Axe Grinder

Now that Destini Beard's interpretation of Midnight Syndicate's music has been released (A Time Forgotten), I decided to check out what the musical duo has coming up next. Lo and behold before I could grind my axe, I get an e-mail from Ed Douglas giving me just that! Here's what he had to say:

"We just finished the score to the grindhouse thriller, "Bunyan" (www.bunyanmovie.com). From the title you can probably figure that this is a classic "beer and pizza" movie and it is. It's a lot of fun. Creating the score was really cool as it required us to explore lot of sides that people have never heard come from Midnight Syndicate. We'll be releasing a soundtrack CD along with the movie. The producers plan to premiere it later this year, I'll keep you informed."

Sounds gravy. Can't wait to check this one out and give a spin to the accompanying soundtrack!

Prometheus Bound

Going today. Review to follow.

http://www.prometheus-movie.com/

Prescription Filled

From the good folks at Prescribed Films:

This looks totally rad...

http://prescribedfilms.wordpress.com/

Horror Christmas

Love it!

11/22/63

I'm currently reading the latest book from horror scribe Stephen King: 11/22/63. While only half-way through it, I'm relieved to find that so far he only deals very briefly with Lee Harvey Oswald. Of course, I'm expecting that to change once I dive into the second act, which is frustrating when you see how embarrassingly naive King is about the events of that day, and with how thick a brush he paints Oswald as the one and only assassin - mentioning 'crack-pot conspiracy theories,' but then failing to talk about any of them save for one sentence about there possibly being an Oswald double in Dallas (one of the more far-fetched theories put out there). The fact that he based his conclusions off of Gerald Posner's cherry-picked JFK book CASE CLOSED pretty much says it all. King doesn't want to believe that something greater was behind that day than a deranged loner with a gun, so he simply writes history that way - even going so far as to say that he's 98% sure Oswald did it, maybe even 99%.

Okay Steve. Keep drinking the Cool-Aid.

For more information about the events of that day, might I direct you to just a few of the well researched books which ask the important questions that King ignores in his work of fiction:

CROSSFIRE by Jim Marrs
COUNTERPLOT by Jay Epstein
PLAUSIBLE DENIAL and RUSH TO JUDGEMENT, both by Mark Lane
JFK by L. Fletcher Prouty
THE TEXAS CONNECTION by Craig I. Zirbel

Gone Juan

ground shot leaves
Originally uploaded by Tom Kent

My opinion of my whole experience varies from time to time. In broad daylight, and at most seasons I am apt to think the greater part of it a mere dream; but sometimes in the autumn, about two in the morning when winds and animals howl dismally, there comes from inconceivable depths below a damnable suggestions of rhythmical throbbing ... and I feel that the transition of Juan Romero was a terrible one indeed.

H.P. Lovecraft
"The Transition of Juan Romero"

Night Shift

Thought I'd pass along a press release from Fighting Owl Films about THE NIGHT SHIFT, a film we featured at the Drive-In last year. We knew a good thing when we saw it - and now here it is on DVD!

“THE NIGHT SHIFT” RELEASED ON DVD

Fighting Owl Films is pleased to announce that the family-friendly supernatural-adventure-comedy “The Night Shift” received North American DVD distribution by R-Squared Films on October 25. The film has been met with critical acclaim and a positive response from fans. The Night Shift is currently available at Amazon.com ( http://www.amazon.com/Night-Shift-Khristian-Fulmer/dp/B005ER6SLY/ref=sr_1_5?s=movies-tv&ie=UTF8&qid=1313892351&sr=1-5), Walmart and many other retailers.

“The Night Shift” is a supernatural-adventure-comedy about Rue Morgan, the undead night watchman at Pinewood Oaks Cemetery. Rue, along with his buddy Herb, a limbless corpse, spends his nights trying to keep the cemetery’s cantankerous residents in, and his days dreaming of a date with hard-nosed day-shifter, Claire. It’s an okay afterlife until a scourge of supernatural occurrences leaves Rue not only watching the cemetery, but also watching his back!

