Fanboy.com

Neil Marshall Writer/Director of the Descent and Dog Soldiers returns to the big screen with Doomsday. In 2008 the Reaper virus lays siege to Scotland, killing people by the thousands. In response the British government puts up a 30 foot wall around Scotland, separating it from the rest of the world and trapping those infected within. Anarchy ensues as people rape, loot and kill in a lawless land while the rest of the world looks on.

Fast forward thirty years. The rest of the world has turned their back on England, London has become a third world haven for the downtrodden who live on the streets because they can't afford to live anywhere else. It is among the masses that victims of the returning Reaper Virus are found. Martial Law is declared by Prime Minister Hatcher (Alexander Siddig a.k.a Dr. Bashir from Star Trek:Deep Space 9) and a plan is drawn up to find out why some people survived within the quarantine zone of Scotland and to find the cure for the Reaper virus.

Eden Sinclair played by Rhona Mitra ( Shooter, The Number 23, Underworld: Rise of the Lycans ) is chosen to lead a team back into the wasteland to find a survivor and the cure. The team, of course, is filled with throw away good guys who's only job is to get slaughtered and make Eden look all the more bad ass.

Shown above are two samples from an amazing gallery that features posters from classic Bollywood horror films. On the left is the poster for Khoon Ki Pyasi Dayan and on the right is Gumnaam from 1965. The website is here:

South Asian Horror Movies

BlackHorrorMovies.com is a wonderfully detailed website by Mark H. Harris. The site features a full list of films from the 1920s until today and has some great articles like a Hall of Fame and a list of stereotypes.

Found via Linkfilter.net.

The first film released by WWE Films, See No Evil stars WWE Superstar Kane (a running theme in WWE movies with The Marine starring John Cena and The Condemned starring Stone Cold Steve Austin). The basis for the movie is a basic horror film formula. An abandoned building, a psycho killer and a group of kids just waiting their turn to die.

I'm sad to report that Maila Nurmi (known to us fanboys as Vampira) has passed away. Her career highlights include starring in Ed Wood's classic epic Plan 9 From Outer Space and had her own TV show in Los Angles. This is the notice from her website:

“Vampira” Maila Nurmi

Werewolves are back in the movies! Underworld and it’s sequel have managed to make the wolf man a popular topic for film in the new century and the latest release in this genre is Skinwalkers. With a PG-13 rating and a pretty formulamatic plot Skinwalkers was perceived as another tired retread from a Hollywood in desperate need of originality. Yet as the movie progressed it showed itself to have a little spark and a cast of actors and characters that you found yourself caring for.

Every day Ian Stone starts his life, at some point during that day Ian dies a terrible death only to find himself in a new life with an unsettling feeling that he’s been through something horrific. Thus the plot setup for the Deaths of Ian Stone for the best movie to come out of Horrorfest in 2007.

I'm starting to hear some good things about Cloverfield, but the Statue of Liberty treatment reminds me a bit too much of the end of Planet of the Apes and we've already seen the blowing up New York City thing in Independence Day. And not to make it personal but in my mind JJ Abrams is still not on my "friends list" until he patches things up with William Shatner over the next Star Trek film. Although that won't stop me from standing in line to see the movie on opening day of course...

P.S. Although I have to say that Cloverfield's marketing campaign is very blogger friendly which makes me happy!

As one of the Horrorfest: 8 Movies to Die For the film Mulberry Street takes place in a run down apartment building in Manhattan. Starring Nick Damici, Kim Blair, Ron Brice and Bo Corre. Mulberry is shot in a gritty, realistic low budget style in the vein of 28 Days Later.

The plot is simplistic, a disease runs rampant through Manhattan. It starts in the subway tunnels and back alleys. People are being attacked by rats. Those who are bitten become ill and the tension begins to mount as those who are infected begin to attack those who are healthy. As the movie progresses it veers away from the zombie movie feel by revealing that rather then the infected dying from their wounds they’re being transformed into rat like creatures.

It doesn’t take long for the film to pull back from the overall picture to the tenants of the apartment building on Mulberry Street. The retired boxer, his daughter, returning from the war, her face scarred from shrapnel. The flamboyantly gay next door neighbor who helped to raise the girl and the waitress and her son who live on the next floor up. Mix in a handyman who spends too much time in the basement and an old man who is bedridden and breathing off of an oxygen tank and you have an ensemble cast of blue collar and lower middle class people struggling just to get by day to day. It’s the perfect set up for an urban tale of terror and the struggle to survive.

