (Frankenbabe, George of the Jungle 2) and Timothy Bottoms (Land of the Lost, Vampire Bats, The Man in the Iron Mask). More additions to the cast are to be made soon. The film is expected to premiere on DVD and is said to be following the original film's plot pretty closely. In the original Amicus version, "a German U-boat sinks a British ship and takes the survivors on board. After it takes a wrong turn, the submarine takes them to the unknown land of Caprona, where they find dinosaurs and Neanderthal."

2009-03-18T20:19:00.000-05:00

We thought that it was only appropriate to report on this, being that Mr. Prowse appeared in The People That Time Forgot as The Executioner. He also donated some autographed 8x10's for my Hammer Horror Holiday I did as a charity event for a local food bank. May we all pray for his health and well-being. This was taken from SciFi Wire:

"David Prowse, who wore Darth Vader's black armor in the original Star Wars movies, revealed that he is battling prostate cancer but is responding well to radiotherapy treatment for his illness, according to a report in the British Daily Mail newspaper. The 73-year-old-actor, who appeared as Luke Skywalker's nemesis, has been undergoing radiotherapy for the last couple of months, the newspaper reported. Speaking on a British radio show, Prowse added that he was feeling fine. Prowse is being treated at the Royal Marsden Hospital in London. Originally a bodybuilder, Prowse played the Dark Lord in all three original films. Producers decided not to use his West Country English accent for the role, instead giving Lord Vader's lines to deep-voiced American actor James Earl Jones."

Harold Pinter - writer of The Birthday Party - dies at 78

2008-12-26T15:27:00.003-06:00

The Birthday Party is one of the "off the beaten path" films Amicus did in the late 60's. It really isn't a horrror film at all, but more of a psychological thinking man's film. It was based on the play written by Harold Pinter, who died Wednesday at the age of 78. Here's the news straight from Yahoo!:

"British Nobel laureate Harold Pinter -- who produced some of his generation's most influential dramas and later became a staunch critic of the U.S.-led war in Iraq -- has died, his widow said Thursday. He was 78. Pinter died Wednesday after a long battle with cancer, according to his second wife Antonia Fraser. In recent years he had seized the platform offered by his 2005 Nobel Literature prize to denounce President George W. Bush, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair and the war in Iraq. But he was best known for exposing the complexities of the emotional battlefield. His writing featured cool, menacing pauses in dialogue that reflected his characters' deep emotional struggles and spawned a new adjective found in several dictionaries: "Pinter-esque." "Pinter restored theater to its basic elements: an enclosed space and unpredictable dialogue, where people are at the mercy of each other and pretense crumbles," the Nobel Academy said. "With a minimum of plot, drama emerges from the power struggle and hide-and-seek of interlocution." His characters' internal fears and longings, their guilt and difficult sexual drives were set against the neat lives they constructed in order to try to survive. Usually enclosed in one room, the acts usually illustrated the characters' lives as a sort of grim game with actions that often contradicted words. Gradually, the layers were peeled back. "How can you write a happy play?" he once said. "Drama is about conflict and degrees of perturbation, disarray. I've never been able to write a happy play, but I've been able to enjoy a happy life." Pinter wrote 32 plays; one novel, "The Dwarfs," in 1990; and put his hand to 22 screenplays. The working-class milieu of his first dramas reflected his early life as the son of a Jewish tailor from London's East End. Born Oct. 30, 1930, in the London neighborhood of Hackney, he was forced along with other children during World War II to evacuate to rural Cornwall in 1939. He was 14 before he returned. By then, he was entranced with Franz Kafka and Ernest Hemingway. By 1950, Pinter had begun to publish poetry and appeared on stage as an actor. Pinter began to write for the stage, and published "The Room" in 1957. A year later, his first major play, "The Birthday Party" was produced in the West End. In it, intruders enter the retreat of Stanley, a young man who is hiding from childhood guilt. He becomes violent, telling them, "You stink of sin, you contaminate womankind." The play closed after just one week to disastrous reviews, but Pinter continued to write and was most prolific between 1957 and 1965. "With his earliest work, he stood alone in British theater up against the bewilderment and incomprehension of critics, the audience and writers, too," British playwright Tom Stoppard said when the Nobel Prize was announced. "I find critics on the whole a pretty unnecessary bunch of people," Pinter once said. In "The Caretaker," (1959) a manipulative old man threatens the relationship of two brothers, while "The Homecoming" (1964) explores the hidden rage and confused sexuality of an all-male household by inserting a woman. In "Silence" and "Landscape," (1967 and 1968) Pinter moved from exploring the underbelly of human life to showing the simultaneous levels of fantasy and reality that occupy the individual. "The speech we hear is an indication of that which we don't hear," Pinter once said. "It is a necessary avoidance, a violent, sly, and anguished or mocking smoke screen which keeps the other in its true place. When true silence falls we are left with echo but are nearer nakedness." "Betrayal" (1978) was reportedly based on the disintegration of his marriage to actress Vivien Merchant, who appeared in many of his first plays."

