Universal Studios Home Entertainment Announces:
Official Site:
RETAIL LINK:
A New Video Featurette
"BEHIND-THE-SCENES With
George A. Romero's Land of the Dead"
A 12-Minute Special Makeup Effects Documentary
to precede the feature film DVD release on October 18, 2005
Universal City, California, October 11, 2005 With his career coming full circle, Greg Nicotero was the special makeup effects designer on George A. Romero's Land of the Dead. In this exclusive look into his studio, we see how a zombie makeup is created step-by-step, how a "zombie bite" is rigged and executed, and how the different zombie heads and props from the film were designed and realized. Nicotero has been working in motion pictures for 20 years, starting as a makeup assistant on Romero's 1985 film, Day of the Dead. His studio, KNB EFX Group, has been responsible for dozens of projects since the late 1980s, including the films of Quentin Tarantino, Robert Rodriguez, Wes Craven & Steven Spielberg. The KNB facility is located in Van Nuys, CA.
CAST & FILMMAKERS
Producer: Scott Essman
Director of Photography: Brian Hoodenpyle
Photography: Gil Frazee
Second Camera: Eric Dove
Production Assistant: Michelle Jensen
TECHNICAL INFORMATION
Street Date: October 11, 2005
Running Time:12 Minutes (R)
Production Company: Visionary Cinema
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FROM THE GODFATHER OF J-HORROR - KIYOSHI KUROSAWA
Comes his film before THE RING, and before JU-ON : The GRUDGE
This film is frightening. See for yourself.
PULSE
(Trailer is available on the official site.)
Pulse hits theaters in NYC on November 9th, Los Angeles on November 16th and then expands wide.
The film is about a mysterious website that causes users to disappear or become ghost versions of themselves. The film is a dark tale with a darker message that looks into our inability to communicate at the hands of technology that was intended to bring us together. It is a brilliant horror film that delves into the meaning of loneliness.
Magnolia Pictures
Presents
A Film by Kiyoshi Kurosawa
110 Minutes, 1.85:1, Dolby SR
LONG SYNOPSIS
The endless sea. A cargo ship drifts somewhere in the Pacific Ocean. Its captain tries to make contact with shore, but has no success. There are several people on board the ship. Within, is a young womanand she begins telling her incredible story.
She is MICHI -- a typical young Japanese woman in her early twenties. She works for a small company that employs several people her age. They all get along well at work, but aren't close friends, respecting each other's privacy and keeping a certain distance from each other. Michi lives alone, but her mother drops by occasionally to make sure she's doing fine, which Michi finds annoying.
One day, Michi and others in her office desperately try to contact their co-worker Taguchi, who is supposed to be finishing up a business document. He has not come to work lately or contacted them. Michi goes to his apartment to find out what's going on. She finds Taguchi, but he is expressionless and somewhat different from usual. She asks for the floppy disk he's been working on. Taguchi tells her that it's somewhere around his computer. Michi looks for it herself and finds the disk, but suddenly hears a dull sound coming from the next room. She rushes in and sees Taguchi hanging himself, dead.
Nobody could understand why he committed suicide. Michi's colleague, Yabe, finds a strange image on Taguchi's floppy disk. In the monitor, Taguchi's room is shown. In the room, the same monitor can be seen, and vaguely they can identify the similar image within that monitor. The picture repeats itself endlessly. Taguchi also appears inside the image. His face is rather ambiguous, as if he doesn't exist anymore.
One day on her way back from her work, Michi sees a long-haired woman acting strangely. The woman puts a red rubber tape around every window frame and door of an abandoned apartment. Michi discusses this with Junco, her colleague at work, but could not figure out what is happening around them.
Kawashima is a twenty-one-year-old university student -- another typical Japanese guy. He lives alone in a small apartment, and gathers around with his friends. He just wants to feel a connection with people without getting into deep relationship. One day, he sets up a computer at home and tries to connect it to the Internet. Suddenly, the computer runs wild under it's own power and hits on a website. The monitor shows a dark room, though the picture is not clear. A message appears: "Would you like to meet a ghost?" Frustrated at this, Kawashima ignores the site and shuts the computer off.
At midnight, while Kawashima sleeps, the computer turns itself on and shows the same room again. A man with a black plastic bag over his head faces the monitor. The wall behind him is covered with the word "HELP." Kawashima wakes with a start and sees the monitor. The man is about to take the bag off his head when Kawashima yanks the cable from the computer. What is going on here?
