Written and Directed by Ti West, 2009

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Time for some rumor control. Contrary to what one would assume watching The House of the Devil, writer-director Ti West does not have the power to bend time and space to his will. Ti West is not a time lord, he is a mere mortal like the rest of us, he just happens to have the ability to make a film that lives and breathes as if it fell out of a wormhole from 1983. Plenty of horror directors attempt the throwback film, but few pull it off and even fewer pull it off as convincingly as West has with The House of the Devil.

Samantha (Jocelin Donahue) is an impossibly cute college gal dying to escape her slovenly roommate. In order to afford the too-good-to-be-true rent on an apartment she’s just discovered, Samantha has to, against her better judgment, answer a Babysitter Wanted flier pinned to the ad board on campus. The man on the phone (Tom Noonan) is a little creepy and a little too eager to find a babysitter on the night of a rare full lunar eclipse, but that’s just something Samantha is going to have to put up with if she wants to move out. So the ill-fated coed asks her best friend to drive her out to the isolated house in the woods, where things eventually prove to be even worse than Samantha imagined.

Read the rest of my review at HorrorSquad.

Theatrical Trailers and Clips

• CASE 39 – This Renee Zelwegger vehicle has been bounced around so many times I’m not positive it’ll ever end up theatrical.
• H2 – Trailer for Zombie’s HALLOWEEN sequel looks even more unnecessary than his first go at running a treasure into the trailer park mud.

Studio News and Attachments

• BIOSHOCK – Gore Verbinski’s adaptation of the wildly popular retrofuture first person shooter has been stonewalled by budget concerns.
• ECLIPSE – David Slade, he of HARD CANDY and 30 DAYS OF NIGHT, will be directing the third installment of the TWILIGHT series.
• 30 (more) DAYS OF NIGHT – Steve Niles tells MTV that a script has been turned in and that the lights are getting closer to green.
• SILENT HILL 2 – Having not heard anything in what feels like a long time, I’d of assumed a sequel fell by the wayside, but now Horror-Movies.ca claims things have stopped entirely in an attempt to retool the haunter with a teen cast.
• THE NYE INCIDENTS – Todd Lincoln, who still has HACK/SLASH on his bill, will be directing an alien abduction flick for Dark Castle.

Remakes

• NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET – Kata Mara’s younger sister, Rooney Mara, will take on the role of Nancy.
• PREDATORS – What I thought must be bullshit is now confirmed. Robert Rodriguez’s Troublemaker Studios is producing a reboot of the intergalactic head hunter(s).

Indie, Foreign and Random News

• BUBBA NOSFERATU – Ron Perelman thinks that he’ll be stepping into Bruce Campbell’s shoes for the role of Elvis this fall/winter.
• THE WAR OF THE WORLDS PLUS BLOOD, GUTS AND ZOMBIES – Alright this insert zombies into classic literature malarkey is out of control, as evidenced by this forum post-cum-press release.
• DANTE’S INFERNO – Game trailer looking great, except for the complete lack of gameplay.
• THE STRAIN TRILOGY – In addition to having his name attached to every supernatural project of the next millennium, apparently Guillermo del Toro still has time to help write a trilogy of books.
• THE HOUSE OF THE DEVIL – Ti West, understandably, does not appreciate having producers excise scenes from his new movie.

Non-Theatrical Trailers and Clips

• S. DARKO – More viral YouTube’ery.
• THE TAKEN – Trailer
• HYSTERICAL PSYCHO – Trailer.  Currently playing at Tribeca.
• VAMPIRE GIRL VS FRANKENSTEIN GIRL – Hah.

Last Week in Horror found no shortage of minor announcements, but enough of which excite me in earnest.  In the world of TV, Goyer and “TREK” vet Braga sell an intriguing hour long series premise to ABC, HBO renews the proven cool “TRUE BLOOD” and Sci-Fi orders full the unproven “WAREHOUSE 13″.

A few pieces of remake news, though nothing mind blowing.  And then we get to one of the juiciest nuggets of the week that I think may be a beacon of great things to come.  Two outfits have teamed up to finance four films from a quartet of rising independent filmmakers.  I’ve only seen a few of their earlier films, but all four are names I’ve only ever seen associated with positive buzz, so to know they have a new house over their heads is very cool.

Oh, and does anyone else find this innocent picture of Earth during a solar eclipse as ominous as I do?