Normally at this point in the week I’d be prepping the latest Roundtable, putting the finishing touches on another installment of Scarred and taking the weekend off, but there’s something I have to share before I leave.

David Z. has posted everything you need to play the Dawn of the Dead board game.

And it is awesome.

As I’ve mentioned previously, occasional Horror Roundtable contributor and Rose City Roller Doug Nagy has begun his career as a professional blogger. His duties include video reviews, like the one for The Mist which he filmed with The Movie Blog proprietor John Campea.

But really I just wanted to post this so I could mention that I smoked that fuckmunch at Zombies! earlier tonight. That’ll teach you to mess with the Zombie Plow.

I may have been hasty in denouncing the new, sunnier ending concocted for the most recent adaptation of I Am Legend. I’ve spent the last 24 hours, both asleep and awake, happily imagining new ways to end the film.

For instance, the creatures capture Will Smith and drag him blindfolded to his fate. They reach their destination, take off the blindfold, and Will Smith discovers that they’ve resculpted the Statue of Liberty in his image, with the inscription “I Am Lejend” scratched into the base, not unlike the statue of Michael Jackson from the infamous HIStory video. Speechless in his disbelief, Will Smith turns to the leader of the creatures who rests his hand on Smith’s chest and intones, with some difficulty, the word “Friend”. Will Smith replies in kind, and the screen fades to black as the sun rises on a new day.

Leave your own faux-happy endings, for I Am Legend or any other downbeat horror movie, in the comments below. My favourite entry will receive a DVD copy of the surprisingly fun Flight of the Living Dead as well as any other goodies I can gather together.

Thanks to JA for “Lejend”.

I’ve been both surprised and in awe of the caliber of participants in this series, but of all the people who chose to write in, one in particular made me weak in the knees. It is my pleasure to introduce Judith O’Dea, the actress who portrayed Barbara in Night of the Living Dead and helped usher in a new era for horror. After that terrifying night, what else could possibly scare her?

When I was around seven or eight years old, my parents took me out to the movies one evening to see Vincent Price in the 3-D version of THE HOUSE OF WAX. They had no idea what the story was all about. Had they known, I’m sure I would have been left safely at home with my sister to read a Mary Poppins or Nancy Drew book. But that’s not the way it happened.

Yep, good old Vincent Price in the HOUSE OF WAX was my own NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD!

Like many young horror movie directors, J.R. Bookwalter set his sights impossibly high. Unlike most of his peers he not only completed his project, the epic zombie flick The Dead Next Door, but also spun that cult classic into a career that’s still going strong over twenty years later, culminating in the founding of Tempe Entertainment, home of some of my favourite direct-to-video releases. What terrible things could possibly set a young man on this path to madness?

It may sound like a cheesy choice, but I remember as a kid watching the Dan Curtis TV movie BRAM STOKER’S DRACULA starring Jack Palance and it scared the hell out of me… there was some scene where Dracula was trying to get into a locked door and the man or woman inside the room were freaking out… it’s one of the only times I went running to my mother’s bedroom after watching a horror flick on TV, that’s for sure!

Runner up has to go to the also-cheesy ’70s documentary THE MYSTERIOUS MONSTERS… the reenactment scene where Bigfoot smashes his arm through the window to grab someone sitting next to it totally had me moving my bed away from the window for weeks afterward… and my bedroom was on the second floor!

James Farr is the evil mastermind behind the incredibly popular cartoon serial Xombie, which is quickly becoming an industry onto itself with spin-offs including an illustrated novel, a comic series currently available from Devil’s Due Publishing and a feature film in the works. What scares you, James Farr?

The Shining. Yes, it’s a ridiculously obvious choice. Although I can’t honestly remember being scared by any other film quite so much. Aside from the seemingly random yet masterfully placed flashes of dead children, angry bathroom ghosts and blood that could ride elevators, the overall atmosphere was consistently chilling. The same feeling you get being alone in a giant, empty house, or traversing the halls of a strange hotel late at night - The Shining was able to maintain that basic, profound sense of unease for the entirety of the film.

Also, I think we all know it’s only a matter of time until Jack Nicholson comes to kill us with an axe.

Our first guest is David Wellington, author of the acclaimed zombie trilogy Monster Island, Monster Nation and Monster Planet. David got his start online and continues to move effortlessly between print, such as his latest, the vampire action novel 13 Bullets, and the internet, with the post-apocalyptic zombie saga Plague Zone and the frozen werewolf terror of Frostbite. All of his horror tales are still available for free online at the links above, and if you like what you see please consider purchasing the print editions.

David’s encounter with terror is near and dear to my heart, as I had an almost identical experience. I don’t doubt a few of you will feel the same.

