News

Over the last 15 years, director André Øvredal has brought us the likes of Troll Hunter, The Autopsy of Jane Doe, Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, Mortal, and The Last Voyage of the Demeter. He missed out on the Stephen King / Richard Bachman adaptation The Long Walk and has said that not making that movie is one of the big regrets of his life… but he’s not letting that missed opportunity slow him down. Deadline reports that Øvredal is teaming up with Paramount and Walter Hamada’s 18hz on a new horror project – and while we don’t know the title yet, we do know that the the film’s cast includes Oscar winner Melissa Leo (The Fighter), Jacob Scipio (Bad Boys: Ride or Die), and Lou Llobell (Foundation)!

Melissa Leo, Jacob Scipio & Lou Llobell Join André Øvredal's Paramount Horror Pic https://t.co/AOC6qqn5Sl

— Deadline...

At the start of last year, former DC Films boss Walter Hamada signed a first-look deal with Paramount Pictures, the idea being that he would become, as Deadline put it, “the architect of Paramount’s mainstream horror genre pod, with the mission to release several low- to mid-budget films per year across theatrical and streaming.” Recently, there have been casting announcements for a movie called Primate, which is being directed by genre regular Johannes Roberts and is part of Hamada’s horror-minded efforts at Paramount. Now, Deadline has broken the news that another Hamada horror project that’s moving forward at Paramount has gotten another genre regular, Andre Ovredal, to sign on as director.

Ovredal will be directing this other film from a screenplay written by Zachary Donohue and T.W. Burgess. Donohue previously directed and co-wrote the 2013 found footage horror film The Den and wrote and directed the TV series The Unknowable.

Year after year, horror filmmakers desperately search for ways to keep the genre fresh. Whether it's a film entirely from the perspective of the murderer or a found footage movie that abandons narrative cohesion. Bold experimentation is desperately needed to keep the thrills thrilling and the scares scary, but sometimes the pioneering film isn't the one that propels the genre forward. While rare, sometimes a sequel will not only live up to the original but will improve upon the original concept in almost every way.

The "Screenlife" film is a subgenre that became relevant about a decade ago and is undoubtedly the trend that has pushed horror filmmaking forward the most. This subgenre centers around narrative stories told entirely through the screen of a device, whether it be a computer, laptop, or a cell phone. The genre was popularized by 2014's Unfriended but wasn't mastered until four years later with...

Back when Unfriended was still going by the title of Cybernatural, director Leo Gabriadze said he came onto the project because he was attracted to the story’s subject matter. Nelson Greaves’ script demonstrated how personal harassment had since changed in the digital age; in particular those younger people whose torment went beyond the classroom. The internet had not only made a bully’s reach greater but also unavoidable. And in true horror fashion, Unfriended provided an unsettling portrayal of victimhood as well as sadistic retribution from beyond the grave.

Unfriended immediately broke tradition by staying close to home as opposed to traveling to the deep, dark woods or anywhere else teens tend to go and die in horror. More unusual was the unexciting premise of these characters video-chatting all night instead of meeting in person at an ominous social event of some kind. After years of critics reproaching the...

As Screenlife storytelling transitions into the livestream era, movies like Michelle Iannantuono’s Livescreamers have me most excited. Early Screenlife films like Unfriended and The Den read like one-takers but are computer-set events like someone recorded their computer monitor or laptop screen. What Livescreamers offers — or examples like Spree, Deadstream, and #chadgetstheaxe — is the propulsive energy of a continuous stream devolving into chaos. Creators who put on celebrity identities face dreadful realities, not the protective online bubbles they’ve built where their antics draw millions of views. Livescreamers cherrypicks elements of Stay Alive, House on Haunted Hill, Unfriended, and cringy video game playthrough streams to create something horrifying that both sells its chills and comments on the vulnerable current state of livestream culture.

Low-budget restraints might hold back specific effects, and the film’s narrative throughline is a little wonky in spots, but what Iannantuono accomplishes comes from a place of authenticity.

If you’re looking to up the creep factor with your Fourth of July festivities, we’ve found the perfect pairing for your annual rewatches of holiday horror favorites like Jaws and I Know What You Did Last Summer — Anthony Sellitti’s terrifying short film, “Deep End“!

Check out Bloody Disgusting’s exclusive short debut below.

When an adventurous young boy (Cardin Benjamin) sneaks into a seemingly serene swimming pool on a hot summer day, he discovers what lurks beneath the surface is more terrifying than he ever could have imagined. Clocking under five minutes, this short aquatic horror film artfully evokes a timeless sense of summer nostalgia, while also tapping into the universal childhood memories of swimming in a pool, where the deep end and the unknown abyss beneath our feet filled our minds with fear.

If Jaws made you afraid of the ocean, “Deep End” will definitely make...

