It’s Sunday, which means it’s time for the horror haul, our weekly round-up and one-stop-shop for all things horror. This week in horror, we finally got our first taste of Andy Muschietti's new It movie with the first trailer for the Stephen King adaptation. It was a big week for trailers in general, with new looks at the Tom Cruise action horror The Mummy, the latest Conjuring spin-off Annabelle: Creation, the Fantastic Fest head trip A Dark Song, and the latest Shudder exclusive Sweet Sweet Lonely Girl, and a whole bunch more (Check 'em all out below).

Elsewhere, John Boyega announced on Twitter that Pacific Rim: Uprising has wrapped production, StudioADI revealed more of their incredible practical effects for the 2011 The Thing remake that never made it to the screen, and Netflix picked up Apostle, the period revenge thriller starring Dan Stevens from the director of The Raid films. We also got a sneak peek at Universal Orlando's Halloween Horror Nights American Horror Story Maze and an official announcement for Santa Clarita Diet Season 2.

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 and finish it all up with a rundown of the week in horror movie trailers. Thanks for tuning in, and sound off in the comments with your thoughts, questions, and other horror musings.

NEWS:

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Image via Warner Bros. / New Line Cinema

New ‘The Mummy’ Trailer Finds Undead Tom Cruise Battling Undead Egyptian Queen

‘Annabelle: Creation’ Trailer Explores the Birth of the Most Evil Doll

‘Aquaman’ Screenwriter Will Beall to Pen Universal’s ‘The Creature From the Black Lagoon’ Reboot

Darren Aronofsky’s Mysterious Jennifer Lawrence Movie Is A Horror Film

‘It’ Trailer Breaks ‘Fate of the Furious’ Record for Most Views in 24 Hours

‘Annabelle: Creation’ Trailer Teaser Assembles a Killer Doll

‘The Dark Tower’ Release Date Delayed Again

The 35 Best R-Rated Sci-Fi Movies, Ranked

‘A Dark Song’ Trailer Delivers a Black Magic Head Trip

‘It’: Here Are All the Book References and Easter Eggs Glimpsed in the First Trailer

First ‘It’ Movie Trailer Unleashes Pennywise

New ‘It’ Poster and Teaser Trailer Heralds the Horrors to Come

‘Bates Motel’ Has Reached ‘Psycho’ Territory, But With a Major (Good) Change

‘A Ghost Story’ Trailer: Casey Affleck Is Dead and Lonely in David Lowery’s Unique Film

New ‘It’ Images are Down to Clown; Sequel Details Revealed

Exclusive: Sony Developing ‘Venom’ as R-Rated Start to Their Own Marvel Universe

New ‘Okja’ Images Further Reveal Bong Joon Ho’s Netflix Monster Movie

INTERVIEWS

Michael Fassbender on ‘Alien: Covenant’, How David Has Changed, and Playing a Disembodied Head

Bryan Bertino on ‘The Blackcoat’s Daughter’, ‘The Strangers 2’, and The Evolving Economics of Horror

Rebecca Ferguson on ‘Life’, Tomas Alfredson’s ‘The Snowman’ and ‘The Greatest Showman’ with Hugh Jackman

'Pacific Rim: Uprising' Wraps Production

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Image via Legendary

That's a wrap on Pacific Rim: Uprising, the sequel to Guillermo del Toro's 2013 monsters vs robots rockem sockem. Attack the Block and Star Wars star John Boyega leads Uprising as the son of Idris Elba's Stacker Pentacost, who cancelled the apocalypse in the first film. The actor announced the end of production on twitter.

Steven S. DeKnight takes over at the helm for Uprising, while del Toro remains on board as producer. Scott Eastwood, Jing Tian, Cailee Spaeny, Ivanna Sakhno, and Adria Arjona also star. Pacific Rim: Uprising arrives in theaters on February 23, 2018.

Gareth Evans' First Post-'Raid' Film Lands at Netflix

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Image via Sony Pictures Classics

Netflix continues to align themselves with exciting genre fare. Deadline reports that The streaming network has acquired global distribution rights to Apostle, the period revenge thriller from The Raid and The Raid 2 helmer Gareth Evans. Dan Stevens, who is having a bit of moment right now between Legion and Beauty and the Beast, has been attached to the film since early days, but the Netflix pick up also brings the news that Michael Sheen, Lucy Boynton, Bill Miller and Kristine Froseth will also star.

If you've seen The Raid, then you're already as excited as I am to see what Evans does next. If you haven't seen The Raid, please stop living your worst life and go fix that. This will be Evans English-language feature debut, and his first film since The Raid 2 smashed every face.

Here's the updated logline for the film, per the report:

The pic follows man who travels to a remote island and attempts to rescue his sister after she’s kidnapped by a religious cult. The group demands a ransom for the sister’s return, undermining the man’s resolve to rescue her.

