Cinema Suicide

…and I choose, “None of the above.” Amazon is offering fans a very unique opportunity. I can’t think of a case study that exists that actually lets the mob at large determine the final printed product. Unfortunately, none of the three options that they present are very good. What you see there to the left is one of the three options. With the approaching release and fanfare of Fred Dekker’s cult classic, Night of the Creeps, the marketing machine is approaching the excited masses and addressing us, for the first time, as people in support of their effort, rather than a bunch of people who will, inevitably, give them our money. Praise be to that, but could we possibly get a better range of choices?

Drop by Amazon.com today and cast your vote

I had intended to review Gerard McMorrow’s steampunk/real-life drama, Franklyn, starring Ryan Phillippe, here. But I’ve also been trying to branch out and get my writing on other websites. I had achieved that by putting up a weekly column with Sound On Sight, but now I have a review posted up over at one of my favorite news/reviews sites, Twitch Film. It’s an honor to be over there.

Drop by Twitch Film and read my review, will ya!

Why is is that every week I see a trailer for a movie out of Japan that qualifies as the craziest god damn thing I’ve ever seen? They all seem to feature the name Noboru Iguchi, too. Where does he find the time? How does he keep upping the ante? Iguchi is in New York for the New York Asian Film Festival right now promoting Vampire Girl vs. Frankenstein Girl, another hilariously gory action movie featuring pretty girls soaked with stage blood. I guess he handed this trailer off to Twitch Film and they put it up on their site. You just have to see this. I can’t find the words. Geishas transform into vehicles, sprout hidden swords from their asses, stab some chick in the crotch and then gouge out a man’s eye with fried shrimp. FRIED FUCKING SHRIMP!!!

I used to think that America held the world title for excessive habits across the board but we have clearly been usurped by Japan. We still have a contender in the form of Michael Bay, aka the world’s worst filmmaker. Worse than Uwe Boll. Seriously. But Japan seems to have the market cornered. Mega Monster Battle, the latest tokusatsu feature in the long-running Ultraman franchise proves this. Further evidence comes in the form of Morning Musume, an all-girl J-Pop group (aren’t they all) that featured no less than 16 all-singing, all-dancing chicks. But they have nothing to do with Ultraman, which is a shame because 16 singing and dancing girls would pair well with the upcoming Ultraman assault that pits 50 versions of Ultraman against a couple of evil Ultramen and 100 god damn monsters. Perhaps giant monsters, even. Daikaiju as they call them. I just don’t know what to think anymore. The teaser above doesn’t show much being as it is just a teaser, but tokusatsu has come a long way and doesn’t look as cheap as it used to.

The Spierig Brothers managed to turn out a wildly entertaining zombie movie in the form of Undead several years back. They spent practically nothing on it and took their sweet time and from what I’ve been reading about Daybreakers, they took a similar approach. This trailer represents a huge step up for these guys. An impressive looking vampire movie that doubles as a metaphor for irresponsible resource consumption with what looks like a serious Children of Men vibe. As far as the plot goes, a disease similar to the one from Matheson’s I Am Legend, turns most of the world into vampires. Those who do not turn are hunted and farmed for blood to feed the vampire ruling class. The blood supply is dwindling, however, and it’s up to a hematologist, played by Ethan Hawke, to find a substitute or the entire human race faces rapid extinction.

Unfortunately, Yahoo movies is hosting the trailer and I can’t seem to embed it here, so you’re going to have to go there to check it out. Just be sure to come on back, y’hear?

Daybreakers trailer at Yahoo! Movies

It was recently announced that the Michael Moynihan book, Lords of Chaos, more or less the last word on Burzum/Mayhem madness of Norwegian black metal, was finally getting the film treatment. But this took me by surprise. I had no idea that Until The Light Takes Us was even in production and this is a pretty impressive movie. Not only is it very nice to look at, as Norway is inherently picturesque, it talks to people at the center of the Black Circle directly to get the whole story. Hopefully, by this point, all of these guys are old enough to stop embellishing the tale. This goes especially for Varg Vikernes, which is the movie’s greatest achievement. Varg has stood by the sidelines since his incarceration, carefully choosing who he speaks to about the events surrounging the church arson and the murder of Euronymous. This is the first time since those tragic days that Varg has gone on record with a filmmaker about it since he has had plenty of opportunities to talk in the past. Below are the dates and locations in the US where you can see the movie. For once, one of these shows is reasonably local to me.

