Screenwriter Josh Friedman talks up The Sarah Connors Chronicles and his involvement with the Snakes on a Plane phenomenon among other things.

Wolverine seems to get into fights with alot of horror icons. Progressive Ruin leads the way to the world’s greatest Freddy Kruger fan art page.

Two worlds collided in Denver a few nights ago when Jello Biafra attended a Thor concert. Can Ragnarok be far behind?

Production on the adaptation of Jose Saramago’s Nobel Prize winning novel Blindness is underway, with City of God director Fernando Meirelles and Last Night screenwriter Don McKellar attached. I couldn’t be more pleased, and I hope they pull it off.

On the fifth anniversary of 9/11, Troma revisits founder Lloyd Kaufman’s rant about the “unsung heroes” of that day; the mainstream media.

Showing the world that they have their priorities straight, Japan has begun Halloween festivities a month and a half early.

And pop in tomorrow for what is possibly my favourite Horror Roundtable yet.

The Hollywood Reporter has posted a lengthy article/interview with Sage Stallone, Sylvester’s son. I was only going to skim over it to see if there was anything half-interesting but found myself reading the entire article from start to finish. It’s filled with great anecdotes and reminicises about Stallone’s childhood forays into exploitation cinema and how those films informed his first attempt at directing.

After seeing and enjoying “Vic” recently I was happy to be able to catch up with Stallone to explore how he managed to get it made. ” ‘Vic’ came about when I was 16 years old, believe it or not,” he explained. “Around that time I was watching a lot of movies. I was a video junkie, a video-holic. I would go to the video stores and rent everything I could find that was pre-1980. So I started learning about older films and actors and so on. I’d watch these great movies and then somehow I worked my way into exploitation films. The same actors that I saw that were my heroes in these ’50s war movies and cowboy movies were in these (exploitation) movies for five minutes — getting beat up and killed.”

He also discusses the origins of his company, Grindhouse Releasing, and how his father disapproved of the subject matter for his first film. And hey, anyone that can namedrop Fellini and Fulci in the same breath has my complete attention.

In honour of the release of This Film Not Rated, Yahoo! Movies has gone back through its interviews with both actors and directors and plucked out all the dirt on the cinema rating game. While the majority of the article deals with sex, there are a few instances of close calls concerning violence and gore, from Jason X to Scream 2 to Slither.

“Director Eli Roth is a good friend and very talented guy and he gave them Hostel just before we gave him this movie, so we didn’t have a problem with the MPAA,” adds Gunn. “We are eternally grateful. If you watch the actual amount of gore, we actually have a lot more gore, but because we’re surreal, we actually get away with a lot more, I think because of our timing.”

The entire thing is a great collection of snippets and well worth the read.

While deciding on the best way to approach their latest video, The Killers jokingly considered Tim Burton. One thing led to another, Tim Burton agreed to their request, and he’s currently working on the creation of the video for their single “Bones”.

Burton shot the Killers’ performance on August 17-18 in Los Angeles, and according to their label, Island Records, he and a team of animators are now hard at work in London, creating an entire town and cast of characters that inhabit it. While additional details are scarce, the Killers say the clip features plenty of nods to Burton’s big-screen roots — including models, miniature sets and, of course, skeletons — but with a decidedly Vegas twist.

Regular readers of this blog know that I have a special place in my heart for stop-motion animation. It seemed tough and go for awhile there, so it’s nice that this form of animation is getting the resurgence it deserves.

Found via Dark Horizons.

At the Festival of Fear Jeffrey Combs spoke about his role as Edgar Allan Poe in Stuart Gordon’s upcoming adaptation of The Black Cat for the second season of Masters of Horror. Surprisingly, aside from his cameo in Edmond, Combs and Gordon haven’t worked on a film together since Castle Freak over a decade ago. Another clip on Combs’ role in Re-Animator can be found here.

Even filmmakers can hit a sophomore slump, particularly if they manage to create something groundbreaking their first time out. After a director has spent all the nightmares accumulated over a lifetime in their first film, what possible hope can they have to capture that magic a second time, especially under tighter time constraints? One answer would be to, quoting James Brown, hit it and quit.

Belgian director Rémy Belvaux passed away on September 4th with only one feature film on his resume, but it was one worth remembering. A mockumentary, Man Bites Dog is the story of a film crew slowly losing both their objectivity and morality as they follow a serial killer on his rounds. While it may not be the first word on the bizarre relationship between journalism and violence, Man Bites Dog is certainly superior to the many similar films that followed in its wake, largely due to its sense of mischief. While Man Bites Dog is one of the darkest comedies ever filmed, it’s still a comedy and a sly one at that.

The controversial winner of the International Critics’ Prize at the 1992 Cannes Film Festival, Man Bites Dog saw Belvaux involved in nearly all aspects of the production including sharing in the writing, directing, producing and even acting. AYet after completing the film, Belvaux turned his back on feature film work and devoted his attention to other acts of misconduct, including assisting in the ambush of Bill Gates with a cream pie in 1999.

