We only recently just saw a full trailer for the upcoming sixth season of the HBO series True Blood, and now the network has unveiled a large batch of high-resolution images previewing the drama to come.  In addition to giving us looks at fan favorites like Sookie (Anna Paquin), Eric (Alexander Skarsgard), Bill (Stephen Moyer), and of course Pam (Kristin Bauer van Straten), these images also introduce us to a host of new characters played by the likes of Rutger Hauer (Blade Runner), Arliss Howard (Full Metal Jacket), and Jurnee Smollett-Bell (Friday Night Lights).

Hit the jump to peruse the gallery of images.  The series also stars Ryan Kwanten, Joe Manganiello, Rutina Wesley, Sam Trammell, Deborah Ann Woll, Carrie Preston, Todd Lowe, Nelsan Ellis, Michael McMillian, Lucy Griffiths, Lauren Bowles, Chris Bauer, Kelly Overton, Rob Kazinsky, and Amelia Rose Blaire.  Season six of True Blood premieres on HBO Sunday June 16th at 9pm/8c.

The live-action series Metal Hurlant Chronicles has finally solidified a debut date; unfortunately it won’t be in the States.  Based on the French comics anthology Metal Hurlant (translated directly as “screaming metal” and known in the States as Heavy Metal), Metal Hurlant Chronicles will debut in France with talks to expand into the UK and Germany.  Each 26-minute long episode will center on one heroic arc in a world that combines a Game of Thrones-type fantasy setting with sci-fi elements.  Directed by Guillaume Lubrano and starring Scott Adkins, Michael Jai white, Rutger Hauer, Darren Shahlavi and Matt Mullins, Metal Hurlant Chronicles is finally seeing the light this month.  Hit the jump to watch the teaser and trailer.

With the Cannes Film Festival officially kicking off today, there is plenty of big, bold movie marketing to be found.  For those of you who couldn’t make it to France (including me), we thought we’d bring you some of the sights.  Our international correspondent Magdalena (who you can follow on twitter) has been busy snapping some shots of promotional material at the festival.  We already brought you the first iteration here, but now we have some more goodies to check out.  They include shots of Spring Breakers, Dracula 3D, Brian De Palma’s Passion and Olympus Has Fallen starring Gerard Butler. Hit the jump to check them out.

Though Hobo With a Shotgun started as a faux-trailer entered in a “Create your own Grindhouse-esque trailer” contest being held by Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez around the time they released their own Grindhouse double-feature, the result of a dark joke between director Jason Eisener and a couple of his friends.  The faux-trailer won the contest, ended up being fleshed out into a full screenplay, recruited Rutger Hauer as the titular Hobo before cameras rolled, then proceeded to mop the floor with Rodriguez’ own Machete (another faux-trailer-turned-actual-movie associated with Grindhouse) amongst critics.  Now it’s available on DVD and Blu-ray, and Eisener’s on his way to being another film-geek-friendly, gen-yoo-whine movie director.  Not bad for something that started life as a joke between friends.  Question is, is it any good?  Find out in our Hobo With a Shotgun review, after the jump…

Fans of artistically perverse Euro-horror always get a little excited when a new Dario Argento movie is announced. Granted, the Italian horror master hasn’t exactly been on top form in recent years with the disappointing Mother Of Tears and the Adrian Brody lawsuit laden Giallo feeling like pale imitations of the director’s iconic classics like Suspiria and Deep Red. But there’s always hope amongst the gore-loving community that he’ll recapture his distinct brand of surrealist gore-horror in the next outing. Argento’s upcoming Dracula 3D does hold some promise given that it will be the visual master’s first crack and stereoscopic cinematography and will feature Rutger Hauer as Van Helsing.  There is always a chance that the lazy storytelling and wooden acting that plagued Argento’s recent work will crop up again here, but hopefully the iconic story will keep the director in check. Today the first few images of Argento’s 3D tribute to blood-sucking love-making have hit the internet. They look sufficiently creepy, but we’ll have to wait to see them in motion to know if the director is back on form or not. Hit the jump for an early peak at Dracula 3D.

The exorcism sub-genre got off to a grand start all the way back in 1973 with William Friedkin’s masterful horror film The Exorcist, and since then, we’ve had a neverending parade of progressively tedious, hackneyed exorcism flicks.  But last year’s The Rite has just arrived on Blu-ray (and DVD, if that’s your preferred format), and maybe you’ve found yourself gazing at that oddly-similar-to-Tommy-Wiseau’s-The-Room cover box at your local movie retailer.  Maybe you’ve gotten it into your head that The Rite is worth renting, maybe even buying.  Hey, you think, maybe the inclusion of Anthony Hopkins indicates that The Rite will be a step above, say, The Exorcism of Emily Rose.  Maybe you’re possessed, and the Devil’s the one whispering this madness in your ear.  Read on for our Blu-ray review of The Rite, after the jump….

[This review is a reprint of my review that ran during this year's Sundance Film Festival.  Hobo with a Shotgun blasts its way into US theaters this weekend.]

Sometimes, being insane in your filmmaking isn’t enough.  To make something special, a filmmaker requires a spark of creativity to light the flames of a madness explosion.  Hobo with a Shotgun is a Hiroshima of creative insanity.  Director Jason Eisener has not only paid homage to 70s exploitation films, he’s made a film that could easily have stood amongst it ranks.  Every time you think the movie can’t become any more crazy, any more grotesque, or any more disgusting, it takes out its penis and starts masturbating in public while raving about how cans of Progresso soup are running a shadow government.