• Nashville -- early July Carmike Cinema Scheduling issue arose, new date TBA
• San Francisco: July 9 -- 11 Thursday 7:30 Friday and Saturday 7:30 and 9:30 Yerba Buena Center for the Arts
• Providence, RI: July 11, 6:30 pm as220 Arts Center 115 Empire Street Providence RI 02903
• Chicago, July 25th, 8pm Directors in Attendance Gene Siskel Film Center
• Boston, Aug 1st, 7:30 pm The Brattle Theater 40 Brattle St., Harvard Square, Cambridge
• Houston, Aug 7th, 8:30 pm Domy Books and Art Space
• Atlanta -- Aug 13 Plaza Theater, 7:30 pm
• Albuquerque, August 14 & 15, 10:30 pm Guild Cinema – 3405 Central Ave., NE
• Chapel Hill, August 20th 9:30 pm Nighlight Arts Space
• Tucson, Aug 26, 8pm The Loft Cinema
• Philadelphia, Sept 2, 7:30 pm Ibrahim Theater at International House

And here’s the trailer.

I can’t believe it! I actually turned in a Bodycount article on time. This latest one, contrary to claims in my last column about covering that grimy period of pre-Ringu J-Horror, is actually about science fiction and horror working together toward nefarious ends. I profile a real sci-fi horror classic and then it’s all downhill from there.

The Weekly Bodycount #12: The Terrible Secret Of Space

And yes, in case you’re wondering based on the article title, I am protected.

I ran way late with this update for my column, The Weekly Bodycount over at Sound On Sight, but here it is. Frequently being pigeonholed as a horror guy led me to inject my latest horror column with some Asian flavor since I happen to be just as big a fan of martial arts as I do horror. I’ve also been looking for any reason, lately, to talk about Story of Ricky. So here you go. Tomorrow’s column is already in place, expect more Asian flair, this time from Japan.

The Weekly Bodycount #11: Chop Socky Horror

Any concerns that I had about the premier episode of True Blood have been alleviated with the second episode of season 2, Keep This Party Going. You have to excuse the clip show nature of the premier since it’s been a while since the finale and they really do have to get you  back up to speed in a way that is fair to old loyals and newcomers alike. I had my suspicions that the second episode would really take flight and it did. Suspicions that they were striking out and abandoning the Charlaine Harris novel plots were also canned as it’s clear that they are, in fact, not and that at least a few pieces of the second Harris novel, Dead In Dallas, will be included.

Just like last time, realize that this is going to be one big True Blood spoiler festival so if you have not caught up on the show yet and don’t want to know what happened on Sunday’s episode, this is the point where you stop reading and scroll down the page a bit. I hear there’s a swell review of Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter and some pictures of Johnny Depp in Alice In Wonderland. Why don’t you look at those, instead?

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Not only is this news about a remake, it’s news about a remake of a Japanese ghost revenge movie. Like we haven’t seen that shit a million times already. But here’s the qualifier. This is the part that makes me take notice.

The script for the upcoming Tomie remake is being drafted by one of Martin Scorcese’s (himself taking on the genre in Shutter Island) greatest collaborators. I’m talking about Paul Schrader. He who wrote Raging Bull. He who wrote one of my all time favorite flicks, Taxi Driver. There’s also the matter that he took on The Last Temptation of Christ and Bringing Out The Dead. Need I go on? Need I mention that he also wrote the script to the fucking outstanding Rolling Thunder? God damn! This man is unstoppable.

Bloody Disgusting received a tip that Paul Schrader is, uncharacteristically, lending his talent to a remake of one of Japan’s underdog long haired ghost girl flicks. Among the litany of Asian horror movies to use this device, Tomie was one of the more interesting and, frankly, I’m surprised that J-Horror fanboys didn’t catch the wave when this stuff was in vogue. The movie, a manga adaptation,  concerns the surreal horror of a father who meets his son’s girlfriend for the first time only to realize that she is the spitting image of a girl he once loved and murdered. If you guessed that this story doesn’t end well, you win a cookie.

I haven’t really paid much attention to Tim Burton’s production of Alice In Wonderland. As a matter of fact, I had forgotten that it was even happening but these photos of the cast are enough to remind me and draw my attention in. That shit is ca-razy!

USA Today has the scoop and along with these photos is some production art that you can scroll around and check out in greater detail. Because he’s Tim Burton, what we get out of this new feature, which wrapped principle photography back in December after only 40 days of studio shoots, is a little something in the vein of Return To Oz where the story is a little darker, the protagonist is a little older and doesn’t remember having been to Wonderland before. The end product is going to be a heavy CGI festival, but how else are you going to render a place as fucked up as Lewis Carrol’s Wonderland? Above are the early marketing images that will appear in theaters to hype the March 5, 2010 release and from the sound of things, Depp and Hathaway still have a little computer manipulation to go before their characters appear as they will in the feature.

