reapersaurus

You guys are REALLY scaring me.

Y'all realize, of course, how close this approach is to a death-sport society.....?

Rypro 525

i'll actually agree with the "i don't know, i just am" statement. maybe this should be in a sperate thread.

Matthew Chmiel

Considering these type of films have been around for around 40 years now, I don't think that's the case. It's just a current fad in the movie industry.

reapersaurus

Good point to discuss:

My contention is that these movies have been around for awhile, but not until now were they anything but cult films that had trouble getting distributed.

I would be interested in knowing about previous films in this "torture" genre that were #1 in the Box Office, beating out very large, very respected and reviewed mainstream movies.

Matthew Chmiel

These cult films are cheap to produce and are able to turn a large profit for the studio. Saw cost a million, Saw II cost four million, and Hostel cost five million. The first grossed over sixty million, the second grossed over eighty million, and the third has grossed more than 20 million in less than a week domestically. Lionsgate was the first studio to pick up on this and it seems Fox Searchlight will be the second to see if they have the same success that Lionsgate has had.

Just how the "teen genre" was the big craze in the late '90s/early 00s; this is the big craze at the moment, especially when films of the like can be done cheaply.

Rypro 525

well, high tension didn't really set the world on fire in terms of box office, well then again, lions gate totally fucked that movie up beyond repair by the time it finally hit the states.

Matthew Chmiel

The thing about Haute Tension is that Lionsgate acquired the film for cheap, so if they bypassed a theatrical release, they still would've made a profit from DVD sales and rentals. However, originally, the film was going to be released in the beginning of 2005 with an NC-17 rating and it's French language track intact. However, for many reasons (including the success of Saw), Lionsgate decided to do a last-minute English dub (so last minute that half the dub includes the original French track) and edit down the film to an R-rating to hopefully secure an audience. However, Lionsgate forgot to, you know, really advertise the film. Thus it being dead on arrival when it came out in June.

I just wish they would've released it uncut. Not for the fact that I'm against censorship, just because I wanted to see how a film would do with an NC-17 when released in a thousand screens at once.

Giles

but Lion's Gate HAD released the original version in 2004 to various film festivals (Chicago's EU, Philly, Maryland - to name a couple that I know about, I actually saw this version at the Maryland Film Festival) in all it's NC-17 glory and original French language.

Matthew Chmiel

Film festivals don't count. As I said, it was a last minute decision by Lionsgate to edit the film.

Giles

oh and I agree I think it was more a (stupid) commercial suicide to enact the dubbing and scissoring of the film. They literally did nothing with this film for an entire year. The film made it's North American premier at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2003 - aside from the varying film festival circuit, Lions Gate got cold feet, did very little to expediate the release of the film, and then made all these changes to the film for commercial release and it belly flopped.

Julie Walker

Thus hopefully LG learns to never do that again

At least they released it uncut on dvd,which is all that really matters now.

Scott Weinberg

HUGE fan of the original "Hills," and my affection for "High Tension" is well-documented.

So obvioiusly I'm pretty pumped for this flick. As always: Fingers crossed.

Matthew Chmiel

Well they had the film longer before Fall 2003 (IIRC, Lionsgate purchased North American rights shortly after the film broke out that summer in France). However, I don't think it was until their purchase of Saw at Sundance a few months later that they finally started to do something with it. Saw got lots of attention at Sundance while Haute Tension was getting very little anywhere it played at (it also didn't help that one can import the DVD from various other sources as well), so release the "bigger" flick first and advertise the "smaller" flick with the bigger of the two so you can get some sort of audience attending the second horror go around. I wouldn't say it was cold feet, I would just say it was good planning.

However, once they pushed it back a near few weeks prior to it's opening, that's when they got cold feet and they scrambled.

[And I don't think Lionsgate paid more than $5 million for both flicks combined.]

GameGenie

Fangoria has a review up http://www.fangoria.com/news_article.php?id=5411

after reading that im really looking forward to this movie.

Mr. Cinema

They showed the trailer for this before Final Destination 3. I'm now very excited about this. The clips were solid and full of tension. Very gritty looking trailer.

Rypro 525

looks like the director is being forced to cut about 5 minutes from the movie.

GameGenie

theres a new pretty brutal clip available online

http://theluckyonesdiefirst.com

enjoy

Alien Redrum

I love that clip.

I can't wait for this movie.

RichC2

Getting strong early reviews

and I love this poster:

TheNightFlier

Very brutal.

I've been seeing a load of tv spots for it now, can't wait till it hits theaters.

HN

100% fresh so far on rottentomatoes:
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/1000...lls_have_eyes/

matome

Nice poster

Seantn

Not anymore, but all those positive reviews are a great sign.

TomOpus

Now that's a poster I'd like to own.

FantasticVSDoom

on the poster...I dont know why, but Im pretty excited about this movie. I loved the original, and hope this one will at least do it justice.