Don't Kill The Messenger V

News From Berlin

Last week was the European Film Market, where all sorts of goodies come out of the shadows. The most exciting of which is the new French zombie flick The Horde. This sounds like balls-out action-oriented horror involving cops, gangsters and flesheaters in a ménage à trois of gore. For more info, click here.

Laid To Rest

In a recent interview with AV Club, Bruce Campbell finally gave a final answer on the subject of Evil Dead 4. And that answer was NO. Here is what he had to say on the subject.

"No. I think there should be an end to everything. I mean, did anyone really want Indiana Jones 4? The answer is no. I’ve taken a poll in about seven theaters now. Of 300 people, three hands go up. You are bound to disappoint. I would rather disappoint with a brand new original movie. People worship Army Of Darkness,and God bless them for it. It’s a beautiful thing. The movie bombed when it came out, and not many people are aware of that. Twenty years later, the thing has picked up speed, and it’s on American Movie Classics now. That was a long time ago, and whatever we do next will always be compared to Army Of Darkness, and I don’t see how we can win. You make that movie, and I can tell you the quote right now, “Oh, it’s not quite as good as Army Of Darkness.” Then we would have gone through immense physical pain and anguish to bring something out that ultimately disappointed. That’s really not what I’m into these days."

The man makes some excellent points. I am extremely happy that he has finally decided to speak out on it definitively, if only for the fact that I don't have to hear someone ask about it when I see him at Q&A's. If we were still in the nineties, a fourth Evil Dead would be an entertainable idea, but those days are long gone. Let the Evil Dead series lie and be remembered as it should be, one of the greatest movie trilogies ever put to film.

More Voorhees

Here's a couple of cool fan-created Jason pickies. I found the first one online this week and the second (by Danomight) I've had on my hard drive for quite some time. Pretty cool stuff! For an enlarged version of the second pic, click here.

Valentine's - Firth Style.

He's such a romantic.

His Name Was Jason.

Since I won’t be doing a review for Platinum Dunes’ new incarnation of Friday the 13th, I figured I’d sound off on the OTHER new Friday the 13th release.

I had an absolute blast watching this DVD. What a nostalgic trip down memory lane! This disc is PACKED with great stuff, first and foremost being the main documentary His Name Was Jason: 30 Years Of Friday The 13th. The wraparound vignettes – which feature Tom Savini spewing out groaners while walking around Universal Studio’s Camp Blood attraction – are pretty hokey, but can be forgiven in the face of the overwhelming amount of people they got onboard for this project. Seriously, the parade of actors and crew that appear in this documentary is incredible. It was like looking through an old high school yearbook. I wouldn’t be able to name off all the lovely ladies from the series that appear, but some notables for me were Amy Steel, Elizabeth Kaitan, Lar Park Lincoln and Judie Aronson. Those interviewed cover the stories we’ve all heard before, like the story behind the scare at the end of the original and the origin of Jason’s iconic hockey mask, but there’s also a lot of new stuff covered like Aronson’s bout with hypothermia, and Tiffany Helm’s (Violet from Part 5) reshot death scene. I have to say that I’m okay with the latter because I remember having a real soft spot for Vi and her original exit may have blown my eleven-year-old mind. In addition to the cast and crew, many others chime in with their thoughts. Web journalists Ryan Rotten and Brad Miska (from Shocktillyoudrop & Bloody Disgusting, respectively) appear, as well as upcoming horror filmmakers like Adam Green & Joe Lynch. I think the only glaring omissions to the line-up of talking heads would be Corey Feldman, Crispin Glover and of course, Kevin Bacon. A lot of time is spent showing how pervasive the character of Jason has become in pop culture, covering the copious amounts of merchandising and references in other media. Probably the best thing about the doc, is that they have assembled every single person who ever played Jason Voorhees. The Men Behind The Mask featurette has extended interviews with all eleven men, including the newest, Derek Mears. He seems very sincere in wanting to do a good job. Seeing him speak so passionately about it reminded me of talking to Andrew Bryniarski about playing Leatherface in 2003. I had a good hour of his time at the ‘04 Festival Of Fear and was really struck by his commitment. It didn’t make me like the remake anymore, but I did respect him a great deal for how seriously he took the role. Aside from the main documentary, there is so much stuff on this two-disc set that it actually took me three sittings to get through it all. The Final Cuts feature has extended interviews with each part’s director. There are some great stories to be told here, including Joseph Zito talking about how his earlier work on The Prowler got him the job on Part 4 and Rob Hedden showing off the actual guitar that caved in J.J.’s head in Part 8. I’m still not buying Sean Cunningham’s assertion that Bay of Blood had no influence on Friday the 13th Part 2 though. The featurette From Script to Screen speaks with the many screenwriters that have worked on Friday and Dragged From The Lake showcases about a dozen random stories from within the productions. Also included on the disc are a bunch of fan films, the funniest of which is the Angry Video Game Nerd reviewing the vintage Nintendo game Friday The 13th. There are also a few location visits as well as tons of other stuff I will let you discover for yourself.

So, while the wraparound stuff in the doc is on the cheesy side, there is no denying the sheer volume of interesting info in this set. His Name Was Jason is a must-watch for any Friday the 13th fan.

The Big F!

So, Jason? What are your thoughts on Platinum Dunes' back catalogue?

Yeah, me too. Happy Friday The 13th everyone!