(Welcome to The Daily Stream, an ongoing series in which the /Film team shares what they've been watching, why it's worth checking out, and where you can stream it.)

The Series: "The Unknowable"

Where You Can Stream It: YouTube

The Pitch: One fateful night in 1948, Thaddeus Wilcox fled his seemingly perfect home in San Francisco with his wife, Fanny, and her mute sister, Mabel, and headed to the Mojave Desert, to a strip known as Silent Creek. It was there he attempted to make contact with an unknown species not of this earth, prompted by frightening visions and his wife's strange dreams. But in doing so, he unexpectedly invited in something even worse, something more sinister than he could've imagined, creating a disturbing pathway to one of the most haunting stories the world we live in may never know ... that is, until now, with "The Unknowable."

Vintage cosmic horror in...

Where found footage was once a revolutionary format for the digital age, our constantly rotating world is now looking to the internet for its innovation. The "screenlife" subgenre has mostly been seen through the lens of horror movies like "Unfriended," "Host," and "The Den." But it was director Aneesh Chaganty's "Searching" where it felt like I was watching something new being born. In screenlife, computers are not only used for the narrative sake of an investigative thriller, but to tell us more about the characters within. An invisible camera guides the eyes of an audience to where it needs them to be, utilizing the conventional methods of filmmaking for a new kind of cinematic language.

"Searching" feels extra special when the people watching it within its specific era are able to understand the intricacies of going onto a certain website, or opening up an app. I've really started to...

Epistolary storytelling has been immersing readers in fiction since the very dawn of literature. Using simulated letters, diaries and other documents to craft complex tales with shifting points of view, the format inevitably ended up attracting inventive filmmakers who realized that it could be adapted into a cinematic tool to instill terror. From The McPherson Tape to The Blair Witch Project, Found Footage movies have kept the epistolary tradition alive through their use of faux home video and other diegetic media.

However, with over four decades of Found Footage experiments out there, the genre has seen quite a bit of innovation. Personally, I think one of the most interesting off-shoots of Found Footage is the ongoing trend of Screenlife films, where the entire narrative is told within the confines of digital screens. While this curious format has only recently become popular in mainstream media, it’s actually older than most people seem to realize,...

For found footage horror fans, Zachary Donohue’s 2013 feature debut The Den is often regarded as one of the scariest films in the subgenre and a pioneer of the screen life storytelling format. Using various computer- and app-based interactions to follow a graduate student being targeted by a vicious killer after witnessing a murder online, […]

The post ‘The Den’ Director Zachary Donohue on New Audio Thriller “Uncomfortably Numb” and ‘The Den’ Sequel [Interview] appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

Israeli series “The Lesson,” a taut half-hour series parable on the vicious spiral of social media confrontation, took top honors on Wednesday night at a spirited 2022 Canneseries festival whose main competition was buoyed by titles from some of the boldest players in the business.

With “The Lesson” co-lead, the extraordinary Maya Landsmann, walking off with best performance for her nuanced turn as a super-sized troubled teen who goads her liberal teacher into a personal attack on her physical appearance – a put-down which goes viral – the series can rate as the big winner at this year’s event.

Produced by Yochanan Kredo at Jasmine TV for Israeli broadcaster Kan 11 – and scoring huge numbers when aired on the network – the show, written by Deakla Keydar and directed by Eitan Zur (“Asylum City”), also exemplifies the virtues of much best Israeli TV drama: Taut, pointed writing, great acting, direction which serves the drama,...

ABC has rounded out the series regular cast for its single-camera comedy pilot Not Dead Yet. Josh Banday (Upload), Jessica St. Clair (Avenue 5), Mary Elizabeth Ellis (It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia), Angela Gibbs (This Is Us) and Rick Glassman (As We See It) are set as leads opposite Gina Rodriguez in the pilot from The Real O’Neals creators Casey Johnson and David Windsor, McG and 20th Television.

In the project, based on Alexandra Potter’s Confessions of a Forty-Something F**k Up, published in 2020, broke, newly single and feeling old, Nell Stevens (Rodriguez) – a self-described disaster – works to restart the life and career she left behind 10 years ago. Moving back home to Pasadena – a world where everyone seems to have a better life than she does Nell can only afford to share an apartment with a stranger who monitors how much electricity she uses and...

The Santa Barbara Film Festival on Thursday revealed the lineup for its 37th edition, which is set to run March 2-12 in-person in its customary spot in the heat of Oscar season.

The festival will kick off with The Phantom of the Open, the Sony Pictures Classics comedy directed by Craig Roberts and starring Mark Rylance in the true story of Maurice Fitcroft, who entered the 1976 British Open despite never having played a round of golf before. Sally Hawkins and Rhys Ifans also star in the BBC Films pic.

