Clu Gulager has spent the majority of his life acting. Although he was born in Oklahoma, he has spent the majority of his life in front of the camera. Recently, we sat down and had a conversation about his life times as a western and horror star. This is the fourth and final installment of that conversation. The first three parts can also be found on FEARnet.com.

What changed the way that you approached your acting?

Bette Davis, I'm mentioning names because these are familiar names. I had to work with Bette Davis one time because they fired the one guy and hired me very quickly. I had to fly down there in two hours to Dallas. I tried to learn the lines and I couldn't in that length of time. Bette Davis had done her close-up the day before so she was out on the tarmac of the airfield. One hundred and twenty-five degrees and she was an old woman. They said, "You don't have to do that Miss Davis, you've done your close-up. We'll have the script supervisor read it." She said, "As long as you're here. I know who you are by the way. You're a very good actor. I will respect that. I will stand right by the camera and feed you your lines." Well, I didn't want her to because I didn't know my lines. But she stayed there, an old lady, and I couldn't remember anything. So we finally got through it. But it was embarrassing. I just hated it. Then, and she's one of the great actors, really, she was a really gifted woman. I've seen some pictures of hers that really blow me away every time I see them.

So they called me up one day at the studio when I was under contract at Universal and said, "Tomorrow morning we want you to do a 6-1/2 page scene with this woman." She's one of the great actresses of all time. I'd seen her on stage in New York in Sweet Bird of Youth, Geraldine Page. She was so good. She's one of the great actors. I said, "Nope". They said, "What do you mean nope? You're under contract." I said, "Nope, I'm not going to make an ass of myself in front of this great artist just like I did with Bette Davis. I'm not going to do it. I can't learn the lines that fast. I'm not going to do it. It would be a struggle. She'd think I was a bad actor." So I just didn't do it. I learned my lesson from Bette Davis. Geraldine Page subsequently died and I never got to work with her.

How did that change your approach to work?

You like to have more time. I had no time. They called me at ten o'clock and I had to be on the set at six thirty for make-up. There's no time to learn a six and a half page soliloquy for me, my kind of learning. I decided that I would never ever do that. That changed my approach right there. You might say, "So you had enough money?" No, I didn't have any money. I just felt so strongly about my art of acting I didn't want to do that badly.

If you couldn't show yourself in a good light then you didn't want to...

The best light I could. I've never shown myself in a good light. I'm not a great actor. But I wanted to do the best I was capable of. I wasn't capable if I didn't know the lines a little bit.

Did you ever work with Bette Davis again?

No. She was so sweet to me. She complemented me and all that crap. Can you imagine? Complementing me? I'm supposed to be complementing her but she would have none of that.

So there really is a difference between actors who are giving versus actors who are trying to drive you into the ground?

Yep, that's true. I worked with Joseph Cotton one time on a picture they wrote for me, an hour long show on Desilu Playhouse. It was a TV show. We were sitting in the dirt road on our director's chairs waiting and I heard him say, "Watch this." I looked around and a little boy was coming over with a pencil and paper toward him. He came over to Mr. Cotton and said, "Mr. Cotton?" He said, "What are you doing boy we're working? Can't you see? Get away. We're busy. Get away." He turned and snickered to me. Well, that's terrible. I would never do that. I don't see the purpose of that. But he was showing off to me, I guess. He did that to that little boy and that little boy probably was traumatized for the rest of his life with being around artists. That's not good. Different actors are different. That's not a good way to behave. That artist around me made me feel bad by doing that. That affects your performance, I feel. Everything goes into it when you're on the set or should.

Did you ever work with Ernest Borgnine?

No, but I was at various functions with him. A good friend of Ernest Borgnine's was Barry Sullivan, a guy who worked with me in The Tall Man series when I played Billie the Kid he played Pat Garrett. We were at a birthday party in Beverly Hills and Ernie showed up with this elephant condom as a gift. He thought that was very funny. "Here's my gift. Ha ha ha" We're all just laughing. That's how I met Ernie.

I think Barry Sullivan was a man who never quite got his due. He never quite got that role that...

He was an alcoholic. He drank a lot and sometimes we had to shut the set down on The Tall Man because of that. Sometimes he would get impatient with me because I wasn't good with lines. Couldn't remember my lines sometimes. He'd get impatient because he had this photographic memory. For him it was just like falling off a log. That bothered me but there was nothing I could do about it because I just wasn't good with lines. I never grew to be good with lines.

