British Horror

Fans of Peter Cushing are in for a Halloween treat, with the iconic Frankenstein star the latest to be resurrected by AI.

In Hammer: Heroes, Legends and Monsters, a Sky doc airing in two days’ time, viewers will be treated to a “powerful and poignant reveal of Hammer royalty,” Sky said, with what is being described as a “special homage” to Cushing.

Cushing, who died in 1994, played Doctor Van Helsing in five Dracula films and Baron Frankenstein in six movies from that franchise. He will be the latest celebrity given the AI resurrection treatment.

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Narrated by Charles Dance, the doc is celebrating Hammer Films‘ 90th birthday and will track its progression from a back office in London’s Regent Street to its iconic status within the horror film genre. We first revealed news of the doc in August.

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This isn’t the first time Cushing has been resurrected. His likeness was revived as Grand Moff Tarkin for 2016’s Rogue One: A Star Wars Story and a high court legal battle over the use of the image was recently ruled by a judge to go to trial.

Ben Field, who runs Deep Fusion, said the Hammer doc resurrection has secured all necessary permissions. The decision to resurrect Cushing is “tied to his significance to the Hammer legacy,” he added. “As a figure central to Hammer’s success, Cushing’s presence is crucial to telling the story authentically,” he added. “His work, particularly alongside Christopher Lee, was instrumental in shaping the brand and legacy of Hammer Films. Including him allows the project to honor the spirit and impact he had on the studio and its fans, creating a connection between the past and this new exploration.”

The use of deepfake technology has been approached with “great care,” Field added. “The team’s intent is not to manipulate or sensationalize but to use technology as a tool to bring audiences closer to the history of Hammer Films in an engaging and reverent manner.”

Hammer: Heroes, Legends and Monsters will follow other influential figures from the horror genre such as Lee. Tim Burton, John Carpenter, Joe Dante and John Logan will also feature. Through a series of fateful turns, the film will reveal how Hammer’s distinct visual style and storytelling continue to shape modern horror and inspire filmmakers around the world.

For a good scare with a local twist, look no further than Haunted Ulster Live — a new Belfast-based spookfest that is streaming on Amazon Prime Video and Apple TV. When interviewed last year by this newspaper about the comedy-horror film, director Dominic O’Neill had described it as being a bit like “UTV meets The Blair Witch Project”.

Now he has referenced it as also being a love letter to Northern Ireland in the “90s, and local community television”.

A synopsis for the movie says: “On Halloween night 1998, Northern Ireland TV veteran Gerry Burns teams up with popular new children’s presenter Michelle Kelly to investigate poltergeist activity in a reputedly haunted house in Belfast. Light entertainment turns to horror when an unseen terror reveals itself.

“Combining found footage horror, folklore and a nostalgia for regional television, Haunted Ulster Live recreates a familiar world of 90s light entertainment which, much like Belfast itself during the Northern Ireland Troubles, is haunted by something unseen and sinister.”

Haunted Ulster Live premiered at FrightFest 2023, with a local premiere at the Belfast Film Festival.

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Having been released on streaming services on October 14, Dominic said the film has had “a really good reception and great print reviews”, including glowing reports from The Guardian, and movie/fantasy magazines such as Total Film, SFX and Filmhounds.

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​Viewers can buy/stream Haunted Ulster Live now on Prime Video, Apple TV or Google Play

Previously:

• 'Haunted Ulster Live' Exclusive Clip: A Strange Case of Sleepwalking
• 'Haunted Ulster Live' Trailer- Chilling Mockumentary Compared to 'Ghostwatch' and 'Late Night With the Devil'

28 Years Later and its planned sequels get a surprising update from producer Andrew Macdonald. Released in 2002, Danny Boyle's 28 Days Later follows Cillian Murphy's Jim as he attempts to survive after the "Rage Virus" turns British citizens into zombie-like monsters. After a mixed-reviewed sequel from director Juan Carlos Fresnadillo in 2007, Boyle is set to re-team with Murphy and original movie writer Alex Garland for the upcoming 28 Years Later, which is intended to serve as the first installment in a new trilogy.

