Fantastic Fest

This review was originally posted during our Fantastic Fest coverage in September 2012.  With the film's U.S. release upon us, it is getting re-posted.

Brandon Cronenberg - son of David Cronenberg - knocks it out of the park with his feature debut, Antiviral, a poignant, subversive tale that, at times, provokes its viewer and stirs something within them as the film serves as a bitter, sometimes infuriating and intelligent reminder that the state of our celebrity-obsessed culture has grown steadily worse and could get a lot more horrifying.

Antiviral is also a deeply fascinating mystery set in an equally fascinating world created by Cronenberg that is reminiscent of his father’s early, angrier works.  There’s no ignoring this familiarity when, in one scene, leading man Caleb Landry Jones is seen sprouting cables from the flesh of his wrists and a sporting a bleeding filter where his mouth should be.  The nature of the story, itself, carries shades of David's ouevre, still, Brandon makes the film his own...and what a delicious, haunting ride it is.

This review was originally posted in September during our Fantastic Fest coverage.  We're re-posting in time for the film's release this Friday.

When we last saw Josh Stewart's Arkin in 2009's The Collector, he was in a bit of a tight spot.  Things were not looking good for the thief who, while on a job, met a lethal, black mask-clad, seemingly unstoppable home invader.  I'll refrain from repeating what went down at the end of The Collector, in the event you never saw it (and if you didn't, maybe you should avoid this review).  Nevertheless, I thought the first film was solid, entertaining, fairly ruthless and it boasted the visual strengths of Marcus Dunstan as a director who had, until that point, made his mark on the genre co-writing some Saw sequels and the Feast films.

With The Collection, Dunstan (and creative partner, co-writer and producer Patrick Melton) is back behind the camera with more confidence for a sequel that takes things to all-new extremes.  If you really liked The Collector, chances are, you're going to really like this next sick entry quite a bit.  It's a little less intimate than its predecessor; however, it's bigger than and just as wicked as the first.

This review originally ran in 2011 and is being re-posted for the October 26, 2012 U.S. release.

When he was flying solo, Jaume Balaguero's career was synonymous with mediocrity. But this Spanish genre filmmaker's oeuvre strengthened when he partnered with colleague Paco Plaza for the Rec films. With the first two entries in that horror series, the pair's combined ferocious sensibilities kicked international horror fare in the ass. After Rec 2, however, Balaguero opted to venture out on his own again. And he had a lot to prove. Would he slip back into the muddled, languid storytelling that plagued previous efforts like Darkness or Fragile? The answer is a resounding "no." His latest effort, Sleep Tight, is a top-notch, disturbing thriller demonstrating the work of a maturing director who has learned from past mistakes. Balaguero mines familiar territory, yet his film still manages to work its way under your skin thanks to a script by Alberto Marini. It will provoke many to check under their bed before they go to sleep.

Something evil was born when a member of the online movie criticism community and a Hollywood director collided.  For once, it wasn't some all-out argument battle on Twitter or flame war on a message board; it was actually something positive and creative (shocker!).  In fact, the end result of this pairing was a feature film endeavor called Sinister, the highly recommended supernatural thriller starring Ethan Hawke (opening October 12th from Summit Entertainment).

The film is the birthchild of The Exorcism of Emily Rose's director Scott Derrickson and C. Robert Cargill, the man known as "Massawyrm," a movie critic from Ain't It Cool News.  Under Blumhouse Productions - the company that gave us the Paranormal Activity series and Insidious - Derrickson and Cargill collaborated on this effective slice of scare cinema which concerns a writer (Hawke) who discovers a box of Super 8 film in his basement and the creepiness that ensues.

ShockTillYouDrop.com met with the duo in Austin, Texas during Fantastic Fest where we discussed the film's origins, how Derrickson and Cargill's creative partnership came about, their feelings on modern horror and where the look of the film's bogeyman came from.

While down at Fantastic Fest, ShockTillYouDrop.com had the privilege of catching up with the legendary Martin Landau who lends his vocal talents to this week's release Frankenweenie as Mr. Rzykruski.  

