Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps) 08, 10/16.

"This Saturday night [Tim] Burton will be at the Scream 2008 Awards at the Greek Theatre in Los Angeles, an event that in just its third year has become a signature event in sci-fi, comics, fantasy and, yes, horror, which was is its original mandate but is now just part of its genre cocktail. Burton is getting something called the Immortal Award and the Scream people boldly say that Burton has 'contributed more to the genres of fantasy, sci-fi and horror than any other filmmaker of his generation,' and there's certainly an argument to made that they are completely right." The Los Angeles Times' Geoff Boucher talks with Burton about Alice in Wonderland and: "Is there a plan yet on Dark Shadows, based on the vampire soap opera, also set to star [Johnny] Depp? 'Oh I don't know. Take one at time, you know? It's something I'm interested in of course. Definitely. But I'm going to start shooting this one first!'"

"As [RJ] Jamison's book [A Hard Act to Follow] makes clear, [Grayson] Hall's genius stroke in Dark Shadows was deciding to play her scientist character as if Hoffman was secretly in love with vampire Barnabas Collins, a facet that wasn't explicated in the script," notes Johnny Ray Huston in the San Francisco Bay Guardian. "This week's Shock It to Me! Film Festival spotlights Dark Shadows creator Dan Curtis's movie offshoots of the one-of-a-kind gothic soap opera, 1970's House of Dark Shadows and 1971's Night of Dark Shadows."

"The third annual Spooky Movie Film Festival is finally upon us, or more appropriately, upon the good people of the Washington, DC area," notes Mike Everleth. "Think the presidential election is scary? Then just get a load of these films! The fest already had a preview night, but the main event will run Oct 16 - 19."

"[F]or some of us, there will not be a greater film festival in North Carolina this year than the fifth annual Escapism Film Festival at the Carolina Theatre this weekend," writes Zack Smith in the Independent Weekly. "Exactly why has to do with Swedish vampires, Australian splatter films and a very long fight over a pair of sunglasses."

"Zombies have invaded the internet," writes Eric Kohn in a report on artificial reality games (ARGs) for indieWIRE. "Earlier this year, two separate attempts to create user-generated narratives about outbreaks of cannibalistic living dead launched into cyberspace, but each one approached the concept from a vastly different angle. Lost Zombies, which started in May, asks users to submit footage with 'proof' of zombie outbreaks, which will be compiled into some semblance of a documentary feature. Nation Undead, a more streamlined project that gives people specific guidelines but more options for the material they can submit, went live earlier this year."

Saw: The Ride? Yep. Leonard Pierce, who reads this as "one more step towards the ultimate humilation, degradation and sad, slow death of the human race," has details at Screengrab.

"The Austrian artist Alfred Kubin (1877 - 1959) began his career just as Freud released The Interpretation of Dreams," writes Karen Rosenberg in the New York Times. "Accordingly, the Neue Galerie's Alfred Kubin: Drawings, 1897 - 1909 is replete with the terrors of the freshly analyzed psyche. Monsters, demons and mythical beasts roam free; humans abandon themselves to bestial impulses. Done in black-and-white pen, ink and spray on heavy paper used for cartography, Kubin's drawings map the shadowy corners of the unconscious."

At Twitch, Swarez points to some new scary posters.

Online contest. "Young Friends of Film and Film Comment will scare you out of your wits this Halloween with special screenings of the spine-tingling classics The Man Who Laughs on Thursday, October 30, and the underappreciated haunted house masterpiece, The Changeling, on Halloween. Tell us about your favorite scary movie for your chance to win tickets, a DVD and incalculable fame on the filmlinc blog!"

Online viewing tip. "Fair warning: Man is not an easy film to watch," writes Bilge Ebiri at Vulture. "Myna Joseph's stark story of a young girl's almost obsessive fascination with her older sister starts off quiet and uncomfortable, and becomes even more so as it progresses.... Be afraid. But in a good way."

Online viewing tips. Trailers at Twitch: Camino, a potentially eerie religious drama from Spain; the Thai horror film Coming Soon; Maurice Devereaux's "apocalyptic horror film" End of the Line; the new red band trailer for Let the Right One In, "one of the very best films of the year and arguably one of the finest vampire films ever made"; and a batch of Ozploitation trailers: "Vampire flick Thirst, magical thriller Dark Forces (originally released as Harlequin), cult horror title Strange Behavior (scripted by Oscar winner Bill Condon), and scifi action flick Syngenor."

Um...

Posted by dwhudson at October 16, 2008 2:37 PM