Guillermo del Toro and the best from Comic Con

Well, last week the nerds and freaks around the world met at San Diego, the place where comics, superheroes, zombies and videogames all mix together. There was to much news coming out every day since the very beginning so we´ll focus on the horror movies for now.

Guillermo del Toro, that mexican director who brought us Blade 2, Hellboy or The Pan´s labyrinth is one of those guys who never miss the Comic Con. Although he was there to present the film Don´t be afraid of the dark, he surprised us all announcing that he will be producing and even writing a film for Disney: a new version of Haunted Mansion, the famous attraction of the Disney´s theme parks. Eddie Murphy did a comedy about it back in 2003 but Del Toro quickly said that the film will be dark and that the scary moments of the film there will be truly scary. De Toro will co-write the movie with Matthew Robbins and they will be using 3D technology for this live-action film for which Del Toro promises us the most haunted mansion on the earth.

The other project he was presenting at Comic Con was the film Don’t be afraid of the dark, a remake of a original film which scared the hell out of him when he watched it as a kid. They avoided the sexuality and the use of rude language trying to get a PG13, but the movie was finally rated R. When questioned about all the remakes coming out from Hollywood, Del Toro explained that these films are usually made in fear of making something way different from the original. Therefore, the result is usually a copy paste movie with nothing new to offer to the viewer.

Talking about remaking films, Mat Reeves presented Let me in, which have been filmed following Steven Spielberg’s advices to direct kids in a movie. The panel was pretty interesting as the fans could get a glimpse of how this new version will look. Personally, I am interested in the film because they are using a few details from the book that were left out from the original movie, like the scene with Virginia (Sasha Barrese) sucking her own blood or a storyline involving a cop (Elias Koteas). They showed two clips to the audience at San Diego that have had pretty good reactions within the fan community. The first one showed a sequence which could describe the relationship between the two main characters: Chloe Moretz and Kodi Smit-McPhee getting to know each other in an arcade. Kodi plays Ms. Pac-Man and eats candy while Chloe seems fascinated with Kodi and constantly stares at him. Taking one of the most beautiful moments of Let the right one in, the scene shows Chloe taking some candy so she doesn't hurt Kodi´s feelings even knowing she will be hurt for doing so. After that she asked one of the key questions of the movie: if she weren´t a girl, would he like her anyway? Since the other clip was sort of a spoiler, I´ll keep it from you.

Movie Trailers - Movies Blog

Monsters is one of those movies that ring a bell to you but you are still not sure of what is all about. Well, that´s why they premiered a trailer at the Comic Con, so all you guys out there start talking about it. Basically, the movie will take us to the Earth five years after an alien invasion changed the face of our planet.

More Monsters Videos

Paul Bettany kicking some vampires asses in 3D while travelling through a post apocalyptic world. That is what Priest is about and it definitely looks like an action movie rather than horror one, the sort of thing that Legion tried to achieve. Ok, let´s wait until we watch more to judge the film.

Priest Trailer
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And of course, what would have been of this year Comic Con without a Saw panel? It will be the last one; it will be in 3D and it will wrap the saga with lots of blood and new tricky tramps. Will this be the last game of Jigsaw? Only time and money will tell.

The Devil´s trap

M. Night Shyamalan is having some serious problems. After reached the sky of horror and thriller movies with The sixth Sense and Unbreakable, he made a couple of interesting movies (The Village and Signs). Ok, there was nothing to worry about at that time. But then, it came out The Lady in the water, followed by The Happening. Both of them had big screenplay mistakes, neither of them were really successful and they bored the hell out of audicences around the world. Even though you could still feel the director´s magic in a bunch of great sequences. His name started to be linked with great ideas but poor results.

Both the box office and the reviews started to be really cruel with the director. Avatar: the last airbender was the last try of Shyamalan to finally reach reconciliation with the fans. As it turned out, he failed. The movie is not being what the studio wanted to be: the blockbuster of the summer. As if the box office failure weren´t enough, the critics and the fans had definitely lost their faith in the director.

Anyhow, his ideas for movies are truly interesting and always intriguing enough to talk about any project he is involve with. Devil is the last one. This is the first one in a series of low budget movies inspired by original ideas of M. Night Shyamalan. The film is not even written by him, though. He had the original idea, he helped to write the scrip and he produced the film but were the Dowdle brothers (Quarantine) the ones who finally direct the movie. Devil tells the story of a group of people trapped in a elevator with the devil himself. As soon as the elevator gets stuck, weird stuff happens. Who is the devil within this group? Are they going to survive? And most important, what does the devil want from these people? 

Kids, vampires and creepy mirrors

Two of the most anticipated horror films of the year have just started their promotion with viral web sites and creepy trailers. Knowing that the fourth of July weekend is probably the one with the highest numbers at the box office, both Let me in and Paranormal Activity trailers have been released these last days.

Let me in looks way better than what I thought it would. The Swedish film in which is based the movie is a truly masterpiece and it´s on the "must see" trailers on the left. Personally, there´s no way of doing this film better than the original except for the remote idea of showing those parts of the novel that the previous movie didn´t show. Some of you may be asking me through your laptops´ screens why they didn´t show those parts. Well, let´s just say that even for an European film would be hard to explain and show in a movie the explicit sexually moments of the novel. I mean, there are places you would read about rather than going there and see them with your own eyes. Anyway, I would be greatly surprise if they were going that way but for the look of the trailer, it doesn´t look like. Anyway, just check it out and see it for yourself.

I´m sure you heard about that horror film that gave nitghmares to Steven Spielberg himself, right? It was called Paranormal Activity and was about this couple who start recording their bed time and... Ok, this could sound like a porn movie but it´s not, believe me. So, every night, the audience of the film is watching the bedroom from the point of view of a single camera. Something is happening in the bedroom as they sleep. a evil presence is coming in and out of their home. Well, the movie wasn´t as scary as I thougtht it would be but it has his creepy good moments. Now, we can check the teaser trailer for the unavoidable sequel.  Paranormal Activity 2 has no sinopsis, not even an official cast reported yet, but the trailer and the viral tricks of the marketing process has started. The trailer was reported "too scary" for audience watching Eclipse and it was removed from several theaters around Texas. Check the trailer below and take a good look at the mirror at the end of the trailer, because there´s a hide message.

In this picture I got from Arrow in the Head you can see how the baby is in the mirror but not in the room. You can see as well a circle showing a hidden message.