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Matt Johnson’s film BlackBerry about the rise and fall of the world’s first smartphone passed $1.7 million its second week out with an estimated three-day gross of $525k in 595 theaters.

The Canadian number — $250k from 200 theaters — was only a 13% drop from opening weekend. Stateside, the indie crossed $1 million with a estimated $257k at 375 locations and really popped on Saturday, outperforming the week earlier in a handful of theaters in top markets including New York, LA, and Boston.

It’s being handled by IFC Films in the U.S. and Elevation Pictures in Canada, where BlackBerry was launched and grew to near world dominance before being abruptly unseated by Apple and the touch screen. Starring Jay Baruchel as brainy Mike Lazaridus, who co-founded BlackBerry with his best friend Douglas Fregin, played by Johnson. It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia‘s Glenn Howerton is Jim Balsillie, the aggressive executive who propelled...

From its opening moments, Moon Garden invites you into a secret world. It is a world seen through the eyes of a four year old that carries its own magic even before the tragic events that kick the plot into motion take place. It is a world where imagination can make anything possible, where make-believe is as real as anything and where the purest form of home and safety reside in the love of a little girls’ parents.

Written and directed by Ryan Stevens Harris, Moon Garden is a visually-stunning and heartfelt journey through the darkness and back home. Emma (Haven Lee Harris) lives a happy life with her parents. Well, almost happy. Her parents are both loving, wonderful people in their own right, who both clearly care for Emma a great deal. But it’s clear from the first few moments that their marriage is crumbling. Her father Alex...

Stars: Haven Lee Harris, Augie Duke, Brionne Davis, Morgana Ignis, Maria Olsen, Téa Mckay, Timothy Lee DePriest, Angelica Ulloa, Phillip E. Walker, Emily Meister | Written and Directed by Ryan Stevens Harris

Anyone who grew up in a dysfunctional household knows just how traumatic childhood can be. In Moon Garden, writer/director Ryan Stevens Harris visualizes those traumas as the nightmarish denizens of the dark, industrial wasteland that a young girl finds herself trapped in.

Emma lives with her parents Sara and Alex. They love Emma, but they don’t love each other anymore. After getting a scare one night she runs to their room, only to encounter something even scarier, the two of them in the midst of a loud, intense argument. Running from it she trips and takes a fall down the stairs which leaves her in a coma. Her struggle to awake from it becomes a nightmarish trip...

Ryan Stevens Harris' Moon Garden will be released by Oscilloscope this Spring and we have a look at the absolutely mesmerising new trailer!

"When a little girl has a terrible accident and slips into a coma, she finds herself thrust into a darkly surreal industrial dreamworld. Haunted by a nightmarish spectre that feeds off her tears, she must follow her mother’s radio-static voice to find her way back to consciousness. Shot on expired 35mm film stock with vintage rehoused lenses, Moon Garden is a fantastical odyssey and a visionary, handcrafted, and fully practical work of art that shows how a child can shine light even in the darkest places."

Written and Directed by Ryan Stevens Harris Produced by John Michael Elfers Starring Augie Duke, Brionne Davis, Haven Lee Harris, Maria Olsen, Timothy Lee Depriest, Philip E. Walker, and Morgana Ignis

The post Watch the Trailer for Ryan Stevens Harris...

"Where you are, Emma – be strong, be brave." Oscilloscope Labs has revealed an official trailer for an indie fantasy surreal thriller titled Moon Garden, from a filmmaker named Ryan Stevens Harris. This played at a number of film festivals last year, including Dances with Films, and is out in limited theaters sometime int he next few months. A comatose five-year-old girl journeys through an industrial wonderland (featuring stop-motion creations) to find her way back to consciousness. It was shot on 35mm with vintage rehoused lenses, giving this "fantastical odyssey" a handcrafted feeling, with fully practical FX in this story about how a child can shine light even in the darkest places. Haven Lee Harris stars as Emma, with Augie Duke, Brionne Davis, Maria Olsen, Timothy Lee DePriest, Philip E. Walker, and Margana Ignis. It has quite a few positive reviews: "Trauma though a child’s vivid imagination, where memories, joy and fear meld into fantastical,...

Oscilloscope has acquired world widerights from Fire Trial Films to Ryan Stevens Harris’s Moon Garden and is planning a traditional theatrical release for the film in 2023. Five-year-old Emma’s life teeters between happy moments and intense parental conflict. Comatose after an accident at home, Emma is propelled into a journey through an industrial wonderland, encountering …

The post Horror Press // Oscilloscope to Release Moon Garden in 2023! appeared first on Horror News | Hnn.

