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Exclusive: West Duchovny (Painkiller) and Scott Eastwood (Fast X) are in production in Austin, TX on Pearl, an indie drama written and directed by Marcos Efron (And Soon the Darkness), which will also star the Babylon duo of Lukas Haas and Ethan Suplee, along with Vincent Laresca (Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood).

Inspired by pictures like Five Easy Pieces, The Sugarland Express, and Hell or High Water, the film follows a young musician, Pearl (Duchovny), who is stuck in an abusive relationship until she meets Eli (Eastwood), a bank robber on the run, who links up with her as he looks to evade law enforcement in rural Texas. Details as to the roles of the other actors are under wraps.

Producers include Chuck Pacheco of Lbi Entertainment, Lavinia Postolache, Vince Maggio, and Eastwood. Loren Albento is serving as executive producer.

An up-and-comer known for roles Hulu’s psychological drama...

Here in the US, James Watkins’ directorial debut Eden Lake went straight to DVD and was distributed by Dimension Films. Of all the titles to fly under the Dimension Extreme banner though, this one was the most deserving. The movie turned out to be more of an endurance test than I could have ever anticipated. Eden Lake also manages to be both acclaimed and despised. Anyone who knows what became of Michael Fassbender and Kelly Reilly’s characters very well understands the mixed sentiments surrounding this movie.

British horror was struggling to hold on after the original closure of Hammer and the Video Nasties period, yet by the early 2000s, a revival had begun. It was as if the reluctance to do genre movies had been replaced with a kind of fever. Dog Soldiers, My Little Eye, Deathwatch, 28 Days Later, Shaun of the Dead, Creep, The Descent. There was...

Stars: Leven Rambin, Jake McLaughlin, Dee Wallace, Shane West, Sohvi Rodriguez | Written and Directed by Marcos Efron

Opening with a quote from Carl Sagan, “For small creatures such as we, the vastness is made bearable only through love” Last Night on Earth then shows us a brief glimpse of a couple and their young son camping. The man seems troubled, the woman so obviously upset that the boy asks his father about it. “She’s just tired” he replies unconvincingly.

Nearby, Holly and Ryan are staying in a trailer. They seem happy, although there are hints to the contrary scattered through their conversations and actions. A flashback to a party only heightens the feeling.

Writer/director Marcos Efron teases the viewer, making it clear that something is very wrong with the world we are seeing, but not giving any clues as to what that is. And if you actually did...

As we hit the midway point of October, we have a ton of new horror and sci-fi hitting Blu-ray and DVD this week, featuring a slew of new genre offerings and tons of cult classics. In terms of recent releases, Rob Zombie’s 3 From Hell arrives on Blu, DVD, and 4K Ultra HD this Tuesday, and if you happened to miss the latest from Alexandra Aja, Crawl is making its way onto both Blu and DVD (and is a film this writer highly recommends—perfect for some aquatic horror thrills this October).

Speaking of seasonal horror movies, Haunt comes home this week, and if you can’t get enough of Mike Flanagan’s The Haunting of Hill House, Lionsgate is putting out a special director’s edition release that fans are definitely going to want to pick up.

In terms of classic horror, Häxan is getting the Criterion treatment (and...

With Vincent Price, it’s all about the dance; the way his voice dips and swoons regardless of partner, the wave of his hand signaling the start of a new song. A little dramatic and florid, yes; but an artist of his stature deserves all the sweeping fanfare bestowed upon him; and nothing makes me want to strike up the band more than The Abominable Dr. Phibes (1971), a gorgeously demented waltz for the ages.

Produced and released by American International Pictures stateside in May, Phibes was a big hit with critics and audiences alike; and really, what was not to love? Wickedly funny and ghoulish, people were ready to be in on the joke like Price had been all along.

A black cloaked figure sits at a pipe organ, in an ornate mansion with marble floors surrounded by life size automated band members dubbed Dr. Phibes’ Clockwork Wizards. The figure...

No one will hear you scream on Saturday nights this February as Horror Channel launches a Sci-Fear Season with four ultimate science-fiction shockers, including the UK TV premiere of William Eubank’s The Signal starring Laurence Fishburne.

There are also network premieres for Christian Alvart’s Lovecraftian survival thriller Pandorum, starring Dennis Quaid and Ben Foster, and John Bruno’s visually stunning chiller (and underrated classic) Virus, based on the comic book by Chuck Pfarrer, starring Jamie Lee Curtis, William Baldwin and Donald Sutherland. Plus there’s another showing of eXistenZ, David Cronenberg’s enigmatic body horror, starring Jude Law, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Willem Dafoe and Ian Holm.

The Sci-Fear Season runs from Sat 4th Feb to 25th Feb at 9pm.