A lot of things scared me when I was a kid. The first I can remember was a special news report in 1981 by Walter Cronkite called “The Defense of the United States”, a documentary about what we could expect following a global thermonuclear war. I was nine years old at the time, and in love with special effects movies and had heard there were going to be some state of the art “recreations” included in the show. I begged and pleaded to be allowed to watch, sitting through endless talking head interviews I couldn’t understand, wondering if this dud was ever going to pay off. Boy, did it. About halfway through the program Cronkite warned that what we were about to see was a simulation based on the best available data, and that sensitive viewers might want to look away. You got to see what would happen to downtown Omaha Nebraska when the bomb hit. Exploding buildings, people with melting faces… for years afterward I ran and hid under my bed every time an airplane passed over the house, convinced it could be a Russian bomber.

Then there was the time my parents stayed out till two in the morning, and at midnight they started playing The Shining on HBO. I don’t think I need to go into details. When the front door opened and my Dad stepped inside, a little drunk and pissed that I was still awake… well. We’ve all been there, I suppose.

Karl Hardman Schon has passed away at the age of 80.

Night of the Living Dead has often been cited as one of the turning points in Horror cinema history, if not the one great demarcation defining the latter half of the 20th century for the genre. With a legacy that colossal it’s sometimes easy to forget that it took a lot of faith and sweat just to get it made. Karl Hardman Schon was one of the architects instrumental in the creation of Night of the Living Dead. It’s easy to just cite his role as an actor in the film as the stubbornly antagonistic Harry Cooper, but his participation behind-the-scenes, while not as glamourous, is certainly worth pointing out. One of the ‘ten’ in Image Ten, the production company formed around the film, Hardman not only contributed cash to the budget, shot the production stills and helped with casting, but he also chose and edited the score and, with the help of his partner Marilyn Eastman, the sound effects. It’s safe to assume that without Mr. Hardman Night of the Living Dead, and modern horror cinema, wouldn’t be as we know it today.

A remembrance by his daughter, Kyra Schon, can be found here, and the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette has a guestbook in which people can leave their sympathies. An interview with Karl Hardman Schon and Marilyn Eastman can be found here.

Rest in peace, Mr. Hardman. And thanks.

J. was adamant that we line up early for the Diary of the Dead premiere and for once not only were we on the same page but we actually made it work. We scoped the line three hours before the event, and already there were two people waiting. An hour later we returned and managed to snag a spot a few dozen people back. Quick film festival tip: You can usually count on the amount of people in front of you to expand by 50% to 100% by the time the doors actually open as friends let friends who let friends cut in with them. Never before have I stood in line for a movie longer than the running time of the screening itself. Considering that this was the world premiere of the latest film by the director of my favourite horror movie of all time I was willing to make an exception.

By the time we finally made our way inside, our line had wrapped around half a sizable city block and the rush line, that last great hope for people who couldn’t get tickets beforehand, had stretched out to well over one hundred people, only a handful of whom would be getting in. J. and I ran into the theatre and, while we still didn’t get the best seats in the house despite our preparations, we did manage to snag a couple of choice seats. Our appoach was slightly more practical than the crowds I saw standing in the aisles futilely trying to find both good seats and enough to accomodate their crew. I swear, I overheard one couple who, in the span of mentioning that they didn’t want to take two seats off to the side, realized that those seats and every other two-seat combo had already been taken. It was a madhouse.

This is all just preamble to set you up for what happened next.

There were two empty seats beside ours, right up against the aisle. Less than a minute after we sat down this guy comes over and asks us if we have an extra ticket. He said he managed to get in through the rush line, but his girlfriend had no such luck. In hindsight, his story doesn’t make much sense. Did they let the rush line in at the same time as the regular line? Why was his girlfriend in the regular line but not in the rush line with him? Regardless, I could relate, having been in tight spots similar to his, so I gave him a ticket to give to his girlfriend. Of course, now that he had the ticket he had to go outside and give it to her, thereby losing the two empty seats beside us. So he asked us, two complete strangers, if we could hold onto both highly accessible seats for more than ten minutes in the most chaotic theatre I had ever visited for the movie voted “most anticipated of the festival”. So we refused. He offered to leave his wallet as an assurance that he would be back. We refused even more forcefully, not wanting to take on the responsibilty of looking after a stranger’s wallet. We tried to explain that the theatre was entirely too busy to be saving seats. He ignored us, explained again that he would be right back, and took off.

We gave the seats to the first couple who asked.

About fifteen minutes later the guy returned and he was furious. He kept repeating that he had offered to leave his wallet and that the seats would have been his if only we had accepted it. He continued hollering about it for a few minutes, puffing up his chest, waving his arms around and glaring at the poor people who had taken the seats and who had no idea what was going on. I have to admit, I was at a total loss. I actually started laughing, which probably didn’t help any. Later J. claimed that it looked like he had wanted to start an actual fistfight. She says I could have easily shoved his enormous sense of entitlement down his throat (she’s so sweet), but I somehow doubt I could have taken a fight like that seriously enough to actually win. He finally ran out of steam and skulked off, and we explained the backstory to the people sitting beside us. A few minutes later one of our neighbours pointed out that the guy had crossed the theatre and was pleading his case with some of the volunteers. I missed it, which is too bad because if I hadn’t I would have taken a picture. Now that would have set him off.