I clearly recall when Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter came out. I was, of course, way too young to see it being only 8 years old at the time but my buddy in the neighborhood had an older brother whose mother took him to see it and he gave the two of us the bloody blow by blow. I had heard of Friday by this point but I didn’t really know what it was about. Other kids in my class had absent parents who would let their kids watch whatever and they would tell me all about it. About how they watched the movie from under the bed, afraid that Jason would step out of the shadows and kill them. Thing is, they never went into detail. My friend Brian’s older brother Mike spared no detail. We heard all about it and while I was thrilled to the core, I’m pretty sure that Mike’s detailed descriptions of spear guns in the crotch and hacksaws to the neck made sure that his little brother didn’t sleep for a week.

I couldn’t believe it. I’d seen some horror movies at this point but it was all in the realm of child-friendly possibility. Think what you will of those mid-period Lee/Cushing Hammers, the worst thing about them were the Hammer standard heaving cleavage from any given female cast member and that was what I was used to but I was being told all about kids having their heads twisted around 180 degrees! Are you kidding me, man? A hitchhiker gets a knife through the throat and sustains a shot of long slow death while drooling bananas? Who comes up with this shit? My friend Jim would later ask me if I could come over to his place and watch Friday part 2 and a short discussion between his mother and my mother made sure that I didn’t. At the time, I was pretty sure that I would never see any Friday the 13th movie.  Everything seems either permanent of so far away when you’re a little kid. I had no concept that only a few short years later I would not only have seen all of the available Friday the 13th movies, I’d be a walking almanac of all things Camp Crystal Lake. I would sort them by preference and always at the top of the list, number one with a bullet, was The Final Chapter.

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Hollywood always seems to come show up to every indie movie trend fashionably late, don’t they? Every fifteen year old with ten bucks, some stage blood and a prosumer digital camera have been making zombie action movies in their backyards for years and just now as the zombie wave seems to be cresting, they come along with this. Even though I’m tired of thoughtless zombie stomps, I will give them a little credit here. This could easily have been another horror movie remake. So good on ya, Hollywood.

Even though I’m bored with zombie action movies, I’ll more than likely wind up seeing this one because it looks like a lot of fun. There’s also the matter of seeing just what about Woody Harrelson’s character caused him to method act so deeply that he attacked a photographer at an airport thinking that he was beating up a zombies with his own bare hands. Also, the fact that they don’t seem to be taking things terribly serious, illustrated by dropping a piano on a zombie, helps me enjoy things even more.

I’ll tell you what, though. If this entire movie was set to Everybody Wants Some, start to finish, I’d give it an A+ review right now. David Lee Roth, by default, elevates the quality of your product. Somebody make that happen.

I’m going to take this rare opportunity to post this clip and not rag on Tom Savini based on something that happened between he and I over ten years ago. No. This is a poignant clip, shot at this past Fangoria’s Weekend of Horrors in NYC for the upcoming Tromasterpiece release of The Last Horror FIlm and it’s quite pleasant. Even when Sal Sirchia explains Joe’s antics at strip clubs.

Troma, as usual, is doing shit their own way and this clip, to be on the upcoming release of The Last Horror Film, is proof of that. Can’t wait for this movie to drop.

Now that’s a movie poster! I’ve read a lot about this flick while it was showing at Cannes and early reviews were not favorable. Ain’t It Cool News seemed to be the only source on Earth proclaiming it the best Tarantino flick since Pulp Fiction, but it has long been speculated that Harry Knowles would gladly fellate both Eli Roth and Quentin Tarantino simultaneously given the opportunity. Poor reviews, aside, they still have plenty of time to trim the bloat before it reaches the mass market and in the meantime, they’re priming their Italian public with this kick ass poster featuring the titular Basterds as well as some flygirls and a dastardly Nazi. Why Italy gets this sweet piece of pop-art and we get a helmet on a baseball bat is beyond me. Click on the poster for an even bigger version to feast upon with your eyes.

This just in from George Reis of the Drive-In Monster-Rama.  For the third year in a row, the Drive-In Monster-Rama will invade the Riverside Drive-In Theater in North Vandergrift, Pennsylvania where the programming will be two days of Vincent Price, Boris Karloff, Ingrid Pitt and Barbara Steele on the big outdoor screen. September 11th and 12th for the slim sum of $10 per night, you can roll your wheels up to the drive-in and take in the sweet gothic goodness of some classic horror on pristine 35mm prints, drive-in style!

On Friday, September 11, the features will be WITCHFINDER GENERAL, SCREAM AND SCREAM AGAIN, THE CRIMSON CULT and TERROR CREATURES FROM THE GRAVE.

On Saturday, September 12, our all-Hammer Horror night will feature THE VAMPIRE LOVERS, THE 7 BROTHERS MEET DRACULA, THE SATANIC RITES OF DRACULA and VAMPIRE CIRCUS.

Shows start at dusk and go on into the wee hours of the morning!

