News

Judge Bodil Backer (Bracha van Doesburgh) seemingly has it all: she’s a no-nonsense Judge and has a great home life with her doctor husband Milan (Nasrdin Dchar) and pre-teen son Ben (Damiano Incani).

At the start of director André van Duren’s Erotic Thriller, Bo is preparing for a girls weekend away with her best friend Isabel (Elise Schaap). They leave their husbands behind in Amsterdam, board a train for Bo’s family beach house in Belgium and outline plans for their weekend, which includes a burner phone, a large sum of money, and an expensive suite at a high-end hotel for Isabel.

Faithfully Yours has a fantastic central premise: a few times a year the two women use each other as cover while they cheat on their husbands. One woman will attend a lecture or visit a museum and snap photos to send to the husbands as an alibi.

On the JoBlo Movies YouTube channel, we will be posting one full movie every other day throughout the week, giving viewers the chance to watch them entirely free of charge. The Free Movie of the Day we have for you today is the crime thriller Magic Mountains. You can watch it over on the YouTube channel linked above, or you can just watch it in the embed at the top of this article.

Written and directed by Urszula Antoniak, Magic Mountains has the following synopsis: A successful writer asks his ex, who left him, to climb one last time in the mountains together. Only then he can really let her go.

So no, it doesn’t have anything to do with the Six Flags amusement park Magic Mountain. But that synopsis does sound quite ominous, so we should probably be ready to see some thrilling things happen far above ground.

Cocaine Bear Review — Cocaine Bear (2023) Film Review, a movie directed by Elizabeth Banks, written by Jimmy Warden and starring Keri Russell, Ray Liotta, Aiden Ehrenreich, O’Shea Jackson Jr., Isiah Whitlock Jr., Brooklynn Prince, Christian Convery, Margo Martindale, Jesse Tyler Ferguson, Kristofer Hivju, Hannah Hoekstra, Ayoola Smart, Aaron Holliday, J.B. Moore, Leo Hanna, Kahyun [...]

Continue reading: Film Review: Cocaine Bear (2023): Elizabeth Banks Directs a Fast Paced Crowd-Pleaser with Plenty of Stylish Action...

This post contains spoilers for "Cocaine Bear."

"Cocaine Bear" is a bit of a strange movie, but you probably expected that coming in, didn't you? The film certainly does get gleefully violent at times, something that arguably gets hampered due to its usage of CGI in combination with practical effects. Some viewers may not notice this overlay, while others, such as myself, might take issue with it. No what you end up thinking, you'll still walk away appreciating how a mid-budget studio feature can get away with the types of kills featured here.

One of the most intriguing was the sudden and off-screen death of Olaf (Kristofer Hivju), a tourist whose fiancée Elsa (Hannah Hoekstra) was the titular bear's first kill. Towards the end of the film, we hear him scream, only to find out a few minutes later that he was mauled to death. The reveal is very quick and obscured in darkness,...

“Cocaine Bear” roared its way to the top of the Thursday box office with $2 million in previews.

Universal’s comedy-thriller will play in 3,534 North American theaters starting Friday. It’s slated to open somewhere in the mid-teens, with the possibility of hitting $20 million in ticket sales this weekend. For a comparison, the Christmas action comedy “Violent Night” made $1.1 million in Thursday preview showings to kick off a $13 million opening weekend.

Directed by Elizabeth Banks, Jimmy Warden’s stranger-than-fiction screenplay tells the story of Cokey the Bear, a Black bear who in 1985 consumed a large amount of cocaine a drug runner had dropped into a Georgia forest. In real life, the bear died shortly thereafter, but in this wild retelling it goes on a murderous rampage while on the prowl for more blow.

Also Read:

‘Cocaine Bear’ Star O’Shea Jackson Wears Nepo Baby Privilege With Pride: ‘Damn Right I Am’ Ice...

Cocaine Bear — director Elizabeth Banks’ daring dark comedy — sniffed up $2 million in Thursday previews from 3,000 theaters at the domestic box office.

Inspired by a true story, the Universal Pictures movie is about a drug smuggling operation that goes horribly awry when a 500-pound American black bear ingests a duffel bag of cocaine and goes on a killing rampage in a small Georgia town.

Banks directed the high-profile genre pic from a script by Jimmy Warden. She also produced alongside Phil Lord, Christopher Miller, Max Handelman, Brian Duffield and Aditya Sood.

Cocaine Bear stars Keri Russell, O’Shea Jackson, Jr., Christian Convery, Alden Ehrenreich, Jesse Tyler Ferguson, Brooklynn Prince, Isiah Whitlock Jr., Kristofer Hivju, Hannah Hoekstra and Aaron Holliday alongside Margo Martindale and Ray Liotta.

Of the major Hollywood studios, Universal has kept releasing a steady stream number of mid-range movies throughout the pandemic era. Cocaine Bear...

