Fan Expo 2014 Part 4

Hopefully you've enjoyed my coverage of last weekend's Expo over the last few days. I just wanted to wrap things up here with some sights from the show. I didn't take nearly as many photos as I would've liked, as I wasn't on the floor as much this year, but even when I was there often wasn't enough room for me to even raise my arm, let alone get a clear shot of what I was aiming at.

Anyway, here's what I got;

8-foot tall Lego Rocket & Groot!

Bethesda's upcoming survival horror title The Evil Within.

Leon?

Tainted Love cake by Cakes Cove.

I don't know what this is, but I like it.

Featuring new fangled TREEbook story-branching technology.

Now hiring!

The next bunch are from Paul Jones' booth featuring many cool creature creations.

Schwartz picked me up these bad boys for my name day;

And the best costume of the weekend goes to;

There was a cool Annabelle booth at the show that was constantly scaring the shit out of people. I didn't snap a pic, but fortunately this promo got released yesterday.

Fan Expo 2014 Part 3

Continuing into Saturday, my day was pretty full of panels, which was doubly fortuitous, as my contact with the ridiculous crowds of the Expo's busiest day was kept to a minimum.

The Black Museum conducted a lecture in the afternoon about the history of home video, so I naturally couldn't pass that up.

Josh Johnson, the director of the great VHS doc Rewind This, was on hand to take us down memory lane. He touched on all the main areas, including both format wars, the Video Nasties and how the advent of VHS shaped the film production and distribution industry.

I liked that Josh made sure to emphasize that horror had a very big presence during the home video of the mid-eighties, due to indie companies like Magnum, Paragon, Embassy and Continental, who were able to get titles on shelves quicker than their Hollywood counterparts.

Josh also had some great video tidbits, which included company logos, intros and this priceless promo reel for A Nightmare on Elm Street 3.

I also learned that the first SOV film was not Sledgehammer, but this 1982 flick called Boarding House, which I absolutely, positively have to track down now.

Local VHS collector Dan Gorman brought some visual aids to the show, as well.

Fortunately, the Black Christmas reunion panel was in the same room right after, so I didn't even have to move. Local talents Art Hindle & Lynne Griffin were on hand along with Nick Mancuso and the great John Saxon, who recently received a star on the Italian Walk of Fame.

There was a lot of reminiscing about how great and innovative a director (and human being) the late Bob Clark was, as well as just how Goddamn cold it was shooting in the winter of '73.

John Saxon (left), Art Hindle, Nick Mancuso & Lynne Griffin

Art Hindle answered about whether it was a fun movie to shoot despite the cold;

“No, it was fun. We were mostly inside, you know. A lot of us knew each in Toronto. It was unique. There wasn't a lot of jobs around then, so we just felt lucky to be on a set and working. We were working with Margot Kidder who was hilarious. Olivia Hussey was a sweet lady and brought none of the airs of somebody who did a fabulous movie like Romeo & Juliet. Andrea Martin was just in the beginnings of her career. Yeah, we just had a great, great time.”

Nick Mancuso talked about performing as the caller in the movie;

“There were three voices, there was me, the director Bob Clark, and an actress whose name was Mugsy Sweeney I think, and they were blended together in post... I stood on my head to compress the thorax to give it as spooky as sound as possible, so that's how we recorded it.”

Earlier in the day was the Bruce Campbell Q&A. Even better was that his friend & cohort Ted Raimi joined him onstage and they proceeded to ham it up to everyone's delight. I mean, you know how these guys are together, it's like watching The Three Stooges – minus the fake shemp (see what I did there!)

I only caught the last half-hour of this as I was at another panel, but it consisted of them pulling fans up on stage to showcase a “demonstrative talent”, which would in turn earn them a five dollar bill out of Bruce's pocket. The bits I saw consisted of a lady performing CPR on Ted, impromptu LARPing, and a cartoon voice-off.

Ted Raimi & Bruce Campbell.

When the duo did start answering questions, Bruce quickly dealt with the obligatory ask about Evil Dead 4;

“Well, there's no Evil Dead 4 right now because as you may know that Sam and his brother Ivan are developing an Evil Dead TV show, which will star me in some capacity.”

He also added that he didn't know whether it would really come to pass, but he was certainly up for it. You know, the usual.

When someone asked if Bruce had stolen his coat from Don Cherry, he replied;

“I'd probably be offended if I knew who that was!”