Halloween Horror Nights Unveils 'American Horror Story' Attraction

Universal Orlando goes hard on Halloween Horror Nights, inventing new mazes and attractions every year that combine the icons of horror with the most popular contemporary franchises for a seasonal spectacle of frights. This year, Horror Nights is getting in on Ryan Murphy's hit horror anthology series, American Horror Story by bringing three seasons of Murphy's visually arresting, always insane series to life in a single maze.

Universal previously adapted Freak Show and Murder House into a maze for their annual event, but this time attendees will get to walk through Asylum, Coven, and Roanoke starting September 15th. Watch the teaser video above and check out the description from the press release below.

Universal Orlando’s all-new, incredibly-detailed maze will bring three new installments of the “American Horror Story” anthology to life. In Asylum, guests will travel through the decades of the notorious Briarcliff – evading Dr. Arden’s grotesque human “Rasper” experiments and coming face to “face” with the serial killer, Bloody Face. In Coven, New Orleans aesthetics will surround guests as they’re drawn into the bloody rivalry between the descendants of the Salem witches, the voodoo Queen of New Orleans Marie Laveau, and the sadistic Madame Delphine LaLaurie. And finally, guests will relive the horrific story of the Millers in Roanoke – where they’ll be at the mercy of Piggy Man, the grisly Polk family and the ghosts of the blood moon.

 

Michael Aiello, Sr. Director of Entertainment Creative for Universal Orlando Resort, explains, “We are thrilled to bring the incredible storytelling and iconic characters of ‘American Horror Story’ back to Halloween Horror Nights for a second year. Last year, ‘American Horror Story’ was the highest guest-rated haunted house in Halloween Horror Nights history – and we can’t wait to immerse our guests in all-new horrors from the show.”

'Santa Clarita Diet' Sets Season 2 for 2018

Netflix's outrageous and uproarious cannibal comedy Santa Clarita Diet got an official Season 2 announcement this week. From Better Off Ted creator Victor Fresco, Santa Clarita Diet stars Drew Barrymore and Timothy Olyphant as a married couple living in peak suburbia whose life takes a turn towards undead madness when Barrymore starts craving human flesh. It's one of my favorite shows of the year, not just for the brutal moments of horror, but Fresco's signature brand of side-splitting absurdist humor. I'm definitely hungry for seconds, and a little miffed we have to wait so long, but hopefully Season 2 will drop very early in 2018 (the teaser only announces the year.)

Here's the series synopsis:

In Santa Clarita Diet, Joel (Timothy Olyphant, Justified) and Sheila (Drew Barrymore, Blended) are husband and wife realtors leading vaguely discontented lives in the L.A. suburb of Santa Clarita with their teenaged daughter Abby (Liv Hewson), until Sheila goes through a dramatic change sending their lives down a road of death and destruction…but in a good way.

'Alien: Covenant' Featurette Explores Ridley Scott's Fascination with A.I.

Ridley Scott has long held a fascination with androids. From Ian Holm‘s Ash in Alien to his spiritual investigation of the subject matter in Blade Runner, and the similar themes that pervaded Prometheus, Scott has returned to the subject matter repeatedly over his career. And he's back once again with Alien: Covenant, which grapples with similar creation themes in the midst of the extraterrestrial slaughter. Wired has a new chat with the director, along with his son (filmmaker Luke Scott) and Lisa Su, President of AMD, digging into their thoughts on A.I. Watch the video above.

Covenant picks up ten years after the events of Prometheus, following the crew of the Covenant on a terraforming mission that leads them to a picturesque planet where terror, death, and Michael Fassbender's David (who seems to be the cause of both of those last two things) lie in wait. Alien: Covenant also stars Katherine Waterson, Danny McBride, Amy Seimetz, Billy Crudup, Demian Bichir, Tess Haubrich, Nathaniel Dean and Carmen Ejogo, and arrives in theaters on May 19th.

'The Thing' Remake Team Reveals Killer Practical Effects Test Footage

If you remember the 2011 pre-make of The Thing at all, you probably remember it best for the dreadful CGI effects. What you may not know is that those computerized effects, which feel a bit like a creative slap in the face to the legacy of the John Carpenter's iconic horror sci-fi, were painted on in post-production over some seriously impressive practical effects from StudioADI. Talk to anyone who was on the set of The Thing and they'll tell you they saw some incredible old-school effects work going on.

ADI has made a number of examples of their pre-CG work on the film available in the years since, but they've just released an all new set of in-house tests that are pretty fantastic. Watch the video above and mourn what could have been.

Trailer Trash: It, Annabelle: Creation, The Mummy

Catch up with the week's horror movie trailers in one spot.

IT https://www.youtube.com/embed/FnCdOQsX5kc

New Line Cinema’s horror thriller “IT,” directed by Andrés Muschietti (“Mama”), is based on the hugely popular Stephen King novel of the same name, which has been terrifying readers for decades.   When children begin to disappear in the town of Derry, Maine, a group of young kids are faced with their biggest fears when they square off against an evil clown named Pennywise, whose history of murder and violence dates back for centuries.