Now, Macdonald reveals to THR that 28 Years Later has just wrapped filming. According to the producer, work on 28 Years Later Part II is also set to get underway imminently. The planned fifth film in the franchise, however, seems less concrete at this stage, though Macdonald seems hopeful. Check out his comment below:

“We’re making, hopefully, three more 28 films with the first one called 28 Years Later that Alex has written, and Danny has directed, and has finished shooting. Then we’re just about to start, tomorrow morning, actually, part two. And then we hope there’s gonna be a third part and it’s a trilogy.”

The first trailer for new vampire thriller The Radleys, starring Line of Duty's Kelly Macdonald, has been released.

Adapted from Matt Haig's novel of the same name, the film centres around a married couple who are hiding a dark secret from their children: they're vampires.

The film will receive its world premiere at the upcoming Edinburgh International Film Festival on Tuesday, August 20. Sky has also confirmed The Radleys will then be released on Sky Cinema and in cinemas on October 18.

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"The Radleys are an ordinary family who hold a dark secret... they are abstaining vampires," reads the official synopsis for the film.

"As if being a teenager wasn't bad enough, bloodthirsty instincts take over the teens of the family, revealing the terrifying truth and opening the door for an extended family member to re-enter and upend The Radleys' once perfect slice of suburbia."

Trailer

Anthology films are notoriously hard to pull off but, though it starts shakily, this low-budget British portmanteau has an ace in the hole: horror stalwart Richard Brake, whose grimy leer is normally a kitemark of something at least halfway chilling. (Hopefully his dental hygiene is better in real life.) In Lore, he is a Cryptkeeper-style host for four hikers out for an “immersive” experience in the wilds; informing them that they have pitched their tents above the site of some ancient evil, this campfire compere bids them bring forth their most blood-chilling yarns.

A Scottish horror film has finally been released - 17 years after filming first got under way.

The Bench is a grisly slasher where a group of friends take a trip to a remote cabin in Renfrewshire, only to disappear one by one.

However, the production was struck by a host of difficulties, from badly misjudging the Scottish weather's suitability for filming to money running out half way through.

Writer and director Sean Wilkie told BBC Scotland News that he was a mixture of being "pleased, nervous and relieved" now that The Bench can be seen by the public.

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Filming began in Lochwinnoch in 2007, using a cabin owned by friends of the film's director of photography.

For indoor filming, the Caves venue in Edinburgh was used, with Drumpellier Country Park used for occasional outdoor shots.

The film has a cast that includes Two Doors Down star Joy McAvoy and Matt McClure from American horror show Penny Dreadful.

"The first two weeks on location were fine but we couldn’t keep that up," reflects Sean.

"I wish we’d have someone following us all the way though, as it would have made some documentary. Due to the weather and other things we couldn’t finish filming as planned, so we were coming back on odd weekends here and there to complete it."

That was only the start of the film's issues. Initial financing had fallen through at an early stage, but Sean decided to "charge ahead" anyway, something he admits now was "probably a mistake."

The film's original editor departed, so Sean took on that role as well, and by the time reshoots were needed many of the cast and crew were working on other projects.

You’d have to travel many miles for a more concentrated array of frights than the one assembled each year by FrightFest, the UK’s biggest horror film festival. Even in a year already replete with classy horror flicks, the line-up for August’s five-day fest looks like a seriously unsettling one. Gorehounds, midnight movie aficionados, cult-heads and more casual horror fans are catered for across 69 films and five days and nights between August 22-26.

But what are this year’s proper FrightFest frighteners? The cortisol-inducing films that will lurk in your nightmares? We asked festival co-founder and all-round horror maven Alan Jones to pick five gnarly cuts that will give even the hardiest movielover pause. Book them if you dare.

