Howdy, horror folks! Welcome to another week in the happenings of horror and genre cinema. It's all about awards season this week, which is traditionally not a peak moment for horror. However, horror's still making itself heard this week with The Witch scooping up a couple of well-earned Independent Spirit Awards. At the same time, Jordan Peele's Get Out has become such a critical and commercial hit in its first week of release that the timely thriller has managed to find a foothold in the cinema conversation, even in the midst of all those La La Land hot takes.

Elsewhere, we've got some awesome behind-the-scenes Monster Squad shots courtesy of the great Stan Winston School of Character Arts (aka home to some of the best and most iconic creature creations in cinema history), a glimpse at Tom Savini's custom Jason Voorhees skin in Friday the 13th: The Game, a bloody claymation promo for the James Gunn-scripted The Belko Experiment, and a couple new additions to Shane Black's The Predator.

For all the horror news we’ve already covered on the site, you can click through the links below. Then, check out other genre highlights from the week, including the latest episode of Collider Nightmares, and finish it all up with a rundown of the week in horror movie trailers. Thanks for tuning in, and be sure to sound off in the comments with your thoughts, questions, and other horror musings. And be sure to let me know how you're liking Horror Haul so far!

NEWS

The 10 Best Horror Films Steeped in Social Commentary

‘Untitled Jurassic World Sequel’ Officially Starts Filming

‘Alien: Covenant’: 5-Minute Prologue Reveals the Last Supper of the Covenant Crew

‘Castle Rock’: Details Emerge for Stephen King’s Upcoming Hulu Series

‘Alien: Covenant’ Cast Photo Reveals James Franco

Over 40 Hi-Res ‘Kong: Skull Island’ Images Preview Massive, Colorful Monsters

REVIEWS

‘The Girl with All the Gifts’ Review: Reviving an Undead Genre

‘Get Out’ Review: Jordan Peele Paints a Terrifying Picture of Modern Enslavement

INTERVIEWS

Jordan Peele on Balancing Terror and Social Commentary in ‘Get Out’

Mia Goth on Filming ‘A Cure for Wellness’ in the Most Haunted Place in Germany

Bradley Whitford on Working with Jordan Peele on “Get Out’

Mädchen Amick on the Surprising ‘Riverdale’ and How ‘Twin Peaks’ Was Shot as One Long Movie

'Get Out' Scores 100% On Rotten Tomatoes

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Image via Universal Pictures

Get Out absolutely dominated this week in horror. Jordan Peele's timely directorial debut is a critical and commercial smash, scaring off The LEGO Batman Movie to take the top spot at the Box Office and earning the elusive 100% Certified Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes.

Look, I think we pay too much attention to RT scores since they are nothing but a barometer of critical opinion -- and I think any horror fan has likely learned to take critical opinion with a grain of salt. And realistically, Get Out is probably going to take a hit at some point. That said, the 100% mark is fairly rare for films in general, and for horror films, it's all but unheard of. Here are the four other horror films that boast the score: The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920), Frankenstein (1931), The Bride of Frankenstein (1935), Repulsion (1965). That's it. That's the lot. All of them are seminal genre films that came out before Rotten Tomatoes was even a thing. Does Get Out measure up? Well, yours truly came down with a light plague this weekend so I haven't had a chance to catch it yet, but sound off in the comments with your thoughts (unless they're the kind of awful thoughts movies like this tend to conjure up in some people, maybe just keep those between you and your god).

'The Witch' Takes Home 2 Spirit Awards

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Image via

You know who likes to live deliciously? The Spirit Awards, that's who. Divisive though it may have been for horror fans looking for a bit more of a straightforward thrill, Robert Eggers' The Witch is an extraordinary piece of genre filmmaking and an even more extraordinary feature film debut. So even though it was predictably iced out of the major awards circuit (the Academy Awards notoriously have no love for genre films -- though Sci-Fi has been breaking through in recent years), thank heavens for the Independent Spirit Awards (something I find myself saying pretty much every year). The Witch scored two trophies at the ceremony yesterday, landing Best First Feature and Best First Screenplay, two well-earned wins for Eggers who wrote and directed the film. Now, excuse me while I go say a prayer to Black Phillip that Eggers continues to make original films rather than being scooped up by the studio system. Baaah.

Stan Winston School Reveals Behind-the-Scenes 'Monster Squad' Photos

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Image via TriStar Pictures

Fred Dekker's Monster Squad is an all-time coming-of-age camp delight. While kids my age were clamoring over Goonies (no disrespect, I just didn't see it until I was older), I was all about Monster Squad, the Amblin-esque adventure that pits a bunch of horror nerds against the classic catalogue of cinematic monsters. Co-scripted by Shane Black (who's reuniting with Dekker for his The Predator script. Bless.), The Monster Squad is funny, spirited, occasionally touching, and ultimately, so much damn fun. It also boasts some truly extraordinary creature work from the Stan Winston Studio.

