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852 Films, which is co-founded by singer-actress Josie Ho and producer Conroy Chan, has launched five new projects at Hong Kong’s Filmart.

Additionally, the production outfit unveiled Iman Taheri, who becomes their first signed artist. He stars in horror film The Mage, directed by Danny Pang. The film also stars Ho and German Cheung. Taheri is set to appear in the sequel The Mage 2, which will start filming in April this year — as well as in several upcoming films on the company’s slate.

852 Films has worked on Open Grave, starring Shalto Copley, Thomas Kretschmann and Josie Ho, as well as How To Talk To Girls At Parties, directed by John Cameron Mitchell.

Besides launching The Mage 2, 852 Films also unveiled Macao Redux, with Jordan Gertner (The Killer Inside Me) set to direct. The film follows four friends — Z, a magician; Jade, an actress; Marco, a tech wizard; and Hazel,...

Josie Ho has been a constant figure in the Hong Kong entertainment industry for over 30 years. She’s an actress, a pop/rock star, a film producer and a film investor. But when her husband, Conroy Chan, was recovering from a long spell of health troubles, she looked to his doctor and added another position to her resume. As the talent manager of a stable of one, Ho is not only shaping Iranian-Canadian doctor-turned-actor Iman Taheri’s career, but is also launching the next phase of her own career as one half of a screen double act with Taheri and branching out from the horror genre she is known for.

On Monday, Ho is unveiling the new slate of her production company 852 Films at Hong Kong Filmart, an eclectic mix of Cantonese and English-language action crime thrillers, rowdy comedy, rom com and cultish flicks with a supernatural edge, all...

Doug Wagner and Daniel Hillyard, the creators behind Plastic, Plush and Vinyl, are back this April with a brand-new horror comic book mini-series you won't want to miss! As the series title implies, I Was a Fashion School Serial Killer follows a fashion school student who can't resist her murderous urges, and we caught up with the creators to learn all about their creative process and what we can expect. We also have an exclusive preview you can read ahead of the first issue's release on April 2nd from Image Comics!

What was the inspiration behind I Was A Fashion School Serial Killer and why were you excited for it to be the next series you two collaborated on?

Doug: It all started with me falling down the ever-so-dangerous research rabbit hole. One day, I got intrigued about how few female serial killers there have been… well, how many we know about.

Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. To keep up with our latest features, sign up for the Weekly Edit newsletter and follow us @mubinotebook on Twitter and Instagram.News Shoulder Arms.Recent layoffs of 70 workers at Alamo Drafthouse locations in Lower Manhattan and Brooklyn have prompted the union to file an unfair labor practice complaint with the National Labor Relations Board. United Auto Workers Local 2179 alleges that the theater chain “failed or refused to bargain in good faith” after management abruptly declared an impasse in negotiations over the issue of reduction in force, part of company-wide austerity measures. The locations unionized in fall of 2023 and have yet to settle the terms of their first contract.Actress Soheila Golestani was barred from leaving Iran to attend the International Film Festival Rotterdam, where she was set to be a member of the Tiger Competition jury. The Seed of...

24 years ago, Isabelle Huppert starred in an erotic psychological drama called The Piano Teacher, which won the Grand Prix award at the Cannes Film Festival, where Huppert also earned a Best Actress award (and her co-star Benoît Magimel won Best Actor). The Piano Teacher was based on a novel by Elfriede Jelinek – and now, Huppert and Jelinek are set to reteam for a vampire movie called The Blood Countess, where Huppert will be taking on the role of the title character, Countess Elizabeth Báthory, a 16th-century Hungarian serial killer!

Variety reports that German New Wave artist and filmmaker Ulrike Ottinger will be directing The Blood Countess and wrote the screenplay with Jelinek. Huppert will be playing Báthory as she awakens from her long beauty sleep and emerges from the underworld. She and her devoted maid (Birgit Minichmayr) embark on a baroque quest through Vienna to recover the red elixir of life.

