Name an experience, successful or disasterous, where you tried to introduce someone to Horror, a particular sub-genre of Horror, or a specific film.

Rony

I tried to get one of my friends to watch a zombie movie “night of the living dead” and when I told them that it was b&w and that the zombies didn’t run fast like in 28 days later (only zombie type film they’ve seen), they got upset and told me to screw myself, so I slapped them and made them watch the movie. They ended up liking the movie.

Brainbug - The Celluloid Cesspool

One of my disastrous attempts was back in high school when I showed my girlfriend Craven’s Last House on the Left. She was the kind of girl who grew up with Saved by the Bell and Full House, so seeing two girls degraded, raped, carved up and forced to piss their pants was kind of a shock to her entire sheltered world. Interestingly enough, it’s ten years later and she’s now studying to become a psychologist and we’re celebrating our one year wedding anniversary next week. Her attempts to analyze my mental state have proven futile throughout the years. I will never forget the bewildered look she gave me when she walked into the room during the giant human sandwich scene in Microwave Massacre. I doubt they covered that in her classes.

Warren - 150 Days of Sodom

I got my ex into Italian horror movies and European horror movies which pretty much made our relationship work since she turned out to be someone who liked to stay in at night and I would settle for that as long as we could watch something that I’d be into.

It was not a hard sell really, she pretty much enjoyed the movies from the get-go, particularly Dario Argento, Paul Naschy, and Mario Bava stuff. She always enjoyed horror movies, but I think she was captivated by the fashion (and hairstyles!) and the music (dance scenes in clubs!) in these older European movies, and of course the beautiful girls - they were all perfect 10’s back then.

Don’t laugh, I enjoy some of the non-horror elements in these movies as well, such as the sets and locations, which are all very exotic to me.

Now that I’m single I don’t watch nearly as many movies, maybe a 10th as many as before, that’s a shame I guess.

Don May, Jr. - Synapse

I remember taking a date (a girl I REALLY, REALLY liked) to see Romero’s DAY OF THE DEAD. She’d never seen ANYTHING like that before… she was repulsed, disgusted and totally offended by the gore. She was fascinated that I was such a horror film fan and really wanted to see what all the fuss was about… evidently, she didn’t “get” it! LOL!

Needless to say, we never went out on a date EVER again.

Jeff O’Brien

I had a friend who bragged that she was open to new and obscure films, art films, edgy stuff. So I told her about MAN BITES DOG, which fits all the above descriptions. She was pretty appalled by it and to this day, years later, has not forgotten it.

Dave - Rue Morgue’s The Abbatoir

Co-programming our monthly movie nights means that I get to help introduce a whole whack of people to a particular movie, which is really satisfying sometimes. My personal favourites so far have been Rock ‘N’ Roll Nightmare (we brought in Thor and the crowd ate it up — lots of
laughs), Monster Squad, which many seemed to have heard about and were seeing on film for the first time (big applause on that one) and, for a more serious pick, the Canuck survival horror gem Rituals, which has never been on DVD, so the majority of the crowd hadn’t seen it, some had never heard of it, and most seemed to really dig it. Plus, we had a cast and crew Q&A afterwards, which took the whole night to another level.

In terms of a bad experience, one time I had a date with this girl who said she liked horror films and wanted to watch one. I figured Evil Dead was a safe choice, but she didn’t seem to get it. It was kinda awkward and, really, if she hadn’t already seen Evil Dead, I shouldn’t have bothered with her in the first place. She nearly swallowed my soul.

Bill Cunningham - DisContent

I gave someone a copy of ICHI THE KILLER… they haven’t looked at me the same way since. It’s always in the back of their mind that I watched and recommended this movie…

Oh well.

Nathan - MicroHorror

It was my junior prom. A double date. After dinner, but before going to the school dance, the four of us went to see “From Dusk Till Dawn.” That didn’t work at all.

