What's next? "You're Next", that's what

That's the setup of "You're Next", a darkly comic slasher-thriller by indie director Adam Wingard. Premiering to much acclaim at the 2011 Toronto International Film Festival, critical reception for this ultra-violent home-invasion thriller has been pretty positive, placing it in the ranks of other top-flight horror flicks that have performed well this season such as “The Purge” and “The Conjuring”.

 

Also opening

_ “Elysium” – "District Nine" director Neill Blomkamp returns with more social commentary set against a futuristic dystopian backdrop. He's got a muscle-bound Matt Damon this time around, along with “District Nine” star Sharlto Copley in a villain role and Jodie Foster as the big-bad. Read more about it at left.

 

_ "Diana" – Critics have been underwhelmed by this biopic that recounts the final years of the Princess of Wales. Naomi Watts stars as the fragile princess, and it focuses mainly on her relationship with a British-Pakistani surgeon (Naveen Andrews). It then moves on to increased tabloid pressure and her being wooed aboard a yacht by tycoon Dodi Fayed as the shutters click. It's based Kate Snell's 2001 book “Diana: Her Last Love” and is directed by Oliver Hirschbiegel, best known for “Downfall”, the movie responsible for all those “Hitler reacts” videos on the Internet.

 

_ “Namaste Hello Byebye” – Suchart Manaying stars in this spiritual road-trip comedy as a young woman who is laid off from her job. She joins a Buddhist pilgrimage that is part of the Sathien Dhammasathan Centre's Bhikkhuni in Two Lands project, which ordains girls at the birthplace of Buddhism in India and Nepal.

 

_ “Phata Poster Nikla Hero” – Shahid Kapoor and Ileana D'Cruz star in this comedy about an actor who is mistaken to be a supercop. It's in Hindi with English and Thai subtitles at Major Cineplex Sukhumvit, Rama III and Pattaya. Opens today.

 

Also showing

_ The Friese-Greene Club – Christopher Walken stars in one of his meatiest roles in “Dead Zone” at 8 tonight. Regarded as one of the most-ordinary of David Cronenberg’s films, it’s still a pretty weird movie with Walken as a guy who wakes up after years in a coma to find he has horrifying psychic powers. It's based on a Stephen King novel.

Tomorrow's “midnight movie” is the controversial “Freaks”, a 1932 cult classic that features actual carnival sideshow performers. Sunday’s classic is “It Happened One Night”, Frank Capra’s 1934 madcap romantic comedy starring Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert. Shows start at 8pm. Reservations are recommended. For details, check FGC.in.th.

 

_ The Style by Toyota 9FilmFest – Nine films, each nine minutes long have been chosen as the finalists in this competition in which winner will drive away in a new car. It's all happening this weekend at Paragon Cineplex with the finalists unspooling at 7pm. See ThaiFrames at left for more details.