Icons of Fright and HYAENA Gallery are teaming up for HUGE October Horror/Dark Art Giveaway. I know Icons of Fright readers are the most cultured horror fans on the internet so we know you'll appreciate this one.

It's no big secret that the Hyaena Gallery is one of favorite places to visit when we're in the Los Angeles area. The gallery is a big, big supporter of horror art, dark and lowbrow artists and it's fans. 

Bill, Hyaena Owner, has provided us with 3 prize packs, each consisting of 21 signed and numbered gallery posters (a $175 value).

You will win 21 of these EXCLUSIVE, extremely limited edition posters featuring artists such as:

Eric Pigor, D.W. Frydendall, Jeremy Cross, Jeff Rebner, Big Tasty, Kat Philbin, Clint Carney, Erick De La Vega, David Coot, Delphia, Mickey Me, Ted Von Heiland, Krys Sapp, Gus Fink, Christopher Perrin, Glenda Rolle, Clara Boo, Miss Withers, John Mahoney, Dan Chesser, and more!

Wanna enter? Send us your name and mailing address to: hyaena@iconsoffright.com. We're giving you until November 12th to get your entry in. (This is such a great, unique contest we wanna make sure everyone gets a chance to enter!).

And if you like odd things, or you are an odd thing, and you happen to be the Los Angeles/Burbank area be sure to stop by Hyaena Gallery:

1928 W. Olive Ave.
Burbank, CA 91506
Tel: 1-818-972-2448

Take a look at this amazing prize pack:

Wow, 15 years ago? At the time I had to buy a ticket to another movie just so I could sneak in and see the highly controversial film, which of course, blew my little 15 year old mind away. And who could forget the Trent Reznor produced soundtrack featuring 90's acts like L7 and the Cowboy Junkies. It's really a time-capsule of a moment in film making and music.

If you'd like to enter the contest just shoot us an email over to: nbk@iconsoffright.com. Be sure to give us your mailing address so we can send it to you. Contest ends Oct. 31st! (Halloween).

For more Natural Born Killers action click on over to: www.naturalbornkillersdvd.com. 

 Here's an exclusive clip, courtesy of Warner Bros:

This year the folks at CollectSaw.com and OfficialSawStore.com (Selling the best in SAW collectibles! And yes, they ship worldwide!) have provided ICONS OF FRIGHT with 3 SAW VI Prize Packages:

• Costas Mandylor ("Hoffman") Autographed 8 x10 inch color photo. The photo shows Costas Mandylor as "Hoffman".
• Special and Valuable item that was Used in SAW 6 (VI)

 

Conducted by Phil Fasso and Mike Cucinotta on October 26, 2009

So we're sitting here in The Frightquarters waiting for Tony Todd to report in. We interviewing him via telephone so no need to repeat his name five times. We tried it, it didn't work. (Ok, ok... we only got to 4 and turned the lights on.)

A funny thing pops up on our telescreen: An old doc on 'Bride of Frankestein', hosted by Joe Dante, starring Clive Barker and featuring Bill Condon, all of whom have worked with Todd. Barker and Condon having been involved in 'Candyman' and 'Candyman: Farewell To The Flesh', and Dante having recently directed him in 'Splatter', a new 3 episode web series, produced by Roger Corman and debuting exclusively for free on Netflix on October 29th.

Tony Todd chatting with us about this upcoming free web series, as well a few new and upcoming projects, and the legendary Candyman.

Mike:  Can you tell us about SPLATTER and your role in it?

Tony Todd:  This project was brought to my manager’s attention by Julie Corman, the wife of Roger.  You have an iconic figure not only in horror, but in the film business, and then when they told me Joe Dante was going to helm it, that sealed the deal for me.  Joe and I had met a couple of years ago when we were both working on MASTERS OF HORROR.  So it sounded like an interesting project, you’ve got basically all the survivors gathered together in a haunted mansion in Hollywood, and one by one, they get picked off, so it’s all about who lives out.  And I don’t play  Colonel Mustard.  It’s being streamed for free by Netflix, starting on October 29^th so you watch 10 minutes and deliberate you, and its macabre, and you decide who lives and who dies.

Phil:  Your character Spencer Pope is an agent, correct?  An agent or a manager type?

TT:  He’s a manager.  There’s a difference between an agent and a manager;  for all my life, I’ve been trying to figure it out.  But I think the two have different responsibilities.

