I’ve been on a Kaiju kick recently, spurred on by X-Y-Z-Cosmonaut’s run of Godzilla soundtracks I mentioned a couple weeks ago. In fact, I’ve compiled about 20 Japanese monster films that I’ll be plowing through in September. So the recent news that South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone will be helming an homage to those films makes for a nice replacement for Snakes on a Plane in my heart.

They plan to follow with “Giant Monsters Attack Japan!,” a film scripted by J.F. Lawton (”Under Siege”) that will combine live-action with the “rubber suit” techniques made popular in Asian imports like “Godzilla.”

Parker will direct each film and Stone produce; both will work on the scripts with the writers. Sean Daniel and Nickelodeon will also be producers on “Giant Monsters.”

Nickelodeon? Oh, my.

Found via Bloody Disgusting.

I volunteered for the Uwe Boll boxing match within the first couple hours of it’s announcement, but unfortunately I was disqualified on a technicality. I enjoyed House of the Dead, and they were looking for Boll’s most notable detractors. I’m beginning to think that I don’t hate enough.

Boll’s opponents have been announced over at Skewed and Reviewed.

The following 5 challengers have been picked by our selection committee to represent some of Uwe Boll’s harshest critics.

These particular challengers are prepared to box Dr. Boll on September 23rd, 2006, in Vancouver, where they will finally get the opportunity to try to inflict some pain on the man they claim has done it to them for years.

GoldenPalace.com Presents Raging Boll.

The challengers are:

Carlos Palencia Jiménez-Argüello from Madrid, Spain.
Webmaster of www.cinecutre.com

Richard “Lowtax“ Kyanka from Lee’s Summit, Missouri, USA
Webmaster / CEO for Something Awful

Jeff Sneider from Los Angeles, California, USA
Journalist for Ain’t It Cool News

Chris Alexander from Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Journalist / Radio Announcer for Rue Morgue Magazine / Rue Morgue Radio / AM 640 Toronto

Nelson Chance Minter from Fredrick, Maryland, USA
Website Critic

And it appears there’s still hope for me, as the press release states “Boll is ready to take on even more people willing to fight, and his challenge remains on the table.”

Expect an email from me sooner rather then later, Dr. Boll.

From yesterday’s clip of the day, The Manchester Morgue, comes a music video for the kult klassic Killer Klowns from Outer Space by SoCal proto-punks The Dickies. Just in case you missed it.

My New Plaid Pants, which boasts the perfect mix of horror, beefcake and Winona Ryder, has posted a response to Cinematical’s 7 Best Horror Movies of the Last 7 Years.

Both of these lists have lead me to consider my own choices, posted below. Films were chosen based on overall effectiveness, so some movies were cut which contained scenes that on their own would make the grade if they weren’t saddled with garbage (see the Dawn of the Dead remake). Please keep in mind that these are my choices at the moment, and tomorrow I would no doubt switch things around or remember other more appropriate picks.

1. Hostel - Terrifying as much for why the events unfold as how. The last twenty minutes in particular had me gripping the arms of my seat, and afterwards I felt that elusive high I only get every few years from the movies.

2. Shaun of the Dead - It may be primarily a comedy, but the zombies are played straight and for most of it’s running time Shaun of the Dead manages a level of suspense that eludes straight horror films.

3. The Descent - While the claustrophobic elements didn’t bother me, the full-on creature feature carnage satisfied a craving I wasn’t even sure I had. Review here.

4. See No Evil - An absolutely nasty throwback to the slasher period that makes all the recent crop of survival horror films pale in comparison.

5. The Blair Witch Project - Along with Hostel and Land of the Dead, one of the most divisive horror films of the past 7 years. I have enough experience in the forest to know what it’s like to wander around in the dark, but not enough to stop being afraid of what might be out there.

6. Final Destination & 7. Snakes on a Plane - Two straightforward thrill rides with both craft and balls to spare.

I encourage anyone who feels the same itch make their own list and either post them in the comments, or on their own blog.

When I was first introduced to vinyl sharity sites I had to do a lot of scrounging to find horror soundtracks, and I wondered how long it would take someone to fill that niche. Just a couple months later and I’m wondering how many albums the numerous horror-related sharity sites can post before they run out of material.

