Monster.Movie.TV: April 2009

Thursday, April 30, 2009

A Dozen Science-Fiction Drinking Games

By Alyssa Johnson, 9:00 AM on Wed Apr 29 2009, 11,681 views (Edit post, Set to draft, Slurp)

Everyone probably occasionally (or often) thinks, You know what would make this Battlestar episode better? A lot of alcohol. So here, for your drinking — and viewing — pleasure, are a dozen science-fiction drinking games.

For each drinking game, we're just listing the absolute best rule of the bunch. For the whole set, click through on each link. (Unfortunately, there was no way I could test-drive all of these; I kind of wanted to keep my liver.)

General:

Drinking Game with the Sci-Fi Channels Original Movies (by Joanna Lopez, associatedcontent.com)

Best Rule: four sips if the movie looks like a poor person's version of the latest popular movie playing in theaters.

Likelihood of Intoxication: Relatively High

The Scifi/Action/Disaster Movie Drinking Game (posted by oblivion)

Best Rule: Evil clown/mime/street performer (Because, really, I had no idea that happened with any sort of regularity in sci-fi and action films.)

Second-Best Rule: Leading man named after verb or mineral (Because now I'm trying to think of an example and can't . . . You know, this game has some odd rules.)

Likelihood of Intoxication: Moderately High, especially if the plot involves a guy named Hunt Quartz preventing a syndicate of mimes from setting off their hurricane-causing doomsday machine

Spot the Scifi Cliché! A Drinking Game(by Charlie Jane Anders, here at io9)

Best Rule: The hero has a miraculous gadget (which may rhyme with ironic brew diver) allowing him to get out of literally any difficult situation with no hassle.

Score: Minus 10 points.

Drinking game: Make yourself a sonic screwdriver out of orange juice, vodka and ultrasonic vibrations. Drink the whole thing in one go.

Likelihood of Intoxication: Probably highest if you're watching a show that may rhyme with Proctor Glue (Speaking of which . . .)

Specific:

Doctor Who - The Drinking Game! (by Simon Oxwell)

Best Rule: If you see something of which 1970s anti-violence crusader Mary Whitehouse would disapprove (This is a drinking game designed for the classic series, by the way.)

Likelihood of Intoxication: Moderate, depending on which Doctor it is and how many Daleks are present.

The Batman Movie (1966) Drinking Game (Sky of Blue's Hoosier Journal of Inanity)

(Can I just say how pleased I am that someone's made a drinking game for this movie, considering how much it pretty much cries out for one?)

Best Rule: Now, here's the REAL kicker. At one point in the movie, Robin asks Batman, "You risked your life to save that riffraff in the bar?" Chug ONE ENTIRE BEVERAGE upon Batman's reply of, "They may be drinkers, Robin, but they're also human beings ..."

Second-Best Rule: "Under this garb we're perfectly ordinary Americans."

Likelihood of Intoxication: I'm going to say "Pretty High," because according to the creator of the game: "With what we were drinking, no one remained upright much past Rule 5." (Although now I just want to know what they were drinking . . .)

Drunkgate: Stargate Drinking Game (for Stargate: SG-1)

Best Rule: The team has to impersonate deities. (This includes if they are recognized as such but choose not to carry out the impersonation.)

Second-Best Rule: There are trees. (Basically, I think this rule should be added to any and all drinking games.)

Likelihood of Intoxication: Extremely High, from what I can tell (But only if you follow all the rules, of which there are about a million)

The (Original Series) Tomorrow People Drinking Game (by Beth Epstein, with submissions by Heidi Howard, Amy Houghton, and Maria Sloughter)

Best Rule: A trend in fashion or pop culture turns out to be an insidious alien plot.

Likelihood of Intoxication: Extremely Low if you follow the rule at the start of the game: "Tomorrow People don't ingest anything that will affect the functioning of their minds. Alcohol affects the mind. Therefore, Tomorrow People don't drink alcohol. This game is meant for root beer, juice, or other soft drinks, or you could use M&M's (1=sip, 2=gulp, use snack size/halloween size bags for whole drink— or two really big handfuls)." (I figure this is one of those instances in which rules were made to be broken, though.)

300 Drinking Game (SuperHeroHype Boards)

Best Rules (Aka, the only rules): Every time the word Sparta or Spartan is mentioned, you drink. Or if you want to get really plastered, you have to keep chugging during all the slow-mo.

Likelihood of Intoxication: For a game with only two rules, I feel the odds are pretty darned high.

The Battlestar Galactica Drinking Game (by Denise Martin, Los Angeles Times)

Best Rule: Sneak a swig... Every time you wonder why more people watch "Lost."

Likelihood of Intoxication: Moderate.

Supernatural Drinking Game (by Lsketch42, via YouTube)

Best Rule: I don't know that there's a best rule here, as I couldn't really get past the polka music and The Chicken Dance. That being said, I admire anyone who condenses an entire show down to the moments when you ought to be drinking.

Likelihood of Intoxication: If you watch the drinking game video, you're probably just going to have to chug for a couple minutes straight, so I figure your odds of being buzzed by the end are up there. (You will have also endured a few minutes of the aforementioned Chicken Dance music, so I think you've earned the buzz.) If actually watching the show, with all the extraneous plot and stuff, your chances of intoxication plummet pretty severely, I think.

KryptonSite's Smallville Drinking Game! (via KryptonSite)

Best Rule: You count more than a five second awkward silence between Clark and Lana.

Likelihood of Intoxication: Pretty Darned High

(Then again, here is another, which gives you new rules every time you refresh the page.)

The Star Trek Drinking Game

Best Rule: A newly discovered planet is "Much like Earth"

Second Best Rule: Kirk violates the prime directive (Mostly because I thought it said "detective" for a minute. Now that's an episode that should have happened.)

Likelihood of Intoxication: Pretty High (I'm interested to see how well it holds up in the movie coming out next week.)

Heroes: The Drinking Game (Miss Geeky)

(But you can find others here and here. As well as about a hundred other places.)

Best Rule: Mohinder saying "evolution", "mankind", or "cure". (I think you could pass out on this rule alone.)

Likelihood of Intoxication: Pick any one of the games and you can get really wasted. Combine all of them, and you're dead.

Saturday, April 25, 2009

The Incredible Melting Man - Trailer (1977)

And sometimes you just get lucky at YouTube.

Friday, April 24, 2009

What I have been watching this week

Since discovering Movies2Record.com my DVR has been jam packed with crappy goodness, here are a few from the past week.

Looker (1981)

Looker is a science fiction film written and directed by Michael Crichton. It starred Albert Finney, Susan Dey, James Coburn and featured former NFL linebacker Tim Rossovich as the villain's main henchman.

The film is a suspense/science fiction piece which comments upon and satirizes media, advertising, TV's effects on the populace, and ridiculous standard of beauty. It is probably best known from numerous airings on cable television during the 1980s.

Though spare in visual effects, the film is notable for being the first commercial film to attempt to make a realistic computer generated character, for the model named "Cindy." It was also the first movie to create 3-D shading with a computer, months before the release of the better-known Tron.

Dr. Larry Roberts (Albert Finney), a Beverly Hills plastic surgeon, is puzzled when four beautiful models working in television commercials request cosmetic surgery to make changes so minor that they would be imperceptible to the naked eye. When these models start dying under mysterious circumstances, he discovers they are all linked to the same advertisement research firm.

The Digital Matrix research firm rates advertising models by using a scoring system that measures the combined visual impact of various physical attributes in television commercials. In an experiment to increase their scores, some models are sent to Dr Roberts to get cosmetic surgery in order to maximize their visual impact. After the surgeries are performed, though the models are now physically perfect, they still aren't as effective as desired. So the research firm decides to use a different approach. Each model is offered a contract to have their body scanned digitally to create 3D computer generated models and then animating them for use in commercials. The contract deals seem to be incredibly lucrative for the models: once their bodies are represented digitally, they get a paycheck for life, never having to work again since their digital model is used for all their future work in commercials.

However, when these same models start dying under mysterious circumstances, Roberts becomes suspicious and decides to investigate Digital Matrix. He has a strong interest in investigating the deaths: he is considered a prime suspect by the police (from evidence planted at the scene of one of the murders) and his most recent patient, Cindy (Susan Dey), is the last of the models to be digitally scanned.

During his investigation, Roberts discovers some advanced-technology devices the Digital Matrix corporation is using to hypnotize consumers into buying the products they advertise. He also discovers the L.O.O.K.E.R. (Light Ocular-Oriented Kinetic Emotive Responses) gun, a light pulse device that gives the illusion of invisibility by instantly mesmerizing its victims into losing all sense of time.

An American Haunting (2006)

An American Haunting is a horror film written and directed by Courtney Solomon. It stars Donald Sutherland, Sissy Spacek, Rachel Hurd-Wood, and James D'Arcy. The film was previewed at the AFI Film Festival on November 5, 2005 and was released in U.S. theaters on May 5, 2006. The film had an earlier release in the U.K. on April 14, 2006. The movie was panned by critics and audiences and performed poorly at the box office.

The film is based on the novel The Bell Witch: An American Haunting, by Brent Monahan. The events in the novel are based on the legend of the Bell Witch. The film switches from the 19th century to the 21st, and features a side story about a recently divorced mother whose daughter is going through something like the same experience as Betsy Bell.

Based on a local Tennessee folklore legend. With over 20 books written on the subject, and a town that still lives in fear of the return of the unseen spirit, the story of "An American Haunting" is terrifying. Between the years 1818-1820, the Bell Family of Red River, Tennessee was visited by an unknown presence that haunted the family and eventually ended up causing the death of one its members. Starting with small sounds around the farm, and the sighting of a a strange BLACK WOLF with piercing yellow eyes, the sounds escalated into full brutal contact with the certain family members, causing psychological and physical torment. The attacks grew in strength, with the spirit slapping, pulling, dragging, and beating the Bell's youngest daughter. The Bells searched for rational explanations and ways to rid their house of this entity, but to no avail as the spirit began to communicate with them through sounds, and eventually multiple voices that sounded like the wind. The cause of its actions could always be felt, but no being could be seen, and no explanation found- only the promise that one day it would kill one of the family members. Fearing that the haunting was caused by a local woman -branded a witch- who had put a curse upon the family as a result of a land dispute, the Bells tried desperately to find ways to get rid of the woman's curse, yet the attacks and disturbances only escalated. It was not until a manuscript of the local schoolteacher -who lived on the property during the disturbance- was found in 1998 that the horrifying and shocking answer to what caused this haunting would finally be unveiled.

Them! (1954)

Them! is a black and white science fiction film about man's encounter with a nest of radiation-giganticized ants. It is based on an original story treatment by George Worthing Yates, was developed into a screenplay by Ted Sherdeman and Russell Hughes for Warner Bros. Pictures Inc., which was produced by David Weisbart and directed by Gordon Douglas for the company. It starred James Whitmore, Edmund Gwenn, Joan Weldon and James Arness.

One of the first of the "nuclear monster" movies, and the first "big bug" film, Them! was the biggest moneymaker for Warner's in the year of its release.It was nominated for an Oscar for Special Effects and won a Golden Reel Award for Best Sound Editing.

A young girl is found wandering in shock in the New Mexico desert near White Sands by two state troopers. When they investigate they find that the trailer that she was staying in with her parents and sibling had been destroyed. They also find that kindly old Gramps Johnson who ran the local store was also killed in a mysterious way. A lone print found in front of the little girl's trailer is sent to the FBI in Washington for identification. Dr. Medford and his daughter Dr. Pat Medford come to New Mexico after identifying the print as belonging to a species of ant that had mutated after the first atomic bombing 9 years before in 1945. They find and destroy the New Mexico nest but not in time to prevent two young queen ants from escaping. One of the ants starts a nest on a military ship at sea. After the ants kill the entire crew the ship is sunk and the invading ants are killed. Another ant makes her way to the drain system of Los Angeles. A father and his two young boys accidently come upon one off the ants. The father is killed and then a hunt is on to see if they are in time to save the two young boys and also destroy the nest before any other ant can escape and destroy the world as we know it.

A Sound of Thunder (2005)

A Sound of Thunder is a science fiction film directed by Peter Hyams. The movie was originally planned for a 2002 release. However, flooding in Prague (where the movie was shot) and other financial difficulties—including the bankruptcy of the original production company during post-production—resulted in a delayed release.

In the year 2055, the rich are able to travel back in time and hunt a live dinosaur for a huge price. Sonia Rand (Catherine McCormack) has developed a machine that can take people back in time. Charles Hatton (Ben Kingsley) has taken this technology and opened a business know as Time Safari. Anyone with the money can travel back millions of years and shoot a dinosaur. Dr. Travis Ryer (Edward Burns) leads his team together with the big game hunter on a floating walkway to a spot where they can kill the dinosaur. The trip protocol is that they must stay on the walkway and not disturb the land or anything creature around them. Unfortunately for the human race, one hunter steps on and kills a butterfly. This insignificant act causes major impacts to the earth's climate and creates new species of animal life. The course of evolution as we know it is now being changed by time waves. Travis and Sonia try to stop the changing process before it becomes permanent, and man becomes extinct.

Transmorphers (2007)

Transmorphers is a science fiction alien invasion film released direct-to-DVD. It was written and directed by Leigh Scott and produced by David Michael Latt and The Asylum, a movie studio known for making low budget films to capitalize on the release of larger ones. While deviating greatly from the plot of Transformers, the film contains plotlines similar to the films Blade Runner, The Pacifier, Pay It Forward, The Matrix, The Terminator, The Benny Hill Show, X-Men and significant parts of it are almost identical to Demolition Man.

One of the last remaining human rebellions left on Earth makes their final move against a deadly robot force in the sci-fi action flick Transmorphers. Asylum Entertainment, the same company behind such other direct-to-DVD rip-offs as Snakes on a Train and The Da Vinci Treasure, brings home to audiences the ultimate fight between man and machine that their $1.98 budget can afford. Three hundred years after a race of transmorphing alien robots took over the planet Earth and decimated it, a team of rebels cryogenically unfreezes a hero in hopes of giving them the edge in the fight for all humanity.

And remember not everything I watch is going to be Oscar material. Sometimes I just want to watch brain candy.

Why can’t I get these on Region 1 DVD, WHY?!

OneChanbara (お姉チャンバラ ,Onee Chanbara^?) is a 2008 film written and directed by Yôhei Fukuda. The film is based around The OneChanbara video game series. It had a full theatrical release in Japan and it was shown in New York at the Asian Film Festival on June 20 and June 25 2008. The booklet of OneChanbara: Bikini Zombie Slayers reveals that the film is going to be released on DVD in other countries with subtitles soon with the festival and Chinese release name of 'Chanbara Beauty'

Some time after the majority of the world's population has been transformed into murderous zombies as a result of a plague that was created by the evil Dr. Sugita (Taro Suwa), a young swordswoman, Aya (Eri Otoguro), is making her way to that man's laboratory in the company of the overweight Katsuji (Tomohiro Waki) and, later, another skilled fighter, Reiko (Manami Hashimoto). Each of these individuals is on a personal quest. Aya wants to get revenge on her sister, Saki (Chise Nakamura), who is now serving Dr. Sugita and who murdered her father; Katsuji is tormented with guilt about how his sister was transformed into a zombie, and Reiko wants revenge for her daughter, who was also made into a zombie.

Onechanbara: Vortex - More Zombies, more decapitations and more girls with swords'n'guns! Yes it’s the full length trailer for OneChanbara Vortex. Saya is back again with a her sister and new gal pal in tow, to help out with the Zombie annihilation. For the teaser trailer head to our earlier story on the flick here. Or zip down to the link below to see the full length blood spattered funfest.