DRIVE-IN SUPER MONSTER-RAMA will be held at the Riverside Drive-In Theatre in Vandergrift, PA. For the dates of September 11 and 12, the theater will devote its screen exclusively to these special nights of vintage entertainment. The actual driving location of the theater reads as: Riverside Drive In Theatre, Route 66 N, Vandergrift, PA 15690. If you put that information as your destination on Mapquest, you can easily access directions from your starting location. The phone number of the theater is 724-568-1250 and their website is at www.riversidedrivein.com. Presented by DVD Drive-In (www.dvddrive-in.com).

I had a very quiet love affair with True Blood during its first season run. I kept things under wraps because I am fully aware of the harlequin romance trash that it is and didn’t want to sully my image as some kind of genre authority by admitting that the on again, off again romantic life of Bill Compton and Sookie Stackhouse was something that occupied a frequently accessed part of my brain. I qualified it as valid to myself by making obtuse comparisons to Dark Shadows but I shouldn’t really have to qualify anything since I have no problem admitting that I love trash. This is coming from a guy who routinely admits actually liking Breakin’ 2 far more than he should. I really had no idea that it had amassed any kind of following, though. The sort of people who talked openly about True Blood were not the sort of people that I associate with and I’m sure that by this point, other horror fans, like myself, are more or less out of the closet, but at the time we would give each other knowing glances and outwardly dismiss the show so as not to let the cat out of the bag. Yet, as the show hit DVD, none of my anxieties about appearance made a difference. Everyone still came to me for some kind of synopsis and opinion as if it were written all over my face and I would gladly engage them on the topic.

So the second season premier roared onto HBO this past sunday and reeled in Sopranos grade numbers. Specifically, the first episode, Nothing But The Blood, achieved it’s highest ratings, pulling down 3.7 million viewers. We have an official hit on our hands, if you’ve ever had any doubt. True Blood is the anti-Twilight. It spits in the face of Stephanie Meyer’s Mormon vampires and wears its kinks on its sleeve, which is fine by me. It has, ostensibly, abandoned the plots of the Charlaine Harris novels (it vaguely followed the first novel in the first season), according to my wife who has read them all, and is clearly taking the story in a new direction and in case you forgot what was going on, this first episode of the season reminds you of everything that is happening. It all makes for a slightly underwhelming episode. What lies ahead of the break is a wildly spoiler-heavy account of the Season 2 proceedings. Read at your own risk.

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Last night was the special screening of Night of the Creeps at the Alamo Drafthouse in Austin, Texas and Ain’t It Cool News, as usual, was on hand to report. Director, Fred Dekker and cast members, Jason Lively, Steve Marshall, Jill Whitlow and Tom Atkins were all in attendance for Q&A and autographs. They did this a while back before the release of the Monster Squad DVD and these shows sound like a blast. They showed a new print of the movie, original ending intact. During the Q&A, however, some questions came up, apparently, about a possible sequel to the movie, which Dekker responded to by saying that he had written out some ideas but the opportunity never came up.

Details for the DVD also dropped last night. The disc, to be released on DVD, and possibly Blu-ray, will drop on October 20th. Here’s what you can expect to find on the disc, apart from the feature, that is:

• Sixty Minutes of Behind the Scenes featurettes:
• “Birth of Creeps” featuring Dekker talking about the origins of the project
• “Cast of the Creeps” featuring Jason Lively, Tom Atkins, Steve Marshall and Jill Whitlow
• “Creating The Creeps” featuring interviews with SFX creators David B. Miller and Robert Kurtzman
• A special Tom Atkins centric piece called “Tom Atkins: Man of Action”
• “Escape of the Creeps” a detailed look at the post-production.
• Deleted scenes
• Fred Dekker solo commentary
• Cast commentary featuring Atkins, Whitlow, Marshall and Lively
• The original theatrical ending
• And footage from tonight’s Cast and Crew reunion screening at the Alamo Drafthouse.

These days, Dennis Heaton is known for writing the Canadian zombie as a pet movie, Fido. A surprisingly heartfelt, very funny, very original take on the extremely tired zombie thing that’s going on now. But back in 2006, he wrote and directed this short, Headshot, which has just popped up on Vimeo. It is such a great idea and very funny.

The premise, a really bad actor and equally dim witted dude turns up to a snuff film under the impression that he’s there for an audition. Things don’t go as planned for him or the killers.

I can’t believe I missed it! My own god damn anniversary! It’s testament to how busy I have become between my real life, this website, The Sub Rosa Drive-In and writing for Sound On Sight. Last year, reaching the one year mark was regarded as somewhat amazing since sites like this are a dime a dozen and dedication among us is a rare commodity. We seem to come and go with alarming regularity. But here I am at the two year mark. What does that mean? Is this the opening of the first seal? Can you hear angelic trumpets playing off in the distance?

Bearing this rare dedication in mind, I have no intention of stopping any time soon and will continue to bring the latest news, reviews and commentary to you as often as possible. So thanks for sticking around. There’s more to come in the next year.