American Film Market

The indie horror film we've been keeping tabs on - Ritual - made its presence known at the American Film Market and a new sales poster was cooked up to entice buyers.

Directed and written by Mickey Keating, the film stars Derek Phillips, Lisa Summerscales and Dean Cates.

Along with the aforementioned poster, a new synopsis...read on: Tom Moses steps into a nightmare when he discovers that his estranged wife, Lovely, has brutally killed a man in one of the cramped, decaying rooms of a sleazy South Texas motel. Against his better judgement, Tom agrees to help and it is not long before he finds a video camera in the trunk of the dead man’s car. He and Lovely watch as a horrifying image crackles to life: a group of individuals, shrouded in robes and disguised in skull masks, ritualistically sacrifice a helpless girl. The situation becomes clear and Tom and Lovely realize that they need to get out while they still can. But the night has only just begun and the strangers in skull masks soon arrive with a plan of their own…

Head inside for a larger look.

Red Sea Media will work with Enderby Entertainment on a series of new films.  Blood Shed will be the first endeavor from this union.

The film is written and created by 2010 Nicholl Fellowships in Screenwriting Competition Quarterfinalist and 2011 UCLA Screenwriting Contest Finalist Patrick Hasson, who will serve as film's director, along with co-director Juan Carlos Saizarbortia.

The cast includes Bai Ling (Crank: High Voltage, pictured) and Vida Guerra (Not Another Celebrity Movie) - if you can call that a "cast" (just sayin'...).

Details for Jeffrey Coghlan's iKllr have come our way.  The completed indie horror film now circulating at the American Film Market and seeking a home stars Katelynn Tonguis, Jeremy Schuetze, Emily Lawrence and Eli Cross.

Read on for the synopsis.

It started with a picture.  It was a picture of a pretty, ambitious, self-dependent young woman sitting in a coffee shop, in-between college classes. In it, she was minding her own business, occupied with schoolwork and distracted by a boyfriend she loved very much. Her name was Jennifer Taylor and she didn’t know the picture had been taken. She also didn’t know the person who took it. The same person who would take her too.

In the midst of the American Film Market, we have a trailer (and a sales poster) for the thriller-comedy Cottage Country starring Tyler Labine (Tucker and Dale Versus Evil) and Malin Akerman (Watchmen).

The film comes to us "from the producer of Hobo With a Shotgun" as the promo materials state.

Todd (Labine) wants everything to be just perfect at the family cottage where he plans to propose to Cammie (Akerman). But things go awry with the arrival of Todd's slacker brother Salinger and his free-spirited girlfriend Masha (Lucy Punch). When Todd accidentally kills his annoying brother with an axe, Cammie is determined not to let a murder stand in the way of their happiness.

Head inside for the sales trailer...

Fleur De Lis Film Studios has unveiled the cast of its upcoming horror-thriller Beautiful Evil.  Veteran actor Robert Loggia (Scarface), Yasmine Bleeth (Baywatch), and Gary Daniels (The Expendables) will headline the Hollywood Hills-set creature-feature, announced at the American Film Market this week. 

Beautiful Evil revolves around a celebrity photographer, Steve 'Flash' Turner, who discovers that a wealthy, beautiful baroness - someone he'd do anything to get on film - might be a homicidal monster. 

Splinter helmer Toby Wilkins has been gone far too long from the feature film front.  Since directing the 2008 creature feature, he contributed to The Grudge franchise (with part three) and took on a few episodes of Teen Wolf.

He's now attached to Dead Sand, an elevated zombie/war thriller is scheduled to start production in March of 2013.  Stealth Media Group is currently handling the title at the American Film Market.

In Dead Sand, a team of badass Special Forces is assigned to capture and transport an escaped terrorist when they’re ambushed by a nest of vicious, tactically advanced zombies.

We spotted this sales art for Sanitarium at the American Film Market this week.

This is the horror anthology that includes the cast Malcolm McDowell, David Mazouz, Chris Mulkey, John Glover, Lou Diamond Phillips, Robert Englund and Lacey Chabert.

