Check out the brand new trailer for THE LAST STOP IN YUMA COUNTY starring Jim Cummings.
While awaiting the next fuel truck at a middle-of-nowhere Arizona rest stop, a traveling young knife salesman is thrust into a high-stakes hostage situation by the arrival of two similarly stranded bank robbers with no qualms about using cruelty—or cold, hard steel—to protect their bloodstained, ill-begotten fortune.
The cast includes Jim Cummings, Jocelin Donahue, Sierra McCormick, Nicholas Logan, Michael Abbott Jr., Connor Paolo, Alexandra Essoe, Robin Bartlett, Jon Proudstar, Sam Huntington, Ryan Masson, and Barbara Crampton, with Gene Jones, Faizon Love and Richard Brake.
Check out the fabulous Crampton in Jakob’s Wife playing on SHUDDER and see Cummings (yeah, we’re big fans!) in The Wolf of Snow Hollow.
The film is helmed by Francis Galluppi, who previously wrote and directed several shorts including “The Gemini Project,” “High Desert Hell” and several music videos for the band Mt. Joy.
“Expert storytelling and spectacular performances… A terrifying, one of a kind horror film.” – Michelle Swope, DREAD CENTRAL
IFC Midnight’s WE NEED TO DO SOMETHING Starring Sierra McCormick, Vinessa Shaw & Pat Healy will be available In Theaters, Digital and VOD Next Friday, September 3rd. Check out the trailer:
After Melissa and her family seek shelter from a storm, they become trapped. With no sign of rescue, hours turn to days and Melissa comes to realize that she and her girlfriend Amy might have something to do with the horrors that threaten to tear her family – and the entire world – apart.
Even the critics are spooked:
“Unhinged, chaotic, and abounding with occult chills, We Need to Do Something is poised to be one of 2021’s most ambiguous yet enduringly frightening horror debuts.”
– Chad Collins, DREAD CENTRAL
“We Need to Do Something fearlessly takes risks, unwilling to play it safe” – Meagan Navarro, BLOODY DISGUSTING
Jake Horowitz as Everett and Sierra McCormick as Fay, in THE VAST OF NIGHT. Courtesy of Amazon Studios.
A 1950s black-and-white television in a living room typical of the era plays the intro to a “Twilight Zone” like TV show. While the Rod Serling-sounding narrator intones, “Tonight’s episode: The Vast of Night,” the camera slowly moves closer to the flickering screen until the image on the screen fills our view. The flickering fades and the view transforms to a sepia-tinted color scene of a rural high school gym in little Cayuga, New Mexico. Two young friends, the sharp-witted Everett (Jake Horowitz), the overnight DJ at the local radio show, and spunky teenager Fay (Sierra McCormick), the night switchboard operator for the local police, team up to solve the mystery of a strange thumping source that invades the airwaves.
The clever TV show opening immediately draws us in, to what we expect to be an homage to that TV classic but, in his debut film, writer/director Andrew Patterson gives us a deeper, more interesting tale, one that becomes darker as it unfolds. The New Mexico setting is significant, as there are references to CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE FIRST KIND and ’50s sci-fi classics but also tales of flying saucers, off-world visits, military cover-ups and Area 51.
Jake Horowitz and Sierra McCormick couldn’t be more perfect as the lead characters – nerdy smart, resourceful and determined, they both sporting heavy-framed glasses and an insatiable curiosity, with a taste for solving mysteries. The film features plenty of period tech – radio equipment, tape recorders, switchboards – and period cultural touch points – Elvis, Modern Science magazines, Sputnik and worries about Soviet spies. Like a Twilight Zone episode, the mix of sci-fi, mystery and adventure gives way to something else, something unexpected.
At first, the film is a light and fun retro homage, seeming like a standard adventure focused on a pair of teens searching for clues to solve a mystery. But deeper elements begin to emerge, about human longing, society’s flaws, the overlooked, and ignored, all skillfully woven into a haunting subtext to the unfolding story.
The mystery centers on an odd sound,
which first seeps into Everett’s radio broadcast, then hums through
one of Fay’s phone lines. Puzzled, Everett plays the recorded sound
on air and asks listeners to call in if they know what the sound is.
Then he gets a call from a man named Billy (Bruce Davis) who tells a
fantastic tale of secret military missions and something more ominous
and stranger.
The film’s visual style is striking.