Kimberly - Cinebeats

Disastrous moments seem to stand out more than the good ones. One of the worst experiences I can remember was when I made the mistake of showing one of my old roommates Argento’s Opera after it just came out on video. I didn’t know at the time that he hated eyeball horror/gore. For some reason any eyeball gore deeply disturbed him (maybe he saw Fulci’s Zombi 2 when he was a kid? Who knows…). If you’ve seen Opera, you probably know that the film has lots of eyeball related moments and when the first scene started where the girl gets tied up and has needles put under her eyes my roommate went nuts. He yelled a bit, called me a sicko, left the room and refused to watch the rest of the movie. It was awkward to say the least.

Tim - Mondo Schlocko

I don’t know if I ever had much of a experience or any anecdote to offer, but it seems that I can never get anyone I know in my home state to watch and enjoy indie “backyard” b-movies.

Only two people from last week’s roundtable participated in this one. Are you guys taking turns? If you’d like to share your own awkward tales of horror proselytization in the comments below, we’d like to hear them.

The greatest casualty of the Comic Code Authority clamp-down of the 50s was EC, home of Tales From The Crypt and Vault of Horror, among many others. The only publication to survive from EC was Mad, which did so by converting to a magazine format and slipping past the Code and onto newstands. While a similar decision to save the horror titles wasn’t considered, if it had the result may have looked something like Warren Publishing’s Creepy and Eerie comic magazines.

Dark Horse Comics have announced that they not only plan on releasing all-new stories under the Creepy and Eerie titles by such horror luminaries as Steve Niles and Bernie Wrightson, but that they will also be reprinting the earlier stories in hardcover collections.

When I first heard the news, I hoped that they were considering reprinting them in the same format as their upcoming Savage Sword of Conan reprints, similar to the Marvel Essentials or DC Showcase volumes. If anything would actually benefit from a pulpy presentation it would be Creepy and Eeerie. Here’s hoping this doesn’t mean they’re planning on colouring them.

This video of the entire population of a Filipino prison re-enacting the choreography from Michael Jackson’s Thriller is the world’s worst deterrent. If this is how they swing in the Philippines, book my flight and hand me an orange jumpsuit!

Thanks to J, who found this on Dlisted. And for more weird clips, make sure you check out Film Junk’s Weird Web Wednesday, where they also posted this video.

Jay C., proprieter of The Documentary Blog and occassional Horror Roundtable contributor, has posted a video review of Equinox over at Film Junk. Not only is it a great overview of why you should check out that creature feature, the review looks nicer than the film itself. If I made video reviews I’d feel like a chump right about now. Jay has promised future installments if this one is well-received, so check it out and let him know that you’d like more.

In a world where slasher villains actually exist, a documentary crew follow an aspiring masked maniac as he prepares for his first professional kill.

Sometimes concepts that look good on paper should stay there. The idea of a killer being filmed, either by a crew or by himself, is one that’s played out numerous times to variable success. What made those movies work was the absurdity of the documentation playing off of the serious nature of murder, allowing the audience to ignore the ramifications of what’s happening onscreen until they’re so far in that they themselves are implicated in the crimes.

Based on fictional killers rather than real-life killers, Behind the Mask piles absurdity upon absurdity and somehow manages to make the sum more dull than the parts. Not unlike superheroes, evicting slasher villains from their fantasy world and bringing them down to our level robs them of what little interest they possess.

As if that weren’t enough, Behind the Mask has got to be the single most pedestrian slasher movie I have ever seen. I’m not sure if the filmmakers were attempting to pull a Lichenstein and deliberately make their film technically incompetent in order to overemphasize the failings of the sub-genre, or if they really have no talent for suspense. I do know that if you’re going to parody or emulate something you should at least attempt to match, if not better, the originals. And slasher movies don’t really set the bar so high that you’d think this would be impossible to achieve.

There are a few highlights. Robert Englund is wonderful as the obsessive Doc Halloran, though he’s criminally underused, and Scott Wilson and Bridgett Newton shine as a couple retired from the slasher game. I almost wish the movie had been about the three of them instead. I am grateful to Behind the Mask for one thing. It prompted me to watch some adequate slashers to remind me why I enjoy them in the first place.

For what are sure to be more complimentary views of Behind The Mask, make sure you check out the Final Girl Film Club.