How far did you go in schooling?

Well, I went to about five universities. Never got a degree. I taught at three universities, film acting. I went to Columbia in New York and took theater. But I took comparative literature and Shakespeare mainly at Columbia. I realized there that the teachers approach theater from a literary point of view, the words rather that what's on the boards of the actors acting or the costumes and lights and so forth. They don't think. They think in terms of the words, word placement, the wordsmithing. There's nothing wrong in that except with me, it threw me off because I approach Shakespeare and all these directors and writers we talked about from a theatric point of view. That was where I came from. In film the words are blood. To me, in theater, the words are blood too. However, it’s a three-headed monster from my perspective, most actors. We put a little of ourselves in there, in the author’s characters. Stanislavski, a great acting teacher most of us think from the Moscow Art Theater turn of the century, said that you have to put some of the you in it otherwise it becomes too stagy. You have to make it kind of identify with your quality. Also the director has a lot to say about it. So that’s the three-headed monster the director, the actor, and the author. Does that make any sense at all?

Sure, but if you get off script and you’re carrying the spirit is that bothersome to you?

You mean change the words or just memorize the words? I’m a writer and have been in it for decades so naturally there are some ways I can do things better maybe than the author has that character to do them. It’s still the character. So yes, I like to change the words sometimes. I was on Playhouse 90 one time and Ralph Nelson the director said, “Come on. These are etched in marble these words. Don’t change them.” Well, I don’t agree with that.

If you are going to leave actors with one thought what would you say?

Make me believe you. I want to believe you. If I believe you, you are more than halfway home.

What do you think of the new HD with the lighting and all?

I love it. I made a short for Universal in 1968. We edited it in 1969 and it opened the Cannes Film Festival in 1970. Not because it was good or bad but because they felt it showed the state of the art of all the film instruments. My short. It did. I put a lot of new stuff in it. So that’s what I like. Filmmaking to me has to do not only with the actors’ portrayal and the story but also with the lights and the camera and with the sound, sound design, the production design. Go see “Lawless” and you’ll see what I mean about production design. It was extraordinary. It would be worth it to see that.

So what’s next for Clu?

I’m writing a script, a musical horror film for John (Gulager) right now. Came out of a scene that we did for the workshop that we showed that Sunday at the New Beverly. Some people thought that maybe we should make a movie out of that. So that’s what I’m doing right now. If John likes it then he’ll write the music and we’ll try to get it on. A lot of if’s in writing, right? You’re a writer. You know better than I do.

It was a great pleasure to interview you, Clu. I sincerely hope to do it again down the road.

When he is not acting Clu can be found roaming the Hollywood Hills or eating a Pink's chili dog.

Del Howison is a journalist, writer, and Bram Stoker Award-winning editor. He is also the co-founder and owner of Dark Delicacies “The Home of Horror” in Burbank, CA. He can be reached at Del@darkdel.com.


 

This one comes to us via Shock Till You Drop. Cabin Fever: Patient Zero actress Jillian Murray tweeted a seriously gross image from the set yesterday.

Warning: If you don’t want some of the movie spoiled for you, stop reading right now.

Former Marvel comics artist and ABCs of Death writer Kaare Andrews is directing Cabin Fever: Patient Zero. Here’s the origin story: “When a bachelor party cruise in the Caribbean unexpectedly runs ashore on a medical research island, a deadly virus is unleashed. The passengers must struggle to find a way to survive before their own demons and the flesh eating bacteria consumes them all.”

Here’s what Murphy had to say about her picture from the set, via Shock: "5 sec before I die."

She followed that up with:  "That's what 9hrs straight of make-up looks like!"

It looks like she got more than a case of sun poisoning:
 

IFC Films has just released the haunting, dreamy, and chilling poster for Antonio Campos' sophomore feature, Simon Killer. Brady Corbet stars as Simon, a young man who heads to Paris to escape the memories of love gone sour. While there, he hits on women and makes a hobby out of chat room sex. Brady falls in love with a prostitute (played by Mati Diop) which is when he starts to unravel and we learn that he is harboring some dark secrets.

Look for Simon Killer in theaters this Spring.

Earlier this year, I got to check out a 25 minute reel of footage from Italian maestro Dario Argento's Dracula 3D. It wasn't great (cheesy acting and strangely-lit sets that gave it a cheap 1970s feel) but it was loaded with boobs and gore. I would like to believe that Argento is going for a cheap feel with this film but, well, judge for yourself with these two clips. Both are in Italian, and the second clip is NSFW.