Principal Photography Wraps on Larry Fessenden’s Blackout: "Independent production shingle Glass Eye Pix is pleased to announce director Larry Fessenden has completed principal photography on his seventh feature film, Blackout. The picture, which stars Alex Hurt as Charley Barrett, a Fine Arts painter convinced that he is a werewolf wreaking havoc on a small American town under the full moon, wrapped under the glow of October 8th’s Hunter Moon, with pickups completed October 16th.

The film features an Altman-esque array of co-stars - some newcomers and many long-time members of the Glass Eye Pix stable - including Addison Timlin, Motell Gyn Foster, Joseph Castillo-Midyett, Ella Rae Peck (upcoming Crumb Catcher), Rigo Garay (upcoming Crumb Catcher), John Speredakos, Michael Buscemi, Jeremy Holm, Joe Swanberg, Barbara Crampton, James Le Gros, and Marshall Bell. Casting was handled by Lois Drabkin, who previously worked with Fessenden on Beneath and The Ranger.

The film was produced by Fessenden,...

Company plans theatrical release, starts international sales at market.

Oscilloscope has acquired worldwide rights from Fire Trial Films to Ryan Stevens Harris’s Moon Garden and has begun talks with international buyers at the AFM.

The company plans a traditional theatrical release in 2023 on the story of a five-year-old girl from a troubled home who falls into a coma after an accident at home and enters a fantastical industrial wonderland on her journey back to consciousness.

Director Ryan Stevens Harris shot Moon Garden on expired 35mm film stock with vintage lenses, and used stop-motion animation, practical effects, and miniatures. The cast includes Haven Lee Harris,...

The Sundance premiere won in the best director, best film and best actress categories.

Spanish thriller Piggy, the feature fiction debut of Spanish TV drama veteran Carlota Pereda, was the big winner at UK horror, sci-fi and fantasy festival Grimmfest.

The Manchester festival awarded Piggy with the best director, best film and best actress prizes, with Laura Galán scooping the win for best actress.

Piggy expands on Pereda’s 2018 short of the same name about a teenager – played by Galán – who is mercilessly bullied about her weight until, from the confines of her family’s butcher shop, she has an...

The festival runs Octobber 6-9 in Manchester.

Final Cut from Michel Hazanavicius and Neil Labute’s House Of Darkness are among this year’s line-up for Grimmfest, a UK horror, sci-fi and fantasy festival, which will be held in Manchester frorm October 6-9.

Hazanavicius’ French comedy horror, a remake of 2017 Japanese title One Cut From The Dead, opened Cannes out of competition earlier this year.

House Of Darkness stars Justin Long and Kate Bosworth whose casual date takes a sinister turn. The gothic horror had its world premiere at Montreal’s Fantastia festival last month.

Also screening at the festival...

Grimmfest, Manchester’s International Festival of Fantastic Film have announced the first wave titles for the 2022 festival – which will be returning to regular venue, The Odeon Great Northern, in Manchester on October 6th – 9th, for four high-impact, fear-filled days of the very best in genre cinema. Check out this opening barrage of international frights:

A young girl, struggling to awake from a coma, navigates the nightmare-freighted world of her own subconscious, in Ryan Stevens Harris’s astonishing steampunk gothic fairy tale, Moon Garden, which evokes the best of Jan Svankmajer and Terry Gilliam, Cronenberg and Clive Barker, for an emotionally charged, deeply personal narrative of redemption and renewal, that will enchant and haunt in equal measure. Grimmfest are thrilled to be hosting the film’s international premiere.

An international premiere, too, for Scott Slone’s whip-smart, genre-savvy reinvention of the perennially popular Paranormal Investigation Found Footage trope, Malibu Horror Story.

Exclusive: LA’s growing Micheaux Film Festival is to open with the Stephan James feature Delia’s Gone and will feature panels with Charlie Hunnam, AMPAS, Macro, Fremantle and Paramount. Scroll down for the lineup in full.

The fourth edition of the festival, which has a focus on Bipoc creators, will begin July 11th and run through July 17th at the Regal Cinemas L.A. Live in Downtown L.A. The event will close with Ryan Stevens Harris’s Moon Garden.

In Delia’s Gone, starring James, Marisa Tomei, Travis Fimmel, Paul Walter Hauser and Genelle Williams, when a Black man with an intellectual disability is accused of his sister’s murder, he embarks on a journey to clear his name and find out who is responsible.

Throughout the week, panels will include a one-on-one career-spotlight conversation with Sons of Anarchy and Rebel Moon star Charlie Hunnam hosted by Jenelle Riley...

Exclusive: British genre festival Grimmfest has unveiled a first wave of films that will be showcased at its 2022 edition running October 6-9 in Manchester.

They include U.S. titles Moon Garden by Ryan Stevens Harris, about a young girl struggling to awake from a coma who travels through a strange industrial landscape to consciousness and found footage, paranormal investigation tale Malibu Horror Story by Scott Slone.