They are:

1. Test Screening
2. A Desert
3. Strange Darling
4. Shelby Oaks
5. Charlotte

We've got something to sink your teeth into as the first-look images from The Radleys has landed.

Adapted from Matt Haig's novel of the same name, the movie stars Kelly Macdonald and Damian Lewis as parents Helen and Peter. They might seem normal on the surface, but they're hiding a dark secret from their children: they're vampires.

They're abstaining vampires who don't drink blood, but when their vegan daughter Clara (Bo Bragason) is attacked at school, it unlocks her bloodthirsty true self leading Clara and her brother Rowan (Harry Baxendale) to question their identity.

And when Peter's twin brother Will (also played by Lewis) arrives on the scene, showing off his proud, practicing vampire lifestyle, the entire family face a battle to hold back their hidden bloodlust.

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The Radleys will receive its world premiere at the upcoming Edinburgh International Film Festival on Tuesday, August 20.

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When filming started in June 2023, it was reported that The Radleys would be released on Sky Cinema in 2024 in the UK and Ireland. We don't yet have a confirmed release date for the movie though.

cross-posted from: https://feddit.uk/post/12101758

Fallout star Ella Purnell has joined the cast of Craig Roberts’ comedy-horror The Scurry, which is now filming in the UK.

Purnell will play a leading role, of a park attendant who must use her unique skills and strength to survive a band of killer squirrels.

True Brit Entertainment is co-producer and UK distributor on the film, which is shooting on location and at Dragon Studios in South Wales.

Previously announced cast members include Rhys Ifans, Screen Star of Tomorrow Paapa Essiedu, and Antonia Thomas. The Mash Report writer Tim Telling penned the script. ...

The film follows two pest controllers called to a country park café to investigate a routine vermin problem, only for an avalanche of deranged squirrels to descend at nightfall, wreaking mayhem on the staff and visitors in the park.

IMDb

EXCLUSIVE: The new 28 Years Later trilogy from director Danny Boyle and Sony Pictures is gaining momentum, and some serious star power. Sources tell Deadline that Jodie Comer, Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Ralph Fiennes have boarded the first pic, a sequel to the original 28 Days Later.

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Deadline recently broke the news that the studio has already tapped Candyman director Nia DaCosta to helm the second part of the trilogy, and that the plan is to shoot both films back to back. As for the three newest cast members, the studio is clearly showing it means business, adding star power instead of going the lesser-known-actor route like in previous installments

cross-posted from: https://feddit.uk/post/10692508

The ancient grounds of the old St Werburgh's Church in Warburton were transformed into a film set for new folk horror, A Caution for The Wise.

And the 13th century church, based on Wigsey Lane, has since been described as a ‘one in a million’ film location by film producer, Gaius Brown.

Filming from both within the grounds of the old church and inside the Grade I listed building can be seen in the new short film which was released earlier this month and is currently circulating film festivals across the country.

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The short is loosely based on a chapter from the hit 2013 novel 'Skendleby', written by Nick Brown and also based in leafy Cheshire, in the affluent area of Alderley Edge.

While the old St Werburgh's Church was used as the set for the parish church in the film, other areas of Cheshire were also used during the filming of the horror, including the picturesque grade II listed Hawthorn Cottage located on Twemlow Lane in Cranage.

Alex Garland is expected to write the scripts for all three of the 28 Years Later movies, but apparently didn’t want to direct them. Danny Boyle will only be directing the first one. For the second film, possibly titled 28 Years Later Part 2, he’ll be passing the helm over to Candyman and The Marvels director Nia DaCosta. Production on DaCosta’s sequel will begin immediately after Boyle wraps filming on his. They wanted to have the sequel director signed on before filming on the first movie begins, as they want to “make sure each director is on the same page in regard to the story while also having time to bring their own vision to life.”

