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EXCLUSIVE: Brainstorm Media has acquired U.S. rights to horror film Ravage from VMI, which is selling the pic at the virtual Cannes market.

Brit actress Annabelle Dexter-Jones (Succession), two-time Oscar-nominee Bruce Dern, and Robert Longstreet (The Old Man And The Gun) star in the film about a nature photographer (Dexter-Jones) who witnesses a violent crime while alone in the woods. After being captured by the culprits, she uses her survival skills to take them out one by one.

Brainstorm Media is planning to release the film in select theaters and VOD on August 21. The deal was negotiated by Michelle Shwarzstein and Steve Break for Brainstorm Media with J.D. Beaufils for VMI, on behalf of the filmmakers.

Written and directed by Teddy Grennan, the film had its world premiere at the 2019 Genre Blast Film Festival and went on to win Best Feature at the New York City Horror Film Festival in 2019. Producers are Marsha Oglesby, Bennett Krishock and Grennan.

“We’re thrilled to be working for the first time with VMI on Ravage and excited to bring a stylish, satisfying and gritty female-led horror film to U.S. audiences,” said Michelle Shwarzstein, Brainstorm Media’s Vice President of Marketing and Acquisitions.

“This will be the first of many partnerships with Brainstorm Media and we felt that Ravage was the perfect fit. Ravage is exciting, raw and Anabelle Dexter Jones is one of the best female protagonists that the audience will root for till the end.” – JD Beaufils, VMI’s President of Sales.

The film has also been sold to Signature Entertainment for UK, Phoenicia Pictures for Middle East, Korea Screen for South Korea and Falcon Pictures for Indonesia during virtual Cannes.

Certainly the new film Working Man wasn’t intended to be released at a time when unemployment is at or approaching its highest level since perhaps the Great Depression. With more than 33 million Americans newly out of work, factories continuing to close and other results of the coronavirus pandemic, this film takes on new urgency. But most importantl, it might inspire empathy toward those who are adding to these sad statistics on a daily basis by putting a human face on what is otherwise a number on a news report.

Allery Parkes (Peter Gerety) is an older worker at a plastics factory in a working-class Illinois town where just about everyone seems to be employed by the big companies — blue-collar lifers whose occupation is also who they are. It definitely is how Allery is defined, even as he is old enough to retire. When the factory shuts down and everyone loses their job, Allery doesn’t take it well; he begins returning every day, lunchbox and Thermos in tow, to the empty building where even the power is turned off. This confounds not only his former co-workers, who just watch as he marches through the neighborhood to the non-existent job, but also his devoted wife Iola (Talia Shire) who just can’t understand why he is doing this. Soon though he is joined by the uber-enthusiastic colleague Walter (Billy Brown) who not only takes charge but makes Allery’s quiet statement a crusade by also enlisting the rest of the workers to return to the building, sleeping bags with them, and stay there until they finish the job they had started as a way to guarantee they will be paid. Can they turn it all around? Well, it’s complicated, as Allery finds.

As things are revealed about Walter as well as why the factory really shut down, the situation begins to change things in a big way. In addition to all this, the poignant and pertinent script by writer-director Robert Jury hits a sad moment in Allery and Iola’s marriage as they still deal with the tragic death of their only son.

Jury’s film is reminiscent of the collective work of the great British director Ken Loach, whose cinematic career frequently has been directed at the plight of the working man in England. Now here’s an American director who has brought it much closer to home. This is a promising feature debut, to be sure.

For those going through the heartache of having your whole world suddenly turned upside down, take heart: This film is not a total downer and even offers hope. It is memorable in many ways, but first and foremost as a showcase for some fine actors who don’t get leads in movies these days. Gerety, a recognizable actor from many films and TV shows including as last season’s key villain in Ray Donovan, is simply superb, saying more with one facial expression than many actors can do with 20 pages of dialogue. Shire again proves what a fine actress she is, underplaying emotions buried inside, instead putting faith in her weekly Bible studies. Also just excellent is Brown (How to Get Away with Murder), how has perhaps the showier role and delivers on all cylinders. These are the three main actors, but there is terrific support all around in this film which defines what smart independent moviemaking is all about.