The next day, Kawashima meets Harue at the university. She seems to know a lot about computers and is very excited to hear about the strange website. She asks Kawashima to find the site again and save its data. Meanwhile, Michi faces all kinds of weird phenomena. One night, the image on her television screen freezes and a news reporter's face melts. She sees the long-haired woman again standing very still on the roof of a building. The woman jumps and crashes to the ground. Michi's boss has been acting strange, too, as if he's addicted to something.
And that's not all. Michi's colleague Yabe's mobile phone rings. When he picks up, he hears a strange sound. It is not clear, but Yabe realizes the voice is that of dead Taguchi repeating the word "HELP," "HELP" in a low murmur. Yabe looks at his phone and sees Taguchi's room appearing in the monitor. Working at a home computer, Harue wants to connect to the ghost website, but Kawashima senses something terrible might happen, so he disconnects the cable. Kawashima has special feelings for Harue and doesn't want her to be in any danger. But she's already very addicted to the website and studies how she can encounter a ghost.
Kawashima meets a graduate student Yoshizaki at the university library. Yoshizaki starts to tell Kawashima his thoughts concerning ghosts and their connection to "our world." According to his hypothesis, nobody knows how it started, but the circuit between the two worlds is now connected, and the ghosts will be oozing into this world.
Michi's co-workers are trapped by this circuit one by one. First, Yabe, next, their boss, then Junco. After losing them all, she meets Kawashima. She tries to escape with him, but soon Kawashima too, is trapped by the ghost. The whole place has become like a real ghost town -- no people, no cars, nothing. But Michi does not give up. She takes Kawashima's hand and gets into a boat with him, saying, "I will not give up, I will save you."
DIRECTOR'S PROFILE
Born in 1955, Kiyoshi Kurosawa is a graduate of the sociology department of Rikkyo University. He began filmmaking in college with an 8mm camera, and won a prize at the 1980 Pia Film Festival. After working as an assistant director, Kurosawa made his debut as a commercial film director in 1983 with Kandagawa Warriors. His popularity increased with such films as The Excitement of the Do-Re-Mi-Fa Girl and The Guardian from Underground.
In 1992, Kurosawa was awarded the Sundance Institute Scholarship for his original film script Charisma and traveled to the United States for study in filmmaking. In 1997, he wrote and directed Cure which received international acclaim, appeared at the Cannes, Venice and Berlin Film Festivals, and was released in the United States by Cowboy Pictures in 2001 in conjunction with a touring retrospective of his works. Bright Future, his second film to be released in the U.S. was released by Palm Pictures in 2004.
Charmed - The Complete Third Season
Street Date: November 15, 2005
Actors: Holly Marie Combs, Alyssa Milano, Shannen Doherty, Brian Krause, Dorian Gregory
Genre: Drama, TV
Synopsis: Protecting the innocent, vanquishing evil and evil doers, and generally righting wrongs are not exactly on the agenda of every twenty-something on the fast track to discovering what life's all about. But for the Halliwell sisters, this has become their destiny. Prue, the oldest, is driven to succeed and dislikes the free-spirited antics of the youngest sister Phoebe. Piper, the earthy middle sister, mediates between her siblings. Phoebe discovers The Book of Shadows in the attic and their witchly powers are activated, igniting a bond that reaches beyond petty, sisterly grudges. Prue has the power to move objects, Piper to freeze time and Phoebe to see the future. The sisters must band together to protect themselves, and the world, from the dark, demonic forces that seek to destroy them. It's an existence fraught with excitement and danger, but these three unique sisters wouldn't trade their "charmed" lives for anything!
PRODUCT INFO:
Runtime: 952 min.
# of Discs: 6
US Rating: Not Rated
Canadian Rating: 14A - Not Recommended for Children. Frightening Scenes.
Chilling new sci-fi horror title is coming to theaters on December 9th.
FROM TAKASHI SHIMIZU THE DIRECTOR OF: JU-ON (THE GRUDGE)
MAREBITO
(works best with Internet Explorer)
SYNOPSIS:
Masuoka is a cameraman possessed by the craving to understand fear--what it is and where it ultimately leads. He wanders the Tokyo streets, a voyeur, hungrily looking for clues. Obsessing over the haunted expressions of the faces he has captured in his daily filming, in particular a man who committed a grisly suicide on the metro.
He returns to the scene to better comprehend the dead man's reasoning.
Following his final gaze leads Masuoka to a door, an entry into a bizarre, cavernous underworld. Here among the ghosts and the subterranean robots called DEROs he finds a beautiful young girl chained to a rock. Saving her from her imprisonment he takes her home.
But watching her from his web-cam at work each day he begins to suspect there is something truly inhuman about this girl with sharp teeth and who walks on all fours. When he begins to uncover her horrifying secrets Masuoka realizes that he has found the key to gaining the terrible knowledge he so craves...