Toward the end of the panel, important issues were decided when audience applause dictated that Autolycus would win in a fight between him and Joxer.

I mentioned that I missed most of this panel because I was at another event. It was perhaps the only thing that could have taken precedence over seeing The Chin perform – The Twin Peaks reunion panel.

Actors Sherilyn Fenn, Sheryl Lee and Ray Wise were in attendance to celebrate the twenty-fifth anniversary of the ground-breaking television show. They were all visibly humbled by the amount of people that showed up to see them. I wish the panel had been twice as long, but here are a few little snips.

Sherilyn Fenn (left), Sheryl Lee & Ray Wise.

Fenn talked about her experience auditioning for David Lynch;

“I had met somebody who had encouraged me to stop trying to be who everybody wanted me to be and to be myself in interviews. I interviewed with David, and I didn't know so much about him, as I was only about twenty. So I went in there and was kind of quiet, and he asked me about the script. It went fine and I left. A week later they called and said that David had written me a part. It was such a cool confirmation of be yourself, you're enough.”

Lee was asked about what it was like coming back to the character of Laura Palmer for Fire Walk With Me.

“The series ended rather abruptly, and as an actor, I didn't feel finished with her (Laura) even though I knew she was dead. And then Maddy died so fast. That is strange creatively. You're playing these people and you feel like you know them inside and out and then it's just cut so short. So, when David came to me, there wasn't a script at first, it just started in conversation, he said, I'm thinking of doing this about her life and the last few days and these other storylines and such. We would just sort of talk Laura and life. It's so strange that I have absolutely no memory of ever seeing a script even though I know there was one, but I also don't have a clear definition of where the series ends and where the film starts.”

Sheryl Lee & Ray Wise in Fire Walk With Me.

Ray Wise - as I discovered when I recently saw him in Montreal promoting Suburban Gothic - is a real character, who also happens to do a great David Lynch impression, which had the crowd in stitches. He told a few stories, including one about what he did when he learned that David Lynch wanted him to play Leland Palmer; 

“I had assumed I was going to play Ben Horne or the Sheriff. So, when he said Leland, I had to go back through the script. And I was reading... Okay, he finds out his daughter is dead, and he cries. Then he goes to the mortuary and identifies her body, and he cries. Then he's in his daughter's bedroom when the sheriff's going through all of her belongings, and he looks sad. And I thought, well all this guy does is cry! And then it dawned on me, this indeed was the challenge. I had to find different degrees of crying, and mourning, and you know, this was going to be something.”

At the end of the day, there was a screening of Fire Walk With Me at The Lightbox on glorious 35mm. I've seen the film several times now and two things always stand out to me. The first is how well balanced it is. It shouldn't be, as the first act is wonderfully comedic in tone, then turns on a dime, progressively getting more and more disturbing. Yet, the madman David Lynch is always in control.

The second thing is obviously Sheryl Lee's performance. There is so much range here, sometimes within a single scene. I've always been in awe of it, and her. She can be so terrible to people, but, like she does with Bobby outside the school, she flashes that iconic homecoming queen smile and you can't stay mad at her.

Come back tomorrow for my wrap-up post featuring photos from around the show floor.

Fan Expo 2014 Part 2

As I mentioned yesterday, there was an extraordinary amount of panels this year. Fortunately, there wasn't a huge amount of overlap - as is the case most years - so I got to sit in on most of them.

The genre examination documentary Why Horror? conducted a panel to go along with the recent unveiling of their snazzy new poster.

The film, as seen through the eyes of life-long horror fan Tal Zimerman, is an exploration as to why so many feel drawn to the darkest corners of cinema. Directed by Nicolas Kleiman & Rob Lindsay, the project is now finished and will soon screen in Mexico, Spain and here in Toronto. The panel consisted of Zimerman, Kleiman, as well as two of the doc's interviewees, Andrea Subissati and Dave Alexander.

They touched on various talking points of the film, including the history of horror storytelling through the ages, how various cultures have different things that scare them and how and why some people find watching horror films a cathartic experience.

Co -director Nicolas Kleiman (left) and Tal Zimerman, Andrea Subissati & Dave Alexander.

Zimerman & company showed sections of the film - which spans the globe, including stops in Mexico, London and Tokyo - my favourite of which is when Tal volunteers his mother to undergo an experiment with him. They visit U of T and get hooked up to heart monitors to see how they both react - his mother swore off horror after being terrified by Dario Argento's 1971 film Four Flies of Grey Velvet - to horror stimuli. It's pretty hilarious, but the results were surprising. I guess you'll have to see the doc to find out what they discovered.