Big names, high concepts, and crowd-pleasing thrills are the order of the day at this year’s European Film Market, where commercial fare is dominating over the usual arthouse prestige plays, reflecting an industry uncertain of the future of the theatrical business in the post-covid world. Action, horror, and comedy are leading the charge, with star-driven projects like Guy Ritchie’s Wife & Dog (Benedict Cumberbatch, Rosamund Pike), Mary Bronstein’s If I Had Legs I’d Kick You (Rose Byrne, Conan O’Brien, A$AP Rocky), and Ernest Dickerson’s untitled hitman thriller (Samuel L. Jackson, Daveed Diggs) among the titles generating early buzz.

Genre filmmakers are also stepping up in a big way, with The Raid’s Iko Uwais launching a new production/sales outfit in Berlin for his brand of martial-arts madness, and horror entries like Bad Boy — starring Ke Huy Quan and Lili Reinhart — and the body-horror thriller...

An auteur-actor pairing to nearly match last week’s word of Johnnie To and Tony Leung comes via Variety, who tell us Ulrike Ottinger will direct Isabelle Huppert in The Blood Countess, a vampire feature based on the infamous Elizabeth Báthory from a script by Ottinger and Elfriede Jelinek (The Piano Teacher). Lars Eidinger (Irma Vep), Thomas Schubert (Afire), and Birgit Minichmayr (Everyone Else) will co-star; sales start at the European Film Market imminently.

The Blood Countess is described by “immersive and delightfully eccentric vampire mystery” that unfolds as “a highly visual, narrative scavenger hunt.” Here’s sales agent Magnify’s official synopsis

“[Madame Báthory] and her devoted maid (Birgit Minichmayr) embark on a baroque quest through Vienna to recover the red elixir of life. The book, if found and read by the vampire’s enemies, threatens their vampire realm. Hot on their heels are a vegetarian nephew (Thomas Schubert), his psychotherapist (Lars Eidinger), two vampirologists,...

Isabelle Huppert is starring as the notorious Countess Elizabeth Báthory in the upcoming vampire mystery feature The Blood Countess, which is set to launch sales next week at EFM, Variety reports today.

The Blood Countess is directed by Ulrike Ottinger, who co-wrote the screenplay with the Nobel Prize in Literature winner Elfriede Jelinek.

The film follows Elizabeth Báthory as “She and her devoted maid (Birgit Minichmayr) embark on a baroque quest through Vienna to recover the red elixir of life. The book, if found and read by the vampire’s enemies, threatens their vampire realm. Hot on their heels are a vegetarian nephew (Thomas Schubert), his psychotherapist (Lars Eidinger), two vampirologists, a police inspector, and more lively characters in this twisted and humorous vampire tale.”

For the uninitiated, Countess Elizabeth Báthory was a Hungarian noblewoman who purportedly tortured and murdered hundreds of young women in the 16th and 17th centuries,...

Magnify has boarded “The Blood Countess,” a vampire mystery movie starring Isabelle Huppert as Countess Elizabeth Báthory, a 16th-century Hungarian serial killer.

Directed by renowned German New Wave artist and filmmaker Ulrike Ottinger, the movie is inspired by the life and legend of Countess Elizabeth Báthory. The screenplay was penned by Ottinger and Elfriede Jelinek, the Nobel Prize in Literature winner and acclaimed author of “The Piano Teacher.”

Huppert stars in the film opposite Birgit Minichmayr (“Daughters”), Lars Eidinger (“Dying”), Thomas Schubert (“Afire”) and André Jung (“The Forger”).

“The Blood Countess” is one of the hottest European projects to head to the EFM next week where Magnify’s sales team, led by Lorna Lee Torres, will be introducing the movie to buyers.

Huppert plays the Countess Elizabeth Báthory (aka ‘The Blood Countess’), as she awakens from her long beauty sleep and emerges from the underworld. “She and her devoted maid...

Nosferatu (2024), directed by Robert Eggers, reimagines the legendary 1922 silent film classic. It brings a fresh yet eerie perspective to the iconic vampire myth. Known for his mastery of atmospheric horror and historical authenticity, Eggers creates a chilling retelling of Count Orlok’s tale. The film captures the same haunting tension and visual storytelling seen in his previous works like The Witch and The Lighthouse. The cinematography, by Dop Jarin Blaschke, echoes the ominous lighting and stark shadows of the original. It adds a unique modern twist. With a mesmerizing performance by Bill Skarsgård as the terrifying vampire, Nosferatu (2024) captures the original’s haunting aura while expanding its thematic depth. If you were drawn to its eerie atmosphere and dark, immortal themes, these 7 classic vampire movies will be a perfect follow-up.