To stay abreast of the latest updates, please become a fan of Fighting Owl Films on Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/pages/Fighting-Owl-Films/73399032976). For more information, trailers, downloads, photos and cast information, please visit www.thenightshiftmovie.com.

Woman in Black

Prometheus

You can add Ridley Scott's PROMETHEUS the list of upcoming genre flicks I'm dying to see. A return to his roots - this is looking to be an intense sci-fi epic (not another lame ALIEN VS. PREDATOR). In case you haven't heard about it, here's the official synopsis:

Visionary filmmaker Ridley Scott returns to the genre he helped define, creating an original science fiction epic set in the most dangerous corners of the universe. The film takes a team of scientists and explorers on a thrilling journey that will test their physical and mental limits and strand them on a distant world, where they will discover the answers to our most profound questions and to life's ultimate mystery.

PROMETHEUS launches on June 8, 2012.

Twofer

Two great pieces of news this morning! #1: Joss Whedon's THE CABIN IN THE WOODS has finally got a release date - it's a long way out, but it's out there! How does Friday, April 13th, 2012 sound to you? I was personally hoping for the October release date that was rumored, but man, either way I can't wait for this one - this is the flick that has sat on Lionsgate's shelf for eons, but now it's finally getting it's chance to go crazy in the woods on our sick and twisted minds. Yeeehaaah! It's about d@mn time, Lionsgate!

The other great piece of news is that the remake of John Carpenter's ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK has been deep-sixed by New Line Cinema and Warner Brothers! This is great news for us fans of the original Snake Plissken movies who only want to see Kurt Russell in the role of the one-eyed anti-hero. Keep in mind though that the rights have lapsed from these two studios, but that doesn't mean another studio won't snatch it up and try to make it happen. Let's keep our fingers crossed that short of an original Snack flick (ESCAPE FROM PLANET EARTH, maybe? John Carpenter - are you listening?) we don't need or want another remake of a beloved classic!

81

The incomparable Stephen King is set to road-trip to Crazyville with a new eBook from Simon and Schuster called MILE 81, which will be available to download on September 1st.

The Plot: At Mile 81 on the Maine Turnpike is a boarded up rest stop, a place where high school kids drink and get into the kind of trouble high school kids have always gotten into. It’s the place where Pete Simmons goes when his older brother, who’s supposed to be looking out for him, heads off to the gravel pit to play “paratroopers over the side.”

Pete, armed only with the magnifying glass he got for his tenth birthday, finds a discarded bottle of vodka in the boarded up burger shack and drinks enough to pass out. Not much later, a mud-covered station wagon (which is strange because there hadn’t been any rain in New England for over a week) veers into the Mile 81 rest area, ignoring the sign that says “closed, no services.” The driver’s door opens but nobody gets out.

Doug Clayton, an insurance man from Bangor, is driving his Prius to a conference in Portland. On the backseat are his briefcase and suitcase and in the passenger bucket is a King James Bible, what Doug calls “the ultimate insurance manual,” but it isn’t going to save Doug when he decides to be the Good Samaritan and help the guy in the broken down wagon. He pulls up behind it, puts on his four-ways, and then notices that the wagon has no plates.

Ten minutes later, Julianne Vernon, pulling a horse trailer, spots the Prius and the wagon, and pulls over. Julianne finds Doug Clayton’s cracked cell phone near the wagon door – and gets too close herself. By the time Pete Simmons wakes up from his vodka nap, there are a half a dozen cars at the Mile 81 rest stop. Two kids – Rachel and Blake Lussier –and one horse named Deedee are the only living left. Unless you maybe count the wagon.

You'll be able to pre-order the eBook directly from Simon & Schuster soon for only $2.99. It will also contain an excerpt from King's upcoming novel 11/22/63.

Woolite?

I don't know about you, but when I think of Rob Zombie, I think WOOLITE fabric whitener! Rob Zombie directing a 30 second spot for Woolite? Sure - why not! From RZ's official website:

Rob Zombie sat down for an exclusive interview with ARTISTdirect.com editor and Dolor author Rick Florino about the commercial, touring with Slayer, The Lords of Salem, and what he keeps learning along the way.