The whole story takes place at night, in shadowy scenes packed with
those references. Images are often shadowy, with reverse key
lighting, which suits the mystery and retro tone well, and also
suggests film noir. Long takes and beautifully framed, half lit shots
lend an eerie tension and suspense to the film. .
McCormick and Horowitz are both
charismatic and appealing, with a good chemistry between them, and
their strong performances add greatly to the film. Bruce Davis is
very effective as the unseen caller, raising social touch points like
race which we do not expect in this tale. Gail Cronauer is moving as
an older woman who adds a new layer to the deepening story.
When the caller begins to tell his
tale, the screen periodically goes black, a very effective technique
to force us to concentrate on his critical words. It is one of
several cinematic techniques the director and cinematographer Miguel
I. Littin Menz use. Periodically, the visual style shifts back to
flickering black and white, to remind us of the “Twilight Zone”
framing device. Patterson uses this repeated reminder, shifted back
and forth between sepia-shaded color and flickering black-and-white a
little too often, creating a distraction, but then it settles down to
storytelling before the film’s emotionally powerful end. The story is
set in New Mexico but it really looks more like Texas Hill Country,
where it was actually shot. The location works for the film but the
mismatch creates another unnecessary distraction. However, these are
minor flaws in an otherwise admirable, thought-provoking film.
THE VAST OF NIGHT is a striking film, as well as an impressive debut for writer/director Andrew Patterson. If you are a fan of TWILIGHT ZONE, have a taste for old technology, and are intrigued by “what-if” tales at the crossroads of science and myth, this one should strike a chord, and leave you, like me, looking forward to Patterson’s next film.
WAMG was at the World Premiere of Focus Features’ ParaNorman at Universal City Walk Sunday, August 5, 2012 with Leslie Mann, Anna Kendrick, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Jeff Garlin, among others… and we’ve got photos from the red carpet!
*All photographs are property WE ARE MOVIE GEEKS
PARANORMAN voice actors Kodi Smit-McPhee, Anna Kendrick, Leslie Mann, Tempestt Bledsoe, Tucker Albrizzi, Jeff Garlin, Jodelle Ferland; moviemakers Sam Fell (director), Chris Butler (director/screenwriter), and Travis Knight (producer/lead animator); other guests include Aasha Davis, Amy Brenneman, Bella Thorne, Billy Unger, Breckin Meyer, Cimorelli, Daphne Blunt, Dave Foley, Dee Rees, Dylan Riley Snyder, Emma Kenney, Ernie Hudson, Gilles Marini, Holly Marie Combs, Judd Apatow, Justine Ezarik,Katherine McNamara, Kevin Misher, Lorene Scafaria, Ming-Na, Olivia Holt, Ricki Lake, Rob Morrow, Samantha Mumba, Sanaa Hamri, Shane Acker, Sierra McCormick, Taylor Armstrong, Taylor Spreitler, Teala Dunn, Tia Carrere, Tom Sizemore, Wayne Brady and many more!
ParaNorman is set in the town of Blithe Hollow, whose locals profit from mining the town’s history as the site, 300 years ago, of a famous witch hunt. 11-year-old Norman Babcock (voiced by Kodi Smit-McPhee of Let Me In and The Road) spends much of his days appreciating the finer points of scary movies and studying ghost lore. In fact, Norman is gifted with the ability to see and speak with the dead, such as his beloved grandmother (Elaine Stritch). Most days, he prefers their company to that of his flustered father (Jeff Garlin), spacey mother (Leslie Mann), and deeply superficial older sister Courtney (Anna Kendrick). At middle school, Norman dodges bullying Alvin (Christopher Mintz-Plasse), confides in the impressionable Neil (Tucker Albrizzi), and tries to tune out his blowhard teacher Mrs. Henscher (Alex Borstein).
Norman is unexpectedly contacted by his odd uncle Prenderghast (John Goodman), who floors him with the revelation that a centuries-old witch’s curse is real and is about to come true, and that only Norman will be able to stop it from going into overdrive and harming the townspeople. Once a septet of zombies – led by The Judge (Bernard Hill) – suddenly rises from their graves, Norman finds himself caught in a wild race against time alongside Courtney, Alvin, Neil, and Neil’s musclebound older brother Mitch (Casey Affleck) as Sheriff Hooper (Tempestt Bledsoe) chases them all. Worse, the town is up in arms and taking up arms. Norman bravely summons up all that makes a hero – courage and compassion – as he finds his paranormal activities pushed to their otherworldly limits.