Directed by
Takashi Shimizu
Starring
Shinya Tsukamoto
Tomomi Miyashita
ABOUT THE PRODUCTION
The Shaver Theory
Few people today remember Richard Shaver. In the late forties, though, Shaver created a stir with a story printed in Amazing Stories magazine. He claimed our world was honeycombed with huge underground caverns built long ago by aliens from another galaxy. When these beings fled to escape the radiation of our aging sun, their castoffs degenerated into evil dwarves Shaver called "dero," short for detrimental robots. These Dero still lived in the cave cities, according to Shaver, kidnapping surface-dwelling people for meat and using the fantastic "ray" machines that the great ancient races left behind to project tormenting thoughts and voices into our minds. Shaver insisted he'd visited these primeval caverns, and poured forth his exploits and assertions in a stream of stories and articles.
Between 1945 and 1949, letters poured in attesting to the truth of Shaver's claims (tens of thousands of letters, according to Amazing Stories editor Ray Palmer): the correspondents, too, had heard strange voices or encountered denizens of the hollow Earth. But many in the community of science fiction fans publicly condemn the Shaver Mystery as "the Shaver Hoax."
Strange Theories, Stranger Encounters
Richard Shaver isn't the only person to claim they have proof of underground cities and beings. People far more respected have made similar claims as well, including:
Jules Verne, Edgar Allan Poe, 17th century English astronomer Edmund Halley and others wrote about how planet Earth is a hollow sphere.
American authorities had prepared a special scientific mission in 18th and 19th centuries to explore the Earth's hollow depth.
The Nazis were very interested in the mysterious underground world. A top secret expedition was organized in 1942. Unfortunately, the outcome of the intrigue is not known.
In 1963, two American coal miners found a large door in a tunnel, behind which they discovered a marble stairway.
An English miner claims that he found a stairway to an underground well. A sound of machines became distinct from behind the well the closer he got, and he fled in fear. When he returned to the tunnel, there were no stairs and no entrance to the well.
In the late 1970's, an American satellite took very interesting photographs depicting a dark, regularly shaped spot on the North Pole. Similar pictures depicting the same dark spot on the pole were taken several years later.
During the exploration of a cave in Idaho, anthropologist James McKenna and other members of the expedition could hear screams as they were moving hundreds meters deep into the cave. As they continued to explore, the researchers found human skeletons but they had to stop their quest: the smell of brimstone was unbearable.
CAST BIOGRAPHIES
About Shinya Tskuamoto (Masuoka)
Before anyone in the west was familiar with the works of Takashi Miike or Hideo Nakata, Shinya Tsukamoto became the first new wave Japanese director to achieve global recognition, thanks to the worldwide acclaim for his amazing feature debut Tetsuo.
Born in Tokyo on January 1, 1960, Tsukamoto's film-making began at age 14 when his father bought him a super-8 camera. As a teenage auteur, he gained valuable exposure by persuading the TV show Ginza Now to show some of his films and also built a series of mobile cinemas to screen his films around Tokyo in 1979. The 8mm films became increasingly ambitious, with Jigokusho Shoben Geshuku Nite Tondayo running a massive two hours.
Tsukamoto's cinematic ambition was then put on hold for three years until 1982 when he graduated with a Fine Arts degree from Nihon University, having specialized in oil painting, after which he spent two years in an advertising agency before quitting to concentrate on film and theatre. He founded a fringe theatre troupe, Kaiju Theatre, whose most popular work was Denchu Kozo ('Electronic Rod Boy'). "It was a piece of science fiction," explained Tsukamoto. "The theatre itself became a sea monster." The play, which was heavily influenced by video games, was adapted into a 45-minute film the following year which won first prize at the Pia Film Festival in Japan.
Denchu Kozo and Tsukamoto's previous film, the 18-minute The Phantom of Regular Size both explored notions of bio-mechanical fetishism which would become a distinctive motif in the director's work, along with an avant-garde attitude to editing and composition. The fusion of man and machine came to a head with Tsukamoto's first true feature film, Tetsuo.
Shot in black and white on a mixture of 35mm and 16mm and only just scraping into the feature designation at a mere 67 minutes, Tetsuo is a startling film about an ordinary businessman (Tomorowo Taguchi) mutating into a terrifying cyborg. Packed with horrific and sexual imagery and even featuring some stop-motion animation, the whole film is set to a pounding industrial score by Chu Ishikawa. The influences/parallels are legion: David Lynch, David Cronenberg, JG Ballard, Sogo Ishii, HR Giger, Jan Svankmajer - not to mention stark lighting that harks back to classic Kurosawa movies and a bizarre science fiction story which reflects Tsukamoto's childhood passion for the classic TV series Ultra Q. The cast and crew were drawn largely from the Kaiju Theatre and the film's 13 million yen budget was largely financed out of the director's own pocket. Tsukamoto himself played the film's antagonist, a role simply credited as 'the fetishist.'