The third version of the classic Richard Matheson novel, I Am Legend tells the tale of a world wiped out by a plague that kills 90% of the human race and turns the rest into monsters. The first movie was the 1964 classic The Last Man on Earth and starred Vincent Price in the lead role as Dr. Robert Morgan. The second treatment was the classic The Omega Man with Charlton Heston taking the role of Dr. Robert Neville in 1971.

The current movie, after spending close to a decade in limbo features Will Smith (Independence Day, I, Robot, Men in Black) picking of the mantle of Dr. Neville in a Manhattan sealed off from the rest of the world. What starts out as being a miracle cure for cancer spins wildly out of control and becomes the ultimate super plague. In an effort to contain the virus a decision is made to seal off Manhattan and prevent the infected from leaving and therefore saving the rest of the world.

Three years later the world is a wasteland and Neville and his dog Sam are the only survivors in the city. They spend the day foraging for food and searching for other survivors via an AM radio broadcast. It’s during the night that they’re forced to go into hiding from the vampire like creatures that the virus didn’t kill but rather mutated into savage monsters.

This week Rob Zombie unleashes his story of Michael Myers, when Halloween comes to DVD. When word of this ambitious project first came out there were three very different opinions on this film being made. One side was the basic ‘oh great another remake’ and expected yet another watered down and lame attempt from a Hollywood that seemed to be out of original ideas. The second was the purists who wanted nothing to do with the new Halloween because nothing could ever top the John Carpenter original. The third group (and the one I firmly belonged in) was They’re redoing Halloween... and they got Rob Zombie to do it? Holy cow this is going to rock!

Over the last couple of decades there have been a bunch of Stephen King’s works translated to film, and a lot of them have met with everything from mild interest to outright disgust. Carrie, Maximum Overdrive (based on the short ‘Trucks’ and directed by King), Cat’s Eye (three of King’s shorts tied into a rather bizarre story featuring a young Drew Berrymore), Firestarter, and the list goes on and on...

What's amazing about this documentary is that it was created by then 17 year old Vivian Kubrick. This is the version with her commentary:

Terror stalks the streets as a scientist's human-transplant experiment runs amok in this 1968 cult classic horror flick! Don't you just love that toy robot that appears in the title design? It's like they build you all up and then you get that letdown, however vicious Satana (played by Tura Satana) more than makes up for it. In fact I love this fanboy quote from Quentin Tarantino quote I came across about Satana:

Today I’m going to talk about a film that’s been getting a lot of critical acclaim. I know, I know, ‘critical acclaim’ tends to be Hollywoodspeak for artistic crap but there are exceptions. Pulp Fiction was critically acclaimed and it was chock full of blood, violence and Uma Thurman. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon was critically acclaimed and introduced the western world to Ang Lee and while the movie had it’s moments of pure eastern spiritualism it still stands as one of the great action packed films of the last decade.

Now comes No Country for Old Men. The Cohen Brothers (O’ Brother Where Art Thou, The Big Labowski, Fargo) bring the novel by Cormac Mccarthy to life. A drug deal in the middle of the desert goes wrong leaving several dead bodies, A truckload of Heroin and two million dollars in cash and a dead dog (which is pointed out by just about everyone that sees it). The first to find it all is Llewellyn Moss played by Josh Brolin (Planet Terror, American Gangster, In the Valley of Elah). Llewellyn steals the money with the plan on keeping it and soon finds himself being tracked by the very creepy and insane Anton Chigurh played by Javier Bardem (Goya’s Ghosts, Life in the Time of Cholera). Also after Llewellyn are the Mexican Cartels, a local Sheriff played by Tommy Lee Jones and the firm that originally brokered the drug deal.

2007 was a year filled with blockbuster films, Spider-Man returned for a 3rd (and final?) installment that introduced the world to Venom and brought joy to the lips of comic book fanboys worldwide. Johnny Depp took on the mantle of Captain Jack Sparrow and sailed around the world. Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez took us into an absurd world of violence and flesh with their homage to the 70's exploitation films with Grindhouse.

In the world of horror films it was more of a down year. Films like The Pulse, The Reaping and Captivity netted lukewarm box office at best. That does not mean that there weren't any good horror movies out there in 2007, just that no one went to see them.

My favorite weekend of the year recently passed by, a new annual tradition called Horrorfest. Lionsgate and After Dark Studios releases 8 new horror films for one week in a limited release. The fun of Horrorfest is watching all 8 movies over one weekend. 3 on Friday, 3 on Saturday and 2 on Sunday. By the last film Sunday night you're sated on a virtual feast of death, mayhem and fantastic situations.

