Guests at the garden party in the upcoming creature feature, Stung, will have to replace their EpiPens with swords and flamethrowers if they want to survive the giants wasps from below that are featured in the film's first trailer. Also included in our latest video round-up is a boy next door with a creepy caretaker in John McNaughton's The Harvest, as well as Helen McCrory's tour of her character's eerily decorated mansion from the upcoming second season of Showtime's Penny Dreadful.
Stung: "Mrs. Perch, an elderly, wealthy lady from rural America, is throwing a fancy garden party at her remote country villa. Same procedure as every year - except this time her illegally imported plant fertilizer seeps into the ground. Subsequently, a local species of killer wasps that usually lay their eggs into other insects mutates into 7 ft tall predators. And the celebrating upper class company provides just the right kind of prey. It's up to Paul and Julia, the two catering staffers, to stop the creatures, fight for their lives, and incidentally get their stumbling romance in order."
Stung was developed by producer Benjamin Munz at Rat Pack Filmproduktion based on an idea by Adam Aresty, who won RatPack’s 2012 horror-writing contest. Directed by Benni Diez, Stung stars Matt O' Leary, Jessica Cook, Clifton Collins Jr., Daniele Rizzo, Florentine Lahme, Cecilia Pillado, Eve Slatner, Peter Stormare, and Lance Henriksen.
The world premiere of Stung will take place at the Tribeca Film Festival on Friday, April 17th. The killer wasps horror comedy will also screen at this year's Stanley Film Festival.
Trailer courtesy of Daniele and The Talented Mr. Rizzo via Shock Till You Drop:
The Harvest: "In his first film in nearly 15 years, the director of Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer harks back to the depravity that made his 1986 debut a horror milestone. But less based in reality, The Harvest is closer to a fairy tale from Grimm’s darkest corners. Maryann (an impressive Natasha Calis) moves in with her grandparents after she’s orphaned. Desperately lonely, the preteen sets out to befriend a neighboring deathly ill, bed-ridden boy (Charlie Tahan), despite the outright disapproval of his mother (Samantha Morton). Maryann’s persistence pays off, however, and during a series of secret visits she gradually uncovers some seriously sinister goings-on in the house... Morton as the boy’s overprotective surgeon mom is the stuff of great screen villainy—at once utterly monstrous and tragically desperate—so much so that she makes even frequent heavy Michael Shannon, as the more subdued dad, pale in comparison."
Directed by John McNaughton from a screenplay by Stephen Lancellotti, The Harvest stars Michael Shannon, Samantha Morton, Natasha Calis, Peter Fonda, and Charlie Tahan.
Penny Dreadful Season 2: "Fresh Hell", the season two premiere of Penny Dreadful, will premiere on Showtime on Sunday, May 3rd, at 10:00pm EST. "Fresh Hell" was directed by James Hawes from a teleplay by John Logan.
“This season, Vanessa and Ethan form a deeper bond as the group, including Sir Malcolm (Timothy Dalton), Dr. Frankenstein (Harry Treadaway), and Sembene (Danny Sapani), unite to banish the evil forces that threaten to destroy them. Meanwhile, Dorian Gray (Reeve Carney), the Creature (Rory Kinnear) and Brona (Billie Piper) are all waging battles of their own. Patti LuPone will guest star as a mysterious character of great importance in Vanessa’s past. Helen McCrory returns as Evelyn Poole (a.k.a. Madame Kali), the seductive spiritualist who will pose a unique threat to our protagonists this season, along with Simon Russell Beale, who is back as eccentric Egyptologist Ferdinand Lyle. Additional guest stars include Douglas Hodge as a Scotland Yard investigator; Sarah Greene as Poole’s powerful daughter, Hecate; and Johnny Beauchamp as a man with a singular past.”
“An erotically-charged, profoundly unsettling new saga, PENNY DREADFUL completely reinvents literature’s most iconic and terrifying characters. Dorian Gray, Victor Frankenstein and timeless figures from Dracula join a core of original characters in a dark and brutal quest to save a soul — even as they grapple with their own monstrous temptations.”
Raised on a steady diet of R.L. Stine’s Goosebumps books and Are You Afraid of the Dark?, Derek has been fascinated with fear since he first saw ForeverWare being used on an episode of Eerie, Indiana.
When he’s not writing about horror as the Senior News Reporter for Daily Dead, Derek can be found daydreaming about the Santa Carla Boardwalk from The Lost Boys or reading Stephen King and Brian Keene novels.
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