Synopsis: 'In the year 20XX, the world is coming to an end because of infestation of fierce zombies. A ultimate battle sisters Aya and Saki, fight against the new enemy Himiko, who is manipulating the marauding zombies and devises a evil scheme. Aya tries to hunt down Himiko and save mankind. . .'

3 Quick Ones

Kick Ass Image Reveals Hit Girl

By Katey Rich: 2009-04-23 07:59:15

I haven't cared much at all about Kick Ass, given that it's an adaptation of a graphic novel I know nothing about, it stars Nic Cage, and, well, yeah, that's all the reason I needed. But Empire Online has released a character photo that just might be a game changer. No one told me this movie featured an 11-year-old schoolgirl assassin!

Yeah, I knew the basic idea, that it's a movie about a kid becoming a superhero, but in a way that involves actual violence. But I didn't know girls got to be part of the fun! The new image is of Hit Girl, played by Chloe Moretz, an 11-year-old trained by her dad (Cage) to kick ass from the age of 4. Check out the image below, and click on it for the larger size available at Empire. I'm not saying this is going to make me run out to see the movie, but anything that allow a pre-teen girl to kick ass and take names by herself scores some serious points with me.

Rodriguez Rebooting Both Jetsons And Predator. Should We Laugh Or Cry?

By Meredith Woerner, Fri Apr 24 2009

After much speculation, Robert Rodriguez finally announced that he would be making his Predator reboot movie, with the worrisome title Predators. And we've got our fingers crossed for a live action Rosie housekeeper bot.

In an interview with IESB director Robert Rodriguez came clean about the many movies he's been rumored to be making.

"I'm going to be able to shoot my upcoming Machete here, a sci-fi action film called Nerverackers, a re-boot of the Predator series called Predators, and a couple of smaller movies called Sin City 2 and The Jetsons."

Making both the Jetsons and a Predator reboot is a pretty brave move, seeing as die-hard Predator fans are very protective of the franchise. And The Jetsons - well, my expectation for a futuristic family is so high, I don't know how you could accomplish such a feat without green-screening the entire thing. Which we all know RR loves to do, but who knows how that will look when you use other colors, besides just black, white and red? We'll have to wait for more information on both, but I'm filled with so much simultaneous dread and excitement, it's causing me to laugh-cry.

Battle of the Postapocalyptic Tap Dancers in the Bronx

By Annalee Newitz, on Wed Apr 22 2009

Among the many amazing post-apocalyptic movies to come out of the early 1980s, few are as demented as Bronx Warriors, which features tap dancing gangs vs. biker gangs, plus a hero named Trash.

In this scene Trash and his pals are trying to get through the Bronx as fast as possible, to rescue an innocent (and hot) girl who has somehow gotten herself lost in the semi-prison world of New York City. But before they can pass through, Trash has to do battle with the, um, tap dancing gang of shiny people!

Made by Italians, this flick is what the future of America is all about.

Bronx Warriors via IMDB

Thursday, April 23, 2009

One Eyed Monster - official trailer - on UK DVD May 18th 2009 – Oh so very NSFW, as far away from safe as possible.

Scientist Hawking 'very ill'

LONDON, England (CNN) -- Scientist and author Stephen Hawking is "very ill" and has been hospitalized, according to Cambridge University, where he is a professor.

Stephen Hawking in Pasadena, California, in March.

Cambridge University said the 67-year-old is "comfortable" and will stay overnight at Addenbrookes Hospital in Cambridge.

Hawking, one of the world's most famous physicists, is also a cosmologist, astronomer, and mathematician.

Wheelchair-bound Hawking is perhaps most famous for "A Brief History of Time," which explored the origins of the universe in layman's terms. The book is considered a modern classic.

Hawking has Lou Gehrig's Disease (Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, or ALS), which is usually fatal after three years. Hawking has survived for more than 40 years since his diagnosis.

On his Web site, Hawking has written about living with ALS. "I try to lead as normal a life as possible, and not think about my condition, or regret the things it prevents me from doing, which are not that many," he wrote.

He added: "I have been lucky, that my condition has progressed more slowly than is often the case. But it shows that one need not lose hope."

The disease has left him paralyzed -- he is able to move only a few fingers on one hand. Hawking is completely dependent on others or technology for virtually everything -- bathing, dressing, eating, even speech. He uses a speech synthesizer with an American accent.

Hawking has been married and divorced twice. In 2004, police completed an investigation into accusations by Hawking's daughter that his second wife was abusing him. Authorities said they found no proof.

His Web site says he has three children and one grandchild.

Hawking was born in Oxford, England, on what turned out to be an auspicious date: January 8, 1942 -- the 300th anniversary of the death of astronomer and physicist Galileo Galilei.

A Cambridge University spokesman told CNN: "Professor Hawking is very ill and has been taken by ambulance to Addenbrookes Hospital, Cambridge."

Professor Peter Haynes, head of the university's department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics, said: "Professor Hawking is a remarkable colleague, we all hope he will be amongst us again soon."

At Cambridge, he holds the position of Lucasian Professor Mathematics -- the prestigious post held from 1669 to 1702 by Sir Isaac Newton.

Hawking has guest-starred, as himself, on Star Trek: The Next Generation and The Simpsons. He also said if he had the choice of meeting Newton or Marilyn Monroe, his choice would be Marilyn.

In October, CNN's Becky Anderson interviewed Hawking. The following are some quotes from that interview:

"Over the last twenty years, observations have to a large extent confirmed the picture I painted in 'A Brief History of Time.' The one major development that was not anticipated was the discovery that the expansion of the universe is accelerating now, rather than slowing down... We live in the most probable of all possible worlds."

Wednesday, April 22, 2009

10 Man Made Apocalypse Movies for Earth Day

Don’t you hate it when you get halfway through writing something and decide to take a break, only to discover that Meh, over at HorrorMovie.ca not only wrote the same thing you were working on but wrote it better. Damn you! Damn you HorrorMovie.ca! That’s it, I can’t compete with them. Next they will be writing something on eco-friendly horror movies and I’ll…what? They did?! Dammit!

Time to look at 10 movies that bring new meaning to Earth Day Man Made apocalyptic tales. This is a follow-up to my last editorial; 10 Eco Horror Movies for Earth Day. Little side note this is a sad day. I wrote this editorial from scratch twice since my lame computer crashed. So I ask you all to love this editorial more then you might normally to make up for me banging my fists against my monitor screaming 'Why You bloody Apes... WHY'. So today love my bad grammar and spelling mistakes more then normal as we celebrate earth day with 10 Apocalyptic Horror Movies well worth watching. I love every film on this list but its by no means a Top 10 in the true sense of the word. There are a lot of other great apocalyptic films but here are ten that will get you through earth day;

Quiet Earth (1985)

Quiet Earth is a movie that I recently picked up on DVD for a pretty good price and really enjoyed. The movie tells the tale of a man who wakes up to only find the world around him has literally gone quiet. Quiet Earth is a fantastic movie because it is a true and honest look at what the world would be like with nobody in it and the way that you would react. Honest, reflective and well written Quiet Earth is a fantastic apocalyptic tale where science turns against mankind creating just that.. a quiet earth. It doesn't have the usual bluster or gloss but instead gives you a raw and reel look at how the world would look if the guys with the pocket protectors accidentally made the world go quiet.

The Quiet Earth is a New Zealand science fiction Doomsday film directed by Geoff Murphy and starring Bruno Lawrence, Alison Routledge and Pete Smith as three survivors of a cataclysmic disaster. It is loosely based on the 1981 science fiction novel of the same name by Craig Harrison.

Blindness (2008)

Blindness is a newer release and when I originally checked it out I really was not to sure what to think. I picked it up but it sat on my floor for weeks before I finally popped it into my DVD player. I regret I did not watch it sooner since it is one of the few films I have seen that I have damn near given a 10 out of 10 which says a lot. I never do that. Blindness is more thriller then horror but it is both visceral and disturbing while remaining real. This film is definitely not for the faint of heart but its also well written, though provoking and one of the most well put together apocalyptic tales I have seen in awhile. It tells the story of a world struck blind and how the blind would survive in a world built for the seeing. Striking, stunning and really one hell of a movie. Much like quiet earth its very real, and very disturbing at times as it shows how quickly mankind would fall apart after losing their sight.

Blindness is a dramatic thriller film that is an adaptation of the 1995 novel of the same name by José Saramago about a society suffering an epidemic of blindness. The film is written by Don McKellar and directed by Fernando Meirelles with Julianne Moore and Mark Ruffalo as the main characters. The novel's author originally refused to sell the rights for a film adaptation. The producers were able to acquire it with the condition that the film would be set in an unrecognizable city. Blindness premiered as the opening film at the Cannes Film Festival on May 14, 2008, and the film was released in the United States on October 3, 2008.

Mad Max (1979)

Mad Max is the ultimate in apocalyptic tales. It is the telling of the end of days in a gritty no nonsense grindhouse style. Rather then taking the quiet earth angle or even the angle of I am Legend Mad Max takes the worst of society and shows what would happen when the world ends and the systems overload. Mad Max shows what happens when the nuthouse lets out and the inmates at the local zoo get out and start to have what they deem to be 'fun'. Extremely violent and in your face Mad Max is the ultimate apocalyptic tale and one that you should all have seen. If you have not you need to go into the bathroom right now, look yourself in the eye and then soundly tell yourself off and go check it out. Easily one of the best apocalyptic tales ever made. You can follow it up by watching Mad Max 2 and 3. Equally good!

Mad Max is a Australian dystopian action thriller film directed by George Miller and written by Miller and Byron Kennedy. The film, starring the then-little-known Mel Gibson, was released internationally in 1980.

This low-budget film's story of social breakdown, murder and vengeance became the top-grossing Australian film, and has been credited for opening up the global market to Australian films. The movie was also notable for being the first Australian film to be shot with a widescreen anamorphic lens.

Mad Max was followed by two sequels, Mad Max 2 (released as The Road Warrior in the United States) in 1981 and Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome in 1985. On 5 March 2009 it was announced that an animated sequel was in production, but Mel Gibson would not feature.

Doomsday (2008)

Doomsday is Neil Marshalls take on the end of the world and once again those folks with the pocket protectors are out to get us creating a special kind of plague that makes you feel all warm and fuzzy. You got to love those lab rat doctors and you got to question when you check yourself into the hospital because you are puking your kidneys into a plastic bag and rather then giving you a prescription they run for the fire axe. In Doomsday Rhona Mitra stars as the ass kicking eye candy that must find a cure for the Doomsday plague before all that is left of mankind is a gurgling pile of mutated goo. It has a great mix of action, sex appeal, cannibalism and great writing to deliver the next best thing close to another Mad Max in to long. Admittedly it doesn't have the magic of Mad Max but Doomsday is a damn fine apocalyptic film and until they finally stop talking and actually give us that new Mad Max movie it fits the bill.

Doomsday is a British science fiction action film written and directed by Neil Marshall. The film takes place in the future, where Scotland has been quarantined due to the onset of a deadly virus. When the virus emerges in London, political leaders send Major Eden Sinclair (Rhona Mitra) to Scotland to find a cure based on evidence of survivors. Sinclair and her team run into two groups of survivors: marauders and medieval warriors. Doomsday was conceived by Marshall based on his vision of a futuristic soldier facing a medieval knight. In producing the film, he drew from various cinema, including Mad Max, Escape from New York, and other post-apocalyptic films.

Marshall was financially supported by a budget three times the size of his previous two films, The Descent and Dog Soldiers, and the director filmed the larger-scale Doomsday in Scotland and South Africa, the latter which was used as backdrop for Scotland. Production involved filming in Blackness Castle and filming a high-speed car chase for the climax. The film was released on 14 March 2008 in the United States and Canada and in the United Kingdom on 9 May 2008. Doomsday did not perform well at the box office, and critics gave the film mixed and average reviews.

The Omega Man (1971)

'You can pry my gun from my Cold dead Hands'. Do you really need me to say more other then end of days and Charlton Heston? The Omega Man is I am Legend told with a different cast and in a different time. You can really take your pick here as to which one you would want to watch or see on this list. Both are great films in their own right and deserving to be on any end of days list. Once again mankind has gone to hell in a hand bag and the local mutants have decided that technology is evil and so is the last man on earth who uses it. The epitome of a classic action sci-fi tale The Omega Man is great fun.

The Omega Man, directed by Boris Sagal, is a science fiction film, featuring Charlton Heston, based on the novel I Am Legend (1954) by Richard Matheson. The screenplay is by John William and Joyce Corrington, and it was filmed in Technicolor with monaural sound, for a running time of 98 minutes. This story first was filmed as The Last Man on Earth (1964) featuring Vincent Price. A third adaptation of the novel, I Am Legend featuring Will Smith, was released in 2007, and a fourth, I Am Omega, featuring Mark Dacascos, was also released in 2007.

The Mist (2007)

The Mist is one of the few good Stephen King film adaptations. Admittedly its slow at times and the CGI work is a bit off kilter but what makes the Mist work is its focus on the people and the characters. When scientists accidentally once again send the world to hell in a hand bag a small group of survivors gather in a supermarket and let their true nature show. Soon it becomes clear that the supermarket is just as dangerous as the evils that lurk in the mist. Although slow moving it has a nice mix of great character writing and carnage to make for a fun time. Without question The Mists major winning point is an ending that kicks you in the balls and steals your lunch money... its that shocking. The Mist is a well written film with a twist that will make you think.

The Mist (also known as Stephen King's The Mist), is a American horror film based on the 1980 novella of the same name by Stephen King. The screenwriter and director is Frank Darabont, who had previously adapted Stephen King's work in the films The Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile. Darabont had been interested in adapting The Mist for the big screen since the 1980s. The film features an ensemble cast including Thomas Jane, Nathan Gamble, Marcia Gay Harden, Laurie Holden, Toby Jones, Andre Braugher, and Sam Witwer.

Although a monster movie, the central theme is what ordinary people will be driven to do under extraordinary circumstances. The plot revolves around members of the small town of Bridgton, Maine who conceal themselves in a local supermarket when a violent thunderstorm cuts off the power. While they struggle to survive an unnatural mist which envelopes the town and conceals vicious otherworldly monsters, extreme tensions arise amongst the survivors. The tagline of the film is Fear Changes Everything.

Return of the Living Dead (1985)

I am sure some are surprised at this one. With George Romero's zombie films we never get to hear what caused the zombies. Lots of hints but no outright telling us. However in the case of Return of the Living Dead we know... good old nuclear toxic-goo courtesy of the US army. Return of the living dead is a cheese fest but its one that is near and dear to my heart and one that I have watched easily 30 times. Campy, sexy and gory its a fun zombie film that I have loved for years. I also enjoyed the sequel but have passed on Return of the Living Dead 3, 4 and 5.

The Return of the Living Dead is an American zombie comedy horror film that was followed by several sequels. The film was written and directed by Dan O'Bannon and starred Clu Gulager, James Karen, Don Calfa, Thom Mathews, Beverly Randolph and Linnea Quigley. The film tells the story of how a group of teenage punks deal with the accidental release of a horde of brain hungry zombies onto an unsuspecting town.

The film is also known for its soundtrack, which features several noted deathrock and punk rock bands of the era.

