October is officially here, and this weekend wants to remind us all that things are going to get creepy this month. The two big openers this week share one thing in common: they will not be sending you home warm and fuzzy (at least not a good fuzzy.) They are also both returns of their own kind. The first, a highly anticipated new film from acclaimed filmmaker David Fincher, and the second, a spin-off of last year’s successful The Conjuring.
The film adaptation of Gillian Flynn’s best-selling novel Gone Girl hits theater screens just one week after its official premiere at New York Film Festival last weekend. The film, written by Flynn herself and directed by David Fincher (Seven, Zodiac, The Social Network), follows Nick Dunne (Ben Affleck) as he sorts through the sprawling mystery of his missing wife (Rosamund Pike), and the relentless aftermath that follows. Set in small-town Missouri, Gone Girl is a bleak, unnerving and beautiful film about marriage, deception and trust. Fun for the whole family! Read our own review here.
Annabelle is essentially a prequel to The Conjuring, the intense and surprisingly satisfying small-budget horror hit of 2013. The trailers themselves prove to be quite shocking and suspenseful, and in a perfect world, the film will preserve some of those classically inspired camera-motivated moments of sheer creepiness, possibly even retaining sound as a key factor in creating new atmospheric terror in the typical haunted house set piece. In reality though, we are talking about a movie not directed by the first film’s James Wan (Saw, Insidious), but rather a movie helmed by John Leonetti, who took on such classic sequels as Butterfly Effect 2 and Mortal Kombat: Annihilation. So far, critics don’t seem to agree with his choices. We’ll give him the benefit of the doubt…maybe.
Also opening: The rebooting of everyone’s favorite Christian apocalypse series Left Behind (starring Nic Cage) and Philippe Falardeau’s The Good Lie