1. Nosferatu (1922) | F.W. Murnau

If you admire the atmospheric world of Nosferatu (2024), Murnau’s Nosferatu (1922) is essential viewing. This silent film...

Monstrous: Fang & Fur: "Monstrous is a new immersive queer horror experience that combines the worlds of scare attractions and queer nightlife into one thrilling event with so much to experience. Monstrous: Fang & Fur at Nowaday is specifically themed around the timeless monsters, the vampire and the werewolf.

Explore the backyard of Nowadays, which has become an eerie village suffering the curse of the werewolf in the days following the full moon. You will meet feral lycan folk who are slowly returning to their human form, hear ghostly stories told around the fire, commune with spirits with the Mystic, and immerse yourself in the haunting melodies of Hannah Gill and her band. If you survive long enough, you just might come face to face with a full fledged werewolf.

Journey into the dark club interior of Nowadays and discover a vampire den of pleasure and sin. Witness an Elizabeth Bathory style rope suspension demonstration,...

For those who love horror, you’ll be happy to know there’s a Thai horror anthology series to check out. Terror Tuesday Extreme gives us eight horror stories to work through, and they cover topics like grief, mental health, and the supernatural.

The episodes are around 40 minutes each. Before you know it, you’re looking for something similar to watch. The good news is there are some great shows out there that will give a similar vibe. They are available on a mix of streaming platforms as well.

American Horror Stories -- American Horror Stories is a spin-off of Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk’s award-winning hit anthology series American Horror Story. American Horror Stories is a weekly anthology series that will feature a different horror story each episode. Since 2011, the creators of the AHS have redefined the horror genre with various installments featuring a creepy asylum, a coven of witches,...

The first Dracula movie is not the well-known Nosferatu, but a lost film called Drakula halála. Drakula halála is an Austrian silent movie that premiered in 1921, but only a few publicity photos and a novel adaptation exist today. While Nosferatu was the first adaptation of Bram Stoker's novel, it was unauthorized and had to make many changes.

Dracula is the most adapted literary character, but his first movie is now a lost movie, and it's not the one everyone thinks of. One of the classic horror monsters is Dracula, the famous Count of Transylvania who was also a vampire. Dracula was created by Irish author Bram Stoker and made his debut in the 1897 novel of the same name. Stoker took inspiration from Transylvanian folklore and history to create the character of Dracula, while some historians still debate whether he was also inspired by Wallachian prince Vlad the Impaler and/or Countess Elizabeth Báthory.

“Love is stronger than death… even than life.”

Twenty-five years before Bram Stoker revolutionized the world of horror with his iconic novel Dracula, another sensual vampire was drifting into the moonlit bedchambers of society’s upper crust. First appearing in a 1871 edition of the literary magazine The Dark Blue, Carmilla, a.k.a. Mircalla, Countess Karnstein, preys upon unsuspecting young women in the crumbling castles of the Austrian countryside. Despite never gaining the ubiquity of Stoker’s dark antagonist, Sheridan Le Fanu’s gothic novella Carmilla is one of the world’s first examples of vampiric literature and helped to establish the archetype of the lesbian vampire. Belgian director Harry Kümel combines this foundational text with the true story of Hungarian serial killer Elizabeth Báthory to create another sinister seductress in his 1971 erotic horror film Daughters of Darkness.

Newlyweds Stefan (John Karlen) and Valerie (Danielle Ouimet) are still enjoying the...