As the forced hibernation of an often (in some parts of the US) ends lots of folks, besides the college kids, are making plans for the big “Spring break”. Aside from hitting the beaches, a good percentage will haul out the camping gear and make their journey into the woods to commune with Mother Nature. Oh, but what if “mama’ is not very welcome, especially those animal residents? These “humans vs. the wild” showdowns have been film thriller fodder for decades with the “king” Jaws, Frogs, Night Of The Grizzly, and Day Of The Animals, And you remember how The Revenant grabbed a load of Oscars in 2015. Perhaps its most shocking scene pitted the story’s hero against a ferocious bear (the producers tagged as “Judy”). Now she was protecting her cubs, while the title star of this new flick, which is “inspired by true events” has a very different...

Cocaine Bear is exactly what you want, need, and expect it to be. Director Elizabeth Banks assembled a cast willing to just go for it, and together they’ve delivered one of the funniest, most insane R-rated horror / comedy / thriller / crime caper / buddy comedy / cautionary tale / coming-of-age films in history. Of course, it helps that there are very few, if any, films that have dipped their toes into that many genres all at once and been successful while doing so.

Cocaine Bear’s very loosely inspired by a true story. Fact: In 1985, a 175-pound black bear, now lovingly referred to as Pablo Escobear, did ingest cocaine that had fallen from a plane. Fact: The bricks of cocaine tumbled into the bear’s path after drug smuggler Andrew Thornton (played by The Americans’ Matthew Rhys in a brief but memorable cameo) tossed them from a plane and then followed them out.

The title says it all. Just like Snakes on a Plane was about just that, the new horror comedy Cocaine Bear is about a 500-pound bear on a jihad after coming upon a ton of cocaine dropped into rural Georgia on a drug run gone wrong. The bear ingests the coke, and soon you have a beast roaring out of control and devouring whatever human comes onto his path. It is all not to be taken seriously, but fortunately director Elizabeth Banks is smart enough to give audiences hungry for a Jaws in the wilderness some nice scares mixed in with the laughs plus a bit more bang for their buck than just a marketable title.

With a game ensemble playing none-too-bright potential meals, the intelligence level of many on display makes The Dukes of Hazzard look like Schindler’s List. I was rooting for the bear,...

It is still early in 2023, but several movies have already left quite the impression on moviegoers, such as Blumhouse's killer doll flick "M3GAN" and M. Night Shyamalan's latest thriller "Knock at the Cabin." But perhaps the craziest movie of the year is hitting theaters soon: "Cocaine Bear."

Directed by Elizabeth Banks ("Pitch Perfect 2"), the film is actually loosely based on a true story of a bear that, as the title implies, ingested a ton of cocaine. What could possibly go wrong? The movie has an absolutely stacked A-list cast led by the likes of Keri Russell and Ray Liota, in one of his final performances. As for the specifics of it, the synopsis for the film reads as follows:

Inspired by the 1985 true story of a drug runner's plane crash, missing cocaine, and the black bear that ate it, this wild dark comedy finds an oddball group of cops,...

Margo Martindale is one of the stars of Cocaine Bear, the dark comedy action film directed by Elizabeth Banks. The story is based on true events from 1985 when an American black bear ingested a duffel bag full of cocaine.

Martindale is in disbelief she is even in the movie sharing with EW, “I never thought at age 70 I would be doing an action movie, but I guess I did!”

The Emmy-award-winning actor plays a forest ranger that comes across the animal that gives the film its title.

“She’s no-nonsense,” Martindale said. “She’s devoted to her craft, wanting to go up in the ranger world, does everything by the book, and has her heart set on [a character played by] Jesse Tyler Ferguson.”

Martindale was surprised at how physical she had to be while filming as she had to do her own “stunts.”

“I thought when I read the script, well, I’m...

Enter the contest below to win a pair of passes to attend an advance screening of Cocaine Bear! The screening is on Wednesday, February 22nd at 7:00pm at the Mjr Troy Grand Digital Cinema!

About The Film

Inspired by the 1985 true story of a drug runner’s plane crash, missing cocaine, and the black bear that ate it, this wild dark comedy finds an oddball group of cops, criminals, tourists, and teens converging in a Georgia forest where a 500-pound apex predator has ingested a staggering amount of cocaine and gone on a coke-fueled rampage for more blow…and blood.

Cocaine Bear stars Keri Russell (The Americans), O’Shea Jackson, Jr. (Straight Outta Compton), Christian Convery (Sweet Tooth), Alden Ehrenreich (Solo: A Star Wars Story), Jesse Tyler Ferguson (Modern Family), Brooklynn Prince (The Florida Project), Isiah Whitlock Jr. (BlacKkKlansman), Kristofer Hivju (Game of Thrones), Hannah Hoekstra (2019’s Charlie’s Angels) and...

Inspired by true events, Universal’s Cocaine Bear is headed our way from director Elizabeth Banks (Charlie’s Angels), arriving exclusively in movie theaters on February 24, 2023.

Universal has unleashed a brand new image gallery this afternoon, which you can browse below. Additionally, a Pac-Man-style Cocaine Bear online video game can be played here!

The game is titled Cocaine Bear: The Rise of Pablo Escobear and it puts you in charge of the titular Cocaine Bear. The task? Devour cocaine and eat human beings, of course.

The movie is inspired by true events that took place in Kentucky in 1985, and it was written by Jimmy Warden. Phil Lord and Chris Miller (Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse) produced.