If anything could rouse me from this summer languor it would have to be the rumours that The World’s Most Reliable Newspaper may cease publication. Other than Archie comics, I can think of no other publication that it would pain me more to watch disappear. Such is my love for WWN that I even considered making discussion of that fine newspaper a weekly feature of this blog, which unfortunately fell through due to lack of funds. Only weeks ago I told J. that I could finally afford a subscription to the World Weekly News, which she pronounced as “The greatest waste of money I’ve ever heard of,” a statement I’m sure she now regrets deeply.

If the rumours turn out to be true, there will be a hole in my heart the size of the one in the supermarket check-out line.

Thanks to Mike Sterling for bringing this to my attention.

Name your favourite opening credit sequence in a horror film.

Casey - Cinema Fromage

The opening of Jim Wynorski’s Not of This Earth carries on for a solid 5 to 7 minutes. In this action packed time frame we catch glimpses of large monsters, various explosions, fist fights with said monsters and various other trappings that make for a promising scifi/horror camp flick! It’s not until you sit through the entire 81 minutes of the movie that you realize that all of the action and monsters shown in the opening credits? None of it is in the movie.

Stacie - Final Girl

I’ve been thinking about opening credits a lot lately, because they seem to be getting more and more lengthy all the time. They’re becoming these overblown Adobe After Effects mini-movies and to me, they don’t often put me in the right mood.

For me, number one is Gore Verbinski’s The Ring…because it doesn’t HAVE a credit sequence. Maybe it’s the same in the original version, but I don’t remember. There’s no names, no distractions, nothing- the movie just starts. No one does that!

Sometimes films get it right, and I think when they take a ‘less is more’ approach, even credit sequences can be effective in setting a mood- I’m thinking the original Texas Chain Saw Massacre, with those blood red sunspots and subtle news report narration, and Halloween 1 & 2, with the pumpkins and Carpenter’s haunting music. They’re short and subtle and they suck you right in.

That said, of course, I love some of the Friday the 13th credit sequences, like in Part 2 where the logo explodes. It’s just plain awesome. And then there’s Creepshow, with those super sweet Bernie Wrightson- inspired drawings and the “scary” font…those credits tie into the whole comic book feel of the film really well. Man, when I was a kid Creepshow was the shit. It kinda still is.

Sean T. Collins - Attentiondeficitdisorderly Too Flat

The 2004 version of Dawn of the Dead. Probably the most effective use of popular music in a horror film I can think of, and part of the scariest 15 or so minutes of zombie movie ever filmed.

Jeff O’Brien

OMEN 2

The discovery of the daggers…

Nico - DVDTrash

Easy one this week, Dario Argento’s Suspiria, fantastic opening for a great film, and one I’ll be revisiting before going to Italy to watch the final chapter “Mother of Tears”!

Paul Corupe - Canuxploitation

I’ve always been partial to the proto-psychedelic opening sequences to the films of Roger Corman’s Poe cycle, which have always struck me as Saul-Bass-on-a-budget. The Pit and the Pendulum, I think, is the best of the lot, with constantly swirlilng multi-color oil paints and an almost atonal Les Baxter score that work together to foster an atmosphere of instability and insanity that thematically carries through the rest of the film. To me, they are the perfect intersection of the Gothic horror with the camp of ’60s pop art–both dated and timeless.

Dave - Rue Morgue’s The Abbatoir

Another tough one… . So many horror flicks, even bad ones, grab you off the get go. I’m gonna go with the first one that comes to mind: The Dawn of the Dead remake. Johnny Cash + apocalyptic zombie mayhem = awesome. I love the design of the actual credits themselves, the use of found footage and the way it’s all edited together to “When the Man Comes Around.”

Curt - Groovy Age of Horror

For me, it’s a toss-up between two Argentos: BIRD WITH CRYSTAL PLUMAGE and DEEP RED. Great music, great images, very striking in both cases.

JA - My New Plaid Pants

I have a real fondness for the opening credits of Final Destination, with all the cheesy over-the-top suggestions of “THE SIGNS OF IMMINENT DEATH!” , as if we’re supposed to be terrified that there’s a copy of Death of a Salesman on the kid’s desk.

