Here's a lesson in how a savvy movie studio can take years' worth of bad buzz and then use good, old-fashioned (okay, in this case, sort of newfangled) marketing to get naysayers to do a 180. It wasn't that long ago when the upcoming thriller Repo Men -- which stars Jude Law and Forest Whitaker as long arms of the law in a future where body parts are sold on credit and yanked back by force if the buyer misses a payment -- seemed unlikely to make much of a dent at the box office. Now it's got serious juice.

Universal first announced the project, based on Eric Garcia's novel The Repossession Mambo, back in 2003. The news would probably have inspired the usual love-hate commentary, had it not been for the fact that there was already another movie based on the same book in the works. "Every so often, two films come down the pipeline with the same basic plot and smash into each other," reported io9. "In one corner, you have [Saw] director Darren Lynn Bousman's independent effort with Lionsgate, Repo! The Genetic Opera. Weighing in on the studio side is Repossession Mambo, from Universal." Same source material, two very, very different movies. Note to self: figure out how to sell the rights to my novel to two movie companies, without having their lawyers descend on me like a flock of angry monkeys.

Continue reading "Web Stalker - How Repo Men Went From Also-ran to Front-Runner" »

In the world of horror comics, John Constantine is something of an elder statesman: Few characters have lasted as long or lived as hard as DC/Vertigo's trenchcoat-wearing paranormal investigator. Since his first appearance in the pages of The Saga of Swamp Thing way back in 1985, Constantine has beaten cancer, journeyed to Hell, rubbed shoulders with the likes of Sandman and Batman and been played by Keanu Reeves. Not bad for a character who was originally created as a n homage to Sting, the Police frontman.

Continue reading "Constantine Goes Bollywood in Latest Hellblazer Comic Series" »

This column is about horror movies in all their splendor and trashiness. But sometimes it goes beyond them to look at source material -- you may remember our examinations of Stephen King movies and vampire novels with a girl-power twist. While almost everything King writes is optioned (and much of it gets produced), he's not the only horror heavy hitter in the ring: enter Dean Koontz, who's written 81 novels since 1968, hit the number-one spot on the New York Times' best-seller list twenty-four times, and sold over 200 million books. Many of Koontz's novels have been adapted for the big screen, to decidedly mixed results. In the interest of cosmic fairness, let's look at both the top hits and the bottom-of-the-barrel misses.

The Top Three

1. Demon Seed (1977)
This tale of a computer determined to make a woman (Julie Christie) carry its artificially created child -- apparently even machines can't avoid baby-mama drama -- is one of the few flicks that tries to plausibly bridge the gap between technology and biology. The story is solid, even when the execution falters. Demon Seed fit perfectly into the late '60s-early '70s wave of "computers take over the world" movies, which included 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) and Colossus: The Forbin Project (1970).

Continue reading "Scott Sigler - The Sheer Terror (Good and Bad) of Dean Koontz Movies" »

All the buzz about Guillermo del Toro's upcoming Frankenstein surrounds this question: who (with human chameleon Doug Jones onboard play the monster) will be Dr. Frankenstein? Every die-hard horror fan dreams of a Frankenstein movie with the perfect doctor-monster match. Yet, a hundred years after Mary Shelley's novel was first adapted for the screen, we're still waiting. Let's take a look at some of the classic pairings.

Frankenstein (1931)
You know all those horror-movie clichés you think have been around forever? The angry mob of torch-wielding peasants; the hilltop castle silhouetted against a lightning-slashed sky; the hunchbacked assistant; the blind hermit... Well they've only been around since 1931.This is when it all started!

Dr. Frankenstein
Colin Clive's pale, trembling doctor has one great moment, shrieking "It's alive!," as his unholy creation stirs. It would be even better if he hadn't been on the verge of hysteria since the beginning. It's hard to imagine young Victor getting through gross anatomy, let alone the charnel-house slog of hacking up purloined body parts. With just the tiniest bit of exaggeration, Gene Wilder's Young Frankenstein (1974) turned Clive's characterization of the mad, idealistic doctor into a comic tour de force.

The Monster
When you think "Frankenstein," you're thinking Boris Karloff. Universal makeup man Jack Pierce created the flattopped, sunken-eyed, black-lipped face; asphalt-spreader's boots and too-short sleeves created the illusion of abnormal height and freakishly long arms. But Karloff brought the monster to terrifying, heartbreaking life: from the awkward, stiff-back walk to the hands rotated awkwardly at the wrist, his wordless, darkly soulful performance captures the essence of a creature baffled by the world and uncomfortable in its own flesh.

Decision
Doctor: 3; Monster: 10

Continue reading "The Real Fight Is Between Doctor Frankenstein and Frankenstein's Monster" »

The slasher movies of the late '70s introduced a character type now known as the Final Girl. Instead of passing out at the sight of a monster, she kicked the creature's ass. The stalker heyday has come and gone, but Final Girls remain bloodied reminders that women can be heroes, too. On the flip side, however, ladies still have a long way to go. The "flip side," of course, is the side with the bad guys. Let's face it: horror franchises belong to the men: Freddy, Jason, Michael -- even Jaws is a dude! If asked to rattle off ten great female monsters and villains, you'd be stumped. Don't worry. I'm not gonna ask. In fact, I made a list for you.