I also found it interesting to learn that, in the interest of symmetry, when they sought to interview an anti-horror advocate, they couldn't find one. They, in fact, had to go back to the nineties to find said sound bites. I guess that means that the people with the torches & pitchforks really have moved onto pinning the world's problems on violent video games. Yay?

Speaking of horror, Toronto After Dark announced the first ten titles of this year's festival line-up.

There are some really exciting titles on the schedule, including The Babadook, Open Windows and Dead Snow 2. The festival runs October 16-24th and you can check out more details, by clicking here.

Lisa & Louise Burns, the ladies who played the unforgettable Grady Twins in The Shining, were there. They were absolutely lovely, and still almost as tiny!

They talked about the fans' reaction to seeing them in person;

“They are either really frightened of us, or so happy to see us. People say really nice things to us though. It is almost overwhelming. There's people making these things on that site Etsy and all these lovely people who dress up as us and send us photos.” 

Naturally, someone asked about what it was like to work with the great Stanley Kubrick;

“We found him to be very friendly and cuddly, almost like an uncle. A genuine man. He knew exactly where he wanted to go, but he would encourage rather than tell. He wasn't a telling person. He would work with his own actors, or at least that is how he was with us... He did do loads and loads of takes. You know how you've always got one friend who has to take five photos when everyone else just takes one. They always have their finger on the button, don't they? I think if Stanley was still around with all the modern gadgets we've got now, he'd be one of those people.”

They were pretty great. The day wrapped up with A Nightmare on Elm Street reunion of sorts with Robert Englund & Heather Langenkamp appearing together on stage. I'd seen them both separately in previous years, but it was awesome to see them together.

Robert Englund & Heather Langenkamp

There was obviously stuff that I'd heard before, like how they both won their roles and such, but some new stuff, as well. They talked at length about working with eventual A-listers Johnny Depp, Patricia Arquette and Laurence Fishburne, and they spoke of how important Nancy as a character was instrumental in the birth of the “fan girl” movement. I can see that, as the Nancy & Tina did interact with each other in a very realistic way, even moreso than the ladies in Halloween six years earlier. It definitely helps when you have characters within a film that you can identify with.

Someone was quick to ask about what they thought of the remake. Langenkamp declined to say anything for fear of going on a rant, so Robert tried to be tactful;

“The remake of Nightmare was just too premature. I understand remakes. Every movie our grandparents saw was a remake of a silent film. There are only so many stories to tell around the campfire. I understand the drive to remake it for a younger audience, but with the advent of digitally remastered Blu-ray box sets, these original fans are older and have kids, and they can pass these movies down to them, looking better than they ever have before. Hollywood knows that movies have a larger shelf life now, so why they are rushing to remake everything is beyond me.”

The last question of the day was about Englund ever coming back to the role;

“If I was to come back, it would be Freddy vs. Viagara!”

But the question did bring up an interesting story about a prequel;

“There was some talk after Freddy Vs. Jason of a prequel script floating around and John McNaughton was going to direct it in a documentary style. At one point I think it was called Krueger: The First Kills. But was so creepy about it, were the lawyers that get him out of jail. And they became symbols of the corruption of American society and our children. They were phenomenal roles from what I hear. I never read it, I heard a lot about it from a guy that used to work at New Line. And that was close to happening, and then Michael Bay bought the rights to everything. But that would've been the last thing I did. I loved the idea that it was the lawyers that were the stars and Krueger just comes in at the end.”

We're not done here. Come back tomorrow to hear about a further quartet of events I attended.

Fan Expo 2014 Part 1

I once again entered the madness of Toronto's yearly Fan Expo this weekend. It began on Thursday evening, which is when I like to zip in, grab my pass and quickly check out the floor before things get crazy. It didn't take long to notice the changes from last year.

First, the experimental inclusion of Sports to the Expo must have been a sizable failure last year, as it was completely absent from this one. It seems like that would have been obvious - one just has to look no further than any high school in the world to see those two groups don't mix - but it wouldn't be the first time the organizers have made a bone-headed decision.