28 Days Later (2002)

28 Days Later takes a new twist on the apocalypse genre when a group of animal lovers decide to go Free Willy, or in this case a bunch of test chimps and end up getting infected with the RAGE virus and leaving with the sudden urge to rip peoples faces off and make everything they come into contact with lunch. With hints of I am Legend, 28 Days later is easily one of the coolest new takes on the whole zombie genre I have seen in a long time. Well shot with an emphasis on characters while still delivering the creep factor 28 Days later is violent, intense and truly a fantastic apocalyptic tale. Be sure to also checkout 28 weeks later. Equally kick ass!

28 Days Later is a British post-apocalyptic science fiction film directed by Danny Boyle. With a screenplay written by Alex Garland, the film stars Cillian Murphy, Naomie Harris, Noah Huntley, Brendan Gleeson and Christopher Eccleston. Set in Great Britain, just after the turn of the 21st century, the story depicts the breakdown of society following the accidental release of a highly contagious virus and focuses upon the struggle of four survivors to cope with the ruination of the life they once knew.

A critical and commercial success, the film is widely recognized for images of a deserted London, and was shot almost entirely on digital video. The film spawned the 2007 reboot sequel, 28 Weeks Later, as well as the graphic novel 28 Days Later: The Aftermath.

Right at your Door (2006)

When I picked this movie up I wasn't to sure what to make of it. They never really marketed the film to horror fans and I couldn't really judge from the synopsis what the film was about or what I was getting into. Right at Your Door is by no means scary but it is a well written and slow paced character piece about terrorists who try to bring about the end of the world for LA and the United States through a Nuke. The film is the definition of a well written character piece and much like the mist its major highlight is its twists and turns and easily one of the most fantastic endings in a horror film in some time.

Right at Your Door is a American thriller film about multiple dirty bombs detonated in Los Angeles, written and directed by Chris Gorak. It was first screened at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2006 where it was nominated for Cinematography Award and the Grand Jury Prize, but only won the former. The film was then acquired by Lions Gate for nearly $3 million for worldwide rights. In the UK it was marketed with the tagline "With a twist. You never See Coming". Right at Your Door was Chris Gorak's writing and directing debut.

12 Monkeys (1995)

Cant really do an apocalyptic film list without including this gem. 12 Monkeys stars Brad Pitt and Bruce Willis and this go around Bruce isn't stuck in a high rise fighting off terrorists with witty one liners. He delivers as a man from the future who everyone thinks is a nut bag. Once again the guys with the pocket protectors have sent the earth to hell in a hand bag and its Bruce's job with the help of his pals and a whacked out mental patient to save the world. Brad Pitt pleases the crazy nut house patient and absolutely steals the show. This film is dark, creepy, and incredibly well written.

12 Monkeys is a science fiction film directed by Terry Gilliam and inspired by the French short film La Jetée (1962). 12 Monkeys stars Bruce Willis, Madeleine Stowe, Brad Pitt and Christopher Plummer. The film depicts a future world in 2035 devastated by disease, forcing the human population to live underground. Convict James Cole (Willis) volunteers for time travel duty to gather information in exchange for prison release. When he is mistakenly sent to 1990 rather than 1996, Cole is arrested and locked up in a psychiatric hospital, where he meets Dr. Kathryn Railly (Stowe), a psychiatrist, and Jeffrey Goines (Pitt), the insane son of a famous scientist and virus expert.

12 Monkeys is a study of Judeo-Christian allegories, Christ figures, humanity's use of memory and time, and Hitchcockian archetypes. The film was released to critical praise and grossed approximately $168 million in worldwide box office totals. Brad Pitt was nominated the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, and won a Golden Globe for his performance. 12 Monkeys also won and was nominated for various categories at the Saturn Awards.

Two Honorable Mentions

Woke up this morning and realized I missed two really good films that I wanted to add onto the list. These two films are The Stand and Children of Men. The Stand is the Stephen King Miniseries which is one of the best apocalyptic series ever made and Children of Men is of course a classic as well about mankind no longer being able to produce children. Both are deep and very dark and well worthy of being on this list.

There you have it. 10 Man Made Apocalypse Movies for Earth Day. Feel free to submit a review for any of these films that you have seen if you have not already. good or bad lets hear it. And of course be sure to leave me some comments.

10 Great Books For (Traumatizing) Children (NSFW)

Mostly by By: Michael Swaim at Cracked.com

Some days I can’t string words together enough to form a coherent sentence, and then some days I hit the jackpot on re-printing other people’s words. Today is that day.

Originally, I wanted to write this article because of a book read to me when I was a child called Love You Forever, about a mom who rocks her son to sleep every night of his life.

And I mean every night. When he’s middle aged, she drives to his house while he’s sleeping, climbs through his bedroom window with a ladder, picks him up and rocks him in her lap. I’m assuming he never marries, because, well, let’s not kid ourselves.

Then when his mom is old and bedridden, he returns the favor by rocking her in his lap and screaming “YOU MADE ME THIS WAY!” Sure, the message was one of a mother’s undying love, but as a child all I understood was “Mommy is a crazy stalker, and one day she’ll die.”

But even that macabre tale of parental breaking and entering was swiftly booted off the list by these 10 atrocities. Brace yourselves; we’re talking Giving Tree levels of disturbing here.

#10. Hiroshima No Pika

The Screwed Up-edness:

Take every author on this list, put them in a room together, fill that room with a gas that makes people retarded, and promise to kill their families if they don’t write the worst children’s book of all time, and I guarantee they will produce Alfie’s Home. It’s not JUST that the book tells the story of a child getting molested by his uncle while his angry parents ignore him. It’s not JUST that the word “faggot” is emblazoned on page nine. It’s not JUST that the rudimentary artwork makes the picture of the “proper manifestation of a father’s love” look like Alfie’s getting molested all over again.

It’s all those things, but it’s mostly the fact that after 16 pages of the most fucked up childhood this side of Michael Jackson’s, Alfie has a single meeting with a counselor, and everything’s immediately fine. His uncle apologizes, his parents make up, he realizes he isn’t gay after all (Oh thank Christ!), rainbows shoot out of his ass, the whole bit. It’s like if Requiem For a Dream ended with a big tea party/dance number.

What Were They Thinking?

Not much.

What Kids Who Read It Think:

“Wow, this is shit. I’m going to go watch Pokémon.”

When not reading at a third grade level, Michael serves as head writer for and co-founder of Those Aren’t Muskets!

You can also follow him on Twitter! And this is likely the last time he’ll remind you, so get on that shit.

Tokyo Gore Police director to helm Vampire Girl vs. Frankenstein Girl

Shock Til You Drop has come across a trailer for the latest film from Yoshiro Nishimura, the director of ‘Tokyo Gore Police’, titled ‘Vampire Girl vs Frankenstein Girl’. Get out the good drugs and brace yourselves cause it is trippy!

Trailer: The Skeptic

Sunday, April 19, 2009

Horror Movie Remakes Round-Up

At any given time, there are no less than two dozen horror movie remakes in various stages of development, and if you think the remake train ends here, you haven't been watching too many Hollywood movies lately. But as for now, here's a rundown of what you can expect over the next couple of years.

13 Tzameti: This acclaimed black-and-white French thriller from 2005 about an underground game of Russian roulette is scheduled to be remade as 13. It will feature an ensemble cast, including Mickey Rourke, Jason Statham, 50 Cent and Ray Liotta and is scheduled to hit theaters in 2010. The original's director, Georgian Gela Babluani, is remaking his own film, just as Michael Haneke did with Funny Games in 2008.

The film follows twenty-two year-old Sébastien, a Georgian immigrant living in France and working construction jobs to support his poor family. Sébastien works on the home of Godon, a feeble morphine addict who is under police surveillance. After Godon dies of an overdose, his widow informs Sébastien that she is unable to pay him. Sébastien then overhears the widow talking with one of Godon's friends, describing a mysterious "job" that Godon had lined up before his death. The destitute Sébastien steals an envelope containing the instructions for the job. The police begin following Sébastien as he uses the train ticket contained in the envelope.

The police lose track of Sébastien as he follows the instructions and is brought to a secluded house in a forest. At the house, a deadly gambling event is being organized by a powerful criminal. Though Sébastien's contacts immediately recognize that he is not Godon and has no idea what he is getting into, they force him to participate in the game. Thirteen men identified by number must undergo a series of Russian roulette games, arranging themselves into a circle and pointing their revolver at the man in front of them. Spectators place bets on who will survive.

Angel Heart: In September 2008, the remake rights to the supernatural noir mystery were acquired by producers Michael De Luca, Alison Rosenzweig and Michael Gaeta, but no further progress has been reported.

Angel Heart is a 1987 mystery-thriller film written and directed by Alan Parker, and starring Mickey Rourke, Robert De Niro and Lisa Bonet. The film is adapted from the novel Falling Angel by William Hjortsberg, and is generally faithful to the novel with the exceptions being the introduction of a child of Epiphany Proudfoot conceived at a voodoo ceremony by "a devil", and that the novel never leaves New York City, whereas the film opts for a New Orleans ending, and has a more somber tone.

A highly atmospheric film, Angel Heart combines elements of film noir, hard-boiled detective stories and horror.

Art of the Devil: At the end of April 2008, Cerenzie-Peters Productions (Before the Devil Knows You're Dead) bought the remake rights to this hit franchise from Thailand. Although each of the three entries thus far has featured a different storyline, the remake will focus on the second film's plot about a teacher who exacts gruesome supernatural revenge on students who expose her infidelity and kill her lover. Expect a 2010 release.

Art of the Devil tells the story of Boom (Supaksorn Chaimongkol), who becomes pregnant from an affair. After being spurned by her lover, Prathan (Tin Settachoke), Boom turns to black magic to exact revenge on her ex-lover and his entire family.

At the End of the Spectra: It was reported in August 2007 that Nicole Kidman was on board to star in this remake of the Colombian film Al Final del Espectro, about an agoraphobic woman who isolates herself in her new apartment, only to discover that it might be haunted. Looking at Kidman's schedule, it probably won't hit screens until 2010, but you can catch the original movie on HBO.

After a traumatic situation that turns Vega into an agoraphobe, she decides to live like a hermit in an apartment at her father’s suggestion. Her life changes radically as she begins to see the inexplicable and hear the unignorable. As her horrific visions intensify, Vega begins to piece together a dark jigsaw puzzle illuminating evil’s malign power. A series of explosive situations: a sinister presence in the apartment, her neighbor’s bizarre obsession, and an dark forgotten past, bring the story to a chilling, claustrophobic and tense spiral.

Battle Royale: The remake of this cult fave from Japan about unsuspecting students dropped off on a deserted island and forced to compete in a "killer takes all" game was postponed indefinitely after the Virginia Tech tragedy.

Battle Royale takes place in an alternate timeline - Japan is a police state, known as the Republic of Greater East Asia (大東亜共和国 Dai Tōa Kyōwakoku). Under the guise of a "study trip," a group of students from Shiroiwa Junior High School (城岩中学校 Shiroiwa Chūgakkō) in the fictional town of Shiroiwa (Kagawa Prefecture) are sleep-gassed on a bus. They awaken in the Okishima Island School on Okishima, an isolated, evacuated island southwest of Shodoshima, also in Kagawa Prefecture. They learn that they have been placed in an event called The Program. Officially a military research project, The Program is a means of terrorizing the population, of creating such paranoia as to make organized insurgency impossible. According to the rules, every year since 1947, fifty 3rd year junior high school (14-15 years old) classes are isolated, and each class is required to fight to the death until one student remains. Their movements are restricted by metal collars, later identified as Model Guadalcanal No. 22, around their necks which contain tracking and listening devices; if any student should attempt to escape The Program, or enter declared "danger zones", a bomb will be detonated in the collar, killing the wearer. If no student dies in any 24 hour period, all collars will be detonated simultaneously.

The Birds: Platinum Dunes, the Michael Bay-led production company responsible for remakes of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and The Amityville Horror plus the upcoming Friday the 13th and A Nightmare on Elm Street, is in pre-production on a big-budget redo of the Hitchcock classic. It's slated to star Naomi Watts, with Martin Campbell (Casino Royale) in talks to direct. A summer 2009 release is scheduled.

Spoiled socialite and notorious practical joker Melanie Daniels is shopping in a San Francisco pet store when she meets Mitch Brenner. Mitch is looking to buy a pair of love birds for his young sister's birthday; he recognizes Melanie but pretends to mistake her for an assistant. She decides to get her own back by buying the birds and driving up to the quiet coastal town of Bodega Bay, where Mitch spends his weekends with his sister and mother. Shortly after she arrives, Melanie is attacked by a gull, but this is just the start of a series of attacks by an increasing number of birds.

Children of the Corn: This remake will be a made-for-TV movie airing on the Sci Fi Channel in 2009, so expect a fairly low production value. Kandyse McClure and David Anders star as the couple terrorized by a town of killer kids.

A boy preacher named Isaac goes to a town in Nebraska called Gatlin and gets all the children to murder every adult in town. A young couple have a murder to report and they go to the nearest town (Gatlin) to seek help but the town seems deserted. They are soon trapped in Gatlin with little chance of getting out alive.

Child's Play: Things are very early at this stage, but if and when this landmark killer doll pic does get remade, it will come from the same people who started it -- namely, writer Don Mancini and producer David Kirschner -- something that can't be said about most other remakes. Don't expect to see anything before 2010.

Young Andy Barclay sees a commercial for a 'Good Guy' doll on TV, and asks his mother for one for his birthday. At work, Andy's mom and her friend discover a peddler selling one for a low price, and she buys it. What she doesn't know is that the particular doll contains the spirit of Charles Lee Ray, aka 'The Lakeshore Strangler', who died at the hands of police the night before and had transferred his spirit to the doll by voodoo. That night, Andy's babysitter is pushed from their 5th-floor window to her death, and only young Andy knows that 'Chucky' - the doll - is responsible for that a death and a series of murders that follow. Worse than that, the soul of Charles Lee Ray is trying to get out of the doll's body - and take over Andy's.

The Crazies: This update of the George Romero film about a homicidal mass hysteria (Think The Signal minus a signal.) is being directed by Breck Eisner (Sahara), who'll also helm the Creature from the Black Lagoon remake. In May 2008, he stated that he's filming The Crazies first, meaning it will likely hit theaters first. Filming is scheduled to start in early 2009, with production by Overture Films. Timothy Olyphant (Hitman) is set to star.

A biological weapon gone awry is only the start of problems in the little town of Evan's City, Pennsylvania. Bouts of insanity in the populace are leading to murder and rioting, until the US Army turns up - and things really start going to hell.

The Echo: This remake of the 2004 Filipino horror movie Sigaw has been shot by the original's director, Yam Laranas, with production by Vertigo Entertainment, the company behind remake of Dark Water, The Grudge, The Eye and Shutter. It's still looking for US distribution, though, so it might not be released until 2010.

