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Brian Taylor Goes All In with “Mom and Dad”

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Brian Taylor, the man who brought us Gamer and Crank, has a brand new film hitting theaters and Video On Demand January 19, 2018. It’s called Mom and Dad and it’s like nothing you’ve ever seen before.

The film begins on a morning just like any other morning. Brent and Kendall Ryan get their kids ready for the day and head off to work never realizing that the world is about to go insane.

For the next hour and 23 minutes, we watch as parents are overtaken by a blind rage that makes them want to kill their children. Not children in general…only their own.

The film is an action packed, darkly hilarious roller coaster ride, and I jumped at the chance to talk to writer/director Brian Taylor.

My first question? Where did this idea come from?

“Yeah, well, I’m a parent, right? So, really, it’s all there,” Taylor laughed in reply.

From the spark of that idea, Taylor was intent on telling an original story, something he’d never seen before on film.

“Sometimes, when you do that, you find out why no one has ever done it before,” he explained. “It just seemed like this was a universal theme, though. The moment you fulfill your purpose as a human being is the moment you become obsolete, and that’s something that is difficult to resolve.”

This universal theme actually helped Taylor as they were searching for filming locations for the movie. They were in a very conservative part of Kentucky, and he was afraid to tell people what the movie was about when he was asking for permission to use their homes, many of which were decorated with religious iconography.

“That moment always came, though, and I’d have to, somewhat hesitantly, tell them what we were making,” he said. “Overwhelmingly, they’d respond ‘Oh, I’d see that movie! I want to kill my kids ten times a day!'”

That was when he knew he was really onto something. Now all he needed was a stellar cast to bring it to life.

Enter Nicholas Cage and Selma Blair as Brent and Kendall, the murderous parents in question.

“Nick and Selma are punk rock, man, and they really got the satire and humor right away,” Taylor explained. “They really personalized it and brought their own anxieties and frustrations to their roles.”

Selma Blair in Mom and Dad via Momentum Pictures

Both actors played their roles to the hilt, but Blair, especially, seems to offer the audience a glimpse of internal conflict over her murderous rage, even when it is in its highest gear. She’s our broken moral compass, so to speak, and she inhabits her role beautifully.

The films two younger stars, Anne Winters and Zackary Arthur, offset their adult counterparts perfectly working together as only a brother and sister can to stay alive.

Mom and Dad is a movie that begs to be seen with a group of friends. Check out the trailer below and be sure to look for it in theaters and VOD on January 19 2018.


Featured image via Momentum Pictures

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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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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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