(“Hurrr, I’m terrified of doors.”)

It still haven’t seen Paranormal Activity because it looks boring, but the “found-footage” thriller did earn $151 million on an initial budget of $15,000 (initial being a key distinction…), so naturally a sequel was greenlit.  So how do you use studio backing to recreate the charm of a low-budget phenomenon?  You go the Blair Witch 2 route and just hire a studio director, duh.  Don’t you know anything about Hollywood?

Paramount has hired screenwriter Michael R. Perry and director Kevin Greutert to create the sequel. Greutert made his directorial debut on the sixth “Saw” film, which grossed just $31 million worldwide, with observers thinking that the franchise may be bleeding dry.  Significantly, Paramount will unleash it in theaters on the pre-Halloween weekend of October 22, which sets it against that date’s reigning champion in previous years, the next installment in Lionsgate’s “Saw” series (this year would be “VII”). [THR]

Have you noticed every stupid horror movie seems to make money in this slot?  I think maybe they should keep charging admission, but this time instead of a movie, they could just hand out Mountain Dew and meth and let these slack-jawed bumblef*cks pick ticks off each other for two hours.

(“No, please, not a tribal tattoo!”)

Cockroaches and Saw movies, those will be the only things to survive if there’s a nuclear apocalypse.   Why?  Because Saw VII, that’s why.  They’ve already got the release date locked up (October 2010 – yep, one per year), and the plan is to make this installment 3D.

Twisted Pictures producer Mark Burg told the press next year’s entry is slightly more expensive and involves more pre-production. Why? Because it will be shot in 3-D with Saw V’s David Hackl back in the director’s chair.  [Thank goodness. Saw VI was supposed to be twice as good as Saw III, but it was really only half-again better than Saw IV].  Burg says he was impressed by a brief presentation he saw of the original Saw in 3-D and felt the series lent itself to the format.
“It’s worth it,” he explains. “We want to be able to build the sets that take advantage of depth. We’re going to design traps to come at you. The pendulum trap that opened the last movie would have been great in 3-D.” He’s excited by the prospect of the next entry and compares some of the gags they’ve got in mind to My Bloody Valentine 3D.
“A lot of the movie we’re planning where the victim’s eye, stuff is coming towards them. They’re point of view. I think the audience wants some Bloody Valentine-type moments where the gun comes into the audience and stuff like that.” [Shocktillyoudrop]

A gun comes into the audience?  If only.  Whatever, I feel the same way about torture porn as I do about pro wrestling or musicals — I don’t really get it, but if that’s your thing, swell, just stay away from my pets.  It also seems like these movies could be greatly improved if only Dennis Hopper showed up whenever everyone gets thrown in the rape dungeon to yell, “POP QUIZ, HOTSHOT!”

Oh, great, another vampire movie.  Director Paul WS Anderson (Resident Evil, Event Horizon, Aliens Vs. Predator, Death Race) has hired James Wan (the creator and director of Saw) to re-write the script for Castlevania and direct it (Anderson will produce).  Re-write. Which means there’s already been at least one script written for a fricken’ Castlevania movie.  MTV reports:

It was going to span hundreds of years, from fifteenth century Transylvania to the European trenches of World War II, yet also would somehow still be an origin story focusing on the genesis of the feud between Dracula and the Belmonts [Ed. - so about 10 hours long then?], the family tasked with battling the vampire and his clan.
That was several years ago, before the writers’ strike and then the sale of Rogue Pictures interrupted Anderson’s plan to bring “Castlevania” to theaters. Now, with the script getting the rewrite treatment and a new director set to helm the flick, Anderson is considerably (and understandably) more tight-lipped when it comes to dishing out details, as MTV News discovered during a recent conversation.

“There’ll be the whip and there’ll be creatures,” Anderson said, referring to Simon Belmont’s weapon of choice and the mythical beasts he battles as he makes his way through Dracula’s castle in the original video game.

Wait.  Wait.  Wait.  A whip?  And creatures?  This changes everything.  This doesn’t look like Van Helsing 2: Van Harder at all.

If I wanted to see a whip and some creatures I’d just go to a gang bang at your mom’s house.

~ robopanda

This is the red-band trailer for The Collector, though I don’t know what’s red-band about it, it doesn’t have any boobs or swearing.  It was directed by Marcus Dunstan, writer of Saw IV, V, and VI (easily the sequeliest of all the Saw movies) and features… uh… a guy in a gimp mask… made of cow turds… and some bear traps.  This looks exceptionally boring.  I don’t get it, am I supposed to care if this guy murders these people?  Because I don’t.  I just don’t want anyone in the audience to breed.  I liked this better when it had a completely different plot, Morgan Freeman, and was called The Bone Collector, which was also Morgan Freeman’s nickname in high school.

Ironically, I never saw Saw, probably because I’m not a borderline retarded sociopath.  Nonetheless, it makes great material for a Mentos commercial.  Some solid editing, this.  Don’t believe these commercials though.  I premature ejaculated once, so I smiled and offered a Mentos as restitution, just like in the commercials. But she still made me pay.