10. Jennifer Check (Megan Fox), Jennifer's Body
Jennifer is the ultimate high-school mean girl: she's pretty, she's quick with a cutting remark, and she's got a demon inside her. While drinking the blood of your fellow students may not be the best way to ensure popularity, "But teacher, I've become a succubus!" is a pretty sweet excuse to get out of gym class.

Continue reading "Stacie Ponder - From She-Creatures to Just Plain Shes, the Top Ten Villainesses of Horror" »

Our beloved little genre is on everyone's lips this week, thanks to the Spanish indie flick Buried. It took Sundance by storm and set off a minor bidding war that found Lions Gate ponying up a reported $3 million. The premise? In the grand tradition of movies like Oxygen and Buried Alive, a civilian contractor (Ryan Reynolds) working in Iraq wakes up trapped underground with only a knife, a lighter, and a cell phone. He spends the rest of the movie trying to escape. At some point, he's visited by a big snake.

Doesn't sound too promising, does it? The reviews from Sundance are rolling in. They may surprise you.

Continue reading "Web Stalker - Fans Dig the Idea of Ryan Reynolds Buried Alive" »

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Listen up, men of Earth! Female aliens may look sexy -- in fact, a disproportionate number of them resemble members of the Swedish Bikini Team -- but tread lightly should you cross paths with one. Odds are, she wants your precious bodily essences, and you probably won't like the way she goes about getting them. And even if she has some other unearthly agenda, you stand a good chance of ending up with the short end of the stick.

There's a reason they say the female of the species (Species, get it?) is deadlier than the male. And it's not just that an awful lot of them have dozens of long, thick, thrusting tentacles. With that in mind, study this list of the ten top girls of alien horror in horror history and commit it to memory. The wretched, worthless, puny human hide you save may be your own.

Continue reading "Forget Venus! Femaliens Are From Mars and They're Out for Blood" »

The horror of real life is often worse than the horror of the cinema. Take, for example, the auto-immune reaction to transplanted organs. Imagine, if you will, that your ticker is on the way out. But you're in luck! A donor has conveniently kicked the bucket, and you and said donor's heart rendezvous on an operating room table. You get a new lease on life, but your troubles are about to start: Your pesky immune system, you see, thinks the heart now keeping you (and it) alive is an evil, alien thing, like a bacteria or a virus. So Mr. Immune System attacks the heart, and guess what? Immune systems are good at attacking things. Your heart blackens, and the end result is that you're dead, killed by your own immune system.

So, what's this got to do with horror flicks? Why, it sets us up to talk about rebellious body parts, of course. Transplants are all the rage in horror fiction, and often make the recipient do many eeee-vil things. With that in mind, let's take a look at the Top Ten Bad Body Part movies. First, though, the rules -- the transplant has to be part of the recipient. This list does not include rogue body parts, such as Ron Jeremy's Penis in One-Eyed Monster, or the plethora of movies that feature severed hands (insert list here after).

Continue reading "Scott Sigler - When Bad Things Happen to Good Body Parts" »

The Internet has brought out the best in the horror movie community, and by "brought out the best," I of course mean, "given us a platform on which to argue incessantly." Film nerds are generally a passionate bunch, but horror film nerds take it to the next level: We eat, drink and sleep the scary stuff. We watch the movies, wear the T-shirts, frame the posters, display the toys and attend the conventions. Horror isn't just a hobby -- it's a lifestyle.

So it goes without saying that horror fans have strong opinions about everything genre related, and folks sure do love a good debatin'. One of the more persistent arguments of recent the years concerns the nature of the zombie movie. What makes a "true" zombie -- "true" in this case meaning Romero-esque, not folkloric voodoo zombies. First and foremost, I think they need to be reanimated dead people: No matter what brings you back or what you do after you return, you gotta die to be a zombie. Which leaves a slew of zombie-flavored movies missing that critical feature. This doesn't mean there's no place in my heart for the "not zombie" -- only that it doesn't have a proper name.

Are you confused? Don't be: Here are ten "not-zombie" movies worth your time... OK, it's nine worth your time and one merely worth mentioning, but the point is that after you've seen them, you'll understand.

Planet Terror (2007)
If I were one of those critics who wants nothing more than to see words on movie posters, I might call Planet Terror a "gooey, rollicking, frighteningly good time!" And trite and quote-whorish as it may sound, that's a good way to describe the Robert Rodriguez half of Grindhouse. A biological weapon (in the form of a green gas, natch) is released into the air; pus-oozing, flesh-eating humans ensue. Who cares if they're not undead when their antics are such gory, colorful fun?

Continue reading "Stacie Ponder - Are They Zombie Movies? Not Quite! Are They Killer? Yes" »