Source: Shock Till You Drop

Supernatural Episode 806
“Southern Comfort”
Written By: Adam Glass
Directed By: Tim Andrew
Original Airdate: 7 November 2012

In This Episode...

Dean is drawn to Missouri for a case that doesn’t initially sound like a case. A man named Chester was working under his car one night. His wife of 35+ years, Mary, comes home and, in a rage, hops in the car and drives over his head. She has no recollection of this, but a word is carved into Chester’s chest: Alcott. So the Winchesters roll into town and discover they are not the only hunter interested in this case: Garth is there, posing as a Texas Ranger (because, as he says, wearing a suit makes him “look like a funeral director.”)

After the hunters arrive, things get really hinkey. Chester and Mary’s son, Scott, sees a former business partner (who ran their company into the ground) named Jeff at the grocery store and beats him to death with a shovel. Scott is taken to jail where, soon after, one of the deputies, Doug, shoots the sheriff in the head because he is tired of being taken advantage of. Another deputy, Carl, takes the shotgun from Doug and heads to the hospital, where he confronts an old “friend” who called him out in a baseball game once.

Each crime scene has green ectoplasm left behind. Going through Bobby’s old notes, Garth discovers that the green goo is the footprint of a specter - basically, a vengeance ghost. The trouble started when some kids broke into the tomb of the unknown Confederate soldier. It is believed that the soldier may have been a man who fought on opposite sides as his brother, and swore vengeance against him for it. The guys sneak into the tomb late at night and set the bones on fire. But this doesn’t seem to stop it, as the jailhouse shooting happens after. The new theory is that the specter attached itself to an object, kind of like Bobby had, so it could travel around. That object was a penny that the soldier had on him for luck. As it passes from one person to another, so does the rage.

Dean walks in on Carl threatening the former umpire at the hospital. The two fight, and Carl presses the penny into Dean’s hand, so he can see how it feels. Naturally, the anger it raises in Dean has been bubbling very near the surface: his anger that Sam didn’t look for Dean because of a girl. When Sam and Garth get back to the motel, Dean is waiting - and he pulls a gun on Sam. They air some grievances, and Garth steps between them, because Dean’s beef isn’t with him.  Garth distracts Dean, punches him, and Dean drops the penny, breaking the spell. Garth can pick up the penny harmlessly because he has let go of all his hatred and anger. See kids, there is a moral to the story!

Dig It or Bury It?

It felt a little slow. Halfway through, I looked at the clock and was like, “Really? Only halfway through?” That said, I enjoyed the episode. It just felt like one of those middle-of-the-season one-offs. A lot of them have been like that. At least this one served the purpose of being able to bring the strife between the brothers out in the open in an organic - if obvious - way.

Flashback to the Future

Continuing with Sam’s flashbacks, he ends up in bed with Amelia after a somewhat hesitant friendship led to drinks. During post-coital pillow talk, Amelia reveals that her husband, Don, died in Afghanistan eight months prior and she had to get out of town, away from the pity everyone poured over her. The next morning Amelia rushes out of the house, feeling embarrassed for over sharing, and not wanting to make a big thing of it. Sam comes back later, reveals that he lost his brother a few months ago, and feels similarly lost. And that’s it; they are bonded.

Prophecies?

Cas is back! Not in flashbacks - he is back, on earth, and seems a little stalker-y.

American Horror Story: Asylum Episode 204
“I am Anne Frank”
Written By: Jessica Sharzer
Directed By: Michael Uppendahl
Original Airdate: 7 November 2012

In This Episode...

A new inmate comes to Briarcliff tonight. She is picked up by cops after some guy in a bar made an anti-semitic remark and she stabbed him with a beer bottle. Dr. Arden comes into the common room, and the woman recognizes him as a war criminal and tries to attack him. Brought in to Sister Jude’s office, the woman explains herself. She claims she is Anne Frank, that she didn’t die in Bergen-Belsen. She was too sick to tell her name when the camps were liberated. She was a pickpocket before she met a soldier from New Jersey. They were married and she moved with him to the United States. But he was called back to service and killed in Korea. It was around this time that she discovered her diary had been published and she was more useful to the cause dead, as a martyr. 

