The Fantastic Pavilion presents a weekly recap with the most relevant news about the world of genre cinema.
News
Sony Pictures shared the international trailer for Legends of the Condor Heroes: The Gallants (2025), the most recent movie from legendary Hong Kong director Tsui Hark. The epic is set to hit select U.S. theaters on February 21.
Official synopsis: “Under Genghis Khan, the Mongolian army pushes west to destroy the Jin Dynasty, setting its sights on the Song Dynasty next. Amid internal conflicts among martial arts schools, Guo Jing unites the Central Plains’ warriors to defend Xiangyang, embodying courage and loyalty in the fight for the nation.”
There’s a brand new trailer for Karan Kandhari’s Sister Midnight (2024), winner of the Best Picture award in the Next Wave category at the 2024 Fantastic Fest. The film – for which Interpol’s Paul Banks composed the soundtrack – will be unleashed in U.S. cinemas in May (via Magnet Releasing).
Synopsis: “Rebellious small-town misfit Uma (Radhika Apte) arrives in Mumbai to find herself totally unsuited to life as a housewife. At odds with her prying neighbors and under the constant oppressive noise and heat of the city, she decides to break free from the shackles of domesticity and follow her own path in this bold, unpredictable, and darkly funny debut.”
The violent and fun cat-and-mouse thriller Wake Up (2023) is finally heading to U.S. and Canada theaters on April 4, thanks to Blue Fox Entertainment. The flick was directed by RKSS, the Canadian filmmaking team that burst onto the genre scene with Turbo Kid (2015). To learn more about Wake Up, you can watch its new trailer and also read our 2023 interview with its directors (Yoann-Karl Whissell, Anouk Whissell and François Simard), conducted by Eric Ortiz.
Another remake of the classic Silent Night, Deadly Night (1984) is coming soon. Deadline reported that this project is “slated for a late 2025 theatrical release.” Mike P. Nelson will direct the slasher, while Cineverse – the company that distributed Terrifier 3 (2024) – will release it in North America.
According to Variety, Reflection in a Dead Diamond (Reflet dans un diamant mort, 2025) – the latest feature from Hélène Cattet and Bruno Forzani (Amer, Let the Corpses Tan) – has found a distributor in Shudder. The streaming platform got the rights for North America, the UK, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand. Reflection in a Dead Diamond premieres at the Berlinale on February 16.
Here’s the synopsis that was published on the Berlinale’s site: “John is 70 years old and lives in solitary luxury in a grand hotel on the Côte d’Azur. He becomes intrigued by the woman in the room next door who reminds him of his wild years on the Riviera in the 1960s, back when he was a debonair international spy in a world brimming with peril and promise. But when the woman mysteriously disappears, John is beset by flashbacks – or perhaps fantasies – of his glamorous and grotesque past, and the alluring women and dastardly villains who lived and died there. With imagery that pays affectionate homage to the 1960s Eurospy genre and is tinged with playful gore, John’s reality becomes fragmented as he seeks to unravel the puzzle of his past. Memory, madness and moviemaking become increasingly difficult to separate. Are his old enemies back to wreak havoc on his idyllic life? Are there yet more conspiracies and treacheries waiting to be unmasked? Or has he simply been bewitched by the beautiful and dangerous lure of escapist cinema itself?”
John Gore Studios announced the production of Ithaqua, a horror flick that will be presented under the Hammer Films label. Directed by Casey Walker, Ithaqua is in fact being sold as the movie that “will introduce the first new Hammer monster in 60 years.”
Synopsis: “Set in 1800s Canada, the film sees the British survivors of a remote trade outpost plagued by an ancient evil that leaves its victims with an insatiable hunger for flesh.”
Home video
Severin Films presented their second Blu-ray box set inspired by Kier-La Janisse’s book House of Psychotic Women, which is a “topography of female neurosis in horror and exploitation films.” This set includes four pictures: Michael Winterbottom’s Butterfly Kiss (1995), Juraj Herz’s Morgiana (1972), Ben Maddow, Sidney Meyers and Joseph Strick’s The Savage Eye (1959), and Eloy de la Iglesia’s The Glass Ceiling (El techo de cristal, 1971). It’ll arrive on May 27.