THE MUMMY https://www.youtube.com/embed/GzorZUuZqEI

Thought safely entombed in a tomb deep beneath the unforgiving desert, an ancient princess (Sofia Boutella of Kingsman: The Secret Service and Star Trek Beyond) whose destiny was unjustly taken from her is awakened in our current day, bringing with her malevolence grown over millennia and terrors that defy human comprehension. From the sweeping sands of the Middle East through hidden labyrinths under modern-day London, The Mummy brings a surprising intensity and balance of wonder and thrills in an imaginative new take that ushers in a new world of gods and monsters.

ANNABELLE: CREATION https://www.youtube.com/embed/KisPhy7T__Q

Several years after the tragic death of their little girl, a dollmaker and his wife welcome a nun and several girls from a shuttered orphanage into their home, soon becoming the target of the dollmaker’s possessed creation, Annabelle.

A DARK SONG https://www.youtube.com/embed/5-S3JqJZJ3s

Sophia is grief-stricken and overwhelmed with sadness since the untimely death of her young son. In a desperate attempt to achieve some form of closure, she reaches out to Solomon, an occultist with experience in an ancient invocation ritual that Sophia believes will allow her to make contact with her deceased child.   Locked away in a remote country house, the pair undergo a long and arduous ritual, risking both their mental and physical safety as they attempt to access a world beyond their understanding.

SABLE

Caught between her dreams of a better life, a rich mobster who thinks he owns her and an unstable boyfriend who has just killed a man, Sable must take control of her own life or she may find herself dead by dawn. Now comes the heist of a lifetime.

NOVEMBER

NOVEMBER is set in a pagan Estonian village where werewolves, the plague, and the spirits roam. The villagers’ main problem is how to survive the cold, dark winter. And, to that aim, nothing is taboo. People steal from each other, from their German manor lords, from spirits, the devil, and from Christ. They are willing to give away their souls to thieving creatures made of wood and metal called kratts, who help their masters whose soul they purchased steal even more.   Young Liina (Rea Lest) is hopelessly in love with Hans (Jörgen Liik), a nearby farm-hand, whose heart she loses to the daughter of the German manor lord. In order to regain his love, Liina turns to any means necessary, even if that means tapping into the black magic that is circling around the village. Estonian pagan legends and Christian mythologies come to a spell-binding intersection in NOVEMBER.

SWEET SWEET LONELY GIRL https://www.youtube.com/embed/EAsoKUiY_7k

Sweet, Sweet Lonely Girl chronicles the experience of Adele (Wilhelmi) as she goes to live as a caregiver for her aging aunt, Dora (Kellerman). Set against the Social Security crisis of the 1980 Reagan-Carter election, Sweet, Sweet Lonely Girl is an innovative play on genre, striking a bold intersection between the apparitions of a ghost story and the moralist lessons of an after-school special.   When Adele’s mother gets a call for help from her rich sister, she sends Adele to live with her. Alone in a large, empty house, shuttling food and medicine to a woman who won’t leave her room or show her face, Adele grows lonely. She meets a local young woman, Beth (Shephard), seductive and mysterious, with whom she quickly becomes intimate friends.   Beth commands increasingly more of Adele’s time and focus, testing Adele’s moral ground as she starts to abandon her responsibilities caring for her aunt. As Adele begins to discover that Beth may not be who she says she is, she is sent spiraling down a psychologically unhinged and phantasmagoric path, following in the footsteps of her unstable aunt.

OUT OF THE SHADOWS https://www.youtube.com/embed/BiBThjc-6VY

Filmed on Australia’s East Coast, Out of the Shadows stars Blake Northfield in the story of a newly-wed detective who moves into his dream home unaware of the building’s dark history. When his pregnant wife claims she is being tormented by a supernatural force, he seeks help from a renegade demonologist.

SIAM SQUARE https://www.youtube.com/embed/BZ3foRHgRVo

Siam Square -The so call "Shibuya" of Thailand is the “Center” for Bangkok for half a century. The shopping centers, hip standalone shops, popular cafes and restaurants are all there. With the increasing competition in the University entrance examination, a lot of cram school shot up all over the area that leads to more traffic and activities for teenagers. But, when night falls, it becomes a place of an urban legend. They say that to pass the National Entrance Exam, you have to worship an evil spirit. By tying red threads onto a specific chair, you increase your chances in the exam. When a group of nonbeliever found the ‘red threads’ chair in one of the so called “Cram school”, they decide to do the rituals and try to find out what happen. During the same time, there is a rumor that the evil spirit of the girl who disappear mysteriously over thirty years ago has now come back walking the empty street late at night. When one of their friends is haunted and die after the incident, the gang try to find out what’s really going on? And who is the mysterious girl who turn up in the rest room on the day they did the ritual. Is there something really wrong with Siam Square?

VERONICA https://www.youtube.com/embed/NBPIP_EE5Mg

During a total eclipse of the sun, Veronica and two friends decide to make a ouija board to invoke her father’s spirit. After the glass shatters, Veronica enters a kind of trance and passes out, frightening her friends. Once recovered, she starts to perceive strange things at home that make her think she’s brought her father back to the world of the living.