The movie was brought to the screen by legendary director William Friedkin, who would bring such groundbreaking films to the screen as The French Connection and The Exorcist. The actual screenplay for the movie was written by Harold Pinter and starred such classic actors as Robert Shaw (Jaws, The Deep, From Russia with Love) and Amicus supporting regular Patrick Magee (The Monster Club, ...And Now the Screaming Starts!, Asylum, Tales from the Crypt, The Skull).

William Gaines biopic to be made

2008-11-28T14:55:00.004-06:00

Since Amicus released two movies based on the EC Comics, we felt that this was news fans would want to know. Here it is straight from Variety:

"John Landis will direct "Ghoulishly Yours, William M. Gaines," a biopic based on the life of the publisher of EC Comics and Mad magazine. Landis will develop the project with Joel Eisenberg, who's also penning the screenplay. Pic's centered on an anti-establishment group of artists and writers, led by a reluctant Gaines and cohort Al Feldstein, as they produce their comicbooks. At the peak of his success, Gaines became a First Amendment figurehead due to his unapologetic testimony before a Senate subcommittee investigating juvenile delinquency. Landis most recently helmed "Mr. Warmth: The Don Rickles Project" for HBO. Eisenberg is a partner in production concern EMO Films with Tim Owens and Eugene Mandelcorn."

The Beast Must Die! picked as one of the AICN Horror Movie A Day

2008-10-21T20:49:00.003-05:00

Quint, one of the writers for Ain't It Cool News, chose the Amicus classic The Beast Must Die! as one of his Horror Movies A Day for October. He regularly does a "column" of sorts entitled A Movie A Day, and of course, because of Halloween he chose to do all horror movies for the month. You can check out his review of the film by clicking here. He had never seen the film before, as that is one of his "rules" that he follows. Thanks to Quint for choosing an Amicus title and true horror classic and we hope that he enjoyed the film.

Stuck out on DVD today!

2008-10-14T15:28:00.004-05:00

Stuck comes out today on DVD and BluRay today. Go get a copy of it now at a store near you! If you haven't seen it yet, do yourself a favor and see it tonight! Mena Suvari (American Beauty) unforgettably stars as Brandi, a hard-partying, overworked nursing assistant in this delicious, darkly humorous psychological thriller from director Stuart Gordon (Re-Animator, From Beyond). Brandi accidentally steers her car into a homeless man, movingly played by Stephen Rea (The Crying Game), sending him flying through the windshield. Not wanting to jeopardize a possible job promotion, she chooses not to get him medical help, leaving him clinging to life in her garage. But soon her psyche begins to unravel as captor and captive are pitted against each other in a bloody...even outrageous battle for survival. Director Stuart Gordon delivers what Variety called "ingeniously nasty and often shockingly funny" entertainment.

Special Features include a trailer.

Reviews:

"Ingeniously NASTY and often SHOCKINGLY FUNNY" - VARIETY

"BRILLIANT! EXCELLENT cinematic telling of a horrendous story" - FANGORIA RADIO

"Generous with THRILLS, CHILLS and gooey gore-spills...a brutally BIZARRE story" - CINEMATICAL

"Laced with laughs from it's improbability....a GROTESQUE MORAL tale" - SCREEN DAILY

Tobe Hooper talks about Buick 8 movie on Eyegore red carpet

2008-10-04T16:48:00.012-05:00

I really hate doing the "paraphrasing" movie news site thing, so I'll just let the article speak for itself. This was posted by Mr. Disgusting on the great Bloody Disgusting site:

This evening marked the 6th Annual Eyegore Awards, along with the opening of Universal Studios Halloween Horror Nights, which will be ongoing through November 1st in Hollywood, CA. Also on the red carpet, we had the pleasure of talking with horror legend Tobe Hooper, who chatted a bit about his forthcoming Stephen King adaptation, From a Buick 8. What's for dessert you ask? How about a little cameo by Bill Moseley, reuniting the duo of TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE 2! Read on for the skinny!