The basic gist of the story is that a 175-pound black bear was found dead from an overdose after ingesting massive amounts of cocaine dropped into the woods by a drug smuggler.

Deadline details, “The movie...

Inspired by the 1985 true story of a drug runner’s plane crash, missing cocaine, and the black bear that ate it, this wild dark comedy finds an oddball group of cops, criminals, tourists and teens converging in a Georgia forest where a 500- pound apex predator has ingested a staggering amount of cocaine and gone on a coke-fueled rampage for more blow … and blood.

Cocaine Bear stars Keri Russell (The Americans), O’Shea Jackson, Jr. (Straight Outta Compton), Christian Convery (Sweet Tooth), Alden Ehrenreich (Solo: A Star Wars Story), Jesse Tyler Ferguson (Modern Family), Brooklynn Prince (The Florida Project), Isiah Whitlock Jr. (BlacKkKlansman), Kristofer Hivju (Game of Thrones), Hannah Hoekstra (2019’s Charlie’s Angels) and Aaron Holliday (Sharp Objects), with with Emmy winner Margo Martindale (The Americans) and Emmy winner Ray Liotta (The Many Saints of Newark).

Directed by Elizabeth Banks from a screenplay by Jimmy Warden (The Babysitter: Killer Queen), Cocaine Bear...

The Marvel Cinematic Universe did not release a film from a female director until 2019, when Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck’s “Captain Marvel” first hit theaters. But in an alternate corner of the multiverse, the first female-helmed film from Marvel Studios may have come two years earlier, had Elizabeth Banks wound up directing Chris Hemsworth in 2017’s “Thor: Ragnarok.”

Banks, whose third directorial effort “Cocaine Bear” releases later this month, revealed that she was “really interested” in directing the superhero flick in a new cover story with Variety. Banks told the publication that the movie attracted her attention because of Marvel’s plans to take the character of Thor into a zanier, more light-heartened in his third lead outing.

“I have an attraction to the sensibility,” she said. “That character being funny and knowing how good Chris is at making fun of himself, that’s my vibe.”

Banks further said...

Are you ready for "Cocaine Bear," which is set to hit theaters next month? Can anyone truly be ready for "Cocaine Bear"? Probably not, but we're getting more and more excited by the day with all of the fun details director Elizabeth Banks has let slip about the upcoming comedic thriller.

The film is supposed to be a bloody good time, and Banks revealed in the latest issue of Empire Magazine that her inspiration for those gory moments — "fun, gory scares," as she called them — came from the works of Sam Raimi, Quentin Tarantino, and the Coen Brothers. Naturally, my brain goes to "The Evil Dead," "Reservoir Dogs," and the "Kill Bill" duo — with a side of "Death Proof," of course — and some "Fargo" and "No Country For Old Men" on top. You know, with a very high bear in it, too.

Banks also revealed that despite the blood and fun,...

The latest movie trailer to take the internet by storm is one for the upcoming film, “Cocaine Bear”. As seen in the extended preview for the upcoming action-packed, blood-filled horror comedy, which is (shockingly) inspired by true events, a black bear goes on the offensive after consuming an insane amount of cocaine and terrorizes a variety of people in the local area.

According to Universal Pictures, after a trafficker’s plane crashes in a Georgia forest, a 500-pound apex predator ingests the drugs that fell out before turning on a “group of cops, criminals, tourists and teens” while “on a coke-fueled rampage for more blow … and blood.”

Directed by Elizabeth Banks, who shared the trailer on Twitter with the caption, “the forest is a dangerous place,” the film stars Keri Russell, O’Shea Jackson, Jr., Christian Convery-Jennings, Alden Ehrenreich, Jesse Tyler Ferguson, Brooklynn Prince, Isiah Whitlock Jr., Kristofer Hivju, Hannah Hoekstra,...

Universal Pictures has debuted the trailer for the Elizabeth Bank’s helmed ‘Cocaine Bear.’

Inspired by the 1985 true story of a drug runner’s plane crash, missing cocaine, and the black bear that ate it, this wild dark comedy finds an oddball group of cops, criminals, tourists and teens converging in a Georgia forest where a 500- pound apex predator has ingested a staggering amount of cocaine and gone on a coke-fueled rampage for more blow … and blood.

Directed by Elizabeth Banks, the film stars Keri Russell (The Americans), O’Shea Jackson, Jr. (Straight Outta Compton), Christian Convery-Jennings (Sweet Tooth), Alden Ehrenreich (Solo: A Star Wars Story), Jesse Tyler Ferguson (Modern Family), Brooklynn Prince (The Florida Project), Isiah Whitlock Jr. (BlacKkKlansman), Kristofer Hivju (Game of Thrones), Hannah Hoekstra (2019’s Charlie’s Angels) and Aaron Holliday (Sharp Objects), with Emmy winner Margo Martindale (The Americans) and the late Emmy winner Ray Liotta (The Many Saints of Newark...

Cocaine Bear: "Inspired by the 1985 true story of a drug runner's plane crash, missing cocaine, and the black bear that ate it, this wild dark comedy finds an oddball group of cops, criminals, tourists and teens converging in a Georgia forest where a 500- pound apex predator has ingested a staggering amount of cocaine and gone on a coke-fueled rampage for more blow … and blood.