Anne sees Dr. Arden in the common room and goes ballistic. Sister Jude sits her down and Anne tells her story. Before Bergen-Belsen, Anne was taken to Auschwitz. Dr. Arden was known as Hans Gruber then (don’t worry - I address this below.) He came across as kind, giving out sweets to the girls and promising to help them. He would flip a coin to decide who he would “help.” The girls who returned from his “clinic” were extremely ill and refused to speak of what happened to them.

Sister Jude believes this to the ramblings of a lunatic, until a couple detectives show up at Briarcliff to speak to Arden. The prostitute he roughed up went to the police, and one of the details she shared with them was that Arden had Nazi memorabilia in his home. However, the detectives are not there from vice; they are from homicide. It seems the cops are starting to think that Kit doesn’t have the knowledge or skill to skin and decapitate those women. But hearing about the Nazi memorabilia gives Sister Jude a crisis of conscience. She goes to the Monsignor with her concerns but he is more interested in chastising her about falling off the wagon. After Jude leaves, Monsignor calls Arden: “They are on to you. Take care of the housekeeping.”

Furious, Arden drags Anne into his lab, promising to show her what really goes on there. But she had lifted a pistol off one of the detectives, and now threatens him with it. Anne hears a thump from an adjoining room, and after shooting Arden in the leg, takes the key and opens it up. Inside she finds Shelly, wriggling on the floor, legless, with seeping boils covering her skin. “Kill me,” she begs.

Dr. Thredson doesn’t believe that Lana belongs in Briarcliff. He thinks if he can “cure” her lesbianism, he can get her released. Lana refuses at first, but then fantasizes about escaping and writing an award-winning expose on Briarcliff, so she decides to do whatever it takes. Dr. Thredson puts her through aversion/conversion therapy, which includes pumping her full of medicine that induces nausea and vomiting while looking at cheesecake photos (one of which is of Wendy); and then masturbating while looking at - then fondling - a man’s genitals. Try as she might, Lana simply “can’t get it up,” as it were, and continues to vomit as she touches the volunteer’s junk. Dr. Thredson doesn’t believe it is working; Lana wants to keep trying so she can get out. He comes to her later and tells her that he doesn’t believe this - or any - therapy can “help” Lana, but believes that she doesn’t belong here. He swears to bring her with him when he leaves in a week. In the meantime, he gives her Wendy’s photo to hold on to.

One of the guards walks into the bakery and finds Kit and Grace fucking on the prep table (how horribly unsanitary.) They are brought to Sister Jude, who believes caning is useless with them - she needs to sterilize them. For the time being, they are locked up in solitary. But after a visit with Dr. Thredson - who believes that Kit is neither crazy nor evil, just torn up with guilt - Kit starts to think that maybe he did kill those women, and was acting out of the shame society made him feel for marrying a black woman. He goes to Jude, tearfully begging for forgiveness. She is happy to help.

Dig It or Bury It?

I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again: Nazis are the perfect villains. The fucked-up Dr. Frankenstein Nazis are real-life monsters. Everything is more horrifying when they come into the picture. I was surprised that bringing “Anne Frank” into the story wasn’t as hokey as it could have been. I don’t necessarily believe that she is Anne Frank; she could just as easily be a Holocaust survivor who doesn’t know who she is, or can’t cope with being herself. But the whole story she tells is quite believable. 

Someone help me out here... because I thought Anne Frank called Dr. Arden “Hans Gruber.” But I thought, “No, that can’t be. That’s the bad guy from Die Hard.” I had to have misheard. Of all the German names in the world, the writers couldn’t come up with one that wasn’t already one of the biggest movie baddies of the last 30 years?

Patient History

We get Grace’s story tonight. She tells Kit that her stepsister Patsy, and her lover Ray conspired to kill her father and stepmother so that they could take over the family farm and would blame the murders on Grace. But this is not the whole truth. After Sister Eunice shows Kit Grace’s files, Grace finally admits the truth. She did kill her father and her stepmother. He had been raping her her entire life, and her stepmother pretty much said to suck it up and not tell anyone. According to flashbacks, Patsy walked in on Grace slaughtering her father, but no word on Patsy’s fate is mentioned. Kit is not disgusted by this; he admires Grace’s strength.

Bloody Face

Not a single moment spent in the present makes this best episode of the season, as far as I’m concerned.

Prophecies?

Sister Jude turns in Dr. Arden on suspicions of being a war criminal. So she does have a moral center!

After making two films with Darren Lynn Bousman and now, taking on the role of KillJoy in Machete Kills, it’s safe to say Alexa Vega has shaken her Spy Kids reputation. But if there was a doubt in anyone’s mind that the actress has grown up, this image from Machete Kills certainly puts an end to that.

