The Horror Geek - News, Rants and Reviews From The Horror Geek!

I started the Horror Geek site a few weeks back as an experiment–I wanted to see if I could make something I’d be happy with using WordPress, and I wanted to see if people would actually come to it and read what I was writing. My good friend Josh from VariedCelluloid was kind enough to set all of this up and give me space on his site to try it out.

Now, three weeks later, I’m pleased to announce that the site is moving to its own domain. From here forward, you can find all my rantings, ravings, reviews, and news at TheHorrorGeek.com. I hope you’ll all follow me over to the new URL–update your bookmarks, sign up for the new feed, and hang out with me at the new site. It’s exactly the same as this one, just with my old URL.

I look forward to seeing you there.

It’s been a pretty good week for horror comedy flicks. Last Tuesday, genre fans finally got a chance to check out Jack Brooks: Monster Slayer (which was well worth the wait). This week sees the release of the equally anticipated (albeit slightly less funny) Dance of the Dead. It’s a good time to be a fan of horror films-particularly if you like some humor mixed in with your blood and guts.

Deftly combining elements from Return of the Living Dead, Night of the Creeps, and, oddly enough, John Hughes’ ‘80s teen flicks, Dance of the Dead is at both once intimately familiar and totally unique. A film that gives us just what we expect from the premise, but does so with enough characterization, heart, and attention to detail to make it seem fresher than it should.

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The guys over at Fearnet.com (where you can find reviews from my good friend Scott Weinberg) have posted up another clip from the forthcoming Saw V. This one’s being called “The Neck-Tie Trap”. Enjoy.

A few days back, I posted a story about the upcoming second collaboration between Guillermo Del Toro and Juan Antonio Bayona (the first being the very disturbing and surreal film The Orphanage). The film is called Hater and it’s an adaptation of a David Moody novel.

The guys over at Twitch got a chance to sit down with Bayona recently, and the filmmaker had some interesting things to say about his upcoming project. Here are some highlights.

When asked to describe the story of Hater, Bayona summed it up as follows:

“Hater is about a sudden epidemic of hate that comes from nowhere and happens to everybody. It doesn’t care about race, sex or heritage. The media tells the story in a way that one has to wonder if everything is really happening, or maybe if it’s all result of collective hysteria.  The uncertainty is frightening: nobody knows who will survive at the end of the day or who will die. What I really liked about the story was that it deals with the real world we are living. It asks if we want to live in a world where we are controlled from above, through fear. Hater is an answer to that fear: it shows what can happen when people react to it with uncontrollable fury. That’s an excellent start for a movie.”

He also offered up this thoughtful answer when asked to describe how Hater would compare to his previous film, The Orphanage:

“When a director gives himself to the story, he ends up soaking the movie with his own style. Hater is a horror tale, but it’s also a very emotional story. It will be much more violent than The Orphanage, because it deals with hate as the main emotion. But it also talks about forgiveness, sacrifice and even love.“

Point your browser in the direction of Twitch to read more about how the relationship between Bayona and Del Toro works.

I have to say that this film is rapidly moving up my list of most anticipated titles-which is pretty impressive since they haven’t started shooting, the book isn’t out yet, and we haven’t even seen a piece of production art. The collaboration between Del Toro and Bayona, coupled with their previous work, and the stuff that’s being said about this film in the early stages, is enough to have piqued my interest. And hey, at least it’s not a remake, right?

Good news for slasher film fans-Bob Clark’s cult classic 1974 horror movie, Black Christmas, will be given the Blu-Ray treatment with a release date set for November 11^th of this year.

For those not familiar with the film (or people who only saw the bullshit remake), Black Christmas is one of the progenitors of modern American slasher cinema (alongside Mario Bava’s Bay of Blood). It tells a surprisingly nuanced tale of a group of sorority sisters stalked by a maniacal killer, known only as Billy, during the holiday break. It’s extremely creepy (the phone calls Billy makes to taunt the girls is the stuff of horror film legend) and features cult film legend John Saxon in a prominent role.

This new disc will be distributed by Koch Entertainment and features a 5.1 Surround Sound and a 16×9 1080p Blu-Ray transfer as well as two hours of bonus materials, including: two original scenes with a new vocal soundtrack, “The 12 Days of Black Christmas”, a documentary featuring current interviews with Art Hindle, Doug McGrath & Lynne Griffin among others, separate interview segments with Olivia Hussey and Margot Kidder, a midnight screening Q&A session with John Saxon, Bob Clark & Carl Zittrer, and animated menus.

The holiday season just got a little darker-in a good way.

I debated about actually posting this, since I’ve seen it all over the place for the past day or so, but I figured maybe someone here hadn’t read it yet. Plus I had comments.

The guys over at FilmSchoolRejects compiled a top ten list of the creepiest masked horror film killers of all time. As far as lists go, it’s pretty decent. It’s got the usual suspects (Jason, Michael Myers, Leatherface) and a few surprise choices as well. I’ll also have to assume that the appearance of the characters from The Strangers (in the number 7 slot) has more to do with the film sponsoring the article than genuine creep factor (I think the masks from that film are nice, but I wouldn’t put them in my own top 10).