There are also five further network premieres this month including Tucker and Dale vs Evil, Eli Craig’s endearingly cheeky tribute to suspense and slasher classics; Saw IV, Darren Lynn Bousman...

And Soon the Darkness: Pesce’s Debut a Superbly Stylized Nightmare

If Portugal were the portal to some Lynchian netherworld of dreams deferred, it would look something like Nicolas Pesce’s sumptuously grotesque directorial debut, The Eyes of My Mother. A striking palette of black and white cinematography from Zach Kuperstein recalls the scarred, destitute lives from the ruins of Arturo Ripstein’s filmography, a macabre yet uncharacteristically sound portrait of psychological unraveling. We all know the kind of potent degeneration to be fashioned on isolated farmhouses where dysfunctional children are paired with musings of surgical practices, as seen in films from Haneke or even last year’s Goodnight Mommy. Pesce, who previously directed multiple music videos, as well as assistant editor on Josh Mond’s James White (2015), debuts a spectacularly gruesome calling card which may deconstruct the notion of the physical lens through which living beings observe the world,...

Stars: Barbara Crampton, Andrew Simpson, Joséphine de La Baume, Frédéric Pierrot, Lou Castel | Written and Directed by Abner Pastoll

Set in rural France (but shot for the most part here in the UK) Road Games sees hitchhiker Jack rescues Véronique from a road rage altercation. Alone on the road the twosome decide to travel together for safety’s sake after learning a serial killer is cutting a murderous swathe through the region. Tired and hungry they decide against their better judgment to take up an offer to stay the night at a mysterious elderly couple’s mansion…

It’s safe to say the story in Road Games is actually a well-worn trope of the horror genre – so much so that my suspicions about where the film was headed was all but confirmed way before the big reveal (that may also be because I’ve seen way too many horror films...

Welcome to the latest edition of our regular crowdfunding feature here on Nerdly – Back This! – where we take a look at some of the cool content taking the crowdfunding route on sites such as Indiegogo, Sponsume and Kickstarter. This edition we’re spotlighting a very special crowdfunding campaign which is also a tribute to well-known and well-respected film and TV screenwriter Brian Clemens…

The horror short Surgery was the title of the last script to involve the great British TV and film screenwriter Brian Clemens before he sadly passed away in January 2015. His sons George and Samuel, in tribute to their late father, have shot Surgery and want to invite you to help them raise the £4,000 needed to cover the post-production, CGI and film festival costs.

For those genre fans who’ve been living in a cave for the last 50 years or are just a little too young to have...

We pay tribute to Brian Clemens, a screenwriter and producer whose work lit up 1970s cult TV and beyond...

Brian Clemens, who died earlier this week aged 83, was a highly respected screenwriter and producer both for TV and Film. He will chiefly be remembered for his work on The Avengers, The New Avengers and The Professionals but his credits were numerous and encapsulated a real golden age of cult, escapist television from the 1950s onwards.

Clemens was born in Croydon in July 1931. He spent his National Service as a Weapons Training Instructor. After spending time as a copywriter, he established himself as a scriptwriter - sometimes using the pseudonym "Tony O'Grady" - O'Grady being his mother's maiden name. He received his first commission from the BBC at the age of 24 - a thriller called Valid For Single Journey Only. He went on to write for many of the big TV...

What an incredible career Brian Clemens had, and what an amazing amount of enjoyment that he brought to so many of us movie (and TV) geeks over the years. Clemens was a British screenwriter and producer with an enormous cult following. He was best known for The Avengers, the show starring Patrick MacNee and Honor Blackman (and later Diana Rigg) for which he wrote the pilot episode and was the chief scriptwriter from 1961 to 1969. Hammer Horror fans admired him for his clever scripts for Dr. Jekyll And Sister Hyde (1971) and Captain Kronos Vampire Hunter (1974), which was also his sole directorial credit and one of the best and most unusual films from Hammer Studio. Clemens also wrote the horror films And Soon The Darkness (1970), See No Evil (1971), The Watcher In The Woods (1980), and the wonderful Ray Harryhausen epic The Golden Voyage Of Sinbad (1974). Brian Clemens was 83.

The post Brian Clemens Dead at 83 – Wrote for Hammer,...

Recently in the Argentine outlet Filming in Argentina: The blog of San Telmo Productions, Benjamín Harguindey wrote about the new incentives specifically designed to fund the development of horror/gene films in the South American country

By Benjamín Harguindey

The president of the Argentinian Incaa Film Institute,Lucrecia Cardoso, has recently created a specific kind of funding for horror movie production in Argentina. A call for applications will launch shortly, after which two projects will be selected by the state for financing.