You may recall, Landau previously worked with the film's director, Tim Burton, on Ed Wood and Sleepy Hollow.  

Shock also spoke with Frankenweenie's Charlie Tahan who plays Victor Frankenstein.  Tahan's genre roots can be traced back to the tiger-in-a-house thriller Burning Bright.  

Head inside for our brief chats with both actors!

Tim Burton's characteristic gothic vision returns to the screen this Friday with Frankenweenie, the black and white, stop motion-animated, feature-length adaptation of his 1984 short film of the same name.  

The original film heralded the '85 release of Burton's first feature - Pee Wee's Big Adventure - and starred Barret Oliver, Daniel Stern and Shelley Duvall.  Oliver played a young boy whose dog is killed in an accident and resurrected in Frankenstein-like fashion.

The animated redo expands on this idea and introduces a slew of monstrous surprises as well as a talented vocal cast of Winona Ryder, Martin Short, Catherine O'Hara, Martin Landau, Charlie Tahan and Atticus Shaffer.

Shock Till You Drop met with Burton in Austin, Texas where the director was showing off the film before a Fantastic Fest crowd.

It's post-Fantastic Fest wrap-up time...  

ShockTillYouDrop.com's Ryan Turek and FEARnet.com's Lawrence Raffel are back from the 8th annual Austin, Texas event and they're here to tell you about the best and worst films.  Listen in as they weigh in on Antiviral, American Mary, Frankenweenie, Berberian Sound Studio, Come Out and Play, The American Scream and more!

As Fantastic Fest winds down in Austin, Texas, it's time to play a bit of catch up.  

Shock Till You Drop caught quite a few films at the event and while you can find many of my reviews at this spot, I felt it was time to present some capsule reviews of the other films (plus it will just allow me to get ahead of the festival coverage work load, to be frank).

After the jump, I weigh in on Tim Burton's Frankenweenie, the horror anthology The ABCs of Death and Here Comes the Devil which garnered multiple awards at the fest.

Fantastic Fest has announced this year's Fantastic Fest Award winners.  And in the horror category, Adrian Garcia Bogliano's Here Comes the Devil took a range of awards.  

The supernatural thriller from Argentina and the director of Penumbra and Cold Sweat not only landed some kudos, but it was picked up by Magnet Releasing at the fest.

Barreiro and Caro are parents whose preteen son and daughter inexplicably reappear after being lost overnight on a desolate, cave-riddled mountainside after a casual hike became every parent’s nightmare. The good luck and good fortune of their return soon changes, as the children’s behavior suggests ominous and unspeakable events the night the children were lost that continue even now. As a loving couple – and loving parents – try to care for and protect their children, the ancient and half-whispered legends around the caves and the mountain and those who have gone there before become too strange to believe … and too dangerous, no matter how insane, to ignore.

Head inside for a breakdown of the winners!

The American Scream - a documentary that pulls back the curtain on home haunting - is a wonderful, heartfelt celebration of Halloween.  And what it excels in is its restrained focus.  It's not a wide-reaching look at the haunted attraction business, which it could have easily been.  Instead, director Michael Stephenson wisely narrows his vision, creates more emotional depth and heightens the intimacy of the subject matter but he never loses out on "the moments" that make home haunting so damn fun.

Stephensen previously helmed Best Worst Movie, a look at the cult phenonmenon that is Troll 2, and applies that film's sense of warmth, energy and sense of humor to The American Scream.

Berberian Sound Studio is quite possibly one of the most difficult films I've watched all year.  That's a pity, too, as the premise was very promising and very, very exciting.

Depending on what you've read about the story, the popular synopsis going around says the film is about a British sound engineer who is hired by an Italian producer and director to work on their '70s horror film.  Soon after, "life imitates art."

That's partially correct.  Toby Jones plays Gilderoy, and yes, he's a sound engineer working on a Suspiria-esque film called The Equestrian Vortex.  Whether life actually imitates art for Gilderoy remains to be seen.  Indeed, some trippy business does occur, but none of it makes sense.  More than anything, Berberian Sound Studio is tantamount to monotonous, well-photographed behind-the-scenes footage of a film production - dull, pretentious self-important posturing that doesn't amount to much and is more frustrating than absorbing.

