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Stars: Kate Moyer, Elena Kampouris, Jayden McGinlay, Callan Mulvey, Bruce Spence | Written and Directed by Kurt Wimmer

The film Children of the Corn, based on the Stephen King short story, spawned a franchise of considerable durability, but rather dubious quality. The first film was released in 1984 and the series sputtered to a halt in 2018 after the tenth entry, Children of the Corn: Runaway. But nothing ever really dies in the corn and two years later Children of the Corn got its second reboot following the TV version in 2009.

Or rather a reboot was written and directed by Kurt Wimmer. Wimmer who has directed Equilibrium and Ultraviolet is no stranger to reboots having written the new versions of Point Break, The Thomas Crown Affair and Total Recall. But after filming it seemed to disappear back into the cornfields for three years of vague mentions of release dates that came and went.

Hello, everyone! We have a relatively quiet week of home media releases ahead of us, featuring recent supernatural shocker The Unholy as well as Severin Films’ impressive-looking The Eurocrypt of Christopher Lee Collection. Indie horrors Sweet River and Feed the Gods are both coming home this Tuesday on multiple formats, and other Blu-ray and DVD releases for June 22nd include Grim Woods, Evil Nun, Conjuring Curse, House of Pain, and a 2-Disc Collector’s Edition of Hangar from Unearthed Films.

The Eurocrypt of Christopher Lee Collection

He remains one of the most beloved horror/fantasy icons in US/UK pop culture history, but Christopher Lee delivered several of the most compelling, acclaimed and bizarre performances of his entire career in 1960s Europe. The Eurocrypt Of Christopher Lee brings together five of these Lee classics: the 1964 gothic shocker Crypt Of The Vampire; the 1964 cult hit Castle Of The Living Dead co-starring...

Genre festival planned a physical event but had to shift online due to the pandemic.

Josh Wallace and Devin Das’s US horror satire Keeping Company has won best feature at the inaugural Easter edition of UK genre film festival Grimmfest.

The film received its European premiere at the virtual festiva and follows two salesmen who knock on the wrong door and find themselves trapped in a stranger’s basement.

A special mention went to Kourosh Ahari’s The Night, an Iranian psychological horror starring Cannes award-winner Shahab Hosseini (The Salesman), which IFC Films acquired for North America last year...

Gravitas Ventures works with the sales agent again.

UK-based sales firm Reason8 has unveiled a range of deals across its slate, led by key territories for Anton Sigurdsson’s crime drama Women.

Gravitas Ventures has picked up the title for North America, and is planning a theatrical release for late May 2021.

Further sales on Women include UK-Ireland (101 Films), Middle East (N Stars), Russia and Cis (TenLetters), Latin America (Encripta) and Turkey (Ella Film).

The film centres on a small-town detective’s investigation into a Sociology professor whose female students repeatedly go missing.

Gravitas and Reason8 previously partnered on Australian thriller Sweet River,...

Grimmfest have today announced the launch of their Grimmfest Easter Edition, a new annual event taking place over the Easter Weekend, and complimenting the long-established festival in October.

Easter is traditionally a time for rebirth, renewal, resurrection. But as the Pandemic continues to rage, and the world remains on lockdown for the foreseeable future, it is also a time for rethinking. Thus, while the Grimmfest team had hoped to be hosting a ‘live’ Easter event, instead, the Grimmfest Easter Edition will be taking place online, and will build on the success of Grimmfest 2020 online experience.

The festival will open on Thursday April 1st with our preview night that will feature the UK premiere of Kourosh Ahari’s surreal and sulphurous Iranian American haunted hotel horror The Night, which has already earned deserved comparisons to Kubrick’s The Shining, alongside the UK premiere of Lluis Danes’ visually ravishing reimagining of the...

Kourosh Ahari’s ‘The Night’ and Lluís Danés’ ‘The Barcelona Vampiress’ to open genre festival.

UK genre film festival Grimmfest has revealed the line-up for its first Easter edition, which will open with Kourosh Ahari’s The Night and Lluís Danés’ The Barcelona Vampiress.

The spin-off event to Grimmfest was established after its traditional October festival was moved online, due to the pandemic, and was meant to mark a return to physical screenings for the organisation. But ongoing cinema closures and restrictions will also see the Grimmfest Easter Edition go virtual from April 1-5.

The festival will open with psychological horror The Night,...

Justin McMillan’s feature debut Sweet River will premiere as a Netflix Original on Saturday, a “dream come true” for the director.