Louis - Damaged 2.0

The remake of DAWN OF THE DEAD. The blood splotches mixed with Johnny Cash’s “The Man Comes Around” is spectaularily haunting and downright iconic. Running a close second would be the skuzzy 70’s style openin credits of THE DEVIL’S REJECTS, set to the Allman Brother’s “Midnight Rider”. I love the freeze frame and zoom in style. And, finally, it’s much longer than an opening credits sequence, but I really dig the first fifteen minutes of FEAST, when all the chatacters are introduced in one bigsnarky, horror-geek in-joke.

Thanks to all the cinephiles for this week’s Horror Roundtable. And thank you for reading. While you’re here, why not sample some of the fine horror blogs available above? It’s not like I posted anything this week.

Name your favourite Friday the 13th death scene.

Rony

Although I really love the “stab from under the bed through the persons neck” I think the one that made me happy and laugh for the longest time was when Jason used one kid in a sleeping bag as a bat and beat another kid (also in a sleeping bag) to death, DOUBLE KILL!!!! SWEET!

Bill Cunningham - DisContent

I’ve always been partial to to the wonderful scene in Friday the 13th 3-D where Jason shoots the speargun right into the audience then into the camp counselor’s eye. I remember ducking as the spear flew out into the audience…

(sorry for the lack of detail, but it was a long time ago)

Louis - Damaged 2.0

I like the one where Jason takes the machete and cuts that guy in half. But seriously…

I love death of the space marine commander-type in JASON X: Jason impales the dude on a metal corkscrew thing, and he says “You think that’s gonna kill me?” Ever the jokester, Jason tightens the screw, and then the guy says “Yep, that’ll do it.” It’s an extremely funny scene from–oh my God, blasphemy–the best entry in the entire series.

Billy

I’m quite partial to the scene with the guy driving around on the motorcycle screaming at his mom who’s in the kitchen making super. I forget what exactly he was yelling about, but it was just so nice to have him shut up on a permanent basis with a machete to the neck.

Jeff O’Brien

The head-crushing, eye-popping kill in Friday the 13th 3D !

Warren - 150 Days of Sodom

Clearly the ones in Part 2 that are ripped off from Mario Bava’s Bay of Blood. I can only imagine that this would be everyone’s answer.

The spear through the bed most specifically, I first heard about that scene at my little brother’s birthday party when I too was a very young kid. “Jason sticks a spear through a boy and a girl on a bed” said one of the cool kids at the table, the one with the least responsible parents. Of course I imagined the boy and girl lying parallel on the bed as I did not yet know what sex was.

Don May, Jr. - Synapse

My favorite F13 death scene is “double love skewer” sequence from FRIDAY THE 13TH PART 2… Yeah, I know, it rips off TWITCH OF THE DEATH NERVE, but I still like it…

Kevin

Without a doubt, the one from Part VIII, where he chops that dude’s head off and it rolls into the dumpster. Must have rewatched that 100x as a kid. I think there was a nudie scene somewhere thereabouts, as well.

Paul Corupe - Canuxploitation

The one I always remember is Demon (Miguel A. Núñez Jr.) getting spiked in the outhouse in Friday the 13th: A New Beginning (yes, Jason purists, I know). It’s not so much for the rather vanilla kill itself, but everything that leads up to it–the bad burritos that give Demon a bad case of gut rot, his girlfriend Anita’s “hilarious” prank of shaking the outhouse walls while he’s doing his business, and his later singing to Anita while on the toilet. It’s probably the most brainlessly juvenile scene in the whole series, but at least it imparts a valuable lesson: if a homicidal maniac is on the loose, remember to eat sensibly.

Curt - Groovy Age of Horror

Ah, so many to choose from! A lot of fans might look askance at me for
making a selection from such a late entry, but I think the one in Freddy vs.
Jason when he totally stabs that kid to death before folding him up
backwards inside that bed is pretty awesome . . .

Brainbug - The Celluloid Cesspool

The machete-to-the-face kill from Part 2 has always been my favourite. It gets bonus points because the guy was in a wheelchair.