Robert Rodriguez is currently in prep on the Sin City sequel, Sin City: A Dame to Kill For.  Still, he made time to swing on down to Fantastic Fest in Austin, Texas and Shock had a brief moment to chat with him.

The last time we spoke to the Planet Terror director was during the press tour for Predators.  

At the time, he told us that he was not ruling out another Predator; when we asked him about it over the weekend, replied: "We were thinking about it.  I don't know, I'll have to talk to them.  They just had a regime change over there - we'll see what happen."  (He's referring to 20th Century Fox co-chair/co-CEO Tom Rothman's decision to step away from the studio at the end of this year.)

Talk about beating a dead horse.  In the wake of Shaun of the Dead, we’ve seen our fair share of imitators, from Lesbian Vampire  Killers to The Last Lovecraft – i.e. films that pit goofy pals against the supernatural – and Cockneys vs. Zombies is determined to ignore all of them and parade around the screen bringing nothing new to the realms of the horror-comedy or zombie sub-genre.

This latest attempt at a zom-com is severely lacking the wit writer James Moran brought to his previous effort, Severance, and it oozes with stale humor that neither elicits laughs nor smiles.  It’s weak sauce across the board and ultimately a disappointment.  What it does have going for it is a wide-range of decent zombie FX gags, but from a review standpoint, I think that’s fairly vapid critique.  These days there's an abundance of great zombie FX gags.  If you’re a fan of undead fare, however, I suppose the assortment of gunshot blasts, blows to the head and punting some of the zombies take in Cockneys vs. Zombies will please you to a degree.

Still, this movie is a mess, even if, amid the forced, silly banter, there is perhaps one half of a good idea for a film.

Tower Block has the makings of an highly successful, intense ride, but it’s a surprisingly restrained, totally serviceable, pulpy revenge thriller.  

This UK offering from directors James Nunn and Ronnie Thompson was scripted by James Moran, whose feature debut was the clever, violent and often hilarious Severance.  Here, Moran is meddling in more serious-minded territory, still, his penchant for razor-sharp characters and the pitch black comedy that he brought to Severance is on display in Tower Block helping mask the film’s flaws.

A remake of Who Can Kill a Child?, Come Out and Play is not nearly as dangerous and boundary-pushing as it needs to be.  In fact, it's a pretty by-the-numbers re-telling of Narciso Ibanez Serrador 1976's killer kid flick that will likely bore the viewer than instill any sort of dread.  

It lacks any sort of flavor to set itself apart from far superior films of this ilk like - to name drop something recent - the UK offering The Children which kept you on the edge of your seat from the first act.  Here, the director known only as Makinov (who reportedly had his face disguised all through production) meanders through a story that misses opportunities, plays it rather safe and fails to make the film's main threat scary.

On the day of The American Scream's premiere at Fantastic Fest, an official one-sheet has made its premiere.

The film is the second documentary from Best Worst Movie's Michael Paul Stephenson.  The synopsis rolls like this:  Every Halloween, sleepy Fairhaven, Massachusetts erupts with the most ambitiously creative spookery in the world.  Endless styrofoam tombstones and backyard beasts come courtesy of a few supremely dedicated local "home haunters" who've devoted their lives to the art of handmade monster making.  THE AMERICAN SCREAM follows three of these horrific households to uncover the triumphs and tragedies that come with carrying the blackened banner of true Halloween spirit.

Stay tuned for our review and interview.  In the meantime, check out a larger version of the poster inside.

Marcus Dunstan and Patrick Melton hit the red carpet premiere of The Collection at Fantastic Fest in Austin, Texas (look for our review shortly) and the team - who previously gave us The Collector and many Saw sequels - spoke to us a bit about how the sequel raises the stakes and offers a bit of insight as to who "the collector" is.

"The first one was a mean pinpoint on: What if cruelty got into your house?  This is: What if you found out where that f**ker lived?" explained Dunstan, who directs and co-wrote the film with Melton.

