“Evil” – Scary, Creepy Demon Scene!
I watched the first episode of the new series Evil and liked it. Interesting premise and well done. In fact it had one of the creepiest, scariest scenes I can remember seeing on regular tv in a long time.
Category: Horror
The Poster and Trailer for Horror Film”Sweetheart” is Here!
I hadn’t heard anything about Sweetheart until I saw the trailer below. Could be good!
“Corporate Monster” Sci-Fi Horror Short is Here!
Corporate Monster is a well done horror/scifi short that could easily be set in the world of John Carpenter’s They Live. It’s almost as if Ruairi Robinson saw They Live and then said, ‘Hold my beer.” Robinson’s monsters are cooler looking (thank you improvements in computer technology) and scarier — look at what that monster is eating for lunch!
I could easily see Corporate Monster being made into a feature length film.
From acclaimed filmmaker Ruairi Robinson (Blinky™, The Leviathan) comes a new vision of fantastic horror. After being fired from his job, a dangerously unstable man’s life spirals out of control when he starts to see parasitic beings that puppeteer our world from the shadows.
Source: First Showing.
The “3022” Trailer is Here!
3022 has an interesting concept. Don’t count on a feel good fun fest.
After Earth suffers a cataclysmic extinction-level event, four astronauts marooned on a dying space station must embark on a desperate fight for survival amidst the mind-shattering horror of what it means to be the last humans alive.
Where Zombies Come From – a Video History
These days zombies are the most popular of all monsters.
There was a time however when zombies were only in movies and zombie movies weren’t ever seen on tv, except for a late night showing on pay cable movie channels. Back then, NO ONE would have considered a tv show (let’s make that multiple tv shows) featuring zombies.
All of that changed with The Walking Dead. But before The Walking Dead, there was George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead. Romero forever changed the concept of zombies.
Surprisingly, zombies have only been around in popular culture for less than 100 years. Check out the video below and you’ll see how they entered popular culture, how Romero accidentally changed the concept of zombies and more.
The Best Stephen King Novels
Steve Foxe at Paste posted his list for The 10 Best Stephen King Novels and it is a good one. The only novel on the list that I haven’t read is Lisey’s Story, so I’ll have to check it out.
Foxe’s top three are: 1) The Stand 2) It and 3) The Shinning
My top three is pretty close to his: 1) The Stand 2) The Shinning and 3) Salem’s Lot.
The “Dr. Sleep” Poster and Trailer are Here!
The Dr. Sleep poster and trailer make it look an interesting sequel to The Shining.
Criminal Macabre: The Big Bleed Out – A Noir Tale of Mysteries, Vampires, Love, and Betrayal
Criminal Macabre: The Big Bleed Out – A Noir Tale of Mysteries, Vampires, Love, and Betrayal… If that doesn’t get your interest then you can stop reading right here. If it sounds like something you’d enjoy, then read on…
Criminal Macabre is back and bloodier than ever! Series creator Steve Niles (City of Others, 30 Days of Night) and newcomer artist Gyula Németh are teaming up to bring you the next chapter in the Cal McDonald saga: Criminal Macabre: The Big Bleed Out.
Criminal Macabre: The Big Bleed Out starts when supernatural detective Cal McDonald, found wandering the streets as a disheveled vagrant, is ripped from his self-imposed retirement to resume his monster-killing career.
But Cal is reluctant to return to the fray. What has the hard-bitten investigator so shaken? It’s a long story that begins with a beautiful woman who happens to be a vampire … and ends with a bang.
“I’ve been writing Cal McDonald since I was in my 20’s and to this day he is the most fun to write. I couldn’t be happier to see him come back with Gyula Nemeth doing the art. I think fans of Cal will be pleasantly surprised and hopefully a little horrified.”—Steve Niles
Criminal Macabre: The Big Bleed Out #1 (of four) goes on sale December 11, 2019, and is available for pre-order at your local comic shop.
I’m a big fan of Steve Niles and his Cal McDonald stories. I’m on board. If you’ve read this far, you probably are as well.
John Carpenter’s “They Live” Trivia
Matthew Jackson and Mental Floss present 10 Killer Facts About They Live. Here are three of my favorites…
1. THEY LIVE WAS INSPIRED BY A COMIC BOOK ADAPTATION OF A SHORT STORY.
They Live is an adaptation of Ray Nelson’s science fiction short story “Eight O’Clock in the Morning,” which was originally published in the 1960s. But John Carpenter’s more direct inspiration was an Eclipse Comics adaptation of Nelson’s story, which he stumbled across in the mid-1980s. Intrigued by the idea of aliens enslaving humanity, Carpenter then sought out the original prose work.“‘Eight O’Clock in the Morning is’ a D.O.A.-type of story, in which a man is put in a trance by a stage hypnotist,” Carpenter told Starlog in 1988. “When he awakens, he realizes that the entire human race has been hypnotized, and that alien creatures are controlling humanity. He has only until eight o’clock in the morning to solve the problem.”
Though Carpenter liked the idea of the entire populace being controlled subliminally by an alien menace, he wasn’t too keen on the hypnotism idea. He bought the rights to the story and began adapting it, changing hypnotism to the very 1980s notion of Americans being controlled via subliminal messaging.
3. JOHN CARPENTER WROTE THEY LIVE UNDER AN ALIAS.
Carpenter has always been a multi-hyphenate kind of filmmaker, directing, writing, producing and scoring his movies. But by the time They Live came around, he’d grown a little disillusioned with the idea of continuing to have his name plastered absolutely everywhere. With that in mind, he decided that he’d use a pseudonym for They Live’s screenplay credit.“It was a reaction to seeing my name all over these movies,” Carpenter explained to Entertainment Weekly in 2012. “I think the height of it was Christine. It was like, John Carpenter’s Christine, directed by John Carpenter, music by John Carpenter … what an egotist!”