PF:  So did you base Pope on real managers and agents you’ve had experience with?

TT:  Oh yeah.  Actors have to draw from their personality files, that they store up from living and watching people. So definitely, I know some agents, and I know a lot of managers, so there’s a little bit of this, a little bit of that.  Hopefully it’s communicated.

MC:  So what was working with Joe Dante like?  You said you spoke to him a little bit during the MASTERS OF HORROR, but this is the first time you’ve worked director/actor, right?

TT:  Yes, absolutely.  I liked him because he’s very calm, not jittery.  I like new directors if they’ve written their own projects.  Joe Dante is a different animal.  This is a man who develops a groove, and we’re able to develop a shorthand on a set.  You know what the other person’s capable of, what he’s comfortable with, and then you look each other in the eye and make collaborative choices.  And we all volunteered, and we’re all working well below scale here, and they came from vast projects, from PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN.

TT:  Oh, very fast.  I worked 14 hour days for 9 days.  We’re working up to the gills to make a total of 37 minutes of content.  The hardest job on the set had to be the script supervisor, who had to keep track of what everybody was doing.  We shot all the endings, multiple endings, and then come back and shoot it again.

MC:  So all of those are already shot, it’s just going to be what the audience decides.

TT:  Yes.

PF:  So what’s your opinion of the interactive aspect of SPLATTER, the fact that the fans get to choose?

TT:  With the popularity of the internet being at its highest ever, I think Netflix was wise to do this, they’re getting their advertising revenue, and they present something seemingly for free.  It brings attention to that company.  If it’s successful, they’ll be encouraged to offer more and get into the producing game.  And that’s always great.  It can’t hurt to have another producer out there, willing to take chances.  So hopefully it goes viral and I’ll benefit.  And if not, the best things at least attempt to succeed, and if they fail, it’s okay, it’s your heart on the line

PF:  Let’s talk about what you have coming up now?

I’ve had a great career, and I’m thankful for it.  Tonight, I have a first cast reading for this wonderful projected called DREAMING IN AMERICA, which is about immigrants arriving at JFK, who coexist and its effect.  That’s going to be a wonderful piece shooting five days from now.  And I got a shoot coming January for a movie called PRODIGY, which is a crime procedural.  And I squeeze in a few days on a project called ONE BY ONE, by a first time woman director/writer, at the end of the year.  And of course, I’m always gearing up for my directorial debut, ERIE, PA sometime next year

MC: What’s ERIE, PA going to be about?

TT:  It’s about 72 hours in the lives of two buddy bookies.  They did what they did, and now they’re in over their heads, and now there’s a timeline where they need to turn against each other or come up with the cash.  It’s like MIDNIGHT COWBOY.

MC:  So you’re writing, directing, producing the whole thing?

TT:  I’m writing and directing that, yeah.

MC:  What inspired you on this film?

TT:  I was a film geek fan when I was a teenager, in college, I got my Master’s degree.  I just love film, and I just want to tell intelligent, well-made stories, no matter what the genre is. That’s why Hollywood doesn’t understand why PARANORMAL ACTIVITY kicked its ass this weekend.  It has a different take on things, which is great.

TT:  I visited the Erie Horror Film Festival a few years ago, and I was raised in New England.  And it really struck me as this great dinosaur of a city.  You could see it’s magnificent, but it was stuck in the ‘70s.  And it just gave me the inspiration, because there’s this huge gambling problem going on there.  You’re in an area with the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Cleveland Browns, and Erie is equal distance.  So the course of the movie is during a playoff game between those two teams.  And how that is played and not played.

MC:  Where will we see you after SPLATTER?  Will we see you return to the horror genre?

TT:  ONE BY ONE is kind of a FINAL DESTINATION-esque script.  And then they handed me a project called THE HAUNTED.  From the title, I assume that’s horror, right?

TT:  I just like good movies, and it’s not like I wake up on a Tuesday and say, “Give me a horror script.”  I definitely think because of my body of work, people inquire.  If the project’s good, and my schedule fits, I’ll do it.  But I like film, period.  I like film and theatre.  So if I can do one good play a year, and one great story, a good horror script, I’m happy.  Just don’t interfere with my Lakers when they’re on the march.

TT:  Which was my first film.

MC:  What is it that draws you to a role?  We talked about how you want to do one good play a year.  What is it that grabs you in a role?