With this being my first column I've decided to begin the discussion of the best horror movies you probably haven't seen from the year 2007 with one of the '8 Movies to Die For' from Horrorfest called Tooth and Nail:

The vampire women capture and drain the blood of human beings to make themselves beautiful, and just what's so wrong about that you PETA protesters? Sampson vs. the Vampire Women was directed by Mexican filmmaker Alfonso Corona Blake in 1962 under the original title Santo vs. Las Mujeres Vampiro.

We’re here to aquire breeding stock for our planet!!! What's intersting to me about this classic 1965 drive-in movie is that the uncredited space monster is played by well known character actor Bruce Glover who went on to have many bit parts in every tv series from Mission: Impossible to T.J. Hooker. Although you might be more familiar with his famous son who is Crispin Glover. By the way hardcore fanboys might get a kick out of this cute collectable showing Frankenstein knocking out the Space Monster.

Crawling, Slimy Things Terror-Bent on Destroying the World! This classic 1958 horror flick is fanboy-notable as it's somewhat based on the novel the Puppet Masters by Robert Heinlein. Although the producers never quite asked Mr. Heinlein for his permission, so he sued them and the case was settled out of court. Years later the Puppet Masters would go on to be made as a bad film in it's own right in 1994 (which thankfully Heinlein didn't live to see).

It's funny to think that people may have rented the cape in the past without knowing it's cinematic history:

Lee's Dracula cape found in store

"The original cape which was worn by actor Christopher Lee in the 1958 vampire film, Dracula, has been found in a London fancy dress store. The memorabilia, which has been missing for 30 years, is thought to be worth $50,000 (£24,410). Lee, who played the Count, was called upon to verify the cape was authentic after Angel's staff discovered it.

Manager Emma Angel said she was "delighted" to have found the cloak during their annual stock take. "In the run-up to Halloween we are frantically checking our other costumes, so that we do not inadvertently let a party-goer show up to a raucous fancy dress party in any another precious pieces of film history," she said."

As someone who commutes over the Williamsburg Bridge every day I got a real kick out this new poster for I Am Legend (although the bridge featured in the poster is the Brooklyn Bridge, but that's close enough for this fanboy),

This trailer proves that it's hard to go wrong when you team up Tim Burton with Johnny Depp! I'm also impressed they they have Sacha Baron Cohn too, yet my only regret is that Angela Lansbury wasn't included:

Joshua Gee is a friend of a friend of mine, and he's just come out with his new book Encyclopedia Horrifica: The Terrifying TRUTH! About Vampires, Ghosts, Monsters, and More. Joshua will be doing readings at the following locations:

Halloween Adventure
Thursday, October 4, 2007, 6 pm
808 Broadway @ 11th St. Greenwich Village, NYC

The Haunted History of Union County
Sunday, September 30, 2007, 2pm
The Crane-Phillips House
124 North Union Avenue, Cranford, New Jersey

If you live in NYC and love horror flicks and pizza, the new film Unholy will be playing at Two Boots Pioneer Theater on August 15th. The plot sounds very cool (I love the time travel twist):

"Adrienne Barbeau and Nicholas Brendon star in this provocative shocker about a mother's investigation into the grisly suicide of her daughter. But what begins as a family tragedy will soon lead to a conspiracy of bizarre crimes, occult carnage, and a necromancer who may control a dark new trinity of warfare. How far would our government go to harness a Nazi legacy of paranormal power? Has the U.S. military secretly attempted to develop time travel, invisibility, and mind control as weapons? Answers await in a mind-blowing journey that will take one woman from the trauma of the unimaginable to the ultimate horror of the UNHOLY."

Shown above is a detail from a poster for the upcoming Tim Burton film Sweeney Todd. I have no idea how Burton is going to pull off a musical, or even if it will be a musical - but I have to say this poster looks great.

Shown above is the trailer for I am Legend which will hit theaters this December. This will be the third film based on the 1954 horror novel by Richard Matheson about the last man alive in Los Angeles, California. Although I'm pleased to see this new version seems to take place in my hometown New York City!