Honorable mentions: Kevil Bacon getting an arrow through the throat (Part 1), the sleeping bag slam (New Blood), and the tent whore split (unrated Goes to Hell).

Gary Wintle

“What’re ya gonna do? Knock my block off!?”

My memories of Friday the 13th are slowly fading, but that scene from Jason in Manhatten where he punches the dude’s head off was brilliant. I never laughed at decapitation so much as a kid.

David Z. - Tomb It May Concern

I have to take the dumbass walking on his hands who gets a nice upside down shot of a hockey mask and falling machete.

SHLOOP…and then we get a fun shot of him stuffed away to freak out his girlfriend.

What a doofus!

Casey - Cinema Fromage

Thanks to Steven’s handy dandy youtube link, my favorite is #53. I believe it was not Jason, but the ambulance driver in Part IV? (I’ll turn in my geek card if I’m wrong!) It’s where the kids frolicking in the woods, from behind a tree, he wraps a leather belt around the victim’s eyes, places a stick in the strap behind the tree, and starts twisting! Such innovation! Original use of materials at hand, and the creative use of leverage on the tree! The sounds of caving bones & such on the victim was pretty awesome too!

JA - My New Plaid Pants

Definitely the chick who gets her face frozen and smashed off in Jason X. Yeah. Or the kid in the wheelchair pushed down the stairs in… whatever one that one’s in. Or the head-squished eye-popping in 3-D! Or the guy walking on his hands who gets the machete in the crotch. Or Kelly Rowland smashed against a tree. I do like the hitchhiker girl squeezing the banana in her death throes too. Lord I don’t know.

Tim - Mondo Schlocko

The character Judy being bashed in her sleeping bag against a tree. This occurred in FRIDAY THE 13TH VII and was later parodied in JASON X.

Stacie - Final Girl

For pure outrageousness, there’s a few kills that stick out in my mind: in Part 3, Jason squeezes some dude’s head until the dude’s eyeball flies out at the camera in three glorious dimensions; in Part VIII, Jason punches some dude’s head clean off on a New York City rooftop; and of course, the infamous repeatedly slam the sleeping bag into the tree gag from Part VII.

One of the more disturbing kills (which means I feel funny calling it a “favorite”…maybe I’ll call it “effective”) to me comes early on in the first film- it’s Annie, the hitchhiker. Really, it’s the first non-flashback kill of the series. We actually learn a bit about Annie as she attempts to get to Camp Crystal Lake- we follow her to the diner, etc. The audience is led to believe that Annie will be the lead character in the film- in 1980, the “kill off the first character” formula wasn’t used very often- and then suddenly she’s chased through the woods and her throat is slashed. Of course it’s an explicit sequence, but it was also shocking in its very unexpected abruptness. Suddenly all bets were off.

Kimberly - Cinebeats

When the kid in the wheelchair gets hacked in the head in Friday the 13th Part 2. It combines two of the most nasty bits from Bava’s Bay of Blood (a.k.a. Twitch of the Death Nerve) which are a wheelchair bound victim + a machete in the face. Too damn nasty! And I loved it of course.

Nothing brings ‘em out of the woodwork like a little Camp Crystal Lake mayhem. This Roundtable is brought to you through Final Girl’s Friday the 13th Blog-A-Thon. Make sure you check out all the participating posts. Thanks to all the mooks for this week’s edition of the Horror Roundtable, and as always, please leave a comment below.

I’m off to Montreal for the Fantasia Film Festival tomorrow! Make sure you pop by tomorrow for a very special Horror Roundtable!

Movies

My New Plaid Pants has Horror covered.
City Hall puts the kibosh on zombie epic.
The Olympian tries to suss out the next big horror trend.
The MPAA busts Captivity over party decorations.
What if Cronenberg directed Harry Potter?
Behind the Mask could get sequel.
30 Days of Night set visit.
Top ten scream queens.
Paul Corupe on Asylum.
Argento receives Pegaso d’Oro.
Eli Roth and Jack Hill talk exploitation.

DVD
Universal to release An American Werewolf in London doc.

Interviews
George Ratliff - Boston.com.
Lance Weiler - Popmatters.
Martin Millar - The Telegraph.
Elisha Cuthbert - About.com.
Stuart Gordon - Time Out.
Shusuke Kaneko - New York Magazine.

