It’s not often that Quentin Tarantino comments on new films, more or less for the reason that he doesn’t want to slam someone who is actively creating art. If he disses one, that could spell the end of that movie – and its director – before it had a chance. So when he does talk about a new release, it’s usually only positive. And that’s just what happened with Alexandre Aja’s killer alligator movie Crawl, which he didn’t just love but named one of his favorite movies of 2019.

That Tarantino loved Crawl was just the sort of boost Aja needed. As he told The Hollywood Reporter, “It was such a nice surprise. I was really, really excited. I’ve met with Quentin a few times, and one of the times, we had dinner together in Paris right before I was going to make Piranha 3D. So I was pitching him all the scenes, and he was pitching me other things that he was thinking about, so I knew how much he loved these types of movies. My friend Eli Roth called me to say, ‘Hey, Quentin watched [Crawl] and really loved it.’ And then I saw the announcement online, so the fact that he really enjoyed the movie was the nicest thing ever. Sometimes, you do movies and you never know [how they’re going to be received]. But when you find an audience that also includes the critics and your peers that you admire the most, that’s why you keep trying to tell stories.”

And Aja will apparently carry that through with his upcoming sequel to Crawl, which he says is an idea he has been developing ever since the first one. “I would say that I never really stopped working on Crawl…After we were done, I kept thinking about all the other great setups that we could create, and it was really an exciting movie to make. So I wanted to really be involved in doing a sequel, and after a few troubled years with Covid and everything, I feel like we are now in a position that, hopefully next year, it might happen. So I’m excited. I’m ready to go. I’ve been lining up so many scenes and stuff, so it’s there. We just have to do it now and get back in the water.”

That doesn’t give us too much to work off of, but Alexandre Aja will apparently move the action from New Orleans to New York City (hey, Chicago was already taken!). Whatever the plot and wherever the setting, it’s definitely near the top of our most anticipated horror sequels.

Are you a fan of Alexandre Aja’s Crawl? What do you hope for the sequel?

The post Alexandre Aja teases Crawl 2, remembers Tarantino’s love for the original appeared first on JoBlo.

THR has reported that Paramount Pictures is developing Crawl 2, a sequel to the 2019 gator horror film directed by Alexandre Aja.

Production on the sequel is expected to get underway in Europe this fall, with Alexandre Aja returning to direct. He will also produce alongside Craig Flores and Sam Raimi. Andrew Deutschman and Jason Pagan, best known for writing Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension and Project Almanac, are penning the script. The report states that Crawl 2 will revolve around a new cast in a new location, this time said to be New York City.

The first movie starred Kaya Scodelario as Haley, a University of Florida swimmer who ignores evacuation orders to search for her missing father (Barry Pepper) when a massive hurricane hits her hometown. After finding him gravely injured in the crawl space of their family home, the two become trapped by quickly encroaching floodwaters. As time runs out to escape the strengthening storm, Haley and her father discover that the rising water level is the least of their fears. The film was a critical and commercial success, grossing $91 million on a budget of just $15 million. It also happened to be one of Quentin Tarantino’s favourite films of the year.

Given the success of the first movie, it’s somewhat surprising that it took five years to get the sequel going, but it wasn’t for lack of enthusiasm. In 2021, Aja said that they have “been talking about a sequel non-stop, and putting together a really, really fun take.” Even then, he knew he wanted to move on to another character and let Haley have her victory. “I think the story of Haley is a really strong one, but I believe that Crawl is about nature taking back its due, and kind of like… more hurricane driven, man versus animal,” Aja said. “So maybe it will be another story altogether. We’re looking for that human story right now, that will be as strong as the one in the first one. To make the second one legit.“

What do you hope to see in Crawl 2?

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Allow us to jog your memory as to how much of a scary good time these killer alligator/crocodile flicks can be. From the hilariously campy to the horrifyingly credible, here are our Top 10 Favorite Killer Alligator/Crocodile Movies!