Another thing was that the Festival of Fear, the horror arm of the Expo was set up in the North building away from its usual digs in the South. This was likely good for them, in terms of exposure, as they were now close to the most heavily trafficked area of autograph row, but for those actually looking for it, not so much. As with last year, the commuting time between buildings was problematic, so it makes it difficult to limit the back & forth when the things you're interested in are spread out evenly across both.

Then imagine this times three.

I also noticed how much the popularity of certain things has increased. Gaming has obviously been a good chunk of the Expo since its inclusion in 2005, but this year was the biggest leap I've seen in several years. In addition to the large areas for Intel, Playstation and the like, there were also massive stages in the middle of both buildings for on-going seminars & game sessions for League of Legends and Starcraft 2. Doctor Who has been gaining popularity since its reboot about a decade ago, but it has now reached a fever pitch and was definitely the most represented icon of pop culture this weekend. I witnessed everything from remote controlled Daleks & K-9's to five-year-olds dressed as The Doctor.

Perhaps one of the more welcome changes was how much more substantial in volume Artist Alley seemed to be this year. I don't know if it was just more well laid out, but it felt like there were more artists at the show. I got to meet & talk with some great artists, including Paul Ainsworth, Matt Ryan, Andrew Barr and Sabrina Parolin. Please check out their links because they are all ace.

Poster art by Paul Ainsworth.

Stagefright “Monstar” by Andrew Barr.

Gary Pullin, my favourite local artist, was doing an artist workshop on Thursday, so I made sure to stick around for that. He talked about starting out at a commercial design firm, and then working his way into the art director job at Rue Morgue magazine. His presentation included a slide show of his work as well as some examples of what he thinks makes a good design and what doesn't.

Gary blew all our minds when he showed us the hidden profile of Alfred Hitchcock embedded in his fantastic Psycho print from a few years ago. It seems fitting he would do that, as Gary was the one who told me about the hidden face in the Halloween poster - an occurrence the original artist insists was unintentional - a few years back.

Can you see it?

The most interesting part of his talk was about his process. He was recently commissioned by a studio for an upcoming, high-profile horror release and presented a series of images which represented the back-and-forth between him and them. It was fascinating to see the concept evolve across the dozen or so images he showed.

Speaking of posters, I, not surprisingly, picked up a few myself. Within a few minutes of hitting the floor, I met up with Schwartz at the Hollywood Canteen booth, and then it was pretty much open season. Mike had a milk crate filled with vintage horror posters for like, ten bucks each. It was very difficult to walk away with just five.

Check back tomorrow when I delve into the many panels I attended this year. It was a banner year for these things and felt like the majority of what I did this weekend.

Big Weekend!

Hey all. The Festival of Fear is upon us here in Hogtown, so you'll not be hearing from me until the smoke clears.

Have a great long weekend, and I'll see you next week.

...Cuz It's Awesome.

I got my Kickstarter perks from my contribution to the documentary Why Horror? this week.

They are pretty sweet, I must say. I also get a Blu-ray of the film, but since it's not actually finished yet, I have to wait for that. I'm kind of hoping that it appears on the big screen somewhere before that anyway. Being that the director Tal Zimerman is from Toronto, I think there is a good possibility there will be a premiere of some kind by year's end. If you happen to be attending the Festival of Fear in a few weeks, there is a Why Horror? panel/preview in the works, so keep your eye out for that.

For those who don't know, Why Horror? is a documentary about the horror phenomenon, and why some people are irresistibly drawn to it as a form of entertainment and features all manner of experts, including filmmakers, artists and writers. For more info on the project, click here.

DKTM 228

It felt a little light on news this week - perhaps things have slowed down a bit with all the holidays and sports going on - but here's what I've got on tap for you.

Guests Galore.

I do a lot of belly-aching about the Festival of Fear and how expensive and bloated it has become, but I can't say they aren't trying this year. In addition to bringing back some big names from previous events like Robert Englund and Bruce Campbell, they've got several other cool things going on, as well.

This year will be the biggest assemblage of talent from the massively popular TV show The Walking Dead. Scheduled guests include Chandler Riggs (Carl), Michael Rooker (Merle), Danai Gurira (Michonne), David Morrissey (The Governor) and most importantly - for me at least - Lauren Cohan (Maggie).

Rue Morgue has also put together several other impressive reunions, including those for A Nightmare On Elm Street (Englund, Heather Langenkamp & John Saxon), Black Christmas (Saxon, Lynne Griffin, Art Hindle & Nick Mancuso) as well as the pièce de résistance, a Twin Peaks reunion featuring Sheryl Lee, Ray Wise & Sherilyn Fenn.