Recent genre pieces include vampire movie "Darkness by Day" (2013), the 3D giallo experience "Necrophobia 3D" (2014) and "The History of Fear" (2014), critically acclaimed at the Berlin Film Festival. Argentina has also co-produced horror movies with Us studios, like the supernatural "Jennifer’s Shadow" (2004, starring Faye Dunaway and Gina Philips) and "And Soon the Darkness" (2010, starring Amber Heard and Karl Urban), a remake of the homonymous Brit '70s thriller.

Variety also reported that local film market Ventana Sur will be conducting a small horror film festival next December by the name of “Blood Window”, in tandem with October's traditional "Rojo Sangre" film festival.

As many fright fans already know, Fangoria offers a great selection of gruesome movies, old and new, for free at our Hulu channel. To give you a better idea of what’s available, Fangoria is taking in-depth looks at some of the channel’s terrifying titles with Stream to Scream. Today: Marcos Efron’s intense remake, And Soon The Darkness […]...

Can you feel it in the air? Spring is right around the corner, and before you know it, it will be summer. It’s time to start thinking about a quick getaway for you and that special someone. But planning a vacation isn't always easy; there’s a lot of thought that should go into it. It’s important to know which places have the best sights, the safest areas, and the cheapest rates. We want to help you make the right decision when choosing your destination, and save you the money of hiring a travel agent... so here's a list of ten lethal locations from horror cinema you definitely want to avoid when planning your next trip! Pripyat, Ukraine (The Chernobyl Diaries) What could be more romantic than taking your lady to an area infamous for one of the worst nuclear power plant disasters in history? It may be the radiation in the air,...

Digital HD Release Date: Jan. 7, 2014, Blu-ray & DVD Release Date: Jan. 21, 2014

Price: DVD $29.98, Blu-ray/DVD Combo $34.98

Studio: Universal Studios Home Entertainment

Danny Trejo (Dead in Tombstone) is back as the tortured and deadly ex-Federale in Machete Kills.

Director Robert Rodriguez (Spy Kids 4: All the Time in the World) spins another campy tale for Machete Cortez in this action movie. This time around, Machete is recruited by the U.S. President (Charlie Sheen, Guilty Hearts) to stop a crazed terrorist (Mel Gibson, Lethal Weapon) who’s bent on starting a nuclear war. Machete’s ready to kick butt, all while he’s got a bounty on his head.

Rodriguez rounded up his usual cast plus plenty of newbies for the film, including Michelle Rodriguez (Fast & Furious 6), Jessica Alba (The Killer Inside Me), Amber Heard (And Soon the Darkness), Sofia Vergara (TV’s Modern Family), Antonio Banderas (The Skin I Live...

Digital Release Date: Aug. 20, 2013, Blu-ray & DVD Release Date: Sept. 10, 2013

Price: DVD $29.99, Blu-ray/DVD Combo $39.99, Blu-ray 3D Combo $49.99

Studio: Paramount Home Entertainment

Director J.J. Abrams’ (Super 8) second venture into Enterprise territory, Star Trek Into Darkness, is another homage to earlier entries in the science-fiction franchise.

Abrams’ rebooted series tackles Khan this time, with the brilliant Benedict Cumberbatch (TV’s Sherlock) playing the genius villain. Bringing the character forward, Abrams’ Khan is a terrorist, attacking Starfleet Command for what he deems are their sins. Chris Pine’s (People Like Us) Captain James T. Kirk must gather his team and go rogue to stop the menace.

Zachary Quinto (TV’s Heroes), Zoe Saldana (Colombiana), Karl Urban (And Soon the Darkness), Simon Pegg (Mission: Impossible — Ghost Protocol), John Cho (Total Recall), Anton Yelchin (Like Crazy) and Bruce Greenwood (Flight) all return to their roles from Abrams’ first film. And Peter Weller (Firstborn) and...

Sneak Peek actress Amber Heard, co-star of the 2012 feature "The Rum Diary" in a video compilation of her hottest film roles :

Heard's first leading role was in "All the Boys Love Mandy Lane", followed by CW's "Hidden Palm (2007). Her breakthrough came in 2008 with roles in "Never Back Down" and "Pineapple Express". In 2009, she starred in "The Stepfather" and a small role in "Zombieland". In 2010 she starred in "The Joneses",  "And Soon the Darkness", John Carpenter's "The Ward" and "Drive Angry".

Click the images to enlarge and Sneak Peek "Amber Heard"...

How seriously do you think I take Halloween? Well, I’m fairly frickin’ anal retentive anyway, so I need to book my viewing in advance. I mean I’ll deviate from my itinerary, but I at least need a plan. I can’t be the only one out there with a stick up his ass. So this October/Halloween Season I figured we needed a little guidance. There’s too many damn channels on the cable box, no horror hosts and shit for advertising. So let me be your TV Guide… Keeper.

We won’t touch on everything and I’m sure new programming will come up as October gets itself moving. I’ll throw an update out there from time to time if a special is airing or a new programming line up is discovered, uncovered, revealed or undead. Yes, this is for cable or dish. Network TV will...