Marvin (Richard Guttierez) savors his independence in a newly acquired unit of an old apartment building. He is frequently visited by his girlfriend Pinky (Angel Locsin). Except for the occasional noise from an apartment unit down the hallway, the place is almost perfect for Marvin. At the end of the hallway is where Anna (Iza Calzado) lives with her young daughter Lara (Janella Denise Guevarra), and Bert (Jomari Yllana), her jealous husband. Bert is a cop, and he has always suspected Anna of two-timing him. His frequent jealous outbursts would always lead to beatings that could be heard throughout the whole floor. Marvin would usually be awakened at night by the sound of screaming and beating from Anna's unit. Marvin complains to the building caretaker (Ronnie Lazaro), a drunk, who would just tell him to ignore the disturbance from the apartment down the hall. Anna and her daughter would usually ask for help from Jude (James Blanco), who lives in an apartment unit in the middle of the hallway. Jude's apartment becomes a temporary refuge for the little girl Lara. One day, Pinky drops by Marvin's apartment and is shocked to see a woman knocking on his door. Pinky suspects Marvin is seeing another girl, which could explain why he has been acting strange lately. Marvin vehemently denies seeing another woman. It is the strange occurrences in his apartment that is making him act strange lately. Meanwhile, the beatings down the hall intensify.Jude is getting scared because the cruel cop Bert is beginning to suspect that Jude is having an affair with Anna, which isn't true. Marvin gets drawn to the couple's frequent quarrels. He even witnesses Bert chasing Anna and beating her up in the corridor. All that violence affects Marvin. At length, he musters the courage to find out more about the quarreling couple. What he finds out shocks him. Marvin uncovers a secret that will change his life and Pinky's as well. The discovery sets into motion a series of hauntings that follow him and Pinky around. He decides to leave his apartment but the hauntings follow them wherever they go. Marvin finally decides to confront the problem. He returns to the old apartment building to face the evil that dwells in it. What happens next shakes the very core of his beliefs about life, love and the spirit world.

The Fury: At the end of April 2008, Fox announced that it had commissioned a script to be written for a remake of the 1978 Brian DePalma flick about a telekinetic man who's kidnapped by the government.

Former government agent Peter Sandza, goes head-to-head against old colleague turned bitter adversary Ben Childress, when Childress tries to kill him, and kidnaps his son, the telepathically-gifted Robin. Childress seeks to use Robin's powers to further secret experiments in 'psi' research for weapons applications. Peter's only link to his son is Gillian Bellaver, an equally gifted teen who is tuned in to Robin's powers. Peter and Gillian join forces in a race against time to save Robin from his captors, and also from himself.

Hellraiser: A January 9, 2009, date was originally planned for the release of this dark Clive Barker tale of pain, pleasure and Pinhead, but that has been pushed back. Bad news: a proposed script was reportedly rejected in October 2008. Good news: Pascal Laugier, director of the French shocker Martyrs (itself in line for a remake), is set to direct.

Clive Barker's feature directing debut graphically depicts the tale of a man and wife who move into an old house and discover a hideous creature - the man's half-brother, who is also the woman's former lover - hiding upstairs. Having lost his earthly body to a trio of S&M demons, the Cenobites, he is brought back into existence by a drop of blood on the floor. He soon forces his former mistress to bring him his necessary human sacrifices to complete his body... but the Cenobites won't be happy about this.

The Host: In March 2007, Universal purchased the rights to this Korean monster movie, and by November 2008, Gore Verbinski (The Ring) was on board...to produce. First-time director Fredrik Bond is helming the film. Look for it sometime in 2010 or 2011.

On 09 February 2000, the American military base of Yongson releases toxic chemicals in the drain to the Han River under the direct order of an arrogant coroner. Six years later, a mutant squid monster leaves the water and attacks people on the side of the river. The teenager Park Hyun-seo is carried by the creature and vanishes in the river. While grieving her loss, her slow father Park Gang-du; her grandfather and owner of a bar-kiosk nearby the river Park Hie-bong; her aunt and archery medalist Park Nam-Joo; and her graduated unemployed uncle Park Nam-il are sent by the army with all the people that had some sort of contact with the monster to quarantine in a facility. During the night, Gang-du receives a phone call from Hyun-seo telling that she is alive in a big sewage nearby the river. Gang-du tell the militaries but nobody believes on his words, saying that he is delusional due to the shock of his loss. The Park family joins forces trying to find Hyun-seo and rescue her.

The House on Sorority Row: In April 2008, Summit Entertainment (Twilight, P2) acquired the remake rights to this '80s slasher, which made it onto my list of the 25 best slashers, although I don't think it has enough of a following -- or an interesting enough plot -- to justify a remake. In September 2008, Rumer Willis and Briana Evigan were announced as stars and Stewart Hendler as director. The title was updated to merely Sorority Row.

The House On Sorority Row is a 1983 low budget American slasher film and starring Kate McNeil, Eileen Davidson, Janis Ward, Robin Meloy, Harley Jane Kozak, Jodi Draigie, Ellen Dorsher and Lois Kelso Hunt. The film has become a cult classic among fans of the slasher genre. The story concerns seven sorority sisters who want to have a graduation party but the house mother refuses to let them have it. On the day of their planned party, the girls decide to play a practical joke on the housemother that results in her death. They hide her body in the sorority's unused swimming pool, but that evening as the party begins, someone starts killing the sisters one by one.

Invasion of the Body Snatchers: Twisted Pictures, of Saw fame, made a deal in 2007 to remake several old RKO films, including Body Snatchers (for the umpteenth time) and I Walked With a Zombie. None have begun production yet, however.

Held by the police as a raving lunatic, Dr. Miles Bennell recounts to a psychiatrist the events that have turned his life upside down. He returned to his small town the previous Thursday, having been called back from a medical conference by his nurse, who was being flooded with patients. He arrives to find that most have canceled their appointments, but the few cases he does have all have the same story: someone close to them is acting strangely as if they had been replaced. Consulting some of his colleagues, he finds that these types of reports have been coming in all week and they conclude it must be some type of mass hysteria. However, when his friends Jack and Teddy Belicec show him a partly formed body they have uncovered in their home, he begins to realize that there may be some truth to the wild stories he has been hearing.

It: In March 2009, it was reported that a remake of the made-for-TV adaptation of the Stephen King novel It was headed for the big screen. At that time, a writer had been hired, but little else had been decided for the Warner Brothers property.

The novel is set in Derry where a malevolent shape-shifting entity known only as "It" resides in the sewers and preys on children.

The novel begins in 1957 where a six-year old named George Denbrough chases his paper boat into a storm drain. To his surprise, the boat is caught by Pennywise the Dancing Clown who offers him the boat and a balloon, then kills George by ripping his arm off.

In 1984, a homosexual youth named Adrian Mellon is thrown off a bridge by a group of homophobes. They are arrested for murder when Adrian’s mutilated corpse is found, though one of them claims that he saw a clown with balloons kill Adrian.

When a string of violent child-killings rocks Derry following Adrian’s death, the town’s librarian, Mike Hanlon, calls up six old friends and reminds them of a childhood promise to return; Bill Denbrough, Ben Hanscom, Beverly Marsh, Richie Tozier, Eddie Kaspbrak, and Stan Uris. The first five all return to Derry, admitting that they can't remember their childhoods. Stan, the only one who still has his memory, slits his wrists while taking a bath and writes in blood the word IT on the shower wall.

It's Alive: Currently in post-production, this remake of the cult hit about a mutant killer baby is one of the furthest along of the films on this list, already having a finished trailer. It stars Bijou Phillips and should be released -- probably on DVD -- in 2009.

A young couple joyously awaiting the birth of their newborn is in for a horrifying surprise in this thrilling low-budget '70s hit. It's Alive wastes no time in establishing that there is something terribly wrong with the Davies' new baby in a shocking opening "escape" sequence not intended for the faint of heart. As baby "It's Alive" makes its way home from the hospital destroying anything in its path, the Davies must face an impossible dilemma, and a parent's worse nightmare!

Let the Right One In: At the end of April 2008, England's Hammer Films (Remember them?) nabbed the rights to remake this highly acclaimed Swedish vampire coming-of-age tale. In September 2008, Cloverfield director Matt Reeves signed on to helm the picture. In March 2009, the title of the remake was revealed to be Let Me In (the same as the novel), and it was scheduled for a January 2010 theatrical release.

Oskar, a bullied 12-year old, dreams of revenge. He falls in love with Eli, a peculiar girl. She can't stand the sun or food and to come into a room she needs to be invited. Eli gives Oskar the strength to hit back but when he realizes that Eli needs to drink other people's blood to live he's faced with a choice. How much can love forgive? Let The Right One In is a story both violent and highly romantic, set in the Stockholm suburb of Blackeberg in 1982.

Little Shop of Horrors: In April 2009, it was revealed that director Declan O'Brien had acquired the rights to remake the cult classic and was shopping the idea to studios.

Seymour is a young man who works in a flower store. He manages to create a carnivorous plant that feeds on human flesh. Nobody knows about it, so Seymour and the plant become good "friends". The plant needs food to grow up, so it convinces him to start killing people.

Long Weekend: Jim Caviezel stars in this remake of the Australian nature-gone-amok film, which is in post-production and already has a trailer. It could see a (limited) theatrical release in 2009.

Long Weekend is a unique take on the “Do not mess with the environment: Humans vs. Nature” sub-genre. Released for the first time on DVD a few years ago, the Australian film from 1978 is a realistic horror-thriller with plenty of surprises and chills.

Peter (John Hargreaves) and Marcia (Briony Behets), trying to save their troubled marriage with a little camping trip along a secluded beach somewhere on the Australian coast, get more than they bargained for when their utter disregard for nature ends up having dire consequences. After lackluster examples of eco-friendly behavior (to name just a few things they do) such as littering with broken glass, killing wildlife and chopping down trees for no reason, nature and its inhabitants rebel and fight back… subtly but viciously. What follows is a pseudo-supernatural and bizarre nightmare for the two protagonists.

Martyrs: In December 2008, it was revealed that Dimension was negotiating the rights to remake the infamously brutal French film Martyrs, about an abused woman who seeks revenge on her former captors and ends up with more than she bargained for. With the original director, Pascal Laugier, busy on the Hellraiser remake, he's not expected to helm this version of the film.

France. A night at the beginning of the 1970s. Lucie, a little girl missing for over a year, is discovered wandering by the side of a country road. Near catatonic, she can say nothing about what has happened to her. The police quickly find the place in which she's been incarcerated - a disused slaughterhouse. Every indication is that she never once left the empty, freezing room in which she was imprisoned. Filthy, starving, dehydrated, the child's body nonetheless bears no traces of sexual abuse. She is placed into an orphanage where she befriends a younger girl, Anna.

Years later, Lucie is out for revenge against her alleged persecutors. Her determination to find the truth will lead her and Anna into a living nightmare.

Motel Hell: Originally scheduled by to hit theaters in October 2007, this remake of the camp flick about cannibalistic hotel owners was scrapped by MGM, and the rights were sold to Twisted Pictures in February 2008. Don't plan on seeing anything before 2010.

Farmer Vincent kidnaps unsuspecting travelers and is burying them in his garden. Unfortunately for his victims, they are not dead. He feeds his victims to prepare them for his roadside stand. His motto is: It takes all kinds of critters...to make Farmer Vincents fritters. The movie is gory, but is also a parody of slasher movies like Last House on the Left.

Near Dark: This cult favorite vampire movie was to be remade by Michael Bay's Platinum Dunes, but in December 2008, plans were called off.

A young cowboy is seduced by a new girl in town only to find out he has been kissed by a vampire. Slowly turning into a creature of the night, he is persuaded to join up with the girl and a roaming band of ghouls. But when his own father and sister become targets in the vampires' endless search for 'food,' he is forced to choose between loyalty to the vampires, or loyalty his own family. NEAR DARK is a stylish and brutal mixture of horror, western, and action conventions from director Kathryn Bigelow (STRANGE DAYS) that ranks among the best vampire movies ever made.

Night of the Demons: Shooting began in September 2008 with a cast that includes Shannon Elizabeth (Scary Movie), Edward Furlong (Pet Sematary II), Monica Keena (Freddy vs. Jason), Diora Baird (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning) and Tiffany Shepis (every direct-to-video horror movie in the past decade). A (limited?) theatrical release is scheduled for October 9, 2009.

Ten teens decide to have a party at an abandoned funeral parlor called Hull House. Hull House is on a strip of land rumored to be unclean and unfit for human inhabitance. The house has a nasty history to it including a the Hull family being murdered. After the ten kids enter the house they decide to have a séance. After an attempt for the séance they awaken a demon that lives in the basement. It possesses one of the girls then from her everyone else becomes possessed and killed by demons that inhabit the land.

A Nightmare on Elm Street: After the Friday the 13th remake, production company Platinum Dunes set its sights on Elm Street, announcing in February 2008 that star Robert Englund would not return as Freddy Krueger. In March 2009, it was announced that the release date will be April 6, 2010.

In the early 1980's, a psychopath named Freddy Krueger - known as the Springwood Slasher - murdered several children with a glove outfitted with straight razor blades attached to the fingers. When a foolish decision by a judge sets him free, Krueger is burned alive in the boiler room where he worked by an angry mob of the parents whose children he terrorized & murdered. Years after his death, the children whose parents were responsible for Krueger's death - including Nancy Thompson, daughter of the police officer who arrested Krueger - are experiencing terrifying nightmares involving a burned man wearing a glove with razor blades on the fingers. The ghost of Freddy Krueger is haunting their dreams, and when Nancy's best friend Tina dies in her sleep violently during a dream confrontation with Krueger, Nancy realizes she must find a way to stop the evil psychopath's reign of terror - or never sleep again.

Piranha 3-D: Director Alexandre Aja moves from Mirrors to decidedly more campy (and 3-D!) fare in this remake of the 1978 killer fish tale that rode Jaws' coattails as far as it could. Originally scheduled for release in July 2009, it was announced in January 2009 that the movie had been bumped to March 19, 2010.

A young couple stumble across an abandoned US Army test site on a mountain, in which is a huge pool. Thinking it's an ordinary swimming pool, they jump in. But this pool is home to the piranha, and the couple are eaten alive. A young woman P.I. is hired by the father of one of the missing kids to find them, and she meets up with an alcoholic outdoorsman who lives on the mountain. The two of them find the test site and drain the pool to see what's in it. As they do they are accosted by Dr. Hoak - the sole resident of the test site - who informs them that the inhabitants of the pool were the products of a gene-splicing experiment called 'Operation Razorteeth', designed to produce a mutant strain of piranha fish for deployment in the Vietnam War against the NVA. The fish could live in cold water and breed at a high rate. Realizing that a children's summer camp and the Lost River Lake Resort downriver are in the piranhas' path, they set out to try to stop it. The piranha are well ahead of them, and they kill several people on their way downstream. When they try to warn the camp director and resort owner of the danger, they are arrested. Thanks to the woman's ingenuity they escape custody and race down to the camp in a state police car to warn them. But the piranha have already struck - and there are others who want to keep the danger of the piranha a secret.

Poltergeist: In August 2008, MGM hired writers Juliet Snowden and Stiles White to pen this remake, which probably won't be seen before 2010. No word yet as to how faithful it will be to the original.

While living an an average family house in a pleasant neighborhood, the youngest daughter of the Freeling family, Carol Anne (Heather O'Rourke), seems to be connecting with the supernatural through a dead channel on the television. It is not for long when the mysterious beings enter the house's walls. At first seeming like harmless ghosts, they play tricks and amuse the family, but they take a nasty turn- they horrify the family to death with angry trees and murderous dolls, and finally abduct Carol Anne into her bedroom closet, which seems like the entrance to the other side.

Predator: In January 2009, Robert Rodriquez was rumored to be producing a "reboot" of the 1987 movie about an alien on a hunting trip on Earth. The movie will supposedly pit a team of military men versus a group of aliens.