It would be powerful material to absorb at almost any time, but that we have it right now is particularly heartening and important.

Producers are Clark Peterson, Maya Emelle, Lovell Holder, and Jury. Released through Brainstorm Media It is currently available on VOD and digital platforms. Check out my video review with scenes from the movie at the link above.

Do you plan to see Working Man? Let us know what you think.

The Naomi Watts thriller ‘The Wolf Hour’ has been acquired by Brainstorm Media after screening at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival. The movie, set during the 1977 New York City blackout, is set for a fall theatrical release.

The Naomi Watts thriller The Wolf Hour has been acquired by Brainstorm Media, which nabbed the North American rights.

A fall 2019 theatrical release is planned for Alistair Banks Griffin’s psychological thriller, which also stars Jennifer Ehle, Kelvin Harrison Jr., Emory Cohen, Jeremy Bobb and Brennan Brown.

Set in July 1977 in New York during a citywide blackout that is triggering fires, looting and countless arrests, and the Son of Sam murders that are riddling the city with panic. June (Watts), once a celebrated counterculture figure, attempts to retreat from the chaos by shutting herself inside the yellowed walls of her grandmother’s South Bronx apartment.

“Naomi Watts gives a riveting performance in this tense thriller. We are very excited to bring this movie to U.S. theaters nationwide,” Michelle Shwarzstein, vp marketing and acquisitions for Brainstorm Media, said Wednesday in a statement.

The Wolf Hour screened at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival in its Next section, with Watts executive producing.

Brian Kavanaugh-Jones, Bailey Conway Anglewicz and Bradley Pilz produced.

CAA Media Finance negotiated the deal on behalf of the filmmakers. HanWay Films is handling international sales and distribution.

“Kathy Griffin: A Hell of a Story,” a documentary comedy from the star comedian, has sold to Brainstorm Media for a special theatrical release this summer, Variety has learned.

The movie will play in U.S. theaters on July 31, for a one-night special event. Fathom Events is a partner on the deal, and Griffin will join audiences for a live Q&A following the film.

“A Hell of a Story,” which is directed by Troy Miller, premiered at SXSW in March to strong reviews. The film takes place at the end of Griffin’s recent “Laugh Your Head Off” tour, where she discusses the fallout from a controversial 2017 photograph where she posed with a fake severed head that looks like it belonged to Donald Trump.

As a result of the picture, which Griffin meant as a joke, she was blacklisted by Hollywood. She stopped getting job offers in movies and TV. And even worse, she underwent lengthy federal investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice and the Secret Service on suspicion of conspiracy to assassinate the president.

Griffin self-financed and produced the film herself. The theatrical version of the film is a different cut than what audiences saw at SXSW. It include documentary footage interspersed with her onstage comedy.

“I am so excited to be announcing my first-ever theatrical release,” said Griffin in a statement. “I’m honored to be given the opportunity to showcase my comedy and the raw behind-the-scenes-footage of the last two years. The film pulls back the curtain for a gritty, unapologetic look at this era of cultural chaos and Trumpism. You’re going to hear things in this film you’ve never heard before—and it’s funny as hell.”

By Jennifer Szalai May 16, 2019

In “We Have Always Lived in the Castle,” a playfully arch and unsettling film based on Shirley Jackson’s 1962 novel, there’s nobody obvious to root for; everyone is dour, foolish, phony or deranged. Possibly even murderous. Under Stacie Passon’s precise direction, this gothic fable of isolation and violence expertly treads a fine line between tragedy and camp.

Merricat (Taissa Farmiga), still childlike at 18, lives in the cavernous Blackwood family chateau with her older sister, Constance (Alexandra Daddario), and their sickly Uncle Julian (a reliably furtive Crispin Glover). The girls’ parents died several years ago after eating a suspicious meal that left Uncle Julian debilitated and the sisters shunned. Constance, unfailingly coifed and composed, makes do as a dutiful homemaker, baking pies and canning fruit with a glistening smile plastered on her pretty face. A skulking, slouching Merricat endures the taunts of the townspeople when she makes weekly trips for provisions, rushing home to bury trinkets in the castle’s enormous garden and casting protective spells.

