Coscarelli returns with adaptation of John Dies at the End After a five-year hiatus, Don Coscarelli has returned to the director’s chair.


This past November, the director of the Phantasm series and Bubba Ho-Tep began filming an adaptation of David Wong’s cult novel John Dies at the End (RM#75). In 2008, Coscarelli told Ain’t It Cool News that he loved Wong’s “crazed orig-


inality and impressive imagination. He’s like a mash-up of Douglas Adams and Stephen King, both smart and goofy, scary and funny – [the story] really spoke to me.” The book follows a pair of losers, John and Dave, who take a black, liquid


fearnet.com (search: Dexter Early Cuts) Attention Dexter fans: the killing doesn’t begin and end on HBO. FEARnet is cur- rently hosting the latest season of the an- imated online series Dexter Early Cuts. The six two-to-three minute webisodes, subti- tled Dark Echo, take place immediately after the death of Dexter’s dad, as our favourite serial killer hunts the hunters to deal with his loss.


bizarremedical.com If you think the Black Death was horrible, wait ’til you see the weird diseases – com- plete with extensive descriptions and pic- tures – featured at Bizarre Medical. Whether you’re looking for inspiration for your next horror opus or just need proof that real life is still ten times scarier than anything onscreen, you’ll find it here.


residentevilmovies.net Love Resident Evil ? So does Katie Harden, the woman behind this fansite. While the layout and navigation could use some sprucing, there’s no denying that this is still a good source of up-to-date info about the franchise, RE trailers and photo galleries from the films. Get infected!


docrotten.com If you’ve got a hard-on for horror, Doc Rot- ten has your prescription for pleasure. His House of Horrors website features news, reviews and trailers (both vintage and cur- rent), as well as his own justin.tv channel (Channel of Terror) and soon-to-debut pod- cast. The doctor will see you now.


pixelpickle.com/mowdown The lunatics have taken over the asylum in the online arcade game Mow Down and only you can stop them. Reminiscent of that 1983 brew-serving game Tapper, it sees players using laundry carts to knock down the sinister nurses and other crazies who charge at you with ever-increasing speed. So addictive you may need to seek help.


Compiled by MONICA S. KUEBLER Got a Roadkill suggestion? Email a link to: roadkill@rue-morgue.com RM10 D R E A D L I N E S


drug nicknamed “Soy Sauce,” which endows them with psychic powers and leads them into Coscarellian situations. Much like Phantasmprotagonists Mike and Reggie, these two unprepared mortals wind up in an inter-dimensional war with bizarre, demonic forces. The two main characters are played by newcomers Chase Williamson and


Rob Mayes. Other cast members include Paul Giamatti, Clancy Brown (Starship Troopers, The Burrowers), Daniel Roebuck (Bubba Ho-Tep, Rob Zombie’s Hal- loween) and Glynn Turman (Gremlins). Doug Jones (Pan’s Labyrinth, Hellboy) also appears in a key role. Jones explains, “I had the chance to play the deliciously offbeat role of Roger North, who comes to this world


from another dimension with a complete fascination over his observations of human behaviour. Roger is a key player in explaining the phenomenon that’s been happening to our lead characters.” After writing his own scripts for decades, Coscarelli began adapting horror fiction with Joe R. Lansdale’s Bubba


Ho-Tep in 2002, which he followed up with his 2005 Masters of Horror entry, “Incident On and Off a Mountain Road,” another Lansdale adaptation. In 2007, he purchased the movie rights to JDatE. Wong, senior editor of the humour website cracked.com, first released the novel in 2001 as a web serial, which sparked enough attention to get it re- leased by a small press, Permuted, and then picked up by a major publisher, St. Martin’s. Jones assures that Wong’s story couldn’t be in better hands. “Don’s sensibilities for all things horror, all things sci-fi, and all things funny, are spot-on perfect. And his screenplay


adaptation of the book is one of the easiest, funniest, quirkiest, yummy reads I’ve had in ages.” JUSTIN HUMPHREYS


entrails Ingrid Pitt, the toothsome totty that buoyed the for-


tunes of such horror classics as Amicus’ The House that Dripped Blood (1971), as well as Hammer’s Countess Dracula (1971) and The Vampire Lovers (1970), died No- vember 23 after collapsing on her way to a birthday din- ner in London. She was 73. She also wrote several books on the genre including The Ingrid Pitt Bedside Compan- ion for Vampire Lovers and an autobiography, Life’s a Scream. To metal fans, she will also be remembered for her narration on Cradle of Filth’s Cruelty and the Beast album.


The 3-D “revolution” is finally bringing Kinji


Fukasaku’s 2000 classic Battle Royale to US theatres. The director’s son, Kenta, oversaw the movie’s conver- sion to 3-D, and Anchor Bay Entertainment announced that it has picked up the US theatrical rights for the epic about school kids forced to kill each other on an island in a state-sanctioned program. No word yet on when it will hit theatres. A three-disc limited edition Blu-ray and DVD (Region 2/PAL UK edition only) box set of the film was released by Arrow Video on December 13, featuring a 36-page book, manga, postcards and a poster.


American horror author John Saul (Suffer the Chil-


dren) has teamed with Bluewater Productions to trans- form the novel The God Project and six-part serial novel The Blackstone Chronicles into comic books. David McIntee (author of tie-in novels for Doctor Who and Star Trek: The Next Generation) will adapt The God Project, about a Massachusetts town that’s losing its children one by one. Tara Ooten and Nathan Ooten will tackle The Blackstone Chronicles, about a condemned lunatic asy- lum and the hold it has over a small town.


Daniel Stamm, director of The Last Exorcism (which recently had one of its promotional posters


featuring its blood-splattered star pulled in the UK after complaints), is reportedly helming the forthcom- ing remake of Pascal Laugier’s Martyrs (2008). The Hollywood retelling, by the producers of the Twilight series, will be a gentler ordeal according to Stamm. “Martyrs is very nihilistic,” he informed the Los An- geles Times in November. “The American approach would go through all that darkness but then give a glimmer of hope. You don’t have to shoot yourself when it’s over.”


The Catholic Church in the US took its own swing


at exorcism in November with a two-day, closed-door conference in Baltimore, Maryland, which saw ap- proximately 100 bishops and priests come together to brush up on their rusty exorcism skills. Apparently, despite frequent requests by the faithful for the rite of exorcism, not many clerics are up on the practice. According to the WDAY News website, “the Vatican actually employs a ‘chief exorcist,’ who says he has witnessed people choking up nails and shards of glass.”


Francis Ford Coppola is returning to horror with the


$7 million Twixt Now and Sunrise, a “gothic ro- mance/horror” story inspired by a dream he had, which will star Val Kilmer, Bruce Dern and Elle Fan- ning. Little else is known about the movie beyond the fact that it’s recently gone into production and that it will “have the imagery of Hawthorne or Poe,” as the director told The New York Times. Coppola, who last dipped his toe in dark waters with Bram Stoker’s Dracula in 1992, received the Irving G. Thalberg Me- morial Award from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences last November, given to producers for their lifetime cinematic achievements.


A.S. BERMAN


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