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After kicking off Australian horror month with Greg McLean’s Wolf Creek (listen), Jenn and I have turned our attention to a crocodile-based creature feature. But rather than do Rogue, another film by the same Aussie director, we’re spreading the love to filmmakers Andrew Traucki and David Nerlich and their 2007 film Black Water.

The film is based on a real-life incident from 2003, when 22-year-old Brett Mann was swept away in a flooded river in the Northern Territory. His two friends, Ashley McGough and Shaun Blowers, pursued him, but when McGough spotted a crocodile in the water, the pair climbed a tree to safety. Sadly, Mann was killed, and his body was carried away by the creature.

The nightmare for his friends continued when the crocodile returned, forcing them to spend the night in the tree. It’s a harrowing story that was turned into not one, but two 2007 creature...

Contagion Of Fear “Create Fear To Control” “Outbreak” Meets “Contagion” Cast Andy Rodoreda Ash Ricardo (Thor: Ragnarok) Nicholas Hope (Scooby-doo) Raelee Hill (Superman Returns) Paul Michael Ayre (Scare Package 2) Synopsis A catastrophic train derailment sends the city spiraling into chaos. But the derailment is just the beginning. A biological gas attack …

The post Contagion of Fear – “Outbreak” Meets “Contagion” appeared first on Horror News | Hnn.

Black Water is one of those rare instances where “based on true events” isn’t just a gratuitous tagline. The 2007 movie (later followed by an unrelated and more polished-looking sequel) is in fact inspired by an event from a few years earlier — near the Finniss River in the Northern Territory of Australia, two people were stranded in a tree after a massive predator killed their friend, then continued to stalk them. While that real-life account and this piece of fiction are substantially different in most respects, they both illustrate the terrifying unpredictability of “salties.”

After spending Christmas vacation with family, Black Water’s three main characters set off on a number of small adventures before returning to their humdrum lives. It’s only when sisters Lee and Grace and Grace’s husband Adam (Andy Rodoreda) go fishing in a mangrove do they encounter one of Australia’s most dangerous residents.

The recent phenomenon of ‘crowd funding’ film projects through sites like Kick-starter has not really borne any real fruit yet.

With projects like the upcoming prequel to Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon being solely funded through Kickstarter donations it’s only a matter of time before one of these projects hits big and changes the system forever. In the meantime after the recent Absentia showed what you can do with performance, atmosphere and a low budget made up of donations, now we have the Australian internet funded movie The Tunnel.

The Tunnel is presented in the faux documentary format and follows the misfortune of a journalist Natasha Warner (Bel Delia) and her crew (Andy Rodoreda, Steve Davis and Luke Arnold) who find an intriguing piece of footage on YouTube that leads then to believe that there may be a story lurking in the sewers below Sydney. They...

Welcome to issue 15 of Trailer Trash our series showcasing the latest trailer releases – this issue once again features our all-new “excitement-o-meter” where we rate (in exclamation marks on a scale of 1 to 5) each and every trailer by how excited we are to see the film after watching it. This issue of Trailer Trash includes new trailers for The House at the End of the Street, Killing Them Softly, The Paperboy, The Tunnel, another UK trailer for The Watch, and a new international trailer for Taken 2.

The House at the End of the Street

Seeking a fresh start, newly divorced Sarah (Oscar®-nominee Elisabeth Shue; “Leaving Las Vegas,” “Piranha 3D”) and her daughter Elissa (Oscar®-nominee Jennifer Lawrence; ‘X-Men: First Class,’ ‘Winter’s Bone,’ ‘The Hunger Games’) find the house of their dreams in a small, upscale, rural town. But when startling and unexplainable events begin to happen, Sarah and...

If the recent glut of low quality found footage flicks has been leaving a rather sour taste in your mouth, then get ready for a bit of refreshment as director Carlo Ledesma’s Australian faux-documentary The Tunnel will be putting the frighteners on DVD and Blu-ray in the UK on August 6th, courtesy of Arrow Films.

Delve in here for the dark details...