The documentary Dionne Warwick: Don’t Make Me Over is the closing-night film, with Warwick set to be in attendance.

Overall, the festival in the beach city just north of Los Angeles will present 48 world premieres and 95 U.S. premieres from 54 countries, with a lineup that features films from directors Neil Labute, Ramin Bahrani, François Ozon, Eva Husson and more.

Also...

Netherlands-based sales outfit Dfw International has acquired Ruud Schuurman’s (“Lost in the Game”) romantic comedy “Taste of Love” ahead of the European Film Market.

“Taste of Love” stars Barbara Sloesen (“Life As It Should Be”) as Monica, who left her small village behind her and even changed her name to start a new life in Amsterdam. She’s now a renowned chef at a popular venue in Amsterdam. When she and her boyfriend want to open a new restaurant at a dream location, she is forced to return to her village where she comes across her first love. “Taste of Love” is produced by Tom de Mol Productions and Interstellar Pictures.

Sloesen recently headlined Schuurman’s 2020 comedy “Life As It Should Be,” which was a local B.O. hit and was acquired by Netflix.

Dfw International’s slate also includes the Belgian web series “Hacked,” which will be presented...

Netflix’s Tiger King was already among the most eventful and insane docuseries ever produced. Its seven episodes covered everything from tiger sex cults to murder-for-hire plots to some incredible music videos. According to one source, however, there is still more story to come.

Exotic zoo owner Jeff Lowe, who is one of many colorful characters covered in Tiger King, reports that Netflix will be adding a new episode to the seven-episode series to its servers as early as next week. The news comes from (try to follow us on this one) Los Angeles Dodgers baseball player Justin Turner’s Twitter account posting a video that Twitter user @christie_dish received from Jeff Lowe via the celebrity messaging service Cameo. Phew! Check it out below.

So our friend @christie_dish listened to the podcast, @HoldingKourt and after last weeks episode decided to send us this!!!

As Jim Gordon famously declared in Batman Begins upon seeing a certain customized car abruptly emerge, “I’ve gotta get me one of those.”

The brand-new Batmobile has been revealed in all its horse-powered glory! In the latest tease from The Batman director Matt Reeves, a prominent first glimpse has arrived showcasing his upcoming movie’s take on what is, perhaps, the most iconic car in pop culture history. What’s immediately clear is that this is a conceptual reinvention of the vehicle, seemingly rooted in the theme of the film’s setting during the early era of the Caped Crusader, who will be played here by Robert Pattinson.

Hina Khan?s much awaited debut in Bollywood with the film ?Hacked? . The trailer of Hacked drops today. Hina Khan makes a promising debut in the film

Hina Khan is one of the most talented actresses in the television industry is all set to make her Bollywood debut in Vikram Bhatt?s film

Also Read:?Hina Khan looks hot on the cover page

The makers shared the trailer with a captioned, "You are being watched. If you lose control, you lose everything. #Hacked trailer out now" .The trailer shows a teenage boy (Rohan Shah) who is in love with Sam (Hina Khan) but Sam does not love her back as he is only 19 year old boy who is obessed with her. But things dont go as planned he hacks all her social media accounts. This obsession takes an ugly turn. She has been Hacked in an internet world with this...

Bollywood actress Hina Khan is currently busy with her upcoming movie 'Hacked'. Hacked is a stalker thriller directed by Vikram Bhatt, starring Hina Khan, Rohan Shah, Mohit Malhotra and Sid Makkar on February 7, 2020 in India.

Produced by Amar Thakkar and Krishna Bhatt, the film is an edgy thriller that promises to keep you at the edge of your seat.

Hina Khan has been giving everyone fitness goals ever since her successful stints on the reality show Bigg Boss 11. Hina dropped the cover on her social media account. She captioned it, Cover girl for @fitlookmagazine ?s 3rd anniversary issue.

Check out the photo below:...

Actress Hina Khan has just made her digital debut on the web series "Damaged 2" and is all set for her Bollywood debut with Vikram Bhatt's "Hacked" next month. Having carved her space as a star on television in the past, she feels her career is on the right path.

"I think I am on the right path because I always say that there has to be a bouquet or variety that I would like to present to my viewers. That is why I make sure I don't stick to just television or films," said Hina at a promotional event for "Damaged 2" in Mumbai.

Also Read:?Hina Khan,Tapsee Pannu, Soha Ali Khan share their Health resolutions

"Although I am going to make my Hindi film debut on February 7, it is important to also be in the digital space because that is what people love nowadays. People want to watch you everywhere on their cellphone,...

Exclusive: The production company Elegant Grotesque announced today that Star Trek: Discovery star Anthony Rapp has signed on to star alongside Vivian Kerr in Scrap, which she also wrote and produced.

