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Cult, Classic, and Indie Genre Icons will Present New Work at Nightmares Film Festival

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Nightmares Film Festival has a reputation for bringing together filmmakers and fans in an environment that encourages communication and the exchange of ideas. It’s a tradition they have carefully cultivated in the three short years they’ve existed and this year is no exception.

In fact, this year’s list of filmmakers in attendance include creatives behind genre favorites like Friday the 13th, Sorority Row, Donnie Darko, Goodnight Mommy, Winchester, Daybreakers, and so many more, and they’ll be answering questions, promoting their films, and interacting with fans.

“We’re thrilled Nightmares is a space that brings together both new and established filmmakers to celebrate each other’s work,” said NFF co-founder and programmer Jason Tostevin in a press release from earlier today. “We’re not a convention and they won’t be behind a table. These iconic filmmakers are coming to Nightmares to show their newest films, talk about them at the bar and watch other people’s movies.”

Who’s on the roster you ask?

Bill Lustig (Maniac Cop) will open this year’s festival with a 4K restoration of his classic slasher Maniac.

Then there’s Fred Vogel of Toetag Pictures who took the indie world by storm in 2001 with August Underground, a film so intense that it grew into a trilogy. Vogel will be on hand Saturday for the 10 screening of his new thriller, The Final Interview.

Next up, Jason Trost (The FP) returns to Nightmares Film Festival with The FP2: Beats of Rage in its Midwest Premiere Friday evening at 10 pm.

Ohio native, Jordan Downey (Critters: Bounty Hunter, ThanksKilling) will welcome fans at noon on Saturday to his new film The Head, a period piece that follows a medieval bounty hunter (Christopher Rygh) on the trail of the monster who killed his daughter.

Scott Schirmer, whose previous work includes the strange and twisted Found, will present his equally twisted new kidnap thriller The Bad Man Friday evening at 8 pm.

Also on the schedule, Can Evrenol (Baskin) will make a video introduction for The Field Guide to Evil at 6pm on Saturday. Evrenol directed one of the segments in the highly-anticipated anthology film.

If you’re thinking this sounds like a horror fan’s dream come true, you’d be absolutely right, though the festivals creators would most likely remind you this weekend is more about nightmares.

Nightmares Film Festival runs this weekend, October 18-21, 2018 at the Gateway Film Center in Columbus, Ohio. Individual tickets for screenings can be purchased online, and the full schedule for the weekend is available here.

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The Pope’s Exorcist Officially Announces New Sequel

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The Pope’s Exorcist is one of those films that’s just fun to watch. It isn’t the most terrifying film around, but there’s something about Russel Crow (Gladiator) playing a wise cracking Catholic priest that just feels right.

Screen Gems seems to agree with this assessment, as they have just officially announced that The Pope’s Exorcist sequel is in the works. It makes sense that Screen Gems would want to keep this franchise going, considering the first film scared up almost $80 million with a budget of only $18 million.

The Pope's Exorcist
The Pope’s Exorcist

According to Crow, there may even be a The Pope’s Exorcist trilogy in the works. However, recent changes with the studio may have put the third film on hold. In a sit-down with The Six O’Clock Show, Crow gave the following statement about the project.

“Well that’s in discussion at the moment. The producers originally got the kick off from the studio not just for one sequel but for two. But there’s been a change of studio heads at the moment, so that’s going around in a few circles. But very definitely, man. We set that character up that you could take him out and put him into a lot of different circumstances.”

Crow has also stated that film’s source material involves twelve separate books. This would allow the studio to take the story in all kinds of directions. With that much source material, The Pope’s Exorcist could even rival The Conjuring Universe.

Only the future will tell what becomes of The Pope’s Exorcist. But as always, more horror is always a good thing.

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New ‘Faces of Death’ Remake Will Be Rated R For “Strong Bloody Violence and Gore”

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In a move that should surprise absolutely no one, the Faces of Death reboot has been given an R rating from the MPA. Why has the film been given this rating? For strong bloody violence, gore, sexual content, nudity, language, and drug use, of course.