Q: Did you get to apply a lot of your personal storytelling techniques to the Woolite commercial? You have to tell a story in about 30 seconds so it's not that different from what you normally do.

RZ: "Somewhat! It was an interesting situation to handle. It was just one of those projects that came to me. I wasn't searching out shooting a commercial. A lot of directors do commercials, but most of the time they don't talk about it so you don't realize it. I just thought it was cool so I'd been mentioning it. I was on tour in Australia when it came up. I got a call that this ad agency had pitched this crazy idea to Woolite, and they wanted me to direct it. They essentially wanted a commercial that the first half resembled a horror movie trailer. They needed something along those lines, and they thought I could handle it. It was fun. We shot it over two days in Vancouver. My director of photography who worked on Halloween II came in and worked with me. I like doing things like that for the experience. It was like when I did CSI, I wanted the experience of doing a television show. You just want to have it under your belt. Also, the more direct gigs I can get between films, I always learn something from everything."

Trial By Fire

Found this posted on Pumpkinrot's blog and thought I'd share as the pics are so eerily cool. These are from the set of Rob Zombie's next cinematic outing: THE LORDS OF SALEM. For the record, I'm on my last thread of patience with Mr. Zombie as a director. Musically, the guy is on the money - theatrically, my patience is running thin. I have been disappointed with his last couple of films (HALLOWEEN and HALLOWEEN II) and didn't think his two before that lived up to the hype. Zombie needs to impress with SALEM, so let's hope he gets this one right. To see pics from the set, visit here:

http://www.caughtonset.com/photo-gallery/3537/6/set-lords-salem/

400

For our 400th post here at Drive-In of the Dead, we're honoring one of those goofy schlock-fests that we love so much: BELA LUGOSI MEETS A BROOKLYN GORILLA. A weird little movie that features our main man Bela, this was billed as a horror/comedy - but it's really just a comedy (and a not very funny one at that). Cashing in on the goofy Jerry Lewis team-ups with Dean Martin, this film tries to capture that vibe with mixed results. This one's worth checking out for the gorilla scenes alone - but probably won't be remembered as one of Lugosi's greatest...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bela_Lugosi_Meets_a_Brooklyn_Gorilla

Let's Camp!

Man it seems I've been waiting for Joss Whedon's THE CABIN IN THE WOODS foreverrrrrrrrr... Well, it seems that the wait for this development hell fright flick might finally be over! Word on the street is that this campy twist on the lonely cabin horror movie has at last been picked up by Lionsgate Films (after sitting on a shelf for a year and a half waiting for MGM to get their bankruptcy squared away). If you haven't heard of it, here's the lowdown on what is sure to be a fun ride:

The Cabin in the Woods is an American 3D tongue-in-cheek thriller-horror film, co-written and directed by Drew Goddard and co-written and produced by Joss Whedon. It stars Richard Jenkins, Bradley Whitford and Amy Acker. It aims to provide a new twist on the classic young-people-stranded-in-the-woods horror trope. Jenkins and Whitford will play white-collar co-workers with a mysterious connection to the cabin when a group of college kids spend a mysterious weekend there.

HISHE

If you haven't heard of HOW IT SHOULD HAVE ENDED, then let me be the one to introduce you. You can thank me later.

http://www.howitshouldhaveended.com/

11.22.63

This doesn't come out until November of this year, but the dust jacket was revealed for Stephen King's latest: 11/22/63. As a student of the assassination, I've read dozens of books on the subject and studied the case very closely. Along with the majority of Americans, I know without a shadow of a doubt that Lee Harvey Oswald was the patsy he claimed to be. Let's hope King gets this right and doesn't succumb to what our 'history books' claim: that Oswald acted alone with an impossible shot on a faulty rifle (and a magic bullet). After reading the official synopsis, I'm having serious doubts. Here's the lowdown:

The synopsis: Jake Epping is a thirty-five-year-old high school English teacher in Lisbon Falls, Maine, who makes extra money teaching adults in the GED program. He receives an essay from one of the students—a gruesome, harrowing first person story about the night 50 years ago when Harry Dunning’s father came home and killed his mother, his sister, and his brother with a hammer. Harry escaped with a smashed leg, as evidenced by his crooked walk.