An adaptation of the short film of the short by the same name written by Kerr and directed by Leena Penharkar, the film follows a young single-mom, Beth (Kerr), who is newly homeless. Laid off from her white-collar job, Beth struggles to maintain the appearance of a successful middle-class lifestyle as she bounces around the neighborhoods of Los Angeles. Hoping to land a new job and change her situation before her family and friends find out, Beth dodges phone calls from her estranged older brother Ben (Rapp) and struggles with the guilt of having left her young daughter Birdy in his care. Unable to face her own failure, Beth must deal with the very real dangers of living out...

Stars: Brendan Byrne, Leoni Leaver, Rebecca Callander, Bob Clark | Written and Directed by Dane Millerd

There’s not a more overwrought and overused genre trope as the found footage format, at least in terms of direct to DVD movies, with many film makers using the format in place of having a decent story. Which means – at least for me – the sub-genre has become something of a nadir when it comes to horror.

However once in a while the format can be used to great effect, and this year there have been some stellar entries in the found-footage genre, be it in the cinema or on DVD: The Den, Willow Creek, Across the River, The Cellar and Black Water Vampire. And now you can add Aussie horror Prying Eyes (such a poor re-title of There’s Something in the Pilliga) to the list.

Australia has something of a tradition of producing some great exploitation movies,...

Tapping into how technology has invaded nearly every facet of our lives, Aneesh Chaganty’s Searching (which was previously known as Search) is an incredible piece of filmmaking and a stunning feature-length debut from an up-and-coming director who has crafted one of the most innovative and uniquely gripping thrillers to come out in some time. While his approach may be reminiscent of recent films like Unfriended, The Den, or even Open Windows, Searching confidently blazes its own path, perfectly blending tension and tech, and giving us a story with a real emotional core at its center, which hit me harder than I was expecting. Simply put, Searching is a truly exemplary effort from everyone involved.

Told through the use of laptops, iPhones, and other portable electronic devices, Searching first introduces us to the Kim family through a montage of visuals, including home videos, pictures, texts, and emails. Through these images,...

Though it arrived in a familiar package for fans of films like The Den and Unfriended–an unsettling story told entirely on a computer screen–Timur Bekmambetov‘s thriller Profile surprised audiences with a novel-enough dose of tension at this year’s SXSW Conference, winning the Audience Award in the Visions section of the conference’s Film Track. Bekmambetov (Abraham Lincoln: Vampire […]...

Reviewed by Jennica Lynn Johnson

MoreHorror.com

As a teenager, being able to watch torture porn without vomiting was an achievement that was held in high regards. My friends and I would frequently visit sites such as Rotten.com to seek out the latest photos of disturbing bodily injuries; we would scour the internet for the Two-Girls-One-Cup video and the Mr. Hands video. It was like a mature version of truth-or-dare; an extreme gross-out game.

After viewing numerous photos and videos of this nature, however, it is easy to become desensitized to the gore and violence and forget that not all of the people in the images are acting. The naive assumption that the brutality witnessed on the internet must be staged is one of the many issues of the 21st century that is addressed in The Den (2013).

In his feature film debut as both a screenwriter and director, Zachary Donohue...

Well it’s that time of year again – the one where websites across the globe churn out Top 10 list after top ten list. So why should we be any different?! Yet whilst we may be following the predictable end of year lists, I can guarantee that my list is anything but predictable, featuring films from across the globe: including the Us, Canada, Italy, Australia, New Zealand and even good old Blighty!

This year more than ever there has been film after film that knocked it out of the park for me – which is why my Top 10 list has Two sections: the Top 10 and then the pick of 35(!) more brilliant movies (I would have loved this list to be a Top 45, honestly). So what’s my criteria? Well it has to be a movie I’ve seen this year, one that was released this year, i.e. making its UK debut,...

Shades of Mr. Gray: The Vicious Bros.’ Unsatisfying Close Encounter

Following the unanticipated success of their 2011 film debut, Grave Encounters (which feels very much like the derivative, found footage version of a variety of other abandoned mental hospital narratives, including Brad Anderson’s Session 9, but hey, someone managed to squeeze out Grave Encounters 2 for good measure), the Vicious Bros. are back with a sophomore effort, Extraterrestrial. Can you guess what it’s about? Reportedly based on a tale they drafted back in their college days, the film bears the earmarks of pedantic indistinctness, a generic thrust of recycled, disambiguated alien abduction narratives that’s not only hopelessly shallow but utterly routine.

April (Brittany Allen) and longtime beau Kyle (Freddie Stroma) are heading off to a weekend getaway at her parents’ cabin, about to be sold as part of what sounds like a tense divorce settlement. A trip already...