Movie Reviews
All The Boys Love Mandy Lane - Final Girl
Rob Zombie’s Halloween - Cinema Blend.
1408 - Cinema Fromage.
The Face of Another - Cinebeats.
Cut - Korea Times.
Unearthed - Monsters and Critics.
Joshua - Cinematical.
The Midnight Killer - Giallo Fever.
Flight of the Living Dead - Film Threat.
1408 - Ed Koch?!?

Television
Masters of Horror moving to Edmonton?
Roth On The Lot.

Literature
Encyclopedia Horrorifica - The Trades.
Sword of the Golem - The Groovy Age of Horror.

Comics
The Living and the Dead - Forbidden Planet.
Dragon Head - Comics Worth Reading.

Gaming
Killing zombies with the wii.
Clive Barker’s venture into video games gets a website.
Resident Evil 4 reissue and two more horror reviews.
Leon Kennedy and Frank West make gamer beefcake list.

Events
Fantasia overview.
Goderich zombie march tomorrow.
Horror at the Comic-Con.

Misc.
Apparently kids like stuff other than horror.
Cows pick up the slack.
Werewolves near extinction.
25 years of Thriller.
Bradbury on monorails.
Triffids vs. Zombies

Real World
Kids allegedly emulate horror films in murder plot.

Name the most drastic thing you did for something horror-related.

Bill Cunningham - DisContent

I ate ramen noodles for a month in order to go to a convention in Atlanta (The old Atlanta comics and Fantasy Fair).
I rode the bus to Atlanta from little Clinton, SC — a 4 hr.trip.
Hooked up with a girl at the convention so I’d have a place to stay that first night, then met friends that next day and stayed with them.

Gary Wintle

Using spirit gum for any Halloween costume

That stuff is so painful to get off, but so worth it.

Nathan - MicroHorror

Great question, Steven. I’ve got a few different answers for various interpretations of “drastic.” First, easily the most elaborate and labor-intensive thing I’ve ever done in the name of horror stems from one day early last year, when I was bored at the office and looking for some online distraction before getting back to work. My thoughts went something like this: “I like reading horror stories. I want to read some horror stories. I don’t have a lot of time, so they need to be short. I like reading short-short horror stories. I think I’ll read some short-short horror stories. … Why can’t I find a website with a big archive devoted exclusively to short-short horror stories?” The rest, as they say (as they say), is history: MicroHorror.com.

If it’s physically grueling you’re looking for, that would be the several all-night shoots I spent on Gary Ugarek’s “Deadlands: The Rising.” There’s a lot of hurry-up-and-wait on a movie set, even when it’s indy. You just have to sit around in makeup and stay awake and alert for hours, waiting for the call. No pay, of course. Lots of fun, though, and I hope I get to work with Gary again.

Finally, the most money I’ve ever dropped at once on anything horror was the first time I met Batton Lash at the Small Press Expo. Batton’s the creator of the terrific comic “Supernatural Law.” I hadn’t read any of it, but I’d heard great word-of-mouth, so on an impulse I told him that I’d buy the whole thing. You should have seen the look on his face. Good times.

Tim - Mondo Schlocko

Nothing too drastic, but I once gave up a car payment to buy an arm’s load of DVDs from a convention.

Dave - Rue Morgue’s The Abbatoir

Several years ago I drove three hours, from Edmonton to Calgary, in the winter, to check out a (totally crappy) horror festival in the hopes that it would be my first freelancing assignment for Rue Morgue. It wasn’t, but the trip wasn’t a total waste of time, as I used it to guilt Rod into letting me write a news story a short while later. I’ve been in every issue of the magazine since then, and, of course, it eventually led to a sweet job at the House of Horror.

Kimberly - Cinebeats

I regret paying ridiculous amounts of money for uncut Laser Disc versions of many horror films - often Japanese imports of Argento & Bava flicks - before LDs become extinct and the movies became easily available in the US on DVD The LDs are now worthless and I still feel like a sucker even though I was happy to see them films when I did.