Full Moon Fever

It was a full moon on Monday (no, not a new moon), so this seems like as good a time as any to do a certain Coverbox Wednesday I’ve been waiting to do for a while. At my video store, we had no shortage of titles from Charlie Band’s company Full Moon Entertainment. I think they must have had a deal with Ballbuster or something because whatever stuff they were peddling, we were buying. I used to eat up their horror catalogue after being indoctrinated into their world with Puppet Master II in 1991. I had actually seen some of their earlier offerings like Shadowzone and Creepozoids before that, but didn’t realize they were Full Moon until much later. I used to love the Puppet Master movies. If I might just nerd out (more than usual?) for a second, I have to confess that the only fan letter (besides X-Files fan club correspondence) I ever wrote was to Full Moon, more specifically an actress named Charlie Spradling, who appeared in PM2, Meridian and also hosted several episodes of VideoZone, which was a little featurette that appeared at the end of almost every Full Moon release. Ah... mammaries--I mean memories! Anyway, let’s back on track, shall we? I have documented the franchises of Full Moon like Puppet Master and Subspecies here before, so this time around I am going to concentrate on some of the other outrageous genre titles that hit our shelves in the early nineties. Enjoy!

This one featured a young Seth Green, but I know you are more interested in the "Virtual Reality Special Effects!" Apparently, The Lawnmower Man was a real trend setter.

Stuart Gordon directed this one, which should make it no surprise that P&TP is one of the better titles Full Moon has to offer.

This one was about voodoo and featured a stone hand that flew around turning people into chickens. The even crazier thing could be that I remember liking it.

As cheesy as this Jeffrey Combs/Brian Thompson vehicle appears, there actually is a cool stop-motion animation sequence involving two battling dinosaur skeletons.

A Scary Game For Scary People.

Before role-playing games were made with ones and zeros, they were made with pen, paper, curiously shaped dice and, of course, your imagination. That’s not to say that tabletop RPG’s, like the iconic Dungeons & Dragons don’t still exist today, but they certainly never became as pervasive as the current rash of MMORPG’s have over the last few years. I played my share of D&D when I was younger, but I also sampled some of the other universes that were out there. Back in its heyday, every genre had its own RPG. There was Top Secret, which explored the world of spies and secret agents, a Star Wars RPG (which I once played as a red & green-striped-Mandalorian-armored bounty hunter named Neddy) and even a Marvel Superheroes one that I sampled a time or two - dibs on Wolverine! A few weeks ago, my friend Darryl lent me a reference book on an RPG I had never even heard of called Chill.

It is a horror role-playing game, which immediately peaked my interest. Mayfair Games published Chill in the early-nineties, after purchasing it from Pacesetter Inc. It is not the only horror RPG to exist, as I know Call Of Cthulhu has a pretty big following and Vampire: The Masquerade also had its moment in the sun (though I guess that’s a poor choice of words), but I never got into either of those. Basically, Chill is a world where you play as a member of a secret organization called SAVE, which is an acronym for a Latin phrase meaning ‘The Eternal Society Of The Silver Way’. SAVE is charged with protecting the Earth from evil forces, which are collectively referred to as The Unknown. The scenarios you play are investigations, which usually lead to encounters with minions of The Unknown, such as spirits, vampires and every other creature that is not supposed to exist. In a lot of ways, Chill is similar to D&D, with the use of dice, though it only uses two ten-sided dice as opposed to the sack full needed for the latter. The game is mediated by one person, designated the Chill Master - I know, original eh? Your character has abilities like Strength, Stamina and Dexterity, as well was Perception and Willpower. Also, being an agent of SAVE, your character will be somewhat versed in The Art, which is the ability to perceive The Unknown.

Fear is a large factor in the game, as whenever you are confronted with The Unknown, there is always a chance your character will turn tail and run. I read through the introductory scenario ‘Caulfield Place: Rest In Peace’, where players try to rid a haunted house of its incumbent evil spirits, by deciphering a mystery hidden within its history. The combat seemed very complicated to me, but that could just be because I’m used to the D&D way of doing things. I’m sure that if I actually played through a round, I’d pick it up pretty quickly. The world of Chill is certainly a strange one, but also rather involved. The whole history of SAVE is documented in the book I read. It includes a timeline going back hundreds of years. SAVE was founded by an Irish man named Charles O’ Boylan in 1844, who was later killed in Egypt by animated mummies.

1989: The Central Archives fire in Dublin, Ireland.

Perhaps even more fascinating are the minions of The Unknown, all laid out in the back section of the book. In addition to the usual ghouls, ghosts and creatures of the night, there are also some more reality-based oddities. The most insidious of these may be the ‘Mean Old Neighbour Lady’. Everybody knew one of these growing up. She lived in an old house and was often accompanied by a large and menacing dog. Whenever your ball went over her fence, you knew it was lost and the neighbourhood kids would dare each other to ring her doorbell. In our world, they are just ordinary seniors who want to be left alone, but in the realm of Chill, they are pure evil. The Mean Old Neighbour Lady will single out a child and lure him/her into her house with treats and then lock them in her cellar. She will then go about starving and brainwashing said child in darkness until eventually, he/she transforms into a ‘Gamin’. They are then sent out to cause even more mayhem. Gamins are beings that appear to us as malnourished children and insinuate themselves into healthy families by befriending one of its younger members. They then go about playing their favourite game of ‘murder’. Once the family is completely destroyed, always killing the child that befriended it last, it moves onto another one. So, as you can see, danger in the world of Chill lurks everywhere. It is pretty odious stuff. I love it!

Even though The Horror Section is first and foremost a blog about horror films, I love to cover all different facets of the genre and Chill is certainly an intriguing example. For more info on Chill, check out their website here.

Belated!

I completely forgot to mention it was George A. Romero's 69th birthday last Wednesday. George is currently hard at work on his newest zombie opus, titled ...Of The Dead. I, being the one of the few people I know that actually liked his last flick Diary Of The Dead, am always up for a new undead installment from the man. Zombies are my bread and butter. Happy Birthday George!