On 21 March 2012, the British horror cinema lost of one of its most interesting and distinctive talents, director Robert Fuest. Although his association with the genre was very brief, he achieved cult status for directing two very popular slices of classic English Gothic, The Abominable Dr Phibes (1971) and Dr Phibes Rises Again (1972).

A former set designer with a unique visual flare, Fuest represented a group of innovative and original film-makers that formed an important part of the horror genre of the late sixties and early seventies. These luminaries included Roman Polanski, Michael Reeves, Peter Sasdy, Daniel Haller and Curtis Harrington. Fuest came on the scene much later on, and like his colleagues before him, never quite fulfilled his early promise. Its fair to say Fuest never had much of a chance. The horror genre of the late sixties was beginning to lose direction, both artistically and commercially, and by the mid seventies,...

Director who blended sophistication and sickness in the horror film The Abominable Dr Phibes

With its mix of pop art, sophisticated humour, pulp science fiction and English eccentricity, the television series The Avengers was among the most influential and significant products of "swinging London" in the 1960s. Robert Fuest, who has died aged 84, cut his teeth on the series under the aegis of the writer-producer Brian Clemens, initially as a production designer when the show was produced "as live" in the studio in black and white and co-starred Honor Blackman with Patrick MacNee, then as director when the series had moved on to colour, film and Linda Thorson.

As designer and director, Fuest learned how to achieve style on a budget – making a great deal of the show's famously minimalist aesthetic – and he carried this over into his best-known works as a film director, the two Dr Phibes horror movies of the early 1970s,...

Amber Heard Amber Heard, among whose credits are Patrick Lussier's Nicolas Cage action flick Drive Angry, Zombieland, and the Johnny Depp box-office disappointment The Rum Diary, arrives at the 2012 Screen Actors Guild Awards. The SAG Awards ceremony was broadcast on TNT/TBS directly from the Shrine Auditorium on January 29 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Lester Cohen/WireImage.) Among Amber Heard's other screen credits are Pineapple Express, The Joneses, The Stepfather, John Carpenter's The Ward, And Soon the Darkness, and The River Why. Aram Rappaport's Syrup, in which Heard is featured opposite The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 2's Kellan Lutz, Prom Night's Brittany Snow, and Red Riding Hood's Shiloh Fernandez, is expected to open later this year.

Academy Award-nominated actress Carey Mulligan will be honored with the “Hollywood Supporting Actress Award,” Berenice Bejo, Jean Dujardin, Elle Fanning, Amber Heard, Andrea Riseborough, Shailene Woodley and Anton Yelchin will receive the “Hollywood Spotlight Award” at the Hollywood Film Awards Gala Ceremony

Hollywood, Calif., Oct. 10, 2011 – The 15th Annual Hollywood Film Festival and Hollywood Film Awards, presented by Starz Entertainment, are pleased to announce that Academy Award-nominated Carey Mulligan will receive the “Hollywood Supporting Actress Award,” and Berenice Bejo, Jean Dujardin, Elle Fanning, Amber Heard, Andrea Riseborough, Shailene Woodley and Anton Yelchin will receive the “Hollywood Spotlight Award,” at the festival’s Hollywood Film Awards Gala Ceremony, which will take place October 24, 2011, at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills.

The announcement was made today by Carlos de Abreu, Founder and Executive Director of the Hollywood Film Festival. “It is a privilege to honor Carey Mulligan, Berenice Bejo, Jean Dujardin, Elle Fanning,...

Before we get to the meat of the article, it should most definitely be highlighted that Seasons 1-3 of Breaking Bad are now available to stream via Netflix. The surprise announcement adds a show that would most definitely appear in the top 5 of our list of the Best TV Shows on Netflix Instant Watch.

As you may have recently heard, Netflix and Starz were unable to reach an agreement to renew their contract, so all of the “Starz Play” movies will no longer be available to stream beginning February 28th of 2012.

It’s a sizeable loss for Netflix, and a potential signal of rough waters ahead for the company. Netflix offered Starz $300 million but they wouldn’t take it. Given how limited Starz library is, it’s a relatively surprising move. Here’s my opinion: don’t get mad at Netflix, they’re doing everything they can to have a...

Three cheers for Odette Annable, star of Breaking In on Fox, the well loved mid-season replacement that got the axe anyway! Sniffle. The very feminine actress can also be seen in the remake of And Soon the Darkness with Amber Heard. But is another Fox series in her future? House can use the fresh blood, am I right? The good word on season eight is Lisa Edelstein is out. Bye bye Dr. Cuddy! Actor Jesse Spencer will return, but now Deadline reports a new lady could join the medical team.