Not much later, Jake’s friend Al, who runs the local diner, divulges a secret: his storeroom is a portal to 1958. He enlists Jake on an insane—and insanely possible—mission to try to prevent the Kennedy assassination. So begins Jake’s new life as George Amberson and his new world of Elvis and JFK, of big American cars and sock hops, of a troubled loner named Lee Harvey Oswald and a beautiful high school librarian named Sadie Dunhill, who becomes the love of Jake’s life—a life that transgresses all the normal rules of time.

The Woman In Black

Daniel Radcliffe stars as Arthur Kipps, a young lawyer who travels to a remote village to organize a recently deceased client's papers. As Kipps works alone in the client's isolated house, he begins to uncover tragic secrets, his unease growing when he glimpses a mysterious woman dressed only in black. Receiving only silence from the locals, Kipps is forced to uncover the true identity of the Woman in Black on his own, leading to a desperate race against time when he discovers her true intent.

'The Woman In Black' is based on the novel by Susan Hill and is directed by James Watkins from a script by Jane Goldman (who wrote the cool 'KICK-ASS'). Hammer's latest is scheduled to hit theatres in the U.K. on February 10, 2012, but there's no word of a U.S. release quite yet. We'll keep you posted on that - but in the meantime, check out the latest teaser trailer from the film...

Bela's Back!

Will I be buying this comic book? OH YEAH! Here's the lowdown from the official Monsterverse website on the first (and so far only) issue of 'Bela Lugosi's Tales From The Grave.' Look for issue #2 - with a cover designed by make-up legend Rick Baker - to hit stands sometime in July!

BELA'S BACK...AND THE MONSTERVERSE HAS HIM

After more than fifty years, iconic horror film star Bela Lugosi will live again as the undead host of a new horror comic book!

The Monsterverse is proud to announce BELA LUGOSI'S TALES FROM THE GRAVE, a full-color anthology in the classic EC and Warren tradition, presenting weird and fantastic tales to keep you awake long into the night. In a special arrangement with Bela G. Lugosi, son of the famous actor, Bela Lugosi will act as host and commentator for each terror tale.

Comics professionals Kerry Gammill and Kez Wilson are returning to the field as publishers of the series and will be providing art for many of the stories. Some of the finest horror artists and writers in comics will also be bringing their talents to the book. The first issue will feature a cover by legendary monster painter Basil Gogos and an alternate cover by John Cassaday. Gammill, Wilson and screenwriter Sam F. Park will be the editing the series as well as writing stories for the book.

Look for BELA LUGOSI'S TALES FROM THE GRAVE to premiere in early 2010. For more information e-mail info@monsterverse.com or check out their website at: http://monsterverse.com/grave/

Lords of Salem

While killing time over at Bloody-Disgusting yesterday I happened to come across this: the plot details for Rob Zombie's upcoming 'LORDS OF SALEM.' Not sure what I think about the plot - it seems very 1980's to me...but maybe that's a good thing? It's hard to tell with a director like Zombie - he's a love-him-or-hate-him kind of guy, and I haven't been exactly impressed with his last couple of movies. Anyway - here's the lowdown:

The story is about a local DJ who mistakenly unleashes a hellish curse on the town. 300 years earlier on the very streets of Salem that the townspeople walk on today, innocent folks were rounded up from their homes, convicted of being witches and sentenced to death. The Lords of Salem ran the town with an iron fist, but four witches who were tortured and killed in secrecy vowed that one day they would be back for revenge.

What do you think? Is this one going to rock like a son of a witch - or is this film going to continue the decline Zombie's been on since 'The Devil's Rejects?'

www.bloody-disgusting.com