Hobo with a Shotgun is an absolute blast if you like vicious, cartoony violence.  The film will be available on demand starting tomorrow and Magnet has released a new red-band trailer to remind folks.  If you’ve already watched the first red-band trailer, I think you’ve already seen enough.  This new trailer has a lot of new footage and part of the fun in seeing the movie is not knowing how much crazier it’s going to get.

However, I can understand wanting to see as much of this movie as soon as possible, so you can check out the trailer after the jump.  Hobo with a Shotgun premieres tomorrow on VOD, iTunes, and Amazon.com.  It shoots into theaters on May 6th. Click here to check out my review.

Rutger Hauer has reportedly been cast as Van Helsing in Italian horror icon Dario Argento’s upcoming Dracula 3D. Per Twitch, Hauer is the only thesp currently attached to Argento’s project which is scheduled to begin production in May of this year. Although the quality of Argento’s output has, in my opinion, noticeably declined of late, the undeniable influence of previous works such as Deep Red and Suspiria means that I will most likely be giving his Dracula 3D a fighting chance.

As for Hauer, the 67 year-old’s career has recently received a boost due to roles in films such as The Rite and the ultra-violent throwback flick Hobo with a Shotgun [check out Matt's resoundingly positive review from Sundance 2011 here]. In spite of my reserved feelings about Dracula 3D, matching Hauer’s ever-reliable on-screen presence with Argento’s taste for experimentation could result in a worthy entry into the trials and tribulations of Count Dracula.

Sometimes, being insane in your filmmaking isn’t enough.  To make something special, a filmmaker requires a spark of creativity to light the flames of a madness explosion.  Hobo with a Shotgun is a Hiroshima of creative insanity.  Director Jason Eisener has not only paid homage to 70s exploitation films, he’s made a film that could easily have stood amongst it ranks.  Every time you think the movie can’t become any more crazy, any more grotesque, or any more disgusting, it takes out its penis and starts masturbating in public while raving about how cans of Progresso soup are running a shadow government.

We’ve been bringing you the first images from films that will premiere at the Sundance Film Festival in January, and today we’ve got images from a couple of ridiculously fantastic films that will be featured under the festival’s Park City at Midnight banner: Hobo with a Shotgun and Troll Hunters. Home to horror films and extreme comedies, some of the films that have screened at Park City at Midnight include Saw, The Blair Witch Project, and Black Dynamite.

Hobo with a Shotgun stars Rutger Hauer, Molly Dunsworth, Gregory Smith and Brian Downey. The film follows a hobo (Hauer) who, with a shotgun, delivers justice in an urban city. Troll Hunters is a film from Norway that features a camera crew who decide to document the life of a man tasked with protecting Norway from trolls. Hit the jump to check out images and a brief synopsis for both films. The 2011 Sundance Film Festival runs from January 20 – 30th.

The trailer for Mikael Håfström’s new film The Rite, which previously made its debut at the 5th annual “Scream Awards”, has gone online. Starring Academy Award-winning actor Anthony Hopkins, the film is another one of those Catholic Priests vs. the Devil flicks that people seem to enjoy so much these days and is reminiscent of the Eli Roth-produced The Last Exorcism which premiered earlier this year, though without the shaky, low-budget camera look.

The film also stars Alice Braga (Predators),  Ciarán Hinds (Munich), and Rutger Hauer (Blade Runner). Håfström recently directed the period piece Shanghai starring John Cusack and Gong Li, which was released in China earlier this year but has yet to make its way to the states. He also directed the 2007 Stephen King-thriller 1408, also starring Cusack. Hit the jump to check out the trailer which, typical or not, still looks freaky as Hell.  The Rite is set to open on January 28, 2011.

The unrated trailer for Hobo with a Shotgun has gone online and it is awesomely work-unfriendly.  Starring the great Rutger Hauer (Blade Runner) as (you guessed it) a homeless man wielding a shotgun, the film has an unsettling and gritty tone that screams B-movie excellence (although I doubt it will help squash the fears of hobophobes).  Honestly, if the film was simply a 90-minute loop of the painfully bleak speech Hauer delivers in the trailer, I’d still pay to see it.

Hobo is the first feature film from director and co-writer Jason Eisener and is the second feature to be made of the faux trailers attached to Grindhouse (of which Robert Rodriguez’s Machete is the first).  [Correction: A reader has astutely pointed out that the trailer for Hobo with a Shotgun was not attached to Grindhouse. Instead, it was the winner of a 2007 contest held at SXSW which asked filmmakers to submit faux trailers akin to the ones attached to Grindhouse.] To check out the gloriously creepy trailer for yourself, hit the jump .

Two new clips are out from Hobo with a Shotgun, Rutger Hauer’s upcoming work of genius in which he is a hobo determined to bring justice to his gang-riddled city using his trusty shotgun.  In short, it’s exactly what it sounds like.  The clips do nothing but make it look even more insane and incredible.  The first is a rookie cop talking about how glad he is to be a policeman until a guy gets shot and awkwardly bleeds on him.  The second is a cop screaming at everyone to shut the fuck up during a press conference and “go find that fucking hobo!”  Yeah, there’s no way this could be any more awesome.  In case you needed a reason to live, this is it:

Hobo with a Shotgun might just be the best movie title of all time, and this footage delivers just that and so much more, like flaming school buses, gangsters wielding machetes, a whole lot of blood and most importantly, Rutger Hauer shooting a lot of stuff.  Hobo with a Shotgun is the second film being made based on a faux trailer from Grindhouse, with Machete set to be released this year.  According to Quiet Earth, Jason Eisener’s hobo opus follows Hauer’s character, a homeless man who “goes about bringing justice to the city the best way he knows how-with a 20-gauge shotgun.”  Panhandling will never be the same.