"In The Collection, a lot of the location takes place in a location we wanted to represent as a walk through him," Dunstan continued, "We justify a little bit of what he's about by seeing room to room get more and more twisted with what this guy has been up to.  If your heart can take it and you get to the end, then you might see a little something you might not expect."

Shock Till You Drop sat down with Here Comes the Devil director Adrian Garcia Bogliano minutes after news of his first English-language film, Late Phases, hit the Hollywood trades.

"I don't get to read many scripts, but this is the best thing I've read in a long time," enthused Bogliano.  "It's a werewolf story and it's exciting because of the focus of the story and the focus of the action.  And it's exciting to work with Dark Sky Films again.  I'm working with Zack Zeman who is producing and I'm thrilled."

A medical student finds tragedy, revenge, rebirth and success in the world of body modification surgery in Jen and Sylvia Soska's bold and confident sophomore feature film effort American Mary.

The bloody new thriller from the sisters who gave us Dead Hooker in a Trunk made its American premiere at Fantastic Fest last night and proved the duo have a promising future in the genre.  The film has its flaws to be sure, however, the good in American Mary far outweighs the bad.

Kathryn Isabelle (Ginger Snaps) makes a terrific return to the genre in a role she can really sink her teeth into as Mary Mason, a young woman trying to make ends meets while she aspires to be a surgeon.  Smart, beautiful and diligent, Mary's career path is bright, however, one evening changes everything when she's asked to perform an underground operation.  This is compounded by a vicious attack she suffers a few nights later which only further shoves her down a macabre, weird rabbit hole.

Isabelle’s richly textured turn as Mary personifies the Soskas’ clever writing, one of the highlights of the film.  The dialogue is sharp and the voice they bring to the table is as fresh as the world they create.

Night one of Fantastic Fest has come to a close.  I'm currently gathering up thoughts on the films seen so far: American Mary, Antiviral and Frankenweenie, which held its world premiere at the Austin, Texas event.  

The latter played on multiple screens at the Alamo Drafthouse; the organizers even went so far as to have a specific screening just for dogs...and their owners (apparently it went off without a hitch and festival co-founder Tim League said an upholstery cleaning service was immediately descending on the theater post-screening).

In attendance: Director Tim Burton, Martin Landau, Winona Ryder and Charlie Tahan.  Shock was on the red carpet and you'll see interviews with the gang here soon (we got Landau to trip down memory lane and talk about Alone in the Dark).  In the meantime, head inside for access to our Fantastic Fest photo gallery which includes pics from the premiere.

Dredd is holding its premiere at Fantastic Fest tonight before opening wide tomorrow (Friday, September 21st) and Shock Till You Drop spoke with Judge Dredd himself, Karl Urban, about the film, its "indie" sensibilities, finding the character, Dredd's journey and whether Urban thought the world of the film could make room for Judge Death.  

In other words, it was a solid, albeit brief, discussion from one fan of the comic and movie to the other.

Urban has long been on the genre radar for over a decade now, taking on his first horror film in 2000 with The Truth About Demons.  Since then, he's blown up, leaping from The Lord of the Rings trilogy to The Chronicles of Riddick and Star Trek.  And speaking of Riddick, we got him to quickly touch on his return to the upcoming, aptly titled, Riddick, starring Vin Diesel and once again directed by David Twohy.

Head inside for more!

The next mega gallery show from Mondo - based in Austin, Texas - will profile the classic Universal Monsters from dozens of world-renowned artists including Martin Ansin, Rick Baker, JC Richard, Kevin Tong, Ken Taylor and many more.  

The gallery will also include original, never-before-seen works from legendary poster artist Drew Struzan.  The gallery show runs October 19th - November 10th, with an opening reception on October 19 from 7 - 10pm. 

And to celebrate, Mondo is kicking things off at Fantastic Fest (where Shock is at the time of this writing) with the debut of Creature from the Black Lagoon by Laurent Durieux, which will be available for sale at the Mondo pop-up store at the Alamo Drafthouse S. Lamar on Friday, 9/21.

Head inside for a larger look!

Fantastic Fest has announced thee final installment of programming for Fantastic Fest 2012, including the world premiere screening of The Collection, the anticipated sequel to The Collector.  Fantastic Fest will take place September 20-27 in Austin, Texas at the Alamo Drafthouse South Lamar.