The sisters take care of each other; they cuddle in bed and fantasize about living on the moon, which hangs outside of Merricat’s window like a cartoon cutout. Their home is full of lush fabrics, gorgeous wallpaper and a worrying number of candles. (Piers McGrail’s cinematography makes the tableaus look like twisted photo spreads from Life magazine.) Farmiga’s Merricat speaks in a clipped cadence that sounds both creepy and competent; her knowledge of mushroom toxicology is troublingly comprehensive. Uncle Julian silently glides into the frame in his wheelchair, suddenly reciting cryptic lines from the family history he’s writing. Constance tends to the house in what appears to be a state of willful oblivion, looking cheerful and stunned.

The delicate balance of the household is upended with the arrival of Charles (Sebastian Stan), a dashing cousin who seems helpful at first but whose authoritarian streak reveals itself when he takes an aggressive interest in Merricat’s buried treasures and starts calling Constance “Connie.” (Having him chug milk from the carton is also a nice touch.) Like the jeering men in the town, Charles turns out to be an entitled patriarch; under every languid grin lies a leer and a smirk.

Mark Kruger’s screenplay isn’t subtle, but then neither is Jackson’s novel — a sharp, demented fairy tale in which the women live happily ever after despite the men, rather than because of them. The outside world is cruel, capricious, inhospitable; only when the sisters lock themselves inside their crumbling castle can they truly be free.

We Have Always Lived in the Castle

Director Stacie Passon

Writer Mark Kruger

Stars Patrick Joseph Byrnes, Una Carroll, Peter Coonan, Joanne Crawford, Alexandra Daddario

Running Time 1h 30m

Genres Drama, Mystery, Thriller

Adapted from Shirley Jackson’s 1962 mystery novel, We Have Always Lived in the Castle (out May 17) stars Taissa Farmiga as Merricat Blackwood, who lives with her sister Constance (Alexandra Daddario) and her Uncle Julian (Crispin Glover). The trio are survivors of an arsenic poisoning that killed everyone else in the family five years prior. Merricat is bold and imaginative, and protects the property with “spells”. Despite being hated by the townspeople, the sisters live an idyllic life, until cousin Charles (Sebastian Stan) arrives. Charles offers to help around the house, and inquires about the family’s finances. Constance is charmed by Charles, and Merricat resents Charles’ intrusion. As Charles and Merricat battle for control, tragedy threatens to strike again.

“I read Castle first when I was in high school,” said filmmaker Stacie Passon in her director’s statement. “It is smart, suspenseful, dark satire. The story, narrated by an 18-year-old sociopathic girl named Merricat Blackwood, is a rich mix of American political and social commentary. The themes of isolation, gender, class warfare seem even more relevant today.”

We Have Always Lived in the Castle is released in theaters and on VOD, May 17.

Exclusively watch the film’s trailer above.

Some of horror’s most memorable movies happened because the filmmakers had access to a great location: like a shopping mall or an abandoned hospital. In the case of Matthew and Tori Butler-Hart’s supernatural thriller “The Isle,” it was the remote Scottish island of Eilean Shona.

Co-written and co-produced by the married Butler-Harts — and directed by Matthew — “The Isle” follows the plight of three mid-19th century shipwrecked sailors, who make their way to a tiny island, cloaked in mist. There they meet the four residents: the gregarious Fingal (Dickon Tyrrell), the standoffish Douglas (Conleth Hill), his niece Lanthe (Tori Butler-Hart), and the roving madwoman, Korrigan (Alex Wilton Regan).

The three seamen (played by Alex Hassell, Graham Butler and Fisayo Akinade) quickly realize the islanders won’t make it easy for them to leave. There are no boats to ferry them home; and a mysterious wailing appears whenever they even think about escaping.

“The Isle” isn’t especially scary. It’s more of an adventure/mystery, as the heroes keep pressing their hosts — at the risk of their own lives — for more information about where they are, and about what happened to the people who used to lived there.

But the picture’s a pleasure to watch throughout, largely because of Eilean Shona. The Butler-Harts built their story around the place, and don’t squander any of the spectacular scenery. This island looks like something from a dark fairy tale — so that’s exactly what the filmmakers have made.

