ANTLERS

Searchlight Pictures provided ageekdaddy.com with the movie ANTLERS for free to review

Bring some horror to your holidays with ANTLERS. No this isn't a horror movie about a rampaging reindeer but rather the creepy tale of a Wendigo. Acclaimed director Scott Cooper and monster maestro Guillermo del Toro bring to life a multi-dimensional terror experience with ANTLERS from Searchlight Pictures. This horror-thriller is available now on Digital and will be out on Blu-ray and DVD at retailers beginning January 4, 2022.  

The myth of the dreaded “wendigo” comes to shocking life in this terrifying horror thriller. When a small-town Oregon teacher (Keri Russell) and her brother (Jesse Plemons), the local sheriff, seek to help a troubled young boy who possesses a strange secret, the consequences are more dreadful than they could have possibly imagined. ANTLERS is rated R by the Motion Picture Association of America for violence including gruesome language and language.

The great thing about home entertainment video releases is you can count on them including bonus content along with the featured presentation. You will want to check these out after watching the movie:

• The Evil Within – Co-writer/director Scott Cooper gives us a glimpse of the many complex layers at play in his approach to making Antlers, a horror film about very human concerns, and his most ambitious film to date. 
• An Exploration of Modern Horror with Guillermo del Toro – Producer Guillermo del Toro traces the lineage of elevated horror in cinema. Employing his encyclopedic knowledge and passion for the horror genre, he discusses the connection between mythology and human behavior. 
• Artifacts and Totems – The filmmakers discuss how they created this world of a small, tight-knit Northwest community of working-class Americans in bringing Scott Cooper’s vision to life.
•  Gods Walk Among Us – An in-depth exploration of the digital and practical effects used to create the film’s primal creatures. 
• Cry of the Wendigo – Discover the fascinating folklore behind the wendigo from the film’s First Nations consultants. Learn about the creature’s mythic origins and about its connection to man’s betrayal of the land. 
• Metamorphosis – At the center of Antlers is a transformative performance by Scott Haze. Hear about the actor’s preparation for filming, including how he lost some 70 pounds in order to play a deeply tragic character. 
• Comic-Con @ Home with Scott Cooper and Guillermo del Toro – Steve Weintraub moderates this candid Comic-Con@Home 2020 Panel interview with Guillermo del Toro and Scott Cooper. Hear the filmmakers describe their process and learn who some of their filmmaking heroes are.

ANTLERS will give viewers the feeling of going on a night-time romp through a dark woods which is both dangerous and eerily exciting. Taking a lesser-known Native American mythology to create a modern-day nightmare, ANTLERS has you following a path of entrails to its conclusion. If you are squeamish this may not be the movie for you; but if you are geeked about jump out of your shoes scares ANTLERS is a movie to be geeked about. 

Enjoy the Halloween Season - Take the Family to THE BOOK OF LIFE at the Movie Theater

I've been enjoying watching the new breakout hit television show THE STRAIN by filmmaker Guillermo Del Toro on the cable channel FX the last few weeks which is a really edge of your seat drama that is for vampires what THE WALKING DEAD is for zombies.  The Strain is way to gory and intense for children to view but Guillermo Del Toro has also produced a new animated feature film that will begin playing at movie theaters on October 17th just in time for Halloween called THE BOOK OF LIFE that is an animated movie you can be comfortable taking the family to for a spooky good time.

THE BOOK OF LIFE (rated PG) is a vibrant fantasy-adventure telling the legend of Manolo, a conflicted hero and dreamer who sets of on an epic quest through magical, mythical and wondrous worlds in order to rescue his one true love and defend his village.  This movie directed by Jorge Guttierrez features the voices of Channing Tatum, Zoe Saldana, Diego Luna, Ron Perlman, Ice Cube, and Danny Trejo.

UPDATE:  STEPHANIE G. from Dover, Arkansas is the winner of our THE BOOK OF LIFE Giveaway. Congrats Stephanie!

To promote the theatrical release of THE BOOK OF LIFE we have been given a prize pack from the movie to provide one luck A GEEK DADDY blog reader.  The prize consists of a $25 VISA gift card to use towards taking your family to go see THE BOOK OF LIFE and a mini guitar and keepsake box from Cost Plus World Market.

To enter to win this prize pack:

ENTRY #1:  E-mail thegeekdaddy [at] yahoo [dot] com your name and mailing address with the subject line THE BOOK OF LIFE.

ENTRY # 2:  For a second entry follow A GEEK DADDY BLOG on Google+.  Your Google+ account name must be included in your ENTRY #1 e-mail  for your second entry to count.

All valid entries will be assigned a number and one random entry will be chosen to receive the  prize pack. You must be a US resident to enter over the age of 18.  For a chance to win submit your entries before Sunday, October 12, 2014 @ 11:59pm EST.  A random winner will be selected on Monday, October  13. A Geek Daddy Blog will be responsible for selecting the winner of this contest, but Big Honcho Media is responsible for providing the prize and its delivery to the winner.  By participating in this contest you waive any liability towards A Geek Daddy Blog or its publisher that may arise from your involvement with this promotion.  Only one entrant per mailing address per A GEEK DADDY BLOG giveaway.  If you have won the same prize on another blog, you will not be eligible to win again.  Winner is subject to eligibility verification.  P.O. Boxes are not allowed as mailing addresses for this contest.  E-mail addresses will only be used to notify the winner and will be deleted at the conclusion of this promotion.