Cocaine Bear stars Keri Russell (The Americans), O’Shea Jackson, Jr. (Straight Outta Compton), Christian Convery-Jennings (Sweet Tooth), Alden Ehrenreich (Solo: A Star Wars Story), Jesse Tyler Ferguson (Modern Family), Brooklynn Prince (The Florida Project), Isiah Whitlock Jr. (BlacKkKlansman), Kristofer Hivju (Game of Thrones), Hannah Hoekstra (2019’s Charlie’s Angels) and Aaron Holliday (Sharp Objects), with with Emmy winner Margo Martindale (The Americans) and Emmy winner Ray Liotta (The Many Saints of Newark).

Directed by Elizabeth Banks from a screenplay by Jimmy Warden (The Babysitter: Killer Queen...

The Elizabeth Banks-directed film Cocaine Bear has a new trailer. On Wednesday, Universal Pictures released a teaser for the Feb. 24 movie inspired by the real-life story of a bear who was found dead after ingesting cocaine in Kentucky.

The trailer for the campy film opens with paramedics entering a bloodied house and finding a bear inside a room. “Beth, we should go,” says a paramedic before the bear breaks down a door and lets out a roar.

The trailer then shows a TV news outlet saying that cocaine had...

On a rampage for blow and blood. Meet Cocaine Bear.

Inspired by the 1985 true story of a drug runner’s plane crash, missing cocaine, and the black bear that ate it, this wild dark comedy finds an oddball group of cops, criminals, tourists and teens converging in a Georgia forest where a 500- pound apex predator has ingested a staggering amount of cocaine and gone on a coke-fueled rampage for more blow … and blood.

Cocaine Bear stars Keri Russell (The Americans), O’Shea Jackson, Jr. (Straight Outta Compton), Christian Convery-Jennings (Sweet Tooth), Alden Ehrenreich (Solo: A Star Wars Story), Jesse Tyler Ferguson (Modern Family), Brooklynn Prince (The Florida Project), Isiah Whitlock Jr. (BlacKkKlansman), Kristofer Hivju (Game of Thrones), Hannah Hoekstra (2019’s Charlie’s Angels) and Aaron Holliday (Sharp Objects), with with Emmy winner Margo Martindale (The Americans) and Emmy winner Ray Liotta (The Many Saints of Newark).

Check out the trailer now!

Back in the 1980s, America was in the middle of its so-called "war" on drugs. It didn't work very well. Then-First Lady Nancy Reagan had a campaign called "Just Say No," which was immediately turned into a joke at schools (it certainly did at mine). The Drug Abuse Resistance Education program, shortened to D.A.R.E., suffered the same fate. There are entire books written about why the war on drugs failed, from stupid slogans like "crack is wack" to exactly who was penalized and how for drug offenses. And now, it has spawned the upcoming film "Cocaine Bear" from director Elizabeth Banks.

As I try to make my brain process the sentence I just wrote, here is the real story that inspired the upcoming dark comedy. Back in 1985, a man named Andrew C. Thornton II and a partner were acting as drug runners. They flew a small plane from Columbia to the U.

This is real? This isn’t an early April Fools’ Day joke? A bear actually ingested cocaine and there’s a movie about it… Incredible. Add Cocaine Bear to your Must-See Movies of 2023 list immediately.

“On a rampage for blow and blood. Meet Cocaine Bear.”

According to Kentucky for Kentucky, ex-narcotics cop turned drug smuggler Andrew Thornton II’s parachute didn’t open and he plunged to his death. Andrew was wearing a bulletproof vest and had cocaine in a duffel bag when he was discovered dead in someone’s yard in Knoxville. A short while later, a black bear was also discovered dead as the result of eating an incredibly large amount of Thornton’s cocaine.

The bizarre story of the black bear, nicknamed Pablo EskoBear, continued after the poor creature had been stuffed and put on display at the Chattahoochee River National Recreation Area visitors center. EskoBear’s...

Have a seat, Pooh and Smokey. There’s a new bear in the woods, and they’re not interested in foraging for honey or preventing forest fires. This bear only wants one thing, that sweet nose candy. Ladies and gentlemen, I present the gift of Elizabeth Banks‘ Cocaine Bear trailer. Your Wednesday is forever changed. You’re welcome.

Per NBCUniversal‘s official press release:

Inspired by the 1985 true story of a drug runner’s plane crash, missing cocaine, and the black bear that ate it, this wild dark comedy finds an oddball group of cops, criminals, tourists, and teens converging in a Georgia forest where a 500- pound apex predator has ingested a staggering amount of cocaine and gone on a coke-fueled rampage for more blow … and blood.

Cocaine Bear stars Keri Russell (The Americans), O’Shea Jackson, Jr. (Straight Outta Compton), Christian Convery-Jennings (Sweet Tooth), Alden Ehrenreich (Solo: A Star Wars Story...

As we anxiously await the (presumably) cocaine-free adventures of Paddington 3, there’s another bear in town. Directed by Elizabeth Banks and scripted by Jimmy Warden, Cocaine Bear is inspired by the 1985 true story of a drug runner’s plane crash, missing cocaine, and the black bear that ate it. Ahead of a February release, the first trailer has now arrived.