So for the historical fanboy record here's the trailer for the 1964 version of the film which was titled The Last Man on Earth starring Vincent Price:

And here's the trailer for the 1971 version of the film which was titled The Omega Man and features none other than Charlton Heston:

Shown above are cover illustrations from Frangoria Comics which will debut it's first titles in June. The first illustration is from Mark Kidwell’s Recluse, and the second illustration is from Jeffrey Nodelman’s the Fourth Horseman. It's also interesting to note that the Fourth Horseman comic book series will be a prequel to an upcoming animated horror film being produced by Fangoria.

Above are two new posters for 28 Weeks Later, the first one is for the domestic market while the second one is aimed at an international market. I don't know how good this follow up film can be, but let the hype begin...

Found via If It's Movies.

What do you get when you take two of the greatest writer/directors in the world and let them do whatever the hell they want? You get the movie Grindhouse. Quentin Tarantino (Pulp Fiction, Kill Bill) and Robert Rodriguez (Sin City, From Dusk Til Dawn, The El Miriachi Trilogy) join forces once more to take you through a tour de force of the classic Grindhouse exploitation movies of the Seventies. The film features two full length movies back to back that include evrerything you would find in an old seventies exploitation flick. Noise pops, scratches on the film even missing reels and skips.

Things start out with a 'fake' trailer for the movie Machete. Danny Trejo stars as the mad Mexican killer Machete and in joined by his priest/brother Cheech Marrin (Cheech and Chong). After the two minute trailer the first movie, Robert Rodriguez's Planet Terror begins.

Set in Texas Planet Terror is an over the top gorefest that slaps you in the face with it's rediculous plot and stereotyping of women as sluts and lesbians...Except for Cherry Darling (Rose McGowan). She's got a chip on her shoulder and doesn't like much of anyone. Our Heroine set we meet the rest of the cast. Freddy Rodriguez as El Wray, Micheal Biehn as the Sheriff and Jeff Fahey as his brother J.T.

The story really cranks when Naveen Andrews (TV's LOST) and Bruce Willis (Do I even need to mention what HE's been in?) Show the audiance that there's a mysterious gas that turns people into flesh eating zombies. Without giving too much of the plot away things go sideways and the gas is released. Mayhem ensuses (Including Fergie getting eaten by Zombies). Things spin quickly out of control and people are attacked left and right as the gas spreads. It all comes down to El Wray and Cherrie Darling to save the day and yes this does include Cherry sporting a new leg that happens to be a machine gun. It sounds corny as hell but while you watch it everything just seems to make sense.

With roles from actors of past and present by the likes of Tom Savini (Dawn of the Dead, Land of the Dead), Josh Brolin and Marlie Shelton Planet Terror was an in your face visceral blow shit up fest that keeps you bouncing back and forth from lauging to going COOOOOL!

I'm not quite sure how they're going to top the first film, although I'm not sure if that's the point:

Thomas Harris returns with the fourth part of the Hannibal Lecter story this time with a Prequal aptly named Hannibal Rising. The Author who penned Red Dragon, The Silence of the Lambs and Hannibal chose this time to take us back to Lithuania (and later to Paris) during World War II. There we see a young Hannibal (Aaron Thomas) and his little sister Mishca (Helena Lia Tachovska) are running from their castle home with their family into the woods to hide from the approaching Russians from the East and Germans from the West.

Things don't go well and soon young Hannibal and Mischa find themselves alone and in the clutches of 6 rather evil men who are traitors to the Germans and are hiding from both them and the Russians. These men hold Hannibal and Mischa captive and plan to use them to show they are 'taking care' of them should a patrol stop by the cabin. One problem arises almost and becomes grave very quickly. There is no food and the men are starving.

From Michael Bay's Platinum Dunes studios (Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Amityville Horror) comes the next horror genre remake in The Hitcher. Based on the 1986 movie of the same name from a script by Eric Red the Hitcher hits on all cylinders for action suspense and downright creepiness factor.

Sean Bean (Lord of the Rings, National Treasure) is the mysterious hitcher John Ryder in a role previously played by Rutger Hauer. On a dark rainy night a young couple almost runs over a hitchhiker and then leaves him at the side of the road. As the camera closes in on the face of the hitcher it is at that point that you can tell their fate is sealed.

The first rule they tech you in film school about directing a horror film is 'never show the monster on screen, it's more scary that way'. Well here's a sneak preview image from the upcoming 'Alien vs. Predator 2' flick, and yes it looks like the director skipped class:

Well ok 'suggests' is a bit strong. Primeval is not a masterpiece by any stretch but it had it's own appeal as well. Based 'loosely' on real events and betrayed totally wrong on TV spots and theatrical Trailers Primeval isn't the story of a serial killer in the most honest sense. It's actually a film about a man eating crocodile who has killed over 300 people in the swamplands of Africa.