Stars: Brittany Allen, Freddie Stroma, Melanie Papalia, Jesse Moss, Anja Savcic, Sean Rogerson, Emily Perkins, Mike Kovac, Fred Keating, Gil Bellows, Michael Ironside | Written and Directed by The Vicious Brothers

The Vicious Brothers, writer/directors of the two popular Grave Encounters found-footage flicks, turn their hands to a more traditional narrative movie, mixing traditional filming methods with their penchant for Pov shaky-cam, with Extraterrestrial.

Still reeling from her parents divorce, April (Brittany Allen) is dragged back to the vacation cabin she spent fond summers at as a child accompanied by a group of friends. Her trip down memory lane takes a dramatic and terrifying turn when a fireball descends from the sky and explodes in the nearby woods. Lead by her boyfriend (Freddie Stroma), the group venture out toward the crash site and discover the remnants of a ship from another planet along with footprints that suggest its alien occupants are still alive.

After two tours of the paranormal-plagued Collingwood Psychiatric Hospital, Colin Minihan and Stuart Ortiz, the writing/directing duo known as The Vicious Brothers, are stepping out of the asylum’s haunted halls and into the woods for their latest film, Extraterrestrial, now available on VOD. We have three new clips from the movie that show what happens when you engage visitors from the sky.

“From The Vicious Brothers, the creators of Grave Encounters comes a different kind of encounter, one of ‘Extraterrestrial’ origin. Still reeling from her parents’ divorce, April (Daytime Emmy winner, Brittany Allen) is dragged back to the vacation cabin she spent fond summers at as a child accompanied by a group of friends. Her trip down memory lane takes a dramatic and terrifying turn when a fireball descends from the sky and explodes in the nearby woods. Lead by her boyfriend, played by Freddie Stroma (Harry Potter & The Half Blooded Prince,...

The Vicious Brothers are no rookies to horror. Cult classic Grave Encounters and its sequel are neatly tucked into their resume and now they are delving into a completely different spectrum of horror with Extraterrestrial. I’m sure you can guess what it’s about.

A group of kids head out into the woods to spend a weekend partying. April (Brittany Allen) and Kyle (Freddie Stroma) are a solid couple who bring along April’s best friend Mel (Melanie Papalia, The Den) and the obligatory loud friend Seth (Jesse Moss) and his newest arm candy Lex (Anja Savcic.) Before long they get on bad terms with Sheriff Murray (Gil Bellows) and wander onto a gigantic pot farm being grown by an old acquaintance of April, the conspiracy theorist Travis (played by the always great Michael Ironside).

The post Review: The Vicious Brothers Return With Extraterrestrial appeared first on Shock Till You Drop.

Well, that looked real.

First came the internet, then came chat rooms, then came Facebook, then FaceTime, then lifecasting, and then murder! As spooky faces come from behind unsuspecting victims in IFC Midnight's release, The Den (2014), the scares and vicarious running makes way only for the desire to understand why it's happening. Elizabeth Benton (Melanie Papalia) is an academic of some variety studying the weird wide world of video chat rooms, specifically The Den, all of which will be recorded as from her computer screen. A vast plurality just want to have the pretty miss Lizzy take her top off, but some are benign while others are a mean set of pranksters. When one interaction looks as though a young girl is murdered on screen, Elizabeth is convinced it's real and is dragged down into a living nightmare.

Read more...

Well this years Frightfest is over and I’ve had a week to digest everything – it’s safe to say this year was… interesting. The move from the Empire to Vue West End, whilst not without the odd teething problem, was a success. Yes, the atmosphere had changed a little, at least in terms of experiencing a film with hundreds of people instead of thousands, but the positives of the move truly outweighed any negatives. My personal positive? The wide range of films on show this year and that fact there was No problems getting into the Discovery Screens this year – which in my own case, was where I saw some of the best films of the festival.

Speaking of films, whilst there was no outstanding, totally blown me away, movie this year, there overall standard was Very high, with only one real dud of the entire week (and I...

Stars: Melanie Papalia, David Schlachtenhaufen, Matt Riedy, Adam Shapiro, Victoria Hanlin, Matt Lasky, Brian Bell | Written by Zachary Donohue, Lauren Thompson | Directed by Zachary Donohue

It may seem, given my past reviews of found footage movies, that all I do is spew bile and vitriol when it comes to a lot of these particular movies but that doesn’t mean I’m not willing to still give the genre a a fair shake. Good job too, otherwise I would have missed out on a great example of it in The Den.

The idea of using the internet (and webcams) is nothing new in horror, it’s cropped up in dozens of movies, some good, a lot bad. With the advent of webcams, CCTV and “always-connected” devices, any good horror movie villain would – given that using the net is his or her modus operandi – have almost total control over their victims lives.