And if that wasn't enough, the fest is also throwing in such high profile genre personalities Elijah Wood (fresh off three solid genre appearances in Maniac, Grand Piano & Open Windows), the ever-watchable Ted Raimi and F13 creator Sean Cunningham.

And wait, there's more. Rue Morgue is also bringing in Lisa & Louise Burns, who you may know better as the Grady Twins from The Shining.

So, you see I really have nothing to complain about. Except the lineups... and the crowd management... and the overlapping schedules... Oh well.

Malleus Phantasmagoria.

A few months ago, a teaser arose for the upcoming Italian anthology Phantasmagoria. Soaked in the tradition of the gialli, this intriguing project offers up three stories by directors Mickael Abbate, Domiziano Christopharo & Tiziano Martella. Now, the artist trinity of Malleus have created a poster for the project.

If you aren't familiar with Malleus, check out the fantastic prints they made commemorating the work of Dario Argento here.

Rat Scare.

Watching & reviewing Giuliano Carnimeo's Rat Man this week reminded me of this old skit from Scare Tactics.

Most of their stuff seems silly and contrived, but that still doesn't stop me from going down that YouTube rabbit hole.

Festival Of Fear 2013: Joe Dante

The guest of honour at the Festival Of Fear this year was filmmaker Joe Dante. The director of such seminal genre pictures as Gremlins, The Howling and most recently The Hole, was in town for the entire weekend greeting fans and talking about his career. I've always felt that Dante is one of the best in the biz at creating kid-friendly genre pictures. As Gremlins served as a gateway drug to horror, so to did The Explorers into science fiction. I also feel The Hole, which has criminally denied a decent release here, was one of the best attempts at recapturing eighties-style filmmaking. I'm not talking about aesthetic, which is the more popular thing to do these days, I'm talking about actual storytelling. The Hole was a marvel, and proof positive that Dante is still as talented a filmmaker as he always was.

On the Thursday, Rue Morgue screened the 1989 Tom Hanks vehicle The 'Burbs at the Lightbox. It had been a long time since I'd seen it and it held up beautifully. Dante was on hand for a Q&A, which Kurt Halfyard graciously decided to post on RowThree. Here it is below.

A few days later, he did another Q&A at the Fan Expo. Here are some highlights.

Dante on working with Roger Corman;

“If it wasn't for Roger Corman, I wouldn't be sitting here. Roger realized that the cheaper you could make a movie, the more money you could make from them. There was still a big drive-in market and then turned into the VHS market later. So, we were making pictures for a third of what it would cost anybody else, and they were the same subject matter (as our competitors). They were, you know, sex, drugs, rock n' roll, motorcycles, monsters, whatever would play on the drive-in circuit. I was one of the few people that worked for him that had seen all his old movies, so I had an advantage that a lot of other people didn't have. And also I liked these kind of movies. A number of the people who worked for Roger really thought they were slumming. They thought 'okay, I'll make one of these women in prison pictures, and then I'll make my magnum opus about the blind jazz man from New Orleans who wants to find his long lost brother' or whatever. Those pictures never got made because the movies they made for Roger were not very good because they didn't care about them. They just thought it was a means to an end. Whereas some of us wanted to make the best women in cages movie they could possibly make and Roger learned to differentiate between those people. Who wanted to really stay in the business and who just thought this was a stopping ground onto their way to stardom. Most of those people didn't get very far. The ones who really shined, and you know all their names, were people who really did try to do their best work under the circumstances and make movies that were just a little bit better than the movies these other people were making.”

“The way it worked there was that my first movie was co-directed by Alan Arkush and we had been in the trailer department. Some of those trailers had been very educational because you'd look at a movie that was just dreadful and think 'how can we make this seem better.' We would re-edit them in certain ways to look flashier or spiffier than they actually were. We would also learn a lot of things about film grammar and about how many shots you needed to make an idea work. So, when you finally got onto a set you realized there were certain shots you didn't need because you'd already done the short version. It saved us a lot of time, so when we got our first movie, we were able to do it in ten days for sixty thousand dollars and have it turn out because we knew what we were doing. The movie was Hollywood Boulevard and I wouldn't say it was any kind of classic, but it's almost a documentary of what it was really like making movies at that time under those circumstances. As a result, Alan got to do Rock N' Roll High School and I got a chance to do Piranha. Those were solo pictures that, as Roger often said, 'if you do two good pictures for me, you'll never have to work for me again'”

Director Joe Dante.

