Zach Gilford

The Purge: Anarchy Review

Good

After last year's break-out hit thriller, writer-director James DeMonaco is back with the flip-side of the story, which jettisons the irony and and thematic subtlety in favour of in-your-face brutality. This time the account of a night of lawful violence is told from the opposite perspective, poor people who are targeted by sadistic rich people who are trying to cleanse their souls with a bit of grisly murder.

It's set one year later, in 2023 Los Angeles as the annual 12-hour Purge is about to begin. The idea is to cleanse society of its violent urges, but this has turned into an all-out war between heavily armed militias hired by the wealthy to capture poor people for their own homicidal entertainment. As an underground activist (Michael K. Williams) calls for a grassroots uprising, the waitress Eva (Carmen Ejogo) is just trying to get through the night alive with her teen daughter Cali (Zoe Soul). When they're attacked, an unnamed stranger (Frank Grillo) comes to their rescue, and they're soon joined by a couple (Zach Gilford and Keile Sanchez) whose car picked the wrong time and place to break down. Together, these five attempt to escape pursuit by two vicious gangs: lowlife mercenaries looking for fresh blood to sell to wealthy clients and a high-tech army bent on all-out massacre.

It's deeply contrived that these two gangs are deliberately, tenaciously and seemingly supernaturally pursuing these five people, but DeMonaco never flinches, so the audience just has to go with it. Much of the movie consists of massive nighttime street battles, but there are some more deranged interludes that hold the attention much better. At one point, they take refuge in the downtown home of one of Eva's colleagues (Justina Machado), a drunken party that is clearly spiralling out of control even before they arrived. A little later, they are dragged right into a variation on The Hunger Games. And while four of our heroes are running for their lives, Grillo's character has something more violent in mind: he's seeking revenge against the drunk driver who killed his son.

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A Week In Movies: Monuments Men Hit The Road, Ysl And Gbf Tease Their Big Screen Arrivals, And New Trailers Promise More Horror This Spring

By Rich Cline in Movies / TV / Theatre on 14 February 2014

George Clooney Cate Blanchett Matt Damon Bill Murray John Goodman Pierre Niney David Koechner Sara Paxton Ethan Embry Zach Gilford

The Berlin Film Festival premieres a series of big titles, including Nymphomaniac, The Monuments Men and Yves Saint Laurent. A new trailer stirs buzz for the teen comedy G.B.F. in the UK. And two horror films tease us with trailers promising blackly comical grisliness in Cheap Thrills and more violent nastiness in The Purge 2...

The Monuments Men

The main global cinematic event this week is the Berlin Film Festival, which showcases high-profile films like Lars von Trier's Nymphomaniac and George Clooney's The Monuments Men. After their starry New York premiere last week, Clooney and his gang of costars - including Cate Blanchett, Matt Damon, Bill Murray, John Goodman and Jean Dujardin - have been dashing around Europe this week. Here's video footage from The Monuments Men Premiere at the Ziegfeld Theatre in New York including the arrival of Director and Star George Clooney as well as appearences from other A-List cast members like Cate Blanchett, Matt Damon and Bill Murray. Incase you missed Shia LabBeouf's Paper bag stunt take a look here.

Another Berlin premiere debuted its first trailer this week, giving us a look at the biopic Yves Saint Laurent. Pierre Niney (Romantics Anonymous) plays the eponymous designer in the film, which traces his rise to fame and romantic liaisons with both men and women in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Unsurprisingly, the film looks stylish and achingly cool. It opens next month in Britain. Watch 'Yves Saint Laurent' trailer here.

Continue reading: A Week In Movies: Monuments Men Hit The Road, Ysl And Gbf Tease Their Big Screen Arrivals, And New Trailers Promise More Horror This Spring

The Purge: Anarchy - Teaser Trailer

Following the disastrous events in 2013's 'The Purge' which saw a home security salesman murdered in his so-called fortress of a family home, that time of year has come round again and, for another couple, things are going to get even grislier. The pair are cutting it fine as they drive home in the evening ahead of the 12 hour annual Purge, a period in which all crimes become legal (including theft, rape and murder) and emergency services are momentarily stopped. They are confident they can get home in time to lock themselves away once again. until their car unexpectedly breaks down. The sirens blare signalling the beginning of the Purge and the couple find themselves running for lives as some masked Purgers on motorcycles chase them down. Across the rest of the city, total anarchy ensues as the country gets caught up in a patriotic, bloodthirsty fever.

'The Purge: Anarchy' is the grim sequel to 2013 horror 'The Purge' which sees the return of director and screenwriter James DeMonaco ('Little New York'). It's a dystopian thriller about the lengths governments may go to solve national issues (such as population control) and it is set to be released this summer on June 20th 2014.

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'Devil Baby' Runs Rampant Through The Streets Of New York City

By Joe Wilde in Movies / TV / Theatre on 15 January 2014

Zach Gilford Allison Miller

The animatronics prank aimed at promoting horror 'Devil's Due' scared (almost) everyone as it went through the Big Apple

Ahead of the release of upcoming horror title Devil's Due, the marketing team behind the the upcoming 20th Century Fox release have come up with a novel way of promoting the film: by scaring the crap out of unsuspecting New Yorkers on the streets of the Big Apple.

Devil's Due arrives in US cinemas in January and in the UK the following month

Much like the viral campaign for last year's remake of Carrie, the marketing team behind the new horror title have decided that traditional posters and trailers aren't enough for their film. The result is a sketch video showing some priceless reaction from the people of New York, with the 'devil baby' scaring everyone who came across it. Well, everyone except for the stone-faced street cleaner at the 1 minute mark.