#10. CROCODILE (2000) – Just a few weeks back we boldly stood up for what Tobe Hooper’s unabashedly trashy direct-to-video Crocodile – a movie that, while among the lower rungs of his illustrious filmography, is actually much more gory, violent and overall fun than people give it credit for. While cheaply made and poorly acted, the great thing about this flick is the sheer amount of killer-croc-action and exorbitant death toll as the prehistoric beast named Flat Dog chews, chomps, marauds and masticates every damn annoying human in its predatory path. A fall from grace in the eyes of many, Crocodile is minor-key Hooper having a damn good time! GET HERE

#9. ALLIGATOR (1979) – Also known as The Big Alligator River, I’m willing to be most of y’all have never even heard of, much less seen, Giallo master Sergio Martino’s 1979 Italian horror flick Alligator. But you should! Shot in Sri Lanka, the film is set in Africa as a tourism resort is overrun by a giant man-eating crocodile. The locals deem the beast some kind of ancient god native to the land, and after awhile, begin to hunt down the tourists just as the croc hunts down anything with a goddamn pulse. An obvious JAWS ape-job, Martino shows little restraint with his savagely sickening killer-croc attacks! GET HERE

#8. KILLER CROCODILE (1989) – From one Italian import to another! Shot in the Dominican Republic under the direction of Fabrizio de Angelis, Killer Crocodile follows a legion of environmentalists dedicated to cleaning up a toxic tropical waterway. One problem. A massive flesh-munching Croc dwells in said waters and with its jarringly jagged teeth and scaly Lochness Monster appearance, intent to murder and mandicate any poor bastard that dare get in its way. As another bald Jaws knockoff that celebrates its 30th anniversary this July, Killer Crocodile is a whole lot of bloody fun. Also, look out for the sequel, Killer Crocodile II, which was filmed simultaneously with the original.

#7. PRIMEVAL (2007) – Okay, so Primeval is a pretty silly movie, but that primary antagonist of the film – a pissed-off supercharged killer croc – is no laughing matter whatsoever. No, not the TV series of the same name and year, we mean the exotic South African-set action/adventure flick starring Dominic Purcell and Orlando Jones. While a whole roster of prehistoric beasties are featured in opposition to humanity, it’s no doubt Gustave, the 18-foot, one-ton man-eating monster that served as the basis of the 2004 documentary Capturing the Killer Croc. The abnormally sized beastie was last spotted in the Central African Ruzizi River in 2009! GET HERE

#6. DARK AGE (1987) – We’re betting dollars to dead bodies that very few of y’all of seen much less heard about the unheralded Aussie creature-feature Dark Age, yes, starring Wolf Creek baddie John Jarrat. This movie rocks! Keeping with the basic plot of this entire list of films, the action kicks off in the Aussie outback when a giant crocodile begins swallowing the local human population. Here’s the kicker though. While hunting the killer-croc, one of the tour guides develops an ESP connection with the primordial predator and uses this link to defeat the ferocious foe. As ridiculous as it is visceral, Dark Age is a rarely seen but above average killer-croc JAWS cribbing that was finally released in its native country 14 years after being made. A rare species indeed! GET HERE

#5. LAKE PLACID (1999) – Made 20 years ago for a pricey $35 million, Lake Placid is easily the biggest, dumbest, loudest, and perhaps most enjoyable of all killer-croc blockbusters to date. With the tone as cheeky as the imagery is freaky, the overtly humorous bent makes the sillier FX-driven spectacles much easier to forgive than a movie that lacks the self-awareness to poke fun at itself. This movie knows exactly what it is and has a goddamn blast pandering to expectations. When a monstrous crocodile begins slurping people up from Black Lake, Maine, a ragtag assembly of antiheros led by Bill Pullman and Oliver Platt must unite and fight for the f*cking lives. Pure mindless bliss! GET HERE

