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CJ Entertainment Announces New Horror Film Label 413 Pictures

CJ Entertainment announced today they have launched the new horror label, 413 Pictures, whose name is derived from ‘4’ being an unlucky number in Asia and ‘13’, an unlucky number in the U.S. The new label aims to release between two and four English-language genre films and four to five local-language Asian genre films each year. It will have a broad appeal to both Asia and Western markets as its contents will incorporate horror elements from both cultures. The first films to be released under the 413 Pictures label in the U.S. will be Hide and Seek (going into production this fall) and The Housemaid (going into production next year). CJ Entertainment is developing, financing and producing both films. Joel David Moore (“Avatar” franchise) is directing Hide and Seek – a remake of the hit Korean social horror-thriller written and directed by Huh Jung and released to wide critical and commercial success in 2013. The movie builds upon themes related

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Kelli Marchman McNeely

Aug 1, 2018

ForeignIndieMoviesReviews

Movie Review: The Tooth Fairy (2018)

As family and friends gather on a failing rural farm, we learn that years previous they managed to capture an evil witch (the Tooth Fairy…I don’t even fucking know), and imprison her in the barn by way of sugar and dangling candy canes (sounds ridiculous, and it is…but you lot all know I dig on the absurd, so well played movie…well played). Well that seemingly fool proof prison is thwarted when a drifter simply opens the door and frees the wicked bitch of the west (after she chisels some of his teeth out of course). This results in her stalking and granting dark wishes (in exchange for teeth ‘natch) to the sad sack family…now, can they dispatch her once more and get on with their dreary lives? First the positives to be had with the Tooth Fairy. For starters, the dreary setting (always overcast and completely remote) is full atmosphere and a suitable aesthetic choice for the tale of a

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DanXIII

Jul 21, 2018

ForeignMoviesReviews

Blu-ray Review: What Have They Done to Your Daughters? (1974)

After a naked pregnant woman is found hung from the rafters in an attic (and not unlike an overcrowded submarine, she is packed to the gills with semen), Inspector Silvestri (Claudio Cassinelli) and Assistant District Attorney Vittoria Stori (Giovanna Ralli) spring into action. As the duo dig deeper they discover the victim was part of an under-age teenage prostitution ring whose “clients” (read: abusers) are some of your garden variety high society perverts. As the search widens, the bodies begin piling up…thanks to a motorcycle helmet wearing, cleaver wielding psycho. Will our heroes be able to keep their body parts intact until the crime is solved? What Have They Done to Your Daughters? is a damn solid giallo picture, and being such their are a few things you can expect to see…namely excellent practical gore and bloodshed, some detective work through a twist filled plot, and a black gloved, masked killer dispatching folks six ways to Sunday. Along with that

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DanXIII

Jul 15, 2018

ForeignIndieMovies

Movie Review: The Forest of the Lost Souls (2017)

Ricardo (Jorge Mota), an old man who feels he has wronged his family, and Caroline (Daniela Love) a morbid, death obsessed young woman (or as I like to call her, Daniel XIII’s girlfriends 96 -05 editions) enter the eponymous Forest of Lost Souls to commit suicide (what did you think you’d do in a place like that, earn a Forestry badge?). As they converse, we learn of their pasts and find out just how far they are willing to go in their quest for eternal rest. Well, one of the two becomes a lost soul, and one turns out to be one of those knife wielding psychos the kids are always on about these days and heads out to do some murder biz…and no, I’m not going to tell you which one and spoil a movie you’ve never heard of no matter how many nudes you send… The Forest of the Lost Souls is an uncomplicated flick, divided into two

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DanXIII

Jul 14, 2018

ForeignMoviesNewsTrailers

Enter ‘The Forest Of Lost Souls’ This August From Wild Eye Releasing

Wild Eye Releasing has just announced the theatrical release date for the Portuguese “coming of age” horror film The Forest of Lost Souls which made its world premiere at 2017’s Fantasporto Film Festival. Written and directed by José Pedro Lopes, the film centers on “Ricardo and Carolina, complete strangers that meet seemingly by chance in the “Forest of the Lost Souls”, a place where many people go to commit suicide. These two, a young woman and an old man, are no different than the others as they also came to the forest for this very reason. They decide to briefly postpone killing themselves in order to explore the forest and also to continue talking to one another, as Ricardo and Carolina find themselves intrigued by one another. However, as the pair go further into the forest it becomes clear that one of them has other reasons for being in the forest and is not who they would have the other

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Kelli Marchman McNeely

Jul 10, 2018

ForeignIndieMovies

Blu-ray Review: Don’t Grow Up (2015)