The film begins with the arrival of a specialist Army Commando team (led by Alan 'Dutch' Schaeffer) at a US military outpost somewhere non-disclosed in Central America. After a short briefing from the commanding officer there, they learn that they are to rescue a 'Cabinet Minister' whom was in a helicopter that was shot down whilst flying over enemy territory. Accompanied by a CIA operative, they head deep into the jungle; only things are not as they seem. Almost immediately, they find the remnants of another US military team, Green Berets; who have been skinned alive by some unknown enemy. A short while later, they strike the enemy encampment; only to find that they have been set up by the CIA to bring back important military intelligence information, rather than effecting any rescue. But something else is hidden, waiting, watching in the jungle. An immensely advanced and powerful alien that hunts only the most dangerous prey in the universe - the Predator. One after another, the team is picked off as they desperately attempt to escape the jungle by reaching the extraction point as the enemy guerrillas and the Predator close in on their position.. can any of them survive this nightmare?

Re-Animator: In February 2009, it was announced that producers Ray Haboush and Brian Yuzna were developing a remake, possibly shot in 3-D. It remains in the very early stages.

In this H.P. Lovecraft tale, Herbert West is a Swiss scientist who has discovered a fluid which brings dead tissue back to life. After the suspicious death of his professor in Switzerland, West moves to Miskatonic University to continue his research. He involves fellow student Dan Cain and his fiancée Megan Halsey in his research by experimenting on their dead cat. Dan, fascinated by West's research, agrees to smuggle him into the hospital morgue with predictable results.

The Rocky Horror Picture Show: MTV announced in July 2008 that it was producing a remake of the cult hit musical horror film, with a target date of Halloween 2009. It's not clear yet if it will air on MTV or if it will be an MTV Films production for theatrical release.

Brad and Janet, newly engaged, stumble onto the castle of Dr. Frank-N-Furter during a rainstorm. Taking refuge in the castle, they're present for the doctor's unveiling of his newest creation, Rocky. Over the course of the night, Frank seduces both Brad and Janet, Janet and Rocky become involved biblically, Dr. Everett Scott arrives looking for his son Eddie (whom Frank killed earlier in the film), and it all goes to pot when the guests discover that Frank is actually an alien (a transvestite from the planet Transsexual in the galaxy Transylvania) who's succeeded in creating the Sonic Transducer, "an audio-vibratory physiomolecular transport device" capable of "breaking down solid matter and then projecting it through space and, who knows, perhaps even time itself."

Rosemary's Baby: Platinum Dunes announced in March 2008 that it was pursuing Rosemary's Baby for a remake, but in December, it called off those plans.

Rosemary and Guy Woodhouse move into an apartment in a building with a bad reputation. They discover that their neighbors are a very friendly elderly couple named Roman and Minnie Castevet, and Guy begins to spend a lot of time with them. Strange things start to happen: a woman Rosemary meets in the washroom dies a mysterious death, Rosemary has strange dreams and hears strange noises and Guy becomes remote and distant. Then Rosemary falls pregnant and begins to suspect that her neighbors have special plans for her child.

Silent Night, Deadly Night: If they're going to remake Prom Night and My Bloody Valentine, they may as well go back for the killer Santa slasher Silent Night, Deadly Night. Originally scheduled for Christmas 2008, things appear to have stalled.

After his parents are murdered by a scalpel-wielding Santy, a young boy is sent to an orphanage. He ends up spying on two people having sex, and learns sex is a very naughty thing. A few years later, in a lil' ole department store, the kid is given the ultimate screw-up: SANTA CLAUS. After seeing two people having sex in the storage room, he has flashbacks of his parents' murder, and ends up killing them both. He then sets off on a massive killing spree. Can he be stopped? Or will Santa deliver new presents to all the little kids?

The Stepfather: If there was any doubt that this psycho stepdad remake -- written by J.S. Cardone and directed by Nelson McCormick -- would get made, the success of the Cardone/McCormick vehicle Prom Night ensured that it would. Expect it in time for Halloween '09...and don't be surprised if it's PG-13.

All about a "family values" man Jerry Blake who marries widows and divorcées with children in search of the perfect family. As soon as his new family members show signs of being human and not robots who will march unquestioningly to his tune, his dreams of domestic bliss begins to crumble, and he kills them. Then he alters his appearance, assumes an new identity, and skips to another town to begin the deadly ritual all over again. He marries Susan Maine, who sees him as the ideal surrogate father for her teenage daughter Stephanie, and is soon up to his old tricks when she proves too much of a troublesome teen to handle.

Suspiria: In March 2008, director David Gordon Green (All the Real Girls, Pineapple Express) confirmed that he's written the script, although there's no word on whether he'll direct or when production would begin. In August 2008, Green reiterated that he's working on the film, and an unconfirmed rumor spread that Natalie Portman was on board as the star.

A young American dancer travels to Europe to join a famous ballet school. As she arrives, the camera turns to another young woman, who appears to be fleeing from the school. She returns to her apartment where she is gruesomely murdered by a hideous creature. Meanwhile, the young American is trying to settle in at the ballet school, but hears strange noises and is troubled by bizarre occurrences. She eventually discovers that the school is merely a front for a much more sinister organization.

They Live: In December 2008, it was announced that Universal and Strike Entertainment (the duo working on a prequel to John Carpenter's The Thing) was in negotiations to acquire the rights to this Carpenter sci fi/horror film in order to craft a remake, with Carpenter as executive producer. In January 2009, Matthijs Van Heijningen was named as the director, an a writer was assigned.

Nada, a down-on-his-luck construction worker, discovers a pair of special sunglasses. Wearing them, he is able to see the world as it really is: people being bombarded by media and government with messages like "Stay Asleep", "No Imagination", "Submit to Authority". Even scarier is that he is able to see that some usually normal-looking people are in fact ugly aliens in charge of the massive campaign to keep humans subdued.

Who Can Kill a Child?: A Spanish remake of this '70s Spanish killer child pic was announced in September 2008, with David Alcalde named as director.

The films begins with a montage of documentary footage depicting atrocities committed to children. It then cuts to the story of an English couple, Tom and Evelyn, who are taking a vacation. They arrive on an island where they encounter children who are reluctant to speak to them. Throughout their stay, they witness the children behaving strangely. They later learn the children are capable of violence which forces them to consider killing the children. Tom reluctantly shoots one boy with a gun when they are cornered into a room. Evelyn is horrified. Tom winds up shooting a machine gun at a group of children in an attempt to escape the island, and is later killed by a police officer who assumes he is a child abuser because of the way he treats the children.

The Wolf Man: Along with The Birds, this remake of the werewolf classic will likely feature the biggest budget on this list. It stars Benicio Del Toro and Anthony Hopkins and war originally scheduled to open on April 3, 2009, but in late 2008, the release date was changed to November 6, 2009. If it's a big success, you can bet that other old Universal horror film remakes will follow: The Creature from the Black Lagoon, maybe The Invisible Man or The Bride of Frankenstein or Dracula's Cousin's Half-Sister.

Upon the death of his brother, Larry Talbot returns from America to his ancestral home in Wales. He visits a gypsy camp with village girl Jenny Williams, who is attacked by Bela, a gypsy who has turned into a werewolf. Larry kills the werewolf but is bitten during the fight. Bela's mother tells him that this will cause him to become a werewolf at each full moon. Larry confesses his plight to his unbelieving father, Sir John, who then joins the villagers in a hunt for the wolf. Larry, transformed by the full moon, heads for the forest and a fateful meeting with both Sir John and Gwen.

Saturday, April 18, 2009

If I call this alternate history it fits into my site right?

It Came from IFC V: The Revenge of Independent Films

Warning! This synopsis contains spoilers!

I worked hard to find a brief summary of this film’s plot. I did not find one…and a movie poster is getting to be hard to find too.

Kyuketsuki Gokemidoro (1968)

Goke, Body Snatcher from Hell is a 1968 Japanese science fiction/horror film directed by Hajime Sato and released by Shochiku studios.

Air Japan flight JA307 is enroute from Tokyo's Haneda airport south to Itami Airport in Osaka. As stewardess Kuzumi Asakura [Tomomi Sato] announces the flight plan, which will take them over the island of Oshima and the city of Suzuka, the pilot notices an unusual blood red color to the sky around them. That's when the trouble starts.

One by one, the passengers begin seeing bloody birds flapping their wings against the windows as though in fear. The pilot [Hiroyuki Nishimoto] receives a radio message to the fact that there may be a bomb aboard and is ordered to return immediately to Haneda. Co-pilot Sugisaka [Teruo Yoshida] is ordered to check the bags of each of the passengers, giving the excuse that a bag containing confidential documents may have mistakenly been loaded on this flight. All bags are clean and only one man [Hideo Ko] has no bag, but Kuzumi notices an unaccompanied suitcase under a bench. Sugisaka opens it and finds not a bomb but a rifle. The man without a suitcase suddenly pulls a gun on Sugisaka and then orders the pilot to change course to Okinawa. To show that he means business, he fires through the cabin a shot that knocks over a transistor radio breaking the news that a UFO has just been spotted over Japan and that Japanese and US Air Force fighters are in pursuit. Suddenly a large luminous object is spotted directly in front of the airplane. It passes overhead but knocks out the airplane's gauges, sparking a fire in the engines. Air Japan flight JA307 goes down on what looks like an uncharted desert isle.

Sugisaka is the first to awaken but the pilot is dead as well as the hijacker. Kuzumi is next to recover. Together, Sugisaka and Kuzumi check for more survivors. There is Mrs Neal [Kathy Horan], an American Vietnam War widow; Senator Mano [ Eizo Kitamura] of the Constitutional Democratic Party; weapons exporter Tokiyasu [Nobuo Kaneko] and his wife Noriko [Yuko Kusunoki], who flies into Mr Mano's arms when she finds that she has survived the crash; Psychiatrist Momotake [Kazuo Kato]; space biologist Professor Sagai [Masaya Takhashi]; and the young man who called in the bomb threat (whom they lock in the cockpit). Taking stock of the airplane, they find that they are out of water, have no food nor any idea of where they are. What's worse is that a radio announcement says that a search has not uncovered any trace of the downed airplane, so the search has been discontinued.

As Sugisaka worries about surviving, and Mano worries about his upcoming election, and Tokiyasu worries about himself, and Sagai offers scifi explanations, and Dr Momotake studies survival instincts clashing with egos, the hijacker suddenly revives, grabs Kuzumi as a hostage, and runs out into the night where they come upon a luminous spaceship. Kuzumi crouches behind a rock, but the hijacker steps into a clearing to get a better look. Suddenly, his face goes blank and he begins walking toward the spaceship. A dark blob crawls along the ground towards the hijacker. When she sees the hijacker's forehead split open from nose to hairline, Kuzumi screams and passes out.

Sugisaka finds Kizumi passed out behind the rock and carries her back to the airplane. In order to get Kuzumi to tell what she saw, Dr Momotake hypnotizes her. Kuzumi tells how the dark blob crawled into the hijacker's skull through the split in his forehead. Tokiyasu doesn't believe her, but Dr Momotake assures him that Kuzumi is telling the truth. Sagai points out that it could be a flying saucer and backs up his suspicion with the fact that reports of UFOs have increased ever since the bombing of Hiroshima, giving extraterrestrials ample opportunity to invade the Earth while we are preoccupied with senseless wars. While everyone bemoans the horrors of war, the kid who called in the fake bomb threat goes berserk, not wanting to believe Kuzumi's story. He attacks Dr Momotake, who falls off the cliff. Waiting at the bottom is the hijacker. He latches on to Momotake, bites his neck, and sucks out all his blood, turning Momotake a bright shade of blue.

A few hours pass as the survivors discuss the need to find water in the morning. Suddenly, there comes a knock on the door. Mano and Tokiyasu don't want to open it, but Sugisaka does anyway. As he descends the stairs, he sees the hijacker lying on the ground and notices the big scar on his forehead. Mrs Neal, whose husband was killed by a napalm blast to the face, rushes to the hijacker and begs for the others to help him. Against their better judgment, they carry the hijacker inside and dress his wound.

Mano is becoming extremely thirsty, thanks to the bottle of whiskey that Tokiyasu gave him. Now, when Mano wants a drink of water from Tokiyasu's canteen, Tokiyasu refuses. It seems that Mano and Tokiyasu have been greasing each others' palms, Tokiyasu funding Mano's campaign and Mano promising to pressure the committee to accept Tokiyasu's weapons bid, a promise that Tokiyasu had no intention of keeping. In revenge, Tokiyasu picks up a rifle and forces everyone out into the night then locks himself in the safety of the airplane. But he forgot one person...the hijacker.

Tokiyasu's screams can be heard outside the airplane. Suddenly, the screams stop and the locked door swings open. Everyone rushes inside to find Tokiyasu dead on the floor, all the blood drained from his body. Noriko begins to laugh, exclaiming that she is now free from here husband's abuse, but her laughter soon turns to tears when she thinks about the way he died. When no one is looking, the hijacker comes out of hiding and carries Noriko off to the spaceship. When the others notice that Noriko is missing, they go in search of her.

The sun is rising, and Noriko can be seen standing on a ridge. She raises her hand to speak, but it is not her voice. It is the Gokemidoro speaking through her. They have come to invade the earth, says the voice, and to exterminate the human race. That said, the Gokemidoro have no more need for Noriko's body, so she plunges off the cliff. By the time her fellow passengers get to her broken body, she has disintegrated into a shriveled old cadaver.

Once again, the passengers get into an argument about whether or not there are such things as extraterrestrials who would evade the earth. Professor Sagai theorizes that the Gokemidoro have taken over the hijacker's body and turned him into a vampire. Mano thinks that is balderdash and challenges them to show him a vampire. Sagai agrees that he would like to see one, too. The only way to do that is to sacrifice one of them to the Goke. But who will it be? Mano suggests Mrs Neal, because a foreigner will be less problems later. Mrs Neal screams that she doesn't want to die. Sugisaka is against the entire idea. A knocking on the cockpit door and a cry for water remind them of the kid who made the bomb threat, so they let him out. Mrs Neal grabs a rifle and locks Sugisaka and Kuzumi into the cockpit. Mano and Saiga shove the kid outside. Then they line up in the windows to watch the hijacker slowly advance. The kid pulls out the bomb he's been hiding and vows to blow up the plane unless they let him back in. They don't, the hijacker continues to advance, and the bomb goes off, killing the kid and blowing a large opening in the side of the airplane.

It's now evident that the plane can no longer provide cover, so they'll have to get moving. But the bomb blast has wounded Professor Sagai. Mano couldn't care less and runs off. Mrs Neal follows him. When the hijacker catches up with them, Mano pushes Mrs Neal towards the hijacker in order to save himself. Mrs Neal shoots at the hijacker a number of times but keeps missing. Finally, the hijacker grabs her, fastens his lips to her neck, and sucks her dry.

Back in the airplane, Sugisaka and Kuzumi are packing up supplies while Sagai bemoans his loss of faith in humanity. As Sugisaka assures him that they must believe in human goodness, they hear a shout outside. It is Mano, and the hijacker is not far behind him. Sugisaka and Kuzumi go out to help Mano, but he quickly runs inside the plane, locking the door behind him. The hijacker turns on Sugisaka and Kuzumi. While Mano watches from inside the plane, Sugisaka tosses a bucket of airplane fuel at the hijacker, then sets him on fire.

The Gokemidoro crawls out of the burning hijacker, creeps into the airplane through the bomb hole, and makes its way into Professor Saiga's forehead. Saiga drinks his fill on Mano, then turns to Sugisaka and Kuzumi, who try to run. Saiga follows until they are stopped by a landslide that knocks Saiga from the hill they are climbing. Sugisaka and Kuzumi keep running, while Saiga makes his way back to the spaceship. Once Saiga is there, the Gokemidoro crawls out of his skull, reducing Saiga to a pile of dust.