Three half-hour stories make up Sanitarium and each segment is based on particular patients of a mental institution.  The episodesbegins with Dr. Stenson, the primary physician at the Sanitarium, commenting on the recent arrival of a new patient.

He will carry the viewer through the narrative of the insane patients - tales which led to their crazed states of minds.  These accounts reflect hallucinations, imaginary voices and alternate realities, and will include themes of the paranormal, the unexplainable and the mystical.

One supernatural title being pushed at the American Film Market is The Wait and, according to Screen Daily, the film stars Jena Malone (Sucker Punch), Chloe Sevigny (American Horror Story: Asylum) and Luke Grimes (Taken 2).  

Nacho Vigalondo garnered our attention with the time travel mystery Timecrimes and later won us over one more time with Extraterrestrial.  Now, he's at work on Open Windows, a techno-thriller he has discussed in the press in the past, and the director has Elijah Wood as his star.

Shooting has been underway in Spain for a bit now and Screen Daily reports "the plot revolves around a desperate search by Wood’s character for an actress, played by The Girlfriend Experience lead Sasha Grey, who has been abducted by vicious villain Chord, played by British actor Neil Maskell."

AnnaLynne McCord (Excision, pictured), Billy Zane (Demon Knight) and Viva Bianca (Spartacus) will star in the revenge thriller Scorned, directed by Mark Jones (Leprechaun), who co-wrote the script with Sadie Katz.

The film tells the cautionary tale of Sadie and Kevin (AnnaLynne McCord and Billy Zane), a couple who decide to spend a romantic weekend together at his lake house. But when an unexpected text from her best friend, Jennifer (Viva Bianca), to Kevin, reveals a lurid love affair between the two people closest to her, Sadie becomes a woman scorned and hell bent on revenge.

Corin Hardy will make his directorial feature debut with a film called The Good People.  He'll take the helm for Occupant Films.  

Currently, all we have to go on is a plot synopsis, so we'll keep an eye out for further details on this one.

Adam and Clare move with their new baby Finn to rural Ireland after Adam, a geneticist, has clashed with a group of protestors opposing his research.  

But what seems a rural idyll soon becomes a terrifying fight for survival when the couple comes under attack from horrifying and demonic creatures that lurk in the woods, hellbent on destroying them all.

Guys, there's a film coming and it might just blow your mind.  From the team at The Asylum comes a film that combines the nature-run-amok genre with the "wild weather" disaster flicks that have inundated the direct-to-DVD/VOD market.

It's called Sharknado, and it's exactly what you think it is.  A tornado made of motherf**kin' sharks.

Walking the halls of the American Film Market this week, ShockTillYouDrop.com spied some teaser art and it's pretty fantastic.  Head inside for a full look.

No other details about the film have been released yet...

At the start of the year, there were rumblings that things were not looking good for Tobe Hooper's Djinn. Rumors said that the film would be shelved due to its subject matter, but those rumors were disputed by the film's production company Image Nation.

Still, it is now November and we've heard very little about the film's potential domestic release.  Perhaps that will be remedied at the American Film Market?  The film is currently seeking a buyer at the event and we have some new images that were culled from a sales book.

In Djinn, Emirati couple return home from a trip and discover that their new apartment has been built on a site that is home to some malevolent beings.  Photos and a trailer inside!

Hammer, through Exclusive Media, revealed the first photo from its next supernatural thriller, The Quiet Ones, at the American Film Market this week.

Inspired by true events, The Quiet Ones tells the story of an unorthodox, but charismatic Professor (Jared Harris) who uses controversial methods and leads his best students off the grid to take part in a dangerous experiment:  to create a poltergeist from negative human energy.

Sam Claflin, Erin Richards, Olivia Cooke and Rory Fleck-Byrne also star.

Take a look at the pic inside.

David Hayter, the writer of the first two X-Men films, is in post-production on a werewolf tale appropriately called Wolves, starring Lucas Till (X-Men: First Class), Jason Momoa (Game of Thrones) and Merrit Patterson.  At the American Film Market this week, Shock spied a few photos from the flick - you can find them inside.

