TiWest

By Todd Gilchrist

The end of Cabin Fever 2: Spring Fever is pretty much a disaster, but if you can get there from the beginning of the film you may not mind. Ti West's disowned sequel to Eli Roth's 2002 cult movie indisputably falls apart in its final scenes, but the writer-director of The House of the Devil has an unerring ear for naturalism, even when firmly ensconced in teen comedy territory, and makes the most of material that otherwise might not deserve such attention to detail. All of which means that this may not be the best follow-up for new fans of the filmmaker, but Cabin Fever 2 is far from the "complete disaster" status that for three years made it the black sheep of Lionsgate's often-lackluster catalogue.

The film stars Noah Segan (The Brothers Bloom) as John, a high school senior who wants to ask his friend Cassie (Alexi Wasser) to the prom but is paralyzed by the prospect of a beatdown by her psycho sometime-ex-boyfriend Marc (Marc Senter). His buddy Alex (Rusty Kelley) manages to score himself a date after comforting a forlorn stripper named Liz (Regan Deal), but their plans for a perfect night are dashed when the entire populace of the school succumbs to a bizarre, deadly disease. Fleeing from military forces determined to contain the outbreak, not mention decaying, highly-contagious members of their graduating class, John, Cassie and Alex fight to escape their school before flying bullets – or worse yet, blood – prevent them from seeing the next morning.

Fresh off the success of House of the Devil, filmmaker Ti West is suddenly a hot commodity--and when you're hot, you have to take advantage of it because the film industry is a fickle one.

West is apparently taking that advice to heart, as Variety is reporting that he's chosen his next project, a film entitled The Innkeepers--a story about the last two staffers at a haunted hotel that's going out of business. The project appears to be in very good hands--West will direct, with Dark Sky films financing and producing in tandem with Larry Fessenden's Glass Eye Pix. That's a plethora of people who understand what makes good horror cinema.

The deal for the film was finalized at Sundance. West has commented that he wants The Inkeepers to be "a truly terrifying follow-up to House of the Devil." Here's to hoping he gets what he wants.

The Innkeepers is set to start shooting this spring. If you need a Ti West fix in the interim, House of the Devil makes its DVD debut tomorrow and West's troubled production Cabin Fever 2: Spring Fever bows next month.

I almost had a heart attack when I first saw the VHS promo copy of The House of the Devil that some of my horror brethren were teasing everyone with online. Genius idea! VHS junkies like myself are elated over Amazon's release of a VHS and DVD bundle for the film which you can purchase here.

In further anticipation for Devil's February 2 DVD and Blu-ray release, marketing folks have constructed this nifty little flyer, which mimics the one Mr. Ulman (Tom Noonan) posts on a college campus. He eventually lures Sam (Jocelin Donahue) into his home for a babysitting job which turns into a creepy, satanic free-for-all. The film also stars AJ Bowen (The Signal), Greta Gerwig (Baghead), Dee Wallace (The Howling) and cult legend Mary Woronov.

When you dial the number on the flyer (1-866-666-8968) you're greeted by the smooth and eerie sounds of Tom Noonan as Mr. Ulman directing you to take further action for more information. This doesn't help my Tom Noonan crush-obsession because I've already dialed the number a bazillion times today.

Peter Hall has all the DVD/Blu-ray details over here and you can also check out my review for the film, which if you haven't seen it yet, I urge you to do so immediately.

Flyer courtesy of Shock Till You Drop

The crew over at Shock Till You Drop has an exclusive first look at Ti West's Cabin Fever 2: Spring Fever trailer. You can check out the trailer after the jump. The film goes straight to DVD and Blu-Ray February 16, 2010. Features include an audio commentary, a 'Making of' feature and a gag reel. There will be a rated and unrated version of the movie available, which according to our Peter Hall has plenty of gross-out gore.

The road to Eli Roth's Cabin Fever sequel has been a long one for director Ti West (The House of the Devil) who has not been shy about sharing his dissatisfaction for the version that Lionsgate will be releasing. He has described his experience with the sequel as mixed but mostly negative, due to post-production issues he had with the re-edit of his cut of the film. West dropped out of the process and wanted to slap the Directors Guild of America pseudonym 'Alan Smithee' in the studio's face but the name has been discontinued since 2000.

Cabin Fever 2 takes the flesh-eating virus from the first film out of the woods and into a high school prom. I haven't seen the film yet but the trailer reminds me of a 1980's teen sex farce. And there's tons of blood. Rider Strong and Giuseppe Andrews return for the sequel in addition to Noah Segan, Alexander Isaiah Thomas, and Alexi Wasser. Hit the jump for prom happy gore.

Ti West's Satanic Panic throwback film The House of the Devil is one of my favorite horror films of the year. I really dug it when I caught it at Fantastic Fest, but subsequent viewings have particularly enamored me to the flick, which is why I'm torn about the details surrounding the DVD and Blu-ray release of the film on February 2nd, 2010 from Dark Sky Films. Why? Just take a look at the specs for the respective discs, thanks to Fangoria:

DVD:
- Audio commentary by writer/director/editor West and actress Donahue
- Audio commentary by West, producers Larry Fessenden and Peter Phok and sound designer Graham Reznick
- "In the HOUSE OF THE DEVIL" featurette
- "Behind the HOUSE OF THE DEVIL" featurette
- Deleted scenes
- Theatrical trailer

That's a solid list of features for fans, particularly in the commentary department. Now contrast the above with what the Blu-ray will be (lightly) packing:

- Audio commentary by writer/director/editor West and actress Donahue
- "In the HOUSE OF THE DEVIL" featurette
- Theatrical trailer

Really, Dark Sky Films? Has no one handed you a calendar lately? I know that the hook to The House of the Devil is its throwback to an era gone by, but you're really going to load the DVD with more features than the high definition Blu-ray, which will also most assuredly cost more? That boggles my mind, which is a shame because I really do love the movie.