Sugisaka and Kuzumi keep running until they come out on a highway where they see cars lined up at a tollbooth. Everyone in the cars is dead. Everyone in the city is dead, too. The Gokemidoro speak to them once more, informing them that no living thing will be spared and that it is "too late to wish they had lived differently". Cut to footage of mushroom clouds.

Epilogue: Sugisaka and Kuzumi are wandering on rocky terrain. Sugisaka wonders why this had to happen. Pan from the earth to outer space where a whole fleet of Gokemidoro spaceships are headed towards us.

The film is perhaps best-known in the United States for its influence on Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill: Volume 1: in the scene where The Bride flies to Japan, the deliberately artificial shots of the airliner flying in front of the backdrop of an orange sky were based on images from Goke.

The film currently has no Region 1 DVD release so I hope you like reading tiny little words.

Thursday, April 16, 2009

13 upcoming remakes of Hollywood sci-fi classics

Hollywood, Back to the Future: Top filmmakers have already dipped into the sci-fi vault for 21st century remakes of “The War of the Worlds,” “The Planet of the Apes” and “The Day the Earth Stood Still,” so what’s next on the revival list? Plenty. Here’s a list of a dozen remakes and revival projects now at various stages in the studio pipeline. I will be adding my commentary in yellow.

"When Worlds Collide" Steven Spielberg is one of the producers and Stephen Sommers (“The Mummy,” “Van Helsing”), infamous for his “give me more” attitude toward CGI effects, is directing. Like the original 1951 film produced by George Pal, this “Worlds,” due in theaters next year, is about the mad scramble to build a spaceship to save humanity before Earth is destroyed by a rogue planet entering its orbit. The problem comes when there aren’t enough seats for everybody on Earth.

This worked in ‘51 when people had manners, but now it would be an excuse for ultra-violent scenes and bad acting, NO!

"The Terminator" It’s not a remake, but filmmaker McG’s plan to revive the killer robot franchise with a new sequel next summer starring Christian Bale as John Connor has been circled by fans after a strong showing this past summer at Comic-Con International. “Terminator Salvation” is set in the future and shows the grim war between humans and Skynet with its murderous metallic armies. The plan is for a full trilogy — which means a certain California politician may well live up to that long-ago promise: “I’ll be back.”

My first reaction was it’s a little soon, but since this movie is now 25 years old I’m thinking aren’t we still moving the story forward with a T4 due out this summer? No!

"Robocop" If the Terminator can get tuned up for a revival, why not that other 1980s mechanical hero? After several fits and starts, MGM announced in March that a reboot of “Robocop” would be in theaters in 2010. Darren Aronofsky (“The Wrestler,” “Requiem for a Dream”) is directing the remake of Paul Verhoeven’s bloody movie about a Detroit cop who is gunned down but then put back on patrol as a cyborg with troubled soul.

Maybe, if they avoid the CGI. Might be worth a viewing.

"Ghostbusters" There’s talk of making a third installment in the hugely successful sci-fi comedy franchise and bringing back the original crew -- Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Harold Ramis and Ernie Hudson -- as well as some new-blood, second-generation busters. Lee Eisenberg and Gene Stupnitsky, writers for “The Office,” are at work on the script for Columbia Pictures and Murray, in the past the most reluctant to return to the franchise, has said publicly that he’s open to the idea. There was talk of Seth Rogen being a likely cast addition but don’t bother calling him: “It sounds,” he said in October, “like the worst idea ever."

I’m with Seth on this one, go out on the mediocre note that was GB2.

"The Creature from the Black Lagoon" Breck Eisner, the of “Sahara” and son of former Disney chief Michael Eisner, is directing while screenwriter Gary Ross is on board to retell the story of an Amazon River expedition that crosses paths with a prehistoric amphibian humanoid. The presence of Ross gives the 2009 release a link to the original 1954 film — that Universal classic was written by his father, Arthur A. Ross. Bill Paxton's name has come up as one of the rumored cast members.

Never, never, never remake an Universal Monster movie that came from the writing staff at Universal as opposed to a literary work. None of the current Hollywood A-List could understand what they were going for with the original. Just don’t do this.

"Flash Gordon" After the “Black Lagoon” remake, director Eisner is planning to revive Flash Gordon for Columbia, bringing back the brand that hit the silver screen in 1980 with the campy Dino DeLaurentiis production that so memorably featured the music of Queen, not to mention the unexpectedly galactic pair of Topol and Timothy Dalton. Alex Raymond’s classic space hero, originally created as a comic strip rival to Buck Rogers, celebrates his 75th anniversary in pop culture next month but it's not clear that his retro appeal still holds. Earlier this year, Sci Fi canceled its “Flash Gordon” series, which had ratings that proved that Ming isn’t the one who is merciless.

What? Why? No!

"Westworld" The late Michael Crichton wrote and directed the 1973 sci-fi thriller about a theme park where rich visitors can live out fantasies like engaging in Old West gunfights, thanks to the park’s androids, such as the menacing robot cowboy memorably portrayed by Yul Brynner. Just like in his “Jurassic Park,” though, you know things are going to go badly for the smug and boozy tourists. Crichton had worked recently on a script for a remake (and, at one point, Quentin Tarantino was approached to direct) but the author’s death in November may mark the end of the reboot effort.

Yet again, go light on the CGI and you might have a winner here. Your challenge is finding someone to take up the Yul Brynner role and have no dialogue.

"Logan's Run" This is a remake that can’t seem to find sanctuary even after a decade of attempts. A few years ago, Bryan Singer (“The X-Men,” “The Usual Suspects”) was all set to re-imagine the 1976 movie about a society where everyone submits to state-ordered execution parlors on their 30th birthday or gets hunted down by agents called Sandmen (the age was 21 in the 1967 novel by William F. Nolan and George Clayton Johnson that served as source material). Singer dropped out to make “Superman Returns,” though, and now producer Joel Silver (“The Matrix” films) appears intent to regenerate with a newcomer as director, namely Joseph Kosinski, who has made his name in television commercials.

Yes, please Lord YES! The original was a rare find in that it was better than the novel, and anyone who has ever read the two sequel novels by Nolan alone knows they should never be made into movies. Hell, they could spoil a book burning if thrown into the fire. I have been waiting for someone to update this film.

"Forbidden Planet" Producer Silver is also behind a planned revival of this 1956 classic that gave a sci-fi twist to Shakespeare’s “The Tempest” and starred Walter Pidgeon, Anne Francis and Leslie Nielsen long before his career tilted toward comedy. It also introduced the world to Robbie the Robot, a machine man who would show in film and television shows for decades. At one point James Cameron (“Titanic,” “Aliens”) had flirted with a “Forbidden” remake but right now it’s not clear who will be directing. In October, it was announced that screenwriter J. Michael Straczynski (“The Changeling”) is on board.

The subtleties of Shakespeare and Communism are lost on today’s writers and directors. It’s hard to understand how every sci-fi movie from ‘46 to ‘85 was about the Cold War when you weren’t alive during those years. Don’t tarnish the original and don’t make this.

"Frankenstein" Mary Shelley’s classic horror tale of science gone awry has given Hollywood shambling visions of cemetery horror for decades, among them Boris Karloff’s iconic 1930s performances and Robert DeNiro’s very different take in the 1994 Kenneth Branagh remake. Next up? Guillermo Del Toro says that after he finishes the two-film version of “The Hobbit” he will turn his attention to the gothic morality tale and that actor Doug Jones (Abe Sapien in “Hellboy”) might play the patchwork man. This one is still a long way off; “The Hobbit” films are due in theaters in 2010 and 2011. Del Toro has also talked about making a “Slaughterhouse Five” remake.

First, go read the novel. Shelly should have left it at a short story, and then please find another gothic horror story to make into movies. I am so sick of everyone making Frankenstein movies. It has been done to death…pardon the pun. And as for Slaughterhouse Five, only Kurt Vonnegut is start enough to understand a story about a man who lives his life outside sequential time. By the way, “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” by Fitzgerald is a blatant rip off of SH5.

"Fahrenheit 451" It’s been 55 years since the publication of Ray Bradbury’s dystopian novel about Guy Montag, a “fireman,” a term for state-employed book burners of the future. Francois Truffaut brought the story to the silver screen in 1966 and there have been numerous efforts over the past decade to cook up a remake, with Mel Gibson, Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt among the stars who have flirted with the Montag role at different points. Writer-director Frank Darabont (“The Green Mile,” “The Shawshank Redemption”) is on the job now with a planned 2010 release even though his announced star, Tom Hanks, dropped out of the project in March.

Bradbury may not be my favorite author but he is good and an important part of sci-fi history. That said, flashback to 10th grade English, this was a reading assignment and at 151 pages you thought this would be a breeze. Then you realized that it was a living hell to read. One of the worse things I have ever had the misfortune to read. Dear God No!

"The Illustrated Man" Another Bradbury work that is planned for a 2010 release (the year the author will celebrate his 90th birthday) is this project from the “Watchmen” duo of director Zack Snyder (who also directed “300”) and screenwriter Alex Tse. “The Illustrated Man” was a 1951 book of 18 short stories (including one, “Rocket Man,” that inspired the Elton John hit) that were linked by a bizarre framing device — a bum who is covered into tattoos from the future that move and represent the characters in the tales. It was made into a 1969 film starring Rod Steiger but it’s not clear what direction Snyder is taking the property.

Yes! Go crazy with the CGI and big name actors. This one would be worth my $12 to see.

"Dune" Actor and director Peter Berg ("Hancock," "The Kingdom") has stepped up to wrestle with an adaptation of the late Frank Herbert's grand intergalactic novel "Dune" and the plan is to have it in theaters in 2010, the 45th anniversary of the novel that would become the bestselling science-fiction title ever. David Lynch famously brought the story of cosmic spice wars to the screen in late 1984 (with a huge cast that included Kyle MacLachlan, Patrick Stewart, Sting, Max von Sydow and Virgina Madsen) but the final product left most viewers cold and confused and the "Blue Velvet" auteur himself later said he regretted the project.

Haven’t we done this one to death as well? Unless you are going to make multiple movies there is no way to translate this to film. Think Lord of The Rings, not Harry Potter.

-- Geoff Boucher – L.A. Times

Twilight the Puppet Saga

No matter what you may think about Stephenie Meyer and her Twilight Saga at the very core of the story it is about vampires. And where there are vampires, I will be there. So here is the entire movie in 3 minutes as performed by puppets, yet again proving that nothing compliments horror like just plain weird shit.

Movies2Record: Track TV Movies You Want To Record

Movies2Record is a web application which lets you keep track of movies you want to record. It lists movies from TV listings for the next seven days and allows you to add them to your Record list. When record list is ready you can use it to schedule recording on your DVR .

From the site “You pay for thousands of movies a month–get your money’s worth by recording more of them to your DVR. Using our Plan-to-WatchSM feature, you can easily browse great movies that’ll be broadcast by a specific date.”

If you do not want to track movies for recording, the site lets you use it as a wishlist for movies you want to watch. Just add movies you want to watch and Movies2Record will send you alerts when they are scheduled for air.

skiing information

The site provides free and premium accounts. Free account lets you view movies that’ll broadcast in the next 7 days. Premium account provides more.

Features:

Track TV movies you want to record.
Create wish list of movies you want to watch.
Alerts you when one of your wishlist movies is scheduled for air.
Print the Record List for convenience.
Free account lets you view movies listings for a week ahead only.
Premium account with more options also supported.

Check out Movies2Record @ movies2record.com

As brought to me attention by makeuseof.com, If I were you I’d just subscribe to the RSS feed.

Wednesday, April 15, 2009

Rabid (1977) and R.I.P. Marilyn Chambers - NSFW

Rabid is a 1977 horror film written and directed by David Cronenberg. It features Marilyn Chambers in the lead role, supported by Frank Moore, Howard Ryshpan, Joe Silver and Robert A. Silverman.

Cronenberg has stated that he wanted to cast Sissy Spacek in the film lead but the studio vetoed his choice because of her accent. Ironically, Spacek's film Carrie was released during this film's production and proved to be a massive hit.(And a movie poster for the film appears when the main character walks by a movie theater.) The director says that the idea of casting Chambers came from producer Ivan Reitman who had heard that Chambers was looking for a mainstream role. Reitman felt that it would be easier to market the film in different territories if the well-known porn star portrayed the main character. Cronenberg stated that Chambers put in a lot of hard work on the film and that he was impressed with her.

A critically-injured woman, victim of a motorcycle accident, is taken to the plastic surgery clinic of Doctor Dan Keloid, where some of her intact tissue is treated to become "morphogenetically neutral". The tissue is grafted to fire-damaged areas of her body in the hope that it will differentiate and replace the damaged skin and organs.

The woman's body unexpectedly accepts the transplants, developing an orifice under an armpit, within which hides a phallic stinger. She uses it to feed on the blood of other people and afterwards erasing their memories of the incident.

It soon is apparent that her every victim transforms into a rabid zombie whose bite spreads the disease. This eventually causes the city to fall into chaos before the outbreak can be contained.

Marilyn Chambers (April 22, 1952 - April 12, 2009)

Early Life:

Marilyn Chambers was an American pornographic actress, exotic dancer, and vice-presidential candidate. She was perhaps best known for her 1972 hardcore film debut Behind the Green Door.

Marilyn Chambers was born Marilyn Ann Briggs in Providence, Rhode Island, and raised in Westport, Connecticut in a middle-class household. Her father was in advertising and her mother was a nurse. She was the youngest of three children, including a brother Martin. She attended Staples High School. Her father tried to discourage her from pursuing a modeling career, citing brutal competition. Chambers landed some modeling gigs and a small role in the film The Owl and the Pussycat (1970), which starred Barbra Streisand and in which Chambers was credited as "Evelyn Lang." Her parents were not impressed, so she moved to Los Angeles for more work. She did not receive any roles except for a low-budget film, Together (1971), in which she appeared nude. She left Los Angeles for San Francisco, where she held several jobs, including work as a topless model and a bottomless dancer.

During her early career, perhaps her most visible modeling job was as the "cover girl" on the Ivory Snow soap box, posing as the mother holding the baby under the tag line "99 & 44/100% pure". Some urban legends claim that either Chambers herself or Brooke Shields posed as the baby; neither rumor is true.

Career:

Chambers happened to see an advertisement for a casting call and rushed to the audition, only to find it was for a porno film. She was about to leave when the Mitchell brothers noticed her resemblance to Cybill Shepherd, agreed a wholesome blonde actress was needed for the film, and stopped her. Chambers, who was initially ambivalent about starring in Behind the Green Door, asked Artie and Jim Mitchell for a $25,000 salary and a percentage of the gross, never expecting they would agree. After filming concluded, she informed them that she was "the Ivory Snow Girl"; the Mitchells capitalized on this by billing her as the "99 and 44/100% pure" girl. Procter & Gamble quickly dropped her after discovering her double life as an adult film actress. Nearly every adult film she made following this incident featured a cameo of her Ivory Snow box.

In the film, Chambers had sex with the well-endowed African-American actor Johnny Keyes. She also fainted at the end of one scene lasting over 45 minutes. The porno industry and viewing public were shocked by the then-taboo spectacle of a white woman having sex with a black man. (Chambers' parents refused to talk to her for several years after the film's release, but eventually reconciled with her). In subsequent porno films with John Holmes, who was noted for his extremely large penis, Chambers was supposedly one of the few actresses that could fully deep throat his erect penis. Eventually, mainstream films noticed Chambers, who in 1977 nabbed a major role in David Cronenberg's low-budget Canadian-made Rabid. However, her adult film career made Hollywood studios nervous, and hence she was unable successfully to move to mainstream films.