#4. BLACK WATER (2007) – The great thing about the little-known Aussie chiller Black Water is that it attempts its subject matter with an authentic verve most of its ilk eschew in favor of exploitative action. The low-budget indie helmed by Andrew Traucki and David Nerlich follows a vacationing family touring the Blackwater Berry tour in the south Aussie mangroves. The idyllic sightseeing trip turns terrifying when a gargantuan crocodile capsizes the family’s tour boat and proceeds to methodically hunt, maim and imbibe each individual. The surviving family must make it safely to land, despite their boat flipping over with the voracious monster lurking in the water beneath. Truly terrifying! GET HERE

#3. ROGUE (2007) – We still maintain that Rogue largely suffered from the grand expectations Greg McLean left us with after the bone-clattering Wolf Creek. Why else has a movie this entertaining, gorgeously shot and scintillatingly suspenseful flown so far under the radar. I mean, hell, that f*cker from Avatar is in it, so you’d think Rogue would have more fans. What I love about the movie is how scarcely McLean shows the humongous crocodile in full, only giving us hints through corner-of-the-frame suggestion – a splash of water here, a tail-whip there, etc. But then, when it comes time to scare the piss out of the main characters, and by proxy the audience, McLean goes the way of Jaws and gives us a gnarly-ass sight to behold in the croc’s dark and dingy lair. GET HERE

#2. ALLIGATOR (1980) – In the 80s, Lewis Teague sort of cornered the market on killer-animal horror flicks. Three years before trying to tame Stephen King’s Cujo, Teague all but won the job with his sewer-set creature-feature Alligator, which easily holds serve as one of the all time best killer-croc horror flicks. Seriously, this movie kicks major f*cking ass! One of the reasons it does is due to the credible script by Piranha‘s John Sayles. The others have to do with the deft blend of practical gators and a large mechanical animatronic replica, which often malfunctioned so terribly that Teague was forced to shoot around the creature in order to mount suspense. Jaws strikes again! Dubbed Ramon, the animatronic was donated to the Florida Gators, where he made several appearances as the team mascot!

#1. EATEN ALIVE (1977) – Bookending this here litany is the late great Tobe Hooper, who, with two entries on the list, must be considered the foremost authority on all things killer-gator! And while Eaten Alive is so much more than just a killer-croc thriller, the mere sight of Bobby “Name’s Buck… and I’m rarin’ to f*ck” Englund getting deservingly digested by the slavering maw of swamp-dwelling pet gator held on the side of a sleazy motel porch is too glorious to avoid in the top spot. Honestly, this movie is pure horror gold! Neville Brand plays a homicidal hotelier who runs a foul bayou brothel, murdering any untoward customer with a giant scythe blade before feeding their remains to his vicious pet gator in the swamp out front. The most unnerving aspect? The story was based on the real life case of Joe Ball, a Texas barman who allegedly fed females to his pet gator. When he was about to be questioned for the murders by police, Ball killed himself! GET HERE

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Last month, we learned that Paramount Home Entertainment would be releasing a five film 4K box set called Paramount Scares Vol. 1, which would include Rosemary’s Baby (1968) and Pet Sematary (1989), plus a pair of recent box office successes, Crawl (2019) and Smile (2022). Intriguingly, Paramount chose to keep the fifth film in the set a mystery… But now that we’ve reached the set’s October 24th release date, it has been revealed that the fifth movie in the set is Tim Burton’s 2007 film Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, making its 4K debut! If you’re interested in adding the Paramount Scares Vol. 1 set to your collection, copies can be purchased at THIS LINK.

Directed by Burton from a screenplay by John Logan, Sweeney Todd is based on the stage musical by Stephen Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler. The stage musical was itself based on the play Sweeney Todd by Christopher Bond. The film has the following synopsis: Evil Judge Turpin lusts for the beautiful wife of a London barber and transports him to Australia for a crime he did not commit. Returning after 15 years and calling himself Sweeney Todd, the now-mad man vows revenge, applying his razor to unlucky customers and shuttling the bodies down to Mrs. Lovett, who uses them in her meat-pie shop. Though many fall to his blade, he will not be satisfied until he slits Turpin’s throat.