When Elena's (Emma Fitzpatrick) friends take her to a secret party at an undisclosed location, she never imagined she would become the latest victim of The Collector, a psychopathic killer. The Collector kidnaps and transports her to an abandoned hotel he's transformed into his own private maze of torture and death. Upon learning of his daughter's disappearance, Elena's wealthy father (Christopher McDonald) hires a group of mercenaries to retrieve her from the vicious grips of The Collector. These mercenaries coerce Arkin (Josh Stewart), the only man to have escaped the wrath of this heinous monster, to lead them through the gruesome labyrinth. Now, Arkin finds himself fighting for his own life in order to save Elena. "The Collection," directed by Marcus Dunstan and written by Dunstan and Patrick Melton, is a suspense horror film with nonstop thrills at every turn, starring Josh Stewart (The Dark Knight Rises), Emma Fitzpatrick (The Social Network), and Christopher McDonald (Requiem for a Dream).  

LD Entertainment will release The Collection in theaters November 30th.

Head inside for the final wave of films at this year's festival!

Fantastic Fest proudly announces the events lineup for 2012.  The events and parties at Fantastic Fest are a big part of what makes the festival an unforgettable one.  The festival is pleased to continue the tradition with events like Fantastic Debates, 100 Best Kills, and Chaos Reigns: Fantastic Fest Karaoke Party and offer new events like Airsex and Fantastic Trivia.

Fantastic Fest has announced the short film lineup for the eighth edition of Fantastic Fest, happening September 20th-27th in Austin, Texas.  Fantastic Fest loves its short films - they provide a fertile ground for new and exciting filmmaking talent to show off their genre goods in an unrestrained format.

You'll find the line-up inside.

Fantastic Fest is the largest genre film festival in the U.S., specializing in horror, fantasy, sci-fi, action and just plain fantastic movies from all around the world.  Fantastic Fest is held each year at the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema on South Lamar in Austin, Texas.

Shock Till You Drop has scored 15 exclusive photos from The American Scream, the latest documentary by Michael Stephenson, who previously directed Best Worst Movie.

The American Scream is making its premiere at Fantastic Fest on September 23rd and we recently caught up to Stephenson to discuss his latest film which touches on one of my favorite subjects: The haunted attraction industry.  

When we spoke to the director, he was in incredible spirits, excited to show off the film and was in the midst of doing a bit more sound mixing on the picture.

Shortly after the release of Best Worst Movie, Stephenson was approached about the idea of doing a documentary focusing on hometown haunt.  He told us he immediately connected to the idea, thinking about a house in his own neighborhood.  "I grew up in a small town and every Halloween we had this one lady and she would transform it into a witch's house.  So, when this idea came to me, I got really excited about it.  It's such a great sandbox to play in in terms of making a documentary because - theatrically - it's creative.  People do these amateur haunted houses because there's passion over profit and they enjoy it.  Arguably, there are people to do it to the level of obsession and that just felt like a great place to find characters and have a lot of fun."

FilmDistrict has announced that it will hold the world premiere for Red Dawn as the closing night film of the upcoming Fantastic Fest. The event will take place Thursday, September 27th, with stars Josh Peck and Adrianne Palicki in attendance. A Korean-invasion-themed party will follow the premiere screening to celebrate the closing night of the festival, which takes place September 20-27 in Austin, Texas at the Alamo Drafthouse South Lamar. 

Red Dawn stars Chris Hemsworth (Thor, Marvel's The Avengers), Josh Peck (The Wackness), Josh Hutcherson (The Hunger Games), Adrianne Palicki (Legion), Isabel Lucas (Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen), Connor Cruise (Seven Pounds) and Jeffrey Dean Morgan (Watchmen).

One of the films we're very much looking forward to at Fantastic Fest later this month in Austin, Texas is The American Scream, from Michael Paul Stephenson, the director of Best Worst Movie.

While a blurb about the film was previously released with a Fantastic Fest announcement, we now have more details on this documentary.