Sean T. Collins - Attentiondeficitdisorderly Too Flat

I drove in Los Angeles so that I could visit Clive Barker’s three-house office/art studio/home complex in Beverly Hills. This was a horror experience in and of itself.

But far more horrifying was my internship at Troma Studios. It’s a wonderful thing to have done, but a nightmarish experience while doing it. Don’t get me wrong, Lloyd Kaufman is delightful and I have just as many hilarious memories as you might expect, but the annual turnover rate is something like 90% there, for good reason–the pressure is unbelievable. It got to the point where when I’d have to make innocuous decisions outside of the internship, like where to eat dinner, I’d be so wracked with indecision that I’d literally have a miniature nervous breakdown and start crying in the Applebee’s parking lot. It was like in Arkham Asylum when they wean Two-Face off the coin and onto a Tarot deck and he can’t make simple decisions about things like going to the bathroom before he pisses his pants. Tromatized indeed.

I was hoping this week’s responses would make me feel better about all the miles I clock travelling to and from various screenings, festivals and conventions, but it’s just not working. Thanks to all this week’s Knights of the Round, and while you’re here please feel free to relate your own tales of madness and obsession in the comments below.

A few warnings upfront. The quality here is atrocious, particularly the sound. Also, Paramount has been taking these down fairly quickly, so I can’t guarantee how much longer this particular video will be available.

People have been speculating as to the nature of the J.J. Abrams-produced project code-named Cloverfield for awhile now. The trailer seen above has only added fuel to the fire.

In the event that you won’t, or can’t, see for yourself, the teaser shows a group of young adults throwing a farewell party for a friend in an apartment in New York City. Distant rumbling, power outages, and inhuman roars prompt the partygoers to go to the roof to see what’s going on. An explosion blocks away causes everyone to panic, making their way to the streets. There a giant projectile falls into the crowd, causing all sorts of property damage. The trailer is seen through the lens of the video cameras from the party and apparently the entire movie will be shot the same way.

The general consensus seems to be that this will be a giant monster movie, with some speculating that it is in fact a remake of The Host or Godzilla. Others are convinced that it will be a Lost tie-in.

Despite the quality of the video, I’m sold. I’ve been anticipating a ground-level kaiju movie for years.

Movies
Zombie’s Halloween begins reshoots.
An open letter from George A. Romero.
Cameron Diaz’ Box.
Roth on homophobic dialogue.
The birth of Gorno.
Danny Boyle weighs in on Eli Roth.
Tables turned on gender disparity.
Werewolfman spotted in L.A.
Elvira Search enters next round.
Toronto’s classiest movie theatre profiled.

Interviews
Heather Matarazzo - Time Out.
Elisha Cuthbert - Cinematical.
Richard Sala - Groovy Age of Horror.

Reviews
Mini-reviews - Cinema Fromage.
Nightcomers - Cinedelica.
Grizzly 2 workprint - Critic Online.
King of Thorn - Mangablog.

Television
James Gunn a Master of Horror?

Real World
Vampire peacock.

Bloor Street doesn’t wait for the clubs to let out before it mixes it up, street fighter-style. Starting in July it’ll be a rumble in the Annex every Friday night as the Fight and Fright festival asks you to bring a paper bag… to carry your teeth in! All summer long the Bloor Street Cinema comes at you direct with a one-two combo of kung-fu and horror, all for a fin. That’s advance, pal!

On July 6th Jackie Chan represents with a little something something called Rumble in the Bronx. He’ll be standing face-to-boomstick with Bruce Campbell in The Evil Dead. Fuck Vegas.

July 13th is unlucky for most, but most assuredly lucky for the audience as Tony Jaa brings sexy Ong Bak. Meanwhile, Voorhees tips the scales with Friday the 13th - The Final Chapter. It takes a nation of millions to hold them back.

July 20th presents a different brand of cockfight when Peter Parkour and the kids from District B13 descend on the Annex. And as if that weren’t enough, this fight is going on from Dusk ’till Dawn, cinematically if not literally. Testify!

The gloves have just come off, fuckers. Put ‘em up.

Wishing all my fellow Canucks a beautiful long weekend!