Elijah Wood has played a wide array of characters ranging from penguins and hobbits to Ad-Rock and a man who speaks to a pot-smoking dog. But none of them can even compare to the character he will play in Franck Khalfoun‘s Maniac. Wood will play as Frank, a man bent on gruesomely murdering random women by scalping them, and using their scalps as a part of the mannequins he creates. He does all of this to cope with the loss of his mother, who had abused him as a child.

Beware, the trailer is not for the faint of heart, it’s full of brutal violence, nudity, and rape, so take not it’s NSFW. But take a look at the trailer here below if you are interested in the film.

Joe Hill has certainly come a long way since he was torturing his on-screen father (played by Tom Atkins) via voodoo doll in the classic 1982 horror anthology Creepshow, which was partly willed into existence by Hill’s real-life father, Stephen King. In 2005, Hill followed in his father’s footsteps and became a best-selling author with the short story collection 20th Century Ghosts, his first book published after spending previous years writing stories for various literary magazines. Two years later, Hill published his first full-length novel Heart-Shaped Box and early last year he released his second novel, the horror-tinged, Gothic crime tale Horns. Now Horns is about to become a bonafide motion picture with a noted horror filmmaker at the helm.

The digital deal of the day over at Amazon today is Piranha (2010), which is available for rental for only $.99.

This deal is valid only for today, Thursday, March 31, 2011, until midnight PST. Once you activate the rental through Amazon’s Instant Video service, you’ll have access to the movie for 24 hours. If you’re interested in purchasing the digital version, the cost is $14.99.

Also, if you’d like to own a physical copy of Piranha (which was called Piranha 3D in theaters), the Blu-ray is available for $22.99 while the DVD is $18.99. And if you’re set up for 3D home viewing, there’s also a 3D Blu-ray for $26.99.

PIRANHA
DVD/Blu-ray/3D
DIRECTED BY: Alexandre Aja
WRITTEN BY: Pete Goldfinger, Josh Stolberg
STARRING: Steve R. McQueen, Elisabeth Shue, Jessica Szohr, Jerry O’Connell, Adam Scott, Christopher Lloyd, Ving Rhames, Paul Scheer, Richard Dreyfuss
Sony Pictures Home Entertainment
RELEASE DATE: January 11, 2011

Back in 1975, Steven Spielberg’s Jaws struck pure fear into the souls of moviegoers, creating a phobia of the ocean in many people who saw it. Obviously over the years we’ve learned through countless nature docs and Shark Week binges that sharks — dangerous as they might be — aren’t quite the man-eating monsters we all thought they were. Even so, the recipe behind Jaws is pretty failproof, and it makes sense for filmmakers to use the same basic foundation for other films.

Enter Piranha, a remake of the 1978 movie of the same name that uses just this very same formula. During Spring Break in the town of Lake Victoria, Arizona, an earthquake opens a giant crack in the bed of the lake, creating entrance to a whole new section that had been locked away for millions of years. Even worse, a breed of prehistoric piranhas have thrived in this underwater tomb all along, and when the earthquake gives them access to the surface once again, they come out in droves seeking blood.

Dimension Films’ Piranha 3D has been a hot topic as of late. Since seeing the first trailer, moviegoers have anticipated the film in hopes of some good old fashioned monster movie carnage.

Upon its release this past weekend, the movie only made $10 million in its opening weekend — a little under half of its budget — but by the time its theatrical run is complete and the movie makes a run on DVD and Blu-ray, it should make that back and more. The most important thing is that critically Piranha 3D has been surprisingly loved (it has a fresh rating of over 80% going for it at Rotten Tomatoes) and the movie has delivered on all its campy gory promises.

With all of that said, Dimension has decided to keep the party moving. It has been officially announced that Piranha 3D — The Sequel is now on the way. Producer Mark Canton, when speaking of the announcement, said “We are thrilled that audiences are not just loving PIRANHA 3D, but cheering for it. And it’s fantastic that so many critics are really getting the movie and recommending it. We can’t wait to get to work on the sequel.”