Lucas Till will play Cayden Richards, 18, who has it all: Captain of the high school football team straight-A student gorgeous girlfriend. But when he wakes one dark night to find his parents brutally murdered, he is horrified to realize that he is turning into an animal: a wild, savage wolf.

Panicked, Cayden runs, determined to find out what is happening to him. His quest leads him to the strange, isolated town of Lupine Ridge, where two clans of wolves are on the brink of war. 

Madeline Zima (The Collector, Californication) is attached to the upcoming horror film The Hoarder, a contained thriller that sounds, well, like a lot of contained thrillers that are so popular on the direct-to-DVD market.

Matt Winn directs this story of Ella, a woman who is convinced her fiancé has a secret and is hiding something from her in an isolated underground storage facility.

In her search for answers she finds herself locked in the facility, imprisoned in a maze of endless corridors. 

J.T. Petty's latest film, Hellbenders has been picked up by Lionsgate for release, says Variety.  Petty previously helmed Mimic: Sentinel, S&Man and The Burrowers.  

Clancy Brown toplines the cast which also includes Dan Fogler, Andrew Royo and Clifton Collins Jr.  Four new pics from the flick floated our way and you'll find them after the jump.

The horror-comedy follows the Order of Hellbound Saints (Brooklyn Parish), a highly secretive and profoundly blasphemous men of God, as they battle demonic forces too terrible to be cast out by traditional Vatican-approved methods.

The film was shot in 3D; stay tuned for a release date.  In the meantime, head inside for a larger look at the poster we spotted at the American Film Market.

Yes, you read that headline right: Zombie polar bears.  Variety reports Nikolai Pigarev is in line to direct the action-horror flick Cold Patrol.  Written by Christopher Webster, the film will follow "an elite military dog sled team uncovering a plot to release a dangerous new organism - while fending off zombie polar bears."

Session 9 helmer Brad Anderson is attached to direct Eliza Graves for Nu Image/Millennium Films.  Written by Joseph Gangemi, the film is based on the Edgar Allan Poe tale "The System of Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether."

Gangemi previously penned an episode of Fear Itself as well as the 2007 film Wind Chill starring Emily Blunt.  

Anderson is currently at work on The Hive, a thriller starring Halle Berry, Abigail Breslin and Michael Eklund.

Adam Gierasch (Night of the Demons, Autopsy) is in post-production on his latest film, Schism, and we spotted some sales art for the thriller at the American Film Market.  Written by Gierasch and Jace Anderson, the film stars Callum Blue, Vinnie Jones and Ashlynn Yennie.

Blue plays Dylan White, who leads a normal, if boring, life.  Having woken from a coma 8 months before with absolutely no memory of who he is or where he's from, he's looking to start again with as little drama as possible.  He has a job that takes no effort and a girlfriend that gives the right amount of commitment to fit easily into his purposefully empty life.  He is just fine with rolling along, going with the flow, until he begins unexplainably sliding between our world and another dimension; a world filled with unimaginable horror sand one in which he has no control.

We've picked up on another thriller that's been relatively quiet until we picked up on some information - and a photo - from the American Film Market.

This one is Matty Beckerman's Project Blue Book produced by Hostel's Mike Fleiss and Reservoir Dogs' Lawrence Bender.

"A terrifying sci-fi story inspired by dramatic found footage, Project Blue Book preys on our fear of the unknown as we follow an average American family who find themselves in the wrong place at the wrong time.

While driving to a campsite in the Brown Mountains of North Carolina, the Morris family's GPS malfunctions and they are lead to a remote tunnel surrounded by abandoned vehicles.  The father, Peter Morris is abducted leaving his traumatized wife and children to flee and seek refusge in a nearby cabin.  There, they are horrified to learn that strange lights in the nearby mountains have been linked to alien abduction and human sacrifice for centuries.

A new genre film - which has been flying under the radar for a bit - came to our attention while at the American Film Market today.  It's called Mr. Jones and is directed by Karl Mueller, the writer of The Divide and the upcoming The Occult,  starring Jennifer Carpenter.

Mr. Jones is described like this:  "From the producer of the Sundance smash hit The Pact, Mr. Jones is Cabin in the Woods Meets Jacob's Ladder , a terrifying nightmare that's so real, even daylight brings no relief."

