FX LEGEND GREG NICOTERO ADDS ‘DIRECTOR’ TO RESUME After 22 years of circling the globe creating makeup effects for such films as Day of the Dead, Army of Darkness
and The Walking Dead TV series, Greg Nicotero is finally making a pit stop – in the director’s chair. The 47-year-old, whose filmography boasts nearly 800 credits, recently announced his first feature film directing
gig will be an adaptation of The Drive-In, Bubba Ho-tep writer Joe R. Lansdale’s darkly humorous, bloody night at the movies tale. “So many elements of The Drive-In have been nodded to in other material, but the idea that a group of people
are trapped by some otherworldly force inside a drive-in theatre and how the society adapts while becoming lost in the films themselves is fascinating to me,” confesses Nicotero. “There are a few projects that I would love to do but this was always on the top of the list – just fun and weird and scary and outrageous all at the same time.” Nicotero’s first directorial effort, a short titled United Monster Talent Agency, is currently getting warm reviews
youtube.com/watch?v=9VDvgL58h_Y Richard Gale’s brilliant, blackly hilarious 2008 short film The Horribly Slow Murderer with the Extremely Inefficient Weapon can now be viewed in its entirety (in HD!) on YouTube. Guaranteed to have you in stitches, it answers the age-old ques- tion of just how long it might take to bludgeon an unwilling victim to death with a dull piece of cut- lery. “Being spooned” has` a whole new meaning.
welcome-to-monster-land.blogspot.com If you’re the sort of fright fan who’s into more than just jump scares and gross-outs, then Monster Land is for you. This image-heavy blog, “dedicated to the study of monsters in literature, film and popular cul- ture,” isn’t afraid to get a little brainy about the things that go bump in the night, and even tosses in some gratuitous nudity for good measure.
l4d.com/comic While it’s undeniably difficult to pull oneself away from the Left 4 Dead video games, fans of the zom- bie-ridden series may want to try, if only for long enough to read this immersive, Mike Oeming-illus- trated comic book prequel to the new downloadable expansion. Called “The Sacrifice,” it features the re- turn of the characters from the original game.
shloggshorrorblog.blogspot.com Not unlike Monster Land, Schlogg’s Horror Blog is another website that delves deeper into our beloved genre, only Shloggs’ speciality is most definitely scary movies. Covering everything from the Univer- sal Monsters, to the ouevre of David Cronenberg, to new titles such as Machete, Schlogg’s lengthy posts are equal parts intellectual, conversational and fun.
twitter.com/ruemorgue Didja know that you can follow Rue Morgue on Twitter? Keep up to date on all of our latest contests, blog posts and upcoming horror happenings, eaves- drop on the weird and wacky things overheard at the Rue Morgue House of Horror, and even follow the macabre adventures of the Rue Crew via the “staff” list. We are legion.
Compiled by MONICA S. KUEBLER Got a Roadkill suggestion? Email a link to:
roadkill@rue-morgue.com
while playing the festivals circuit. In it, he basically rewrites monster history by suggesting the existence of a facility that developed and represented zombies, creatures and stars such as King Kong during their Hollywood heyday, and wraps the concept in a black and white newsreel-style framework. The love letter to the Universal monsters features stunning costumes and makeup effects, plus cameos from the likes of Frank Darabont, Eli Roth and Robert Rodriguez. “Given my background, I felt people would be expecting me to do something really gory, showcasing just the ef-
fects, but I wanted to do something that had charm and humour to it,” explains Nicotero. “I have had a great education ... Being able to be on set and work next to guys like Quentin Tarantino, Frank Darabont, George Romero, Steven Spielberg and Robert Rodriguez has put me in a place I never imagined.” Though he has no plans to abandon special effects and makeup work, Nicotero reveals that he and comedian
Dana Gould (who has a Lawrence Talbot/Wolf Man-style role in the short) are working on a feature version of UMTA. “It is the idea of being able to see it and shape it with the help of the talent I had around me,” he explains of the
switch to directing, “and as it coalesces everything sharpens, and the closer you get to shooting the more exciting and frightening it becomes.”
TREVOR TUMINSKI entrails In September, William Peter Blatty, creator of The Ex-
orcist, filed suit against Warner Bros. in US District Court in Los Angeles, asking for a peek at the company’s fi- nancial records so he can determine if he’s owed money on the 1973 film, which has earned an estimated $400 million. Blatty, 82, has filed suit against the studio twice before, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Kevin McCarthy, who will forever be known for starring
in the 1956 film Invasion of the Body Snatchers, died Sept. 11 at the age of 96. In addition to that movie, he played the killer fish breeder in the original 1978 flick Pi- ranha, and the uncle doomed to perform demented magic tricks for the amusement of Jeremy Licht’s real- ity-warping teen in Twilight Zone: The Movie (1983). Other credits include episodes of Lights Out, Twilight Zone and Inner Sanctum, as well as The Howling (1981) and Ghoulies III: Ghoulies Go to College (1991).
The Alamo Drafthouse in Austin, Texas announced in
September that it’s branching out into film distribution with Drafthouse Films. Though its first title will be Chris Morris’ jihadist dramedy Four Lions (which opens this fall), the cinematic home of the annual Fantastic Fest genre festival and Ain’t It Cool News website founder Harry Knowles’ Butt-Numb-A-Thon movie screening, will undoubtedly snap up some horror-centric titles in the fu- ture.
Masked heavy metal maniacs Slipknot ended months
of uncertainty in September when drummer Joey Jordi- son said the band would release another album despite the overdose death of bassist and co-founder Paul Gray
in May. Though Jordison declined to say when new music would be forthcoming, he told the UK’s Guardian newspaper that Gray won’t be replaced. Earlier that month, Gray’s widow gave birth to their first child.
In August’s Vanity Fair, James Cameron took a swipe
at Alexandre Aja’s Piranha 3D, saying it’s “an example of what we should not be doing in 3-D. Because it just cheapens the medium and reminds you of the bad 3-D horror films from the ’70s and ’80s, like Friday the 13th 3-D.” Piranha producer Mark Canton fired back with a statement a few days after the interview’s publication, calling Cameron’s comments “ridiculous, self-serving and insulting.” Already looking ahead to the sequel, The Weinstein Co. told reporters in September that they plan to allow people to vote online for the celebrity they’d most like to see meet a gory demise in the sequel. Friday fans may have a suggestion...
The personal papers of Fredric Wertham, the psychi-
atrist credited for driving horror comics from American newsstands in the 1950s (see RM#104), were opened to the public by the US Library of Congress in Washing- ton, DC. In all, 222 containers have been made available, including several copies of comic books with annotations highlighting the violent bits, as well as drawings made by patients that Wertham thought illustrated “the confu- sion created by comic books between fantasy and real- ity.” The Library acquired the collection in 1987. More info, including three photos from the collection, at
http://blogs.loc.gov/loc/2010/08/papers-of-comic-book- villain-open-at-library/.
A.S. BERMAN
RM10
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