What could be more refreshing on a hot summer day than a gruesome thriller set in a snowy Siberian wasteland? Horror fans may think they're on a well-worn track when Transsiberian premieres this Friday in New York. Thanks to its claustrophobic journey by train and morally ambiguous heroine, the movie world seems determined to compare it to Hitchcock's classics, but star Emily Mortimer believes the film isn't so easily classified.

"It starts off as a Hitchcock movie, but it becomes more of a Dostoevsky novel in the end," says Mortimer. "The morality of Hitchcock films is often questionable, but that's not the theme of this film. Hitchcock's films are sort of chillier... and that's what I like about them. But Transsiberian is an investigation of guilt, and whether you really can get away with murder in your own mind, whether you can keep that secret and carry on with life -- which is more in line with Dostoevsky." Director Brad Anderson (The Machinist) is inclined to agree.

Mortimer plays Jessie, a woman whose seemingly wholesome married life is a mask concealing demons from her sordid past -- and the actress was able to draw from plenty of real-life experience. "My dad is a criminal defense lawyer. He defended a lot of murderers, and he would always say that they were generally the nicest clients he had," she explains. "And it's a crime that he thinks anyone could commit -- whereas not everyone could hold up a bank. Most of us have it in us to kill someone at some point in our lives, and my dad brought me up with an open-mindedness and respect for that fact."

Continue reading "Transsiberian's Emily Mortimer Understands Moral Ambiguity on Screen and in Real Life" »

News that David Cronenberg was debuting an opera version of The Fly this week in Paris -- with Placido Domingo conducting Howard Shore's music, no less -- stirred up a lot of feelings among movie fans, including dread. In my book, the only opinion that matters about The Fly: The Opera is that of David Hedison, the actor who was already sporting compound eyes when Jeff Goldblum was in grade school. On the cusp of his film's 50th anniversary, how does the 81-year-old star think this will affect The Fly's legacy?

"Even back then, I thought the story would play well on stage," claims Hedison. He points out that the opera is adapted from Cronenberg's 1986 film, though it's obvious from the website that they've drawn plenty of stylistic inspiration from 1958. Either way, Hedison couldn't be more pleased: "I'm feeling very positive about the whole experience. I'm a huge admirer of David Cronenberg's work and I'm sure he's going to do something terribly interesting with the opera. It's too bad Jeff Goldblum can't sing!"

When Hedison first considered the role of scientist Andre Delambre, it was the character's faith in science that called to him. "When I read the script, I believed it," he recalls. "It wasn't something from outer space, or aliens invading the earth. It was just a story that made sense to me. When you think of the good the invention could do the world -- bringing food to places just by transporting it this way -- it seemed very exciting and real. So I tried to make it as real as possible when I did it." He remembers his post-transformation scenes very fondly. "There was like a little pinhole, so I was able to see quite a bit, though I was still really striving for awkward movement... There was no stuntman on that film, so I did everything myself, and I totally enjoyed it. In fact, my best acting was under the cloth."

Continue reading "The Star of 1958's The Fly Has High Hopes for Cronenberg's New Opera" »

When Choke debuts later this summer, it will have the honor of being Chuck Palahniuk's first big-screen adaptation since Fight Club. (No pressure, Choke!) But it won't be the last -- expect Survivor to follow soon, and then Lullaby. That's not just great news for Palahniuk's ravenous fans, it's great news for horror buffs as well. "Lullaby was my first shot at writing a horror novel, and it looks very likely that the Lullaby film will start shooting before the end of this year," says the author. "All I know is that it is a Swedish director, Rolf Johansson. They've told us that an Academy Award-winning actor wants to sign on as the male lead and executive producer, but they wouldn't tell me who that is." Diary is in the pipeline as well, so what about Haunted, the grisly collection of stories that famously caused dozens of fainting spells at public readings? "We had talked for a long time about trying to produce some sort of a miniseries that would be episodic like the book," comments Palahniuk. "Right now we haven't sold the rights. Maybe after we've done the other movies, it will be a little more marketable!" 

Palahniuk relished the process of adapting Choke, likening it to having one more draft in which to improve his work -- or for others to: "The parts that director Clark Gregg actually wrote are my favorite. His father's a minister, and so he was able to underscore a lot of the Christian messages in the story that I just didn't have the brains to do. I thought Clark had a really beautiful take on it, and he actually plays a fairly large role in the movie as well." So far filmmakers seem happy to include the author in the adaptation process, but Palahniuk insists he has his fans to thank for that: "The folks who read my books are so passionate about each one of them that the people making my movies are more afraid of my readership than they are of me." His fanbase, or The Cult as they prefer to be called, may be fiercely protective, but an early review of the Choke indicates they're prepared to call off their hounds.

