It’s a weird SDCC for two of the darlings of indie horror, reports Alasdair Stuart.

Ti West ‘s X trilogy, The House of the Devil and The Innkeepers all stand as some of the best, most focused horror movies of the last couple of decades. He’s at SDCC this year promoting his Christmas Carol prequel/Johnny Depp career deep wash Ebenezer. It’s a mystifying move from West who’s been doing excellent work as a director on shows like The Resident, Poker Face and Apple TV giga hit Widow’s Bay. To tie his mainstream breakout to a figure so, and I’m being as nice as humanly possible here, divisive is bizarre and the trailer, such as it is, does absolutely nothing to convince me that this is a good use of anyone’s time. Even Depp’s. And even if it was, dropping Ebenezer, to camera, saying ‘It’s good to be back’ in there is a cheap shot that makes Depp and West look like bullies.

 

 

This is West’s first foray into the mainstream. His V/H/S directing compatriot Adam Wingard has been there a while and he’s done enormously (in every sense) fun work in Godzilla vs Kong and Godzilla X Kong: The New Empire. Now, as West is stepping into the mainstream, Wingard is going back to his routes, with Onslaught.

 

 

Adira Arjona plays a former sniper who has retired partly due to her PTSD and partly due to becoming a mom. As the trailer shows, she lives in the path of a military experiment gone very, very rogue. One she’s rather more familiar with than she’d like.

This looks enormous fun and we’ve discussed it before especially the possibility it’s a sequel to Wingard’s incredible The Guest. Wingard’s just appeared at SDCC and we’ve got a few more details too.

Firstly, the bad news. Horror’s favourite weird little guy, Dan Stevens, has confirmed he isn’t playing his character from The Guest.

The Guest changed my life,” he told the SDCC crowd. “It’s a special little movie, and I’m very fond of it; a lot of people are very fond of it … I think a lot of people have been waiting for a sequel to The Guest in some way, but this is, I’m sorry to say, not exactly a sequel, but it is a spiritual sequel. And as Adam says, it lives in the same universe, but I get the opportunity to play an even more insane character.”

Stevens loves working in horror and if you want to see what I suspect is a hint at his work here, watch the excellent Cuckoo.

He’s also confirmed, as Wingard has, that Onslaught takes place in the same town as The Guest. Also, the John Carpenter vibe in the trailer was not an accident.

“John Carpenter has always been the main influence for me. So I just got into this thing where I was making all these Godzilla movies, and the main way for me to unwind was just watching They Live three times a week. And it’s just, there’s something his movies do to me. It’s like magic. I just like the vibe … But I think with this film, out of Carpenter’s canon, Assault on Precinct 13, the original, was probably [the biggest influence].”

While I’m a little sad we aren’t getting Stevens’ unflappable, and terrifying, Guest character back, this sounds more fun the more we hear about it. Click through to the link for more coverage and do check out The Guest, It’s great.

 

SOURCE:

https://gizmodo.com/onslaught-is-a-spiritual-sequel-to-the-guest-2000790206

 

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