The psychological thriller follows Hanna (Lisa Kay), who returns to the sleepy town of Billins, nestled deep in the sugar cane fields, where her four-year-old son Joey was abducted by notorious serial killer Simpkins (Jack Ellis), and is now presumed dead.

On hearing the news that Simpkins had died and her son’s DNA was found on his property, the emotionally damaged Hana rents a small farmhouse in the valley near to where Simpkins lived and mounts her own investigation.

Starring alongside Kay and Ellis are Martin Sacks, Genevieve Lemon, Chris Haywood, Rob Carlton, Baroo, Sam Parsonson, Bryan Roberts and Jeremy Waters.

The screenplay, which was written by Marc Furmie (Terminus) and Eddie Baroo, is based on an original story by McMillan.

The film was produced by Ashley McLeod...

In Sweet River, to premiere on Netflix December 5, Hanna returns to the sleepy town of Billins, nestled deep in the sugar cane fields, where her four-year-old son Joey was abducted by notorious serial killer Simpkins (Jack Ellis), and is now presumed dead.

Sweet River is directed by Justin McMillan in his feature debut. The screenplay is written by Marc Furmie (Terminus) and Eddie Baroo, and the film produced by Ashley McLeod and distributed by Filmink Presents.

The post ‘Sweet River’ (Trailer) appeared first on If Magazine.

The film is being sold at AFM by Reason8 Films.

UK-based sales company Reason8 Films has closed a North American deal with Gravitas Ventures for Sweet River.

Gravitas is looking to release the Australian mystery thriller theatrically in April next year. The deal was negotiated between Anna Krupnova of Reason8 and Brett Rogalsky of Gravitas.

Sweet River tells a story of Hannah, whose search for her son’s body leads her to a sleepy rural town that hides dark secrets. It’s the narrative directorial debut for Justin McMillan (Storm Surfers 3D); Ashley McLeod is the producer.

The cast includes Lisa Kay,...

Ben O’Toole in ‘Bloody Hell’ (Photo credit: Daniel Berghofer).

The virtual Cannes Film Market is underway with a raft of titles driven by Australian talent being pitched to buyers either as pre-sales or completed films.

The slate includes Daina Reid’s Run Rabbit Run, Frances O’Connor’s directing debut Emily, Alister Grierson’s Bloody Hell, Christopher Nelius’ feature doc Girls Can’t Surf and Justin McMillan’s Sweet River.

In addition, Hanway is looking to sell worldwide rights to Kim Mordaunt’s Wildlands, a thriller to be shot in Africa starring Matthias Schoenaerts as Richard Thomas, a jaded bomb disposal expert.

The script by Mordaunt and John Collee is based on the director’s experiences in the bomb disposal world in Asia and Africa. After being dismissed from Un forces following a failed mission in Afghanistan, Thomas gets a final shot at redemption when he’s sent to Angola, one...

Industry veterans, Dov Kornits and Lou Balletti have announced the launch of a new theatrical distributor operating in Australia. The company pitches itself as a one-stop shop straddling distribution and media promotion, and will begin operations with a Friday 13 December release of horror title “Wrinkles the Clown.”

Kornits is publisher of Australian film magazine and website FilmInk. He has also been head of theatrical for specialty distributor Umbrella Entertainment, and has consulted with distributors Label, Bonsai, Universal and Athabasca on local releases.

The company’s co-director Lou Balletti had her earlier career in exhibition, before becoming head of theatrical sales for distributor Hopscotch Films. In recent years she headed digital sales across Australia and New Zealand for Entertainment One, with responsibility for launching titles including “Peppa Pig,” “Vice,” “Green Book” and “The Walking Dead.”

The company’s 2020 release slate includes “Talking About Trees” (an audience winner at the Berlin and...

‘Sweet River.’

English actor Lisa Kay, Martin Sacks and Geneviève Lemon lead the cast of Sweet River, a psychological thriller which is now shooting in Byron Bay.

The screenplay by Marc Furmie and Eddie Baroo, based on an original story by the director Justin McMillan, is set in a fictional sugar cane town which harbours a dark secret.

The Brisbane-based Kay, who starred in Neighbours and Home and Away after moving to Australia, plays Hanna Montague, whose son Joey was abducted by a serial killer and is presumed dead.

Searching for his body, she moves in to a cottage on a sugar cane farm. John and Ellenor Drake, live in the neighbouring farmhouse and own the surrounding sugar cane fields.

Both women have something in common: Ellenor’s daughter lost her life in a bus crash which killed several other children. As Hanna investigates her son’s disappearance amid some unexplained encounters with the supernatural,...