Continue reading "Chuck Palahniuk Talks Choke and the Return of Not So Happy Endings" »

Two decades after writing the short story that inspired it, horror visionary Clive Barker (Hellraiser, Candyman) is still working to make sure we get the Midnight Meat Train movie we deserve. With that in mind, Barker has reached out to his fans this week to defend his latest film against what he considers to be gross mismanagement. He's adamant that the flick more than lives up to its trailer: "I know that isn't always the case. It hasn't even always been the case with my movies, you know? Mea Culpa!" He then adds, "I wouldn't be talking to you if I didn't have faith in the movie, if I didn't know that the people going to see the picture would come away happy."

You may recall that distributor Lionsgate hinted at sending Midnight Meat Train straight to DVD, and even tried to change its name. "They wanted to take the word 'meat' out of the title -- that was the first sign that something wasn't right about this," Barker told me. "They wanted to call it The Midnight Train, which to me was ludicrous, it would be like taking the word 'massacre' out of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre." Despite how well the trailer and screenings have tested, the studio has also only granted a 100-screen limited theatrical run and seems determined to rid itself of this film as soon as it possibly can. So what's the deal? Barker has his suspicions.

Continue reading "Hellraiser's Clive Barker Speaks Out About the Mistreatment of Midnight Meat Train" »

News broke last week that Dan Gildark's Cthulhu would finally see a theatrical release on August 22. The movie has been disparaged pretty evenly by H.P. Lovecraft well-wishers and role-players (and they are legion), but most of them haven't seen it. Their grudges, however, can be reduced to three basic points:

1. The film takes place in the gloomy Pacific Northwest, not gloomy New England.
2. The title is misleading, since film is actually based on the story The Shadow Over Innsmouth and doesn't actually feature Old Squid-Face himself at all.
3. The biggest name in the cast is Tori Spelling.

I could see where the first two points are coming from. As for the third, get over it: Anyone who saw The House of Yes knows what our gal Tori can do with a meaty supporting role. Not having seen the film either, I decided to get in touch with Daniel Gildark himself and straighten everything out.

Continue reading "Director Dan Gildark Answers Call, Explains His Cthulhu" »

Doug Jones has a rich speaking voice -- but you probably haven't heard it. The actor frequently labors under mountains of monster-face which renders him mute or raspingly guttural (both, in the case of Pan's Labyrinth). Or worst of all, dubbed, like he was in the original Hellboy escapade by David Hyde Pierce. Not so in Hellboy II: The Golden Army, however. The character of fish-man Abe Sapien has been beefed up considerably since the first film, giving him lots more to do, and in Jones' case, much more to say. "He does everything from wielding a weapon and fighting bad guys to going on adventures with Hellboy and Liz Sherman," says Jones, "But a subplot for Abe is that I am a love interest." Of course, Jones has been dropping these hints for quite a while -- but is the world ready for the sight of this, um, transhuman coupling? Jones has no doubt, "I think the fangirls will look at Abe and sort of tilt their heads and say, 'Awwww,'" he says. "Because he's a bumbling idiot when it comes to love, and he hasn't really dealt with that part of his life."

This character has been expanded on other fronts as well. Mike Mignola's Abe Sapien miniseries, The Drowning, wrapped up just this past week, and it's certainly new terrain for Hellboy fans. "Mignola wrote the story himself rather than working with a co-writer, and the artist did an amazing, haunting job of bringing that story to life," says longtime Dark Horse editor Scott Allie. "It's nothing big and earth-shattering like Hellboy II is going to be. It's just a nice, creepy, weird horror story." The miniseries has come too late to inspire Jones' performance, but the actor still can't wait to get his hands on all of them, and learn more about his character, explaining, "Guillermo [del Toro] had plans for three all along, I think. He's got ideas, but I haven't heard all of them yet."

Continue reading "Doug Jones Considers Hellboy's Abe Sapien His Best Friend" »

Thanks to a confidentiality agreement, Betty Buckley can't reveal too much about her contribution to M. Night Shyamalan's new shocker, The Happening. "I can tell you my character's name is Mrs. Jones, I'm in the last portion of the movie and that my character is one of the reasons we have an R rating," says the legendary singer and actress. "I've never played anything on film that is this scary."

Wait... Miss Collins, is that you? Her formidable career in film, stage, and song notwithstanding, we horror fans will always recall Buckley's big screen debut with a certain misty-eyed fondness. As the sympathetic gym teacher who takes Sissy Spacek under her wing in Carrie -- and was crushed like a bug for her troubles -- she really hit a nerve. Who didn't want their own Miss Collins back in high school to deliver a smackdown to our oppressors? (And we're pretty sure we wouldn't have accidentally killed her with our telekinesis.)

