Category: Film, Television & Music

Believe it or not, there are werewolf movies other than “An American Werewolf in London”.

“Strippers vs. Werewolves” is a movie that is happening. Sorry.

Dread Central has the exclusive first word and concept art for a film that sounds like just the thing to take Mom to see on her birthday: “Strippers vs. Werewolves”. Producer Jonathan Sothcott has this to say:

Werewolves are the hardest monsters to get right on film – and I don’t just mean the special effects. Straight werewolf movies often come across as outrageous comedies – Howling 2, Silver Bullet, etc., and werewolf comedies don’t tend to be cinematic gold (though I have a soft spot for the delirious Haunted Honeymoon), but I’m enough of a genre buff to know that this one’s very special indeed and is going to be brilliant fun – think Shaun of the Dead meets Bitchslap in the style of The Howling, and you’re getting the idea.

I’m getting a few ideas, and they all start with me holding my poor head in my hands and end with me yelling a lot. The whole “vs.” thing only works if there’s a natural tension between the combatants or if it’s a particularly clever pairing. This doesn’t strike me as clever, and I don’t think strippers and lycanthropes are enemies (in as much as either entity can get along with others). I just can’t imagine this is going to work out well, especially given the “concept art”, which looks like the result of a quick search on Renderotica.com and five minutes in Photoshop. I love being wrong about these things, though!

Hat tip: ArcLight

Aug. 2nd 2010

Trailer for Syfy’s “Red” Contains Felicia Day, Clips From “The Howling” and Cheese

Syfy has posted the first trailer for their latest original movie, “Red”, staring Felicia Day. I have a feeling this got rushed out for SDCC (assuming that’s where it was shown), because it looks a little disjointed and they’ve cut in some werewolf footage from “The Howling” to pad it out. Weird! Overall it looks pretty cheesy, but I think that’s sort of the point– Syfy original movies aren’t expected to bring home any award hardware.

It says something about Syfy’s production values that practical werewolf effects from 1981 look better than the CGI werewolves they came up with on their own.

Hat tip: ArcLight

Jul. 25th 2010

MTV’s “Teen Wolf” Will Have Three Types of Werewolves, May Not Be Terrible After All

Finally, someone at San Diego Comic-Con with an interest in horror has some info about MTV’s Teen Wolf show. Nomad at Dread Central got some interesting and somewhat encouraging news from producer Jeff Davis. Of particular interest are these two tidbits:

– KNB FX [sic] is handling the PRACTICAL effects!! The look of the werewolves (yes, I said “werewolves” plural) was very important so they brought in the best.

– There will be three types of werewolves in this show, all with a different look.

KNB EFX has got some pretty serious chops in the realm of practical effects, and they’ve done werewolves before too: for Wes Craven’s “Cursed” (pictured on the right) and “The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian”. I am now cautiously optimistic about this!

Jul. 24th 2010

SDCC Exclusive: Dark Shadows “Chris Jennings” Action Figure from Spectre Toys

Those of us who aren’t lucky enough to be attending San Diego Comic-Con right now have a new reason to cry a little harder, especially the “Dark Shadows” fans. Entertainment Earth, those venerable purveyors of stuff I wanna buy, are selling a Dark Shadows Werewolf Action Figure, made by Spectre Toys and based on the character Chris Jennings. If you’re at SDCC you can just walk right up to booth #2343 and buy one right on the spot. Otherwise you can place a pre-order through the Entertainment Earth web site for an August release. Chris looks a little too much like Chewbacca for my tastes, but what the heck!

Jul. 22nd 2010

USA Weekend Interviews Russell Tovey of “Being Human”

Warning: Spoilers! People are starting to get excited about “Being Human” again, what with the first season being out on DVD, shooting of the third series underway and the main cast attending SDCC for a panel this Friday. Yesterday USA Weekend posted an interesting interview with Russell Tovey, who plays dweeby nurse / reluctant werewolf George. Tovey talks about how his character has evolved as a man (and as a werewolf), the uncomfortable realities of having to film a transformation scene in the nude, and how other werewolf characters look to him for cues on how to handle their own transformations:

When I did it, they just basically stripped me, threw me into a room and said, “Scream.” [Laughs] I was thrown right in the deep end so I’ve found my own language of it. Now they watch me to see how to do it, which is a massive compliment. I always felt like I wanted it to seem the most painful thing in the world, which it’s meant to be. I thought, “You’ve got to go for this because if you don’t and you do it halfheartedly, people watching it go, ‘Well, I don’t believe that’ or ‘He doesn’t look like he’s in pain,’ and it would just ruin it.