They say Annable has signed on for series regular status, which makes her “the first regular addition to the cast since the promotion of Olivia Wilde, Peter Jacobson and Kal Penn in Season 4.” They also say if Breaking In does get revived, Annable can work on both shows. Now that’s interesting.

Producers are very tight lipped about who Annable...

Sony Pictures Home Entertainment will release a new unrated edition of the action horror movie Priest on August 16 on Blu-ray and Blu-ray 3D, along with a DVD edition of the PG-13-rated theatrical version on the same day.

Paul Bettany (l.) takes care of business involving the undead in Priest.

The Blu-ray 3D will be priced at $45.99 (discounted to $31.99 on Amazon); the Blu-ray will carry a list price of $35.99 ($24.99 on Amazon) and the DVD will list at $30.99 ($21.99 on Amazon).

This effects-and-action-filled thriller film stars Paul Bettany (Creation), Cam Gigandet (Easy A) and Maggie Q (TV’s Nikita) as a pair of rogue warriors on a mission to rescue a beautiful young woman (Lily Collins, The Blind Side) from a priest-turned-vampire (Karl Urban, And Soon The Darkness) who’s bent on destroying humanity.

Directed by Scott Stewart (Legion) and based on the popular Japanese graphic novel by Min-Woo Hyung, Priest also...

Trust us, we hear you bitching. They're remaking [insert name of old horror movie here]? Wtf? Doesn't Hollywood care about original ideas anymore? And yet, as a site that strives to present a comprehensive overview of the horror industry, we have an obligation to cover these films whether we like them or not. That's our job. Because they make the news on practically a daily basis, by not covering them we'd be doing a disservice to B-d readers who actually would care to know that, say, one of their favorite horror films from the 1970s or 80s (or now 90s!) is next up in Hollywood's frantic rush to remake anything with even a minimal amount of pre-awareness (And Soon the Darkness, anyone?)...

The Ward Well the MPAA has just handed down ratings for two of the most anticipated horror films of the year. The first one is the action horror film Priest, which is in the vein of all those Blade and Resident Evil films. The second is The Ward from legendary horror director John Carpenter (Halloween). This will mark John Carpenter's first effort in about a decade after he toke a break from directing after Ghosts of Mars. Ghosts of Mars proved to be a huge flop at the box office and bombed with critics, despite a stellar cast that included Ice Cube, Natasha Henstridge and Pam Grier.

Priest, which stars Cam Gigandet (The Roommate), Karl Urban (And Soon The Darkness) and Paul Bettany (Legion) was rated PG-13 for intense sequences of violence and action, disturbing images and brief strong language. Priest is due to be released later this year on May 13, 2011 in theaters nationwide.

Horror has always been a genre that has produced films into which no time or effort has been put. Cinema history is riddled with horror flicks that were turned out in a matter of months, for as little money as possible, hoping to make an even profit on the video and DVD releases. And Soon The Darkness (2011) appears to fall into this category.

The story surrounds two travelling friends, Stephanie and Ellie, who stop over in a remote part of Argentina while on a cycling trip. While there, they have a very by-the-numbers night out and end up missing the bus, which would have taken them on the next leg of their journey. So, they laze about by a river, have an argument, get split up and then Ellie is abducted by an unknown assailant. It’s now up to Stephanie and the mysterious Michael to try and save her.

Best friends Stephanie (Amber Heard) and Ellie (Odette Yustman) decide to spend the final days of an Argentinian cycling holiday separated from their group and hanging out and getting drunk in a remote rural village. After getting to know a couple of the locals and a fellow American, Michael (Karl Urban), on their first night the pair are feeling a little hungover the following day and head to a nearby waterfall to recuperate. Following an argument about the previous night, mostly surrounding Ellie’s promiscuity and Stephanie’s chastity, Stephanie rides off leaving Ellie alone. After cooling off Stephanie decides to return but Ellie has disappeared. Fearing something dreadful might have happened to Ellie Stephanie begins searching and uncovers a dark side to the rural village.

Making a film is not an easy task. Not just successfully making a film of quality, although that’s certainly not a simple and unproblematic goal to achieve,...

And Soon the Darkness is released today, 7th March on DVD and Blu-ray and to celebrate, Optimum Home Entertainment have given us three copies of the movie to give away. And Soon the Darkness stars Amber Heard and Karl Urban.

You can order the movie here or scroll down to enter.

A contemporary remake of the cult 1970 British thriller directed by Robert Fuest (The Devil’s Rain; The Abominable Dr. Phibes) and written by Brian Clemens (Bugs; TheAvengers; creator of The Professionals) and Terry Nation (Dr. Who; creator of the Daleks; creator of Blake’s 7), And Soon The Darkness, director Marcos Efron’s debut feature, stars Amber Heard (John Carpenter’s The Ward; The Stepfather; Zombieland; All The Boys Love Mandy Lane), Odette Yustman (The Unborn; Cloverfield; Transformers) and Karl Urban (Star Trek; The Bourne Supremacy; The Lord Of The Rings: The Return Of The King).

