News

The launch of The Lego Movie is the latest step in the resurgence of the Danish company that a decade ago was on the verge of bankruptcy

Coloured bricks and yellow heads have become the unlikely toast of the cinema box office as Hollywood's most plastic movie yet opened in the UK.

Starring animated characters and familiar bump-topped scenery, The Lego Movie is not only perhaps the biggest product placement film ever seen, but it marks a key moment in the rise and rise of the Scandinavian toy company that at the end of last year became the world's second biggest after seeing a 13% increase in sales during what are tough times for other toy makers.

The song from the movie, Everything is Awesome, is already a YouTube hit and on Sunday evening the film's release will be celebrated by an entire ITV commercial break of three adverts being recreated in Lego pieces.

Warner Bros jumps on trend of remaking famous scenes with bricks by recreating ads for Premier Inn, BT and Confused.com

ITV is to air the first "all-Lego" ad break featuring remakes of commercials featuring Lenny Henry and BT's flatmates set to get the building block treatment.

The stunt, to promote Warner Bros upcoming release of The Lego Movie, will see existing ads recreated with Lego in the high-profile ad break in the middle of Sunday's Dancing on Ice.

Lenny Henry's turn for Premier Inn, BT's tech-loving flatmates and Confused.com's robot Brian will be reimagined in Lego form.

"To support the launch of a movie in which the whole world is made of Lego bricks, we came up with the idea of transporting ITV viewers there," said David Wilding, head of planning at media agency Phd, which came up with the strategy for Warner Bros.

To tie the...

If I started to break into song whenever I got nervous, I would probably consider it a positive life development. For Alex Schwartz, the lead character in creator Ilya Polyakov's The Very Awkward Life Of Alex Schwartz, breaking into song is a musical hell. Schwartz sang his YouTube debut one month ago, but Polyakov is hoping to bring him back for several encores. The Los Angeles-based director has launched a Kickstarter campaign, hoping to raise $15,000 with which he can make seven more episodes of Alex Schwartz. Schwartz is played by Alex Lewis, an actor who nails all the right notes of his character's neurotic, depressed, edgy, and sensitive personality. The story tells us how, after a failed audition on an American Idol style reality show, Schwartz suffers from a form of musical Ptsd, where he starts singing and dancing anytime he gets remotely upset. I'm more impressed at how...

In our ongoing attempt to make you guys aware of every horror project that's available to be seen these days, we now bring you some preliminary information on Massachusetts-based Harvest Tide Productions' first online and internationally self-distributed horror short independent film Microcinema.

From the Press Release:

Written and directed by Harvest Tide Productions co-founder Skip Shea, Microcinema recently won a fan-based 2012 Rondo Hatton Classic Horror Award Honorable Mention for Best Short Film and this past Friday, April 13th, screened at the Shock Stock Convention at Centennial Hall in London, Ontario.

“Harvest Tide and the cast and crew of Microcinema are very honored and grateful to win a Rondo Honorable Mention,” said Shea. “It represents the voice of the fans, and there really is no better judge in the horror genre. To be added to the Shock Stock Convention line-up is equally exciting. It is one of the largest horror conventions in Canada,...

Each weekend we feature independent horror news sent our way. If you want to be included in our next round-up, send us an email.

Rosa Trailer Released: The final trailer for the independent animated short-film Rosa has been released, with the full short scheduled to be released online in November.

“In the near future, humanity has disappeared, leaving behind a large megalopolis devoid of natural life. From the destruction awakes Rosa, a robot part of the Kernel project, mankind’s last attempt to restore the earth’s ecosystem using recovered samples of long-extinct plant species. Wandering among the ruins of the lifeless city, Rosa will soon discover that she is not the only part of Kernel that has awakened.”

To watch the trailer, visit: http://vimeo.com/28386215

The Dead Hour- Season 2 Trailer: The teaser trailer for the second season of the horror webseries “The Dead Hour” has been released.

“The...

Stories like this one are why I love writing for Dread Central. Where else could we learn about a movie called The Disco Exorcist?!?

From the Press Release:

Scorpio Film Releasing is proud to announce that their next production will be The Disco Exorcist, a blood-soaked tale of revenge, sex, black magic, disco dancing, and mountains of cocaine. New England genre film director Richard Griffin takes on his bloodiest, sexiest film yet with a production so lurid that only a rating of Nc-17 will suffice.

As with Griffin’s spot-on genre throwback Nun of That and Beyond the Dunwich Horror, The Disco Exorcist promises to be a pitch perfect representation of the 1970’s exploitation genre. "In this age of soulless state-of-the-art, 3D, IMAX CGI-laden 'filmmaking', we thought it would be exciting to bring the art of cinema back to its most basic. Film. Real film ... with grain and scratches, warts and all.