M. Night Shyamalan is taking the Sam Raimi route, adding a side career as a heavyweight genre producer. He’s opened up Night Chronicles, an independent company dedicated to shooting one horror film for each of the next three years. Unlike Raimi’s Ghost House Pictures, there does appear to be an endgame to this operation, but will it be nearly as successful? The first film in the deal, “Devil,” starts shooting next Monday in Toronto, and after some digging, the mysterious logline has arrived: ” A group of people are trapped in an elevator, and one of them is the devil.”
Sounds like a wicked short film. Too bad it’s been extended to feature length. The film is based on an idea from Shyamalan himself, which is more than a little odd, since it sounds like a great Off-Broadway play, but it also sounds like it might feature one of those house-special Shyamalan twists. The cast is lead by Chris Messina, playing a former alcoholic detective, and includes Bojana Novakovic, Bokeem Woodbine, Caroline Dhavernas, Logan Marshall-Green, Jenny O’Hara, Jacob Vargas, Matt Craven, and Mr. Christina Hendricks himself, Geoffrey Arend.
The script is from Brian Nelson, with the directorial chair being taken up by John and Drew Dowdle, last seen xeroxing it up with the “[Rec]” remake, “Quarantine.” It’s interesting how the Dowdles are making their way up the horror director hierarchy, all the while their first film sits on the shelf. “The Poughkeepsie Tapes” debuted at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2007 and was snapped up by MGM, but since then, the company has fallen on hard times, and no one is certain what will become of the film. Harry Knowles of AICN selected it to screen at Butt Numb-A-Thon a few years ago, and the film was met with a hostile reception, but we remember a pretty-serious looking trailer debuting in front of “The Mist” that year- will the film ever be released?
We’ve seen it, and while it’s often amateurish, the film packs a few genuinely sadistic, unsettling, even disturbing scares, and with a few tweaks could have the breakout potential showed by “Paranormal Activity.” Worth noting- we’re still waiting for “The Wackness” director Johnathan Levine’s debut, “All The Boys Love Mandy Lane,” and we’ve only recently seen BNAT ’07 “Poughkeepsie” companion “Trick ‘R’ Treat.” Can someone release these horror movies out into the public, please?