Buckley has worked with some of the most famous directors in the biz -- Brian De Palma, Woody Allen, and Roman Polanski, for starters -- but insists she was still unprepared for the thrill of helping Shyamalan achieve his first R rating. He's a director that's been knocked about in recent years, but fans are still circling around The Happening, defending his style. Buckley falls in the fan camp: "I could just do a movie for him every year (and some concert work too) and I'd be a happy camper for the rest of my life," she says. "He's very childlike, a very enthusiastic human being, so you just want to do anything he asks you to do -- which I did, in this movie!"

Continue reading "Betty Buckley Returns to Horror, Goes All Out in The Happening " »

The critically acclaimed series, The Wire, may have recently wrapped, but Michael K. Williams hasn't put his dark side to rest. His unforgettable portrayal of stick-up man Omar Little has catapulted him into two film adaptations that horror fans are already circling with morbid curiousity: Cormac McCarthy's apocalyptic drama The Road and Michael Cuesta's Poe-flavored Tell-Tale.

If you can't proceed without arguing that The Road doesn't truly count as horror, I'd like you to count on one hand how many other books you've read lately in which human infants constitute one of the four food groups. (Though in all fairness, a person can only live on canned peaches for so long.)

Horror adaptations are always dicey, since what bleeds on the page often looks pretty silly filtered through the monocles of studio execs, and strained through the twisted knickers of the MPAA. Can a novel as relentless and devoid of contrivances as The Road even be made into a film? Will viewers accept Tell-Tale's modern re-tooling of the chilling tale they adored in seventh grade? Williams isn't shy about telling you why both of his upcoming films bring enough new meat to the table justify their existence.

First of all, filming The Road was no cushy green-screen affair. "We filmed on location at Lake Erie, in the state park over there," he says, "While it was very beautiful, in the context of our scene, it could have been a very scary place. It was no joke: We were in the elements, and it was freezing." The experience left a mark on him that still lingers. "It's made me reassess the little things I take for granted, like shelter, food, water and even companionship and human contact," he says. "It was crazy to be scrounging and killing for the things we take for granted in everyday life."

Continue reading "The Wire's Omar Talks Up Two New Horror Adaptations" »

First, a confession: I never saw any of the Faces of Death movies, 7th grade peer-pressure notwithstanding. But that didn't keep me from being traumatized by the descriptions of the film's rumored contents -- real footage of actual deaths -- which were passed by word-of-mouth on the school-bus, reducing wimpier kids like myself to puddles of pale dread.

I thought it was all behind me, but last week's reports of a DVD delivered two serious jolts: First, that JT Petty, the director of the much-anticipated The Burrowers, would be adapting FOD into a proper horror film spin-off; and second, that several special effects artists would be featured on the re-release of the original FOD, finally receiving full credit for their work on the film.

Special effects? Wait -- it was fake?? My childhood agonizing over Satanic murder-rituals and monkey brain appetizers was all in vain?

When it comes to settling decades-old scores, I don't mess around, so I got on the phone with special effects and makeup guru Allan A. Apone. He gladly shared memories of his glory days as a young artist, such as the recipe for monkey brains. "It's cauliflower, with green food coloring and gelatin," he revealed. "That's a sculpture of the monkey's head, and when they hit him on the head and pulled the skin back to break the skull -- which is a plaster cap - people went 'AAAUGH!'"

Continue reading "Two Insiders Uncover the Not-so-real Faces of Death " »

Breathless updates about Twilight are already flying around the web like Euros in a Jay-Z video. If you are old and used up like me -- by which I mean you are old enough to legally consume alcohol and remember life before TMZ -- then you were probably just as confused as I was when jabber about this movie began to trickle into horror blogs. Turning to trusty Wikipedia, I learned that "Twilight" is "the time before sunrise, or after sunset." Thank goodness for that disambiguation page: Twilight is also the bestselling series of vampire novels by Stephenie Meyer, and its (inevitably bloodless) PG-13 movie adaptation. As the horror genre is besieged by a new generation of gore-mongering little rascals, is there any hope that an actual red-blooded horror fan can enjoy participating in the clamor around this epic vampire soap? Or is slowly drowning in sexually-repressed tween-frenzy all I have to look forward to in 2008?

The Hype
In the last two weeks I counted numerous Twilight link-fests on Cinematical and MTV is all in your face with a video introducing the lissome cast and some early special effects. Is this horror? I confess to being too blinded by abs to tell. I needed the help of an expert, so I called on Laura Cristiano, co-owner of the Twilight Lexicon blog, the epicenter of the Twilight fan universe which after just two years, gathers 30,000 unique hits a day.

Continue reading "Can the Twilight Movie Capture Red-Blooded Horror Fans?" »