TT:  Everything starts with the story.  You can’t do anything without a great story, or at least a story that has a beginning, middle and end.  Then you look at the character, then you ask, “How does the character relate to my own life?”  I’ve been fortunate because I grew up in Connecticut, spent 10 years in New York, I’ve been out here for, on and off, 15 years.  I’ve gotten to travel all over the world to apply my craft. When I got out of college, I used to go to the old Times Square.  Just walking through that block, you’d be confronted by so many different characters, and I would steal a little bit from here, a little bit from there.  Riding the subway I think is still a valid exercise.  Any actor who doesn’t ride the subway isn’t worth their salt.  All those people hiding behind the New York Post and the Daily News, there’s life there.  So you look at life and pay attention, and it’s all there.  People ask, How do you act?  How do you do it?  Well, how do you brush your teeth in the morning?  What are the little things you do to get going?  So it still excites me.  I think life is one big circus.  And you just don’t want to be the shit from the elephant.  You want to be the other end of the elephant.

MC:  Is there anything you always do when you’re taking a role on?

TT:  Yeah, I have a dream book for every character, where I do sketches.  I’m pretty much of an empath.  For instance, with the Candyman, I was having these dreams and visions and artwork, that led to his backstory of being an artist.

PF:  What do you think makes the Candyman an iconic character as far as horror characters go?

TT:  I’m still trying to figure that one out.  I just came from Chicago this weekend, it was Flashback Weekend.  And it was great, the love there.  The guy, somehow—it was 18 years ago, and the guy is somewhat of an urban, iconic hero.  And I remember when I met with Bernard Rose, in Chicago, and he was going on and on about how, “This part is going to change your life.”  You know, I was a little cocky there, “I’m gonna do a great job, but I doubt it’s gonna change my life.”  And in a way he was right.  If I knew the answer to that, I’d be a billionaire.  I would bottle it, and I would offer it for sale.  But he’s extremely popular in the urban areas and also in the deep South.

TT:  He’s especially popular among horror fans in those concentrated areas.

MC:  He’s like a classic moral monster.  He’s got a reason to be a monster.

TT:  Yeah, it’s the revenge factor.  It’s classic.  What we were going for in that first one was that tortured, interrupted romance between Virginia Madsen and myself.

TT:  Yeah, and there’s also the score by Philip Glass, the cinematography and Clive Barker’s imagination.  The best projects are built on collaboration.  And I hope we capture some of that with SPLATTER.  I think we’re gonna shock you with some of the deaths, because we didn’t do the arbitrary stab you with the butcher knife.

MC:  Is your character up on the line to be knocked off too?

TT:  Yeah, depending on how sick and twisted they are, they can vote me to die first.

TT:  Either way, we shot it all, so it’s all there for you to decide.

MC:  Will this be coming out on DVD, with all the endings?

TT:  I’m sure that’s the ultimate plan, to release it with all the versions.  Right now, we just want to get this whole buzz going, and hope that the viral campaign by Netflix gets people to see it. 

TT:  You never know.  They won’t be seeing him at the pay rate they got him at the first time!  But we did this one for love.

PHOTOS BY LISA ROSE (http://www.lisarosephoto.com)

EW.com posted an interesting interview with director Daniel Myrick, the auteur behind THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT.    Myrick discusses the comparisons being made between his first film and the recent phenomenon PARANORMAL ACTIVITY, calling them "flattering," and going on to say, "It’s encouraging to see another film come out that’s in the spirit of the Blair Witch aesthetic. And the marketing approach that’s doing so well reaffirms in my mind that you don’t need to spend a ton of money to have a successful film."

Answering questions, Myrick doles out some advice for the new film's makers, and talks about how everyone knows PARANORMAL is a piece of fiction, whereas plenty of folks thought that BLAIR WITCH was real.

Myrick comes off as a positive guy who appreciates how the newer film is generating buzz for his decade-old blockbuster indie hit.  Read the rest of the interview here.

Russ was an important part of the Latent Image, a commercial filmmaking company which he founded with George Romero.  He’s since gone on to work on many films with another NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD collaborator, John Russo.  Russ was gracious enough to take some time today and discuss the legacy of the zombie classic with me, for his fans at Icons of Fright.

Phil Fasso:  How did you first get involved with George Romero?
 