What else would you expect from a Faces of Death reboot? It would honestly be alarming if the film received anything less than an R rating.

Faces of death
Faces of Death

For those unaware, the original Faces of Death film released in 1978 and promised viewers video evidence of real deaths. Of course, this was just a marketing gimmick. Promoting a real snuff film would be a terrible idea.

But the gimmick worked, and franchise lived on in infamy. The Faces of Death reboot is hoping to gain the same amount of viral sensation as its predecessor. Isa Mazzei (Cam) and Daniel Goldhaber (How to Blow Up a Pipeline) will spearhead this new addition.

The hope is that this reboot will do well enough to recreate the infamous franchise for a new audience. While we don’t know much about the film at this point, but a joint statement from Mazzei and Goldhaber gives us the following info on the plot.

“Faces of Death was one of the first viral video tapes, and we are so lucky to be able to use it as a jumping off point for this exploration of cycles of violence and the way they perpetuate themselves online.”

“The new plot revolves around a female moderator of a YouTube-like website, whose job is to weed out offensive and violent content and who herself is recovering from a serious trauma, that stumbles across a group that is recreating the murders from the original film. But in the story primed for the digital age and age of online misinformation, the question faced is are the murders real or fake?”

The reboot will have some bloody shoes to fill. But from the looks of it, this iconic franchise is in good hands. Unfortunately, the film does not have a release date at this time.

That’s all the information we have at this time. Make sure to check back here for more news and updates.

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Movie Reviews

Panic Fest 2024 Review: ‘The Ceremony Is About To Begin’

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People will look for answers and belonging in the darkest places and the darkest people. The Osiris Collective is a commune predicated upon ancient Egyptian theology and was run by the mysterious Father Osiris. The group boasted dozens of members, each forgoing their old lives for one held in the Egyptian themed land owned by Osiris in Northern California. But the good times take a turn for the worst when in 2018, an upstart member of the collective named Anubis (Chad Westbrook Hinds) reports Osiris disappearing while mountain climbing and declaring himself the new leader. A schism ensued with many members leaving the cult under Anubis’ unhinged leadership. A documentary is being made by a young man named Keith (John Laird) whose fixation with The Osiris Collective stems from his girlfriend Maddy leaving him for the group several years ago. When Keith gets invited to document the commune by Anubis himself, he decides to investigate, only to get wrapped up in horrors he couldn’t even imagine…

The Ceremony Is About To Begin is the latest genre twisting horror film from Red Snow‘s Sean Nichols Lynch. This time tackling cultist horror along with a mockumentary style and the Egyptian mythology theme for the cherry on top. I was a big fan of Red Snow‘s subversiveness of the vampire romance sub-genre and was excited to see what this take would bring. While the movie has some interesting ideas and a decent tension between the meek Keith and the erratic Anubis, it just doesn’t exactly thread everything together in a succinct fashion.

The story begins with a true crime documentary style interviewing former members of The Osiris Collective and sets-up what led the cult to where it is now. This aspect of the storyline, especially Keith’s own personal interest in the cult, made it an interesting plotline. But aside from some clips later on, it doesn’t play as much a factor. The focus is largely on the dynamic between Anubis and Keith, which is toxic to put it lightly. Interestingly, Chad Westbrook Hinds and John Lairds are both credited as writers on The Ceremony Is About To Begin and definitely feel like they’re putting their all into these characters. Anubis is the very definition of a cult leader. Charismatic, philosophical, whimsical, and threateningly dangerous at the drop of a hat.

Yet strangely, the commune is deserted of all cult members. Creating a ghost town that only amps up the danger as Keith documents Anubis’ alleged utopia. A lot of the back and forth between them drags at times as they struggle for control and Anubis keeps continuing to convince Keith to stick around despite the threatening situation. This does lead to a pretty fun and bloody finale that fully leans into mummy horror.

Overall, despite meandering and having a bit of a slow pace, The ceremony Is About To Begin is a fairly entertaining cult, found footage, and mummy horror hybrid. If you want mummies, it delivers on mummies!

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