I’ve been busy, so I only just stumbled across The Manchester Morgue recently. It contains a couple albums I felt a craving for in the past few months like Fright Night and Return of the living Dead, as well as standards like Phantasm and Nightbreed, and some truly wonderous cult films like Blue Underground and Psycho Beach Party. I could spend all day in there.

As I’ve hinted now and again, I am an animator by trade. While it may seem as if my days are filled with nightmares, exploitation and pornography, the truth is that the majority of my time is spent with gentler souls. Sometimes, however, the two intersect, and in honour of Warner Bros. animation director Isadore “Friz” Freleng’s 100th birthday I would like to discuss a few of those moments. Freleng’s career spanned the entirety of the Warner Bros. studio, even before and after it was Warner Bros. (don’t ask). He was the elder animator at the studio when the young turks like Chuck Jones, Frank Tashlin and Bob Clampett came in, giving them a foundation from which they could push against and innovate. It’s entirely possible that without Friz there would have been no Warner Bros. cartoons, or at least there wouldn’t be any as we recognize them today.

It’s been speculated that the reason Freleng has been somewhat neglected by the general public over the years has been because his Warner Bros. isn’t as iconic as other directors he worked with. I suspect that in truth it was his reserved, gentle demeanour and unwillingness to agressively promote himself that may have been the cause of this oversight.

And it’s that personality trait that brings us to the reason why I’m writing about him here, on a horror site. While there were other directors who created spooky Warner Bros. cartoons, none were as adamant as Freleng. Actually, that’s only partly true. Freleng was even more specific in his obsession with horror, as he was the only director at the studio to adapt Robert Louis Stevenson’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde not just once, but three times in the films Dr. Jerkyl’s Hide, Hyde and Go Tweet and Hyde and Hare. And while it may seem out of sorts for the studio’s finest creator of vaudeville and musical-inspired mayhem to place an axe in the hands of an animated madman, it actually makes complete sense. Who else but the studio’s most repressed craftsman would distort some of the world’s most beloved characters in ways that even the mavericks of Warner Bros. animation wouldn’t dare.

As I’ve already mentioned, these aren’t the first times that Warner Bros. cartoon creations have been menaced by horrific forces. The difference is that in each of these shorts we see such iconic Warner Bros. characters as Tweety, Sylvester and Bugs not only threatened, but undergo monstrous transformations which make them threatening themselves. This is Freleng trading on the good will and affection of his audience by creating grotesque mockeries of characters beloved by generations, even then. Despite the gags, this subversion of our expectations is discomforting, almost as if the hundreds of cartoon shorts that came before were just a slow burn that led up to this moment. Surprise!

This has been my contribution to the Friz Freleng Blog-A-Thon. If you’re interested in reading more about Freleng, please check out the other contributions. And happy birthday, Friz!

How often do you get to read, watch or listen to something on this blog that makes you feel all warm and fuzzy? For the sake of our emotional well-being, I have to break up the mayhem every once in awhile and bring you something unbearably sweet. Please enjoy this ode to brotherhood and compassion, as only the The Horror Blog can bring it to you.

And, hey. Take care of one another out there.

Name your favourite cinematic animal attack.

Rod Lott - Bookgasm

Does a spider count as an animal? If so, it’s the spiders vs. the Shat in KINGDOM OF THE SPIDERS, (eight) hands down.

And if not, screw you. It’s still the spiders.

Sean T. Collins - Attentiondeficitdisorderly Too Flat

Much as I love the climax of Jaws, I have to go with the charge of the mumakil, the giant war elephants from The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King . When I first saw it on opening day, my jaw dropped to the floor and stayed there for the duration of the sequence.

Billy - House of Irony

The dog taking out the mutant in the new release of The Hills Have Eyes. I LOVE THAT DOG!!!!

Paul Corupe - Canuxploitation

William Girdler’s Grizzly: Little kid loses his leg during a not-so-cuddly bear hug.

Bill Cunningham - DisContent

Jaws.

GlowStormLion - Frighthounds

Ok, this is real sketchy for me and if anyone out there can clear up the movie I’m referencing I’d love ya forever. Here’s what I remember. There’s a kid.. probably a teenager type and this movie is from around the 80’s. I saw this scene on the USA channel when they’d run horror shows and whatnot. Basically, the kid has some fat guy sweating on his couch because he owns (2 I think, possibly more) Dobermans. The guy begs and pleads with the kid not to sic the dogs on him, but the kid does it anyways. That’s all I remember but it’s absolutely burned into my brain to this day! Totally scary scene.

