MTV’s MONSTER ISLAND
Jack Perez, director of AMERICAS DEADLIEST HOME VIDEO and the Eric Roberts-starrer LA CUCARACHA, is taking a trip to MONSTER ISLAND, which he wrote with Adam Glass and will direct. Its for MTV, a Halloween movie event for the network, he tells Fango. Its a black-comic horror film thats a homage to KING KONG and every atomic mutation picture. The story is about a kid who wins a classic MTV contest, in which he and his senior class travel to Skull Island in the Bermuda Triangle for a Halloween bash hosted by a famous pop divaitll be somebody like Christina Aguilera or Lil Kim. They wind up being ambushed, and this kid leads a small band of alternative high-schoolers on a rescue mission to save the diva on this island that turns out to be inhabited by giant monsters, inspired by everything from King Kong to Godzilla to the Deadly Mantis.
Its definitely tongue-in-cheek, Perez continues, but its very large in its scope. Im hoping to use KNB EFX, who are working with me on WILD THINGS 2 now, because there are a fair amount of creatures that need to be created. The beauty of MONSTER ISLAND is that it draws on all these films that we grew up with; its basically a Saturday-afternoon creature feature. What I miss, and what I really want to employ, are a lot of effects techniques that have been pushed to the side; everything is so CGI today that I miss the tangibility of the old methods, like rod puppets and stop-motion and full-scale props. I want to try to bring that back in a movie for a new generation of viewers, but older viewers will also appreciate where it draws its inspiration from.
Shooting on MONSTER ISLAND will commence in July on a yet-to-be-determined location. In the meantime, Perez is busy on WILD THINGS 2: THE GLADES, a direct-to-video sequel for Columbia TriStar that he says isnt lacking in Fangorian appeal. The fun thing about WILD THINGS 2 is that it contains all the elements that made the first film successfulyouve got two wild things, high-school seniors [Susan Ward and Leila Arcieri; GHOST SHIPs Isaiah Washington is also in the cast]but it involves a fair share of horror elements and atmosphere, and there is a decent amount of scares and people being fed to gators.
Courtesy of Fangoria
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