Featuring one of Ray Liotta’s final performances as well as the welcome return of Alden Ehrenreich, the cast also includes Margo Martindale, Keri Russell, O’Shea Jackson, Jr., Christian Convery-Jennings, Jesse Tyler Ferguson, Brooklynn Prince, Isiah Whitlock Jr., Kristofer Hivju, Hannah Hoekstra, and Aaron Holliday.

Produced by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, the trailer introduces the oddball group of cops, criminals, tourists, and teens converging in a Georgia forest where the 500- pound apex predator has ingested a staggering amount of cocaine and gone on a coke-fueled rampage for more blow…...

Welcome back to a new Let’s Scare Bryan to Death, where this month we’re taking a trip to the Emerald Isle. But don’t expect a light romp along Ireland’s coast or in its lush forests. Instead, we’re navigating the bleak landscape of repressed male aggression in Ivan Kavanagh’s dread-soaked film, The Canal. Our guide this month is Christine Makepeace, a horror author whose latest book of short stories, The Sound of Breaking Glass, dives into topics such as “loss of self, isolation, and the soul-crushing machine that is capitalism.” She’s also the co-host of The Feminine Critique and serves as a consulting editor for Certified Forgotten. So, you could say she knows a thing or two about horror and film.

Released in 2014, The Canal actually managed to fly well below my radar, so I went in knowing very little beyond the basic IMDb...

"We never argued in the mountains." Level 33 Entertainment has released an official US trailer for an indie out-in-nature thriller from The Netherlands titled Magic Mountains, by Polish writer / director Urszula Antoniak. The film's intriguing, mysterious setup is what makes it so compelling: a successful writer asks his ex, who left him years ago, to climb one last time in the mountains together. Only then he can really let her go... Or at least that's what he claims. Their guide senses something is up and refuses to leave Hannah alone with him in the moutnains. The film stars Thomas Ryckewaert as Lex, Hannah Hoekstra as Hannah, and Marcin Dorocinski as their guide Voytek. This has some outstanding cinematography, more muted and greyer than usual for nature, but that's to achieve a melancholic feeling for the story. I'm quite curious. Here's the official US trailer (+ poster) for Urszula Antoniak's Magic Mountains,...

Dutch filmmaker Paula van der Oest, director of Oscar-nominated “Zus & Zo,” has wrapped production on “Love in a Bottle,” starring James Krishna Floyd (“No Man’s Land”) and Hannah Hoekstra (“Hemel”).

The film follows two people in two different countries — both in quarantine during lockdown — who have a love affair through Facetime. Floyd plays a damaged British man who lives mainly through his computer who falls for a charismatic Dutch perfume maker (Hoekstra) whom he met at an airport just before the pandemic struck.

“Love in a Bottle” was shot in two locations in Amsterdam during lockdown, and is one of the few films to shoot two locations simultaneously with two crews, in order to come together for one resulting film. Levitate Film (“The Forgotten Battle”) produced.

Van der Oest’s regular cinematographer Guido van Gennep lensed the film and employed new techniques in order to complete the project.

“We were literally shooting with these iPhones,...

Magic Mountains

Poland’s Urszula Antoniak embarks on a Dutch production for her fifth film, Magic Mountains, starring Flemish actor Thomas Ryckewaert, Polish actor Marcin Dorocinski and Dutch actor Hannah Hoekstra (a breakout in Sacha Polack’s 2012 Hemel who also had a minor role in Elizabeth Banks’ reboot of Charlie’s Angels). Antoniak reunites with her Beyond Words (read review) P Lennert Hillege, with Floor Onrust serving as producer. Antoniak’s breakout was her 2009 debut Nothing Personal, which competed in Locarno and won a handful of awards.…...

The new distribution outfit acquired the title from Beta Films.

Anti-Worlds, the new UK distribution company launched earlier this year, has taken British rights to Tim Mielants’ Patrick, which is on Beta Cinema’s Afm slate.

The Belgian tragicomedy had its world premiere in competition at Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, where Mielants, making his feature film debut after a successful TV directing career on shows including Peaky Blinders, was awarded best director.

Kevin Janssens stars in the film as the titular Patrick, a handyman on his father’s naturist campsite whose life is thrown off its axis after he loses his favourite hammer.

"I've lost my hammer." The first full trailer has debuted for an offbeat, dark comedy titled Patrick, from Flemish filmmaker Tim Mielants. The film will premiere at the Karlovy Vary Film Festival coming up this summer and was just picked up for release by Beta Cinema, which is where this trailer is from. Patrick lives with his parents on a naturist campsite. When his dad dies he finds himself in charge of the camp, however Patrick has other things on his mind. He has lost his favorite hammer. The camp guests want Patrick to get a grip on his life, but he is determined to find his hammer. His search becomes an existential quest. Kevin Janssens stars as Patrick, with a cast including Jemaine Clement, Jan Bijvoet, Hannah Hoekstra, Pierre Bokma, Ariane van Vliet, and Bouli Lanners. Described as "fiercely original", Patrick "expands the narrative realm and genres... a thriller,...