Adam Sherman has directed the horror comedy Dead Doll, the drama Happiness Runs, the comedy Crazy Eyes, the thriller She’s Just a Shadow, and the adventure comedy This Game’s Called Murder. With his next film, he’s returning to horror comedy territory – and Deadline reports that he has assembled an impressive cast for it. The movie is called Vampires of the Velvet Lounge, and the leads are played by Mena Suvari (American Beauty) and Dichen Lachman (Severance). Their co-stars include Stephen Dorff (Blade), Rosa Salazar (Alita: Battle Angel), Lochlyn Munro (Freddy vs. Jason), India Eisley (I Am the Night), Sarah Dumont (Scout’s Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse), Mark Boone Jr. (Sons of Anarchy), Tom Berenger (Platoon), Timothy V. Murphy (The Fabulous Four), Sherman Augustus (Stranger Things), and Tyrese Gibson of the Fast & Furious franchise.

Said to be inspired by the likes of Shaun of the Dead and From Dusk Till Dawn,...

Up next from This Game’s Called Murder writer/director Adam Sherman is Vampires of the Velvet Lounge. Deadline reports today that the cast for the upcoming horror-comedy includes a slew of stars including Blade‘s Stephen Dorff and Mena Suvari.

The horror-comedy is currently filming in Georgia and is said to be in the vein of Shaun of the Dead and From Dusk Till Dawn.

The plot follows “as a coven of the blood-suckers struggles to come to terms with the modern world and their own mortality as they are locked in a battle with a deadly foe.”

Joining Dorff and Suvari are Dichen Lachman (“Severance”), Rosa Salazar (Alita: Battle Angel), Lochlyn Munro (“Peacemaker“), India Eisley (I Am the Night), Sarah Dumont (Scout’s Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse), Mark Boone Jr. (“Sons of Anarchy“), Tom Berenger (Platoon), Timothy V. Murphy (The Fabulous Four), Sherman Augustus (“Stranger Things”) and...

Exclusive: Writer-director Adam Sherman (This Game’s Called Murder) has set the cast for his newest indie feature, the horror comedy Vampires of the Velvet Lounge. Mena Suvari (American Beauty) and Dichen Lachman (Severance) lead the ensemble, which also includes Stephen Dorff (Blade), Rosa Salazar (Alita: Battle Angel), Lochlyn Munro (Peacemaker), India Eisley (I Am the Night), Sarah Dumont (Scout’s Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse), Mark Boone Jr. (Sons of Anarchy), Tom Berenger (Platoon), Timothy V. Murphy (The Fabulous Four), Sherman Augustus (Strangers Things) and Tyrese Gibson (Fast & Furious franchise).

Drawing inspiration from titles like Shaun of the Dead and From Dusk Till Dawn, the film currently shooting in Georgia watches as a coven of the blood-suckers struggles to come to terms with the modern world and their own mortality as they are locked in a battle with a deadly foe.

In addition to Sherman, producers on the project...

It’s a shame Don’t Suck doesn’t take its own advice [comic rimshot]. Sorry, are you not a fan of plucking low-hanging fruit? Don’t expect anything more from Rj Collins’ soulless vampire standup horror comedy that tries to manufacture edginess with faceplant jokes about Harvey Weinstein, Bill Cosby, and Jeffrey Epstein in the first however many minutes. The only laughter you’ll hear throughout this dreadfully unfunny exercise are the crowd reactions added in post-production, since audiences might as well be rooms full of crickets with material this flat.

Just when you thought Matt Rife couldn’t bomb any harder than his first Netflix special, the viral TikTok celebrity plays a Hungarian vampire named Ethan (“My grandmother was Elizabeth Báthory” yadda yadda) who wants to be a standup comedian. Jamie Kennedy plays the veteran road comic Pete, a jaded lifer who becomes the stuffy supernatural comic’s mentor. They...

Warning: This article contains Spoilers for Castlevania: Nocturne.

Castlevania: Nocturne's villain Erzsebet Báthory is a formidable antagonist just as strong as the famous vampire Dracula. Báthory's backstory in the TV show differs from the video game inspiration, with her being an ancient vampire with immense powers. Báthory is inspired by real-life Elizabeth Báthory, known as the world's most prolific woman serial killer, and her goals in season 2 involve creating perpetual darkness and taking over the world.

Castlevania: Nocturne's villain Erzsebet Báthory possesses a real-life inspiration and immense powers that are bound to play a role in season 2. Based on the Castlevania video games, Castlevania: Nocturne follows vampire hunter Richter Belmont — a member of the famous Belmont clan — as he and his companions take on the vampires attempting to overtake the government during the French Revolution. Castlevania: Nocturne functions as a sequel to Castlevania, Netflix's previous animated series that ended after four seasons.