David Z. - Tomb It May Concern

I’m going to have to go with Shark Attack 3’s amazing “Megalodon Shark swallows escaping evil town mayor while he escapes on a jet ski sequence.” It looks horrid, but is SOOOO funny that I had to track down an anamorphic widescreen print from Hong Kong. As a very close second would be the dock attack from Fabrizio De Angelis’ great green Jaws rip, Killer Crocodile. CHOMP!

Curt - The Groovy Age of Horror

Gotta be that climactic bat attack at the end of Hammer’s KISS OF THE VAMPIRE. I just love that scene beyond all reason.

Mark - Exclamation Mark’s Vintage Sci-Fi/Horror Review

I suppose Hitchcock’s The Birds would be an obvious choice. I love how the birds amass on the jungle gym before attacking the schoolhouse. My second choice, though, would be the giant octopus attacking the Golden Gate Bridge in It Came from Beneath the Sea.

Warren - 150 Days of Sodom

This question was tough. I could think of a lot of movies filled with cinematic animal attacks, but the details were foggy. The only specific attack I can vividly picture, and it is a good one, comes towards the end of 1981’s Wolfen, where a wolf rips off a man’s head. A terrific effect, I pressed rewind and watched it over and over.

Louis Fowler

It’s funny you should ask this. I just recently watched, back to back, the William Girdler animals-gone-amok masterpieces Day of the Animals and Grizzly. Both, are for the most part, similar in design and execution, but the thing that makes it hard for me to decide which one is better is because both have a stand-out scene that are so unbelievable, you press the rewind to make sure what you have just seen was for real and not some insane acid trip flashback. Both involve giant bears too.

In Day, a shirtless, child punching, woman-raping asshole ad exec, played with incredible ham by Leslie “Frank Drebin” Nielsen, punches the shit out of an attacking bear. Of course he gets his ass clawed up, but it’s definitely a battle that’s more epic than ten Vaders vs. Kenobis.

On the other hand, in Grizzly, it’s the titular grizzly facing off against a Goddamned rocket launcher—guess who wins that battle. All my life I have wanted to see a large animal blown up, and thankfully, Grizzly delivers. I suggest checking both out and deciding for yourself.

Nick - DVD Trash

My fav cinematic animal attack has to be Piranha from the Joe Dante movie of the same name, nearly outdone by the flying piranha from the sequel Piranha II: The Spawning!

Red Hawk - Happy Horror

One of my favorite animal attacks was the deer attack in The Ring Two. It just seemed to come out of nowhere. One second, you’re watching the deer head off the road calmly, then the next second, it’s charging Rachel’s car. A close second would have to be in the movie Prophecy. In this one, we had a giant bear that had been born mutated by chemicals dumped in the lake near where it lived. The bear went through and attacked just about everyone that it could get ahold of, the chemicals having made it go crazy.

Joakim - Mexploitation

The octopus attack from Ed Wood’s “Bride of the Monster” (aka. “Bride of the Atom”), of course. At least that’s the one I enjoy the most. The one that scares me the most, that’s a little more difficult, although the critters attacking at the bottom of the canyon in Peter Jackson’s “King Kong” remake freaked me out, probably because I have a problem dealing with bugs in general.

Steven - The Horror Blog

There’s a scene in the made-for-television horror movie It Happened at Lakewood Manor that I can remember vividly even after more than twenty years. A young boy leaves his mother at the pool and scrounges around for empty pop bottles behind the fence so he can cash the deposit. It cuts away from the kid and back to the pool, and everything seems serene. Then, out of nowhere, the kid comes running around the fence covered in ants screaming “Mommy! Mommy, it hurts!” before jumping into the water. This was released in 1977, but I must have caught a later broadcast because I remember actively collecting pop bottles at the time. Or at least I was until I watched It Happened at Lakewood Manor.