Russ Streiner:  I started off wanting to be an actor, which I pursued through high school.  And after high school, I went to the Pittsburgh Playhouse School of the Theatre, and graduated from their two-year acting program.  While I was there, I was working in stage shows at night, and at one of those, I was cast with another fellow.  His name was Rudy Ricci, and we shared a dressing room.  Rudy had been attending classes at Carnegie Mellon University  (back then it was called Carnegie Tech).  He was taking art classes there, and he met George Romero in an art class.  George was transplanted, from the Bronx to Pittsburgh, to go to Carnegie Tech’s School of Painting and Design. Rudy brought George over to one of our shows one night, and that’s how I first got to meet him.  Then, within maybe six or eight months, George called me and asked me if I would be willing to be an actor in a movie that he was putting together, called EXPOSTULATIONS.  And I told him I would.  I showed up for my very first day of production, and really became intrigued with the whole film production part of the business, which I knew nothing about.  I stuck with EXPOSTULATIONS as an actor, and then also helped out on the crew.  That’s how George and I first met.  And we went on to set up a business and worked together for about 10 years.
 
PF:  How did your experience in commercials and industrial films help you to put together a feature film?
 
RS:  Any time you get a chance to practice your craft, whether it’s in short form like TV commercials or longer form like industrials, all of that goes to help you refine your craft.  And that’s certainly how our whole group got helped out, all of which led up to 1967, when we did the actual filming of NOTLD. 
 
PF:  What was the genesis of NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD?
 
RS:  Basically it started off when we first got together.  We always knew that we eventually wanted to do a feature film.  So during the early ‘60s, by doing TV commercials and industrial films and educational films, we were able to accumulate equipment—by the time NOTLD came around in 1967, we were actually a self-contained production unit; we had everything we needed: camera equipment, sound equipment, studio facilities, mixing equipment, editing equipment, lighting equipment.  Then all we needed was a script.  And in late ’66/early ’67, John Russo, who was working with us, and George Romero started to put together the beginnings of a script.  We all chipped in ideas.  John Russo took all of the good ideas and wove them into what became the shooting script.  And that’s how it got started. 
 

PF:  What things did you bring to your role of Johnny?
 
RS:  Well, first of all, my body.  Secondly, I got the part of Johnny almost by default.  We had put together all of our pre-production efforts.  We had most of our casting done, but we didn’t have Johnny.  And the cemetery scene, coincidentally, was the very first scene we filmed, and we didn’t get finished with all of the filming that first day, so we had to relegate it to a second day of filming.  As it turned out, it was also the very last day of filming we had, so it was kind of an unusual circumstance.  But when it came to the first day of shooting, we still didn’t have a Johnny.  And the group said, “Well why don’t you just do Johnny?”  And so that’s how I got it.  So I’d like to say that it was some tough auditioning competition, but it was nothing like that.  I just happened to be around, had dark, horn rimmed glasses, and got the part.  I also had my background as an actor.  The fact that I was also a producer of the picture didn’t hurt my chances of getting to play “Johnny,” it was another actor that I didn’t have to pay because I was also an investor in the project.
 
When I got the part, I decided that I wanted to give him a couple of unique characteristics.  One of the things was how he taunted and tormented Barbra.  I wanted to make sure that he was always on the edge with Barbra, complaining about the time of day and how early they had to get up, one thing after another.  And one of the wardrobe elements, of course, were the driving gloves.  I wanted to make a big deal out of the driving gloves, which was my idea, because I knew when Johnny came back at the end of the film, I wanted to give him some sort of wardrobe signature that the audience would instantly know that it was him.  It would be nighttime, his glasses were gone, he would be surrounded by these other dead things.  So I wanted to give him a really instantaneously signature, and that turned out to be the driving gloves.  And it was a device that really worked.
 
PF:  Johnny seems like a very annoyed character.  What’s your view of him?
 
RS:  Well, I think underneath it typifies the kind of sibling relationship that a lot of brothers and sisters have.  Brothers especially get into taunting and tormenting their younger sisters.  And I think that comes through to the fans, and a lot of people comment on it, “Oh, that’s how my brother used to treat me,” and so forth.  So I wanted to keep it realistic on that level.  That plus the fact that we as actors knew what was coming, we knew that this was going to be the very first onset of the living dead things, and I just wanted to set the stage for the gloomy things to come.
 
PF:  A great part of the subtext of NOTLD is about family.  Johnny and Barbra don’t get along, and the Coopers argue as their daughter is dying.  Family was also behind the camera for you.  How was it working with your brother Gary and your mother?
 
RS:  Well, obviously, it was a very good experience for all of us.  My brother Gary worked with George Romero and myself since he was in high school.  When we filmed NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD, Gary was 21.  So he had been working with us for a few years and was pretty good at any number of tasks.  On NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD in particular, he did an awful lot of the location audio work, and then ultimately the sound mixing work.
 
And as far as my mother, you have to understand, the way we were “constructed” at that time.  The company that George and I started was called the Latent Image.  And everybody’s family—George’s family, my family-- became an extension of the Latent Image.  So when it came to filming NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD, we recruited my mother, my aunt Norma and several other family members to be zombies and so forth.  And my mother provided one of the key props for the cemetery sequence, her car.  So all around, it was pretty much of a family effort.  Gary was also one of the 10 original investors in IMAGE TEN, INC. the company that owns “Night.”  My mother was also one of the investors who put up money to help get the picture finished.
 

PF:  And of course there was the fortuitous car crash that George worked into the film
 
RS:  Well it wasn’t so much fortuitous for my mother.  As I said earlier, the cemetery sequence was the first scene that we filmed, and it was also the last scene.  Now, we filmed NOTLD in 30 days, but we had a break in the middle so we could go back and do regular commercial work that was keeping groceries on the table.  But from the time we filmed the opening scene until we got around to the time we finished the closing scene, my mother was driving her car back and forth to work, and someone crashed into her car.  And I said, “Don’t get it fixed, because we need a way to stop the car when Judith O’Dea releases the handbrake in the cemetery to get away from Bill Hinzman (the film’s cemetery ghoul), and we’ll do something with it, we’ll crash it against a tree or something like that,” and that’s what we ended up doing.  We filmed it in a way to make it look as though the car actually crashed into the tree.  So we were very resourceful.  We had to take all the negatives and turn them to positives somehow.
 
PF:  What was George Romero like as a director?
 
RS:  Working with George was always a good experience.  But understand, we had a business that we started in 1961, when we incorporated it.  So George and I had been living together, literally like brothers, sharing apartments, sharing literally everything.  We were as close or closer than brothers for quite a few years heading up to NOTLD.  And it was always great working with him.  And I hope he feels the same way about working with me.
 
 

 PF:  Casting a black man in the lead was a bold move, whether intentional or not.  What statement do you think it made, having Duane Jones in the lead?
 
RS:  Well, it became more of a statement than we had originally intended.  Quite simply, Duane Jones was the best person to audition for the part of Ben.  Up until we met Duane, our friend that I mentioned earlier, Rudy Ricci, was supposed to play the character of Ben.  The character was originally supposed to be a rough truck driver.  A mutual friend of George’s and mine was a woman by the name of Betty Ellen Haughey.  She grew up in Pittsburgh, but at that time she was living in New York, and she knew of Duane Jones. He’d started off in a suburb just outside of Pittsburgh, yet he was off in New York making a living as a teacher and an actor.  And she said to us, when NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD was really developing in pre-production and building steam, “You should really meet this friend of mine from New York, his name is Duane Jones.”  Duane happened to be in Pittsburgh visiting his family for one of the holidays, and we auditioned him.  And immediately, everyone including Rudy Ricci said, “Hey, this is the guy that should be Ben.” 
 
So that’s how we cast him, and we knew that there would be probably a bit of controversy, just from the fact that an African American man and a white woman are holed up in a farmhouse, being attacked by these living dead things outside, and they don’t really know what it’s all about.  So we thought there might be some element of controversy, but that it was worth going through that controversy to have Duane Jones as the lead.
 
PF:  When did you realize that Night had become a classic?  And how did that feel?
 
RS:  Well, we knew almost right away that it was going to be a popular film.  Classic is something that developed over the years.  We set out to make the best, scariest movie we could, with the relatively small amount of money that we had.  The fans made it a classic.  And of course, any time that happens to any type of work, it is incredibly flattering.
 
PF:  One of the notorious issues with NIGHT is the copyright issue.  You’re still fighting to get the copyright restored.  Do you think this will ever be resolved?
 
RS:  I hope it will be.  But it is an issue.  The copyright was wrongfully taken from us in the first place by the Copyright Office.  And so it’s a battle that won’t end, and is going on to this day.  We never, ever, ever intended for that picture to be offered up into the public domain.  And this dispute has been going on with the Copyright Office ever since.  Curiously, since NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD, they’ve changed the copyright laws so the same kind of thing could not happen to a picture today.  So that’s the underpinning as to why we believe that our position is ultimately right.  And we just have to keep pursuing it, because it is rightfully our property, and there’s no other argument to be made.  It’s our property.