One major factor that made Netflix’s Castlevania animated series click among audiences was the detailed world-building centered on gothic trappings that replicated the original game series’ scope and settings perfectly. Through four seasons, viewers got to familiarize themselves with the expansive world, explore a number of character arcs, and indulge in speculation, as the series opened such a vista of phantasmagoria that even after ending, it left numerous possible waypoints for further exploration.

The follow-up series titled Castlevania: Nocturne, which is streaming on Netflix, takes the lore into the late eighteenth century, during the late phases of the Age of Enlightenment. An era marked by extreme antithetical aspects as, on the one hand, reason and revolution prevailed over the western world, but at the same time, the horrors of colonization were getting into full swing as well. Centered in such a tumultuous period, Castlevania: Nocturne introduces viewers to the...

This piece was written during the 2023 WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. Without the labor of the writers and actors currently on strike, the movie being reviewed here wouldn't exist. This article also contains spoilers for "The Last Voyage of the Demeter."

When Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley published her novel "Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus" in 1818, she kicked off genre fiction as we still know it to this day. She also captured the zeitgeist of that time period in regard to humanity's scientific study and technical progress, observing a relationship between the known and unknown where infinite possibilities lay, possibilities that carry with them a mixed sensation of wonder and fear.

79 years later, Bram Stoker captured a bit of that same vibe again, with his horror novel "Dracula." Taking a collection of various myths and folklore that had persevered through the ages and combining them with the deeds (embellished or not) of...

Despite existing for over half a century and evolving into one of the most profitable creative industries in the world, it’s only recently that filmmakers have gotten the hang of properly depicting video games on the big screen. This is likely because we’re now seeing a generation of writers and directors who actually grew up playing these games instead of observing them as outsiders – and that also applies to genre creators.

In fact, when it comes to horror, there have been a surprising amount of games featured in scary movies, with these interactive experiences often serving a central role in the story in much the same way that a cursed book or video tape might have been used in an older horror flick. With that in mind, we’ve decided to come up with a list highlighting six of the scariest video games in horror movies, as fictional...

Hello, and welcome back for a brand new Let’s Scare Bryan to Death! After a short hiatus to accommodate our Hellraiser fundraiser in September, I’m ready to get back in the saddle trying to catch up little by little with my horror blind spots.

I’m very excited this month as I’m joined by Annie Rose Malamet of Girls, Guts, & Giallo, a “podcast and live screening series about subversive, controversial film.” Malamet brings a wealth of knowledge on queer history and kink to give her analysis a unique perspective, and you may have caught her on the PBS show The Historian’s Take and more recently on Shudder’s Queer for Fear documentary.

Admittedly, I’ve never been well-versed in the sapphic vampire films from the ’70s, so I was hoping the self-proclaimed “Only lesbian vampire expert” would bring one to the table. She did not disappoint with Stephanie Rothman’s 1971 film,...

“To die, to truly be dead, that must be glorious,” Bela Lugosi’s eternal vampire once enthused on the silver screen. But true legendary antiheroes never attain the sweet reward of oblivion.

Before Universal Pictures’ classic 1931 film, Dracula was most famous in English speaking countries as the repellent vampire created by author Bram Stoker in a minor publishing novelty from 1897. Gruesome but not significant. Now, of course, he casts the largest shadow in horror, and it grows with every swing of his cape.

Historical Roots of Dracula’s Name

Stoker only took the name of “Dracula” from Vlad Dracul III, the original caped crusader. But the book’s titular inspiration got that name when The Holy Roman Empire named him to the chivalric Order of the Dragon. Dracula means Son of the Dragon. As the protector of Wallachia and Transylvania, he was a far more bloodthirsty ruler than the infamous Queen Mary I,...

The Dracula-inspired horror movie The Invitation sinks its fangs into theaters this Friday, August 26, 2022. Described as “a contemporary horror thriller,” The Invitation tells “the story of a young woman who is courted and swept off her feet, only to realize a gothic conspiracy is afoot.”