Welcome back to This Week In Discs! If you see something you like, click on the title to buy it from Amazon. The Den Liz (Melanie Papalia) has received a grant to study The Den, a popular online video-chat service (like ChatRoulette) that matches up strangers for conversations, interactions and dick pics. After being pranked a few times by bored kids she witnesses what she believes to be a real murder and calls the police. Nothing comes of it, but she’s thereafter harassed by a particular user capable of infiltrating and controlling her laptop. Soon her friends and family are targeted by the unknown assailant and Liz is forced into an online fight with real-world consequences. You have every right and reason to be leery. This horror flick is composed entirely of footage captured on webcams, cell phones, GoPros and more. Even less promising, the images are displayed as video windows on a computer screen. I...

The line-up for this year's Film4 FrightFest in London has just been announced – and boy, is it a doozy! Sporting a record-breaking 38 UK/European premieres and 11 world premieres, this August is going to be an exciting time in the genre calendar.

Check it all out right here, including lots of new images!

This year Film4 FrightFest will be moving from its previous home at Leicester Square's Empire Cinema to the nearby Vue Cinema (also on Leicester Square), prompting an ingenious reshuffle of the screening arrangements.

All main screen films will be presented at different times across three different screens, with two extra screens reserved for single-slot screenings of the various films hitting this year's Discovery Screens.

Here's the full list of goodies:

Main Screens (5, 6, 7)

Thursday Aug 21

Opening Night Film - The Guest (UK Premiere)

Director: Adam Wingard. Cast: Dan Stevens, Maika Monroe, Brendan Meyer, Sheila Kelley, Leland Orser. USA 2014. 99 mins.

Film4 FrightFest 2014, returning for its 15th year, unveils its biggest line-up ever. From Thurs 21 August to Monday 25 August, the UK’s leading event for genre fans will be at the Vue West End, Leicester Square, to present sixty-four films plus twenty shorts across five screens. There are sixteen countries representing five continents with a record-breaking thirty-eight UK or European premieres and eleven world premieres.

Are you ready for a monstrous and memorable mayhem of killer claws, cannibalism, cult classics, murderous musicals, chiller thrillers, graphic novel action and sick celluloid masterpieces? Then prepare yourself for the biggest, strongest and most eclectic must-see programme in Film4 FrightFest’s history.

From the opening night turbo-driven thrill-ride The Guest to the UK premiere of the closing night mesmeric sci-fi fantasy The Signal, FrightFest has netted the latest works from genre big-hitters such as Eli Roth (The Green Inferno), Alan Moore and Mitch Jenkins (Show...

Tagline: "He wants to watch you." Director: Zachary Donohue. Writers: Zachary Donohue and Lauren Thompson. Cast: Melanie Papalia, David Schlachtenhaufen, Matt Riedy and Adam Shapiro. The Den is a film from first time director and scriptwriter Zachary Donohue. This title was released through IFC Midnight's online platform in mid-March. And, this film fan wished he heard of the film earlier. The Den focuses on the protagonist Elizabeth (Melanie Papalia), who is exploring the internet's dark underbelly. Elizabeth loses control of a research project. And, Donohue films all of her failures through an interesting collection of mediums. Shot with an innovative style, The Den is one of the best found footage films to come by way of Los Angeles in awhile. The story is a character study of Elizabeth. Elizabeth is a bright, young woman with a brilliant future. However, her choice of study is a poor one. You see, there...

It never ceases to amaze me when total strangers will send me Skype requests, like I'm really gonna go have a conversation with someone I don't know. Maybe I should hire the big bad of the new flick The Den (review) to handle my calls? Speaking of which... check out this exclusive alternate poster!

Directed by Zach Donahue, the film stars Melanie Papalia, Adam Shapiro, David Schlactenhaufen, and Matt Riedy.

Synopsis

After receiving a grant for her graduate thesis, Elizabeth Benton (Melanie Papalia) logs onto a video-chat site known as The Den on a mission to explore the habits of its users. During one of her random video-chats, Elizabeth watches in horror as a teenage girl is gruesomely murdered in front of her webcam. While the police dismiss it as a viral prank, Elizabeth believes what she saw is real and takes it upon herself to find the truth.

Her...

It's the little things that keep us going here at Dread Central, like promotional gimmicks for new horror flicks. Hot on the heels of the release of IFC's The Den (review) comes this bit of interactive fun, which allows you to insert yourself and your friends into the film's poster.

All you've gotta do is upload some pictures, and voila, you become a part of the voyeuristic thriller, which is being described as Rear Window for the internet age. Head over to The Den's official website to get started!

Directed by Zach Donahue, the film stars Melanie Papalia, Adam Shapiro, David Schlactenhaufen, and Matt Riedy.