This post cements today as the greatest in The Horror Blog’s short history. A few months ago I was visiting my friends in The Rose City where we were planning on having one of our infrequent roleplaying sessions. I was tired from my trip and wasn’t in the mood to concoct something taxing. My afternoon was spent trying to come up with a quick Coke-and-Doritos game to waste a few hours with. That’s when I remembered the Snakes on a Plane roleplaying game.

The following podcast is the first part of an ongoing serial, recorded off the floor with all the awkward pauses, excessive swearing, racous laughter and potato chip bag crinkling that make up a night of pure geekery. If you’re not familiar with roleplaying, please keep in mind that listening to this podcast will most likely be an excruciating experience. And if you’re a current or former gamer, hopefully you’ll manage a wistful smile through the pain. You have been warned!

Now fasten your motherfucking seatbelt and download Snakes on a Plane - The Roleplaying Game.

“Hi, iguana. I’m going to call him Jub Jub.”

A woman cursed to have snakes burst from her body is smuggled in from Mexico by her husband, a shaman who hopes to find a cure for her ailment in Los Angeles. Unfortunately, her condition deteriorates after they stow away onboard a train filled with unsuspecting passengers.

A co-worker watched Snakes on a Train a few days before me, and he attempted to warn me away from it. He also told me that if I happened to enjoy it he would lose all respect for me and begin to question my sanity.

It won’t be the first time, Rony. And I doubt it will be the last.

Snakes on a Train is a southern-fried exploitation rip-off on the cheap that steamrolls over every continuity gaffe, erratic pacing, shoddy make-up effect and bad CGI snake that make up the majority of its running time. Under all the trappings inherent in this low-budget shocker there beats a cold, black heart, one that gleefully pulls out nearly all the stops to make you either wince, give a high-five, or deliver both at the same time.

This is the type of movie where the sets are filthy and nearly everyone is a scumbag. Even the people who should have it together the most are using lightbulbs for bongs. Vulgar and sometimes strangely inappropriate swearing is scattered throughout, breasts are bared under duress, some of the only nice people in the film get torn apart and gratuitious homoeroticism runs rampant. I only wish my floors were sticky to add to the ambience.

The standout performance, and the glue that holds the whole thing together, is Ryanne Ruiz who plays the cursed snake woman. She grimaces and squirms so well that she actually manages to sell the lacklustre make-up, and she seemingly has the ability to make small sections of her face uncontrollably twitch independent of the rest of her body. But the most admirable aspect of her performance is her willingness to stuff her mouth full of snakes at the slightest provocation. By far the best special effect in the entire movie is watching Ruiz roll tiny, live snakes around with her tongue. This is precisely the kind of virtuoso performance that makes doing this blog worthwhile.

This isn’t a masterpiece by any means, and the shocks are more of the grossout type than from fear, but if you’re looking for a slutty, vicious lay of a popcorn flick you could do a whole lot worse.

“Regulations, my foot. Just wait ’til I put one under Ol’ Bradley’s blanket.”

While ashore in South America, the world’s most idiotic sailor buys a bucket full of poisonous snakes to take aboard the submarine he’s assigned to. The snakes not only begin attacking the crew, but also cause malfunctions that could doom the entire submarine to the ocean’s floor.

“Snakes on a Sub” is a little misleading as the title of this 1974 made-for-television movie is actually Fer-De-Lance. That title is not only the name of the submarine, it’s also a type of snake, hence the reason the sailor decides to bring a bushel of them aboard.

Fer-De-Lance is a potential classic undermined by its complete lack of character. One of the essential ingredients in a decent disaster movie is its characterization. This needn’t be deep, but it should at least be evident, or at least half as compelling as the colourful jumpsuits the international civilian scientists are forced to wear. Nowhere in Fer-De-Lance are we introduced to the sailor who cracks open his wallet to show a picture of his newborn son, or the Captain and the nurse who are sharing a forbidden tryst, or the 10-year-old stowaway who fell asleep onboard while the submarine was docked. Instead the movie proceeds almost as if it were some kind of absurd documentary, with nearly everyone acting efficiently and with military precision. And who wants that?

In place of compelling stereotypes we are treated to near-identical drones and enough nautical jargon to help me get through naval academy. There are only two exceptions to this, and both instances are the best parts of the movie. One of the crew members begins to lose it, while another becomes more of a hardass the more he drinks, and he seems to drink alot. Finally, to be fair, in the end Fer-De-Lance does have one of the most simple yet effective snake kills I have ever seen, and I’m a real sucker for any movie that finishes on a high note.