Further titles include U.K. dark cannibal comedy Feed Me by Adam Leader and Richard Oakes, Spanish horror-comedy road movie The Passenger by Raúl Cerezo and Fernando González Gómez.

U.S. filmmaker Andy Mitton, whose The Witch In The Window was feted at the festival in 2018, returns with his new film The harbinger, which recently premiered in Montreal’s Fantasia fest.

Further titles include Canadian director John Ainslie’s upcoming horror thriller Do Not Disturb, Argentine director Pablo Parés’s rock tour horror tale...

Despite having only several titles released this week in our beloved genre, some of them are deemed very worthy of our hard-earned dollars.

While there were strong initial feelings about a Us remake of a damn near perfect foreign film, the end result is hauntingly accessible to fans of both the book as well as its film adaptation, Let the Right One In. How will you feel about it? Decide for yourself this week. Once you're done with your decision making, raise your Hatchets high and get ready to have a bloody good time because the movie they didn't want you to see is finally here! From there after slugging it out in the swamps of Louisiana, get ready to face off against extraterrestrials in Gareth Edwards' Monsters!

So, go forth and bring home these gems. You know how we feel about them.

Let Me In (Blu-ray Review)

Directed...

Talk about late to the party.  February will see the release of Virus X, a direct-to-dvd thriller about a mutant H1N1 virus (aka swine flu) that runs amok.  The film stars Domiziano Arcangel (Frankenstein Rising), Joe Zaso (Braincell), and Sybil Danning (Chained Heat). More after the jump. Virus X (previously titled H1N1: Virus X) marks Ryan Stevens Harris's directorial debut.  Don't get too excited about bonus features; all the DVD will include are two making-of featurettes. It looks like it could a silly, gory little film.  Check out the trailer: Source: DVD Active...

The team at Lionsgate is releasing their own virus on us all, well, Virus X to be exact, just in time for Valentine's Day. The medical horror film (previously known as H1N1: Virus X) will hit the video market on February 1st, 2011. Make sure to bundle up for this one a check out the details below!

The movie is directed by Ryan Stevens Harris and stars Domiziano Arcangeli, Joe Zaso, and Sybil Danning. It seems that the only DVD extras will be two featurettes, which include 'The Making of Virus X' and 'Behind-the-Scenes of Virus X'.

Take a gander at the official synopsis below as well as the trailer below that.

Plot Synopsis:

"For a group of medical scientists, time is not on their side when they are exposed to a hyper-mutant form of the H1N1 virus while in their lab. The team has only three days left to...

Lionsgate is looking to make us all sick when they unleash Virus X (previously known as H1N1: Virus X) into the home video market on February 1st, 2011. Bring your rubber gloves and ventilators!

The film directed by Ryan Stevens Harris stars Domiziano Arcangeli, Joe Zaso, and genre fav Sybil Danning. According to DVD Active the only extra material will be two featurettes - The Making of Virus X and Behind-the-Scenes of Virus X.

Check out the trailer and artwork below.

Synopsis

For a group of medical scientists, time is not on their side when they are exposed to a hyper-mutant form of the H1N1 virus while in their lab. The team has only three days left to live with no hope of seeing the outside world again. But while they are trapped and fear for their lives, a deceitful head doctor is monitoring their every move. Suspicions arise, and...

What can I say about Sybil Danning that would be a surprise to anyone? Gorgeous, talented, fun to watch. In whatever project she appears, Danning is always completely committed. Watching her as I have over the years, I see not only chops, but a healthy sense of humor as well. I feel like she “gets it,” if that makes any sense. (And after this interview, I’m even more of a fan.) Courtesy of friend Fred Olen Ray, Danning joins all the vampire fun on The Lair in this third season.

Sean Abley: We’ve actually met very briefly—I moderated the Lair panel for the Fangoria Weekend of Horrors in La months ago. I was incredibly intimidated by meeting you. You’re Sybil Danning! But you turned out to be very sweet, and even asked me if it went Ok afterwards. You’ve now worked with my friend Dylan Vox twice,...

Fango heard from busy indie-horror actor Joe Zaso, who’s done a number of New York-area and overseas fright flicks and recently made a trip to La to co-star in a sci-fi chiller called H1N1: Virus X. He sent along a couple of photos (see them below) and comments on the currently lensing movie, directed by first-timer Ryan Stevens Harris.

Executive-produced by Domiziano Arcangeli (of Orgy Of Blood, which we previously reported on here) and veteran B-meister David S. Sterling and co-starring The Devil’S Rejects’ Priscilla Barnes, H1N1: Virus X casts Zaso as Dr. Gravaman, an evil scientist who performs twisted experiments on human guinea pigs. It’s “not too far a stretch” from the types of roles Zaso has been regularly playing lately, he tells us: “This seems to be the year of the troublemaking doctor roles for me. First was Braincell, which was...