Dante on The Howling;

“There hadn't been any werewolf movies in some time, and I think they were generally being considered old hat. We wanted to go back to the classics that we loved, but sort of bring it into the modern world and not have villagers and torches and such. As far as the designs go, we didn't want to do the standard thing where you just have the hands & head because that's all you can afford. So, Rick Baker, who had long wanted to do a werewolf movie, had these ideas for what we call 'change-o-heads' where it allows you to change a puppet head from one thing to another on camera. So our goal was to do a werewolf transformation all in one shot. Ultimately, as soon as John Landis found out I was doing this picture, he called Rick and said 'you can't do The Howling because you have to do American Werewolf In London' and Rick said 'you've been saying you're going to do that movie for years'. John said 'I'm gonna do it!' and by God within a week he had the financing for American Werewolf. So, Rick said he'd always promised John he'd do that movie, so he couldn't do mine. But Rob Bottin who'd worked on Piranha and was sort of Rick's protege came on instead. Rob did a fantastic job with not much money. We tried a few things. We put people in suits, but they kind of ended up looking like bears, so that didn't work. We ended up building werewolves in pieces, top halves, bottom halves and separate legs and such. It gave the illusion that there was a wolf-like creature that was standing on its hind legs. It worked great. But I think the main contribution to the genre that movie gave was that it was the first self-reflective werewolf picture where the characters in the movie already know what the audience knows. Instead of having to go to the library, or a doctor to find out what a werewolf is, these characters already know what they are because they've seen The Wolfman. That later became quite a popular trend in movies, but I think this was the first time that was done.”

Dante on Gremlins;

“One day at my ratty office in Hollywood, this script appeared for Gremlins. I was sure it had gone to the wrong address, I couldn't figure out why I would be getting a script from Steven Spielberg. It was a horror film that Chris Columbus had written as a spec script. Spielberg had found it, he'd seen my last two pictures and wanted to start his new company Amblin, and open with a low budget horror film. Initially, it was a much darker version of the movie, the Gremlins kill his dog and eat it, they kill the mom and bounce her head down the stairs. It was really pretty grim, which is why he came to me. Because it was a Spielberg picture it was not subject to the kind of scrutiny most films would be, so later when the film was done and the studio saw it they were just horrified. They just couldn't figure it out. They said, 'these gremlins are just so disgusting, do we need to have so many of them?' so Spielberg said 'well, we can cut them all out and call it People!' We finished the movie and took it to a preview. And because nobody knew what it was, nobody expected it, it was the right movie at the right time, the preview was amazing. It was so successful. Now, all of a sudden the studio thought the movie was terrific. It was a huge movie that summer and the reason I'm still in the business.”

Dante on Masters of Horror;

“Masters of Horror was a great deal for us guys because we were promised no money, but also promised total creative control. There was a list from Showtime of things you couldn't do like rape nuns and shoot the genitals of children, obvious things you don't wanna do, but for the most part they really did leave us alone. It was an opportunity for a lot of people who were tired of being told what to do, to be able to choose what they wanted. Because I was pissed off about politics at the time and unhappy about the current administration, what was going on in Iraq and how nobody was saying anything. They were all just cheering and saying everything was great. I chose to be a counterpoint to that and did this very obvious propaganda Anti-Bush movie, because I could. And I knew that once it was done I could send it to every right-wing pundit I knew and get them upset. The other one I did, The Screwfly Solution was a story that I'd wanted to do for a long time as a feature. After I done it for Masters, it was odd because it was the first thing I'd ever done with absolutely no humour, because it's just not a funny story. I realized then that if I'd done it as a feature it would've been a complete disaster because nobody would pay to be as depressed as people were after seeing that. It was lot of fun, and would've liked to have done more. There is another project that Mick Garris is working on called Nightmare Cinema, which is a similar thing, but with a series of features. If that happens, I'd love to do one of those.”

Both talks were spectacular, and among the most informative I've seen, mainly because Dante has worked in both the independent and studio systems. He concluded by saying that this fall he is shooting a zombie comedy called Burying The Ex, which he “hopes is going to be funny, because I know it's going to be cheap.” I'm sure with Dante at the helm, it'll turn out just fine.