Synopsis

After receiving a grant for her graduate thesis, Elizabeth Benton (Melanie Papalia) logs onto a video-chat site known as The Den on a mission to explore the habits of its users. During one of her random video-chats, Elizabeth watches in horror as a...

“The Den,” IFC Midnight’s tech-thriller, is now available for thriller fans on VOD and in select theaters. The film, directed by Zach Donahue, written by Donahue and Lauren Thompson and starring Melanie Papalia, Adam Shapiro, David Schlactenhaufen and Matt Riedy, could be seen as a commentary on today’s video-chat culture. In the film, a girl realizes that she’s witnessed a heinous act while on a video-chat site, but no one believes her when she says what she saw. “After receiving a grant for her graduate thesis, Elizabeth Benton (Melanie Papalia) logs onto a video-chat site known as The Den, on a mission to explore the habits of its users. During [ Read More ]

The post The Den Now Open in Select Theaters and VOD appeared first on Shockya.com.

Today marks the limited theatrical and VOD release of Zach Donahue's The Den (review), which takes you on a trip to the dark side of modern technology.

If you're not yet sold on giving the flick a VOD rental, check out a trio of brand spankin' new clips below, which should whet your appetite for voyeuristic violence!

The films stars Melanie Papalia, Adam Shapiro, David Schlactenhaufen, and Matt Riedy.

Synopsis

After receiving a grant for her graduate thesis, Elizabeth Benton (Melanie Papalia) logs onto a video-chat site known as The Den on a mission to explore the habits of its users. During one of her random video-chats, Elizabeth watches in horror as a teenage girl is gruesomely murdered in front of her webcam. While the police dismiss it as a viral prank, Elizabeth believes what she saw is real and takes it upon herself to find the truth.

Her life...

Be careful on who you meet on the Internet.

“The Den” is a thriller horror movie about a young college student studying social networking on random video chat rooms similar to Chatroulette. And then unexpectedly, she witnesses a murder in one of the chat sessions as strange events follow the incident.

The film stars Melanie Papalia, David Schlachtenhaufen and Matt Riedy. It marks the directorial debut for Zachary Donohue.

Latino-Review had an exclusive telephone interview with actress Melanie Papalia on her experiences with the film and Chatroulette. She recalls the creepiness of socializing on the Internet and the reflections back towards the movie.

“The Den” is playing in select theaters and available on VOD.

Read the interview transcript below.

Latino-Review: What attracted you to the script for “The Den?”

Melanie Papalia: I think one of the main things that attracted me was that it’s not often a movie...

The film The Den (review) brings a whole new, and much-needed, twist to the found-footage sub-genre of horror. Recently director and co-writer Zachary Donohue sat down with Dread Central to talk about his film.

For starters, Donohue discussed what he hoped to convey to the audience with The Den. "This is unlike any found footage movie you've ever seen," he said. "We wanted to create a movie that felt like you were on your own computer screen."

He added, "We wanted to convey this voyeuristic sense that maybe you shouldn't be watching this movie because you're privy to this character's emails, her chats. We really just wanted to tap into that idea of voyeurism."

But more than just peeping in on someone's life, Donohue also wanted The Den to portray the internet as it actually exists. "We wanted to create a funhouse," he said. "This is a movie about the internet,...

Unlawful Entry: Donohue’s Debut a Promising Idea with Faulty Execution

Director Zachary Donohue brings the home invasion thriller to the millennial doorstep with his directorial debut, The Den. Unfortunately, the advanced technology that furthers the narrative of his film gets reduced to a gimmick, wedding itself to the same glorious faults of the found footage genre as it manages to arrive feeling just a titch outdated already, as well as managing to be a visual eyesore with its insistence on unfolding almost exclusively from computer and/or phone cams. Distant, very distant echoes of classic women in peril films from the vaults of vintage Hollywood may put one in mind of something fun and classy (and incredibly campy) like the sickly Barbara Stanwyck character in Sorry, Wrong Number (1948), an element that lends Donohue’s material incredible and unprecedented mileage in building tension. But an eventual marriage with standard...

While “first person” style horror certainly isn’t going anywhere thanks to a minimal budget/maximum profit scenario, I’m momentarily giddy because directors are once again looking for inspiration elsewhere. Recently I reviewed a Chatroulette inspired horror film called The Den, whose ingenuity I ended up praising. Following hot on the technical heels of Zachary Donohue is Nacho Vigalondo’s own internet hacking nightmare, Open Windows.

Vigalondo’s title refers to the numerous open program windows on his main character’s computer, representing the portal for our viewing experience. Mixing elements of suspense, home invasions, voyeurism, and celebrity idolization, Vigalondo makes us fear a culture of hackers who can re-write history with a simple keystroke – through a convoluted story more tangled than the interwebz.

