Smash Cut

A movie mash-up that could happen, er, “Only In My Dreams” is ready to chomp up home theaters in the form of Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus. What’s it about? Read the title! Need to know more? It stars brooding, would-be tough guy Lorenzo Lamas, former pop wonder Deborah Gibson, and a slew of not-so-special-yet-thoroughly-enjoyable creature effects.

Don’t believe me? Feast on the tasty trailer below.

Hisss is the name of the newest film by Jennifer Lynch, a filmmaker who’s probably going to forever be known — much to her bemusement/annoyance/happiness/chagrin — as the daughter of David Lynch. Or, more unfortunately, as the mind behind the critically and commercially lambasted erotic thriller, 1993’s Boxing Helena.

That’s too bad, because Ms. Lynch seems to be blossoming into an interesting artist in her own right, and proof of that metamorphosis is the trailer for her latest effort, a sensuous Bollywood-styled horror/fantasy starring the ravishingly gorgeous Mallika Sherawat as a snake woman who’s able to take on human form and wreak havoc amongst mankind.

The Official Hisss Website doesn’t have much on it yet, but keep checking it for updates in the future. And take a look at the trailer here, thanks to the good folks at Twitch.

Maybe you wouldn’t even want to, if the above one-sheet poster image is any indication.

One Eyed Monster, in case you must know, is a horror/comedy spoof that stars porn legend Ron Jeremy as an adult film star (gee, no stretch there) whose…uh…”member” (hinted at in the title, dontchaknow) ends up terrorizing the production’s cast and crew when it’s possessed by a nefarious alien presence.

Check out the not-particularly-safe-for-work trailer over at the Official One Eyed Monster Website. The film drops on DVD on April 28.

Ah, Twitch. You can always count on that site for the best updates, and this one’s no exception: an exclusive presentation of the first trailer for Samurai Princess.

I showed you the scorching one-sheet image above when I first  blogged about this destined-for-cult-classic-status, psychotronic Japanese actioner at the beginning of the month. The poster’s image of lead star/adult video actress Aino Kishi was probably enough to get your tongues wagging, but the preview delivers on many, many more levels, folks. We’re talking explosive breasts and scissor feet here.

Watch the trailer here on Twitch. You can visit the Official Samurai Princess Website for more details as they arrive.

“New Samurai is Born.” Indeed!

Danish filmmaker Lars von Trier has always been a combination of daring arthouse filmmaker and boundary-pushing provocateur, whether depicting a melding of sex and religion in 1996’s Breaking the Waves or reveling in the taboo-busting behavior of the protagonists in 1998’s The Idiots, which offered everything from the very un-p.c. mimicry of mental deficiencies through full-on penetration coital footage.

His latest movie, Antichrist, seems equally geared to raise effervescent kudos and angry rants alike. At its heart, it goes into standard supernatural horror territory: a grieving couple (played by Willem Dafoe and Charlotte Gainsbourg) retreat to their cabin in the woods to mend their hearts and their troubled marriage, only to find sinister forces at work which could lead to an even more hellish existence. Sure, plot-wise it could be right down there with 2006’s remake of The Omen, but as the new Antichrist trailer shows, von Trier might be willing to cross some Hollywood-safe bounds that could make the film as edgy as one we’d normally expect from him.

Watch the preview below.

About a month ago, I blogged about Korean writer/director Chan-wook Park’s upcoming subversive take on vampires entitled Thirst (a.k.a. Bakjwi). That earlier posting linked to a tantalizing but brief little teaser.

Well, I’m happy to say that a website has been created for the horror/drama about a priest whose tastes run blood-red after partaking in an botched medical experiment, and it sports an impressive goodie: a new preview. It’s unsubtitled, but much more provocative and stylish than its predecssor.

The full-length trailer can be seen on the Official Thirst Website now. Even if you’re totally sick of all things vampiric, I think there’s a chance that you might discover something novel or at least a tad unusual here. Thirst is scheduled for an April 30 release in South Korea.

