Say what you want about Tarsem Singh, but you can't deny the man has a way with art direction. If you don't believe me, take a look at the trailer over at IGN for Singh's fantasy film, The Fall. Dan Gilroy's story focuses on a young girl in a hospital who befriends an American actor. The tales he tells her to pass the hours begin to bleed into the real world and suddenly everyone around her becomes part of the story. Lee Pace *(Friday Night Lights) stars as the storytelling actor, and Catinca Untaru as his captive audience. The trailer might not explain much about the film, but it now carries the seal of approval from respected directors David Fincher and Spike Jonze in the form of a 'so and so presents'. You never know, maybe it was their combined star power that helped get the film a deal with Roadside Attractions.

Unfortunately for Singh, his film career has been filled with very few ups and plenty of downs. Despite his success with music videos, critical response to his debut film, The Cell, wasn't exactly encouraging. As of late, it hasn't gotten much better for the director, and he was recently replaced by David Slade (30 Days of Night) as director on the thriller Unthinkable. The Fall is proving to be no exception to Singh's track record in Hollywood. The film was completed back in 2006, and only a few people got the chance to actually see it when it premiered at TIFF. Hopefully putting Fincher and Jonze's name on the marketing is going to help draw an audience. The Fall is expected to go into limited release in March.

*Correction: Pace stars in Pushing Daisies

According to Variety, David Slade will now direct Unthinkable, the story of a nuclear bomb in the United States. Tarsem Singh, director of the visually spectacular but dramatically weak 2000 thriller The Cell, was originally attached to direct (we brought you that announcement over a year ago). He has moved on, and no reason is given, but I'm sure it's something along the lines of "creative differences." Peter Woodward (Closing the Ring) penned the script, and Oren Moverman (co-writer of I'm Not There) is now listed as a co-writer.

Unthinkable centers on "investigators who push the limits of interrogation as they seek a suspect's knowledge of an impending nuclear attack on the United States." The film is budgeted at $15 million, so it will likely be a pretty small affair. No casting announcements have been made at this time. Slade made his feature debut with Hard Candy. That sharp, entertaining 2005 thriller starred a pre-Juno Ellen Page as a young girl who turns the tables on a pedophile. He followed that with 30 Days of Night -- last year's vampire flick that was chock full of beautiful camerawork...but not much else. Slade is definitely a director to watch though, and I'm excited to see what he'll bring to this project. Miss this one? Unthinkable! Damn, I'm good.

Ever wondered what it would be like to see every vampire movie ever made, all rolled into one? If so, 30 Days of Night is for you -- it's got a little bit of everything. For Dracula-lovers, there's a hillbilly Renfield, played by everyone's new favorite actor, Ben Foster. His arrival in town at the outset, with a shambling gait and greasy-roadie haircut, foreshadows the arrival of some nameless master who he's bound to displease in some way. The vampires, when they arrive, turn out not to be Hungarian sophisticates, but feral beasts who look like a cross between a cougar and Marilyn Manson. They take their movement cues from The Lost Boys, attacking from out of frame and grabbing their prey up into space or yanking them into a dark corner. Instead of sucking blood, they tear their victims' limbs apart as easily as restaurant rolls. An apparent nod to the Blade series also creeps in, when the vamps begin speaking some erudite, subtitled language and spouting faux-profound aphorisms like "things which can be broken must be broken!"

On top of this heady mishmash of genre staples there's a nifty overarching conceit, taken from the comic on which 30 Days is based -- the location of the carnage is a remote town in Seward's Folly, where the sun doesn't shine for a full month. (Why did it take vampires so long to hear about this place? And mightn' it have been more interesting if all the world's vampires came gunning for this place, instead of a handful? But that's neither here nor there.) The vamps that do descend on the snowy Alaskan hamlet must go head to head with two pretty local cops, played by Josh Hartnett and Melissa George, and one of the best things about 30 Days is that it acknowledges straightaway that the humans are physically no match for the vampires. Those who survive the initial assault must scramble into hiding places to save their necks and what follows is a sort of 'Anne Frank vampire film', with Hartnett and George and a ragtag group holing up in an abandoned attic and waiting for the vamp patrols to move on.

That last R-rated clip from 30 Days of Night was pretty cool, but wait'll you get a load of this new one. It's definitely more my kind of thing, since I prefer zombies to vampires, and the clip makes the pic look more like a zombie movie. What could be better than Mark Boone Junior driving around in some kind of chainsaw-esque tractor, slicing through multiple baddies while simultaneously blowing away others with a shotgun? Exactly. Nothing could be better. In fact, I think I like this scene better than that sequence in Dawn of the Dead where they're driving the modified bus around. But that partially has to do with my appreciation for Mark Boone Junior. He just looks like the perfect guy to be in charge of a task like this. Anyway, once again you have to prove you're 18 (or otherwise get through the sign-in page) in order to watch the clip. Or you could just wait until Friday when the movie hits theaters.

Cinematical wimp pansy editor-in-chief, Erik Davis, saw the film and loved it, even though he's probably back to sleeping with a night light. He even claims it's the most beautiful horror film he's ever seen. For those still out of the loop, the movie is based on Steve Niles and Ben Templesmith's graphic novel about a small town far up north where the sun disappears for a whole month -- ripe time for a crop of vampires to go on a rampage. Directed by David Slade (Hard Candy), it stars Josh Hartnett, Ben Foster, Melissa George, my favorite supporting actor these days, Danny Huston, and, of course, Mark Boone Junior.

