Interviews

Starry Eyes is this year’s must see Hollywood horror thriller. A film that takes you on a journey though the mind and soul of an artist that only wants to be a star and is willing to do anything to achieve that transformation.

The film lingers long after the credits end leaving the viewer with their own thoughts on just how to move on after what they have experienced. Shock had a chance to sit down with Starry Eyes Directors Dennis Widmyer and Kevin Kolsch and pick their brains on this world of actors with hearts of glass and producers with souls of Satan…

Kevin Kolsch and Dennis Widmyer’s Starry Eyes hits theaters and VOD this Friday. The film centers on an actresses named Sarah who finds that all she has ever wanted is at her fingertips for a deadly price.

Starry Eyes is a film that deals with the selling of one’s soul in the ultimate way.

Alex Essoe plays Sarah, the films victim of her own expectations and Shock spent some time with Ms. Essoe to talk about just what makes Alex tick and the horrors of bringing a character like that to life.

In Jessabelle, opening in select theaters and on VOD this Friday, November 7th: Returning to her childhood home in Louisiana to recuperate from a horrific car accident, Jessabelle (Sarah Snook) comes face to face with a long-tormented spirit that has been seeking her return – and has no intention of letting her escape.

Shock Till You Drop spoke with director Kevin Greutert, a longtime editor who made his feature debut with Saw VI who then went on to helm Saw: The Final Chapter and, later, Jessabelle for Blumhouse Productions. Below, you’ll also find a handful of exclusive stills from his supernatural thriller.

Today, Shock Till You Drop’s own Ryan Turek was invited to Meet the Movie Press with The Wrap’s Jeff Sneider and Schmoes Know’s Mark Reilly to talk about the state of horror. Here’s more in-depth breakdown of the hour-long discussion:

On a very special, SPOOKY Halloween themed episode of MEET THE MOVIE PRESS, Jeff and Reilly welcome in Ryan Turek, Managing Editor of Shocktillyoudrop.com!

Saw celebrates its 10th anniversary this year. Let that sink in for a minute. Now, reflect on how far its creators – James Wan and Leigh Whannell – have come. The former is currently in post-production on Furious 7 (the seventh installment in the Fast & Furious franchise) following directing gigs on horror hits like The Conjuring and Insidious. The latter also has Insidious to thank for his continued success; he penned the first two entries as well as the third which he directed.

These are exciting times for Wan and Whannell and, recently, they took time out of their busy schedule for a Saw reunion press conference at Lionsgate. In attendance: producer Mark Burg and Oren Koules, Shawnee Smith and Tobin Bell.

Fans of Daniel Radcliffe from his days playing Harry Potter may be surprised to see him go “full Slytherin” for Alexandre (The Hills Have Eyes) Aja’s Horns, based on the Joe Hill novel.

That’s pretty much what he does while playing Ig, a young man accused of murdering his girlfriend Merrin (Juno Temple) who starts growing horns and affecting those around him to reveal their darkest secrets. As the horns grow, Ig is able to use his newfound powers (and the numerous large snakes that follow him around) to try to learn the truth about what happened to Merrin.

Earlier this week, ShockTillYouDrop.com had a chance to talk with Radcliffe about his second foray into horror following 2012’s The Woman in Black, as well as getting some idea what to expect from his turn as Igor in next October’s Victor Frankenstein.

Friday Night Frights at Cinefamily in Los Angeles held a Nightmare on Elm Street marathon over the weekend. On the program: Nightmare entries 1-7 (sorry, Freddy vs. Jason).

The event ran from dusk till dawn with very little interruption. Some of those involved in Dream Warriors swung by for a 20-minute Q&A before the film and I was able to capture it on video.
Via the video player here, watch Friday Night Fright’s Josh Miller and Sebastian O’Brien talk with director Chuck Russell and stars Jennifer Ruben, Rodney Eastman and Ira Heiden about their time on the film, the auditions and working with Dokken.

The last day of Rob Zombie’s crowd funding campaign for 31 is closing in. Appropriately, it ends on Halloween day. With only eight days left (at the time of this writing), Zombie is making the press rounds to give the campaign one final push. (I’ll let the FanBacked page do the talking in terms of the incentives fans get for contributing to the film.) And when Shock was approached and asked to speak with the writer-director about 31 I wanted to get a bit more information about the film itself which seems to promise total mayhem on a level we haven’t seen in Zombie’s previous works like House of 1,000 Corpses, The Devil’s Rejects and The Lords of Salem.

