Welcome to another horror/thriller round-up! This time around we have details on Backstreet Boy Nick Carter's in-the-works zombie western movie, release details for Arrow Video's UK Blu-ray / DVD of the Vincent Price-starring The Comedy of Terrors, and an update on Warner Bros.' and Team Downey's in-development film based on the real-life sinking of the USS Indianapolis and the subsequent shark attacks on the surviving crew members.
In an interview with Noisey, Backstreet Boy Nick Carter revealed that he will be directing and starring in a zombie western called Dead West (not to be confused with Joe R. Lansdale's 1986 zombie western novel, Dead in the West) for Asylum this March. Carter also co-wrote the script and has a couple of potential cast members in mind (excerpts from Noisey via Shock Till You Drop):
"It’s called Dead West. [Laughs.] It’s a zombie horror western movie. It’s a hybrid movie. I created the story, co-wrote the story with a writer, and just did our meeting last week with Asylum. They’re the same people that did Sharknado, so it’s definitely a B-movie, but with this movie it’s something I wrote from my creative brain.
It’s pretty insane, I’ll tell you, and we’re really, really excited. I’m passionate about this, and I enjoy being artistic in a sort of quirky way that’s unusual. That’s why I’m putting together the cast, there’s some names floating around like Joey Fatone from N*SYNC, or an old buddy of mine Shaquille O'Neal. Just an out of the box thing."
Arrow Video has slated their UK Blu-ray/DVD of The Comedy of Terrors (starring Vincent Price and Boris Karloff) for a February 16th release:
Press Release - "Arrow Video is delighted to announce the latest addition to its roster of Vincent Price movies with the UK Blu-ray and DVD release of Jacques Tourneur’s The Comedy of Terrors. The 1963 horror-comedy classic, featuring an all-star ensemble cast including genre greats Vincent Price, Peter Lorre, Boris Karloff and Basil Rathbone, will arrive on Blu-ray and DVD on 16th February 2015.
The Comedy of Terrors is the latest Vincent Price title released by Arrow Video, joining previous releases such as The Fall of the House of Usher, Theatre of Blood, The Pit of the Pendulum and The Raven amongst others.
This new edition boasts a bumper crop of bonus features such as an hour long archive interview with Vincent Price in which the actor reflects on his career and an audio commentary with historian David Del Valle.
Alongside this the special features will also include Whispering in Distant Chambers: The Nightfall of Jacques Tourneur, a specially-commissioned video essay by David Cairns, which charts the career of director Jacques Tourneur, alongside Richard Matheson Storyteller, an archive featurette on The Comedy of Terrors writer.
The release features a collector’s booklet featuring a reversible sleeve showcasing original and newly commissioned artwork by Paul Shipper and a collector’s booklet featuring new writing on the film by Chris Fujiwara, author of Jacques Tourneur: The Cinema of Nightfall, illustrated with original archive stills and posters.
Synopsis
From Jacques Tourneur, director of numerous horror classics including Cat People, I Walked with a Zombie and Night of the Demon, comes The Comedy of Terrors – a gleefully macabre tale which brings together genre greats Vincent Price, Peter Lorre and Boris Karloff.
Price plays Waldo Trumbull, a perpetually inebriated, down-on-his-luck undertaker who has struck on an interesting way to boost business – by hastening the deaths of those whom he buries. When landlord Mr. Black (Basil Rathbone) threatens to put him out on the street for falling behind with the rent, Trumbull, together with his reluctant and bumbling assistant Felix Gillie (Lorre), hatches an ill-advised plan to “kill two birds with one stone”, so to speak…
The penultimate directorial effort from Tourneur, The Comedy of Terrors bears many of the hallmarks of the master filmmaker’s earlier works, whilst adding a healthy dash of humour to the proceedings. Careful – you might just die laughing!
Special Features
· High Definition Blu-ray (1080p) and Standard Definition DVD presentation of the feature, transferred from original film elements by MGM
· Original Mono 2.0 audio (uncompressed PCM on the Blu-ray)
· Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
· Audio Commentary with Price historian David Del Valle
· Extensive archive interview with Vincent Price
· Whispering in Distant Chambers: The Nightfall of Jacques Tourneur – a specially-commissioned video essay by David Cairns, which charts the career of director Tourneur
· Richard Matheson Storyteller – an archive featurette on The Comedy of Terrors writer
· Original Theatrical Trailer
· Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Paul Shipper
· Collector’s booklet featuring new writing on the film by Chris Fujiwara, author of Jacques Tourneur: The Cinema of Nightfall, illustrated with original archive stills and posters."
Deadline reports that Robert Downey Jr. and Susan Downey of Team Downey, along with Warner Bros., have set Tate Taylor (The Help) to direct and Mike Jones to pen their film about the doomed July 1945 voyage of the USS Indianapolis, and the boy who helped clear the name of the ship's captain, Charles B. McVay III, over 50 years later.
For those unfamiliar with the tragic event, the USS Indianapolis was sunk by torpedoes after delivering pieces of an atomic bomb to a US base in Tinian. Around 900 crew members survived the initial sinking, but had to fight for their lives against dehydration, exposure, and shark attacks. Adrift at sea for five days, only 317 men were still alive when they were rescued by a Navy vessel. Here is the synopsis of the in-development movie:
"Set in 1996, the film tells the true story of 11-year-old Hunter Scott, who needed a project with which to compete in a National History Day Contest. He watched Jaws and came away inspired and researched how the warship got sunk by torpedoes on its return voyage from delivering the Hiroshima bomb. Because the mission was secret, the crew floated for five days, easy pickings for the giant sharks that swam the waters. The youth learned how ship captain Charles McVay was unjustly court-martialed. He set out to find the truth behind the worst U.S. Naval disaster in history. What he discovered was that the only proper designation was a hero, for McVay’s actions under horrible duress and unimaginable carnage. This year marks the 70th anniversary of the ship’s sinking."
Fans of Steven Spielberg's Jaws may remember their skin prickling during the scene in which Robert Shaw’s Quint, portrayed as a veteran who lived through the horrors of the USS Indianapolis sinking, tells Brody (Roy Scheider) and Hooper (Richard Dreyfuss) his firsthand account of the sharks pulling floating survivors beneath the water's surface. Additionally, a TV movie, Mission of the Shark: The Saga of the USS Indianapolis, was released in 1991.
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.
Daily Dead's Official Podcast! Daily Dead's Official Podcast!
