Matthew Connor

“Gimmick” is a four-letter word in the vernacular of most film buffs. But aren’t there gimmicks worth celebrating, for their novelty and adventurousness? The Tribe, which basically swept the Critics’ Week festival at Cannes last year, boasts an audaciously original hook: Every one of the film’s cast members is a deaf, non-professional actor, and every line of dialogue is delivered through un-subtitled sign language. Distributors the world over have been contractually forbidden to translate the nonverbal communication depicted on-screen, meaning that every person who sees the film—perhaps even hearing-impaired viewers, except for those who use Ukranian sign language—is placed in the same rare position of having to figure out what the hell is going on. That old adage about cinema being a universal language is truly put to the test.

It’s a nervy stunt, and there’s something thrilling about trying to suss out the ...

No matter how terrible a year is, we can usually count on AMC’s Fear Fest marathons to ease us into the home stretch of the fall with some reliable scares. It has leaned a little hard on the Halloween series lately, but that’s like saying a soda store leans too hard on Coca-Cola. It’s just what you’ve gotta put up with if you wanna see some teenagers get stabbed. Now, thanks to the tireless work of AMC’s Fear Fest scientists, the network has developed a standalone video streaming service called Shudder that will bring scary movies to horror fans whenever they want them.

Shudder has just entered a closed beta test, so if this is the first you’re hearing about it then you might be too late, and the full version doesn’t have an official launch date yet. Those who are in, though ...

In 1996, The Craft taught us that witch covens were out, and witch cliques were in. Then Charmed came along at The WB, suddenly witch cliques were out, and witch sisters were in. Of course, American Horror Story: Coven brought covens back into style, so we’re almost full circle. Circles are, of course, the preferred enclosure for spellcasting.

Perhaps trying to stay ahead of witch social hierarchy trends, Sony believes that the time is right to bring back witch frenemies as The Hollywood Reporter brings word of a planned Craft remake. Leigh Janiak, who made her directorial debut with last year’s Honeymoon—a horror movie that should convince newlyweds everywhere to take a staycation—is being tapped to write and helm the rebooted version. Honeymoon was co-written by Janiak and Phil Graziadei; the two are expected to collaborate on the Craft remake script.

The original cohort of weirdos ...

Listen, you just can’t contain Abbi Jacobson and Ilana Glazer. First they outgrew their web series, and turned it into a TV show on Comedy Central. Then they turned that TV show into a live tour, and some more web content, and a second season of Broad City. Now that show is a hit, with plans for a third season already in place. But that’s not enough for Jacobson and Glazer, who are currently plotting the next phase of their plan to conquer not only Broad City, but the whole broad world.

The logical next step step would be a feature film, and according to The Hollywood Reporter Jacobson and Glazer have sold an untitled comedy pitch to Twentieth Century Fox, presumably at a meeting in a very fancy office where Glazer came dressed in a crop top and black lipstick and stole all the office supplies afterwards ...

The most pressing question for Cary Fukunaga’s new adaptation of Stephen King’s It was foretold long ago, in the prophetic lyrics of Faith No More: You want It all, but you can’t have It. It’s in your face, but you can’t grab It. What is It? It’s It. What is It? It is a killer clown. It is We’re The Millers star Will Poulter. That’s It.

Variety reports that Poulter has snagged the role that left so many ’90s children terrified of finding Tim Curry in a sewage drain, with the 22-year-old actor currently in negotiations to play Pennywise across both of Fukanaga’s two feature films. While older actors like Mark Rylance and Ben Mendelsohn were also in the running, Poulter reportedly won out when New Line decided the film should “go younger” with its shapeshifting, ageless evil who arises every ...

The 1997 film Cube introduced the world to the horrors of six equal squares, joined together by the devil’s own geometry. And while it earned barely half a million at the box office from primitive, ’90s-era audiences who didn’t cotton to more than two dimensions, it eventually went on to find a following on home video, spawn both a sequel and prequel, and now, inevitably, a remake. The Lego Movie’s Roy Lee and Prometheus writer Jon Spaihts are joining forces on a new Cube for Lionsgate, bringing their respective experience with blocky things and tinkering with cult sci-fi to co-produce a Cube “reimagining” for novice director Saman Kesh. His will be called Cubed, taking the regular Cube and reimagining it as a past participle.

Kesh’s short, Controller, recently landed him a feature adaptation deal under Shawn Levy, and now it’s spurred Lionsgate to give him ...

Horror benefits from an authenticity of place. An abandoned mental hospital just isn’t scary if you can see a Sony Pictures studio tour passing by the windows. Take 2001’s Session 9, for example, a slow-burning cult spooker that derives much of its uneasiness from its location: Danvers State Hospital, a then-abandoned psychiatric hospital rumored to have been the birthplace of the pre-frontal lobotomy (this fact proves instrumental to the film, by the way). Star David Caruso even copped to some paranormal activity on set. He also did this.

Though it’s since been demolished, Danvers’ abandoned, paper-strewn hallways live on in this photographic round-up from Digital New Spy, which also features eerie, gorgeous shots of sets from 28 Weeks Later, cult shocker Deadgirl, and the forthcoming Jurassic World. Simply knowing that a fake gas station built for the The Hills Have Eyes remake resides, empty, off the highway ...

CREDIT: AP

Here’s some good news for Batman fans a little bummed out by all of the serious interpretations of the character over the past decade or so: Adam West and Burt Ward will reprise their roles as Batman and Robin in an upcoming animated film. The as-yet-untitled 90-minute movie is set for release in 2016, to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the classic ’60s television series. The two actors announced their participation in the film at the horror convention Mad Monster Party in Charlotte, North Carolina:

Hopefully, the animated film will feature all the requisite callbacks to Golden Era Batman, including onscreen onomatopoeia, dopey Robin exclamations, team-climbing exercises, and the bafflingly named Shark Repellant Bat Spray. If the movie is true to its inspiration, maybe you can ignore how Batman and The Boy Wonder now sound oddly like senior citizens.

[via Consequence Of Sound]