2008 was a good year for me personally and professionally.  Saw plenty of good flicks, made new friends (many thanks to this site.  wink.), got paid to do a job I actually enjoy.  More importantly though, 2008 put me twelve months closer to getting married and starting a new life in Austin, effectively leaving behind much that brought me joy in ‘08.  The move would have happened sooner, but, well, you all watch the news.  I was wrong when I said Lionsgate was better at losing money than I am.

This being two thousand and nine, relocating a thousand odd miles isn’t that big of a deal, logistically at least.  I am a nerd, keeping up with core nerd friends is an occupational hazard.  However, come Christine and I’s honeymoon following the wedding on May 23rd, I will be leaving behind my job.  Telecommuting doesn’t quite fit in with a Systems Integrator’s job description.

I realize given the current state of the economy, getting married, moving to a new city where you know no one, buying a house and not having a job is rather counter intuitive.  Don’t worry, I’ve got a plan:

Fuck it.  You never know til you try.

Good news, everybody!  Come June, HorrorsNotDead.com is going to get a lot busier!  I apologize for whatever advertising scheme I settle on, but writing (creatively and, well, this place.) is all I will be doing.  Peter gotta eat.

Happy New Year!

Directed by Gregory Jacobs, 2007
Written by Joe Gangemi & Steven Katz

It has been so long since I’ve reviewed anything, I, for a second, forgot how to format these things.  One may have grown to expect the return would bring in hand an extraordinary, hidden horror elixir.  One is now disappointed.  Congratulations!  We have something in common!

WIND CHILL is on the straight and narrow towards Alright-Alright’ington.  Not bad, not good.  A well enough place to hang your hat is all I’m saying.

However, WIND CHILL does intrigue me in a department most strictly satisfactory films do not.  George Clooney and Steven Soderbergh have their names on the film via their Section Eight production house AND Clint Mansell did the score.  I’d like to know whether their outfit was looking to make a quick and clean grab for some of thems horrors moneyies, or the impressive collective of Cloonney, Soderbergh et all wound up with Joe Gangemi and Steven Katz’s script and were legitimately blown away.

I have this funny - and to me it is funny - feeling that it is a bit of both, that Section Eight wanted to stir some cash and were wow’ed by the script.  That would go to show 1) how outside of the genre they are, that there exists a handful of films with this same stuck-on-a-road-to-nowhere hook in the last three years alone and 2) that not one of the millionaires looking to get in the game ever walked the horror isles of their local video store or Best Buy.  Not that I blame them, just amusing to me that Steven Soderbergh and George Clooney, men who have reached the recent heights of their careers by taking risks, dipped their hand into such a safe bet.

Not much to say other than enjoy Part Four of Horror’s Not Dead’s 2008 Retrospective.  Wasn’t a bad year, but now that all the major titles are in it, it wasn’t, as I like to say, good sex.

Part 1: January to March.
Part 2: April to June.
Part 3: July to September.
Part 4: October to December.
Part 5: Events. (coming)
Part 6: Awards. (coming)

July to September, always anemic pre-Halloween hump for horror to get over.  Two thousand and eight twas no different.

Part 1: January to March.
Part 2: April to June.
Part 3: July to September.
Part 4: October to December.
Part 5: Events. (coming)
Part 6: Awards. (coming)

Not much to say other than enjoy Part Two of Horror’s Not Dead’s 2008 Retrospective, Festivus celebrating extravaganza.

Oh, and Happy Kwanzaa.

Part 1: January to March.
Part 2: April to June.
Part 3: July to September.
Part 4: October to December.
Part 5: Events. (coming)
Part 6: Awards. (coming)

Part 1: January to March.
Part 2: April to June.
Part 3: July to September.
Part 4: October to December.
Part 5: Events. (coming)
Part 6: Awards. (coming)

This was fun.  I set off to do a roundup of 2008’s horror output, good and bad, and ended up with a rather nice guide, a work in progress to be broken into 6 sections: One for each quarter’s theatrical and DVD releases, one for major news and obituaries, and a final for a Top 10 of 2008.

