When you think of the festival season, the movies that come to mind are usually prestige pictures. You know, the kind of movies that come from highly regarded auteurs, films that are yearning for Oscar glory and critical raves. Fall 2017 will have no shortage of those kinds of projects, as the trifecta of Venice, Telluride, and Toronto will see the premiere of things like Joe Wright's Darkest Hour, Martin McDonagh's Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, and Alexander Payne's Downsizing, just to name a few. I can't wait to see all of these films, and I'm sure that they'll live up to my high hopes. But there's one unique movie that is subverting our expectations of the "Fall Festival Film," hoping to smash our brains in and deliver some gory genre thrills as a break from all that class and prestige. Of course, I'm talking about S. Craig Zahler's Brawl in Cell Block 99. Zahler burst onto the scene with Bone Tomahawk, a beloved Western-cannibal mash-up that I regrettably still have not seen. His second feature debuted at the Venice Film Festival hours ago, and judging by the reaction, we're in for a treat. Earlier this week, the first trailer for the film hit the web, giving us a taste of what's to come- watch it below!
This is a weird trailer, and after hearing about how gnarly this film was going to be for months, I responded to this clip with a bit of a shrug. Despite Bone Tomahawk's success, Zahler is still working outside the studio system here, and while we can debate the merits of mainstream Hollywood all day, I think it's a fairly solid conclusion that they cut better trailers. This certainly looks like an intriguing, well-shot film based on this first look, but it doesn't give me enough to automatically hook me. Nonetheless, I'm willing to overlook a mediocre trailer due to a myriad of other factors, mainly the reactions that came out of Venice today. Shortly after seeing the film, Alex Billington tweeted "Holy f**k. Ain't nobody messin with Vince Vaughn. Slow burn, brutal, violent as f**k, with the most satisfying end." One Room with a View chipped in to say that the film is "unbelievably violent, strange, and funny," while TIFF's Midnight Madness Twitter account noted that it has "THE most indelible gore gag since GREEN ROOM." On a related note, Midnight Madness programmer Peter Kuplowsky (taking over for TIFF legend Colin Geddes) took the unprecedented step of scheduling Brawl to start before midnight, claiming that the insanity of the film doesn't really kick in until halfway through. Thus, when midnight hits, Brawl will reach its peak. All of this leads me to believe that we're gonna get something really special here- especially the Green Room comparison, as that Jeremy Saulnier thriller is perhaps my favorite midnight movie of the decade.
Brawl in Cell Block 99 will hit theaters on October 6, with a VOD release set for October 13. Look for more excited reactions after next week's TIFF premiere.
Sources: Twitter, The Playlist
Image: Coming Soon
This is a weird trailer, and after hearing about how gnarly this film was going to be for months, I responded to this clip with a bit of a shrug. Despite Bone Tomahawk's success, Zahler is still working outside the studio system here, and while we can debate the merits of mainstream Hollywood all day, I think it's a fairly solid conclusion that they cut better trailers. This certainly looks like an intriguing, well-shot film based on this first look, but it doesn't give me enough to automatically hook me. Nonetheless, I'm willing to overlook a mediocre trailer due to a myriad of other factors, mainly the reactions that came out of Venice today. Shortly after seeing the film, Alex Billington tweeted "Holy f**k. Ain't nobody messin with Vince Vaughn. Slow burn, brutal, violent as f**k, with the most satisfying end." One Room with a View chipped in to say that the film is "unbelievably violent, strange, and funny," while TIFF's Midnight Madness Twitter account noted that it has "THE most indelible gore gag since GREEN ROOM." On a related note, Midnight Madness programmer Peter Kuplowsky (taking over for TIFF legend Colin Geddes) took the unprecedented step of scheduling Brawl to start before midnight, claiming that the insanity of the film doesn't really kick in until halfway through. Thus, when midnight hits, Brawl will reach its peak. All of this leads me to believe that we're gonna get something really special here- especially the Green Room comparison, as that Jeremy Saulnier thriller is perhaps my favorite midnight movie of the decade.
Brawl in Cell Block 99 will hit theaters on October 6, with a VOD release set for October 13. Look for more excited reactions after next week's TIFF premiere.
Sources: Twitter, The Playlist
Image: Coming Soon
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