The crew out at Anchor Bay made my day the other day when they sent me out a copy of Altitude to review, a movie that I’d been waiting to see ever since I’d first read about it a few months ago. Would it live up to my hopeful expectations? Let’s find out!

Altitude follows a bunch of young people out for a weekend getaway, one of whom happens to be an amateur pilot. They set out on a plane ride, but it doesn’t take long before something, in classic horror movie fashion, Goes Wrong. The instruments in the plane they’re on start to malfunction, and they start climbing, out of control, to patently preposterous altitudes. The fuel is running low, a storm is closing in…and oh yeah, a downright Cthonian horror from beyond space wants them all dead. Now they’re going to have to get back down to earth, despite the otherworldly monstrosity that won’t rest until they’re all nice and corpsed up.

Sounds downright harrowing, doesn’t it? Yeah, now you see exactly why I want to check this out when it finally hit. Of course, there were risks going in. Most HP Lovecraft-themed movies you see, they don’t end well. Rather, they don’t end in a very satisfying fashion–the best ending you can get, generally, is that the big evil monster that wanted to eat the souls of all humanity is temporarily averted and sent back to its home dimension where the squid-head priest is dead but still somehow managing to dream, and no one can pronounce anything. In the worst case, the big evil monster gets to chow down.

And this is beautiful stuff, really–there’s trouble within the plane and trouble without besides, and everything’s combined together in this beautifully made film. I’ve never seen such a perfect storm of mechanical failure intermingling with peril mixed with terror and absolute shudder-inducing moments. If you’re even slightly afraid of flying you do NOT want to watch this. Now or ever. It will put you off air travel for years, possibly even decades to come.

The first half of this movie contains some patently horrendous stuff, almost enough to make its own horror flick. The second half, however, will get a little weird, but you’ll find that it won’t disappoint…not by much, anyway. Basically, Altitude blew its entire scary wad in the first half of the movie–the second half is a little bit of a letdown because they actually have to explain most of what’s going on. The explanation is somewhat disappointing because it’s just so patently outlandish, but still, there’s plenty of scary things going on here.  They just didn’t space them out well enough.

So despite some logical holes throughout, and a little bit of a problem with a disappointing second half, there will still be loads of scares here, and the whole of Altitude will still blow your mind, as you’d expect from Anchor Bay horror.

The Screenhead Ten Scale, in turn, hands Altitude an eight out of ten for being a fantastic, though not perfect, terror experience.

It’s all about the score, isn’t it?  My ears adore the Harry Potter soundtracks.  To watch composer Alexandre Desplat talk about the different elements that make up the music for the film sends me to Heaven.  I am giddy all over and so much more excited about the movie being released this month.

Now, if I could only get my ears a hold of that soundtrack.

Kevin Smith on Halloween, yesterday, released a teaser poster for his next movie Red State starring John Goodman.

It looks like Kevin Smith made it himself without the corporate suits stepping in to spin it a different way. I like that. Don’t you?

The look is very spiritual and I am curious to see the teaser trailer.

And so we segue into the final installment of the Saw series, the added gimmick of 3D ready to turn an already blood-soaked romp into a blood-soaked romp where chunky bits occasionally go flying at you. The culmination of seven years sits before us today, and the questions will finally be answered.  Who is the ultimate inheritor of Jigsaw’s legacy?  Is it Jill Tuck, Jigsaw’s devoted widow?  Or the maniacal Detective Hoffman? Or will Saw 3D, in truest Saw fashion, do something completely unexpected?

Saw 3D, or Saw 7 as some call it, rejoins events already in progress where Detective Hoffman escapes from the reverse bear trap that Jill Tuck put on him in the last movie. And now, a new angle has emerged as a self-help guru in the making, Bobby Dagen, attempts to cash in on his story of survival. But as is so often the case with an installment of Saw, there’s a lot more going on than what we see on the surface. And when Bobby finds himself in Jigsaw’s clutches, the end result will be one of sheer terror.

Yes, this is in many ways more of the same. In fact, it’s a lot like Saw IV, in which one man, largely unaffected, will be wandering from trap to trap in a bid to free people that will largely go awry mostly because the effort required comes just a little bit too late to help anybody. But this one will amplify things a bit, especially toward the end, as we get a good look at how the last six movies actually managed to make a culmination toward the first.

It’s always about what you didn’t see with the Saw franchise. It’s easy to scoff at Saw, saying that they just tack on details later to explain whatever they try to do with a bit of a flashback and a hearty, “oh yeah, by the way, then this happened”, and from a narrative standpoint, that’s irksome. But this same irksome quality is also something of the charm of the series, making the strangest things entirely possible, like the last five minutes of this one. To tell you more would be to spoiler on an epic scale, so I won’t.

Suffice it to say, meanwhile, that Saw 3D will prove to be a shockingly potent mass–the traps are as impressive as they ever were, most of the loose ends will be wrapped up fairly well (the question over who ends up with Jigsaw’s legacy is a little bit in question yet, though a small assumption can be made around the basis of who’s the last one standing, but I hate making assumptions when it comes to a movie plot) and the whole thing will end with a pretty satisfying riff on the original movie. And that’s always a plus.

Still, despite a few minor flaws, Saw 3D will be an exciting and thoroughly impressive ending to a series that’s made Halloween since back in 2004. For a miserable year that had precious little going for it movie-wise, Saw was a high point, and as such, this end to the series was pretty important indeed.

The Screenhead Ten Scale hands the only slightly flawed and terribly exciting gorefest that is Saw 3D a nine out of ten for actually managing to bring a twisty series to a reasonably satisfying close. Considering how some other “final chapters” went, that’s quite an achievement.