Nick Chambers (Elijah Wood) manages one of the most popular fan sites for actress Jill Goddard (Sasha Grey), a sultry celeb adored by the masses.

8mm updated for the Skype age, Zachary Donohue's The Den reminds us that those looking for the worst shades of humanity need only spend a few minutes video-chatting with strangers. After receiving a grant to study every nook and cranny of The Den, a stand-in for such chat sites as Chatroulette and Omegle, it isn't long before Elizabeth (Melanie Papalia) has seen a kid with a monster in his closet, an abundance of swinging dicks, and what's either a very convincing prank or an actual teenage girl getting her throat slit. This naturally leads down a rabbit hole for which the mild-mannered grad student is wholly unprepared. The entirety of Donohue's film is shown from the point of view of its heroine's computer desktop, usually with both her webcam's feed and that o...

In the inventive low-budget horror thriller “The Den,” Canadian-born actress Melanie Papalia plays Elizabeth Benton, a graduate student who undertakes a study on the eponymous video-chat site, and witnesses a gruesome murder via webcam. Others dismiss it as a viral prank, but Elizabeth isn’t so sure, and finds herself trapped in a twisted game in which she and her loved ones are targeted for the same grisly fate. For ShockYa, Brent Simon recently had a chance to speak with Papalia one-on-one, about the film, bad Skype connections, ChatRoulette nudity, Uwe Boll, and how John Travolta would pronounce her name at the Oscars. The conversation is excerpted below: ShockYa: You were in another movie centering [ Read More ]

The post Exclusive: Melanie Papalia Talks The Den, Uwe Boll, Web Chat Nudity appeared first on Shockya.com.

Bored at night? Ever visited Chatroulette?

Like any Internet trend, Chatroulette opened up a new world of randomly meeting people with one’s webcam. But, the Internet world is very dangerous and you’ll never know what kind of random stranger you’ll meet.

Horror thriller “The Den” sets itself in this webcam social networking arena with a young college student trying to research her thesis. She witnesses pranks, nude flashers, foreigners, dancers, etc. Until she came across a video, in which she witnessed a murder. And then strange things started to happen.

The film stars a few relatively young stars with Melanie Papalia (“Smiley”), David Schlachtenhaufen (“Loose Cannons: The Movie”) and Adam Shapiro (“Now You See Me”). It is the directorial debut for Zachary Donohue, who wrote the script with Lauren Thompson.

Although “The Den” is a fictitious horror setting, it plays into the certain themes of Internet stalkers...

In this exclusive clip from The Den, Elizabeth gets involved in random video chats. She encounters a Nigerian spammer before stumbling on what might be the actual murder of a young girl. Surprisingly, she didn't come across any penises.

The Den opens in select theaters and VOD on March 14th.

Official synopsis: After receiving a grant for her graduate thesis, Elizabeth Benton (Melanie Papalia) logs onto a video-chat site known as The Den, on a mission to explore the habits of its users. During one of her random video-chats, Elizabeth watches in horror as a teenage girl is gruesomely murdered in front of her webcam. While the police dismiss it as a viral prank, Elizabeth believes what she saw is real and takes it upon herself to find the truth. Her life quickly spirals out of control as she gets pulled deeper into the darkest recesses of the internet. And eventually,...

The internet is a vile, abhorrent, perverse beast. Need proof besides the countless websites of illegal pornography, shared videos of actual human deaths, and constant accreditation of the “Brony” culture? Please, look no further than a brilliant idea turned into a cesspool for perverts – Chatroulette. Don’t lie, we’ve all gotten hammered one night (many nights) in college and scoured this video chat service looking for some debaucherous internet lulz, only to stumble upon an endless parade of naked men beating their meat for the world to see. Give a man the technology to communicate with any inch of the globe on command, promoting cultural knowledge and uninterrupted encounters with countless interesting people, and all he’ll end up with is a sticky keyboard apparently. Right, and you’re going to argue that society isn’t screwed?

Enter Zachary Donohue, a first time writer/director who noticed the inherent...

The official details and a brand spanking new one-sheet have arrived for the social horror film The Den, and we have that and everything else you need to know about this flick right here for ya! Dig it!

From director Zach Donahue comes The Den, starring Melanie Papalia, Adam Shapiro, David Schlactenhaufen, and Matt Riedy.

Look for it from IFC Midnight in select theaters and on VOD on Friday, March 14th, 2014.

Synopsis

After receiving a grant for her graduate thesis, Elizabeth Benton (Papalia) logs on to a video chat site known as The Den on a mission to explore the habits of its users. During one of her random video chats, Elizabeth watches in horror as a teenage girl is gruesomely murdered in front of her webcam. While the police dismiss it as a viral prank, Elizabeth believes what she saw is real and takes it upon herself to find the truth.