She was noted for her enthusiastic performances of deep throat, anal, lesbian, interracial, extreme bukkake, and double or triple penetration scenes. She was one of the first female stars to shave her pubic hair, a practice now routine for porn actresses to better display their labia and clitoris on film. Chambers continued to appear in porn films for such companies as Naughty America and MILF Hunter. Later in her career she had a series of breast augmentations raising her from a B-cup to at least a D. She was reputedly one of the first porn actresses to have her genitals pierced with a piercing through her clitoral hood. Vincent Canby, a film critic of The New York Times, described her as "classy [and] suburban-looking."

Independent films:

Near the end of her career, Chambers appeared primarily in independent films, including her last role in Solitaire. Chambers claimed that the more laid-back pace of these roles suited her as "there's a lot less pressure on you to perform and you don't have to be young and skinny." Among these were Bikini Bistro, Angel of H.E.A.T. (with Mary Woronov), Rated X, and Party Incorporated.

In 2005, Chambers received a lifetime achievement FOXE Award.

Singing career:

Chambers had some chart success with the disco single "Benihana" in 1976, produced by Michael Zager on the Roulette Records label.

Political life:

In the 2004 United States presidential election Chambers ran for Vice President on the Personal Choice Party ticket, a quasi-libertarian party. She received a total of 946 votes. In the 2008 United States presidential election she was again Charles Jay's running mate, this time as an alternate write-in candidate to his primary national Boston Tea Party running mate Thomas L. Knapp in the states of Arkansas, Hawaii, Louisiana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, and Utah.

Death:

On April 12, 2009, 10 days before her 57th birthday, Marilyn Chambers was found unresponsive at her home in Santa Clarita, California. Authorities state she was discovered by her daughter.

Farewell Marilyn, I always thought you were a class act!

Tuesday, April 14, 2009

The 7 possible ways to end sci-fi series like Battlestar or Lost

Slow news day on the Horror/Sci-Fi front, so i stole from Scifiwire

$The 7 possible ways to end sci-fi series like \<em\>Battlestar\<\/em\> or \<em\>Lost\<\/em\>$

These are apocalyptic times ... dark days filled with omens. Newspapers bring us tales of giant companies collapsing, jobs vaporizing, money disappearing, ice caps melting, Octomom explaining.

Even newspapers themselves are dying.

NBC's acclaimed and popular series ER, created by Michael Crichton, ended a 15-year run. CBS's insanely long-running soap The Guiding Light is dying after 57 years on the network. (Not to mention 15 earlier years as an NBC radio soap. It's possible GL was originally a narrative scrawled on the wall of a cave.)

Last week, Tor publishers announced that Robert Jordan's epic fantasy series The Wheel of Time will conclude with a trilogy authored by Brandon Sanderson, based on Jordan's notes. The first volume, number 12 in the series as a whole, is titled The Gathering Storm and will be published this November.

We are told that all good things must end. (Which makes me wonder if all bad things must go on, but then I look at the unpleasant Knowing and take heart in its termination. Sorry, this entire column should carry a spoiler warning.)

A few of you may have noticed that Battlestar Galactica aired a two-hour finale, a goodbye to Adama, Starbuck, Roslin, Baltar, Cylons, the whole crowd after four seasons.

My unscientific survey of various sites, blogs and colleagues tells me that the response to Ronald D. Moore's script is ... mixed. Many, or most, of those in my survey liked the first hour, and so did I, though it was not conclusive in any way.

But the second hour ... not so much.

This is a classic challenge for a sci-fi writer—how do you create an End Time?

$The 7 possible ways to end sci-fi series like \<em\>Battlestar\<\/em\> or \<em\>Lost\<\/em\>$

For any storyteller in any genre or medium, there are several options.

First, the Happy Ending. E.T. gets to go home. The Microsoft-based aliens in Independence Day suffer terminal disk failure. This is an attractive choice for a writer, since it allows your audience to like you.

There is the Modified Happy Ending, as in Silent Running, where Earth is still paved over and the human hero is dead, but the little robots will go on, nurturing greenery ...

There's the Interrupted Ending—the best recent example for me is The Sopranos, where conflicted mobster Tony S. sits down to dinner with his family and ... well, that's it.

There is the Unhappy Ending—Thelma and Louise.

Modified Unhappy Ending. Casablanca. Deep Impact. Bad things happen, but good will come of it.

A variation on the Unhappy or Happy Ending is the Ironic or Big Surprise Ending—Planet of the Apes, both versions. Many, if not most, Twilight Zones.

There's also the Whiskey Tango Foxtrot Ending—2001. The Abyss.

Most of these examples are for movies, which are usually standalones, at least in conception. (Planning for sequels begins the day the gross receipts come in.)

Television series demand more commitment. In a single season you're in for 22 hours aired over a period of seven months. A successful series runs three to seven years at least ... by the time the loyal viewer reaches the finale, she knows the world and the people in it ... and often has very firm ideas about what will happen to them after the last fadeout.

I have seen finales that were very satisfying. "Sleeping in Light," the ending of Babylon 5, a leap 20 years beyond series end, with a dying Sheridan witnessing the decommissioning of the station. Quantum Leap's last episode.

And "All Good Things" from Star Trek: The Next Generation, which magically called back to characters and events from the first episode. (The writers? Brannon Braga and Ronald D. Moore.)

Of course, many series never get that chance. They are simply told, sorry, you've been canceled ... usually with no advance notice. The original Star Trek had no "final" episode . . . though one could have imagined an end to its "five-year mission." The family on Lost in Space never got home.

And, given the plans for prequels and sidestream BSG events, it's entirely possible that the disappointing finale will be revealed in a whole new way—just as Joss Whedon was able to illuminate lingering questions from his series Firefly in the sequel feature film Serenity.

Yes, Michael Cassutt the viewer was disappointed in the BSG finale. I couldn't buy the rationale for discarding a fleet of starships in favor of a hunter-gatherer existence. (Where will Adama get his next bottle?) I was vastly disappointed in the conclusion to the Starbuck story. (How many types of angels is a series allowed?) And so on.

But I also ask myself—was a universally satisfying finale even possible?

The acclaimed novelist, short story and script writer George R.R. Martin maintains that sci-fi and fantasy shouldn't be required to "end." He thinks the emphasis on "a central mystery" is misplaced. "You either have some obvious secret that the audience will guess by the third episode... or you find yourself piling on mystery after mystery in order to keep it alive. After four seasons, no one is going to be satisfied.

"On NYPD Blue, the characters were cops. There was no big secret about their world, or the characters. There was no big reveal in the last episode about Andy Sipowicz—he didn't turn out to be a robot."

Which gets to the heart of the challenge confronting Ronald D. Moore:

A sci-fi or fantasy series, whether films, television or books, is not just about characters ... it's about an entire world.

And hanging an entire series on the reveal of a central mystery—or simply turning out the lights—is almost guaranteed to leave your audience grumbling.

It was Mark Twain who wrote, in ending Tom Sawyer, "When one writes a novel about grown people, he knows exactly where to stop—that is, with a marriage; but when he writes of juveniles, he must stop where best he can."

Ernest Hemingway, in Death in the Afternoon, wrote that "All stories, if continued far enough, end in death, and he is no true-story teller who would keep that from you."

Look at what we're saying about Lost and its impending finale, a year from now. How the hell will they explain that island?

That is the looming question. It's not "Will Jack and Kate find love?" "Will Sun and Jin be reunited, and if so, how will that go?" "How will Charles Widmore's empire survive the economic meltdown?" ("Sorry, love, I'm only able afford one mercenary....")

This is where sci-fi shows run into trouble. See Bryan Fuller's interview on SCI FI Wire April 1, regarding Heroes' creative missteps, which can be summarized like this:

Plot trumps character.

As long as that's what sci-fi writers do—or are forced to do—End Times will continue to be unsatisfying.

Michael Cassutt has extensive experience with interrupted and unhappy endings, mostly in his professional life. He has written numerous teleplays, books and articles, as well as short stories—his "The Last Apostle" is forthcoming in Asimov's SF Magazine (July).

$The 7 possible ways to end sci-fi series like \<em\>Battlestar\<\/em\> or \<em\>Lost\<\/em\>$

Saturday, April 11, 2009

American International Pictures – Part 1: The Fifties

AIP Logo #1

American International Pictures was created in 1954 as American Releasing Corporation by James H. Nicholson, sales manager of the RealArt Production Company, and Hollywood lawyer Samuel Z. Arkoff. The two were the first to realize the potential ticket buying power of the teenage audience and over the next 30 years bombarded them with action, comedy and horror films.

In 1956 ARC was renamed American International Pictures, but its teenage marketing target remained the same, most notably with the special-effects horror films of Bert I. Gordon. The 1960s saw several very lucrative series from AIP, first and foremost being Roger Corman's Edgar Allan Poe adaptations starring Vincent Price. In marketing films to teenagers, AIP also began rediscovering former genre stars like Boris Karloff and Peter Lorre. AIP was also a training ground for new actors and directors. Jack Nicholson, Robert De Niro, Francis Ford Coppola and Peter Bogdanovich all got their starts from Corman and Arkoff.

AIP Logo #2 With “The Wild Angles” in 1966, AIP launched the biker-film genre and reflected a radical new spirit in AIP's youth-oriented fare. In 1969 Roger Corman made his last films for AIP: the violent gangster film “Bloody Mama” with Shelley Winters and the doomsday satire “Gas-s-s-s!” Corman then started his own distribution and production company, New World Pictures.

James H. Nicholson died in 1971, but AIP kept going strong throughout the early 1970s and horror still paid the bills. “Count Yorga, Vampire,” “The Incredible Two-Headed Transplant,” the “Phibes” films, “Scream, Blacula, Scream!,” and “The Food Of The Gods” are just a handful of the dozens of horror films AIP released in the 1970s.

AIP Logo #3 With greater financial freedom, AIP began expanding its product by purchasing foreign sci-fi and horror films and financing more mainstream films. By the late 1970s, big-budget films had surprisingly become more important to AIP than the cheap, two-week shoot pictures of the past. “The Island Of Dr. Moreau,” “Love At First Bite” and “The Amityville Horror” all made money but the overspending led to the ultimate downfall of AIP. Massive spending hurt the company, and 1979, AIP merged with Filmways (Orion Pictures later bought Filmways). In 1980, Sam formed Arkoff International Pictures, which has been sadly silent. We owe a great debt of gratitude to Samuel Z. Arkoff and James H. Nicholson for making the world safe for fun, hip pictures of all genres, but especially horror and science fiction. --Drive in Nate

Voodoo Woman (1957)

Dr. Roland Gerard (Tom Conway), a mad scientist in the jungle, uses the natives' voodoo in an experiment in which he will create an indestructible being to serve his will. He sees a group of people seeking gold on his island and finds a good way to experiment by using the group's leader, Marilyn (Marla English), as his subject.

The Undead (1957)

Two psychical researchers procure the services of a lady of the night and send her back in time under hypnosis. She finds herself in the body of a past existence - a woman in medieval times waiting to be beheaded as a witch. By avoiding this fate she unwittingly starts to alter history.

Blood of Dracula (1957)

In a girl's boarding school, science teacher Miss Branding dabbles with regression and hypnosis, her prey the young and innocent Nancy Perkins. Unknown to her, she commits a series of full-moon murders and is finally brought to the realization that she herself is the culprit.

The Screaming Skull (1958)

Newlyweds Eric and Jenni Whitlock retire to his desolate mansion, where Eric's first wife Marianne died from a mysterious freak accident. Jenni, who has a history of mental illness, begins to see strange things including a mysterious skull, which may or may not be a product of her imagination. Suspicion falls on Mickey, the estate's mentally challenged gardener, who was seemingly was very attached to his former mistress.

How to Make a Monster (1958)

Pete Dumond, Chief Make-up Artist for 25 years at American International Studios, is pink-slipped by the new management from the East, Jeffrey Clayton and John Nixon, who plan to make musicals and comedies instead of the horror pictures for which Pete has created his remarkable monster make-ups and made the studio famous. In retaliaton, Pete vows to use the very monsters these men have rejected to destroy them.

She Gods of Shark Reef (1958)

Two men escaping the police by ship are blown off course by a typhoon and shipwrecked on an uncharted island populated by women who make a living diving for pearls. What the men don't know is that the women are also part of a shark cult that sacrifices young virgins to the sharks in the surrounding ocean in order to appease the shark gods.

Night of the Blood Beast (1958)

An astronaut returns from space dead. The base that recovered him is then cut off from the outside world by an alien. The revival of the dead astronaut, the death of a scientist, and the discovery of alien embryos inside the resurrected astronaut's body bodes ill for the survival of those trapped at the base and the rest of humanity.

The Brain Eaters (1958)

Strange things are happening in Riverdale, Illinois. A huge, seemingly alien structure has been found jutting out of the earth. Sent to investigate the origin of the mysterious object, Senator Walter Powers discovers that parasites from the center of the earth have infiltrated the town, taking control of the authorities and workers, making communication with the outside world impossible, and leaving the responsibility of stopping the invasion up to Powers and a small group of free individuals.

Earth vs. the Spider (1958)

When a man doesn't come home one night his daughter and her boyfriend go out searching and encounter a giant spider in a cave near the man's wrecked car. Coming back with the Sheriff, the spider is seemingly killed by DDT spraying, and the body then hauled for storage in the high school gymnasium. However, a loud dose of rock music by a teenage garage band revives the arachnid and sends it rampaging through the town.

Attack of the Giant Leeches (1959)

In a community nearby a swamp, a local dweller sees a couple of giant monsters but nobody believes him. Later, the cuckold Dave Walker finds his slut wife Liz Walker cheating him with his friend Cal Moulton. He chases the couple through the swamp, and forces them to jump into the water. The leeches attack them, and the shocked Dave is arrested, accused of murder. Two other locals decide to look for the bodies of Liz and Cal to get the prize of $50.00 per body, and also vanish in the swamp. Finally, game warden Steve Benton organizes a patrol to investigate the caves under the swamp, finding the lethal giant leeches.

Woody Harrelson claims he mistook photographer for zombie

(Alan Duke - CNN) -- Woody Harrelson defended his clash with a photographer at a New York airport Wednesday night as a case of mistaken identity -- he says he mistook the cameraman for a zombie.

Woody Harrelson says he got into a clash with a photographer because he mistook him for a zombie.

The TMZ photographer filed a complaint with police claiming the actor damaged his camera and pushed him in the face at La Guardia Airport, according to an airport spokesman.

"We're looking into this allegation and if it's warranted, we'll turn it over to the proper authorities," said Port Authority of New York and New Jersey spokesman Ron Marsico.

The photographer, who was not identified, captured the encounter on a small camera after his larger one was broken.

Harrelson, who is being sued by another TMZ photographer for an alleged assault in 2006, did not deny his involvement.

"I wrapped a movie called 'Zombieland,' in which I was constantly under assault by zombies, then flew to New York, still very much in character," Harrelson said in a statement issued Friday by his publicist.

"With my daughter at the airport I was startled by a paparazzo, who I quite understandably mistook for a zombie," he said.

TMZ.com posted two videos of the incident, including one recorded by the larger camera before it was damaged.

The first video shows the photographer following Harrelson and his daughter down an escalator and out of the terminal. It ends with Harrelson apparently reaching for the lens.

The second video begins with the photographer accusing Harrelson of breaking his camera.