I can be impatient about things sometimes, and that was certainly the case with The House of the Devil. From the moment I saw those magnificent posters it was love. As soon as the Video on Demand version was available I downloaded it and happily handed over my ten bucks. Chances are I'll be seeing it again in the theater this Friday, October 30 when it opens.

In preparation for the festivities Magnolia Pictures is conducting a live Twitter chat with The House of the Devil director Ti West. You can join the chat this Thursday, October 29 from 11-12 PM PST. Type #DEVILHOUSE in the search bar and hit enter to follow the conversation. Insert the #DEVILHOUSE tag in your question for Ti to make sure it stays on thread. Perhaps I'll ask if it's normal to want spankings from Tom Noonan dressed as Francis Dollarhyde. Sorry.

Twitter has been a very successful marketing tool for many flicks, including the recent indie haunt Paranormal Activity. It's nice to see Ti's indie spirit supported by Magnolia after the Cabin Fever 2 debacle. IFC.com is currently premiering West's new web series Dead & Lonely, which tells the tale of two lonely singles looking for love. However, one of them is a vampire. You can check out my interview with West about the series here.

Follow Horror Squad on Twitter to find out if we asking anything embarrassing this Thursday. Or just because you like us.

Did you like Cabin Fever? It's ok, you can be honest. It may not have been the greatest movie in the world, but it was a solid debut from the now notorious "Bear Jew" Eli Roth, and to be honest, it was just a damned fun movie. Overflowing with gore, witty one-liners and Cerina Vincent naked, Cabin Fever has become my "background noise" movie, and I am proud to say I genuinely like the film.

Cabin Fever 2: Spring Fever....eh, not so much.

The sequel, written and directed by Ti West has a sordid past, and West isn't too proud of it. Shock Till You Drop scored an exclusive interview with West after a screening of his soon-to-be-released 80s throwback The House of the Devil, and revealed some very interesting information concerning the controversial release of the follow-up to Eli Roth's gore-infused horror/comedy. After editing his cut of the film, Lionsgate wanted to take the film in a new direction, and West would have none of that. As a result, he disowned the film, and did what he could to get his name taken off the final product.

"I very much wanted the Alan Smithee credit - that would have been a silver lining to me. I would have been more than happy to have promoted the film if I had had Alan Smithee on it. They said no; I'm not DGA, so I couldn't do it. And the DGA doesn't do Alan Smithee anymore, anyway, so it was a bummer situation with that. I really do not feel like it's my film. That was a film that was really made by a bunch of other people on that production. And it's unfortunate."

Despite not receiving a release - and a limited one at that - until October 30th, Ti West's 80's throwback The House of the Devil is receiving oodles of praise, with some touting it as the best horror film of the year. While I do not share the same sentiments (I felt the story lagged considerably), I have nothing but respect for Mr. West, as The House of the Devil is not an homage to early 80's Satanic Panic flicks, it IS an 80's Satanic Panic flick. If you were to awaken from a 30-year coma and the first thing you did was watch this film, you would think no time has passed at all.

Instead of trying to emulate this success with another film, Mr. West is venturing into cyberspace to develop a webseries with IFC called Dead and Lonely, which will premiere on October 26th. According to Shock Till You Drop, the series will star Justin Rice as a newly-single man who turns to the online dating site DateorDie.net. He connects with a young woman searching for life, but there's a catch: she's a vampire.

How do you market one of the best horror movies of the year? With the best horror movie posters of the year, of course. We already laid eyes on the gorgeous, flaming-house one sheet for The House of the Devil back at the end August, but now that Magnet is gearing up Ti West's best film to date for its limited theatrical release at the end of October (it's already available via several Video On-Demand services), a few more posters have hit the Internet, each one captivating in its own way.

I'd say that I wish all horror movie posters were this good looking, but frankly I don't. Movies like Prom Night and The Stepfather don't deserve to have this kind of quality standing behind them. Let Hollywood stick to its generic, predictable Photoshop jobs; it just makes me appreciate artwork like this all the more.

Check out all of the posters below.

Time for some rumor control. Contrary to what one would assume watching The House of the Devil, writer-director Ti West does not have the power to bend time and space to his will. Ti West is not a time lord, he is a mere mortal like the rest of us, he just happens to have the ability to make a film that lives and breathes as if it fell out of a wormhole from 1983. Plenty of horror directors attempt the throwback film, but few pull it off and even fewer pull it off as convincingly as West has with The House of the Devil.

Samantha (Jocelin Donahue) is an impossibly cute college gal dying to escape her slovenly roommate. In order to afford the too-good-to-be-true rent on an apartment she's just discovered, Samantha has to, against her better judgment, answer a Babysitter Wanted flier pinned to the ad board on campus. The man on the phone (Tom Noonan) is a little creepy and a little too eager to find a babysitter on the night of a rare full lunar eclipse, but that's just something Samantha is going to have to put up with if she wants to move out. So the ill-fated coed asks her best friend to drive her out to the isolated house in the woods, where things eventually prove to be even worse than Samantha imagined.

What follows is a remarkably restrained, expertly-maintained atmosphere of tension and dread that is in no rush to evolve from its controlled burn to full-on Satanic panic. And if there's anything that House of the Devil has going against itself, it's the fact that very little happens for long stretches of the film. Granted, this is liable to only be a problem for those who like their horror movies fast, quick and drenched in red, but for those among us who can appreciate a 95-minute film that remains wholly fascinating without exploiting any of the aforementioned qualities, House of the Devil is a near-perfect film.