Right off the bat director Tobe Hooper (the original TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE) updated us on his next project, FROM A BUICK 8, which is the latest Stephen King adaptation, which is being penned by John Schaech and Richard Chizmar.

“Just a few days ago I got the screenplay... it’s great" he tells SpookyDan on the red carpet. "We start casting relatively soon. It’s really cool.”

Hooper also revealed that the film is going to be pretty gory, giving away a pretty sweet gag that hopefully we'll someday see on the big screen.

“It’s got a little bit more visual [elements]…. there is a a vacuuming scene where someone blows smoke into something he aught not. The hair is going forward, the skin's loosening, eyeballs are coming [out]…. It’s gory, really."

“[There's] a mix of CG and practical," he explains. "A little CG to touch up the flaws and then the practical. I love practical.”

So there you go with some news directly from the director of the upcoming Amicus production From A Buick 8. The article goes on about Hooper and Moseley's work together on Chainsaw Massacre 2 and other things, so if you're interested in reading the whole article, then click here.

Amicus on the Telly

2008-10-04T00:15:00.002-05:00

Here's some dates this month you may want to mark down when they will be showing Amicus films on the Telly (as they would say in England). Would it be Halloween time without them? One of them is pretty short notice, but maybe someone will catch it. Here you go:

October 4th - AMC - 12:30AM Central - The Beast Must Die!

October 30th - TCM - 9:00PM Central - Torture Garden

LSoH #20 - Scream and Scream Again Amicus Review up!

2008-09-08T18:40:00.002-05:00

We've just posted our review of Little Shoppe of Horrors #20 - Scream and Scream Again: The Uncensored History of Amicus Productions by Philip Nutman. You can check it out on our Features page. Go check it out.

King's From A Buick 8 still moving forward

2008-09-05T23:16:00.002-05:00

Apparently, there was some speculation and rumors that the film adaptation of Stephen King's From A Buick 8 was being axed. Texas Chainsaw Massacre / Poltergeist director Tobe Hooper has been attached to the project for over a year now and continues to be. He stated around August 24th that actor Johnathon Schaech (Prom Night, The Forsaken, That Thing You Do!) and Cemetery Dance publisher Richard Chizmar (who, in the past, have penned episodes of Masters of Horror and Fear Itself) were turning in the script sometime that next week. George A. Romero was originally attached to the project as director, but decided to move on and is beginning production on Diary of the Dead 2 this month.

It's Alive Remake - new extended trailer & pics

2008-09-05T22:52:00.005-05:00

A new extended 3 minute and 45 second trailer has gone up for the yet-to-be released remake of It's Alive. You can check the trailer out by clicking on the picture above. The film premiered at the Hamburg Fantasy Filmfest in Germany on August 15th, but there has been no release date set for the U.S. yet. Three new pictures were also released as well. You can check them out below.

TX Fear Fest 3 has been rescheduled

2008-09-02T14:26:00.008-05:00

This is straight from the event's website forum:

Pit of Horror and Dread Central regretfully announce that, due to unforeseen circumstances Fear Fest 3 is being rescheduled to February 20th-22nd, 2009. Thank you to everyone who was planning to attend and we apologize for any inconvenience. We will update everyone on the NEW and IMPROVED guest list as it solidifies.

For those who have purchased tickets or vendor tables, we are offering a full refund for the October show. However, we will also willingly match tickets, i.e. for the February show if you prefer. So if you purchased 2 VIP tickets, we will give you two additional VIP tickets at no charge. If you purchased a weekend or day pass, we will instantly upgrade those passes to VIPs. For vendors, we will match the table purchase as well and you will automatically get 4 VIP tickets for the show at no additional charge.

If you have any additional issues, please e-mail FearFestTX@yahoo.com and we will work with you to the best of our abilities. Again, we apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused and hope to make Fear Fest bigger and better for the future!

- The Fear Fest Staff

And to further clarify, my father is dying and is in hospice. He is not expected to make it past the end of the month. I can't very well put on a good show and plan a funeral at the same time. I debated on whether or not to post this, as it may simply sound like an excuse... but it is the truth and something as serious as this is the only thing that would keep me from honoring my commitment to the fans.

So PLEASE, if you have any terrible things to say, keep them off the forum, send them via email, whatever you have to do... but please respect the situation and understand.

We will make it worth the wait for sure. Any refunds for tickets or instant upgrades/free passes can be sent via email to fearfesttx@yahoo.com.

A Eulogy of sorts

2008-08-30T15:22:00.004-05:00

You know, real life death is never quite like it is in the movies we celebrate and live for. It still is always a shock and never as glamorous or glorious as it appears on celluloid. My grandmother Gladys Johnson passed away on July 23rd. My mother was happy that she waited until the day after my birthday. She was a great woman and basically helped raise me when I was a kid and took me back in when I left my parent's house as a wild and crazy young adult who couldn't live with their overzealous rules and regulations. She always had an influence on me, whether it was direct or indirect. Even in death, she had an influence and impact on me. The trip to bury her in Illinois allowed me to get caught up on some of the Amicus films I needed to watch. Thanks , Grandma.

You may notice that things have been kind of slow around here in the past couple of months, and I apologize. On Monday, I will be posting a review of the Little Shoppe of Horrors issue entitled Scream and Scream Again - The Uncensored History of Amicus Productions by Philip Nutman. If you have yet to pick up this issue, it is a must have for all fans of British classic horror films. Go get it right now at www.littleshoppeofhorrors.com.

Uncut HD Vault of Horror being aired

2008-08-21T20:04:00.003-05:00

Channel 4 in the UK will be showing a newly transferred high definition print of the uncut version of The Vault of Horror. It will air on August 25th, so don't miss it if you're lucky enough to live in the UK. Thanks to taylor401306 for the news.

The Skull featured on Ain't It Cool News

2008-08-13T11:16:00.003-05:00

The Skull is featured as one of the "A Movie A Day" films that contributor and writer Quint does for the website Ain't It Cool News. The article and review of the film is very positive. Hopefully, it will expose a lot of younger movie lovers to one of the great Amicus classics. It's very cool to see press given to a classic on such a high profile movie site. Thanks to Quint for the opportunity to get the word out on Amicus. Check the article out here.

Interview with John Roger Barrie posted

2008-08-11T09:06:00.002-05:00

We just posted the interview with John Roger Barrie, who is the literary executor of author H. F. Heard's estate. It is an interesting read about the comparisons and contrasts of the novel A Taste for Honey to the movie The Deadly Bees. Check it out in our Features section.

A Taste for Honey review up

2008-08-06T06:40:00.003-05:00

Our review of H.F. Heard's book A Taste for Honey has been posted on the Features page. This is the book that the movie The Deadly Bees was based on. Go check it out.

Stuck DVD due out on October 7th

2008-08-05T06:44:00.002-05:00

Stuart Gordon's Stuck is being released on DVD and Blu-ray on October 7th. If you have yet to get a chance to see this film or it never made it to a theater near you, definitely pick it up when it hits the store shelves. It's the first Amicus production in 27 years and it was well worth the wait and really does reflect the spirit and feel of the classic films. You can check out our review of it here.

The Skull DVD review posted

2008-07-14T10:23:00.004-05:00

Our review for the restored version of The Skull on DVD has been posted in the Features section. Once again, the restoration was done by Legend Films, who were kind enough to provide us with copy to review. You can check out the other films that they've worked on by going to www.legendfilms.com.

Little Shoppe's Amicus issue now available!

2008-07-14T09:30:00.004-05:00

The new issue of Little Shoppe of Horrors is now available. This issue is completely dedicated to Amicus Productions and looks great. It features Scream and Scream Again: The Uncensored History of Amicus Productions by Philip Nutman. Philip is an accomplished writer of his own books which include Wet Work (Bram Stoker Award Finalist for Superior Achievement in a First Novel), the upcoming Full Throttle, and The Man on the White Horse; for magazines like Fangoria, Rue Morgue, L'Ecran Fantastique, and Segno Cinema; and short stories and comics including Hellboy, Hellraiser, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, The Omen, and Halloween. He was kind enough to send me a copy of it for me to review for the site and I can tell you that it is a detailed and very immaculate looking issue. There's even a cover done by Bruce Timm (Batman: The Animated Series, Justice League, Tiny Toons, He-Man). Be sure you pick it up right away before it goes out of print. You can get it by going to www.littleshoppeofhorrors.com.