After Harrelson returns the camera to him, a scuffle appears to ensue.

"Woody, this is assault. Woody, this is assault," the photographer is heard saying. "Woody, chill out. Would you please chill out?"

The photographer continues to follow Harrelson for another four minutes as the actor and his daughter walk to the airport parking lot. At one point, Harrelson again turns toward the cameraman.

"I'm being chased by Woody Harrelson while I'm talking to you," the photographer says as he talks to an unidentified person on a cell phone.

"He hit me in my face, he broke my friggin' camera, he broke the camera in pieces," he said.

Harrelson, his daughter and a driver get inside an SUV and the encounter ends.

In the movie "Zombieland," Harrelson plays "the most frightened person on Earth" looking for refuge from zombies, according to the Internet Movie Database

Filming on the movie wrapped in Atlanta, Georgia, on Wednesday, according to director Ruben Fleischer's Web site.

TMZ photographer Josh Levine filed a lawsuit against Harrelson last year for an alleged attack outside a Hollywood nightclub in 2006.

Video of that incident, which is also posted on TMZ.com, also appeared to show Harrelson grabbing a camera and clashing with the photographer.

Los Angeles prosecutors declined to press charges against the actor, but Levine filed a suit last summer asking for $2.5 million in damages.

"Woody Harrelson has a history of anger management issues with people and we intend to put a stop to this," Cyrus Nownejad, Levine's lawyer, said Friday.

TMZ is partly owned by AOL, part of CNN's parent company, Time Warner.

Thank you Susan for the heads up, I’ve been laughing for 15 minutes now.

Friday, April 10, 2009

The Evil R&R

Over on on Horror Movies CA Capt. Howdy has written an excellent article about horror movie remakes and reimagining, and I must admit he has some very valid points. Maybe I am too possessive of the movies of my childhood, maybe I do want to think I am an island in a mainstream ocean. So for the sake of argument I shall attempt to defend my position but first I think you should go read his article first. Go on, I’ll wait here…

Now I am all for someone else “taking a whack” at an established franchise, but you had better hit it out of the park. I’m all for updating a story for today’s audiences, but you had better understand your subject matter before you even think of writing a pitch sheet.

I had this idea, I want to take Led Zepplin’s “Stairway to Heaven” and do it as a reggae song with Gregorian Monks doing the backing vocals and techno beats. I can get Ice-T to rap the lyrics and then go apeshit with the effects and production. Sound like a good idea? No, of course not. My “reimagining” of a rock classic would ruin what Led Zepplin worked so hard on.

I will use Halloween as my example once again. The first six minutes after the opening credits are some of the best movie ever made. Everything you need to know happens in there, and there isn’t a single word of dialogue from the star of the movie. Why then did Rob Zombie feel we needed motivation for what would happen? Did we need 25 minutes of exposition? No. Did Michael need to speak or come across that at one time he was a normal kid? No. It is inferred in the original. He would have never been left alone in the care of his sister if something was wrong with the kid. Whatever motivated the actions of that night happened shortly before the shit went down. My problem isn’t that it was remade, my problem is that after hearing Rob Zombie in interviews talk about his love of the horror of the 60s,70s and 80s and after proving he could make a horror movie with House of 1000 Corpses and Devil’s Rejects, he turns around and just plain not get it with one of the foundation films in the genre.

I don’t care that Michael Bay is remaking every horror movie from the 80s, I care he is making shitty remakes of every horror movie from the 80s. Cranking out a version of Happy Birthday to Me in time for Christmas does not show the level of quality I want. And dropping $50 million on special effects does not negate the fact you have to pay someone to write a decent script.

I’m not saying Josh Whedon doesn’t know how to do science fiction, I’m saying I personally like a bit less soap opera in my science fiction. I prefer concentrating on the science gone wrong than which two characters are going to kiss, or who thinks who is hot. This is my preference and may not reflect yours.

J.J.Abrams…there is no excuse for making a giant monster movie and the monster getting second class care or only 2 minutes of screen time. You shouldn’t be allowed to make movies any more. Like Uwe Boll.

I will end my latest tirade on three positive notes:

1. When I was in grade school I had a teacher who said no work of art is ever truly finished, there just comes a time when the artist chooses to abandon his work.

2. Although panned by both audiences and reviews, I think John Carpenter’s “The Thing” is one of the best reimaginings ever. I love the original and I love Carpenter’s take on the subject. Every movie should have shit bursting out of a chest.

3. When Steven Spielberg made Jaws in 1975, he had envisioned way more shark but Bruce and salt-water did not get along well. So he made due and used different methods to convey where the shark was. He thought about scraping the whole movie until it opened to a test audience and realized that in this case, Less was More. Forget being afraid to go into the water, I was scared of traffic barrels.

Stuck in your head like a railroad spike!

I can’t get it out! I don’t know if the game will be any good but, OMG I can’t stop listening to it!

And if you want to hear it in Japanese:

Plants vs. Zombies - Japanese MP3

Wednesday, April 8, 2009

State of The Industry (Naughty Language Follows)

I have been hesitant to write this article because part of me believes that as a fan of horror and science fiction I should take what I am given in this drought, but part of me also is not content to simply survive of the shit sandwich I am being handed. With that being said I warn you readers that I am going to piss you off and probably make you call me nasty names and stuff but in order to improve the landscape and get better quality out of the studios this is what I feel needs to be done. Let us begin.

It has been about a month and I feel we have all mourned enough and gotten on with our lives but I have a secret. I fucking hated Battlestar Galactica. I watched a marathon on “Syfy” before the second season started and in my humble opinion it is everything that is wrong with sci-fi at this moment. Much like a lot of what is currently being called science fiction, it is being confused with soap opera – which if I wanted to see I would be watching “Passions.” And that camera work, I hated it on “Space: Above and Beyond” and I hate it now. Are they teaching the “Handi-Cam Method” in film school now? But BSG isn’t the problem, it is just an innocent by-stander who doesn’t know any other way of telling a story, but these people do know better. These are crimes against the genre.

Rob Zombie – You claim to be a fan of the golden age of horror and you turn around and give us a piece of shit like that Halloween remake? Shame on you for thinking you could improve on John Carpenter’s perfection. Stick to your own creations and leave the classic masterpieces alone.

J.J. Abrams – You made a giant monster movie and only had the giant monster on-screen 2 minutes. When your monster is interchangeable with any other disaster you didn’t make a monster movie. “Giant Monster” is never a subplot and should always get top billing, not whether or not the leads are going to hook up…that’s called a soap opera. You were quoted recently saying you are making a Star Trek movie for people who are not fans of Star Trek. Just who do you think is going to see this thing? Alienating the one group of people who would come to see this film just because it has Star Trek in the title is not a sound business plan.

Josh Whedon – Yet again if I wanted a soap opera I’d watch Passions. When I’m more interested in a chimpanzee who everyone treats as a human than anything you have ever written, it’s time to reevaluate your writing style. And do me a favor, just fuck Eliza Dushku and let her get on with real acting jobs.

Eli Roth – Horror is a fantasy. For two hours you get scared at things not real and leave the theater having had a good time. You don’t make movies that make my fifteen year old daughter not go on school trips because she is afraid of being kidnapped and tortured. Gore does not equal plot. I would rather watch something with no special effects and a great story than the bloodbath you seem to think is a plot.

Michael Bay – Just stop dude. Just because you can remake a movie does not mean you should. And again special effects does not equal plot. Platinum Dunes has caused more damage to the industry than any other tragedy.

Oh…My…God into OMG into WTF!

I have a special relationship with Fearnet.com, part of a variety of channels I get for an additional $6 a month. It is sort of a mutual appreciation thing. They make my life less boring with a new buttload of horror movies ever month, and they follow me on twitter following them on my cable box. So when I saw the second film on the list below was being offered this month I of course needed to whip out my copy of the first to get a little perspective. The third film on my list here is the one I always seem to confuse with the first, why I have no idea.

Blood Feast (1963)

Blood Feast (also known as Egyptian Blood Feast and Feast of Flesh) is a 1963 American horror film directed by Herschell Gordon Lewis, often considered the first splatter film. It was produced by David F. Friedman. The screenplay was written by Alison Louise Downe, who had previously appeared in several of Lewis's other films. Lewis also wrote the film's score.

Popular with members of Lewis's small but loyal cult following, as well as by some "B movie" fans, Blood Feast is a low budget horror film about an insane Egyptian caterer who kills people so that he can include their body parts in his meals and perform sacrifices to his "Egyptian goddess" Ishtar (the deity in question is actually Babylonian). Blood Feast immediately became notorious for its explicit blood, gore and violence. Many people consider its most infamous moment to be when the murderer comes into a girl's door, grabs her tongue and her arm, and puts her on the bed. She tries to get up, but the murderer sits on her and continues to rip out her tongue and succeeds on camera. Blood Feast is often erroneously cited as one of the first films to show people dying with their eyes open (earlier examples include D. W. Griffith's The Country Doctor from 1909 and the 1931 The Public Enemy).

Mal Arnold plays deranged murderer Fuad Ramses, described by author Christopher Wayne Curry in his book A Taste of Blood: The Films Of Herschell Gordon Lewis as "the original machete-wielding madman", and the forerunner to similar characters in the Friday the 13th and Halloween series of films. Lewis said of the film, "I've often referred to Blood Feast as a Walt Whitman poem. It's no good, but it was the first of its type."

Blood Feast is the first part of what the director's fans have dubbed "The Blood Trilogy". Rounding out the trilogy are the films Two Thousand Maniacs! (1964) and Color Me Blood Red (1965). After the third film, producer David F. Friedman said, "I think that for now we're going to abandon making any more 'super blood and gore' movies, since so many of our contemporaries are launching similar productions, causing a risk that the market will quickly reach a saturation point."

Blood Diner (1987)

This gross and gory horror-comedy is an intentionally amateurish tribute to Herschell Gordon Lewis' junky 1963 splatter classic Blood Feast. Tasteless and silly, it tells the tale of two dopey brothers who murder diner patrons in order to gather body parts for a "blood buffet" to resurrect an ancient Sumerian goddess. There is plenty of blood and nudity, including a funny naked karate sequence, and lots of in-jokes to please Lewis fans. Some may question whether such a tribute was really necessary, seeing as Blood Feast is generally acknowledged as trash by even its most ardent fans, but those who ask such questions probably wouldn't enjoy this film anyway. Take it for what it's worth and you'll have a good time.

Blood Diner is a dark comedy/horror about two brothers, Michael Tutman (Rick Burks) and George Tutman (Carl Crew) becoming brainwashed by their serial killer uncle Anwar Namtut (Drew Goddars), into completing his task of resurrecting the Lumerian goddess Sheetar (Tanya Papanicolas, her body look good). To do this, the brothers must collect different body parts from many immoral women, stitch them together, and then call forth the goddess at a "blood buffet" with a virgin to sacrifice ready for her to eat. Meanwhile, two mismatched detectives work together to track them down before more carnage can ensue. For some reason, a man named Horatio Titus is a health food expert and is actually a 400 pound redneck. He promptly throws up in the diner.

Blood Freak (1972)

Blood Freak is a 1972 horror film, directed by Brad F. Grinter and starring Ex-Tarzan actor, Steve Hawkes.

The film follows Vietnam veteran Herschell (Steve Hawkes), who whilst riding down the highway on his motorbike, helps a young religious girl called Angel (Heather Hughes), whose car has broken down. She takes Herschell back to her home, where her sister, Anne (Dana Cullivan) and many local friends of hers are smoking drugs. Herschell refuses to take any drugs, as Angel had warned him about them, however, Anne continues attempting to seduce him. Angel decides that Herschell should stay with them until he gets back on his feet in life. Whilst cleaning the girls' pool, Anne encourages Herschell to smoke a joint; he does, and finds himself addicted.

Herschell gets a job at a local Turkey farm, where he meets two scientists who are experimenting by testing certain chemicals on turkey meat. Herschell agrees to participate in a test by eating some of the turkey meat; to convince him to agree, the scientists bribe him with more marijuana. After eating the whole turkey, he passes out on the farm. He suffers a seizure and the two scientists later find him, and worried about being investigated about the possible death of Herschell, they dump his body in the woodlands. But Herschell is not dead -- he wakes up to find he has a giant turkey's head in place of his own head. He is also still addicted to drugs, but instead of smoking marijuana, he instead craves the blood of other addicts.

He comes to Anne for help, and at first she agrees. However, after Herschell kills three people to appease his habit, Anne finally appeals to two friends to stop Herschell by beheading him with a machete. But just as the turkey-headed Herschell is killed, the action jumps back to Herschell again waking up in the woods -- the entire sequence in which Herschell has a turkey head was only a hallucination. He is discovered by the owner of the turkey farm, who contacts Angel at the rehab center where she volunteers. Angel comes to collect Herschell and, after urging him to pray to God for assistance, takes him to the center to recover from his addiction. At the film's end, Herschell is reunited with a joyous Anne.

Throughout the film, director Brad Grinter periodically appears to offer his commentary on the action.

Tuesday, April 7, 2009

Excuses, Excuses

Sorry for the sporadic entries, I have been sick. I will get something up in the next few hours.

Saturday, April 4, 2009

Jackie Earle Haley is the New Freddy Krueger

That’s right, the dude who played Rorschach in Watchmen is the new star of a re-imaged Nightmare on Elm Street. According to UPI.com:

LOS ANGELES, April 4 (UPI) -- Director Samuel Bayer says U.S. actor Jackie Earle Haley has hired to play killer Freddy Krueger in a remake of "Nightmare on Elm Street."

Bayer, who will direct the remake of the 1984 horror film that starred Robert Englund, said Haley showed his ability to evoke emotion in viewers by playing the superhero Rorschach in "Watchmen," The Hollywood Reporter said Friday.

"Looking at his performance in 'Watchmen.' Here's a guy playing a character under a mask yet you feel tremendous empathy for him," Bayer said.

"Elm Street" follows the disfigured "undead" child molester as he seeks revenge on those who burned him to death by stalking their teenage children in their dreams.

The Reporter said production will begin May 5 using a screenplay written by Wesley Strick.

Teaser

Friday, April 3, 2009

Everybody Wants To Rock, Even The Vomiting Penis Monsters

We Live to Rock

Thor and his bitchin' hair-metal band practice their rawk anthem in a deserted country house, where something... evil lurks, in this awesome scene from Rock 'N' Roll Nightmare. I love the cup-vomiting rubber penis monster.

Rock 'N' Roll Nightmare, from 1987, is just a cornucopia of rock awesomeness. It has some of the most ridiculous monster costumes and evil puppets of any movie, ever - including a great scene where a rubber-gloved hand bursts out of the drummer's chest and attacks a topless groupie. The movie's climax, where lead singer Thor turns out to have amazing powers of his own, is an instant YouTube classic, for reasons that should be obvious:

Thor vs. Satan

Rock 'n' Roll Nightmare (also known as The Edge of Hell) is a 1987 Canadian horror film about a rock band who end up in the middle of a confrontation between Heaven and Hell. The film was directed by John Fasano, and stars heavy metal musician Jon Mikl Thor, Jillian Peri, and Teresa Simpson.

Production began in 1986 and the film had a budget of $100,000 and was shot in 7 days. Originally titled The Edge of Hell, the filming was set to last 10 days, but one of the producers had to shorten production due to a death in the family. The director used many friends as actors and the film was filmed in Vancouver. The film had it's title changed to help sell it in the markets. It went straight to video and has gone on to become a cult classic. A special edition of the film was released on DVD by synapse films.