“A tight, well-executed suspense film” (BeyondHollywood.

Out on Blu-ray and DVD today is And Soon The Darkness, a contemporary remake of the cult 1970 British thriller.

The new version stars Amber Heard (All The Boys Love Mandy Lane, Zombieland, Drive Angry), Odette Yustman (Transformers, Cloverfield, The Unborn) and Karl Urban (Lord of the Rings, Star Trek, upcoming Judge Dredd).

The original version of And Soon The Darkness was directed by Robert Fuest, who made the Dr Phibes films starring Vincent Price, and written by veterans Brian Clemens (The Avengers, The Golden Voyage of Sinbad, The Professionals) and Terry Nation (Doctor Who, Blake's 7).

The remake is the debut feature of director Marcos Efron. While the original was set in France with two British females as the leads, the update is set in Argentina and has two American females as the leads.

Special features on the DVD/Blu-ray include deleted scenes, a trailer and 5.1 Dolby Digital and 2.0 Stereo audio options.

And Soon The Darkness, is a title that may already be familiar with cult film fans. Originally made in 1970, the film centered around two English women on a French cycling holiday who run into a vicious killer and the tense, atmospheric thriller is one of the more memorable ‘women-in-peril’ horror’s of the seventies that didn’t have to rely on cheap shock tactics to gain notoriety.

The film was written by Brian Clemens, creator of ‘The Professionals’ and writer on ‘The Avengers’, along with co-writer Terry Nation, creator of ‘Blakes 7’ and the Daleks from ‘Dr Who’.

The 2010 remake directed by first time director Marcos Efron and starring 21st century scream queen Amber Heard who also co-produces, comes to Blu-ray and DVD this week. Here is our review;

With a few changes to the location and nationality of lead roles the remake stays pretty faithful to the original. Best friends...

The opening 60 seconds of this film are enough to make you scream with frustration -- which would at least drown out the screams emitting from the scantily-clad young lady we're witnessing, whilst tied to a drainpipe, being whipped and electrocuted by an unseen Spanish-speaking assailant. It feels like we're in torture porn territory; the horrors of Saw and Hostel come to claim us once more.

All I can say to that pre-credit impulse to switch off is: Don't. And Soon The Darkness is by no means a classic -- and it does little we haven't seen before -- but it is more thoughtful, suspenseful and, well, good, than that opening sequence suggests.

A remake of the cult 1970s British thriller of the same name -- about a pair of young women on a cycling holiday who ride into trouble -- this version replaces young Brits with young Americans and the French countryside with Argentinean,...

"Take Back the Knife" is a monthly column about women in horror by genre writer/director Stacie Ponder.

If I had a time machine, I would grab a copy of Drive Angry 3D (which opens today) and travel back to 42nd Street in New York circa 1974 so I could see the film the way it's meant to be seen: in a grindhouse theater.

Drive Angry is pure ludicrous exploitation flick, all action and so over-the-top, the top might as well not exist. It's violence, fast muscle cars, blood, foul language, sex, full-frontal nudity, simultaneous sex and violence, and some more violence- it's more a movie that happens to you than it is a movie you simply watch. As such, it would be best served up in a lo-fi setting where the floors are sticky, the popcorn is of an indeterminate vintage, and the stains on the seats mean your pants...

I just chatted with Amber Heard (And Soon the Darkness, The Ward) and Nicolas Cage (every other film ever made) about their new supernatural exploitation throwback thriller Drive Angry 3D, due in theaters this Friday. (We'll have that video interview up for you soon.) And I made sure to ask Cage what audiences can expect when his other hellspawned movie road racer, Ghost Rider, rolls back into movie theaters later this year. Cage, who'd just flown back to Los Angeles from Romania, where he was in the midst of filming the superhero sequel -- Ghost Rider: Spirit of Venegance -- mentioned one detail about the film that sounds pretty intriguing. Find out what Cage told me after the jump. Now,...

All The Boys Love Mandy Lane, Zombieland, The Stepfather, And Soon The Darkness and the upcoming The Ward. Amber Heard is only 24, but she already has quite the horror résumé. This Friday, you can catch her opposite Nicolas Cage in Patrick Lussier’s Drive Angry 3D. And in this 2009 interview with the actress, Heard talks about The Stepfather and some of her other horror efforts.

Daytona Beach, Fl, United States (Ahn Sports) - Actress Amber Heard will be the Grand Marshall for Saturday night's Budweiser Shootout all-star race at Daytona International Speedway.