Carpenter chose the pseudonym Frank Armitage, which is a character from H.P. Lovecraft’s story “The Dunwich Horror,” which he picked “just because I love Lovecraft.”
5. THEY LIVE’S MOST FAMOUS LINE CAME FROM RODDY PIPER.
Even if you’ve never seen They Live, you’ve probably heard someone at some point in your life say: “I have come here to chew bubble gum and kick ass, and I’m all out of bubble gum.” Ever since Nada delivered that line in the film, it’s maintained a life even beyond They Live, becoming one of the most popular and frequently quoted lines in all of pop culture. According to Carpenter, the line came straight from Piper, who kept a notebook full of quips like that to use in his wrestling promos.
“Traveling all around the country wrestling different people, those guys come up with a lot of stuff to hype matches in interviews. They have to come up with one-liners. Roddy had a book full of them that he carried with him,” Carpenter explained. “He’d sit on a plane and come up with these things. He gave me the book when I was writing the script and that was the best one in there. I think he was wrestling Playboy Buddy Rose and he may have said the line then.”
According to Piper, the line actually didn’t enter the picture until the day they shot the scene, but either way both men agree that he wrote it.
“Race with the Devil” and Drive-In Movie Memories
From time to time you’ll hear me talking about a type of film that I refer to as a drive-in movie. I was fortunate enough to grow up when drive-in theaters were everywhere. Drive-in theaters were inexpensive and fun, always offering at the very least a double feature of second run movies, low budget films and often theme nights (Charles Bronson movies, horror movies, well, you get the idea).
Brad Gullickson at Film School Rejects writes about a movie that definitely fits my criteria of a drive-in movie. Race with the Devil is a low-budget movie featuring Peter Fonda and Warren Oates as a couple of buddies who with their wives stumble on a Satanic human sacrifice while camping out. Before you can say, “Run!” the Satanists are after them with the thought of four more sacrifices.
Check out Gullickson’s Satanic Panic Hits The Road in ‘Race with the Devil’.
Tony Moore’s Vampire State Building Variant Cover!
Check out this Tony Moore variant cover for Vampire State Building! It’s a retailer variant cover limited to just 300 copies. You can see a larger version and learn more about the cover and the series at Bleeding Cool News.
“Them!” Trivia
Mark Mancini and Mental Floss present 11 Fun Facts About Them!. I can’t begin to tell you how many times I’ve watched Them! over the years. I’m happy to report it still holds up. When I was a kid, I loved that Matt Dillon, Spock and Daniel Boone all had roles, heck it still brings a smile to my face. And now without further adieu, here are three of my favorite facts…
4. LEONARD NIMOY MAKES AN APPEARANCE.
In one brief scene, future Star Trek star Leonard Nimoy plays an Army man who receives a message about an alleged “ant-shaped UFO” sighting over Texas. He then proceeds to poke fun at the Lone Star State, because, as everybody knows, insectile space vessels are highly illogical.
10. THE MOVIE WAS A SURPRISE HIT.
Studio head Jack L. Warner predicted that Them!, with its far-fetched plot, wouldn’t fare well at the box office. So imagine his surprise when it raked in more than $2.2 million—enough to make the picture one of the studio’s highest-grossing films of 1954.
11. THEM! LANDED FESS PARKER THE ROLE OF TV’S DAVY CROCKETT.
When Walt Disney went to see Them!, he had a specific objective in mind: Scout a potential Davy Crockett. At the time, Disney was developing a new television series that would chronicle the life and times of the iconic frontiersman, and James Arness, who plays an FBI agent in Them!, was on the short list of candidates for the role. Yet as the sci-fi thriller unfolded, it was actor Fess Parker who grabbed Disney’s attention. Director Gordon Douglas had hired Parker to portray the pilot who ends up in a psych ward after an aerial encounter with a gargantuan flying ant. And while his character only appears in one scene, the performance impressed Disney so much that the struggling actor was soon cast as Crockett.
The Poster and Trailer for “Underwater” are Here!
Check out the poster and trailer for Underwater. I like ’em both.
The “Depraved” Poster and Trailer are Here!
I liked the Depraved poster, but am not sure what to make of the trailer. Love the idea of Frankenstein updated. I’m just not sure if it’s going to be too gross.
“The Hunt” Poster and Trailer are Here!
Wow. If drive-ins were still a thing (how I wish they were), then The Hunt would be a lead feature. (Perhaps Empathy Inc. would be the second movie.)
I don’t have a drive-in nearby but I still plan on seeing The Hunt at some point.
Twelve strangers wake up in a clearing. They don’t know where they are, or how they got there. They don’t know they’ve been chosen… for a very specific purpose … The Hunt.
In the shadow of a dark internet conspiracy theory, a bunch of elites gathers for the very first time at a remote Manor House to hunt humans for sport. But the elites’ master plan is about to be derailed because one of the hunted, Crystal (Betty Gilpin, GLOW), knows The Hunters’ game better than they do. She turns the tables on the killers, picking them off, one by one, as she makes her way toward the mysterious woman (two-time Oscar® winner Hilary Swank) at the center of it all.
From Jason Blum, the producer of Get Out and The Purge series, and Damon Lindelof, co-creator of the TV series The Leftovers and Lost, comes a new mysterious social thriller.
The Hunt is written by Lindelof and his fellow The Leftovers’ collaborator Nick Cuse and is directed by Craig Zobel (Z for Zachariah, The Leftovers). Blum produces for his Blumhouse Productions alongside Lindelof. The film is executive produced by Zobel, Cuse and Steven R. Molen.