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‘The Isle’

Not rated

Running time: 1 hour, 36 minutes

Playing: Starts Feb. 8, Laemmle Glendale, Glendale; also on VOD

CRITIC’S PICK

Gentle, wistful and often quite beautiful, Bruce Thierry Cheung’s “Don’t Come Back From the Moon” is a dreamlike meditation on abandoned children and dying locations.

Set amid the arid emptiness of California’s Salton Sea, its almost alien landscape in perfect harmony with the movie’s title, the filament of story unfolds through the teenage eyes and low-key narration of Mickey (Jeffrey Wahlberg). His small community, he tells us, was once a holiday destination, but the lake is shrinking and the last factory has closed. Now men are leaving, slinking off into the night without explanation — except for one, whose exit note says he has gone to the moon.

Trailer: ‘Don’t Come Back From the Moon’CreditCreditVideo by Brainstorm Media Mickey’s father (a briefly seen James Franco) is the latest to depart, leaving Mickey to worry about his quietly devastated mother (a wonderfully subdued Rashida Jones), and his younger brother (Zackary Arthur). The bond between the siblings, and among their similarly deserted friends, is the one emotional constant in a movie that weaves pain and anger and sorrow into a haunting mood of unresolved yearning.

Adapting Dean Bakopoulos’s 2005 novel, Cheung fashions a sense that time has stopped and lives are suspended — until fathers come home, or prosperity returns. Children forced too soon to become adults act out and draw inward in scenes that some may find aimless and metaphorically strained. Yet the movie’s emotional potency is undeniable, its slow crescendo of wounded feelings and shimmering photography leaving unexpected imprints on the eyes and heart.

Don’t Come Back from the Moon NYT Critic’s Pick

An exasperatingly slick documentary with a charismatic subject, “Team Khan” follows two years in the rise of British-born Muslim boxer Amir Khan, a dashing champion chasing the ultimate test of greatness: a match against the likes of a Floyd Mayweather or Manny Pacquiao.

Directors Blair Macdonald and Oliver Clark secured great access across training sessions, photo-ops, moments with wife Faryal and their 2-year-old daughter, and spirited get-togethers in gray suburban Northwest England with his extended Punjabi clan. If “Team Khan” offers any insight as it aggressively packages him with the familiar tropes of verité sports-doc portraiture, it’s how the closeness of Khan’s relatives — many of whom work for him — keep him grounded behind that high-wattage smile and disciplined drive to make the most of his lightning quick blows.

Built around a few key bouts in Las Vegas and New York meant to set him up for that hoped-for call to challenge a legend, the directors’ “Rocky”-ish approach has its upside (Khan is easy to root for) and downside (is this a film or a commercial?). There are also side trips to cement his philanthropic bona fides, including a trip to Pakistan to show support after 2014’s Peshawar school massacre, and a visit to his ancestral village. If your taste for athletic snapshots has tired of tales of the troubled, Khan’s at least smoothly offers someone as comfortable being a Muslim hero and family man as he is a fast-jabbing contender.

A Father’s Nightmare makes Lifetime history with not one, not two but THREE endings! Vivica A. FOX stars in two new movies and August brings all new thrills that are sure to keep the end of summer as hot as the beginning!

To be a part of history and vote for the alternate ending YOU want to see - watch the first airing of A Father’s Nightmare on July 22nd on Lifetime. To see if your ending was chosen, watch the second airing on July 27th on Lifetime Movie Network. Reeling from the recent death of his wife, Matt (Joel Gretsch, Push, The Vampire Diaries) sends his daughter Lisa (Kaitlyn Bernard, 1922) off to college, where she falls under the spell of her older, more mature roommate, Vanessa (Jessica Lowndes, 90210, A Deadly Adoption). As Vanessa’s manipulation sets Lisa on a downward spiral, Lisa and Matt grow further apart, while her dependence on Vanessa deepens. But, will Matt figure out what’s really going on before it’s too late? A Father’s Nightmare, presented by Brainstorm Media and WIN is produced by Sepia Films. Meyer Shwarzstein and Larry Gershman executive produce, Tina Pehme and Kim C Roberts produce, Vic Sarin serves as director and Shelley Gillen as writer.