It’s unclear what situation would call for chaps, a metal-plated bikini, AND a machine gun, but it can only be amazing.
 

Apart from Alexa, Machete Kill’s cast includes Danny Trejo and Michelle Rodriguez, with Sofia Vergara, Amber Heard, Charlie Sheen, Lady Gaga, Antonio Banderas, Jessica Alba, Demian Bichir, Vanessa Hudgens, Cuba Gooding Jr, William Sadler, Marko Zaror, and Mel Gibson.

via Vega's Twitter and Rolling Stone

If you’re like me, you probably spent a good chunk of your October revisiting a hell of a lot of horror films in prep for Halloween. Now, that’s not to say that I don’t watch horror flicks all year round, it’s just that the holidays tend to inspire me to break out some of the more obscure titles I own or just things that I haven’t seen in years. On this year’s queue for me were the Wishmaster movies. (They’ve made 4 if you’re counting, but I’m just talking about the first two for now.) Seeing them again recently reminded me just how much fun they are.

The first Wishmaster was presented by Wes Craven; it was one of the first films directed by Robert Kurtzman, the FX guru who made up one third of the Oscar winning team at KNB EFX Group, and it had a script penned by Peter Atkins who had written Hellraiser II: Hellbound and Hellraiser III: Hell On Earth. It featured a bevy of cameos from plenty of horror genre alumni including Robert Englund, Kane Hodder, Tony Todd & Ted Raimi. Angus Scrimm, the “tall man” himself from the Phantasm movies provided the narration. And even Verne Troyer (Mini-Mi!) played the Wishmaster briefly during his “re-birth” scene. The plot is fairly straight forward – an evil Djinn trapped in a red ruby stone is set free during a freak accident. His goal is to collect souls by granting wishes (most of which he cons his victims into making) until he can grant the 3 wishes to Alexandra, the person who initially set him free which will bring about his reign.

Wishmaster is a fun romp of a horror movie thanks to both the performance of Andrew Divoff who portrays the Djinn with such delightful glee, as well as the stand out FX extravaganza courtesy of director Robert Kurtzman. No surprise there considering his background. And ya know what? I actually really enjoy Wishmaster 2: Evil Never Dies a lot too, if not maybe a tiny bit more than the original! Sure the sequel doesn’t have nearly as many elaborate FX sequences, but it does have its fair share, plus we’ve got Divoff back and even more sinister than ever. In the sequel, the Djinn needs something like 800 souls, so what does he do? He gets arrested and goes to jail! Why? Because all the convicts in jail want something and they’re more than happy to give up their souls for it. The wishes in the 2nd one are a little more over the top (one criminal wishes for his lawyer to go **** himself, and the Djinn obliges!) but that’s what makes it a blast.

Here’s the good news faithful FEARnet followers. We’ve got both Wishmaster and Wishmaster 2: Evil Never Dies currently streaming on our website for free right now! So if you’ve been wanting to revisit these movies too, no excuses – here’s your chance. And if you’re staying in all weekend, our 3rd free movie this weekend is the original 80’s “slasher” cult classic Maniac! Happy watching, fiends!

Back Roads & Frontal Lobes reminded me a lot of a collection I read many years back, and I was reminded of that other book because of its utter uniqueness. Like the author of that book, there is no one else writing quite like Brady Allen. His stories are amalgamations of the classic weird tale, each containing something archetypal of the genre but each equally new. His is a voice you won’t find anywhere else, and that’s something truly special. His stories brim with originality and a sense of place as strong as anyone in the genre, including the author of that collection I was reminded of while reading Back Roads & Frontal Lobes.

The places and people in this collection are palpably real, as if Brady scooped them straight out of Southern Ohio and put them on paper. The people are fully realized and so much a part of their environment that one cannot exist without the other. Stories like Slow Mary or The Ballad of Mac Johnstone could have stood with the best of the Twilight Zone. One can almost picture Serling introducing each. Others like Not Over Easy and Burger offer something a little rougher around the edges and full of an existential angst that you’d expect from Thomas Ligotti, but Ligotti could not have written these. They are too immediate for him.

Others, like Bear Hogan Walks the Sky, offer something entirely new to the genre and are almost unclassifiable—another reason for my comparison to the author of that collection I haven’t yet named. But the star of the collection is Back Roads and Frontal Lobes, which combines Brady’s sense of place and yet displacement, his great characterization, a plot that is almost a genre unto itself, and an existential question worth exploring. It, like most of the stories in this collection, is not simply a horror story to read and toss off after you’ve finished. Brady’s stories give you something to think about, some serious question or idea to ponder—the way the best always do.