From the oh-so-delightfully-twisted minds behind loony Japanese genre fare like The Machine Girl and Tokyo Gore Police (movies that are exactly what their titles describe them to be) comes Samurai Princess. And if the poster pictured above is any indication, then Yoshihiro Nishimura — the director of Tokyo Gore Police and effects supervisor on Machine Girl and Princess — will be three for three with his trifecta of pics that deliver on the promise of their names (not to mention poster campaigns).

Distributor CREi offers this plot description:

Erotic-grotesque action film from Japan to worldwide viewers! Produced by Yoshihiro Nishimura, a world-famous special effects director!

The story takes place sometime, somewhere in a world during the Samurai era, where people live together with highly developed mechanical dolls. However, excessively-developed mechanical dolls start causing harm to the human society, leading to ghastly bloodshed happening all over the place. Under the circumstances, Kyoraku, a mad scientist, creates a female ninja mechanical doll. Equipped with 11 types of built-in weapons, the ninja doll, who will not die even if she is slashed by a sword or shot by a gun, is virtually indestructible.

As of this moment, there’s no Samurai Princess trailer, but there is an official website that is, simply, a mega-image of the poster. Nothing else to check out as of yet, but that does mean that you get an even more ginormous pic of star Yukari Tateishi than the one I’ve hooked you up with.

Whoa, McFly!

Beloved author Roald Dahl always had a slightly sinister sense of humor, and one can’t help but wonder what Charlie and the Chocolate Factory would’ve been like if the eccentric confectioner had been a little less wonky and a cut more nasty.

Well, wonder no longer! Over at the humor website Funny or Die, there’s a hilariously brilliant parody trailer for a phony slasher pic called Gobstopper. The preview features a demonic Willy Wonka taking on some bratty teenagers in pure genre-consistent style. In a bit of casting genius, none other than Christopher Lloyd — Dr. Emmet Brown himself — plays the purple-clad psycho.

Check out the trailer here, and visit the Official Gobstopper Website for more deadly treats.

If Taiwanese cinema is known at all in the United States, it’s generally amongst the arthouse aficionados who groove to the deliberately-paced, slice-of-life-fueled dramas from New Taiwan Cinema alumni like Cannes-favorites Hou Hsiao-hsien and the late, great Edward Yang.

Taiwan’s film industry has never been as prolific or as profitable as that of, say, Hong Kong, but you have to give its local talent credit for overcoming financial and technological difficulties and continuing to make world-class efforts that keep them on the international scene. In addition, once in a blue moon, some daring soul actually tries his hand at making a genre pic: a shoot-’em-up, for example, or a thriller. And now, the country’s produced a film that’s going to let it join an ever-growing club: the Trans-Continental Slasher Society. Yup, even Taiwan couldn’t resist the temptation of making a maniacal-killer-on-the-rampage movie, and why not? They’re cheap and audiences tend to eat them up (not to mention slasher pics traverse linguistic boundaries very, very easily).

Invitation Only seems to toe the line of every horror trope — masked baddie, nubile victims, etc. — but who knows, it could still be fun. Check out the trailer that’s embedded on the film’s official website, if you dare to learn more.

It was really only a couple of weeks ago when I first posted about the forthcoming live-action interpretation of the 2000 anime vampire/action classic, Blood: The Last Vampire.

Well, it now seems as if people are salivating for more, because the hype machine is still chugging along at full steam, with a brand-new trailer popping up online courtesy of Yahoo! Japan. It’s not subtitled, but a good amount of it is actually in English so you shouldn’t have any problems following along.

The thing is, now that I’ve actually heard the delivery of the English dialogue (particularly that of lead actress Gianna Jun), I’m toning down my expectations a bit. Some of the performances seem a bit…uh…stiff, which can (and should) be expected given the fact that English isn’t exactly the native tongue of many of the performers. But I can’t deny that the not-so-fluent passages are more than a little distracting. Nevertheless, director Chris Nahon obviously has an eye for flashy style, and the extended footage shows off the movie’s exciting sheen.

Check out the trailer here. (Click on the highlighted blue characters above the paragraph of Japanese text in order to access the preview.)