The Duplass Brothers are "presenting" an upcoming horror-comedy called Milo and we've got a look at the poster which carries the tagline "He's coming out whether you like it or not."  The film pulls together a cast which includes Gillian Jacobs, Peter Stormare, Ken Marino and Jonathan Daniel Brown.

The story focuses on a fella (Marino) with intense stomach trouble who learns to his horror that he has a demon living in his intestines. When he gives it permission to come out during a therapy session, the man names it Milo and tries to live a life in which he, not his demon, is in charge.

Take look at the full art inside.  Jacob Vaughan directs.

Marcus (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2003) Nispel's latest film, Backmask, is currently in post-production and at the American Film Market this week, the thriller is getting some exposure via a new teaser poster.  You can see the image in its entirety inside.

During a sex, drugs, and rock-fueled party, six small-town teenagers find an old vinyl record and decide to play it backwards in order to listen for any subliminal/satanic messages. Lo and behold, a seemingly malevolent spirit quickly infiltrates the group, wreaking havoc as it moves from one body to another. Eventually, however, it's revealed that the spirit in question is actually trying to convey a message...and that the real source of horror isn't particularly paranormal, but rather something (or someone) much closer to home.

Brittany Curran, Gage Golightly, Nick Nicotera, Kelly Blatz, Brett Dier, Michael Ormsby and Nick Nordella star.  There is no release date set for the film yet.

We told you earlier this month that Bait 3D is getting a sequel and now we've got your first look at promo art for the next film. Check it out after the jump!

In addition to the art, we landed a plot synopsis:  It's just another perfect day in the City of Angels.  That is, until a three mile long, 100-foot tsunami completely obliterates Los Angeles, not only distroying it, but effectively wiping it from the map.

However, for five students in a private school, on detention and missing out on a class trip, they turn out to be the lucky ones...or are they?

Red Sea Media released the poster art for its upcoming sexual horror/thriller, Hotel De Sade.

The film centers around a man named Zhang Li, who is dismantled after believing that he killed his daughter instead of saving her from kidnappers. He finds himself lured to China seeking solace in pain and blood at Paradise Hotel, where every carnal and beastly desire is satiated. With a savage boss, the terrifying Burnt Man at the helm of the underground brothel, no perversion is turned away. With a sudden revelation while at the brothel, Zhang Li must confront his worst fear to bring order back to his life.

Director Oman Dhas speaks on the film, “Hotel De Sade is a film with many deeply penetrating layers. Through a revenge plot, it explores the concept of evil, how it begins, grows, and overwhelms an average man. The idea comes from a simple, even noble, notion of the extremes that an honest man would go to in order to avenge an innocent person.”

Filmax has revealed its slate of films it is touting at the American Film Market over the next week.

In addition to REC: Apocalypse - which begins shooting early next year - the Spanish production house has revealed it is in development on a new thriller/horror film called Summer Camp.

Plot details are under wraps right now, but we have a promo teaser to share and talent details.  And the man behind this one has us hopeful this will be a good project to keep an eye on.

The worldwide rights to the upcoming horror-action film The Eternal were recently acquired by Canadian genre outfit Raven Banner Entertainment.

The film, co-written and to be directed by Justin McConnell (The Collapsed), currently stars genre icon Michael Biehn (Aliens, The Terminator, The Divide) and actor Adam Kenneth Wilson.

Additional cast will be announced in the coming weeks.

Samuel Gradius, a 500-year-old vampire, has lived far too long, and wants to die. Not content with simple suicide, he decides to go out in the ways of old, in battle. Entrenched in a vicious mob-run city, he sets out to challenge the descendants of the great warriors he has faced in his past, in hopes of finding someone worthy.  

Head inside for a "first look" photo.  The film will be repped at the American Film Market this week.

The Spanish thriller (slasher?) After Party is complete and we have a look at the poster which teases the killer from the film.

Pan's Labyrinth and The Orphanage's Álvaro Augustin produced After Party which comes to us from director Miguel Larraya.