In today’s roundup, “Luke Cage” Season 2 released a trailer and TBS renews animated comedy “Final Space”

Casting

Osy Ikhile has been cast as a series regular on the upcoming Amazon series “The Feed,” Variety has learned exclusively. Ikhile’s past credits include the critically-acclaimed “Black Mirror” episode “USS Callister” and the mini-series “Childhood’s End.” He has also appeared in films like “The Legend of Tarzan” and “In the Heart of the Sea.” He is repped by Thruline Entertainment and the Curtis Brown Group.

Dates

HBO will premiere the documentary “Stolen Daughters: Kidnapped by Boko Haram” in fall 2018. The documentary follows the stories of 276 Nigerian school girls who were kidnapped by Boko Haram, an Islamic extremist insurgent movement, in 2014 from a school in Chibok, Northern Nigeria and hidden in the Sambisa forest for three years. The announcement comes on Monday, the one-year anniversary of 82 of the girls’ releases.

Amazon...

Heleen van Royen directs the documentary about her mother’s suffering with dementia.

Danielle Raaphorst of Netherlands-based sales company Incredible Film has announced the pick-up of the Dutch feature doc It Hurts So Much for international sales. The film, which premiered at International Film Festival Rotterdam last month, is directed by novelist Heleen van Royen and chronicles the year the writer spent with her aging mother who suffers from dementia.

Also on the Incredible Film European Film Market (Efm) slate is The Fury (market premiere) starring Hannah Hoekstra, a 2017 Efp Shooting Star.

The all-star female drama, for which Hoekstra won best actress awards at both the Montreal International Film Festival and at the Netherlands Film Festival, is based on the best-selling novel by A.F.Th. van der Heijden, and concerns a glamorous and mysterious aunt who, for some reason, is continually furious at everybody and everything.

Incredible also has an Efm market premiere of new family...

The young acting talent will be presented on the opening weekend of next year’s Berlinale.

European Film Promotion (Efp) has revealed the 10 young actors that it has selected for the 2017 edition of European Shooting Stars.

The list includes Romanian actor Tudor Aaron Istodor, best known for his role as Edward II in the BBC production The Plantagenets and Portuguese-British actress Victoria Guerra who has received acclaim for her lead performance in Antonio-Pedro Vasconcelos’ Impossible Love.

Italian actor Alessandro Borghi also features on the list, he is most known for his roles in Stefano Sollima’s Suburra and Michael Vanucci’s I Was A Dreamer.

Other nominess include Swedish actress Karin Franz Körlof, who is noted for her performance in Olaf Spaak’s debut feature Garden Lane.

The selected group will be now be presented during the opening weekend of the 67th Berlin International Film Festival (February 9 – 19).

This year’s Shooting Stars jury included: Lucinda Syson, casting...

Stars: Antonia Campbell-Hughes, Rupert Evans, Steve Oram, Hannah Hoekstra, Anthony Murphy, Kelly Byrne, Anneke Blok, Calum Heath, Conor Horgan, Carl Shaaban, Sinead Watters, Alicja Ayres, Paddy Curan | Written and Directed by Ivan Kavanagh

The quiet brutality some people can suffer in everyday life is an aspect the horror genre doesn’t play up all too often. While horror films about zombies, chainsaw wielding killers and other assorted nasty folks are ten-a-penny, horror resorted in more “ordinary” troubles are rather more rare. The reason for this is fairly obvious, many audiences do not go to the cinema to be reminded of the misery which can come from real life and the more excessive the horror, the less real it can feel. The Canal is a film which seeks to bridge this gap, focusing both on a man going through some very real emotional difficulties while also delivering on horror elements we’ve seen many times before.

Kaleidoscope Home Entertainment

Having had its world premiere at Tribeca Film Festival, Kaleidoscope Home Entertainment is pleased to announce the UK release of The Canal, available digitally and on DVD from 14th September 2015. To celebrate its release we have 3 x DVDs to give away!

Sitting in an empty theater, a film archivist watches the grainy footage that will be his undoing. David (Rupert Evans – Hellboy) and his wife Alice (Hannah Hoekstra – App) are perfectly happy—or so he believes. When he finds out the home he shares with his wife and son was the scene of a ghastly turn-of-the-century murder, David dismisses it as ancient history. That is, until the sinister history ripples into the present and casts a shadow over life as he knows it. And when a looming secret shatters his marriage, David can’t help but suspect the dark spirits of the house are somehow involved. In...

Reviewed by Jesse Miller

MoreHorror.com

Film Archivist David (Rupert Evans) is going through a bit of a rough patch – he’s convinced his wife is having an affair, he’s struggling with his co-worker’s flirtatious remarks towards him and then there’s the recent film print he’s working on that details a series of brutal murders that happened a number of years ago in his house and near the local canal.

Writer/Director Ivan Kavanagh’s Irish chiller sees David’s life spiral out of control as he becomes more and more convinced that a supernatural presence is within his house and wanting his family.

So is he losing it or is this a ghost story after all? All through the film, the story flirts with both outcomes, leaving you to analyse just what is going on with the events in this film. Is there a haunting...