The criteria rests that a film must be uniquely relevant to 2008.  That is not to say that a title must be mutually exclusive to ‘08, just that it be important.  For example, ALL THE BOYS LOVE MANDY LANE premiered in 2006, but wasn’t made available to paying customers outside of a film festival until earlier this year in the UK.

As for the date framing to follow, these are not ironclad.  All US titles should fall within their respective releases.  It is tougher to place something like MANDY LANE or ROVDYR, which having no US release could go either by their foreign theater or DVD runs.  So don’t complain too much about where a film lies, this will all be on one page once all parts are done, but if I’ve left something off entirely - and I am sure I have - please let me know.

You’ll recall that Brian at The Vault of Horror polled the LOTTD to aggregate a democratic Top 50 Horror Films of all time list.  While I wasn’t in harmony with the general consensus and placement (4 of my 10 made the cut), by no account was a single undeserving film in the top 10.  A few sites around the net took offense to the lack of criteria in the listing process, so The Vault set out to do another, dubbed the Modern Era, with a set standard: Top 10 since 1990.

Brian even branched out, polling beyond the LOTTD to include members of prominent horror outlets.  Talking with him before the results came in I had asked if he would mind me posting some predictions.  Sloth stepped in and that never happened, but my mental sticky note nailed the Top 3.

Correction:  Unfortunately, my mental sticky note nailed the Top 3.  I think you know where I’m going with this.

Of course THE DESCENT was number one.  I knew it would be, but that makes this no less painful.  I’ve railed time and time against the praise the movie has recieved; I need not repeat my bludgeoning of its mediocrity an Nth time.  All I ask is for a little perspective, folks.

Theatrical Trailers and Clips

• EDEN LOG - Trailer

Studio News and Attachments

• Paul W.S. Anderson will not deboard his RESIDENT EVIL life raft.
• MGM buys THE HOW-TO GUIDE FOR SAVING THE WORLD, which might as well give up.  We all know MOM AND DAD SAVE THE WORLD, not some guy with a tutorial.
• The new box set for FRIDAY THE 13TH will include the much needed 3D glasses.
• Surprise!  Rob Zombie is doing HALLOWEEN 2!  Le sigh.
• Witchcraft brings career success in MGM’s CONJURE WIFE, which I’m pretty sure has the same plot as WITCHES OF BREASTWICK.
• PRIEST shakes off the dust of inactivity with the announcement of effects pro Scott Charles Stewart as director.

Remakes

• Attention all parents (I’m looking at you, John); it is your duty to put son or daughter in the TROLL remake.
• How did I miss that the remake of the Russian roulette happy 13 TZAMETI was not only happening, but starring Mickey Rourke, Jason Statham, Ray Liotta, Ray Winstone and Fiddy Cent?
• Pair behind fest groupie DEADGIRL plucked to remake Danish film MURK for Gold Circle films.
• James Cameron supposedly orbiting a trilogy - part remake, part prequel, part sequel - of FORBIDDEN PLANET written by J Michael Straczynski.

Indie, Foreign and Random News

• Studio 407’s comic series HYBRID, about a creature aboard an adrift vessel at sea, to become a movie under 407 and Myriad Pictures.
• JUDGE DREDD is coming back thanks to DNA films.
• Alfred Hitchcock’s THE BIRDS Barbie Doll is out of stock, but definitely real.
• Barbie of the Undead, however, is slightly less commercially viable.

Non-Theatrical Trailers and Clips

• PENANCE - Trailer (would be red band if submitted to the MPAA)
• PULSE 3: PULSIER - Clip
• BAJO LA SAL (UNDER THE SALT) - Teasers
• AGAINST THE DARK - Vampires taking over the world.  Steven Segal won’t let them.
• SAMURAI ZOMBIE - Trailer
• MUM AND DAD - Clip