In the film, Carlos, a TV star and teen idol, is invited to a wild party packed with girls and excesses of all kinds. The morning after, he wakes up trapped in a sinister house with three girls that he had several encounters with the previous night. With communication cut off and escape impossible, they come to realize that they are not alone in this house and they may never be able to escape.

Head inside for a larger look at the art.

The American Film Market is upon us this week and during that time we'll be bringing you the early details on many projects that are either in development, shooting or in post-production.  One title we've been tipped off about is Treehouse.  Michael Guy Ellis is making his directorial debut with the horror film which was penned by Alex Child and Miles Harrington.  The film is currently in pre-production; head inside for a detailed synopsis!

Manuel Martin Cuenca will direct the upcoming thriller Cannibal when shooting gets underway in January, reports Variety.  Accoriding to the site, the story "turns on Carlos, Granada's most prestigious tailor, a respected man who dedicates his life to his work and eating, especially women. One day, he meets Nina, the twin-sister of a woman he's eaten, an immigrant from Eastern Europe."

According to Screen Daily, director Benni Diez will helm a creature feature entitled Stung.  Written by Adam Aresty, the film is "about a garden party that turns sour when a colony of killer wasps mutates into seven-foot tall predators."

One film that rather surprised this writer earlier this year was Nicholas McCarthy's The Pact (pictured), which made its premiere at Sundance and was later released in a limited theatrical run.  The writer-director is now moving forward with a new film that will be entitled Home, reports Screen Daily.

According to Screen Daily, Home centers "on a young woman who investigates an incident that took place in a house where a previous occupant unwittingly summoned the Devil."

ShockTillYouDrop.com has learned Wes Bentley, Logan Huffman, Michael Trevino, Connor Paolo and Francesca Eastwood are joining Abigail Breslin and Alexander Ludwig for the upcoming Tyler Shields-directed film Final Girl.  "Final Girl" is a popular term in the genre, representing the final girl standing at the end of a slasher film.

Shooting is expected to begin next month; the film is being pushed at the American Film Market this year.

In addition to scoring this casting news, we have landed updated artwork and an official plot synopsis.

Today, we present the trailer for Entity - no, not The Entity - a found footage entry written and directed by Steve Stone, who is making his feature debut.  The film is being touted at the American Film Market this year and you can find the preview after the jump.

Synopsis: In 1998, thirty four unidentified bodies were found in shallow graves in a remote Siberian forest. After subsequent investigations, no official explanation by the Russian authorities was ever offered about the circumstances of the deaths. The case was closed. In 2010, a small English TV crew from the show 'Darkest Secrets' set out for the Siberian forest. 'Darkest Secrets' focuses on revisiting the sites of unsolved crimes and they employ the gifts of a psychic whose extraordinary powers may help shed new light on cold cases. The last communication to their production office in London stated that they were approaching the Siberian region where the bodies were found. Nothing was heard from them again. 'Entity' is the story of what happened to them. The forest was only the beginning....

Steven Monroe is returning to direct a sequel to his remake for I Spit On Your Grave.  With the American Film Market coming up, details have been released for I Spit On Your Grave Too.

Production is expected to begin next month and,  this time, the film centers on "naturally beautiful" Jessica who has just settled into New York where she, like many other young women, is trying to make it as a model.

But what starts out as an innocent and simple photo shoot soon turns into something disturbingly unthinkable.  Raped, tortured and kidnapped to a foreign country, Jessica is buried alive and left to die. Against all odds, she manages to escape. Severely injured, she will have to tap into the darkest places of the human psyche to not only survive, but to exact her revenge.

Jabbar Raisani is gearing up to direct his first feature film, Outpost 37, reports Variety.  He co-wrote the film with Blake Clifton.  According to the site, "the film follows a docu crew accompanying an elite unit of marines tasked with protecting mankind in the aftermath of an alien invasion."

K. King is making his writing and directing debut with Zombie Hunter, a horror-actioner currently in post-production, and ShockTillYouDrop.com has your first look at some (albeit small) teaser art.

In the film, a new street drug called NATAS unleashes a zombie apocalypse that spreads like wildfire and mutates its users into flesh eaters.