Receiving a healthy domestic release in native Netherlands and released stateside by Ram Releasing last May, with limited festival play before it (it did show at the neighboring Razor Reel Fantastic Film Festival Bruges) this is a film that will indubitably be remembered as a quaint first-wave exercise in an increased integration of modern technology and cinematic streamlining as a way to increase audience participation. Dutch filmmaker Bobby Boerman’s sophomore film, App, is presented as little more than any number of dressed up J-horror narratives. That’s not to say there isn’t any fun to be had in what serves as the first film to utilize second screen technology, but it’s cheap and shallow fun, to be sure. The rather superficial mystery at the heart of the narrative takes a considerable back seat to the excitement of messages you may receive on your cell phone from the film’s app,...

North American distributor Ram Releasing will put Bobby Boerman's App on DVD store shelves, this December 30th. The film received mild praise here, on 28Dla (An App Movie Review). The film is a technophobe's worst nightmare as a mobile application terrorizes one woman's college life. Shot in the Netherlands, App is a fairly straight forward sci-fi thriller. The DVD release will host a few extras. The film is one of the first to offer cell phone interactivity. As events unfold on the screen, watchers can view text messages and alternate angles during the film, on their own phone. Other extras include: Director Bobby Boerman's commentary, a Special Effects bonus featurette and the Original App theatrical trailer. Fans of film can find all of the home entertainment release details for the film below. Release Date: December 30th, 2014 (DVD). Director: Bobby Boermans. Writer: Robert Arthur Jansen. Cast: Hannah Hoekstra, Isis Cabolet, Robert de Hoog and Alex Hendrickx.

Spirits in restrooms, blood from the walls and a hand cranked camera add up to something, but we are not sure what.Film archivist David (Rupert Evans) smells a rat. Maybe it is that his wife Alice (Hannah Hoekstra) seems distracted by her business associate Alex (Carl Shaaban) and seems to be pulling away from David. That could be because she is having an affair with Alex. Then, again, it could be because David is having these recurring dreams of rivers of blood coming out of the walls. Or, it could be that she saw “The Shining” and is afraid her […]...

Release Date: In Theaters Now

Writer: Ivan Kavanagh

Director: Ivan Kavanagh

Starring: Rupert Evans, Antonia Campbell Hughes, Hannah Hoekstra

Distribution: The Orchard

I am certainly a fan of descent-into-insanity stories. When a filmmaker blurs the line between reality and hallucinations, I pay close attention, because it’s an opportunity for experimental narratives and visuals.

Of course, in the horror world, there are… tropes that come along with such stories. The Canal nails almost all of them in nearly perfect sequence, and that is its great undoing.

You know the tropes I mean. The happy marriage. The perfect trophy wife. The house with a bloody history. The affair. The paranoid and suspicious husband who seems to be going insane. The skeptical officers and surrounding personalities hired to investigate. The continued insistence from the husband that something supernatural is going on in his old house, though of course nobody believes it but him.

On the eve of the Us release, the UK genre specialist Jinga Films has licensed Ivan Kavanagh’s psychological horror to a number of territories including a deal with Kaleidoscope for the UK and Ireland.

In other deals, the Rupert Evans starrer has gone to Rialto for Australia and New Zealand, Universum for Germany, Austria and Switzerland and Brunchmate for Korea.

Deals closed previously in Singapore (Red Pictures), Malaysia (Yellow Brick), Middle East (Falcon) and Benelux (A-Film).

Former Screen Star Of Tomorrow Antonia Campbell-Hughes, Hannah Hoekstra Steve Oram and youngster Calum Heath also star in the tale of a camera archivist haunted by early film footage. Ivan Kavanagh wrote and directed the film.

Park Films’ AnneMarie Naughton produced the Ireland-uk co-production.

The Canal debuts in the Us on October 10 through The Orchard on 20 screens.

“The Canal is an extraordinarily well crafted frightener which explores the grey area between psychological and supernatural horror” said Jinga’s Julian Richards.

“We...

Atmosphere trumps everything else in The Canal, a stylish Irish horror film that feels like a David Fincher–helmed Edgar Allan Poe homage. Piers McGrail's nuanced, moody cinematography brings out the best in writer-director Ivan Kavanagh's over-mannered but effectively creepy ghost story. You may not care who lives or dies by film's end, but you will want to get lost in beautifully shot images of waving reeds and dark-haired phantoms. Case in point: It's hard to be moved by the sudden death of Alice (Hannah Hoekstra), wife of film archivist David (Rupert Evans). Alice reveals almost nothing about herself before she's dispatched within the film's first 30 minutes, right after David watches century-old footage of a murder that occurred in his family's new home. ...

Stars: Antonia Campbell-Hughes, Rupert Evans, Steve Oram, Hannah Hoekstra, Anthony Murphy, Kelly Byrne, Anneke Blok, Calum Heath, Conor Horgan, Carl Shaaban, Sinead Watters, Alicja Ayres, Paddy Curan | Written and Directed by Ivan Kavanagh

The quiet brutality some people can suffer in everyday life is an aspect the horror genre doesn’t play up all too often. While horror films about zombies, chainsaw wielding killers and other assorted nasty folks are ten-a-penny, horror resorted in more “ordinary” troubles are rather more rare. The reason for this is fairly obvious, many audiences do not go to the cinema to be reminded of the misery which can come from real life and the more excessive the horror, the less real it can feel. The Canal is a film which seeks to bridge this gap, focusing both on a man going through some very real emotional difficulties while also delivering on horror elements we’ve seen many times before.