Magic Stone Productions (Magic Stone), the team behind the critically acclaimed documentary BEST WORST MOVIE, and Brainstorm Media are pleased to announce that their feature documentary, THE AMERICAN SCREAM, will have its world premiere at Fantastic Fest, the largest genre film festival in the U.S., on September 23 in Austin, Texas.  THE AMERICAN SCREAM is the second documentary from director Michael Paul Stephenson.  His first documentary BEST WORST MOVIE was a critical success when it was released in 2010.

This is the year of Argentinian filmmaker Adrian Garcia Bogliano.

This week saw the American DVD release of his latest effort Penumbra.  Last January yielded the DVD release of Cold Sweat, further, he's making headlines here on Shock with his forthcoming film Here Comes the Devil and his contribution to The ABCs of Death (both playing at Fantastic Fest next month).  Not too shabby.

Bogliano is clearly on the rise in horror and Shock Till You Drop had the pleasure of picking his brain.  We discussed the origins of Penumbra, his love for David Mamet, his disdain for Paranormal Activity and his upcoming projects.

Fantastic Fest - running September 20-27th in Austin, Texas - has announced the 2012 AMD Next Wave competition, which recognizes outstanding new talent in genre film directing.  

Eight films from seven different countries have been selected to compete in the latest installment of this annual international competition.

These up-and-coming filmmakers are at the beginning of their movie careers and may well become the next generation of talent to shape the film industry for decades to come.  The AMD Next Wave competition films will debut at Fantastic Fest, many in world and U.S. premiere screenings and compete for the highest honor of the festival.

The winning filmmaker will be awarded a $1,000 cash prize and AMD based computer hardware featuring their latest Accelerated Processing Unit (APU).  The AMD Next Wave awards will be the final presentation at the annual Fantastic Fest Awards presentation on Monday, September 26th at the Alamo Drafthouse South Lamar.

Fresh off its Film4 FrightFest premiere and bound for the U.S. film festival scene is Tower Block, a new UK thriller from Severance scribe James Moran.  IGN UK debuted a trailer, you'll find it inside.

A quick glance at some of the reactions to the FrightFest screening yields a mostly positive response.  Our pals at Bleeding Cool seem to have dug it as well.  Expect our own review as we near Fantastic Fest.

Synopsis: Hear no evil, speak no evil, see no evil. When Jimmy is brutally murdered by two hooded figures, Becky, Kurtis, Neville and the other residents of the Serenity House tower block are witnesses to the killing but, fearing retribution, are too scared to give detectives any information and the police investigation is going nowhere.

It's a review-heavy second episode of Shock Wave's sophomore season.  

Shock Till You Drop's Ryan Turek and Lawrence Raffel, of FEARnet, weigh in on SyFy's third season of Face Off, the new series Collection Intervention and Scream Factory's Blu-ray presentations for Halloween II and Halloween III: Season of the Witch as well as ParaNorman, V/H/S, The Revenant, My Sucky Teen Romance, Hell and Starship Troopers: Invasion.  

Also, what's getting them excited about Fantastic Fest's second wave of films?  Find out in this episode!

Michael Paul Stephenson is back with a new film entitled The American Scream, a documentary that looks at the haunted attraction industry.  There have been a few indie docs that explored the subject, all with their own unique focus (Hell House, anyone?), however, this one comes to us from the director of Best Worst Movie, 2009's look at the cult phenomena surrounding Troll 2.

The American Scream concerns a small Massachusetts community where three Halloween-obsessed households transform into neighbor-terrifying supernatural wonderlands and it's going to make its world premiere at Fantastic Fest.

We have two images from the documentary which you can find after the jump.  Shock will be at FF this year, so stay tuned for coverage.

As far as Fantastic Fest 2012 is concerned, we're locked and loaded.  Hotel and flight booked.  We're ready to go and we'll be covering the hell out of it when the Austin, Texas event begins September 20th (it runs until the 27th).  You, dear reader, will want to pay attention to said coverage because we'll have reviews of soon-to-be-released or not-yet-released genre films, discussions with the filmmakers and more.