Tetsuo was a massive hit at festivals around the world and rapidly found video distribution in the west, successfully finding audiences among both art-house cinephiles and science fiction fans. Ironically, the film fared much better internationally than it did in Japan. Nevertheless it raised Tsukamoto's profile sufficiently for a major film production company, Shochiku, to approach him about working for them on what would be his most mainstream film, Hiruko the Goblin. "Even though I'd only made Tetsuo up to then, they let me have a lot of control," he said. "Although of course they didn't have that much faith in me at that point." Tsukamoto returned to more iconic ground with Tetsuo II, which explored similar themes to the first film without being an actual sequel, and again this was well received internationally. His directorial output then slowed down somewhat as he started to find work as an actor in other people's films. Tokyo Fist was a violent boxing drama, the first of three film in which the director starred with his brother Koji Tsukamoto, while the street violence of Bullet Ballet saw a return to gritty black and white photography. The lead characters in these films, played by Tsukamoto himself, still transformed into monsters, but the transformation in these films was psychological rather than physical. Although Tokyo Fist was an international hit and was widely shown, often double billed with a restored version of Denchu Kozo, Bullet Ballet has until now remained rarely seen outside of film festivals. Widely regarded as the director's most obtuse film, its inaccessability has only added to its cult reputation.
"Tokyo Fist and Bullet Ballet deal with the theme of the city versus flesh, the same theme as Tetsuo II," said Tsukamoto. "But they take completely different approaches."
His sixth feature, Gemini, was an atmospheric horror adapted from a story by revered Japanese author Edogawa Rampo which is most notable for being the subject of a 'making of' documentary by none other than Takashi Miike. Recently, A Snake of June was a return to the dark, oppressive, repulsive imagery of his earlier work and a film which Tsukamoto has been wanting to make for more than ten years. Shot in a blue-washed monochrome, this tale of a woman menaced by a stalker sharply divided critics.
2005 turned into Shinya Tsukamoto's breakout year in the U.S. His voyeuristic tale A Snake of June recently hit DVD shelves, and along with the re-release of Tetsuo: The Iron Man, Tartan Video plans to re-release Tetsuo II: Body Hammer and Tokyo Fist with all-new enhanced presentations and special features. Along with the theatrical release of Marebito in which he stars, Tartan Video will release Tsukamoto's acclaimed film Vital on DVD in January.
About Tomomi Miyashita (F)
Before Marebito, this up-and-coming beauty appeared in Mari Asato's Dokuritsu shôjo gurentai (Samurai Chicks) and is currently filming Issei Oda's Warau Michael, based on a manga of the same name, which is set for release in Japan in late 2005.
CREW BIOGRAPHIES
Takashi Shimizu
A native of Maebashi City, Japan, Shimizu studied drama at Kinki University before enrolling in film school in Tokyo; he subsequently found work as an assistant director in film and video as the millennium drew to a close. Enrolling in a night class in film production, the burgeoning filmmaker began studying under respected Japanese filmmaker Kiyoshi Kurosawa (whose films Cure and Kairo are considered modern Japanese horror classics by many genre fans). When it came time for the students to turn in their three-minute film at the end of the semester, the professor took a special shine to Shimizu's unusually frightening short. Impressively establishing a formidable air of dread within the restrictive confines of a brief running time, the film eventually resulted in Kurosawa introducing Shimizu to a Kansai-TV producer -- who just so happened to be preparing a 90-minute television horror anthology. Though the producer was indeed impressed with Shimizu's talent, the new director's lack of experience proved something of a complication, and instead of helming a 30-minute segment, he was asked to prepare two three-minute shorts for Gakkô No Kaidan G. The shorts offered something of a prequel to Shimizu's eventual Ju-On series, and in the following year, the director would compile numerous elements of multiple scripts he had written over the years into a frightening release for the lucrative Japanese straight-to-video market.
Released in early 2000, the original Ju-On terrified audiences with its clever use of misdirection, terrifying pale-skinned ghosts, and unearthly use of sound. A sequel was quick to follow later that same year, while the 2001 film Tomie: Rebirth (the third in a continuing series of film adaptations of Junji Ito's popular manga) offered Shimizu his feature debut.