 

PF:  You’ve continued to work for several years both behind and in front of the camera with John Russo.  What draws you to working with him?
RS:  John Russo and I have a long work history together.  Although there were several years when we did not work together because we were doing different kinds of projects and had different goals.  Over the last several years however we have worked closely on any number of projects including one project we are most proud of and that is the John Russo Movie Making Program at DuBois Business College in DuBois, PA.  We are co-directors of that program and if I do say so myself, this is one of the most unique and best filmmaking programs anywhere.  This is a true hands-on filmmaking and master mentoring film program.  John and I and our senior instructor, Ephraim Stockwell, work side-by-side with our students.  We share our years of filmmaking experience with them to hopefully make them into mature filmmakers more quickly.  “Song of the Dead,” a 20 minute film, which will have its premier screening next Saturday night at the Evans City Living Dead Festival, is a film example of how John and I lead our filmmaking students through the various steps of actually making a movie.

Another project John Russo and I are working on is ESCAPE OF THE LIVING DEAD.  This promises to be a film that stays true to the roots of what makes a good zombie film- GOOD!  We will be able to say more about this project in the next month.

PF:  You make many appearances at conventions.  What appeals to you about the convention circuit?
 
RS:  The key thing would have to be coming face-to-face with fans, and understanding that this is a property that is now 41 years old, and it is quite phenomenal.  It doesn’t happen to a whole lot of movies that 41 years after the fact, the fans are showing up, they still want to meet you, still want to shake your hand, get an autograph.  And that is most flattering.  I can’t say that I understand it, but I certainly do appreciate it.
 
 

PF:  Your appearing at your brother Gary’s Living Dead Festival next week.  What are you looking forward to with that?
 
RS:  Well, it’s the same kind of thing, except the Evans City Living Dead Festival has a separate, special ingredient in that Evans City is the hometown of NIGHT OF THE LVIVING DEAD.  Practically all of the film was filmed in and around Evans City.  (The only exceptions were all of the basements scenes in the film; they were filmed in the basement of our office building in downtown Pittsburgh.  And then we’d set off one weekend to go to Washington, D.C. to shoot the sequence with the reporters and scientists and so forth). Aside from that, everything else was filmed in Evans City.  So Evans City is truly the hometown of NOTLD.
 
PF:  NOTLD has become a cultural phenomenon that has lasted more than 40 years.  As you prepare to meet fans at the LDF, what are your reflections on the film now?
 
RS:  Well, NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD has taken on a life of its own, so to speak.  How that happened is, new audiences are constantly being introduced to it.  And that has perpetuated this film, and apparently, enough people think it’s a good picture, they find different things they like about it.  But this common creative effort that we all put together as a team, people are still sensing that there’s something good and valuable in the story itself.  And so, coming up to the 2^nd Annual Living Dead Festival in Evans City is another opportunity to meet fans.  But these fans are even a little more special, because they make the trek in from wherever they are into Evans City to celebrate the film where it was made.  And that’s a really good feeling for any creative endeavor.

PF:  Thank you for your time, Russ.
 
 
 
 

 

I have a feeling that not too many genre fans are going to be happy with the Top 40 crooner.

Read the full article here.

-- Phil Fasso

Look for more reviews in the upcoming, as October is our favorite month for ghouls, crazies and marsupials!

-Phil Fasso

EW.com is reporting that WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE has pulled in an estimated $11.9 million, roughly four times the $4.3 million that this week's remake of 1987's THE STEPFATHER has pulled in.  Given the fact that WILD THINGS, based on Maurice Sendak's beloved children's book (Mom read it to me when I was young) has received a huge studio push and that STEPFATHER wasn't even screened for critics (usually a sign that a studio doesn't want movie goers brushed away by bad reviews), this shouldn't be a great surprise.  Perhaps more of note, though, is that PARANORMAL ACTIVITY made roughly $6.7 million on Saturday.  I think it may be time to call it this decade's BLAIR WITCH PROJECT, given its huge take on its miniscule budget of $11 thousand, and the overlapping subject matter.

Read EW's full report here.

--Phil Fasso

This means that the Queen of England may very well be watching a film directed by the guy who made BAD TASTE and MEET THE FEEBLES, and the zombie opus DEAD ALIVE.  It's a strange world.