Heard, who starred in John Carpenter's "The Ward " and the independent film, "And Soon the Darkness," will be on hand for the non-points Nascar Sprint Cup Series event that kicks off the stock car portion of Speedweek 2011 at Daytona International Speedway.

"Every Nascar fan is anxiously waiting for Amber Heard to say the four most famous words in motorsports as we begin a new chapter in Daytona's history," said track President Joie Chitwood III. "This year's Budweiser Shootout will provide the first opportunity for fans to witness their favorite Nascar drivers getting their first taste of the new asphalt."

Heard will give the starting command "Gentlemen start your engines" as Nascar Sprint Cup Series' stars compete on Dis' newly repaved racing surface for the first time.

"Three friends in a nightmare trekking at the Andes Mountains" 

From Chile comes a new horror film (due to DVD on 2/22/11) which raises the good old question of won't kids learn by now that you can't engage in risque activity in foreign countries without incurring the wraith of the locals? Guess they never saw films like "And Soon The Darkness", "Turistas" or "Hostel"! Starring is Luis Dubó, Wil Edgar, Patricia Gonzalez and Macarena Paz Chacon in a film directed by León Errázuriz of: The Goatherd. 

Ilenka is Polish, but she has lived almost all her life in the Us. Now she has come to visit Chile with Wil, her American boyfriend, and to meet up with Ana, her childhood friend. Ana is the Chilean daughter of diplomats who spent part of her youth in the Us, and now lives in Chile. The three have decided to hike up to the El Morado Glacier,...

Odette Yustman is the only woman in the cast of Fox's new comedy Breaking In. As the motorcycle riding lock picker on a team of security breaking hackers, Odette plays Melanie, a woman who is, among other things, open-minded.

"I think that's the definition of who Melanie is," Odette said at the Fox TCA party in Pasadena last week. "She's a super open girl; I think she's open to any sexuality. I think that she's just open to life in general and just having a great time. I think she just enjoys the company of all the guys around her at work and she does what she does, and she's really great at what she does. That's just her life; that's her thing."

Even though Melanie says she has yet to ride a motorcycle herself, she hopes she will get the chance now that the show has been picked up.

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Here are the 10 lessons found in this instructional video, And Soon The Darkness How To Get Kidnapped In Argentina:

1. Be a skinny, pretty white girl. Nobody wants dark meat.

2. Go on a guided tour of the country, but quickly abandon it and strike out on your own with little other than a change of clothes and flip flops.

3. Make sure neither of you speaks the local language.

4. Be condescending as fuck to all of the locals.

5. Hole up in a teeny bungalow. Don't lock the doors.

6. Dress nice and slutty (note: not really, but the film plays it as such), go to the local townie bar and proceed to get hammered. Then, dance all seductive-like with the local boys. Look to The Accused for inspiration, if need be. Remember: Nice girls don't get kidnapped. Slutty girls? You got what's comin' your trampy way.

7. Make sure all of the menacing, dark-skinned...

John Carpenter hasn’t blessed us with a movie since 2001, so it’s understandable that seeing his name associated with The Ward may cause horror fans hearts to skip a beat. Not so fast, The Ward starring Amber Heard (And Soon The Darkness) and Danielle Panabaker (Friday the 13th), has received less than enthusiastic reviews from those who happened to catch the film at this years Toronto International Film Festival.The movie is set to hit UK theaters on January 21, 2011 but has yet to secure distribution rights in the Us. Hopefully, the 62 year old genius who given us horror classics Halloween, The Fog, The Thing and In The Mouth of Madness, doesn’t disappoint his eager fans. Synopsis: Kristen (Amber Heard), a beautiful but troubled young woman, finds herself bruised, cut, drugged, and held against her will in a remote ward of a psychiatric hospital. She is completely disoriented, with...

Is The Ward the quietest John Carpenter release, like ever? The psychological horror, the legendary director’s first movie in the decade since Ghosts of Mars, opens in the U.K. on January 21st and unless you knew to look for it, how would you know? Always worrying when the distributors do their best to keep a film a secret for this long.

I got a press release about an hour ago letting me know the first full length trailer for the film had gone online and I’ve embedded it below for your viewing pleasure.

I’ve got to dash out for more screenings (frantically trying to make my Top Ten list look as presentable as possible, tonight’s agenda being 127 Hours) so I ain’t got the time to watch it but I find Amber Heard to be all kinds of cute and she works pretty well in the horror genre.

With the horror genre venturing ever further into the extreme, the challenge for filmmakers is either to come strong or try something new—half-measures won’t get the job done. The Hostel knock-off Turistas, about a band of pretty Americans beachcombers snared in a sinister Brazilian organ-harvesting operation, is a perfect case in point: It has no new angle on the torture-porn genre, isn’t nearly as disturbing in its darkest moment as anything in Hostel, and seems content with its mild fusion of bikinis and mayhem. Now comes the sub-Turistas thriller And Soon The Darkness, which simply moves ...