In the upcoming indie thriller The Canal, Irish filmmaker Ivan Kavanaugh cooks up a slow-burn mystery with a supernatural twist that also packs a few guttural punches and does a great job of maintaining a pulsing sense of tension. The story may not necessarily be the most original horror yarn you’ll see this year, but it’s Kavanaugh’s keen ability to craft startling visuals and execute a flawless sound design that elevates The Canal beyond many of its similarly-themed peers.

The Canal follows a film archivist, named David (Rupert Evans), whose personal life begins to unravel right around the same time he stumbles upon footage from a notorious murder case from the early 1900’s. The footage reveals that his very own home was the setting for a mass murder of a young family, much like his own. As he begins to suspect that his wife Alice (Hannah Hoekstra...

Ivan Kavanagh's The Canal will be playing in select theaters day-and-date with VOD on October 10th, and to help get you ready for it, here's our exclusive interview with him at the eerie film’s premiere during Tribeca 2014.

Irish writer/director Kavanagh discusses with Dread Central the strengths of horror as a vehicle for low-budget but expressive and inventive filmmaking, reflects on some of his own influences and favorites from the genre, and shares a few nostalgic video store VHS memories.

Antonia Campbell-Hughes, Rupert Evans, Steve Oram, and Hannah Hoekstra star in The Canal, heading our way in October via The Orchard.

Synopsis:

The creepy Irish horror film The Canal tells the story of a film archivist (Evans) who finds his suspicions about a possible infidelity by his wife (Hoekstra) taking a darker turn—that might be connected to the murderous history of their house and the growing possibility...

Maybe you recall a time circa 2002 when you watched The Ring and learned that you should never, under any circumstances, watch an unmarked videotape or any sketchy footage that might concern murders or mysterious deaths that have occurred on or near your property. Clearly, the poor, sweet, misguided protagonist from Ivan Kavanagh‘s The Canal never learned this valuable advice. It could have saved him a lot of heartache and misery — and money for therapy. In the first trailer for the film, it’s apparent things aren’t going so well for David (Rupert Evans). He’s having a little trouble sleeping, if you count waking up completely upright in a cold sweat, fresh from a bout of night terrors as a minor problem. This is even before he heads to his job as a film archivist and learns, as one does, from footage unearthed from the turn of the 20th century, that...

Coming Soon landed a new one-sheet for Irish director Ivan Kavanagh's The Canal, which has been hitting festivals and making the rounds. Gotta say we like it. We like it a lot! The Canal will be playing in select theaters day and-date with VOD on October 10th via The Orchard.

Antonia Campbell-Hughes, Rupert Evans, Steve Oram, and Hannah Hoekstra star.

Synopsis

Film archivist David and his wife are perfectly happy—or so he believes. When a looming secret shatters their marriage at the same time as a turn-of-the-century film reel he is studying reveals their house to be the site of a 1902 multiple-murder, David begins to unravel, and the house’s eerie history threatens to repeat itself. Dripping with tension and chilling to the core, this visceral Irish ghost story is a visually arresting and genuinely shocking journey into the darkness within.

Visit The Evilshop @ Amazon!

Got news? Click here to submit it!

If you're around tonight at this year's Comic-Con, you'll want to check out what might be one of the best horror movies of the year as The Orchard and Shock Till You Drop bring Ivan Kavanagh's The Canal with a special preview screening at San Diego's Gaslamp 15 at 8pm. Set in rural Ireland, it stars Rupert Evans (Hellboy) as David, a film archivist with a morbid fascination for old films in which the subjects have since died. Right after learning that his wife (Hannah Hoekstra) may be cheating on him, she mysteriously disappears at the same time that his assistant Claire (Antonia Campbell Hughes) finds an old reel of film that points to a murder that took place in his house a hundred years ago. David starts to suspect her disappearance may involve some form of the supernatural but he also quickly becomes the prime suspect.

The post Comic-Con Preview: Director Ivan Kavanagh,...

The line-up for this year's Film4 FrightFest in London has just been announced – and boy, is it a doozy! Sporting a record-breaking 38 UK/European premieres and 11 world premieres, this August is going to be an exciting time in the genre calendar.

Check it all out right here, including lots of new images!

This year Film4 FrightFest will be moving from its previous home at Leicester Square's Empire Cinema to the nearby Vue Cinema (also on Leicester Square), prompting an ingenious reshuffle of the screening arrangements.

All main screen films will be presented at different times across three different screens, with two extra screens reserved for single-slot screenings of the various films hitting this year's Discovery Screens.

Here's the full list of goodies:

Main Screens (5, 6, 7)

Thursday Aug 21

Opening Night Film - The Guest (UK Premiere)

Director: Adam Wingard. Cast: Dan Stevens, Maika Monroe, Brendan Meyer, Sheila Kelley, Leland Orser. USA 2014. 99 mins.