Back Roads & Frontal Lobes is a first collection from an important new force in horror literature, as was the collection I still haven’t named. It gives voice to a people and an area that hasn’t been represented—or at least not as fully as Brady does it here. Like Joe R. Lansdale in By Bizarre Hands, Brady is creating something entirely unique in horror literature, while giving voice to an area that is both real and almost mythical in the writing. What Lansdale did for East Texas, Brady is doing for Southern Ohio, and what Lansdale did for horror, Brady is doing again. This is a collection not to be missed. Highly recommended.

Back Roads & Frontal Lobes
by Brady Allen
Post Mortem Press
ISBN: 978-0615698397
$16.00 Trade Paperback
$4.99 Kindle Edition

 

I’m strangely protective of Silent Hill.  Its use of symbolism and deeper psychological themes struck a chord with me, so much so that seeing developers try and emulate it without understanding it makes me genuinely angry at their products, a set of disingenuous replications without the charred soul of the original trilogy.  There is more to Silent Hill than Pyramid Head turning up like the proverbial bad penny.

It was this protectiveness that put me on edge when I first booted up Silent Hill: Book of Memories, the second portable attempt at the series (the first being Silent Hill Origins on the PSP) on the Playstation Vita.  Not only had developer Wayforward populated their take on the series with a bestiary of familiar faces (don’t make me get into why I think this is asinine, I’ve covered it already), they even reduced the game to a Diablo-style dungeon crawler.  Even more upsetting is the lack of a solid character, replaced by a customizable avatar that fits neatly into one of several adolescent archetypes; who needs to be a tortured soul like James Sunderland or Heather Mason when you can be “Jock,” “Goth,” or “Rocker?”

Even the game’s story doesn’t particularly fit the mold of Silent Hill, centering on the titular Book of Memories, a mystical tome that details all of the life events of your character.  You decide to start editing the pages, and your high school homunculus is whisked off to Silent Hill to do battle in a series of quadrangular dungeons while exploring the past traumas of a handful of random characters.  Even these traumatic pasts are more soap opera than Silent Hill, with these thinly developed people facing the harrowing horrors of losing a job or liking a boy…terrifying.

At this point, if I was feeling particularly obnoxious, I would make a crack about wishing I had my own Book of Memories so that I could erase my experience with this game from my past…except, despite the awful story, white bread characters, and complete butchery of the Silent Hill mythos, Silent Hill: Book of Memories plays really, really well.

It’s not going to blow you away with revolutionary gameplay, but its soft RPG elements and isometric action are surprisingly addictive.  Each level can be breezed through in less than a half hour, making it the perfect portable title for when you’re trapped in waiting-room purgatory. 

The combat is fast and breezy, based primarily on competent melee combat (and less competent gunplay) with the world’s fastest deterioration rate on its weapons.  There’s a rudimentary RPG experience system in play as well, and there are level-ending puzzles based upon gathering puzzle pieces from blue orbs scattered around the map.  These orbs distribute random missions (99% of which are based upon killing all of the enemies lurching your way) and the puzzles built almost exclusively on sorting tchotchkes based off poems that you find on each level.  It’s not a particularly deep or even engaging setup, but there’s a certain je ne said quoi that kept me coming back for its simple pleasures.  It’s a conflicting feeling overall: it’s a fun portable game, just a terrible Silent Hill game

It's been a long, hard-fought battle, but World War Z is almost here. Brad Pitt stars in what will be the most mainstream zombie film ever. He plays a U.N. researcher determined to uncover the origins of a rampant zombie outbreak. The $180 million film reportedly ran into numerous problems, including an exploding budget, conflicts between producer/star Pitt and director Marc Forster, a script that went through a number of massive rewrites, and changing release dates.

Well, here it is: the trailer. Once the trailer is out, there's no turning back, right? Right? We should see World War Z in theaters this summer and if it does well enough, we could be looking at a new trilogy.

Today is author Bram Stoker’s birthday. The man who wrote Dracula would be 165 years old today, if he had the same affliction he gave his most famous character. In honor of Stoker’s birthday, we’ve found some of the best spoofs, parodies, and satires on Dracula. Because dammit, birthdays should be fun! 