Johnny Depp plays the title character and is joined in the cast by Helena Bonham Carter, Alan Rickman, Timothy Spall, Sacha Baron Cohen, Jamie Campbell Bower, Laura Michelle Kelly, Jayne Wisener, and Ed Sanders.

Sweeney Todd reaches 4K with the following special features (with thanks to Movieweb for the list):

Burton + Depp + Carter = Todd: Behind the Scenes Look
Sweeney Todd Press Conference
The Real History of the Demon Barber
Musical Mayhem: Stephen Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd
Sweeney’s London
Grand Guignol: A Theatrical Tradition
Moviefone Unscripted with Tim Burton and Johnny Depp

Are you a fan of Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street and will you be buying the Paramount Scares Vol. 1 set to get it on 4K (along with Rosemary’s Baby, Pet Sematary, Crawl, and Smile)? Let us know by leaving a comment below.

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Paramount Home Entertainment has announced that they will be releasing a limited edition 4K box set containing five horror films on October 24th. The set is called Paramount Scares Vol. 1, indicating this is just the first in what they intend to be a series of collections of chilling films from the Paramount library. The films in this particular set are the genre classics Rosemary’s Baby (1968) and Pet Sematary (1989), plus a pair of recent box office successes, Crawl (2019) and Smile (2022). Intriguingly, Paramount has chosen to keep the fifth film in the set a mystery…

According to a press release, Paramount Scares Vol. 1 will allow fans to “plumb the depths of the horror genre with this collectible box set featuring five unforgettable movies, all in eye-popping 4K Ultra HD, along with over four hours of legacy special features and exclusive collectible items. Housed in deluxe packaging, each of the following films is presented in a special sleeve with artwork exclusive to the collection.” You can take a look at the artwork at the bottom of this article.

Here’s the information on the films:

Rosemary’s Baby (1968)— Newly remastered on 4K Ultra HD, this iconic classic celebrates its 55th anniversary this year. With groundbreaking camerawork and bone-chilling suspense, Rosemary’s Baby gave birth to the modern thriller. Featuring extraordinary performances—including Ruth Gordon in an Oscar®-winning role as an eccentric neighbor—the film received extensive critical praise. Widely considered to be one of the greatest horror films of all time, Rosemary’s Baby was selected for preservation in the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress in 2014.

Pet Sematary (1989)— Written for the screen by internationally renowned author Stephen King and based on his iconic bestseller, director Mary Lambert’s thrilling Pet Sematary electrified audiences upon its release in 1989, earning more than $57 million to become the highest grossing horror film of the time. The shocking depiction of unspeakable evil was remastered in 4K under the supervision of Lambert using the original film negative.

Crawl (2019)— Produced by Sam Raimi and directed by Alexandre Aja, this unexpected and suspense-filled creature feature took audiences and critics by storm with its story of a father and daughter trying to survive a hurricane beneath a house filling with water…and alligators. With a budget of $13 million, Crawl generated more than $91 million worldwide.

Smile (2022)—This terrifying and inventive film from writer and director Parker Finn became a true horror phenomenon, earning more than $217 million at the global box office and becoming the #1 original horror movie of 2022. A sequel is in development with Finn set to return as director.

Mystery Title— Delivering even more suspense and surprise, the fifth film in the box set is a secret. The fan-favorite movie makes its 4K Ultra HD debut with the release of this collection.

I’m very anxious to hear exactly what the fifth movie in Paramount Scares Vol. 1 is – but even with that one remaining a mystery, this is a good collection of movies.

Will you be buying the Paramount Scares Vol. 1 4K set? Let us know by leaving a comment below… and while you’re scrolling down, take a look at these images of the set:

The post Paramount Scares Vol. 1 4K set includes Rosemary’s Baby, Pet Sematary, Crawl, Smile, and mystery title appeared first on JoBlo.