Late last month, the organizers announced the first batch of titles to be added to the festival.  It definitely got us excited.  Today, "wave 2" was revealed and our excitement level just kicked up a few notches.  Highlights include Looper (so pumped up for this), Sinister (which I absolutely loved), the latest documentary from the director of Best Worst Movie, Doomsday Book and Here Comes the Devil.

Head inside for the latest list...  Also, for all Fantastic Fest coverage, click here.

This has been a big week for the UK action zom-com Cockneys vs. Zombies.  The buzz started with its admittance into Fantastic Fest, then we learned the film was poised to hit UK cinemas later this month.  Now, a trailer has arrived!  You'll find it after the jump.

Matthias Hoene's film concerns Andy and Terry, two hapless cockney brothers who try to save their grandad’s care home by robbing a bank. At the same time, a virus sweeps across East London turning all the inhabitants into flesh eating zombies. Faced with hordes of undead zombies, the challenge is to rescue a home full of tough old folks, escape with the loot, and get out of London alive.

If you live in the UK, look for it to open August 31st.

Tower Block made Shock headlines just before Comic-Con hit and I'm afraid that a lot of you missed out on our official announcment regarding this UK thriller.  'Tis cool, however, this title is back in the news because it has become a selection of Fantastic Fest - the upcoming event hitting Austin, Texas in September.

Directed by James Nunn and Ronnie Thompson, and scripted by James Moran (Severance), the film concerns a sniper who targets a tenement and begins picking off the residents who must set aside their differences to survive the various traps the killer has set up for them.

We've received a handful of new images from the film, click on the photo after the jump to gain access to our gallery. 

Yesterday, it was revealed the action zombie pic Cockneys vs. Zombies was going to make its U.S. premiere at the Austin, Texas event Fantastic Fest and we couldn't be happier to hear it because we've been following this one since we were allowed to break the news about its start in 2008 (!).

A batch of stills came with the Fantastic Fest announcement and we'd like to share them with you...  Head inside for access to our gallery.

Andy and Terry: Two hapless cockney brothers who try to save their grandad’s care home by robbing a bank. At the same time, a virus sweeps across East London turning all the inhabitants into flesh eating zombies. Faced with hordes of undead zombies, the challenge is to rescue a home full of tough old folks, escape with the loot, and get out of London alive!

Our favorite time of year is approaching: Fantastic Fest is about to descend on Austin, Texas once again, rolling out September 20th - 27th at the Alamo Drafthouse South Lamar.  Last year, Shock attended this incredible film festival and we plan to do it again.

This morning, the organizers have revealed the first wave of film titles on the programming slate.

It was previously revealed that Frankenweenie would be making its premiere - sure, a nice slice of kiddie fare, no doubt.  On the other end of the spectrum, however, FF will be holding the premiere for Dredd 3D which is set to open September 21st nation-wide.

The festival is also pleased to announce the House of Psychotic Women sidebar, hosted by author and former Drafthouse programmer Kier-la Janisse.  Kier-la will be introducing each show and signing copies of her book afterwards. House of Psychotic Women is an autobiographical exploration of female neurosis in horror and exploitation films. Anecdotes and memories interweave with film history, criticism, trivia and confrontational imagery to create a reflective personal history and examination of female madness, both onscreen and off. 

Head inside for initial lineup of films at this year's festival...

2011 marked my first year at Fantastic Fest in Austin, Texas and I was instantaneously smitten.  A great event filled with great people, great movies and great food.  Yes, it's a multi-layered equation that amounts to a week of pure "awesome."

This morning, the organizers released their first press release, and, a look at the official event poster by Mike Saputo (you'll find a larger version inside).  Expect coverage of Fantastic Fest 2012 here on Shock for sure...

Fantastic Fest is excited to announce Walt Disney Pictures' Frankenweenie will have its world premiere on September 20 as the opening night film for the 2012 festival, happening September 20-27 in Austin, Texas at the Alamo Drafthouse South Lamar.

"Tim Burton stands as a titan of modern genre cinema.  To world premiere the feature adaptation of his early beloved short is a huge honor for me personally and for the festival in general," said Fantastic Fest Co-founder & Creative Director Tim League.

Joined by Doug Jones

A Fantastic Fest 2011 review