That conspiracy involves bloodsuckers of the classic literature variety. Ahead of the film’s release, Bloody Disgusting spoke with director Jessica M. Thompson about the modern interpretation and its production. The filmmaker shared with us that she filmed her vampire movie in a castle that shares ties with blood-obsessed serial killer Elizabeth Bathory.

But first, why was Thompson interested in Blair Butler‘s script in the first place?

She explains, “It was to me, the Bride of Dracula origin story. That was what captivated me because we haven’t seen that. We’ve done Dracula so many times; let’s do the brides. There are...

If there is one thing that becomes crystal clear as you watch “Deadly Women,” it is that crime has no gender. This crime show focuses on acts of crime — murder primarily — committed by women, which explains the title.

“Deadly Women” comes highly rated among TV series within the crime documentary genre — like “American Crime Story” and “Homicide Hunters.” If you love crime documentaries then this has got to be on your watch list.

Currently, “Deadly Women” just finalized its fourteenth season — the finale aired on September 9, 2021.

Will there be another season of “Deadly Women?” This article discusses that as well as other interesting info you need to know.

What’s “Deadly Women” About?

“Deadly Women” tells the true crime story of female murderers who killed their victims either out of greed, revenge, or just sheer obsession like that of the Hungarian, Elizabeth Báthory — profiled in season one, episode one — who...

Sacrificing oneself for love is a too cute and too familiar interaction thrown in movies like strawberry jam. It is simple, ordinary, and expected. Romance in horror films, however, is chaotic, bloody, and revolting. Horror and eroticism are an unexpected sweetness, so go ahead and serve that with your morning toast. Monsters have indulged in romance with mortals as we have seen in The Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954) to more recent movies like The Shape of Water (2017). It’s a classic story about a beautiful woman and a hideous beast, but even cinema changed the familiar storyline.

The 1970s opened an endless coffin of vampire films about love, sexuality, and the survival of the fittest. Open relationships, casual sex, gender fluid romances, and bloodthirsty villains painted the theater towns crimson red. The decade brought light to cultural issues that never seemed to be reflected on the mirrors of prior vampire films.

Hammer Horror: Four Gothic Horror Films

Blu ray – All Region

Imprint

1971-72

Starring Ingrid Pitt, Peter Cushing, Eric Porter

Cinematography by Kenneth Talbot, Dick Bush

Directed by Peter Sasdy, John Hough, Robert Young

In December of 1959, Hammer Studios released a bit of Yuletide cheer called The Stranglers from Bombay, a censor-baiting melodrama highlighted by severed limbs and Marie Devereux’s cleavage. The studio would spend the next decade expanding upon those themes and wore the inevitable X Certificates like badges of honor. But as an ancient reprobate said, “Politicians, ugly buildings, and whores all get respectable if they last long enough” and by the seventies the bad boys of Bray seemed positively sedate. Though the power to shock had waned, Hammer was still a thriving business—there were two Dracula films produced in 1970 alone. Still, no one could blame them for shaking things up—Anthony Hinds, the studio’s guiding light,...

Finally, a horror shocker that needs to make no excuses! Harry Kümel’s interpretation of the Elizabeth Báthory legend excels in all departments and succeeds in each of its aims. Erotic Eurohorror meets Sternbergian visual decadence, making a vivid (and bloody) statement about classic screen exoticism. Given the full glamour treatment, silky Delphine Seyrig is striking as the deceptively congenial vampire queen. It’s a rare throwback to the beginnings of erotic Eurohorror — sex and death, together again! Blue Underground takes the leap to 4K Ultra HD and stacks the extras with key interview content, and a soundtrack CD.

Daughters of Darkness

Ultra-hd + Blu-ray + CD

Blue Underground

1971 / Color / 1:66 widescreen / 100 min. / Le Rouge aux Lèvres, Les Lèvres Rouges Street Date October 27, 2020 / 59.95

Starring: Delphine Seyrig, John Karlen, Danielle Ouimet, Andrea Rau, Paul Esser.

Cinematography: Eduard van der Enden

Film Editors: Denis Bonan, Gust Verschueren

Original Music: François de Roubaix

Written by Pierre Drouot,...