Seriously, We’re Shocked. Plus A Really, Really Boring Poster For ‘Don’t Be Afraid Of The Dark’
Paz De La Huerta is, it seems, a very good actress, with fine taste. The 26-year-old New Yorker has been acting for over a decade: she appeared as a child in “The Cider House Rules” and “The Object Of My Affection,” and has since cropped up in “A Walk To Remember,” “Fierce People” and “Choke,” among others, while she had the lead in Gaspar Noe‘s “Enter The Void,” and reached real exposure as Steve Buscemi‘s mistress Lucy in the Martin Scorsese-created HBO series “Boardwalk Empire.” But it’s hard to ignore the fact that, at this point, de la Huerta is best known for her willingness to get her kit off.
Like a 21st century Greta Scacchi or a female Ewan McGregor, it’s rare to see the actress wearing clothes of any kind of late: in Jim Jarmusch‘s “The Limits of Control,” she was even credited simply as Nude. And someone’s taken notice: de la Huerta has just landed her first lead role, and even the (firmly NSFW) pre-production teaser poster suggests that the concept of a nudity clause remains anathema to her (and why shouldn’t it?) . Lionsgate announced (via Shock Till You Drop) that the actress will star in their new horror flick “Nurse 3D.”
De La Huerta will play Abby Russell, a beautiful nurse who uses her spare time to brutally punish “dishonest men.” The film will be directed by veteran first assistant director Douglas Aarniokoski, who previously helmed “Highlander: Endgame” and the upcoming genre flick “The Day,” starring Dominic Monaghan, and the studio debuted an early poster, which you can see below. Lionsgate’s Chief Marketing Officer Tim Palen comments on the casting, “Paz is the perfect actress for this role and has already been such an inspiration to the whole project. She brings an intensity and a sense of adventure to this role that is so promising.”
We have to admit, we’re sort of intrigued; it’s a very strong poster, and it could be the kind of genuinely subversive feminist exploitation fare that we’ve been lacking for a while, a kind of Russ Meyer-does-“Audition;” casting an actress as fearless as Paz De La Huerta certainly helps. Or it could just be a cheap, rubbish horror movie. Filming starts in Toronto on September 6th, so we’ll find out in 2012 which way it falls.
On a similar horror one-sheet related note, MTV debuted what is presumably the final poster for the Guillermo Del Toro-produced chiller “Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark,” and it’s… well, it’s rubbish. It’s the title over and over again. The film looks promising, and already sports what looks to be iconic monsters, so we’re stunned that FilmDistrict, who had such success with the striking poster for “Insidious,” half-assed this one so much. Although it does make us wish that we had Nigel McKeand‘s agent: despite no one knowing who he is, he gets top billing, with director Troy Nixey buried away in the credit block. The film lands on August 26th: hopefully something stronger will emerge, if they actually want anyone to see the thing.
