James Wan and David Leslie Johnson on board for Conjuring 3

 

In addition to the spinoffs Annabelle: Creation, The Nun and The Crooked Man, The Conjuring franchise is still set to receive a third instalment to the main series. Fortunately, it has been announced that David Leslie Johnson, writer of the second film, and James Wan, the man behind the franchise, are coming back for me. 

While Wan is not neccessarily se to direct, he will still have heavy involvement in the film with Johnson continuing writing duties from the last movie. No release dae for this one yet but stay tuned.

Are you excited for another Conjuring movie? Do you think the franchise is being oversaturated?

Pool Party Massacre (2017): Review

Pool Party Massacre is a 2017 slasher film. Directed by Drew Marvick and starring Alexis Adams, Dora Deceuninck and Mark Justice. This is Marvick's directorial debut and he also wrote and appeared in the film.

The film centres around Tiffany (Adams), a spoiled suburbanite who throws an impromptu pool party while her parents are away on vacation. Among her friends is Dora (Deceuninck), who has long since outgrown their shallow high school friendship and is starting to pull away from Tiffany. After a boyfriend and his half wit brother crash the party, things start to go wrong and people start to dissapear as a mysterious handyman dispatches the attendees of the pool party massacre. It's down to the final girl to avoid being dispatched and escape the deadly LA suburbs.

Pool Party Massacre is an overt homage to the cheesy teen slashers of the 80s, such as Slumber Party Massacre (1982), Sleepaway Camp (1983) and The Mutilator (1984). In this it is very successful, complete with splatter kills and porno dialogue, and wisely walks more on the side of parody so you can laugh with it, rather than at it. A lot of attention is paid to the gruesome murders and, although initially they involve basic stabby techniques, they do advance to various gardening tools and there's a nice bit of dramatic irony as we get to see the unknown killer pick his weapon from a wall rack.

The movie comes with a great electro/metal soundtrack and always feels like the cast and crew are having a great time making the film. The authentic cheesy dialogue does tend to grate after a while and not all the jokes land in the way I believe they were intended to, but there's a decent central performance from Deceuninck and Marvick's own character is delightfully over the top. The film rattles on at an advisable pace, not leaving you time to get bored of the brainless plot, but I have to say I guessed the identity of the killer about halfway through, leaving the resolution somewhat lacking.

A great film for a friday night with a few friends and a few beers, Pool Party Massacre is exactly the kind of enjoyably dumb trash that was churned out at an alarming rate in the 80s. As long as you don't take the film any more seriously than any of the cast and crew, you'll be on the right side of the joke and have a lot of fun.

*** 3 Stars

What did you think of Pool Party Massacre? Are you a fan of 80s slashers?

Flatliners remake gets a trailer

 

The upcoming remake of Joel Schumacher's Flatliners has released it's first trailer. The 1990 supernatural thriller helped to turn Julia Roberts, Kevin Bacon and Kiefer Sutherland into huge 90s movie stars and has now received a modern update. Seemingly following the same plot as the original, the film follows a group of young medical students as they experiment with pushing themselves to the brink of death, and beyond.

With a much more underwhelming cast in the form of Ellen Paige, Nina Dobrev and Diego Luna, although Sutherland is also credited, the film would appear to be scraping the very bottom of the barrel when it comes to unnecessary remakes. However, the aesthetics are at least a change from the grungy, gritty original and, you would assume, there will be some incorporation of new scientific ideas that have emerged since the early 90s. The film is released this September.

What do you think of the trailer? Does Flatliners need to be remade?

Adam Wingard to direct Godzilla vs Kong

 

Indie horror legend in the making Adam Wingard (You're Next, The Guest, Blair Witch) has been announced as the director for upcoming kaiju mashup Godzilla vs Kong. Wingard is a tried and tested hand in several different variations of the horror genre, but he's never tackled anything on this scale and has a writers room to contend with.

We'll wait and see what fellow indie horror director Michael Dougherty (trick r treat, Krampus) can do with Godzilla 2 before seeing Wingard's epic monster clash in 2020.

What do you think of the choice of director? Are you a fan of Wingard's previous movies?