Whatever happened to Dark Floors?

I got to wondering tonight what happened to Dark Floors. I do the weekly Trailer Park column over at Cinematical.com and I did a write up on the Dark Floors preview back in December. The film got its world premiere in its native Finland on February 6, and has since been released in Iceland and Estonia (I'm embarrassed to say I don't even know where that is) but I haven't heard any news of a U.S. release. Well, the Internet is a pretty awesome thing and I quickly learned (thanks to an article over at Bloody-disgusting.com) that the film has been picked up by Ghost House Underground, a new direct-to-video branch of Sam Raimi's Ghost House Pictures that will be releasing the film in October.

Dark Floors stars the band Lordi, a Finnish rock group who wear some very cool and downright horrific monster costumes as part of their act. When a man removes hist autistic daughter from her doctor's care and attempts to the leave the hospital, they and a handful of others step off the elevator onto a floor that shouldn't exist. The place is strewn with corpses, and they find themselves stalked by monstrous demons, played by the members of Lordi. This looks awesome enough for me to ignore the slight resemblance to Silent Hill. I checked out the movie's official site which is a pretty cool Flash driven affair. Take a look at the trailer below, and beneath that you'll find a Lordi video that proves they've seen The Evil Dead in Finland.

TRAILER: The Strangers

The Strangers opens on May 30, and I'm really hoping the movie is as balls to the wall creepy as the trailer is. Liv Tyler and Scott Speedman play a couple who are the target of a horrifying home invasion by several people wearing masks. Come, partake of the terror...

The Shadmock

Wonder not why your hair stiffly bristles,
just abandon all hope when the shadmock whistles.

Lately I've been reading and enjoying the hell out of The Mammoth Book of Monsters edited by Stephen Jones. It's roughly 500 pages of short horror stories from a variety of authors, with each tale containing some sort of monster. What's not to like? A nice little surprise was the inclusion of "The Shadmock" by late British horror writer R. Chetwynd-Hayes. I knew the story from its adaptation as part of The Monster Club, a 1980 horror flick noteworthy for containing Vincent Price's only portrayal of a vampire and being the last gasp of a cycle of horror anthology films that included the likes of Tales From the Crypt and The House That Dripped Blood.

Both the film and short story explain that years of interbreeding by various creatures of the night has resulted in some new variations, including shaddies mocks, and maddies, and if a mock and a maddy marry their offspring will be a shadmock. To summarize, vampires sup, werewolves hunt, ghouls tear, shaddies lick, maddies yawn, mocks blow, shadmocks only whistle.

Interestingly, other than featuring a shadmock and making the reader or viewer wonder exactly what sort of devastation might be wrought if this guy were to forget himself and start whistling "Smoke on the Water," the story and film adaptation have practically nothing in common. In the film our shadmock is a wealthy pigeon loving recluse named Raven, with a young couple named George and Angela attempting to swindle him out of his fortune. Angela attempts to woo Raven, but when she loses her temper and tells him how his corpse-like visage disgusts her, he lets loose with a whistle that essentially liquifies much of her skin.

In the original story, our shadmock is a servant rather than a millionaire. Sheridan and Caroline, a married couple have purchased an estate in a remote area of the English countryside. The mansion comes with a family of servants who have lived there all their lives, and they include an elderly shaddy, a mock, a maddy as well as the offspring of the last two, a handsome young shadmock named Marvin. Caroline takes a fancy to Marvin who also has eyes for Caroline despite the fact that once they've removed Sheridan's soul and made him a creature of the night like them, they plan to drain Caroline of her bodily fluids and use her remains to fertilize Marvin's garden. Even Marvin's own family is careful not to upset him, as shadmock's have a tendency to whistle when angered, but in an attempt to save Caroline he turns his ability on his own family with devastating results.

The story is a great read, written in a reserved British style, and has more substance than the filmed version, though the movie is still worth seeing as well. All three of the film's stories are based on the works of R. Chetwynd-Hayes, with the story that features a Humghoul (another product of monstrous interbreeding) being the high point. Have a look at the trailer:

DON'T Trailer

The reason for the financial failure of Grindhouse at the U.S. box office is going to be debated for some time to come. Some say it was just too long, some believe the average filmgoer didn't understand what the film was trying to do, and others think The Weinstein company didn't market the film properly. While I think the length was at least a partial issue, I don't have a definitive answer, but ultimately I don't think it will matter. This movie will find it's audience on DVD, and eventually settle into the role of cult classic.

The fake trailers were an absolute hoot, so here's the trailer for the non-existant film Don't, directed by Edgar Wright of Shaun of the Dead fame. It looks, quite intentionally, like a European film from the 70s, capturing the feel of the era quite nicely.

BLACK SHEEPWay Cool Trailer

Oh my God, this is an awesome trailer. You can see influences from Bad Taste through Shaun of the Dead. I even see parts of The Killer Shrews in there. Even if the movie turns out to be a total piece of crap we'll still have the trailer, but I have I hopes for this one.

SCARY MARY POPPINSFan Made Trailer

I love horror films and the first movie I ever saw in a theater was Mary Poppins. For me, it was only a matter of time before the two met. A gentleman named Chris Rule has edited together scenes from Mary Poppins and added sound effects and music to create the greatest trailer for a horror film that never was. I found the link to this Youtube video on Boing Boing this morning, and it rocks. I imagine if, in some parallel universe, Mario Bava had been given the chance to direct Disney's Mary Poppins, the trailer would have looked exactly like this:

WEREWOLF IN A WOMEN'S PRISONTrailer

I've come across a tale of cinematic lycanthropy whose title is sheer genius. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Werewolf in a Women's Prison. It's a title that unabashedly gets to the point, melding two classic exploitation genres, in much the same way that Werewolves on Wheels (1971) combined horror movies and biker flicks.

When Sarah and her boyfriend Jack are attacked by a werewolf while camping, Jack is killed and Sarah is badly mauled. Since no one believes her story, Sarah is convicted of Jack's murder and sent to a third world women's prison for the criminally insane. The usual women-in-prison movie staples follow -- lesbianism, catfights, gratuitous nudity, etc. -- but Sarah brings something new to the mix; having been bitten, she is now a werewolf herself. Jack isn't completely out of the picture as, in a bit swiped from An American Werewolf in London, his mangled corpse appears to Sarah and tells her that the only way to break the curse upon her is with her own death. Man, what a negative Nancy.

The trailer (which, I should stress, is not safe for work viewing) looks about as low-rent as you might expect -- like something Fred Olen Ray (Bad Girls From Mars, Scream Queen Hot Tub Party) would have produced. Costumes and sets are minimal, though, in the case of the costumes, this is a sexploitation film after all, so less is more, if you get my drift. The film seems to deliver on the gore too.

Sadly, I'm 95% sure the movie will suck.

CHILDREN OF MENTrailer

A bleak view of the not-too-distant future. It's the year 2027 and the world is shocked to hear about the death of the youngest person on Earth. He was 18 years old. The human race has lost the ability to procreate, and humanity can do nothing but wait for extinction. All may not be lost, though, as an inexplicably pregnant woman may hold the secret for mankind's salvation. Clive Owen plays a former activist who must transport the woman to a safe haven in an increasingly chaotic world.

The glimmer of hope in the face of extinction reminds me of The Day the Earth Caught Fire which, for my money, is the best end of the world movie of all time. I'm definitely looking forward to this one. Check out the trailer: