Bruce Campbell, dressed to impress in a swanky in a red blazer (“Well you know, it’s the New York City Comic Con"), was on hand to debut a first look at the Evil Dead remake this afternoon at NYCC. Campbell is producing the film along with director Sam Raimi. Newcomer Fede Alvarez is directing.

He told FEARnet that the remake has very little to do with Raimi's original, he won’t be making a cameo in the movie, and everyone’s favorite demon, Henrietta, won’t be showing her ugly face either. (Although the first image shown here looks quite a bit like Henrietta.) He also showed off the 97 pictures of Evil Dead tattoos he’s collected on his iphone. They are seriously amazing.

Here’s the scoop we got from Mr. Campbell about Evil Dead and what fans can expect:

This has been in the works for a while, but originally most people were thinking it was going to be a sequel.

This is a little more out of left field. It’s Fede Alvarez’s version of the story, it’s very faithful to certain elements of it. It’s faithful in tone, that it’s not a comedy. It’s not splatstick like Evil Dead 2 or Army of Darkness. They get a little lighter. Army of Darkness is just like an adventure movie with some chaos. This is a return to serious horror and not torture porn. Because I’m sick of that. It’s lazy filmmaking.

Fede really made this his own. Sam Raimi picked him essentially, so, he has the blessing of Sam Raimi. So, that’s what we hope fans get behind. We’re all behind it, we’re all involved, very involved through casting, the editing the whole spiel. We’re very concerned for the child.

What do you like about Fede as a director?

He’s stubborn. Yeah, good directors are usually stubborn. He’s like I want what I want. Fortunately what he wants is quality, he wants things to make sense. The movie is outrageous and yet subtle at the same time. It’s kind of hard to say. He hits you in the face in a completely different way. I don’t even know how to describe it. I just want people to see it because it’s absolutely going to freak their shit. He’s not just a guys throwing blood in your face, he’s making you feel when it’s happening.

Do you think fans are clamoring for a “serious” horror movie?

I think so, but the pendulum swings. They’ll get sick of this too. “Ugh. Horror movies are so serious.” The something goofy will start a new trend. It’s like politics.

So, one of the changes to this “remake” is a female lead what are some other updates we can look forward to?

The beauty of it is, we’re not comparing any characters. There’s no Shelly, Ash, there’s none of those people. There’s just five new characters you can get to know and you know, it’s sort of a co-lead with Shiloh Fernandez and Jane Levy. They play brother and sister and they have a very dynamic relationship throughout the movie.  Fede came up with a very different reason why they’re at the cabin in the first place. She’s trying to clean up, so, it’s like an intervention with carnage and mayhem. She’ll be back at the family cabin and this will be good, with friends. One of the characters is a nurse. She’ll take care of her. This should work out fine. What could possibly go wrong?

Was there anything from the original you felt absolutely have to be included in the film?

We didn’t want to tie Fede’s hands. There were elements we had suggested, some which he accepted and some which he rejected.

Can you give an example?

I shouldn’t, because it’s filmmaker talk. It’s like CIA stuff.

Looking back on the work you did with The Evil Dead and Army of Darkness, is there anything you would change in the roles you played?

Oh well, you know, the first Evil Dead everyone was just sort of learning how to act. You got it chronologically so you can see how we all sort of got our shit together as the movie went on. It’s stuff like that, but why take it back? I wouldn’t go back like certain filmmakers and fix their movies and fix their bad special effects. That’s part of the historical marker. It’s ok that in Evil Dead you can see the green garden hose that spews the blood. We did they best we could at the time with what we had ... which was jack shit.

This movie will take those same aspects, but you’re not going to see the garden hose. You’re going to see really decent mostly make-up effects. It’s not digital explosion. Digitally we are doing stuff to just be tricky.

Some of the fans of the original were a little unsure about this.

Oh a first they were violent, they were angry. I think they’ve actually mellowed, they’ve turned the corner, I get a sense. I appreciate their zeal. Right we shouldn’t screw it up. There’s a new Ash in Jane Levy. She carried that mantle strong and proud. She kicked some severe ass.

What about Henrietta?

There’s no Henrietta.  

R.I.P Henrietta. We can’t wait to see who, or what, will take your place. Evil Dead is out April 2013.

For Jane Levy,  who was recently dubbed the “new Ash” by Bruce Campbell, Evil Dead is a survival story, both on and off the screen. The actress told FEARnet she got seriously messed up while playing leading lady Mia.

“Physically it’s the hardest fucking thing I ever did in my life. It hurt. It hurt your heart, it hurt your body. I was tortured, really. Psychologically and physically. For four months straight,”  she said.”

Levy elaborated on the physical aspects of the torture. Boy, did she elaborate.

“I was buried alive. I was put in a coffin under the ground, covered in dirt and left by myself. I was in five hours of prosthetics a majority of the film. 90 percent of the film I was soaking wet. It was the middle of winter and we’re shooting outside. There was so much blood in the movie I got an ear infection that a doctor told me was the worst infection he had ever seen. I couldn’t hear for three weeks from the blood stuck in my ear. I’ve been cleaning my ears since we filmed and there’s still red on my Q-tip. For two-and-a-half months. That’s not even an exaggeration, it’s still coming out of my brain. I had tubes stuck down my throat so I could vomit on people. I had plastic bags tied around my head and I had to have an oxygen tube so I wouldn’t suffocate.”

When asked if after all that she would be willing to go back for more Levy confirmed that plans for sequels are afoot.

“I am contracted to do two more movies and now that I know what it was like I will be able to do the second one much better and be prepared ... I can’t describe what it does to you when you are on top of somebody covering them with vomit. It just feels so wrong!” she said.

Levy hasn’t seen the movie yet, except for a small clip, but she said fans won’t be disappointed. “One thing I can say about what I’ve seen is it’s beautiful looking. Fede made an awesome looking movie.”

After the Evil Dead movies are done, Levy has no plans to continue in the genre. “I just don’t want to be tortured at work anymore,” she said.

There’s more than a little pressure on director Fede Alvarez. Not only is he making his first feature length with two of the biggest legends in the horror business, Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell, but he’s remaking one of horror’s most precious films, Evil Dead.

“I watched it when I was twelve and it was one of the movies that traumatized me the most. You’re not supposed to watch that,” Alvarez said.

In his opinion the most visually shocking part was the rape.

“When you’re 12 you go, ‘Oh mama, what’s going on?’ You  barely know what that is and the worst part is, it seems like she’s enjoying it. So, I got everything upside down.

Honestly, that was shocking, but the thing that really scared me back then was the idea of going with your loved ones to some place isolated from society. You go with your best friends and family and they all turn against you and they want to kill you. It is a very, very scary feeling … that feeling of being lonely and hopeless and everyone’s against me. When I was a kid that hit me very hard. Oh my god, he’s alone and helpless. That’s exactly what our movie’s about,” he said.

His take on the story has a female lead, played by Jane Levy, but despite the change in sexes, it draws thematically from The Evil Dead.

“I wouldn’t call Jane the female Ash,” he said. “Not at all; it’s a completely different story. The way the story evolved is different, but the themes are the same … The original one is a lot about women driving men crazy. Most horror movies are the other way around, a girl running  and a guy with an axe chasing her and the lead is a girl. Evil Dead, if you think about big horror movies, is one of the few where the protagonist is a man. And we kept all of that. You have to see the movie, the men are still terrorized and traumatized by women. Attacked and brutalized on every level.”

Alvarez said that though Raimi directed the original, he and Campbell were hugely supportive of the new vision and gave him almost complete control over the process.

“They really gave me all the freedom any director could want ... It was all about do it, yes, go for it. So, we made a movie that was very different from the everyday remake a studio makes.”

That freedom included using practical effects almost exclusively and creating several new tools to make those effects look as real as possible.

“All the effects are 100% practical. We didn’t do any CGI. Everything you’re going to watch - all the gore and the horror - everything you’re going to see is real.

We investigated a lot of magic tricks and how magicians play illusions. We approached most of the things like that. We created new techniques … We didn’t want to create anything that was fake. You’re never going to see anything in the movie that is not real. We did a mix of real illusions and when we had to do some effect it’s very old school. It’s more about deleting things, which is way different than creating a CG creature … There’s never going to be something in front of your eyes in the movie that you’re like, ‘Ah that’s fake,’” he said.

As for the ongoing debate about a possible Bruce Campbell cameo in Evil Dead, Alvarez was uncertain. It’s really a case of he said, he said, but it should be noted that his answer is definitely different than Campbell’s “no.”

“They’re saying many things but I definitely want him to be in it. It’s not because of me. That’s still a thing that remains to be seen,” Alvarez said.

Fringe Episode 503
“The Recordist”
Written By: Graham Roland
Directed By: Jeff T. Thomas
Original Airdate: 12 October 2012

In This Episode...

Astrid digs the first tape out of the amber - which is actually tape three. No one is really surprised that Walter would hide them out of order. The tape is a little warped, but they get coordinates that send them out to rural Pennsylvania. In the middle of nowhere, they are “captured” by tree people - humans who live in the forest and have a creeping bark-like fungus on their skin. Walter, Olivia, Peter, and Etta are brought to the tree people’s encampment, where the “leader,” Edwin, recognizes Walter.

This encampment is where the history lives. When the invasion started, Edwin and a clan of followers headed into the forest to live off the grid and record every major event since - all on super high-tech glowy cubes. Fringe Division has become a modern legend. Astrid, back at the lab, finally gets more info off the tape, and calls to tell them to look for a mine. There is a goldmine nearby, and at the bottom of a pit in the mine the group drags up a corpse, covered in the bark fungus - like, head-to-toe. Walter determines that the source of the infection is coming from within the mine - specifically, the pit in the center. Edwin remembers that a few weeks after invasion, a man came and took a bunch of reddish rocks from the mine, saying he was supposed to meet a scientist.

So Walter - or someone - needs to go into that pit and drag up about 40lbs. of quartz from the mine. To do that, he needs to build a special suit - and to do that, he needs copper. Complicating things further, Etta gets a message from an inside source - the Observers are tracking them. Edwin begrudgingly organizes a meet with a nearby camp, who will trade copper for solar energy blueprints. Fringe team heads to the spot Edwin marked on the map, but finds no camp. Frustrated, they return to Edwin’s camp. Edwin isn’t there, but an old man has a message for Walter. The other camp had no copper, so Edwin went into the pit himself and loaded up a bucket with quartz. The old man hauled it up, and Edwin remained in the pit, super-dead. Fringe heads out - but the military stops them. At least, the military thinks they stop them. A mountain man found their van abandoned in the woods. Peter, Olivia, Walter, and Etta have instead found an ancient wood-paneled station wagon - their second chance at a real family.

Dig It or Bury It?

A treasure hunt? What are we, a bunch of drunk frat boys? It wasn’t terrible, it was just a little uneventful. Apparently the quartz is to be used as part of an energy device, and this specific quartz is the only thing powerful enough. So are they going to rebuild the “doomsday” device that opened up the other universe? That has to be the key to driving out the Observers.

Walter Babble

Astrid calls Walter telling him that they are there for material in a mine. He thinks she says “mime” and makes some terrible Marcel Marceau jokes. “Mine! Mine!” she should at him. “M-I-N-E.” So Walter asks Edwin, “Do you have a mine M-I-N-E here?”

Prophecies?

Broyles is back! But is he the Broyles we know and love?

Screenwriter Dave Kajganich is a busy man. Not only is he writing remakes for Stephen King’s Pet Sematary, It, and The Stand, but he’s been hired to pen the update to Universal’s Creature from the Black Lagoon.

Kajganich got his start working on The Invasion, the 2007 re-imagining of the classic Invasion of the Body Snatchers. He also wrote the Joel Schumacher-directed Blood Creek.

No word yet on who will be directing Creature, but THR reports that early rumors of Carl Rinsch are untrue.

Creature from the Black Lagoon was just released as part of Universal Classic Monsters eight-disc set on blu-ray. Creature, starring Richard Carlson and Julie Adams, opened in 1954 in 3-D. Watch the “Shocking in the stark realism of Perfected 3 dimension!” trailer below.



via The Hollywood Reporter

Wanna add this one to your Halloween Mad Monster Party mega-mix? Well, we can help you out there... use the widget below to download an mp3 of "The Corpse Grinders" for free!

Zombie king George Romero spoke to Twitch from The Lund IFFF and divulged some exciting news for zombie and comic fans.

“I am also writing a comic for Marvel. I'm writing it now, but it's plot is a secret,” he told Twitch.

When pushed, the director had a few more details.

“Well I can tell you it won't involve any of their on-going characters, there will be no superheroes. But it will involve zombies!” he said.

Pretty cool. He is also adapting a novel into a screenplay and working on an original story.

“I am in fact adapting a novel right now, and it is a zombie novel, but it's not my kind of zombies. It's a novel called The Zombie Autopsies written by a Harvard medical doctor. It's a wonderful book and I'm having a wonderful time adapting it into a screenplay. I am also working on an original story, which I guess if I had to categorize it, I would say it's a psychological thriller. it's....mmm, Psycho like? But it's not really. I don't know how to tell you anything more without giving it away. But in reality I don't actually know for sure what the next one is going to be. It often comes up out of the blue. You just don't know which one the money is going to come through for,” he said.

Romero hasn’t penned an original feature-length film since 2009’s Survival of the Dead.

via Twitch Film

Alamo Drafthouse's Mondo Gallery is running a special Halloween show, celebrating the classic Universal Monsters. Running from October 19th to November 10th, the show will feature works from Drew Struzan, Laurent Durieux, Francesco Francavilla, Kevin Tong, Bruce White, ScarecrowOven, Rick Baker, GhostPatrol, Ken Taylor, and many more. Below, we've got a sample of the artwork that awaits you.

Director Kimberly Peirce may seem like a strange pick to direct Carrie, but she’s no stranger to telling stories of physical and emotional torture.  Her film Boys Don’t Cry deals with particularly shocking and brutal subject matter and imagery.

Peirce’s version of Carrie promises to be very faithful to Stephen King’s book, more so than the Brian DePalma's which took some liberties with character names, story and most notably, the ending. Peirce assures fans that any additions or updates make sense within the framework of the story and for the characters. She focusses quite a bit on Carrie’s relationship with her obsessive mother Margaret White and uber-bully Chris, bringing in new levels of torment to these specific plotlines.

“ … there's Chris, which I really tried to amplify,” Peirce told FEARnet at New York Comic Con. “ Not only does Chris feel OK that she did this to Carrie, as people take up Carrie's cause—the gym teacher and Sue—it aggravates Chris and it drives Chris to higher and higher levels of destruction.”

As fans familiar with the story know, Chris gets her comeuppance in a majorly bloody way. Peirce spilled a few details about those final, devastating minutes at the prom and for Chris.

“ … what happens to people at the prom, again while maintaining sympathy for Carrie, has a level of gruesomeness. I think Chris's death is something I'm very proud of.  It's a whole new section I wrote in there. It's based on the book, but I kind of took it farther because what I love is Carrie thinks that Chris is her antagonist, and Chris is her antagonist in many ways. Chris sets up the whole humiliation and Carrie—and this is in the book—she kills Chris. But I really kind of beated that out and helped enjoy it,” she said.

“ I am really proud of Chris's demise, Very proud. Let's just say it has a car, it has a window, it has some TK stuff in it, it's pretty exciting. But then what I love about the story is at the end, Carrie thinks Chris is the antagonist but like good classic movies, it's somebody else. It's the laying in wait moment.”

There will also be a new twist to Julianne Moore’s version of the bible-thumping, control freak Margaret White’s.

“I definitely think Margaret's relationship with herself is going to cause some chills. It was a wonderful thing that Julianne really believes strongly in: That this is how this woman would deal with herself. There's a level of self-abuse that Margaret enjoys, that we all love, and I scream with laughter because I love it.” Peirce said.

Some of the SFX used in the gym scene is based on images of contorted body parts and broken bones, but Peirce was unable to give specifics about what that will mean visually.

“That I can't talk about because we're still doing it right now, but I can say the effort was to show you something you haven't seen before and to show you her powers have an impact that's unusual and classic horror,” she said.

Carrie is set for release on March 15, 2013. Watch a recap of the panel at New York Comic Con.
 

I caught the first Grave Encounters at the end of a mini-marathon of rather terrible indie horror films, so once I realized I liked the movie, I was rather enthusiastic about it. Written and directed by Colin Minihan and Stuart Ortiz (aka The Vicious Brothers), Grave Encounters didn't re-invent any wheels, but it did prove to me (and several other people) that "found footage" horror could continue to hold some mystique outside of The Blair Witch Project, [REC], and Paranormal Activity. The combination of found footage indie horror mixed with one of those innumerable "ghost hunter" series simply worked for me, and I admired the filmmakers for keeping things simple, straightforward, and kinda spooky.

Miss New York Comic-Con? We've got you covered. The two most eagerly anticipated panels at this year's NYCC were the Carrie panel with stars Chloe Moretz and Julianne Moore and director Kimberly Peirce; and the Evil Dead panel with star Jane Levy, director Fede Alvarez, and legend Bruce Campbell. Well, we've got both panels for you in their entirety - cut up into bite-sized morsels. Enjoy!

If there’s a young actress out there who may be able to fill Sissy Spacek’s crazy-ass shoes in Carrie, it’s Chloe Moretz. The 15-year-old has already played a psychotic child superhero and a deadly tween vampire and anyone who has seen her in these roles knows she is great talent. The actress told FEARnet she knew she was perfect for the role the minute she saw the script for Kimberly Peirce’s remake.

“I just don’t want to play a happy-go-lucky young girl who has a great life because that’s who I am,” she said. “It’s fun to be something that you’re not and really express feelings that you’re not allowed to express … I read the script and I was like, I know there’s no one else who can do this. I have to do this … From the beginning to the end of this movie, it’s something that you’ve never seen from me.”

When asked about how the gory aspects of Carrie compare to the bloodletting in Let Me In, Moretz said that it’s just a small part of the overall film.

“I honestly think Let Me In was scarier. I think that’s a bit more thriller horror. What’s special about our movie is that aspect of it is such a small aspect of it. The biggest part of it is the relationship between Julianne and I, and this beautiful love relationship between mother and daughter. How it’s this terrifyingly abusive relationship, but at the same time, even with the abuser, who is the Margaret character, you still feel for her. You still say, I understand where she’s coming from. It may be horrible, and completely insane, but you still feel so much for her,” Moretz said.

OK, but let's not forget there’s that whole bucket of blood scene in the gymnasium at the prom. Moretz told FEARnet that while filming, it was weird how she became totally used to coming home in covered in blood.

“From the moment we did the prom blood, from then on until the end of the movie, I was in full blood every single day with blood, water, mud, fire, everything. It was a lot of fun but it was a very emotionally pushing experience.”

While the blood might have been uncomfortable, filming Carrie's telekinesis was one of the bigger challenges for Moretz.

“That was a really hard part of the story to figure out, without being gimmicky, without going ‘Rahhh’ like X-Men style and without being superpowery, what it would mean to have those powers. And we kind of did it as an extension of your hand. What looks coolest obviously goes into it, but also what is natural for you as the actor.”

As to the balancing the destructive aspects of Carrie’s rage with the sweeter aspects of her personality, Moretz said Carrie is completely replaced by her telekinesis when the destruction begins.

“She’s taken over. That’s how I came to a conclusion of why she does that. She gets taken over. Imagine everything that’s happened to you ... Every time something tells you no, you’re bad … You pin it all up and it overflows and you keep just compacting it down, and then one more thing happens on the happiest day of your life, when you are the happiest person you could ever imagine, and then someone brings your whole world down. It just flips open and overflows. It’s not even you. That’s the TK and the TK completely takes her over and she’s not who she is.”
 

It must be Carrie White day here on FEARnet. Earlier today we brought you a first look at the new Carrie poster showing off a very bloody Chloe Moretz, video footage of the Carrie panel from NY Comic-Con, our exclusive interview with Chloe Moretz on balancing the sick and sweet and our chat with Carrie director Kimberly Peirce. But now, we have the icing on the cake with the first Carrie teaser trailer. The film stars Chloe Moretz as Carrie and Julianne Moore as Margaret White. Carrie is due out March of 2013.

Face Off Episode 309
“Junkyard Cyborg”
Original Airdate: 16 October 2012

In This Episode...

The contestants are taken to a junkyard and asked to pick out objects to use in their makeups for this week’s challenge: cyborgs. Gale Anne Hurd is the guest judge tonight.

The Creations

From the get-go, Laura couldn’t decide on a concept. She started with a super soldier, then changed her mind and decided on a dark future where people got mechanical implants like tattoos - as art. In the end, she couldn’t decide and smushed both concepts together to create a hodge-podge of bits and pieces. Neville said it best: he said it looked like she dipped her model in glue, then had him roll around in a junkyard.

Roy’s creation was flat for this go-getter. The military created this device to heal wounded soldiers, but it had the unintended effect of reanimating dead flesh, turning the soldiers into zombies. As with most of Roy’s projects, he focuses on fabrications and all but ignores the sculpts and makeups. Ve and Neville thought it looked cool even still.

Sarah was totally clueless. She decided she really liked some wires she found, and made a character who was in a coma for ages and when she wakes up, is freaked out and starts tearing her tech out. Gale says it is not fully realized, and Glenn doesn’t like that the bits and pieces dont’ actually appear to be coming out of the skin - just sitting on top.

Nicole’s project was my favorite. She went with a cyborg princess, which was a different direction than the beefy cyborgs on stage with her. The judges gave it rave reviews: Ve felt it was camera-ready; Glenn thought it was the best Nicole has done in this competition, and Gale wants to take it to Comic Con and write a story this character.

Derek’s creation was a burly Iron Man-type with glowing energy sources and a full fae mask. Glenn thought he had the most clever use of found objects; Neville thought it had an iconic look that could be a toy; and Gale could see it in her films.

The Verdict

Nicole wins; Sarah goes home. No surprises here.

Dig It or Bury It?

Cyborgs are cool, but the junkyard shopping trip seemed unnecessary. I would have liked to see a cyborg mashup or something like that - something with a touch more direction than “cyborg.” I’m glad Sarah is gone. She keeps complaining that she doesn’t know this movie or that movie because she was raised as a Mennonite. Guess what? You’re a grown-up now - you can watch whatever you damn well please.

Prophecies?

The contestants must create a creature possible of creating a gruesome crime scene.

Drew Struzan is the artist behind some of the most memorable movie posters ever created, including Blade Runner, Star Wars, Indiana Jones, and my personal favorite, Big Trouble in Little China. Now he’s adding images of Universal Monsters to his iconic portfolio for Mondo’s upcoming exhibit, opening October 19.

Struzan told Hero Complex that 1931’s Frankenstein is one of his favorite films and he welcomes a chance to re-imagine the Universal characters. He’s created seven new pieces for the show, including Frankenstein, the Mummy, the Wolf Man, Dracula, the Creature from the Black Lagoon, the Bride of Frankenstein and the Phantom of the Opera.

“They’re all very close friends of mine,” Struzan said of the mythic creatures. “Frankenstein was a man who found himself in a terrible situation — cut to many pieces and who am I and what am I doing? And Dracula, this creature of the night that lives on blood – life is in the blood and he can’t come out in the light. It’s so metaphoric of the bad side of humanity. All of them were so wonderful in that way, which makes them so classic.”

Check out a few of them below and head over to Hero Complex to see more from Mondo’s collection. The Universal Monsters Mondo Gallery runs 7-10 p.m., October 19 through November 10.
 

It is a hot August day in Shreveport, Louisiana - not Texas - on the set of Texas Chainsaw 3D. The “set” is a huge barren field on an unused portion of an Army base, and for good reason: in the field is an exact replica of the Sawyer house from Tobe Hooper’s seminal horror film, Texas Chainsaw Massacre. It was something special, to walk that dusty road up to the house that chilled me as a child.

Texas Chainsaw 3D (at the time, they were calling it Leatherface 3D) opens where Hooper’s film ended - hence the replica farmhouse. But it jumps forward to modern day, to follow a young woman named Heather (Alexandra Daddario) who goes to collect an inheritance from a relative she didn’t know she had, and discovers she has a deep family history with the notorious Sawyer clan. We spoke with the cast and crew about this new entry into the Texas Chainsaw franchise - including some familiar faces.

On resurrecting the Texas Chainsaw franchise:

John Lussenhop, director - “The approach for the script and the story is all inspired by Tobe’s original. We skipped anything to do with the sequels - as far as I’m concerned, this is the only sequel. I didn’t have to tie in any past narrative - I just picked up where Tobe left off. ... I sprinkled in fun things from the original in a new way, which will give the film some familiarity, but makes the audience off-balance.”

Bill Moseley, Drayton Sawyer - “Through producer Carl Mazzocone, I got a chance to come up with a treatment [for a new Texas Chainsaw] which I ended up pitching at Lionsgate, along with a bunch of other people. I came in second according to Carl. ... I love the idea that they’re trying to basically end it at the beginning. That part has been pretty interesting. Of course, you don’t see the cook at the end of the movie, so Leatherface and the hitchhiker are out there on the road. I think it’s kind of interesting. Because the cops would come to the house, kind of a flashback to The Devil’s Rejects. The cops are coming for the embattled family. So that’s pretty interesting. I was trying to convince Carl to try to give us a little trap door so we could all escape. And you know, come back in 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6, whatever they’re planning.”

Gunnar Hansen, “Boss Hog” Sawyer - “Years and years ago, before there even was a Texas Chainsaw Massacre sequel, I had this notion of what would make a great Chainsaw 2. Years have gone by; the older brother has escaped with Leatherface and the Cook and the Hitchhiker, who is not dead but merely a crumpled up pile of bones. They’re living in an abandoned hotel at the edge of a small city in the Midwest. The Cook has made a deal with the owner of the hotel to basically housesit, to stay in residence so that the hotel doesn’t get vandalized. Some people try to pull a scam on the owners and show up and tell the Cook that they’re prospective buyers and they’ve made this arrangement to come and spend a couple of days at the hotel to make sure it’s what they want to buy, which sets up basically another ‘Teenagers trapped in an old house’ movie.

"There are a couple things, which I’m not allowed to say, about the new Leatherface that are really neat. I would never have thought of them. A lot of times when they create a new Leatherface in these movies it’s like they ignored the original Leatherface. So they’ve got a kid with a skin problem and an attitude, that makes him nothing. But they did some details on the new Leatherface that when I read them I thought ‘Oh, what is this?’ And then I thought about it and thought they were really nice additions to the personality of Leatherface that were consistent with the Leatherface from 1974, which I like.”

Texas Chainsaw Massacre alumni on returning to the franchise:

Gunnar Hansen (Leatherface in the original) - “Oh man, it was a shock [to see the recreated house.] We usually come up the back road here, but yesterday when I first came, we came up the main road. So I’m sitting in the car and I look over and through the trees I get a glimpse of the house, and I’m really startled. And we pulled up right at the foot of the driveway. So I got out and it’s like right out of ’73. I was really shocked at how real it was and how everything was right. You know the old house has been cut up and moved and it’s a restaurant now. [The producers] went out there and measured it, took pictures and measured it. It was the creepiest feeling, looking down the road, down the driveway, and seeing the house kind of coming up. Then Carl, the producer, said ‘I want you to tell me what’s wrong with this set up so we can fix it before we shoot interiors.’ And I found only one thing that I would have changed. The chicken cage wasn’t exactly in the right spot; otherwise it was just dead on.”

Marilyn Burns, Verna (Sally in the original) - “It feels like coming home. ... The heat makes it better - it makes it just as horrible as when we shot the original.”

Bill Moseley (Chop-Top in Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2) - “I consider it a real honor to be channeling my buddy Jim Siedow. I try to channel and communicate some of the joy he had and this strange energy he brought to both Chainsaw one and two.”

Mike McCarty from KNB on the Leatherface’s mask and the gore:

In recreating the mask from the end of the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre, “the film is all you have because there just aren't that many stills out there of that particular mask with that particular paint job on it. Because of the scene that was cut out of the movie where he's putting the makeup on there just aren't that many stills of it. So we researched the film obviously, got the best copies of it we could get and just took stills from that and basically recreated that. ... There will be three new masks in this film. ... It’s a Chainsaw Massacre buffet. I came here with 20 gallons of stage blood and I’m ordering more.”

Texas Chainsaw 3D will hit theaters January

There were at least three reasons I was inordinately excited to see the movie entitled Amphibious: Creature of the Deep:

We've got two new clips from the next episode of Dexter for your viewing pleasure. In the first, Dexter discovers that his next victim won't go down without a fight. And in the second, Dexter and Deb argue over the proper way to raise Harrison. "Run" airs October 21st on Showtime.

Did you ever do a soap opera?

About five soap operas were written for me over my lifetime that I know about. I had to turn them all down. I said, "I can't remember those lines. It would kill me." I had to turn them all down. As I turned them down, friends of mine took the parts and within about two weeks most of them were in the hospital. That's how tough it is to go into soap operas. You have to have a phenomenal kind of memory. Jim Drury has one. Barry Sullivan had one. My wife had one. There are many people who are actors, good actors, who have photographic memories. They look at a page and it's, "Okay, let's shoot it". They are literally that fast. I can't do that. So I had to do it the hard way and it was really hard on me. I thought I'd be dead by the age of fifty. You say that's just something I made up. It's not. I really thought I would be and I'm 83. So I've lived much longer than I had anticipated. I really thought I'd be dead with so much pressure and tension with what I had to do with my memory that I just thought it would be too hard on me. I ran and everything to try to keep the tension away. I did all kinds of things and it worked for me. But I retired very early. I quit acting early because I just couldn't do it anymore. Burned out.

The films with your son are kind of a fun thing on the side. Prior to those what was the last thing you did?

There was a thing I did for a friend of mine who's dead. He died about a little while ago, Sage Stallone. He had an idea when he was sixteen and had it developed later on in life when he became an adult. He made a 30 minute short subject with my son filming it and me acting in it and my youngest son acting in it, my sister-in-law acting in it and my wife acting in it. So it was really kind of a Gulager production. But he directed it. It was his baby. It's really a good short called Vic. They're going have a memorial for Sage at the New Beverly Cinema and they are going to play Vic and some of the films that he made. He had a distribution company called Grindhouse with a partner Bob. I think that was the last thing that I did that was legitimate. (Editors note - since this interview Clu appeared in Piranha 3DD) It was a good… a very good piece of work that he did. But he died at the age of 36 from a heart attack. He just didn't make it. Very sad for all of us. The Gulagers liked him very much. Life is tough. Life is hard.

If you could do over any part of it what would you choose?

I'd like to look like Arnold Schwarzenegger. I'd like Errol Flynn's face. I'd like to have breasts like Marylin Monroe. I'd like to have a professional vulva and male penis all wrapped in one package.

You'd never have to leave the house.

(Laughs) I never thought about that. Hey that's good thinking. My God no wonder you're a writer, you can think of these things.

You've always been a big physical fitness person as far as walking goes.

Yes, I walk a long ways many times to movies and your bookstore. I like to come here to Dark Delicacies to see signings and look over the new books. But basically it's easier to walk distances when you have a goal. It can be a make-believe goal but nevertheless a goal. You strive for a goal. That's easier than just walking at random for exercise. I can't do that. But I can walk when I have a goal. I go to the Nuart Motion Pictures in Santa Monica. From my house in Hollywood it's quite a walk. For an old man like me it's an easy way to exercise, Del. I have the time but you wouldn't because you have to go to the bookstore and work. I don't do anything. I just go to movies and eat.

You obviously have a close family because you work with your son.

Yes, we did a show at the New Beverly Cinema a while back about my film acting workshop. We did a film about what we do on Saturdays. That was interesting to me and to my son. (Laughs) At least two of us. I don't know how many other people were interested. It doesn't matter. It's just something that I do.

You teach a workshop on a regular basis?

Yes. A film acting workshop. I don't know where we are going to do it next time. Film acting is a little different than stage acting. Film acting you go on location. We have a camera and my son is a professional cinematographer and director. John, he films it. He films the students doing their scenes and exercises. Then we show them back that night. So it's about 12 hours every day that we teach. We teach on Saturdays. We go on location. Like we'll go to Cal Arts and film there. We'll go to UCLA in the sculpture garden and film there. From there we'll go to Lake Arrowhead, Tijuana. We'll go to different places and film locations. The way we do in the movies. The way we actually do in the movies. I think that's a good way for them to be less spooked about going and getting in front of a camera on the desert. It can just shake you. It's just ungodly. It's fearsome. This will help them to get rid of a little of that.

Did you have that fear first time you shot?

Oh yeah. First time I did it was in New York City on the number one show in America called Omnibus. I was to go on and I froze because Martha Scott, a big stage actress, forgot her line and said the wrong line. I just froze off camera. It was live television. You had to keep on going. So Harry Townes, a very good character actor, pushed me on. I luckily remembered my line. But I froze. That happened my first time out. I blame it on Martha but it wasn't Martha's fault. I was too frightened.

Then another time I worked with John Wayne. He was a big legend at that time. I mean he was like the demigod. I was just spooked all the way through the picture. I vowed then after the picture I said, "I'll never ever do that again no matter who it is." It can be the President of the United States I'll still just try to bury him with my acting like he is trying to bury me with his acting. That's kind of a facetious way to put it but you can't let your mind play tricks with you. You have to do your part. That's where your mind should be focused.

We will wrap up our interview in the next installment. Clu is certainly a pleasure to speak with and I'll be sad when this is over.

- - -
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.