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While doing the press rounds for Oppenheimer last year, Murphy told Collider, “I was talking to Danny Boyle recently, and I said, ‘Danny, we shot the movie at the end of 2000.’ So I think we’re definitely approaching the 28 Years Later. But like I’ve always said, I’m up for it. I’d love to do it. If Alex [Garland] thinks there’s a script in it and Danny wants to do it, I’d love to do it.“ Despite the fact that Murphy is willing to reprise the role of Jim and is on board 28 Years Later as an executive producer, we still haven’t heard confirmation that he’ll actually be in the movie. While talking to Josh Horowitz on the Happy Sad Confused podcast a couple months ago, Murphy said (with thanks to Coming Soon for the transcription), “It’s for (Danny Boyle and Alex Garland) to speak about, I suppose, but I think it’s been brewing for a while. The first movie was so important for me, as an actor. I love working with those guys. Alex has an idea. And Danny directing is just huge. Watch this space.”

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While we wait to hear for sure if Cillian Murphy is or isn’t in the movie, other casting rumors have been floating around. According to industry scooper Daniel Richtman, Jodie Comer (Killing Eve) and Charlie Hunnam (Sons of Anarchy) are in talks to play the lead roles. Details on the characters they might be playing are, of course, being kept under wraps.

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There was a bidding war over the distribution rights to the 28 Years Later trilogy, with Warner Bros. and Sony emerging as the final competitors – and Sony taking the win in the end. According to The Hollywood Reporter, “Each movie will have a budget in the $60 million range but it’s unclear how goalposts or compensation may have changed during the high-stakes negotiations. A theatrical release was of great import to the filmmakers.” Sony had an edge in this race due to the fact that it’s headed up by Tom Rothman, who used to be at Fox and worked with Boyle on eight different movies there. Release dates have not yet been announced.

While England is undoubtedly the target of criticism when it comes to the many facets of its cultural offerings – say cuisine, for example – there’s no denying that the country provides some truly breathtaking natural scenery. It’s equally valid that English people possess offbeat humour and sometimes outright weirdness. In very few movies is this combination as succinctly married as in Ben Wheatley’s 2012 black comedy Sightseers.

Sightseers focuses on the journey of an admittedly odd couple, Chris and Tina, played by Alice Lowe and Steve Oram, respectively, as they take a short holiday through the English countryside in a caravan. However, there’s a darkness to the pair that leads them to commit a series of violent murders, taking their inner turmoil out on a handful of unsuspecting victims.

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Throughout the film, Wheatley details the stranger side of life in rural England, beginning with the rather uncomfortable relationship between its protagonists. Weirdness drips throughout the runtime of Sightseers, whether it be in the sickening nostalgia of Tina’s needy mother or in the violent banality of Chris’ immoral actions, then made all the more bizarre by the pair’s aggressive lovemaking.

Shaun Of The Dead will return to cinemas later this year to mark the 20th anniversary of the iconic British comedy.

The iconic comedy – which starred Simon Pegg and Nick Frost as two no-hopers navigating a zombie apocalypse in Britain – arrived in cinemas 20 years ago today (April 9).

Now, it’s been confirmed that Universal will treat audiences to another slice of fried gold when the film returns to cinemas at an unconfirmed date later this week.

Yet the Wonka experience may yet enjoy its moment in the cinematic sun. A new movie from Kaledonia Pictures is being rushed into production to capitalise on the global infamy enjoyed by the story.

The horror film will focus on The Unknown, a character devised – possibly not by a human – for the Glasgow show. Actor Paul Connell, who played Wonka in the experience, said the script was “15 pages of AI-generated gibberish,” and introduced the “Unknown [who] is an evil chocolate maker who lives in the walls.”

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The Kaledonia movie follows an illustrator and his wife who are haunted by the death of their son, Charlie. They attempt to escape their grief in the Scottish Highlands where “an unknowable evil awaits them”.

Warner Bros, which owns the film rights to Roald Dahl’s character – but not to The Unknown – has yet to comment.

Recent horror versions of children’s classics such as Winnie-the-Pooh have not met with positive notices.