The story is set to the backdrop of civil war torn Burundi where a killer crocodile is devouring people on a regular basis. A news director at a fictitious television studio decides to send in a team to film and capture the crocodile in time for sweeps.

This might be fun if they can line up some good programming:

NBCU Launches Horror Channel

"At a time when it's near-impossible to launch a new linear cable network, NBC Universal thinks it has a plan: repurposing old content and programming it across digital platforms. The company is planning Chiller, a horror-themed network that will exist as a standard and HD cable channel, a VOD package and a broadband Website.

Chiller, which is slated to launch March 1 and already has carriage on DirecTV, will use for its programming old horror TV shows and movies from the Universal library and others. Titles include the TV shows Twin
Peaks and Tales From the Crypt and movies The Shining, Psycho and The Birds."

Of course everything old is new again, here are the opening titles from "Chiller Theater" which use to run in NYC during the 60s:

...of course the title designs I remember for the show which were done using claymation animation in the 70s can be found it at the bottom of this webpage:

dvddrive-in.com/Chiller/chiller.htm

Last fall Rob Zombie (House of 1,000 Corpses, The Devil's Rejects) was given the green light to write and direct the next installment of the horror franchise Halloween. Rob wasn't intrested in doing a sequel to what has become a dead horse. Instead he is going back and retelling how Michael Meyers came to be. Over on the 'offical Halloween movie blog' on Myspace Rob has been slowly releasing the cast list for the new movie this is what he has so far.

Dr. Loomis - Malcolm McDowell-This suprised the hell out of me but I think it will end up being a good choice.
Young Michael Myers - Daeg Faerch
Adult Michael Myers - Tyler Mane-Best known as Sabretooth in X-Men he's a large presence and should fit the role well
Deborah Myers - Sheri Moon Zombie-Well yeah, Sheri is in everything Rob does.
Mason Strode - Pat Skipper
Cynthia Strode - Dee Wallace Stone
Ronnie White - William Forsythe-Another Devil's Reject he's going to play the abusive boyfriend to Sheri Moon Zombie's Mama Myers.
Big Joe - Ken Foree-Yet another Devil's Reject Cast member a veteran actor who will allways be linked to the original Dawn of the Dead in my mind.
Nole Kluggs - Lew Temple
Ismael Cruz - Danny Trejo

Many of the main characters have yet to be announced including: Laurie, Annie, Lynda, Judith, Sheriff Brackett, Kendall Jacks, Grant Clark, Principle Erics, Councilman Edwards, Lindsey Wallace, Tommy Doyle, Deputy Charles, Dr. Koplenson, Barbara Florentine and Morgan Walker

As a fanboy of the horror genre and a huge Rob Zombie mark I can not wait for this movie.

Richard Carroll is an avid movie viewer and all around fanboy. You can probably find him at his computer playing Guild Wars when not watching,writing, reading or roleplaying something (Oh and then there's the real world and work). Check out some of his written works at www.ficofthedead.com. A website in need of a webmaster to ensure it gets updated. (Any takers? Anyone? *grins*)

Cosmic radiation AND pretty girls! Something for everyone from 1965:

Monster A Go-Go

"Monster A Go-Go has an unusual, perhaps even unique, production history. Director Bill Rebane ran out of money while making the film. Lewis, who needed a second film to show with his own feature, Moonshine Mountain, bought the film, added a few extra scenes and some dialogue, and then released it, creating an odd, disjointed film with little continuity. The film is infamous among those who have seen it for its incomprehensible "non-ending"."

Here's footage of 28 Weeks Later, a sequel to 28 Days Later (Zombie fun):

First Look at 28 Weeks Later, sequel to 28 Days Later

Because incredible is the word for this 1964 film:

The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living
and Became Mixed-Up Zombies

"The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies (sometimes "!!?" is appended to the title) is a 1964 monster film written and directed by Ray Dennis Steckler. Steckler also starred in the film, billed under the pseudonym "Cash Flagg". In this film, three friends visit a carnival and stumble into a cult of occultists and disfigured monsters. Produced on a $38,000 budget, much of it takes place at The Pike amusement park in Long Beach, California, which resembles Brooklyn's Coney Island. The film was billed as the first "monster musical" (beating The Horror of Party Beach by a mere month in release date)."

Some fanboy decor for your desktop:

Bride of Macabre Icons
by Gedeon Maheux