“My birthday’s coming up. I’ll only be 10, but I feel very old.”

When the opportunity arose to take a crack at reviewing some upcoming releases, I wasn’t entirely sure how to approach a direct-to-DVD movie. I didn’t know whether I was meant to be just as hard on it as I would a theatrical film, or give it a pass based on its obvious financial limitations. Happily, with Dawn I didn’t have to make that decision.

Dawn is a nine-year-old vampire. She travels from town to town with her human father, stopping every once in awhile to feed on the old and dying, for whom she has a natural ability to track down. For her tenth birthday, Dawn wants nothing else but to visit her mother’s final resting place, another vampire who died giving birth to her. Unfortunately, within the same town resides a man with a vendetta and the means to hunt them down.

Dawn’s world is filled with average people, a sight rarely caught on film and whose normalacy underscores the fact that all the main protagonists are weak in some fashion; from Dawn herself to the MS-afflicted vampire hunter to Dawn’s father, who is in way over his head. The only dominant character in the entire movie is the deceased mother, who we only see in flashbacks. By far the best actor in the bunch is little Kacie Young as the title character. Her performance managed to reel me in without my even realizing it, and made the inevitably tragic, and abrupt, finale all the more shocking.

Dawn is a model of shot-on-video restraint. Unlike many other independent endeavours, Dawn doesn’t overstep its financial limitations. Every aspect of the film is crafted to not only remain within it’s no-budget confines, but actually thrive on them. Even though the effects, make-up and gore are on the cheap, they’re used quite sparingly and thoughtfully. The cinematography is direct and to the point, and the use of black-and-white digital photography renders everything flat, emphasizing the mundanity of the world. Even the grotesque routines Dawn and her father have fallen into before and after a kill create a sense of the ordinary in an extraordinary situation, like a quieter version of Near Dark.

There are a few missteps. Some of the actors have the tendency to spit out their lines on occassion, a few of the actors in smaller roles are especially bad and coincidences abound where some minor tightening of the plot would have helped. But overall I was pleasantly surprised by Dawn. Make no mistake, this is a gentle, character-driven movie and should be only watched when in a particular type of mood. While there are a few tense moments, they’re primarily built upon the relationships established and not due to actual scares. With the right mind-set, Dawn is a tale made grim, sweet, and satisfying.

Dawn is available today from Tempe Video.

To celebrate the release of Snakes on a Plane, the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema in Austin, Texas held the Blanks on a Blank filmmaking challenge.

To us, the success of SNAKES ON A PLANE is a foregone conclusion. And when any film is a success, sequels are inevitable. But how do you follow up the brilliance of S.O.A.P.? Do you put snakes somewhere else? Do you put a different animal on a plane? The options, of course, are endless, and as we were sitting around a table at a pub talking about all the different possible cinematic combinations, we realized that we really, really, really we wanted to see all those movies become a reality. And so we set up the Blanks On A Blank film-making challenge, giving the whole world the chance to show us the future of animal/vehicle disaster films.

The contest may be over, but the films are still available for viewing. Here you’ll find everything from a Buffalo on a Custom Van to a Taratula on a Hovercraft to a Unicorn on a Stagecoach, with a whopping 83 short animal-on-a-vehicle films in total.

According to Monga Bay’s mission statement, they seek to promote appreciation of wildlands and wildlife. They also examine the science of how snakes can see on a crowded plane, and give pointers on ways you can avoid death should you ever become stuck in this particular situation.

Even in the dark, snakes on a plane (at least those of the pit viper and boa varieties) could keep a close watch on terrorized passengers and crew thanks to small cavities near their snouts known as pit organs. The organs are sensitive to the infrared radiation emitted by warm prey such as rats, rabbits, and Samuel L. Jackson.

Once again, science is the only thing seperating Man from the beast, and Mankind from compete destruction.

As you may be aware, a remake of Universal’s The Wolfman is set to be released sometime in 2008 with Benicio Del Toro as the lead. Those who doubt Del Toro’s ability to play a lycanthrope need only view Big Top Pee-Wee where he starred as Duke The Dog-Faced Boy, his first appearance on the silver screen.

Found via the Dread Central forums.