IMDb

I’ll save you the math: It has not (yet) been 28 years since 28 Days Later. The 2002 movie, directed by Danny Boyle and written by Alex Garland, was a surprise hit for many reasons, including the facts that a) the speedy zombies were terrifying and b) people really enjoy watching Cillian Murphy on film (see also: Oppenheimer).

Now, the writer and director are hoping to launch a whole new trilogy of zombie films with 28 Years Later.

Very little is known about this potential film or trilogy, though The Hollywood Reporter notes that the creators are “expected to hit studios, streamers and other potential buyers later this week.” Boyle (Trainspotting) will direct at least the first film, and Garland—now also a well-regarded director (Annihilation)—is set to write all three films.

Murphy is not officially part of the new project, at least not yet, though he has spoken about the possibility of reteaming with Boyle and Garland. When NME asked in 2022 if the gang might get back together, Murphy said, “[E]very time I do bump into Danny or Alex I always mention it. Because I showed it to my kids recently, some Halloween about four or five years ago, and they loved it. It really stands up, which is amazing for a film that’s 20 years old. So yeah, I love the idea and it’s very appealing to me.”

cross-posted from: https://feddit.uk/post/4507434

When an archaeologist uncovers a strange skull in a foreign land, the residents of a nearby town begin to disappear, leading to further inexplicable occurrences.

cross-posted from: https://feddit.uk/post/4220038

With his Incarcerat tour starting up I thought I'd grab the tasters released from his TerrorTome tour last year. If you get the chance it's well worth going - it's a book tour that's a spoof of a book tour while working perfectly as a book tour. First half is a reading of a selection from the book that is, presumably, picked because he's contractually obliged not to cause heavy soiling of the seats, followed by a Q&A in the second half where he deftly avoids getting cancelled again. He then does a heroic book signing afterwards.

Videos previously posted on various social media outlets and liberated for your delectation:

If you so wish you can follow:

• Matthew Holness on Xitter
• Garth Marenghi fan on TikTok

cross-posted from: https://feddit.uk/post/4178437

Max Naughton sits in an interrogation room sporting a black eye, a bruised cheek and dressed in a furry costume which is caked in dry blood. He will explain.

IMDb

Direct YouTube link

Hammer and Amicus were the studios that defined British horror cinema and bestrode the 1960s and 1970s, employing a wealth of British acting talent including Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing. Casts included names such as Michael Gough, Ralph Bates, Ingrid Pitt, Patrick Magee and Joan Collins.

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But by the late 1970s, the landscape of supernatural cinema was changing. The Exorcist, Rosemary’s Baby and The Omen had redefined horror and the schlocky period scares of Hammer and Amicus fell out of favour. Now, after decades in the wilderness – aside from the Hammer name’s brief resurgence in 2012 with the Daniel Radcliffe-led adaptation of Susan Hill’s The Woman in Black – both film houses are, well, back from the dead.

Hammer has been revived with a bang with its first new movie – Doctor Jekyll – hitting cinemas this week, following the announcement in August that the studio had been taken over by the John Gore Organisation, primarily known as a producer of blockbuster Broadway and West End theatre shows.

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And what of Amicus? It, too, is back, but on a slightly smaller scale.

“Can we elevate Amicus Productions beyond the confines of what the BBC labelled in 1971 as Britain’s ‘tiniest film studio’?” says Lawrie Brewster, the man behind the revival. “Unquestionably. Our primary aim is to create films that respect and honour the legacy of Amicus. We don’t aspire to outshine the Amicus classics – that’s not our prerogative. Our mission is to craft films that celebrate the golden era of British horror, paying respect to the rich traditions of yesteryear.”

Can either Hammer or Amicus be relevant to modern audiences? There’s certainly the nostalgia factor to take into account. Jeremy Dyson of The League of Gentlemen, co-author of the novel The Warlock Effect with Andy Nyman, is one of many people working in TV and film today who remembers them fondly.