Directed by Carlo Ledesma (The Last One, Food Matters, Locked, The Haircut), and produced by Enzo Tedeschi and Julian Harvey, The Tunnel is part of the 135k Project, a crowd-funding initiative that invites film fans to buy individual digital frames from films in pre-production to fund the costs of production. The aim of 135k Films is to make movies unencumbered by box office constraints.

No info as of yet regarding special features, but trust us -- this one’s creepy enough to warrant a look regardless!

Check...

Terrifying Australian import does for the underground what The Blair Witch Project did for the woods...

During the weekend of October 14-16, I was given the rather happy duty of co-hosting the 2nd Annual Telluride Horror Show in Telluride, Colorado. The following review is one of a selection of film features and shorts that I had the opportunity to screen during my tenure as co-host. Keep an eye out for more reviews from the Telluride Horror Show!

It's no secret that contemporary horror films that use the 'found footage' motif owe a substantial part of their inspiration to The Blair Witch Project. Every like-minded movie in the past 12 years has been inevitably compared to that fright-fest in the Maryland woods, a brilliant movie that I personally count among the scariest of all time. As wonderful as the idea is of putting viewers in a position to be 'part of the action',...

It's near-impossible to discuss The Tunnel without addressing the inherent gimmickry. It's a singularly unusual film, not just because of its content, but also because of the history behind its creation. Funded directly through fan contributions via what became known as The 135K Project ($135,00 being the estimated budget), The Tunnel was created through voluntary contributions. Then, to make things even more unusual, it was released entirely for free, via Bittorent. It's an impressive undertaking and an intriguing set of ideas, one that makes for worthwhile conversation before we even begin talking about the film itself. It's been garnering minor attention over the course of its development from several movie sites (we showed a couple of their trailers as well), and on May 19th, it was finally released. DVD copies are available for purchase, though viewers can still legally and freely obtain the film through torrent downloading.

All of that finally...

Director: Carlos Ledesma.

Writers: Enzo Tedeschi and Julian Harvey.

The Tunnel is an independent Australian feature from The 135K Project production company and writers Enzo Tedeschi and Julian Harvey. This feature is unique, by allowing fans of filmmaking to purchase frames from the production, to partially fund this film. Now, horror fans can freely download The Tunnel through legal bittorrents. Released May 19th, The Tunnel is a claustrophobic look at a creature living hundreds of feet below Sydney. Here, several news reporters find an exclusive news story that is very hazardous to their health.

The film begins with Natasha (Bel Delia), Peter (Andy Rodoreda), Steve (Steve Davis) and Tangles (Luke Arnold) venturing deep below grounds, in search of a horrifying news story. Apparently, several homeless people have disappeared in several pre-World War II bomb shelters. Their disappearances and rumours of lumbering monsters are also holding up a water recycling program.

Click for Larger

A second, longer teaser trailer is available for Carlo Ledesma's The Tunnel. This film is currently being shot in Australia under an abandoned train station. In the trailer, several characters descend into the station and not only find a controversial story involving water storage, but a terror awaiting beneath.

This film made waves for using a unique form of distribution - bit torrents. Also, the film was financed through the sale of each individual frame for a dollar. Click on the poster left and see the first 1000 financial contributors listed in tiny lettering. Also, check out the second teaser for this independent horror production below.

The full synopsis for The Tunnel here:

"In 2007 the New South Wales government suddenly scrapped a plan to utilize the water in the disused underground train tunnels beneath Sydney's St James Train Station.

In 2008, chasing rumours of a government coverup and...

Carlo Ledesma is marketing and financing his film in a very unique way. The budget is being supplemented by selling each frame of his film The Tunnel for a dollar and with 135K frames that is a lot of dollars for an Ozzie shot horror film. As well, Ledesma will release his film not on DVD or Video-on-demand, but through Bit Torrents, which are notorious for movie piracy.

The film itself follows an investigative journalist into the tunnels under Sydney's St James Train Station where available water is suspiciously left unused. Expecting a government cover-up these two correspondents find something much more deadly instead (The Tunnel). Visit the film's website below for more details on the film's marketing and financing strategies along with a teaser trailer for The Tunnel inside.

The full synopsis for The Tunnelhere:

"In 2007 the New South Wales government suddenly scrapped a plan to utilize the water...