I thought the Alexandre Aja-directed, Sam Raimi-produced "nature run amok" film Crawl (watch it HERE) was pretty awesome, so I'm glad to hear that Aja is interested in making a sequel to the film. During a conversation on Bloody Disgusting's The Boo Crew Podcast, Aja revealed: 

We’ve been talking about a sequel nonstop, and putting together a really, really fun take."

Written by Shawn and Michael Rasmussen, Crawl starred Kaya Scodelario and told the following story: 

When a massive hurricane hits her Florida hometown, Haley ignores evacuation orders to search for her missing father. Finding him gravely injured in the crawl space of their family home, the two become trapped by quickly encroaching floodwaters. As time runs out to escape the strengthening storm, Haley and her father discover that the rising water level is the least of their fears. 

The threat even greater than the rising water level was a bunch of alligators. 

It sounds like Aja and his collaborators aren't thinking about bringing the Haley character back, which makes sense. Why would she be threatened by animals again? He said, 

I think the story of Haley is a really strong one, but I believe that Crawl is about nature taking back its due, and kind of like… more hurricane driven, man versus animal. So maybe it will be another story altogether. We're looking for that human story right now, that will be as strong as the one in the first one. To make the second one legit."

I trust Aja with whatever they come up with, because Crawl wasn't the only awesome "man versus animal" film he has given us, he also made Piranha 3D. We'll keep you updated if/when the Crawl sequel moves forward.
 

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After making alligators more terrifying than they already are with his 2019 thriller Crawl, Alexandre Aja has signed on to direct ELIJAH for Searchlight Pictures. The original pitch for the horror feature was presented by The Last Witch Hunter scribe Cory Goodman, which Aja will rewrite with Gregory Levasseur (Mirrors). Meanwhile, David Goyer and Keith Levine of Phantom Four will produce alongside Adam Goldworm of Aperture Entertainment.

According to Deadline, Elijah follows a young boy who invites a mysterious man into his home, believing the stranger to be the key to saving his sick mother. As increasingly disturbing things start to happen around his home, the boy soon realizes that the sinister stranger is not the savior he claims to be.

In addition to directing one of 2019's best creature features, Crawl, Aja was also the talent behind the camera for such films as Haute Tension, The Hills Have Eyes, Mirrors, Piranha 3D, as well as the feature adaptation of Joe Hill's Horns, starring Daniel Radcliffe. Aja's next feature, O2, is currently in post-production. Written by Christie LeBlanc, the film revolves around a woman who wakes in a cryogenic chamber with no recollection of how she got there and must find a way out before running out of air.

Good grief! Aja sure knows how to pick 'em, right? Having been a fan of Aja's for years, I'm excited to see what he does with the mysterious premise of Elijah. Has the young boy invited a boogeyman into his home? Is the film's mysterious stranger the source of the mother's illness? We'll have to wait for more details to find out.

The post Elijah: Alexandre Aja boards disturbing horror film for Searchlight Pictures appeared first on JoBlo.

Mobile-only streaming service Quibi – which is still a thing apparently, even though they reportedly lost 90% of users after their free trial ended – is attempting to win those users back by adapting the popular manga TOMIE from acclaimed artist Junji Ito into an Americanized TV series starring Adeline Rudolph (CHILLING ADVENTURES OF SABRINA) and directed by Alexandre Aja (CRAWL). 

Here's the official synopsis:

Tomie is the story of what happens when a beautiful high school girl goes missing and pieces of her body are discovered scattered around a small town. But what starts out as a murder mystery turns into something even more horrific.

No official release date has been set, but we'll keep you posted. This also isn't the first adaptation of the manga, as there was a live-action Japanese film series based on it (which I now need to check out asap!).

So what do you guys think? Any fans of the manga? If so, what do you think of this upcoming adaptation? Either way, sound off below!

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