“Both Hammer and Amicus were so much a part of my imaginative landscape,” says Dyson. “My first introduction to them was through books, in which were frozen these stills from the movies, which fascinated me long before I got to watch the films.

“These studios were the British film industry for many years, and even so a lot of these films were considered down and dirty, and disregarded by the establishment. Can they come back? They’re just names, really, so it means getting as talented a group of people working on them as they had in their heyday, and if they can do that, I don’t see why not, if the stars are aligned.”

Hammer Horror returns with a genderflipped take on Robert Louis Stevenson's iconic novel, starring Eddie Izzard as a leading figure of the pharmaceutical industry with a dark secret.

In a delicious example of nominative determinism, British horror powerhouse Hammer Film Productions was recently acquired by theatre producer John Gore. He will oversee a revival of schlocky, low-budget British horror – starting with a new adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson’s 1886 Gothic novella Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. It is well-worn territory for the studio, including Hammer staple Terence Fisher’s The Two Faces of Dr. Jekyll (1960), and Dr. Jekyll and Sister Hyde (1971) directed by Roy Ward Baker.

The latter version rode on a wave of gender-swapped horror remakes, playing to the suspense potential of an oh-so-innocent female secretly veiling the monster inside. As with bigger-budget horror movies from Hitchcock’s Psycho to De Palma’s Dressed to Kill, Dr. Jekyll and Sister Hyde played to the most terrifying trope of all – the man whose alter-ego is a woman. It’s important to have all of this in mind when watching Joe Stephenson’s Doctor Jekyll, which goes one step further than previous iterations by changing the genders of both Jekyll and Hyde, now Nina and Rachel.

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Doctor Jekyll revives a missing element of British cinema – you can see the walls shaking, the cheapness of the props, the hamminess of the acting. But that’s what Hammer is all about, the sort of horror that has you laughing one minute and throwing your popcorn in the air in fright the next. Izzard also subverts the fear of gender that has long haunted horror cinema by both playing to and away from the ongoing ‘trans scare’. It looks like Hammer has returned from the dead.

cross-posted from: https://feddit.uk/post/3316862

Award-winning director Daniel Kokotajlo made a real impression five years ago with his fiercely distinctive debut feature, Apostasy, set in an enclosed religious world. Here is his diverting but frankly more generic follow-up, adapted from the novel by Andrew Michael Hurley. It is billed as contemporary folk horror but borders on film-school pastiche, and “contemporary” means set in the era of The Wicker Man in the early 70s – a British world of brown corduroy, Austin 1100s, no central heating, odd locals and a persistent, sinister encroaching gloom in the countryside. The movie teeters on a knife-edge between scary and silly, and yet without that weird flavour of silly, the scares wouldn’t mean as much.

Garth Marenghi has announced 18 extra dates in his book tour to promote his latest horror novel, Incarcerat.

Matthew Holness’s alter-ego is publishing the follow-up up to his Sunday Times bestseller, Terrortome, on October 31.

Now promoters Live Nation have unveiled 18 new tour dates in February and March, following the success of an initial 14 gigs, starting in Leeds on the eve of publication.

cross-posted from: https://feddit.uk/post/2640555

Otto Baxter's musical horror-comedy short The Puppet Asylum debuted at FrightFest in August to much critical acclaim, but it's the filmmaker's six-year journey to bring his movie to the screen that proves even more inspiring.

The filmmaker has spent much of his life in front of a camera. As an advocate for the Down syndrome community, he has appeared in many news reports and documentaries helping to raise awareness about the condition, but now he is ready to tell his own story, on his own terms.

Baxter does this in two ways: through his semi-autobiographical horror film The Puppet Asylum, which he wrote and directed, and the making-of documentary Otto Baxter: Not A F****ing Horror Story that he filmed with Peter Beard and Bruce Fletcher (both come to Sky Documentaries and NOW from 23 September).

Mentioned in the latest TV Tonight but worth flagging up separately.