Read the whole interview here.

Jul. 21st 2010

The Mystery of “The Howling Reborn” and the Boring Plot Synopsis

Buried three pages deep in the Moonstone Entertainment web site is this synopsis of “The Howling Reborn”, the upcoming remake of “The Howling”:

On the eve of his high school graduation, unremarkable Will Kidman finally bonds with the girl he has long yearned for, reclusive Eliana Wynter. But he also discovers a dark secret from his past… that he is about to become a werewolf. Now, in an effort to fight destiny and save their love as well as their lives, they must battle not only Will’s growing blood lust but an army of fearsome beasts bent on killing them… and then, us all.

Is it just me or does this have nothing at all in common with the original film? Is this just an attempt to piggyback a new (and dull-sounding) werewolf movie on the name recognition of the Howling series?

Jul. 21st 2010

“House of the Wolf Man” DVD pre-order on Amazon – old school moves!

Around this time last year, I was telling you about “House of the Wolf Man”, the “good old fashioned monster movie” that was shot in 2009 but purposely looks like it spent the last 65 years sitting in a Universal film vault. It stars Ron Chaney (the grandson of the original Wolf Man, Lon Chaney, Jr) and is an independent effort to complete the Universal horror “House Of” triptych, which officially only covered Frankenstein and Dracula. by Now I’m telling you about it again, because the DVD is available for pre-order on Amazon. It costs $17.99 US and ships September 28, 2010. This is great news for people who didn’t get a chance to see it at SDCC last year. That is to say, people like me.

Jul. 19th 2010

Kylie Minogue is in “Jack and Diane” and the tabloids want you to know she looks scruffy

Judging by the excitement in my inbox this is important enough to mention, although I feel like I’m succumbing to peer pressure. Musician Kylie Minogue has what sounds like a minor role in everybody’s favourite werewolf lesbian romance movie, Jack and Diane. People who care how pop stars look were apparently very upset at her appearance in a series of off-set photos, but then were relieved (and titillated) when it was revealed that she was just “in costume” for her role as a lady who likes other ladies. I was going to include one of those photos with this post, but then I remembered this site isn’t TMZ or Perez Hilton. Wanna know what she looks like? Just do a Google image search for her, then imagine she has some fake tattoos on her arms and hasn’t washed her hair in three days.

Jul. 17th 2010

The Futon Critic’s first look at MTV’s “Teen Wolf” re-imagining

TV review site The Futon Critic has got a very thorough review of the pilot of MTV’s “Teen Wolf” series. It begins with a very polite request not to repost any of the text anywhere, which I would normally be disinclined to honour since this is the Internet, but I’m trying to be better about that, so I recommend you go check it out for yourself. My take on the pilot, based on what I read? I was hopeful until I saw this:

I’m less sold on the show’s (albeit unfinished) special effects, which make its werewolves look like the vampires from “Buffy the Vampire Slayer.”

Oops! Guess I fell off that wagon pretty quickly!

Jul. 15th 2010

Sweet “Wolfman” Prosthetic Arms & A Distressed-Looking Animatronic Werewolf

I saw @CreatureCompany mention this on Twitter this morning, and it definitely met my criteria for posting here (I clicked and said “whoah, that’s cool!”, which is all it really takes). Hollywood Movie Costumes and Props is a blog dedicated to exactly what you’d expect. This morning, its proprietor Jason posted a bunch of photos he took at a recent display of “Wolfman” props at Universal Studios Hollywood. If you’re into the movie or creature effects, I suggest you go have a look. Here are two photos I cribbed from Jason’s post:

Jul. 13th 2010