Harry at AICN digs this film even though he hasn’t seen it yet. With that said,  I am not quite sure what to make of the movie. It looks great, kind of funny, and was a big hit at Fantastic Festival.

The story starts out on eve of Christmas in northern Finland and an “archaeological” dig has just unearthed the real Santa Claus. But this particular Santa isn’t the one you want coming to town.

When all the local children begin mysteriously disappearing, young Pietari and his father Rauno, a reindeer hunter by trade, capture the mythological being and attempt to sell Santa to the misguided leader of the multi-national corporation sponsoring the dig.

Santa’s elves, however, will stop at nothing to free their fearless leader from captivity. What ensues is a wildly humorous nightmare – a fantastically bizarre polemic on modern day morality. Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale is a re-imagining of the most classic of all childhood fantasies, and is a darkly comic gem soon to be required perennial holiday viewing.

One of my favorite British actors, Michael Sheen, will return as one of the vampire leaders in The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn.

According to Variety, Sheen closed the deal with the studio to reprise his turn as Aro, the leader of the vampire royalty Volturi.

Directed by Bill Condon, the movie is based on the final book in the Meyer series, which will be in two parts. Book centers on the mortal Bella (Kristen Stewart) marrying the vampire Edward (Robert Pattinson) and Bella giving birth to a half-vampire, half-human daughter.

Breathing new life into the undead is the British horror phenomenon Colin, about the life of a zombie told through his own eyes is Screenhead’s next giveaway!

A surprise hit at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival, Colin enjoyed a limited U.S. theatrical run in September/October and played to acclaim at numerous film festivals and horror conventions across the country. Colin won “Best Micro-budget Feature Film” at the Raindance Film Festival, the “Indie Spirit Award” at the South Africa Horrorfest, “Best Director” at the Buenos Aires Blood Red Film Festival and the “Special Jury Award” at the Revenant Film Festival. 

In Colin, life bites (literally!) for Colin when, after becoming a zombie snack, he dies and returns as one of the undead. Wandering aimlessly through the streets of London, during the throes of a cadaverous apocalypse, we learn about Colin (from his perspective) … who he was and, more pertinently, what he has become, through his encounters with objects, places and people. With a broad-daylight, zombie-versus-human street battle, an epic housebound siege and endless gore, Colin is a terror-ific zombiefest not to be missed!

The brainchild of British writer-director Marc Price, Colin breathes new life into a classic genre, offering an original, unique perspective—a story told through the zombie’s eyes. Made for just $75, mostly spent on tea and cookies for his “zombies,” Price relied on friends and Facebook to cast his legion of undead extras. 

Screenhead have five copies to give away!  Post your name and we will pick the winners November 8, 2010.

Deadline has an exclusive report that Francis Ford Coppola is directing a horror flick called Twixt Now and Sunrise with undertones of being a thriller. His key star is Val Kilmer with Elle Fanning and Bruce Dern.  Kilmer plays a horror novelist with the story written by Coppola.  Production is rolling in Napa, on Coppola’s property.

Lately, Coppola has been picking up speed, directing more movies (Youth Without Youth, Tetro) while making his popular wine.  The thriller/horror genre movie will prove to be worthwhile.   We mustn’t forget is honorary Oscar this coming Academy Awards Governor’s Ball. I am happy to see Kilmer is picking up his pace as well.  He’s been getting some pretty awesome roles of late (Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans.)

.

The folks out at Anchor Bay sent me a copy of The Rig to review for you, and keeping in what is shaping up to be a theme week ahead of the kind-of holiday coming up, we’re going for a full Halloween slate. This one will be a little dose of something horror fans don’t get too much of these days, a little big of that sweet monster movie mayhem.

The Rig takes us out to Rig Charlie, part of the Weyland (yes, just like Aliens) Drilling family (motto: Lead By Example, a fact drilled into us pretty much every time we see the big-W logo) where a big storm’s brewing and about to sock Charlie in for the night. Ordinarily, not a big deal, a good time for the skeleton crew left on board to sit and play cards and have sex with each other (this happens at least once and is hinted at a second time, thankfully there are in fact women on board Charlie or we’d be dealing with Brokeback Oil Rig). But naturally, this is not to be as the combination of Charlie’s drilling and the storm has unleashed a horror from the very bowels of the earth, a monster with big teeth, venom-filled claws, and oddly enough, flammable blood. The end result will be, as you likely suspect, a blood-soaked romp that still manages to come with a couple surprises.

First off, this is a monster movie. With everything that implies. When the characters aren’t acting like cliches, they’re taking a few moments to break the fourth wall and TELL each other they’re acting like cliches.  And yes, the monster is a bit cheesy, and there are plenty of irrational things going on here at any given time (like how they find out the monster’s blood is flammable–that’s an absolute doozy, trust me on that score).

But what you’ve got here is a genuine, fully-featured monster movie, with just as much action as there is horror. If you can put up with things that don’t make a lot of sense, then you should do all right here. If your tolerance for irrational events is low, on the other hand, you’re going to want a different movie.

The Screenhead Ten Scale hands this dose of traditional monster movie mayhem a six out of ten for being one of the clearest examples of its kind–for better and for worse.

Screenhead is working with Lifetime on a Halloween promotion of five horrific titles that involves a Giveaway!

The titles include: THE HAUNTING OF SORORITY ROW, STILL SMALL VOICES, HUSH LITTLE BABY, THE GATHERING and DEVIL’S DIARY.

Screenhead has (5) Prize Packs — each containing all of the above five Lifetime movies – to give away.

So, to enter the giveaway, post your name and we will pick the winners November 10, 2010.