Directed by: Marcus Efron

Starring: Amber Heard, Odette Yustman, Karl Urban

When I first heard about the remake of the 1970 cult classic And Soon the Darkness, I was positive I knew where it was going---sexy town. In the original, two frumpy English nurses ride bikes across France while wearing hot pants. A strange old man wears underwear on his head, and dirty undergarments are found in the bushes. Aside from all the panty frenzy, And Soon the Darkness was a brilliant example of how to slowly build suspense.

No offense to this new remake but if the original was an example of how to create a sense of unease and suspense than the remake is an example of how not to. Actually maybe I'm wrong. The remake is an example of how to completely bore your audience and how to make sure they hate all Spanish people.

Stephanie (Amber Heard...

Talk about a tease! A partial trailer for John Carpenter's upcoming flick The Ward which premiered at Tiff last year (read Scott Weinberg's review here) has surfaced online. Still no Us release date in sight; Warner Bros. is handling distribution in the UK in 2011. The Ward stars Amber Heard (And Soon The Darkness) and Danielle Panabaker (Friday the 13th), check out the partial trailer below. When an old farmhouse is set ablaze by Kristen (Amber Heard), a distraught young woman, she is taken by police to the North Bend Psychiatric Hospital. She awakens in a special ward with four similarly unbalanced and wayward girls: Sarah, a flirty and sass-talking know it all; Iris, a sensitive and talented artist who tries to...

The first teaser trailer for John Carpenter's (They Live) The Ward is here! In this short one minute clip actress Amber Heard (And Soon the Darkness) can be seen playing Kristen, a trouble young woman. After setting a farmhouse ablaze, she is housed in the North Bend Psychiatric Hospital for care. But here, she only finds ghosts and more tormented souls.

This film also stars Danielle Panabaker (The Crazies) and, unfortunately for North American horror fans, the United Kingdom will host filmings of this production first (January 21, 2011). This film has been pushed back from one release already (September, 2010), but here is one vote for a soon to be upcoming release. Check out the film's teaser inside courtesy of Upcoming Horror Movies.

The film's official plotline is here:

"1966. Night. As a storm approaches the North Bend Psychiatric Hospital, something unseen walks the halls of the isolation ward. It closes in...

Hitting movie theaters this weekend:

Another Year (limited release) – Jim Broadbent, Ruth Sheen, Lesley Manville

Blue Valentine (limited release) – Ryan Gosling, Michelle Williams

Movie of the Week

Another Year

The Stars: Jim Broadbent, Ruth Sheen, Lesley Manville

The Plot: A happily married couple is visited by some troubled friends.

The Buzz: Ever since Moulin Rouge, I’ve been a huge fan of Jim Broadbent, and have followed his career somewhat voraciously. Another Year marks a nice continuation in Broadbent’s ongoing partnership with director Mike Leigh (Topsy-Turvy, Vera Drake), and looks to be an excellent heartfelt drama dealing with the trials of aging.

I can’t say that I’m too familiar with the rest of the cast, but Broadbent and Leigh are both very well respected names, and it stands to reason that this pairing will likely lead to another winner — they’ve done it before, and they’ll do it again.

This Week in DVD & Blu-ray is a column that compiles all the latest info regarding new DVD and Blu-ray releases, sales, and exclusive deals from stores including Target, Best Buy and Fry’s. Archer (Season 1) Much like its FX counterpart, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Archer is a show about horrible people doing horrible things. Premised as a '60s spy thriller spoof, the series adopts the same irreverent brand of humor we've come to expect from creator Adam Reed (Frisky Dingo, Sealab 2021), thrusting our deviant band of self-obsessed special agents through the ringer as they spout fiercely clever/cleverly stupid insults at one another and zanily stumble through mission after mission—with varying degrees of blood loss. It's everything loyal fans like myself came to love about Frisky Dingo, just with a tad bit more (very welcome) narrative structure. If you aren't watching it, you should be. Available on Blu-ray?...

Got a few decent DVD and Blu-ray releases out this week, so let's get to it. First up is the fourth installment in the uneven (yet very popular) Resident Evil franchise, Resident Evil: Afterlife. This release comes at is in a variety of ways. On DVD, Blu-ray and Blu-ray 3D which only works on 3D televisions so buyer beware.

Also out this week is FX network's hilarious, irreverant and just plain vulgar Archer: Season 1. Looks like it's only out on DVD, but if you haven't seen Adam Reed, Matt Thompson's show yet I highly recommend forgoing the HD for the laughs.

Form What I'm hearing, The American is not the Bourne George Clooney. In fact, word from friends who've seen the flick is that it's acutally a very slow and deliberate film worth checking out. So I will be.

Joel Shumacher hits us over the head with...