Now, for the editorializing. Go read the list if you haven’t already since I’m going to talk about the things that got omitted and the order of some of the listings. Go ahead, I’ll wait…

First off, the inclusion of the masks from Alice, Sweet Alice, Torso, and Dark Night of the Scarecrow are nice touches. They give the list an air of legitimacy that says “hey, we’re not just some dorks who have only seen mainstream American slasher flicks”. I’d bet money most of the people reading that list haven’t seen any of those three movies. So, kudos for attempting to broaden people’s horizons. I do have some issues with those choices and their placement, however. First off, the Alice, Sweet Alice mask should be higher. That’s a freaky mask-certainly freakier than anything in The Strangers. Second, while I love the Torso mask, I think it’s kind of plain for this list. The guys make the point that part of what’s cool about it is that you probably already have it in your closet, but I’m on the fence. Finally, I love Dark Night of the Scarecrow (which scared the piss out of me as a little kid), but I don’t know about giving it the top spot. It’s a cool mask (and the picture they have on the site doesn’t do it justice), but number one? I don’t know.

I’d have loved this list if they’d tweaked it a bit more-drop Torso and replace it with the far creepier Button Face mask David Cronenberg wears in Clive Barker’s Nightbreed. It has the same sort of functionality, but it looks about a hundred times freakier.

The other omission that bugs me is that of the owl-masked killer in Michele Soavi’s Stagefright. That mask is almost comical at first (it looks like a giant mascot head), but as the film progresses and it gets bloodier and filthier, it starts to become really unsettling.

I know I’m probably forgetting a few others that should have been included (getting old sucks), but all things considered, the FSR list is a good one. What do you think? Post some of your suggestions for the scariest horror film masks ever in the comment section.

Paul W.S. Anderson spoke to England’s Sunday Sun recently, and naturally the topic of Resident Evil 4 was brought up. Anderson says that once he’s done writing a remake of The Long Good Friday, RE4 would most likely be the next project on his docket. He didn’t drop any information about the planned plot of the fourth installment of the popular franchise, but it’s a pretty safe bet that it’ll all somehow revolve around Milla Jovovich fighting zombies created by the Umbrella Corporation. Now, when that turns out to be the film’s plot, remember you heard it here first. Oh, and it remains unclear as to whether Anderson will direct the next installment or not. Seems unlikely, as he allowed Russell (Highlander) Mulcahy to direct the last one.

I was gonna rant here about awful videogame adaptations, Resident Evil, George Romero and Lucio Fulci, but screw it…I got nothing. Move along folks, there’s nothing to see here.

Entertainment Weekly has a story in this week’s issue about Johnny Depp’s upcoming film schedule. The article had this to say about Depp’s planned updating of Dark Shadows:

“Two long discussed Depp projects appear kaput for now: Shantarum, based on a novel about a heroin addict’s adventures in India, and the movie version of the 60’s vampire soap Dark Shadows, a childhood favorite of the actor’s.“

To be honest, this is good news. I’ve never understood the fascination with Dark Shadows. Yeah, it was a show about vampires and ghosts-but it was still a goddamn soap opera. I mean, Marlena was possessed by Satan on Days of Our Lives at some point (I only know this because my sister watches the show…I swear) and you didn’t see a big influx of horror fans tuning in to that show, did you? I’ve seen a few episodes of DS, and let me tell ya, I’d rather have spent that time jamming rusty re-used heroin needles into my eyeballs. The thought of seeing a new version of this on the big screen (even with Depp in it) gives me hives.

The hardest part of the horror movie reviewing gig is invariably trying to put scores on movies. Numbers are arbitrary to begin with, and trying to assign one to an experience like viewing a movie is a tricky thing. This becomes even more dangerous when you consider we live in an ADD-addled society where no one spends more than about 15 seconds reading anything. People click the review, read for a few seconds, then invariably scroll to the bottom to check the score before clicking off to something else. The problem is, how do you score something like Zombies Zombies Zombies? On one hand, it’s clearly a piece of crap movie that looks like it was made for about $500, features some really bad acting, and doesn’t bring anything new to the table in terms of zombie cinema. On the other, it’s kind of fun if you just want to kick back and watch a bunch of strippers take on an army of crack-whore zombies and their Johns. Giving it a 1 (which it deserves if you’re comparing it to Hollywood productions) isn’t fair, but a 4 is pretty damn misleading in its own right. Basically, you’re screwed no matter what you rate it.

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You can tell Saw V’s release date is right around the corner because all of the sudden Lions Gate is drowning us with new Saw info.

First up is a batch new images that you can check out over at Shocktillyoudrop.

If that weren’t enough, they’ve also started airing not one, but two fifteen second teasers. I’m not really down with the whole “what would Jigsaw do?” angle (that may be a gag that’s about run its course), but everything else looks pretty good. I mean, the ads make it look like every other Saw movie out there (Tobin Bell, grimy locations, the creepy doll, the unnatural lighting, etc.) but if you’re really into the whole Saw universe (and let’s face it, someone is because they keep churning these things out) you should come away from these pleased.

Saw V assaults fright fans with more devilish contraptions and convoluted plot twists on October 24^th.