It’s been speculated that Man Bites Dog was some elaborate prank and that Rémy Belvaux himself didn’t take it entirely seriously. If that’s the case, this is one joke that misfired with wonderful results, and one which the prankster wisely chose not to repeat again.

Condolences to Rémy Belvaux family and friends. Rest in peace, M. Belvaux.

Found via My New Plaid Pants.

A few weeks back David Z. cited the sleazy exploitation film Mad Foxes as his choice for a rare gem. I was sold even before he mentioned that Krokus was on the soundtrack. Now you too can enjoy those smooth, metal sounds, as soundtrack site Skunkape’s Crap has posted both of the songs from Mad Foxes by the mighty Krokus for your enjoyment. And hey, while you’re there take a look around. Skunkape has a plethora of trash and art house treasures awaiting your perusal.

I can’t believe I nearly allowed this to pass me by. A few weeks ago cult DVD company Panik House announced that they were going to be releasing a special edition of Chained Heat. They also revealed that they had even bigger news on the horizon. This was big news in itself, since what could possibly be more exciting than Chained Heat? Well, last week they finally revealed their latest project.

Panik House is entering into a production partnership with Synapse Films to release seven more films from the Toei vaults. Five proto-Pinky Violence films and two films of a new genre: Pinky Horror!

Kaidan Hebi-onna; aka Snake Woman’s Curse This was the first of the Pinky Horror films released by Toei. It was helmed by master director Nobuo Nakagawa, who has been called the Japanese Hitchcock, and Akemi Negishi (Sex & Fury, Lady Snowblood) stars.

There’s been a bit of a Rampo resurgence recently. I admit that I had never heard about him until recently, but after reading a piece on his work in Rue Morgue I tracked down a few of his translated short stories and enjoyed them immensely. Also, I have Panik House’s release of Sex and Fury and it’s pure gold, so I have high hopes for these releases.

Due to circumstances beyond my control J. and I were unable to attend the majority of the first day of The Festival of Fear. However, we did work it enough that we were able to get there for the last hour and change, and had to decide on which aspect of the convention we would most want to see in that limited amount of time. Our choices were the convention floor or the Linda Blair Q + A. We decided to go with Blair because we could hit the salesfloor anytime. That was our first mistake.

I have the uncanny ability to sit beside the most annoying people in any given situation. If you want peace and quiet, sit anywhere other than beside me. The first twenty minutes of sitting in the auditorium were spent waiting for Linda Blair to show up and listening to the couple behind us speculate as to possible reasons why she was running late.

-Maybe she’s too busy getting her breasts powdered. Or she didn’t shave her… stuff.

-Only my generation or younger does that!

Just when I was ready to give up, Linda Blair arrived. The next fifteen minutes felt like an hour. Blair spent her Q + A preaching to the crowd about the Linda Blair World Heart Foundation, offering up surreal bon mots like the following.

“I literally gave up my career in order to take a stand for the suffering that I saw. It’s not just animals that are suffering. Children are suffering. People are suffering. The world is suffering. It is the future. But I am a grassroots organization. Everyone knows me.”

“There’s alot of people we’ve taken away. There’s cities, the communities, after school sports. You’ve got drugs and gambling and guns and violence, all of that you will find, and young people following Big Brother to the dog fights. If you ask young people nowadays, alot of them have been to a dog fight but they don’t have a pet!”

I wouldn’t have minded so much if she wasn’t already 20 minutes late and if this was actually going to lead somewhere, but she also brought along a representative from the Humane Society to do a follow up. Realizing that this was going nowhere quick, we took off as soon as he took the stage. Apparently she did speak about her movie roles, which you can read about at The Rue Morturary, but even the moderator had no idea she was going to pull this stunt until three minutes before the event.

By the time we escaped it was too late to do anything else at the convention. At least I got a good story out of this disaster.

Straight from The Festival of Fear, Alice Cooper pops into the Linda Blair Q + A for a hug. Apparently, Cooper took Blair out for a night at the movies 30 years ago and they haven’t seen each other since. I almost wish I had sat through 20 more minutes of talk about pit bulls just to see something this surreal.

I’m going to make you my Wi-otch!

Four pretty teenage boys descended from witches and born with magic powers must fight an evil force in their midst.

The Covenant is one of those films which I cannot recommend to anyone without losing whatever little credibility I’m still clinging to. Still, it exceeded my incredibly high low expectations.

This is one of the most vapid, shallow pieces of entertainment I have ever seen. The Covenant not only departed from any reasonable attempt at storytelling but couldn’t even keep within the confines of its own rules for more than ten minutes at a time. Plot lines established in the beginning disappeared to make way for 11th hour story elements. Characters followed the same route, suddenly disappearing from the scene or even worse, simply standing around doing nothing at all. Everyone looked as if they were cast from the same hard body mould, making it nearly impossible to differentiate between characters unless you were a 14-year girl with a subscription to Tiger Beat. Any attempt at suspense failed miserably. The lead-up to the final confrontation had all the urgency of going down to the corner store for a litre of milk. And as for scares, there was only one small scene that even attempted to establish the danger of the occult. As a matter of fact, despite lip service to the ramnifications of excessive use of witchcraft, no visible damage was done and the what little bit of theme the film tried to establish was lost on the entire cast. Forget Harry Potter; if the evangelicals want a scapegoat than they should look no further.