Over the last few weeks, Zombie has been offering glimpses at the violent world of 31 via conceptual art. The dynamic sketches by Alex Horley have introduced us to the many characters that populate the movie which concerns five people who are kidnapped on the five days leading up to Halloween. They’re subsequently held hostage in “Murder World,” a man-made Hell they must fight their way out of Most Dangerous Game-style.

Since I had the Soska sisters – Jen and Sylvia – in the Choice Cuts studio, I figured I’d keep them around a bit longer to talk about their most recent release See No Evil 2. The film is their first big “studio” gig following last year’s indie effort American Mary and we talk about their experience, upcoming projects and about their time in “the biz.” Click on the player below for the full interview!

Over the weekend, Shock Till You Drop came face-to-face with a collection of oddities featured in “Face Off – In the Flesh,” one of the many scare zones that pepper the streets of Universal Studios Halloween Horror Nights Orlando. Attendees walk through this ominous, fog-enshrouded block of the theme park and feast their eyes on various creatures that were featured on SyFy’s hit reality series Face Off.

During a mini-press day at the theme park, I spoke with Face Off season 5 winner Laura Tyler whose history with Universal Studios goes back well over a decade.

When it comes to films dealing with possession, exorcisms and exorcists, The Exorcist is generally the go-to title simply because, well, it’s a masterful piece of cinema and, let’s be honest here, exorcism films that pulse with evil, question your faith and scare the hell out of you are few and far between. With Deliver Us from Evil, Scott Derrickson’ latest film, making its DVD, Blu-ray and VOD debut on October 28th, I thought I would call on a few friends to participate in a Choice Cuts group discussion.

Joining me for a conversation that focuses on recommended exorcism movies that are NOT The Exorcist, I snagged Jen and Sylvia Soskas (aka “the Twisted Twins”) and Crave Online’s William Bibbiani.

This Friday sees the release of Ouija and, recently, Shock Till You Drop attended a screening of the supernatural thriller at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery. Following a look at the film, we joined cast members Olivia Cooke, Daren Kagasoff, Shelley Hennig, Ana Coto and Bianca Santos in the spooky locale to chat about their experience working on this Blumhouse and Platinum Dunes production.
The gang talk about the “hilarious” time they had on set, Witchboard, working with director Stiles White, the proper handling of a Ouija board and why some cast members think the film is a “good family horror movie.”

The Shape has surfaced in Florida. For the first time, Universal’s Halloween Horror Nights Orlando welcomes Michael Myers for a maze dedicated to John Carpenter’s Halloween.
Much like the attraction that debuted at Halloween Horror Nights Hollywood, the maze culls some of the most iconic, terrifying moments from the 1978 slasher classic and beckons visitors to creep through dark hallways, backyards and living rooms and other recognizable backdrops. They’ll meet Dr. Loomis, Laurie, Annie, Lynda and, of course, Michael Myers along the way, narrowly escaping his butcher knife.

For as long as there are horror and sci-fi movies of, shall we say, questionable quality there will be…Elvira. The Mistress of the Dark returns to the small screen in a new Hulu series called 13 Nights of Elvira and this time, she’ll be poking fun at a new crop of films with her usual flavor of humor.

The titles include Cannibal Women in the Avocado Jungle of Death, Puppet Master, Demonic Toys, Hobgoblins, The Gingerdead Man, Dollman, Trancers, Oblivion, Shrunken Heads, Hideous, Evil Bong, Seedpeople and Night of the Living Dead.

Keanu Reeves wastes a lot of fools very quickly in this month’s hard-hitting action thriller John Wick, but he might be in for a slow death in Eli Roth’s next torture porn effort Knock Knock.

While not quite a knockoff (pun intended), Roth’s home invasion thriller sounds like it takes a page or two from the Funny Games playbook (but with a sexy twist), similar to how his The Green Inferno borrowed much from Cannibal Holocaust. Listen to Reeves describe the plot to us during our exclusive 1-on-1 during the John Wick Junket.

Actor Rupert Evans isn’t the largest horror fan, but he appreciates their place in the world and the craft it takes to pull off an effective fright flick. “You guys in America love horror and Halloween is so huge. I think it’s a good thing we’re still making horror movies and trying to get audiences to suspend their disbelief. Today, everyone is so media savvy, they know how movies are made and it’s harder to pull off horror.”

Evans – who has dabbled in the world of horror and fantasy before with Guillermo del Toro’s Hellboy – stars in The Canal, opening in select theaters and hitting VOD today (complete list of availability here). The actor plays David Williams who, with his wife Alice, move into a beautiful period house by a canal with their small child, Billy. As David begins to suspect that his wife is cheating on him, he also starts to have nightmarish visions of an evil presence he believes inhabits his home. Eventually, brutal 20th-century murders are revealed and present-day horrors consume David.