Lucky us, The Stan Winston School of Character Arts has released a whole bunch of concept art and behind-the-scenes images showcasing the incredible artistry in the film. We've put a few below, but there's a real treasure trove over at the official site along with some great quotes from the creators.

“The challenge was to suggest those classic creatures, without really copying them,” explains Shane Mahan, who served as Head Monster Maker for The Mummy, “because we didn’t have permission or the license to use those specific images. So we could do a ‘Gillman’, for example, but it couldn’t look too much like the Creature from the Black Lagoon. It was frustrating for us at first, because, of course, we wanted to do the original designs! But we couldn’t. We could only suggest those designs. So the Frankenstein monster looks a bit like the Karloff creature; but instead of bolts in the neck, he has bolts in the forehead. There was a certain percentage of changes we had to make to get away from any legal copyright infringement.”

the-monster-squad
Image via The Stan Winston School
Image via The Stan Winston School
Image via The Stan Winston School
Image via The Stan Winston  School
Image via The Stan Winston School
Image via The Stan Winston  School
Image via The Stan Winston School
Image via The Stan Winston School
Image via The Stan Winston School
Image via The Stan Winston  School
Image via The Stan Winston School
Image via The Stan Winston  School
Image via The Stan Winston School

'Raw' Gets a Bloody, Beautiful New Poster

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Image via Focus World

Ah, Raw. What is there to say about this twisted little cannibal affair that hasn't already been said. Julia Ducournau's feature film debut is a sick seduction and a twisted tale of sisterhood; a collegiate coming-of-age tale told through the lens of cannibalism. And it's excellent. The film opens in select theaters on March 10th before expanding worldwide in the spring, but for now, you can check out the new poster that captures the film's simplicity, elegance, and surprising beauty, will a fantastically pulpy tagline: "Sisters -- bound by love, torn by flesh!" Love it. In case you missed it, you can read my full Raw review here.

Here's the synopsis for Raw:

Everyone in Justine’s family is a vet. And a vegetarian. At 16, she’s a brilliant and promising student. When she starts at veterinary school, she enters a decadent, merciless and dangerously seductive world. During the first week of hazing rituals, desperate to fit in whatever the cost, she strays from her family’s principles when she eats raw meat for the first time.

 

Justine will soon face the terrible and unexpected consequences of her actions as her true self begins to emerge…

raw-poster

'The Belko Experiment' Goes Claymation

Wolf Creek and Rogue helmer Greg McLean is leaving the outback behind with his latest film, the James Gunn-scripted murder spree The Belko Experiment. Described in handy pitch-speak as "Office Space meets Battle Royale", the film follows the employees of Belko industries on a seemingly average day at work... that is until steel shutters descend, blocking all exits and a mysterious voice pops up on the intercom demanding the co-workers slaughter each other if they want to survive. Now, we've got a sneak peek at the madness in the form of a gruesome claymation video.

The Belko Experiment features a pretty huge cast of familiar faces poised to murder the shit out of each other including Tony Goldwyn (Scandal), Adria Arjona(Emerald City), John Gallagher Jr. (10 Cloverfield Lane), John C. McGinley(Scrubs), Sean Gunn (Super), Michael Rooker (Guardians of the Galaxy), Owain Yeoman (The Mentalist), Melonie Diaz  (Fruitvale Station), Josh Brener (Silicon Valley).

Here’s the official synopsis:

On what appears to be a normal day at Belko Industries, Belko employees are horrified when they find out that they’ve become guinea pigs in a company-wide experiment which will lead them to either kill their fellow employees or be murdered themselves. The experiment is masterminded by a mysterious voice which is controlling the loud speaker and instructing the employees to slaughter each other by any means necessary.

'Friday the 13th: The Game' Teases Tom Savini's Custom Jason Vorhees Skin

Friday the 13th fans have had a rough go of it lately. First, The CW axed their long-developed Camp Crystal Lake-set series and then Paramount pulled the plug on their even longer-developed reboot of the film franchise. I mean really guys, it just shouldn't be that hard to make a Friday the 13th movie. They're the meat and potatoes movies of the horror genre. Sex, murder, mommy issues, and a scary big guy in a mask. Boom. Done. Don't overthink it. Alas...

But there is one beacon of hope for the slasher lovers amongst us -- Friday the 13th: The Game, an upcoming third-person survival game that puts you in the shoes of a camp counselor and pits you against Jason Voorhees himself. The Kickstarter-funded project from developers Gun Media and Illfonic lands later this year on PC, Xbox One and PS4, and this week brings sneak peek teasing a skin designed by none other than genre legend Tom Savini.