Really, I could go on forever. So how could I possibly enjoy a train wreck like The Covenant? Because it’s a big, beautiful, campy, homoerotic train wreck, of course. The second I saw the trailer with all those high cheekbones and confused attempts at meaningful stares I was hooked. You know you’ve struck gold when the biggest concern for the characters is that using their powers will cause them to age and look icky. I kid you not, this is like a big-budget David DeCoteau film, and if you know what I’m talking about you’ll enjoy every smouldering moment. Scenes of ripped, hairless jocks waking up covered in sweat and jizz are scattered about like so many Reese’s Pieces, leading us further into a world of manly grappling, locker rooms and low-slung swimming trunks. The entire audience was composed of guys confused about the stirring in their pants and the teenage girls taking notes for the slash fiction they’ll write when they get home. It makes me grin just thinking about it.

Was it worth it? Hell, it was worth it for the final scene alone, quite possibly the most divinely anti-climatic finale I have ever witnessed. Could I recommend it? Not on your life.

Warren of 150 Days of Sodom claims that this is his stupidest post yet, and I’d agree, if by that he means stupidly entertaining.

Just when you think every dark corner of pulp fiction has been covered on the internet, along comes David Z. with the second in a series of one-page stories used as filler in older comic books entitled Fear in the Storm.

Bill Cunningham discusses the marketing possibilities of Blade: The Series R-rated DVD release. Count me in as one of the suckers actually considering picking this up based on solely on the risque footage.

Drawn points me in the direction of the new children’s book Frankenstein Makes A Sandwich and other stories you’re sure to like, because they’re all about monsters, and some of them are about food. It looks gorgeous.

As my unwatched movie collection grows closer to the 100 mark, I find that I’m trading in my former obsession with quantity for a new appreciation for quality. And even though I still love hamburgers (or, in most cases, sloppy joes), sometimes I just need to sink my teeth into a juicy steak.

The Criterion Collection usually only releases a horror film once a year or so, but 2006 has seen a bumper crop for creepy films. First there was their Equinox release, which I picked up a little over a week ago, and now they’re getting ready to spring two ghostly tales from foreign lands upon an unsuspecting public, The Spirit of the Beehive and Jigoku.

In a small Castilian village in 1940, in the wake of the country’s devastating civil war, six-year-old Ana attends a traveling movie show of Frankenstein and becomes possessed by the memory of it. Produced as Franco’s long regime was nearing its end, The Spirit of the Beehive is a bewitching portrait of a child’s haunted inner life and one of the most visually arresting movies ever made.

Shocking, outrageous, and poetic, Jigoku (Hell, a.k.a. The Sinners of Hell) is the most innovative creation from Nobuo Nakagawa, the father of the Japanese horror film. After a young theology student flees a hit-and-run accident, he is plagued by both his own guilt-ridden conscience and a mysterious, diabolical doppelganger. But all possible escape routes lead straight to hell, literally. In the gloriously gory final third of the film, Nakagawa offers up his vision of the underworld in a tour de force of torture and degradation. A striking departure from traditional Japanese ghost stories, Jigoku, with its truly eye-popping (and -gouging) imagery, created aftershocks that are still reverberating in contemporary world horror cinema.

I hope this trend continues and Criterion releases further horror films in the near future, be they esoteric gems or established classics.

Eli Roth. Some people like him, others can’t stand him. And a few seem able to both like him and dislike him simultaneously. Considering the fact that I named Hostel my favourite horror movie of the past seven years, it’s probably a good bet that I fall into the former category. Now it seems you’ll be seeing a bit more of him next year with the release of Grindhouse.

Quentin Tarantino has cast Michael Bacall (CSI: Crime Scene Investigation), Eli Roth (Hostel) and newcomer Omar Doom in his half of GRINDHOUSE, the highly anticipated double feature he is making with Robert Rodriguez, which will include two films joined by faux ads and trailers. Rodriguez’s movie is called PLANET TERROR, while Tarantino’s movie is DEATH PROOF, a slasher flick. Bacall, Roth and Doom are cast in DEATH PROOF alongside Kurt Russell and Zoe Bell, Rosario Dawson, Vanessa Ferlito, Jordan Ladd, Rose McGowan, Sydney Tamiia Poitier, Marley Shelton, Tracie Thoms and Mary Elizabeth Winstead who were previously announced in July at the 2006 San Diego Comic Con International.

Roth’s return to his role as Justin from Cabin Fever in 2001 Maniacs was arguably the best part of that movie, so I’m looking forward to this.

I’m probably the last horror blog on the planet to link to the terminally cool 7 Black Notes, but I can resist no longer. The proprieter of that blog has pieced together various musical scores from Italian genre cinema that have never been released commercially into a collection of mini-scores. It must have taken an incredible amount of work to sift through all those films and mix together all those disparate tracks. Make sure you check it out. If you don’t get aroused listening to Images In A Convent, there’s no hope for you.