RADiUS-TWC’s ‘Everly’ and ‘Horns’ Make For Impressive Comic-Con Debut

[Transcendence]

 

RADiUS-TWC,  the young label from The Weinstein Company, made its mark very quickly as a studio designed to release features across multiple platforms, specializing in Video On Demand. With notable features including Keanu Reeves’ Man of Tai Chi and the more recent Snowpiercer by Bong Joon Ho under their belt, RADiUS-TWC is growing quickly and took advantage of Comic-Con International this year to get a head start on promoting two upcoming features. And it was a smart move, because both are worthy of attention.

In their first ever Comic-Con panel on Friday, July 25, 2014, RADiUS-TWC had a simple gameplan - to showcase two edgy genre films, each quarterbacked by a Hollywood star playing an unusual character. These are Everly and Horns.

-

Everly

Everly is an action-thriller starring Salma Hayek as a captured slave holed up in an apartment and forced to violently fight her way through waves of assassins sent by a mob boss (who’s actually her ex). On the panel were director Joe Lynch and Hayek and both were in good spirits and very passionate about the project. Very little on the marketing front has released for Everly so the presentation began with footage which set the tone for the entire RADiUS-TWC event.

 

 

 

The sequence began with Salma Hayek in an older urban studio apartment and she is told she’s going to die that night in that very place. She comes out of a bathroom and shoots everyone in the room, in an over-the-top violent first-person, almost arcade shooter sequence. Two of the targets didn’t die right away, one managing to put a bullet in her side before passing, while the other stays immobile on the couch, and continues serving as someone for Hayek’s character to converse with.

That bullet wound however, had little to no effect on Everly and we then see waves of incoming armed henchmen and wacky assassin characters. Hayek needs to take them all out. It’s extreme, violent and intentionally humorous at points – especially with what happens to people getting hit by shotguns or how characters react to the extreme happenings. The sequences are raw, quick and funny and the panelists describe it as Die Hard in a room. Everly takes place in one room for 90 minutes. The camera never leaves the room. Phone conversations are all one-sided, views of other rooms are through bullet holes or windows.

Everly was also shot chronologically and so as Hayek’s character becomes increasingly battle-worn so to does the room become torn apart through bullets, explosions and other madness. Hayek explains that â€œthe set becomes a character†in a way, evolving as she does.

 

 

For 47-year-old Salma Hayek, this is her â€œmost badass†character of her career and by far the most physically challenging – especially when using heavy guns and sometimes, multiple. She loves the project because, as she explains, there are not that many female lead action stars. This is a story of a mom separated from her daughter and her character “starts from a weak place and is very broken.†She discovers herself throughout the film, and evolves from a slave to a “fierce, unstoppable force.†The plot details were hard to come by in the limited, action-centric footage but we do know that Everly is attempting to get a bag of cash out of this apartment to her family but she can’t leave. So, she must survive and have her family come to her.

Lynch  had a lot of positive words to speak on RADiUS-TWC, expressing his love for how “TWC-Radius is making sure people see in the movies†through their multi-platform strategy. He also tells fans that Everly is meant to be a communal experience. Watch it with a crowd.

“Screw the Ninja Turtles,†says Joe Lynch about Hayek using a sai in one particularly extreme action sequence in Everly.