You can pre-order the game here and glimpse Savini's Voorhees skin in the video above.

'The Predator' Adds Yvonne Strahovski and Alfie Allen

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Shane Black's The Predator just rolled into production up in Vancouver, but it's still adding new members to the increasingly excellent cast. Though I may never recover from the loss of Benicio Del Toro (I wonder if there's an alternate universe that gets that version along with Cary Fukunaga's IT. Maybe they got those on TRAPPIST-1), Black's ensemble has come together beautifully over the last few months. This week, Game of Thrones star Alfie Allen (AKA Reek, nee Theon Greyjoy) has joined the cast alongside Chuck and Dexter alumna Yvonne Strahovski. The duo joins the already assembled cast that includes Boyd Holbrook, Trevante Rhodes, Olivia Munn, Keegan-Michael Key, Thomas Jane, Sterling K. Brown, and Jacob Tremblay.

THR reports that Strahovski will play mother to Tremblay's character, "who is accidentally drawn into the conflict with the fierce alien creatures by his father — her ex-husband — played by Holbrook." Allen will play an ex-marine who teams with Holbrook and Co. to stop the ferocious beastie.

Collider Nightmares: Sam Raimi May Direct ‘Bermuda Triangle’ Movie; ‘The Void’ Trailer

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On this week’s episode of Collider Nightmares (Wednesday, February 22, 2017) Clarke Wolfe, Perri Nemiroff, Jon Schnepp and Mark Reilly will discuss the following:
  • Jump Scares: Horror Directors and Superheroes
  • Live Twitter Questions

Trailer Trash: Xavier Gans' 'The Crucifixion', Bill Moseley Is a Cannibal Clown in 'Crepitus'

THE EYES

Some say we are only as sick as our secrets, but what if our government really knew those secrets? What if they’ve watched every move we’ve made, and our secrets aren’t really hidden? In The Eyes, six strangers with unspeakable pasts wake up imprisoned in an abandoned warehouse and discover they are being forced to participate in an evil governmental experiment. Five must die. One can live. And THEY have two hours to decide amongst themselves who survives. The clock is ticking, and if they don’t decide… they ALL die. ‘The Eyes’ shows us that someone is always watching.

THE MOTHER OF BEAUTY https://www.youtube.com/embed/KfA0e0TZNAQ

In ‘The Mother of Beauty’ a single mother-to-be lives in isolation on the edge of the wilderness. She makes a living through her work with vulture culture: using the remains of dead animals to create art and memorialize the lives that once were. As she attempts to overcome the struggles of parenthood, the forces of life and death pull her in opposing directions, and she must find a way to reconcile the two before they tear her apart.

HERE ALONE https://www.youtube.com/embed/MavY6tMPio8

A young woman struggles to survive on her own in the wake of a mysterious epidemic that has decimated society and forced her deep into the unforgiving wilderness, until she encounters two other survivors who make her confront her past while putting all of their lives at risk.

DIG TWO GRAVES https://www.youtube.com/embed/GLTJniU35OA

A supernatural thriller about the generational violence that plagues a small, backwoods town, set in the 1970s, DIG TWO GRAVES asks “how far would you go to save those you love?” After 13-year-old Jacqueline Mather (Samantha Isler) loses her brother in a mysterious drowning accident she is soon visited by 3 moonshiners who offer to bring her brother back to life but at a grim cost. As the dark history of her grandfather, Sheriff Waterhouse (Ted Levine) is unearthed the true intentions of the moonshiners come to light.

THE CRUCIFIXION https://www.youtube.com/embed/GLTJniU35OA

When a priest is jailed for the murder of a nun on whom he was performing an exorcism, an investigative journalist strives to determine whether he in fact murdered a mentally ill person or if he lost the battle with a demonic presence.

CREPITUS https://www.youtube.com/embed/UZgD8-tx2QQ

Seventeen-year-old Elizabeth and her younger brother, Julian, are thrust into circumstances more terrifying than life with their abusive, drunken mother when they are forced to move into their deceased grandfather’s house.   Frightened beyond belief, they are forced to learn horrible things about their family history. Never mind the ghosts in the house; there is something far worse that takes an interest in them… a cannibalistic clown named Crepitus.

BETHANY

After Claire’s mother dies, she and her husband move back to her childhood home, only to have the abusive and traumatic memories of her mother come back and bring unrest into the house. Claire soon finds herself in a fog of past and present when her imaginary friend from childhood begins haunting her memories.

 

 

What is this terrifying thing that is trying to reach out to her, and what does it want?