Zombie Hunter follows one man, Hunter (naturally), who has nothing left but a beat-up Camero and a trunk full of guns and booze. He runs down flesh eaters, hunting them for sport and redemption from his tortured past.

There's a new film on the way that used to carry the title Magic, Magic, however, now it is tentatively untitled.  The project is in post-production and we have a first look at the cast which includes Michael Cera, Juno Temple, Emily Browning and Catalina Sandino Moreno.

Sebastian Silva writes and directs the film which concerns a young American traveler named Alicia (Temple) who, while in the spectacular Chilean lake district, begins seeing disturbing images visible only to her. Her best friend Sarah (Browning) suddenly returns to Santiago, leaving Alicia in an unfamiliar country surrounded by strangers (Cera and Sandino Moreno). More and more she unravels, seeing darker visions and hearing chilling noises that send her running into the woods. In this disturbing landscape, she experiences crushing terror and knows that she must escape. A destabilizing, psychological thriller recalling the best works in the genre, this film entices viewers into a world they won't be able to forget.

We'll keep you posted on release news as it comes in.  In the meantime, enjoy the pics inside.

One film we're hearing some rather good things about is The Frozen, and hopefully we'll be catching it during our American Film Market coverage later this month.

Today, we've discovered a (small) piece of teaser art for the film.

This tale concerns a young couple who, after a snowmobile accident, is stranded in the woods and must survive while waiting for help to arrive.

Events take a turn for the worse after the disappearance of Emma's boyfriend, leaving her on her own not only to battle the elements, but also to elude a mysterious hunter who is tracking her through the forest.

ShockTillYouDrop.com has received word of a new anthology film now in post-production which features the cast of Malcolm McDowell, David Mazouz, Chris Mulkey, John Glover, Lou Diamond Phillips, Robert Englund and Lacey Chabert.

The film is called Sanitarium - directed by Bryan Ramirez, Kerry Valderrama and Bryan Ortiz - and it definitely has shades of the 1972 Amicus flick Asylum.

Three half-hour stories make up Sanitarium and each segment is based on particular patients of a mental institution.  The episodes begins with Dr. Stenson, the primary physician at the Sanitarium, commenting on the recent arrival of a new patient.

Uwe Boll has produced a new undead epic called Zombie Massacre which we last updated you about nearly a year ago (!).  At that time, a teaser trailer was released.  Ah, today, however, we now have a trailer for the film directed by Marco Ristori and Luca Boni.

Tara Cardinal stars and Uwe Boll is apparently playing the President of the United States.  Oh, Boll, you rascal...

In the film, a bacteriological weapon – developed by the U.S. Government to create a super soldier – spreads an epidemic in a quiet little town in the middle of Eastern Europe, Roznov. All citiziens have been turned into infected zombies. The town is in quarantine, but the Government wants to destroy it to avoid the propagation of the epidemic.  The rest of the world is in the dark about everything. The plan is: to bring an atomic bomb into the nuclear plant of the city to pretend a terrible accident. No one has to know the truth.  A commando of mercenaries is hired to do the mission. The leader is Jack Stone, an ex soldier now in jail to have murdered his brothers in arms during a mission. If he accomplish the mission he will be free. The battle is on. Hordes of monsters against a bunch of men. There is no hope.  Who will survive?

So, yes, a third chapter in the Cabin Fever series - Cabin Fever: Patient Zero - is now in the works at Indomina Releasing and with the American Film Market rapidly approaching (that's the event here in Los Angeles where film buyers and sellers convene to show off their goods), a teaser trailer has been created to generate some awareness.

The teaser you'll find within is just that: A teaser.  There are no big reveals, but it gives you an idea as to where things are going.  You'll recognize shots from the original Cabin Fever because this is merely a sales reel - something created by the company to attract buyers when footage from the film is not yet available.

Kaare Andrews of Altitude and The ABCs of Death is directing; Lydia Hearst, Sean Astin, Brano Eaton, Ryan Donowho and Mitch Ryan star.  When friends start to show symptoms of a mysterious flesh eating disease in the Caribbean, the countdown is on to solve the mystery and find help. A mysterious and surprisingly unaffected stranger may hold the clue to escape... or may be the cause of their ultimate demise.