In a sparsely populated youth center on a remote island, a group of scruffy young tear-aways get their delinquent on when they discover the facilities supervisor has disappeared. thing remarkably don’t go full Lord of the Flies, mostly because our young antagonists soon learn that every adult in the surrounding area has turned into a rabid zombie like being overnight. Now our heroes must survive the (minor) onslaught and pray they don’t age into monsterhood too soon! Straight up, if you go into Don’t Grow Up expecting a full on zombie holocaust you are going to be severely disappointed. Rather, this flick is a rather somber coming of age drama, acted by an admittedly talented troupe of young thespians. That’s not to say their aren’t a few well done effects sequences here and there, they are just more punctuation on the troubles these kids already have in their lives. Adding to the plus column, the film is well shot with

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DanXIII

Jul 3, 2018

ForeignMoviesReviews

Movie Review: Satan’s Slaves (2017)

Pengabdi Setan, or Satan’s Slaves (the title of both this film and the original 1982 film upon which it is based) concerns a cash strapped Indonesian family who suffers the loss of the matriarch of the clan. Upon her death, the family is left with a lingering debt due in part to having had to pay out the ass for medicine for her preternatural (and mega-creepy) illness. To alleviate that financial burden, Daddy Dearest heads off to the city to find a way to make money leaving his four children home alone. It doesn’t take long before shit hits the frightful fan six ways to Sunday as soon the children’s mother’s ghost begins appearing in ever more frightful ways…and her pact with a Satanic cult to allow her to bear children (she was barren up to that point ‘natch) is revealed. Can our young heroes survive the supernatural’s invasion into their lives (including the aforementioned cult and ghosts, as well

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DanXIII

Jun 23, 2018

ForeignIndieMoviesReviews

Movie Review: Vidar the Vampire (2017)

Pity poor Vidar…be-sodden with an eternally “ill” Mother and at the mercy of a Draconian Christian community, our hero has led an overbearingly monotonous existence keeping up the family farm while trying to conform to societal norms. Seeking escape, Vidar begs Jesus for salvation, looks at a Playboy, dreams of a naked demoness (a dream in which he sees himself as a vampire…that’s foreshadowing for ya), wakes up and smokes a cig, and heads to his barn where a vampire Jesus appears and forces our hero to give him a beej…which turns him into a creature of the night…a bloodsucker who also regularly attends therapy to figure out what condition his condition is in. Dammit Vidar, you are one mother fucker of a film!! Moving on, Vidar begins a debauched journey into all of life’s (and afterlife’s) pleasures with that demon Jesus (there’s the ultimate dichotomy for you) egging him on all the way! Can our hero find his humanity

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DanXIII

Jun 14, 2018

ForeignIndieMoviesReviews

Movie Review: Beyond the Grave (Porto dos Mortos – 2010)

In a post apocalyptic landscape a lone black clad lawman (Rafael Tombini) wanders in search of vengeance against an outre adversary; a demonically possessed serial killer (inspired in no small way by Stephen King’s great creation Randall Flagg). Along his journey our hero takes up with two teenage castaways who tag along on his dark mission, fights monsters and magic, and attempts to retain some semblance of his humanity as he stares further into the abyss of both his quest and the world he inhabits. Highly reminiscent of the D.Y.I., punk rock aesthetic of early ’90’s genre film trailblazers such as Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino, Beyond the Grave presents a story that takes well established tropes and puts a slight spin on them, along with a kinetic energy that ends up being a bit like Mad Max meets Phantasm…a world of grim policemen in muscle cars fighting zombies and magic in dilapidated industrial districts and sprawling bucolic landscapes. Speaking

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DanXIII

Jun 12, 2018

ForeignMovies

Blu-ray Review: The Bloodthirsty Trilogy (1970 – 1974)

No doubt inspired by the success of Hammer Film’s Dracula series, as well as the popularity of the Gothic soap opera Dark Shadows, Japanese movie maestros Toho (of Godzilla fame) decided to get in on the vein drain biz, the result of which are the three film’s I’ll be turning my eerie eyeballs on today! The Vampire Doll (1970): On your standard dark and stormy night, Sagawa (Atsuo Nakamura) returns from abroad and heads to the home of his fiance Yuko Nonomura (Yukiko Kobayashi)…a home that would give Barnabas Collins the fucking creeps no less (at times realized with a fantastic miniature in exterior scenes). Once there, Yuko’s mother; the ultra eerie Shidu (Yôko Minakaze) informs Sagawa his love has died. He opts to spend the night and of course has nightmare visions of his lost love…visions that are soon revealed to be reality resulting in Sagawa’s disappearance. Enter Sagawa’s sister Keiko (Kayo Matsuo) and her fiance Hiroshi (Akira Nakao)

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DanXIII

Jun 11, 2018

Foreign

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