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Devils Due For Valentine's Day 2014 [Trailer]

By Victoria Pavlova in Movies / TV / Theatre on 22 October 2013

Zach Gilford Allison Miller

The first horror flick of 2014 will be rather inappropriately dated for Valentine's Day

Another one from the Paranormal Activity-style, found footage genre of horror movie, Devil’s Due tells the story of… well, it’s rather self explanatory, the story of the conception and birth of the Antichrist. Tired as the premise and style might seem, the trailer makes this movie seem acceptable at least. It centers around Zach and Samantha McCall, a happy pair of newlyweds (because of course they have to be newlyweds) at the end of their honeymoon, who discover that Samantha is unexpectedly pregnant, as you do.

Devil's Due Poster
Valentine's Day is a rather ironic due date for the Antichrist.

That’s where the horror element begins to kick in, with strange incidents around the house, shadowy figures prowling the woods surrounding the McCalls’ home, you know the drill. Gradually, all the incidents reveal a pattern, centering around Samantha’s pregnancy and the expectant mother herself begins to behave somewhat strangely, bursting into temper tantrums that she doesn’t remember afterwards and experiencing crippling stomach pains, in what seems like an exaggerated metaphor for pregnancy itself. Naturally, there is an exorcism and plenty of blood involved.

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Devil's Due Trailer

Zach and Samantha McCall are young newlyweds nearing the end of their honeymoon when they discover that Samantha is unexpectedly pregnant with their first child. From then on they start to notice strange occurences; prowlers outside their home, demonic symbolism written on doors; but that's the least of their worries as soon Samantha starts behaving increasingly strangely, bursting into fits of anger that she later forgets and suffering crippling stomach pains. According to one priest they consult, early Christian heretics wanted to use symbolism to invoke the antichrist - a prospect that turns their whole situation on its head as they dive into supernatural territory. With happenings becoming eerier and more dangerous, Zach must find out by any means possible what has come over his wife - and what's to come of his unborn child.

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The Last Stand Review

By Rich Cline

OK

Korean filmmaker Kim played with the Western genre before in his wacky 2008 pastiche The Good the Bad the Weird, and this film is just as chaotically uneven, mixing cartoon-style silliness with grisly violence. But the high-energy approach holds our interest, as does Schwarzenegger's immense screen presence in his first starring role since his political career. The film is far too jumbled to hold together, but its sardonic sense of humour makes it a decent guilty pleasure.

Arnie plays Sheriff Owens, who has a quiet routine in his sleepy Arizona-Mexico border town. So when a stranger (Stormare) appears, he sends his deputies (Alexander and Gilford) to investigate. Things get violent quickly, so he deputises a drunken veteran (Santoro) and a moronic gun-nut (Knoxville) to work alongside another deputy (Guzman). What he doesn't yet know is that the baddies are part of an elaborate plan to help a drug kingpin (Noriega) escape from a Law Vegas FBI Agent (Whitaker) and cross the border to freedom in Mexico.

The whizzy plot actually has promise as a straightforward action movie, but Kim throws so much nuttiness at the screen that we can't take anything seriously. The story zings from set-piece to set-piece without much concern for credibility or coherence. It's all very cool, especially the baddie's glimmering, super-fast prototype Corvette, which travels "faster than a chopper" on isolated country roads that are improbably smooth. And his climactic plan to get over the border is astonishingly silly, but played dead straight.

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FNL's Zach Gilford Weds Kiele Sanchez

By Joe Wilde in Lifestyle / Showbiz on 30 December 2012

Zach Gilford

Former Friday Night Lights star Zach Gilford has tied the knot with his girlfriend of more than two years Kiele Sanchez during an intimate ceremony in Napa Valley, California, E! Online has reported.

The newlyweds, who met in 2010 while filming the TV pilot The Matadors, began dating almost immediately and have hardly had a bad day since - with Gilford dropping down on one knee in July this year. After the pair's engagement was announced, Gilford told E! Online: “We found a magical, magical place to get married and I’m excited. It is going to be cool.”

Now, this "magical place" has had its day at last and the two are the latest celebrity pair to tie the knot over the festive period. The actor is perhaps best known for his role in the hit sports drama Friday Night Lights, in which he played star quarterback Matt Saracen. Zach will next be spotted on the big screen, staring alongside Arnold Schwarzenegger in The Last Stand. Meanwhile, Kiele is currently starring in A&E’s The Glades.

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The Last Stand Trailer

Ray Owens is a police sheriff whose major crime fighting days are all but over when he swaps his job in the LAPD combating drug crimes for the much less strenuous post in the quite town of Sommerton Junction on the Mexican border, after a botched drugs operation left him feeling defeated when his friend and colleague ended up crippled. His comfort in his new post is challenged all too soon when the most formidable drug tycoon in the western world, Gabriel Cortez, slips from the clutches of the FBI. Cortez and his ruthless army head towards the Mexican border in Sommerton Junction at 250 miles per hour in a deadly modified Corvette ZR1 with a hostage, mercilessly shooting at the police officers attempting to arrest them and easily sweeping police cars out of their way. They are pursued by the entire law enforcement of America led by Agent John Bannister, though Owens is unwilling to bring his team into the fight at first, feeling not the officer he used to be. His reluctance becomes irrelevant anyway when he is told to take a backseat due to the lack of experience of his team; however Owens soon changes his mind and bands his modest taskforce together to forcibly take on the fierce drug gang themselves.

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