By then, there was little question that Shimizu was competent in taking the reigns for a feature, with the obligatory film Ju-on: The Grudge (2003) serving as his sophomore theatrical release. Though it didn't open to the wild success that some may have expected or anticipated, its sequel, Ju-on: The Grudge 2 -- released later the same year -- offered enough scares to prove that the series still had potential for a lucrative franchise. When word arrived in 2003 that filmmaker Sam Raimi had acquired the rights to an American remake, with series founder Shimizu once again at the helm, anticipation for a seriously terrifying fright film shot to stratospheric levels among genre fans worldwide. The end result, The Grudge, ended up grossing $110M in the U.S. and was immediately green-lit for a sequel.
Shimizu is currently in wrapping up production on his latest film, Rinne, before starting work on Ju-On: The Grudge 3 and The Grudge 2, respectively.
Introducing a new book written with Spirit
Dr. Deborah Richmond Foulkes is releasing her third book on Reincarnation. Footprints of William is an exciting new approach to answering life's most intriguing and age-old question:
Do we return to live again...and why?
Dr. Richmond Foulkes is a Spiritual Medium and Reiki Master. She is also a recognized Historical Researcher. The author accumulated information 'disseminated from Spirit in a new way' and then meticulously compared her data with historic documents; medieval records held at the National Archives in England and Scotland.
Academic Research Validating Information from Spirit
After four years of intense research and study the author collected sufficient facts to validate the case for reincarnation and completed Footprints of William. Presented in the comfortable, straight-forward style of a journal, the compelling story is also a guide for others to follow the same path of discovery. An enjoyable read, the book includes as well a unique collection of images of Spirit Energy in color photographs with a Foreword by well known medium Robert Brown, author of We Are Eternal.
What others are saying about...
Footprints of William
"Do we survive death? What is the purpose of life? Will we see our loved ones again? And another question pondered by man for centuries...do we reincarnate? Deborah Foulkes pursues these quests finding that not only is reincarnation possible, but probable...and I would like to add, for many highly desirable!"
Robert Brown, International Medium, author of " We Are Eternal"
"Deborah Foulkes has done exciting and extensive research to prove her connection with her Spirit Guide over the centuries. The way he touched her heart and lives is an amazing story."
Rita Berkowitz, International Medium, Spirit Artist and author of "Empowering Your Life with Angels"
Ordering Information
Or through your favorite book store or online at amazon, barnes and noble or booksamillion.com
ISBN #1420826301
Complimentary Reading with Medium
First fifty to order from our website will receive a complimentary twenty minute reading with Spiritual Medium Dr. Deborah Richmond Foulkes...in person in Boston, over the phone or via email....a $50. value free for the first fifty people to purchase this new book...Footprints of William from our website.
THE TRIANGLE
LIONSGATE Home Entertainment proudly presents the DVD release of the exciting miniseries, THE TRIANGLE on March 28th, 2006.
THE TRIANGLE Synopsis:
Featuring an allstar cast including Eric Stoltz, Catherine Bell, Lou Diamond Phillips, Bruce Davison and Sam Neill, THE TRIANGLE offers a look into the dangerous truths behind one of the greatest legends of our time. Billionaire Eric Benirall (Sam Neill) is losing his cargo ships and their crews at a frightening pace and he wants answers. His handpicked team of subject-specific experts includes skeptical tabloid journalist Howard Thomas, ocean resource engineer Emily Patterson, scientist/adventurer Bruce Geller and psychic Stan Lathem. Recruited with the promise of unlimited funding for their research and the chance for once-in-a-lifetime riches, the team sets out to solve this most daunting of puzzles. Deepening the mystery are circumstances surrounding Meeno Paloma, a boat pilot who experienced the Triangle's deadly forces on a Greenpeace expedition and whose life has never been the same since. After a jetliner disappears over the Triangle, bizarre, unexplainable occurrences begin to affect each member of Benirall's team. When the government takes an alarming interest in their work, the four unlikely friends are drawn into something far more dangerous.
THE TRIANGLE originally aired on the Sci-Fi Channel in December 2005 and was the network's biggest event of the year.
DVD INFO:
Year of Production: 2005
Title Copyright: © 2005 Electric Holdings (Triangle), Inc.
Rights: Home Video
Territory: U.S. and Canada
Type: TV on DVD
Holdbacks: N/A
Rating: N/A
Genre: Thriller/Mystery
Closed Captioned: English Closed Captioning
Spanish Availability: Yes
Format: Widescreen
DVD Running Time: 270 minutes
DVD Audio Status: 5.1 and 2.0 Dolby Digital
DVD Special Features: Sci-Fi Inside: The Triangle