Count Duckula

A favorite cartoon of mine growing up, Count Duckula was a duck version of Dracula. Every now and again, he would die, but could be resurrected once a century. The most recent resurrection didn’t go according to plan. Instead of blood, ketchup was used. Thus, this incarnation of Duckula was a vegetarian who was more interested in becoming a star than in starting blood wards.

Dracula: Dead and Loving It

As a sort of “follow-up” to the wildly successful Young Frankenstein, Mel Brooks decided to tackle the other most famous literary monster. Leslie Nielsen starred as Dracula, Peter MacNichol (Ghostbusters II) as Renfield, Steven Weber (The Shining) as Jonathan, and Amy Yasbeck (House II) as Mina.

Forgetting Sarah Marshall

In this comedy starring Kristen Bell and Russell Brand, Jason Segal plays Peter, a songwriter who is devastated over his breakup with long-time girlfriend (you guessed it) Sarah Marshall. He goes on vacation, sees her there, finds new love, blah blah blah. The part we care about is the realization of Peter’s dream: to write and score a musical Dracula tale with puppets.

Robot Chicken

Dracula + 24 + terrible puns = Robot Chicken.

Andy Warhol’s Dracula (aka Blood for Dracula)

Wait, this isn’t supposed to be a spoof? Did you watch this trailer? Dracula must drink the blood of virgins to stay alive - drinking the blood of non-virgins weakens him. Sounds like comedy to me.

Warm Bodies is the newest addition to the ever-growing genre of Zomromcoms. That's zombie romantic comedies.

When zombies re-animate do they keep their human characteristics including feelings of love, longing, and awkwardness?

Writer and director Jonathan Levine, known for his work on 50/50 and The Wackness, tackles these questions in this tender and brainy undead love story of zombie R who falls for a warm-blooded lady. Adapted from Isaac Marion’s book, Warm Bodies stars Nicholas Hoult, Teresa Palmer, Rob Corddry and john Malkovich. The film will be released February 1, 2013, just in time for Valentine’s Day. Watch the trailer.

Remember Operation? That game where you had to remove tiny little bones and debris from a guy with a suspiciously red nose, and if you fail, you and your patient are electrocuted. Operation is back, with a Nightmare Before Christmas spin. Ooogie Boogie is your patient, and you must remove "crawling flesh," "spider veins," "snake eyes" and more.

$21.40 at Amazon.com

It’s no secret that making a horror movie in Hollywood is a tough business. Getting your screenplay noticed is just the beginning of the story.

But not to worry, here’s an easy-to-navigate breakdown of the process, courtesy of the French premium channel Canal+. While it may be a very simplified look at the loads of work involved, and a curious example of a horror movie—this one includes a female killer, “indian” ghosts (we’ll forgive them for not using the correct term, they’re French) and 49 spiders—it does give you an idea of the many moving parts involved in movie making. Check it out.
 

Browse more data visualization.

The Weinstein Company is eyeing Ashley Greene (Twilight) for their upcoming horror flick, Satanic, directed by Oliver Blackburn (Donkey Punch.) 

Described as being in the vein of Rosemary's Baby, Satanic"follows a group of college students who are attacked in their dormitory over Thanksgiving break. One girl must lead her friends on a mission of survival and discover the identity of their mysterious attackers." I don't know which Rosemary's Baby they are referring to, but it sure as hell doesn't sound like Roman Polanski's classic. Satanic was initially going by the title Kristy. Filming is expected to take place in New Orleans in November and December.

Source: The Wrap

John Carpenter’s They Live has been in need of a quality Blu-ray release for ages now and it looks like fans finally have one in the form of Shout! Factory’s Collector’s Edition Blu-ray that hit stores this past Tuesday. One of the director’s finest films, They Live gets the royal treatment with an audio commentary, a new interview with Carpenter, and a fantastic transfer that helps the film look better than it ever has before. Starring “Rowdy” Roddy Piper and Keith David, Carpenter’s social satire and thriller is a perfectly timed release hot on the heels of the recent presidential election here in the US.

With Shout! Factory’s Collector’s Edition Blu-ray of They Live hitting stores this week, FEARnet sat down with actor Keith David to discuss working with John Carpenter, buffing up to fight Roddy Piper, and the desire to keep working.

What is it like to see so much continued adoration for this film that you’ve made so long ago?

