5 Upcoming Horror Movies To Watch For
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For many movie fans, October is the month of horror, and to celebrate, we're going to count down to Halloween with a series of daily features and galleries. To kick off things off, here's a look at some of the horror movies we're most anticipating over the coming year...
Mayhem
The pressures of office life are taken to the extreme in this lively action horror movie, which hits home entertainment formats in November. Former Walking Dead star Steven Yuen plays an attorney who has been framed by a former co-worker and sacked from his job. If that wasn't bad enough, that also turns out to be the day that an airborne virus hits the office, turning his former co-workers into violent lunatics freed from all social inhibitions. With the building in lockdown, our hero must fight his way to the top floor while trying to control his own primal urges.
Mayhem is directed by Joe Lynch, who previously helmed the hit horror sequel Wrong Turn 2 and Everly, the 2015 thriller starring Salma Hayek. It promises a mix of corporate satire and bloody, er, mayhem, and Everly proved that Lynch is very capable of delivering top-quality building-based action on a budget. Variety called it a "smartly constructed and sardonically funny indie with attitude that somehow manages the tricky feat of being exuberantly over the top even as it remains consistently on target."
The Ritual
The Ritual is based on Adam Nevill's award-winning 2011 novel about a group of old friends who get lost on a hiking trip in the Swedish mountains and encounter an ancient evil. It's a familiar setup, but the movie adaptation is picking up plenty of festival buzz. It's the debut feature from David Bruckner, who previously helmed sections of the acclaimed horror anthologies The Signal and V/H/S, and the cast includes Prometheus's Rafe Spall and Downton Abbey star Robert James-Collier.
Last year's Blair Witch reboot might have flopped, but wilderness horror remains a hugely potent subject, and strong early reviews suggest that this is a horror must-see. TheRitual hits UK theaters later this month, and US viewers will be able to see it on Netflix, following the streaming giant's massive $4.75 million deal to score the movie's international rights.
Death House
The horror genre is packed with icons--from actors who have become famous for playing masked killers to the many "Scream Queens" who have graced the screen over the years. Many of them now assembled for Death House, which has a script from the late Gunnar Hansen, who played Leatherface is the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Directed by B. Harrison Smith and dubbed "The Expendables of Horror," the movie traps a pair of federal agents in a maximum security prison, forcing them to fight their way out past dozens of evil, crazed inmates. The cast list includes Kane Hodder (Friday the 13th), Barbara Crampton (Re-Animator), Bill Moseley (Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2), Dee Wallace (The Howling), Camille Keaton (I Spit On Your Grave), Michael Berryman (The Hills Have Eyes), Tony Todd (Candyman), Sid Haig (The Devil's Rejects), and Adrienne Barbeau (The Fog). Phew! Death House hits theaters in January 2018.
The Nun
James Wan has co-created no fewer than three hugely popular horror franchises—Saw, Insidious, and The Conjuring--all of which will have had new entries in 2017. Following the success of the Conjuring spinoff Annabelle: Creation this year, next summer will see the release of another movie in the same connected universe--The Nun. Directed by Corin Hardy, who made the effective horror movie The Hallow and is in line to helm the remake of The Crow, The Nun is set before both the Conjuring and Annabelle films. It features Hateful Eight's Demián Bichir as a priest investigating a nun's mysterious suicide, with Taissa Farmiga (sister of Conjuring star Vera Farmiga) as the title character who, we're guessing, isn't entirely dead. All will be revealed next July.
Halloween/Suspiria
OK, this technically makes it six films, but we thought these two high-profile horror remakes were equally fascinating projects. John Carpenter's Halloween and Dario Argento's Suspiria are two of the most iconic chillers of the late-'70s, and new versions are due in 2018, courtesy of two unexpected directors. Halloween has, of course, been previously remade by Rob Zombie, but this next version will be directed by David Gordon Green, the indie auteur best known for films such as George Washington and All The Real Girls, as well as the stoner comedy favorite Pineapple Express. Not only that, but it has a script co-written by comedy actor Danny McBride. It's not exactly clear if this is a remake, a sequel, or something else entirely, but original star Jamie Lee Curtis is returning, and Carpenter himself is involved creatively. Not surprisingly, the movie arrives in theaters in October next year. Happy Halloween!
Suspiria, meanwhile, has already been shot and is awaiting release from Amazon Studios, so expect that one much sooner. This tale of a ballet school run by ancient, evil witches is directed by Luca Guadagnino, the Italian filmmaker behind 2015's acclaimed comedy drama A Bigger Splash. His regular star, Tilda Swinton, returns for Suspiria, with Dakota Johnson and Chloë Grace Moretz as ballet students who uncover the school's dark secrets. Argento's original movie is noted for its incredible visual style and thunderous soundtrack; we already know that Radiohead's Thom Yorke is providing the score for the remake, and hopefully Guadagnino will deliver something just as stylish.