“Francis? I mean, who’s named Francis? A talking mule?”

I became aware of Rob Zombie, as I think most people of my generation did, when his band White Zombie’s video for “Thunder Kiss 65” appeared on Beavis & Butthead. Like most other people, I wrote him off as a novelty musician, but then his career took a strange turn when he directed House of 1000 Corpses in 2003. While I didn’t love that film, I recognized that he was very savvy behind the camera, and clearly knew what he was doing as a director. His follow-up film, The Devil’s Rejects, was one of my favorite movies of the decade, combining a love for the gritty exploitation films of the 70s with an uncanny ability to combine music and images.

Zombie took a turn into commercial territory with his Halloween films, which I wasn’t crazy about, but is now back on firmer ground with his latest film, The Lords of Salem. The film is an original story by Zombie, and the film’s trailers seemed to indicate he was headed into new territory. So did he succeed? Read on to find out…

Scott Stewart’s Dark Skies is a serious, sinister tale of an every-day family and their encounters with an inquisitive, malicious and terrifying force. Featuring Keri Russell and Josh Hamilton as Lacy and Daniel Barrett, respectively, they are a family struggling to make ends meet and support their family unit. The Barretts have two sons, Jesse (Dakota Goyo) and Sam (Kadan Rockett). When the youngest of the family, Sam, starts to tell tales of the Sandman coming to see him during the night, the family play it off as the over-active imagination that’s usually associated with those of such a young age. In typical fashion, things then begin to take a turn firmly for the worst.

More after the break.

1. Kono Bijutsubu ni wa Mondai ga Aru!

Author: Imigi Muru
Artist:  Imigi Muru
Genre(s): Comedy, Romance, School Life, Seinen

“Uchimaki Subaru, the main character, loves to draw 2- D characters and freakly love them and says that he isn’t interested in 3- Ds girls. Usami Mizuki is quite a normal girl heroine. Lastly, The president doesn’t act like one. 

“There’s a problem with this art club!” Artist Imigi Muru is a winner of the Award for Wxcellence in the 5th Dengeki Comic Grand Prix, went one and had a debut in Comic Gum. Currently has another series running beside this one….” -Mangafox.me

Thoughts: What I like is that this manga starts out generic but has a very subtle twist in the last two pages which prevents me from calling this series generic. In fact, I have no idea how the story will progress.

Click below to view the rest of the notable manga from 3/31 - 4/14.

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In a forty-year career as a filmmaker, Stanley Kubrick only made thirteen feature films and four short films, and despite his reputation, he was far from reclusive. However, he was very reticent to let people in on his process and left behind an aura of mystery that lends itself to the sort of myth-making that film scholars delight in.

The new “documentary,” Room 237, is a film unlike any other you’ll ever see in that it doesn’t delve into any sort of factual behind-the-scenes insights into Kubrick’s 1980 film The Shining. Rather, it takes five people and gives them a forum in which to explain what they think the true, hidden meanings in this film are, and they are so wildly divergent, there’s no way they could all be true. However, digging into the mysteries within this enigmatic film is almost as pleasurable as just watching the film itself.

“I can smell your filthy soul.”

Let me get this out of the way right off the bat: There are some sacred cows for me in the world of cinema; films that I consider to be holy and above being remade. Sam Raimi’s Evil Dead is not one of those films. I have no great attachment to the original film, and I was not up in arms over the proposed remake when it was announced. I feel the need to qualify this fact because I am about to tear this remake to shreds, and I don’t want anyone reading this to think that I have some sort of personal animus towards the film based on some affinity for the original.

At first glance, I thought this was the abominable Shadow People (later known as Grizzly Flats) featuring Judd Nelson from 2011. It turns out that it’s just a far superior movie with the same title. I painfully tried to give the Judd-starring film every chance in the world, mainly down to my soft spot for all things Judd Nelson, only to find myself getting more and more of a headache as the film progressed. Thankfully, this latest Shadow People is nowhere near as headache inducing, although it’s certainly not without its faults.

Shadow People tells the supposedly real-life story of a local radio talk show host and his encounters with the shadow people phenomenon. For those not familiar with the term shadow people, it refers to a presence — a people who live in the shadows, attacking people in their sleep. There’s literally million of these reported instances, with people often waking up in a frozen state, unable to move and then being attacked by these shadow people. Google it if you don’t believe me.

More after the break.

Stoker is the English language debut of Park Chan-wook, the man responsible for the likes of Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance, Oldboy, Lady Vengeance, and I’m a Cyborg and Thirst. If you’ve seen any of those films, then you’ll have a sense of what to expect from Park. He pulls no punches, can make you wretch in your stomach when needed and is a master of playing with the emotions of both his characters and his audience.

With Stoker, he tells the tale of a family unit that loses their father in a car wreck. An unknown uncle soon turns up and begins to integrate himself into the family unit, although all is not quite what it seems as the sinister undertones start to become more apparent.

More after the break.

Set up as a sequel to 2009′s The Haunting in Connecticut, this is the story of ghosts and goings on in a remote idyllic house in Georgia. 

Abigail Spencer plays Lisa, a lady that has to take medication to stop her seeing spirits. Chad Michael Murray plays Andy, her husband, and Katee Sackhoff plays Joyce, her sister. Then there’s Emily Alyn Lind as Lisa’s daughter, Heidi, who also starts to develop the same ‘gift’ as her mother.

We join the story with Lisa, Andy and Heidi having recently moved into said idyllic house. Not only is the house large, lavish and homely, but there’s plenty of land — complete with a wood of sorts. Of course, not all is as idyllic as it first appears.

Read the review after the break.

It might have served as a nightmare setting for children that watched Freddy Krueger terrorize many teens, but today the two-story place at 1428 is being billed as a dream home for sale.

More details after the break.

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It was only yesterday that Millennium Films was discussing plans for Texas Chainsaw 4. Well, it now seems that there’s a conflict of sorts going on with the franchise.