And that’s my favourite memory from the Toronto International Film Festival Midnight Madness.

Hey, Boils and Ghouls. Sorry I haven’t been around the past week. There isn’t really a good reason for my absence. I’ve just been working on some stuff that doesn’t involve the computer, and I’ve fallen behind a bit. Thank you to everyone who wrote in assuming I was dead. I’m touched.

I couldn’t let the week close out without mentioning a cool little event happening in my own backyard this weekend. While Ottawa may be the independent horror film production of Canada, in all other regards it fails miserably. Ottawa has two repertory theatres, yet in my nearly five year exile here only a small handful of genre films have been shown. I’ve been to cities one-fifth the size that have more life in them.

Well, the cats over at Drunken Master Revue have decided to remedy the situation. This Saturday night at 11:30 pm they’ll be screening a 35mm print of Night of the Comet at the Mayfair on Bank St. for five bucks. Night of the Comet is one of my formative horror experiences, as the very first Fangoria magazine I ever bought ran a story on it, and the pictures within instilled in me a lifelong love for zombies.

So, if you’re in town I highly recommend checking it out. It’s all the mid-’80s, cheerleader with a machine gun mowing down zombie action you could hope for.

Posting will most likely be a little light over the next two weeks, but I hate to let a day go by without something, so here you go.

Before Paul Anderson got his sticky little fingers all over the franchise, George A. Romero was slated to make his zombie comeback in the form of the first Resident Evil film. Though he was eventually kicked off the project, a few years previous to that debacle Romero did manage to shoot one small Japanese commercial for the first sequel to the game.

My previous post about the odds of the world seeing Vampires fight zombies in our lifetime made me question whether vampires and zombies have ever crossed paths before. Happily, the tribute site for The Federal Vampire and Zombie Agency has the answer.

…in ancient times zombies and vampires were frequently pitted against each other for the enjoyment of bloodthirsty spectators. So which is more formidable? It’s a question I’m commonly asked.

The Federal Vampire and Zombie Agency tribute site contains everything you need to know concerning about this defunct organization. The site also contains interactive cases so you can determine your suitability in facing undead terrors, movie reviews rated according to both entertainment as well as factual content and who would come out on top when you throw werewolves into a vampire/zombie brawl.

Is the return of the cherished monster rally a healthy indicator of creature features to come, or is have we just reached the bottom of the barrel and are mixing things up just to appear fresh? In all likelihood it was Underworld that started the trend with its war between Werewolves and Vampires, but a few years later another project is hoping to combine vampires with the current fan favourite, zombies. From CHUD.

In Huston’s novel, vampires are, of course, afflicted with a virus, causing them to give up Diet Coke and forcing them to drink blood to survive. They’re keeping a low profile in Manhattan, but have their own sub-societal culture, complete with cliques varying from corporate suits to biker gangs. The protagonist is private eye Joe Pitt, hired to track down a high-profile daughter in the middle of a subculture at war against zombies, wraiths and the infighting vampire factions.

Alright, so they’re probably pre-Romero zombies as opposed to the modern type. But it’s just a matter of time before we once again see werewolves, vampires, the undead and mad scientists rubbing shoulders once again.

The New York Comic-Con wasn’t the only shindig going down this month. George A. Romero appeared at Haunt X over a week ago, and SyFyPortal caught his Q + A.

Someone else asks, “Why do the dead come back?”

“Why does it matter?”

The whole thing is a pretty decent read, with Romero dishing on YouTube, Masters of Horror and Mr. Rogers. And as a bonus, check out this gossip page from The National Post. Only in Canada would George A. Romero merit a mention on the society page.

I had no idea what a big deal the New York Comic-Con would be. One of the major announcements to come out of the convention is the confimation that J. Michael Straczynski, creator of Babylon 5, is currently working up the script for Max Brooks’ World War Z. IGN relates some of what he had to say about the project.

“It’s very political, very smart, very cagey, but there’s no main character. So you have to create who the interviewer is and give him some background and bring him from place to place to place to place. And they said, ‘Feel free to get as political as you want, as incisive as you want, to play with it. You could look at this as a Katrina kind of catastrophe.’ But I’m being very faithful to the book, letter by letter when I can, and I’m on about page 70 right now and I’m really happy with it.”

Straczynski also mentions the possibility that since the film is being produced under Brad Pitt’s company that the actor may appear in the movie. I’m not that familiar with Straczynski’s work, but as I understand it he takes a very hard line on realism within genre, something a project like this could use. Here’s hoping he’s the right choice.