Of course it’s thrilling. You do something and you hope people see it. You hope people like it. And then what do you do with it? It’s not in my immediate consciousness that it’s going to resonate in your life years later, but when that does happen (if that does happen) that’s a wonderful thing. It’s a gift! I’m very grateful for that.

You’ve worked with John Carpenter a number of times on The Thing and They Live. How was it working with him on this film in particular?

It was particularly great working on They Live because he called me up and said, “I wrote this part for you and if you like it, it’s yours.” And I can count on the fingers of one hand how many times someone has said that to me. So that was a wonderful thing. Again, it was a gift.

What was your relationship like with “Rowdy” Roddy Piper?

Roddy and I have become good friends. The thing about good friendship is – and especially when you have a nice bond when you’re working – that it’s like going to school with somebody; you may not seem them for years at a time, but once you see each other it’s like no time has elapsed. You just pick up where you left off and that’s how it is with Roddy and I.

So you guys are still friends to this day even.

Yes we are. Every once in a while we get to sign autographs together.

Did it feel like you were working with this “pro wrestler” or did he have the acting thing down from day one?

I don’t know what you mean by “that acting thing,” but we worked well together. He’s pound-for-pound one of the strongest men I’ve ever been around. When we had to fight a few times he had to lift me up and I was like a feather in his hands. He guided me very well and helped me through that. I thought that he made a very nice transition into acting. He handed the job as an actor and I appreciated that. He was hungry to do that and he did it.

You were really well built for this role. Did they ask you to buff up and make you get in shape for this or was that your “fighting weight” so to speak?

No, I mean, I knew it was coming so I worked out and did what I had to do. Plus, I was going to be working with Roddy Piper, man! (Laughs)

Did you have to do any specific training for that fight scene or was it something more organic since it was a street fight?

No fight that you ever see in any movie is just organic. We make it look organic because that’s what we do. That’s what we’re supposed to do. And especially when it’s a spontaneous fight, such as it was. But that’s just good acting. I mean, that’s what we do. When you see something like that on stage or on film, it’s very well choreographed, and it’s up to us to fill in the blanks of it so that it doesn’t look like a dance.

You have this amazing badass persona in this film, and in many of your other films, but you also have this really infectious smile and iconic voice. How do you tend to walk that line between badass and totally likable character?

Nobody is just one thing. I mean, John Gotti had to smile every once in a while. Tony Soprano, in between killings, was a nice guy. You try to flesh out a full human being so we have all those different qualities. It depends on the story how much of those qualities come out.

What do you feel this voice has done for you over your career? You’ve obviously gotten some great voice acting with it, but is this just something that you’re born with or do you really need to nurture it into being?

What do you think? (Laughs) I mean, I have the voice that God gave me and I’ve worked on my voice every year of my life. I continue working on my voice. I’m also a singer so I’m always studying and trying to improve. I went to school. I’m a classically trained actor and I’m also a speech teacher. Those are the things you do as actors. I am blessed to have the voice that I have, but I’ve also worked years of my life trying to use it and improve it.

Did you ever imagine when you started out acting that you’d become this action hero or is that just kind of how the chips fell?

That’s just how the chips fell. I knew I wanted to be an actor my whole life and wherever the chips would fall, I’ve been lucky.

I have to mention your role as Big Tim in Requiem for a Dream as well. It’s a small moment in the film, but it’s a hugely important role. How did you prepare to do something so dark?

KD: I read some of the book and kind of scoped him out like that. I just got my clues from the author.

You’ve been in so many films and so many TV shows, most recently in Cloud Atlas. You seem to always be working. What’s it like to stay so busy for all these years? Was that your goal all along, to just keep working all the time?

I just like to work. It’s funny though because I ran into somebody the other day and they said, “Oh, are you still acting?” (Laughs) It’s great that you think I’m working all the time, but I am working all the time. We do have downtimes in between projects but, you know, God is good every day and it seems, most weeks, I have some work in some capacity in some genre.

Speaking of working all the time, what do you have coming up?

I have a movie opening on November 9 called Christmas in Compton. I play Big Earl who is the owner of a Christmas tree lot during the Christmas season. I’m like the nurturer of the neighborhood who looks after the kids and encourages them. It’s a story about tough love between a father and a son, which we both have to learn about sometimes. Sometimes you can love too hard. You have to lighten up a little bit to let your children grow. I also have another movie coming out called The Last Fall so check that out as well.

You can see Keith David as “Frank” in They Live on the brand new Collector’s Edition Blu-ray & DVD in stores now. Christmas in Compton hit theaters on November 9.