While you are waiting for THE BOOK OF LIFE to hit theaters enjoy some free movie themed mini-games by CLICKING HERE.  Follow @BookofLifeMovie on Twitter and share with everyone your high score.

 

For more information about the movie, visit www.bookoflifemovie.com

If you don't win the prize pack, the items included in it are available for purchase on Cost Plus World Market's website and at its stores.  Cost Plus World Market has several exclusive THE BOOK OF LIFE toys inspired by the film available online and at stores including a colorful Tin Keepsake Box, Guitar, Maracas, Manolo Rubber Duck Bath Toy, and Kaleidoscope.

DISCLAIMER:  In addition to awarding a prize pack to the winner of this contest, Big Honcho Media also provided A GEEK DADDY Blog with a prize pack as part of the blog's participation in this promotion.

New Vampire Horror Series will try to Thrill TV Viewers on FX Cable Network

THE STRAIN has gone full circle now.  Originally created as an outline for a television series pitch by filmmaker Guillermo del Toro when no networks picked it up for a pilot the idea was transformed into a trilogy of New York Times Best Seller books and a comic book series.  Now the cable network FX has picked up THE STRAIN for a 3 season run with the first episode airing on Sunday July 13th at 10pm ET/PT.

The first episode of the show starts with a plane landing at JFK airport than going dark and silent.  When it is boarded, all of the passengers are found dead and the Center for Disease Control is brought in to investigate as authorities fear this tragedy was caused by a viral outbreak on board the flight.  The CDC sends their top investigator Ephraim Goodweather (played by Corey Stoll - Congressman Peter Russo in the first season of Netflix's House of Cards drama) to find out what is going on.  Goodweather is stumped as it appears the cause of the trouble appears to originate from a mysterious giant coffin filled with soil and worms found in the plane's cargo hold.  The infection quickly jumps from the plane to the airport to New York City.  Turns out though it isn't a virus but rather a vampire infestation that is the cause of this plague.

Season one's 13 episodes of THE STRAIN will be based on the first novel and tells the story of the eight days in which the outbreak first surfaces and infects New York City.  The main characters are similar to the ones from the novels and comic books, the CDC expert, an elderly pawn shop owner who encountered the vampires as a child in World War II era Europe, and a pest exterminator who encounters this new vampire infestation while on the job.  The show throws in a computer hacker character not from the books and comics to slightly differentiate the show's scripts from the prose. These four characters team together to tackle the Master, one of seven ancient vampires, who is responsible for bringing the strain to New York City.  What is the Master's grand plan and how does a rich industrialist lurking in the shadows play into it?

Watch THE STRAIN on FX to find out!

Oh, one other note to mention!  These vampires aren't the ones of Buffy the Vampire, Dracula, True Blood, The Twilight Saga that look like normal humans who need to avoid the sun, rather they are more like the Reapers from the movie Blade II (directed by del Toro) that have three-way jaws with leach like suckers that shoot out of their faces and bodies that are grotesque.  Like The Walking Dead this is not a show you want to allow children to watch!

THE STRAIN INFECTS FX IN JULY

A few years before Guillermo del Toro directed the recent summer SciFi blockbuster PACIFIC RIM, he co-wrote with Chuck Hogan a vampire horror novel titled  THE STRAIN which reached the NEW YORK TIMES Bestseller List in 2009.  Dark Horse comics adapted the novel to a comic book series in 2011 and now the story is coming to the small screen with the cable channel FX (home to American Horror Story, The Americans & Sons of Anarchy ) airing a television show based on del Toro's novel starting in July 2014.

Picture a stormy night at JFK airport with the wind whipping and lighting crashing.  A plane routinely lands but than just stops dead on the tarmac.  All the shades on its windows are drawn down, the lights are off, and no one is answering its radio.  In addition, to SWAT and counter-terrorism units being brought in to address the situation, a crack team from the CDC (Center for Disease Control) is called in to help ascertain the situation.  This is how THE STRAIN begins.

The plane is the beginning of a vampire infestation of New York City.  These aren't the glamorized vampires of Dracula lore though but rather grotesque mutated monsters that really put the "horror" into the vampire myth.  If you've seen the mutated vampires in the movie BLADE 2, which del Toro also happened to direct, you get the picture.  If not check out the great artwork in Dark Horse's STRAIN comic books for some great visuals.  The book and TV show will revolve around how the CDC tackles this vampire epidemic.

Unlike Dracula and other vampire stories that provide a mystical element for the origin and creation of these creatures of the night, THE STRAIN takes a scientific approach to explaining them.  The vampires are infected by parasitic worms that carry a virus that is passed on to humans causing them to mutate.  The worms are introduces to a person's body through a vampire's feeding or through it entering on its own in an invasive manner through a wound or orifice.  The worms feed off of blood and as they do that they transmit an incurable vampire virus transforming the victim.

 
These vampires develop "stingers" that shoot out of their mouths to lach onto their human prey and suck out their blood.  If the vampire doesn't kill their prey through feeding on them than the person is infected by worms that make their way into their body during the feeding infecting them with the virus and turning them into vampires too.  The vampires in the strain also lose their hair and fingernails, while gaining sharp talons and a hard skin covering for protection.  Not the most glamorous of characters are they but pretty creepy.

If you enjoy THE WALKING DEAD, you will probably enjoy THE STRAIN.  Here's a teaser trailer from FX for this new show:

For more information, about FX'S THE STRAIN visit:  http://www.fxnetworks.com/thestrain