I'm not much of a horror buff myself, but if there is more stuff like this new clip, I'm pretty much sold on going to see it. And though I don't think I've ever needed a night light, I bet I'll have at least one nightmare as a result. It just looks like that kind of movie. At the very least, I'm sure I'd at least get freaked out the next time I'm walking around late at night in the snow. Between 30 Days of Night and the recently released The Last Winter, I'm pretty set never to go up to the arctic circle.

It was almost a year ago when Jette brought us a first look at some of the behind-the-scenes for the big-screen version of 30 Days of Night. Since then, there have been teaser posters, fancy websites, the promise of new short films, and the R rated trailer released in August ( who could forget, of course, the image of Josh Hartnett hacking at a child with an ax -- something like that tends to stay with you). Shock Til You Drop is now hosting three new posters for the vampire flick. Fans of the graphic novels have been pretty eager to see what Ghost House and director David Slade (Hard Candy) have planned for the story of a group of vampires descending on a small town in the wilds of Alaska for a 30-day feeding frenzy.

Based on the graphic novel by Steve Niles, Night stars Josh Hartnett as the local sheriff and Melissa George as his wife -- it's up to both to save their town before the vampires wipe it clean. Ben Foster (3:10 to Yuma) also stars as "the harbinger of the vampires. Well really a scout who was sent into the town because he can be out during the day. He is tentatively known as a "bug-eater", not a vampire but something akin to a ghoul. They find him snooping around town and trespassing so they arrest him" -- at least according to the message boards at IMDB, and since I haven't read the original graphic novels, I'm just going to have to take their word for it. 30 Days of Night is set for release on October 19.

[via Solace in Cinema]

By the looks of the new site for the vampire flick 30 Days of Night, this movie is going to be one nicely designed bloodbath. Sony just launched the fancy flash site for the film version of Steven Niles' graphic novel about a group of vampires descending on a small Alaskan town for a non-stop feeding frenzy.

Night is directed by David Slade (Hard Candy) and the script was written by Stuart Beattie (3:10 To Yuma). Josh Hartnett stars as a local sheriff trying to keep a group of locals alive, and Ben Foster (who gave us a behind the scenes look at the film, last February) is an ancient vampire that is none-too-pleased with the attention-drawing antics of his kind. The site looks like it was designed in the spirit of the original graphic novel, plus, along with the teaser clips and downloads, there is the promise of a nifty-looking shooter game.

There has already been talk of shorts set in the Night universe produced by Sam Raimi's Ghosthouse, more comic books, and don't forget the possibility of multiple sequels (Ryan got the chance to speak with Niles about the film, as well as female lead Melissa George). So, combined with the solid teaser trailer Scott told us about last month, it's looking like this graphic novel has the potential to spawn a whole new horror franchise. The film is also expected to get a little extra buzz with the cast, along with Slade and Raimi, answering questions about the film for a ComicCon panel this weekend -- stay tuned for that report. 30 Days of Night hits theaters October 19th.

I'll admit that there are a lot more graphic novels I want to read than there are graphic novels that I have read ... but one that I devoured and really enjoyed was Steve Niles' 30 Days of Night, which tells the story of a vampire invasion in a small arctic town ... a town that's presently stuck in (you guessed it) 30 days of night. (Such a simply cool concept if you ask me.)

Based on what I've been reading (for a while now), Sony seems intent on doing this adaptation right. They invited Niles to collaborate on the screenplay with Stuart Beattie, and then they hired Hard Candy helmer David Slade (who brought along screenwriter Brian Nelson and cinematographer Jo Willems). OK, so I'm not the biggest Josh Hartnett fan in the world, but you could do worse for an action/horror flick, I suppose. (The supporting cast includes Melissa George, Ben Foster and Danny Huston, so that's cool.) Plus this brand-new trailer is the kicker: I officially can't wait to see this particular flick.

If 30 Days of Night is even half as cool as I'm (obviously) hoping it will be, it'll mark the very first Ghost House production I can get behind. My apologies to fans of Boogeyman, The Grudge 2 and The Messengers, but I've come to expect better than that from a guy like Sam Raimi. (And don't even get me started on Rise: Blood Hunter.) 30 Days of Night opens on October 19.

Previous reports on this film can be found here, here and here.

Who doesn't like vampires? These days, they are a vehicle for so many aspects of life. The blood suckers have allowed us to show some sexy male love with the likes of Interview with a Vampire, and let out all sorts of teenage angst with Buffy Summers. Although zombies are making a popular rise in media these days, vamps still have a solid bite in the action. If you have an IV into vamp culture, and are all excited to see the upcoming Alaskan vampire movie 30 Days of Night, you should head over to the Ghost House Pictures website. They've been putting up a slew of behind-the-scenes video clips. There's a little bit on-location scouting, word from the creator, the producers, and even director David Slade.

What it is missing, however, is much on the actual filming and actors. There is no word from Josh Hartnett about his obsession with movies that use numbers in their titles, or footage of co-stars Melissa George and Danny Huston. While it is easy to understand wanting to keep some things under wraps, a visit to make-up or a short clip of a scene in the midst of the cameras and creators would be nice. Right now, the video bytes are reminiscent of a mediocre DVD commentary, but it would be so easy to make it a special feature fiesta. Then again, how much should we know about the movies we're waiting for? When do special treats become irreparable spoilers?

[via Coming Soon]

After seeing Hard Candy at SXSW, I participated in a roundtable interview with director David Slade (shown above) and writer Brian Nelson. Hard Candy was the first feature film credit for both the writer and director.

Our interview was tricky because Hard Candy is full of suspenseful plot twists that are best not revealed. To avoid spoilers, we had to use a lot of euphemisms about "the ambiguity," "that transgressive thing," "that section in the middle," and so on. So if you haven't seen the movie (it played several festivals, but won't be released into U.S. theaters until April 14), it's perfectly safe for you to read the following interview.