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When a Midnight Meat Train doesn't go local

By Steven Zeitchik

Hell hath no fury like a horror fan scorned. The grassroots movement opposing Lionsgate's dump of "Midnight Meat Train" has gone from general carping (like this Bloody-Disgusting entry here) to full-on activism (like these guys). Basically, fans are objecting to the contract-nod of a release (a hundred theaters, most of them bargain screens in outlying areas) and hoping that if enough tickets are bought up it will not only send a message to Lionsgate but possibly even force some mainstream openings.

Shocktillyoudrop.com has one of the most incisive takes on what's happening at Lionsgate with the Clive Barker creation -- it says that the studio picked up the Lakeshore production in a pre-Drake regime that was a lot more interested in creating new horror franchises -- and says that because of provisions in the deal, LG actually has many incentives for the movie to flop as to fly.

There's a certain decibel level to the outrage. But like fans at Comic-Con, it's hard to know just how large or influential this group is (a topic that we explore in a feature in Friday's THR).

Besides, Lionsgate may not be completely off base by deciding to make it a homevideo play here and save its P&A shekels. The fact is that for all the credibility Barker brings to the genre -- the lineage of modern Lionsgate properties like "Saw" and "Hostel" can, ironically, be traced back to his '80's creations like "Hellraiser" -- a movie based on one of his books/ characters hasn't come out theatrically in ten years. And even those releases were extensions of franchises that he had nothing to do with and has actually disavowed.

Yes, Barker's "Book of Blood" is currently being made by U.K. producers Matador, and a "Hellraiser" remake" is a project that, for a little while at least, had some momentum at Dimension. (Lakeshore also smartly chose up-and-coming Japanese director Ryuhei Kitamura to direct "Meat.") But as torture-porn gets long in the tooth and gives way to the revivals of Sam Raimi camp-horror like "Drag Me To Hell" or straight reboots like "Friday the 13th," the genre may be looking for something new, and a ride on vehicles like the "Meat" train may take us to stations we've stopped at before.

You don't mess with the guy in the goalie mask

By Steven Zeitchik

Adam Sandler producing horror movies might have once sounded like a one-liner -- so many people are interested in breaking into the genre that pretty soon _Adam Sandler_ will be doing it -- reminiscent of those lemming-like A-listers who start puppeteering in the third act of "Being John Malkovich."

But a joke it's not. Sandler's company Happy Madison will be getting into the chillfest business with a new label called Scary Madison, the first project of which will be a low-mid budget what's-in-the-bushes thriller called "Shortcut."

It's clearly a passion project for Adam bro Scott, who's not only producing the pic but has co-written the screenplay. Other commercial stars -- Clooney, Pitt, et al -- do the heavy drama/win awards thing their change-up; for Sandler it's about staying within a commerical realm but shifting (to) genre.

Sandler's is not the first unlikely company to take a step down the Clint Culpepper road. Spring surprise "Prom Night" came from Newmarket, whose previous production efforts spanned from global documentaries ("God Grew Tired of Us") to Chris Nolan pics like ("The Prestige.") Producer Tony Krantz went from popcorn television like "Felicity" and to create the label Raw Feed, responsible for spine-tinglers like "Rest Stop" and "Sublime." At Sundance this year festgoers were talking about "Donkey Punch," a yacht-set, dropping-like-flies splatterfest produced in part by venerable Brit banner Film4.

Horror used to be function like more of the deformed stepchild than anything you'd actually find _in_ a horror movie. Sometimes, of course, it's about the passion, but when we think of the glow from the television those late nights in the Sandler household, we picture Benny Hill and vintage SNL, not Carrie and The Omen. So why the explosion in industry popularity?

The first factor is probably cultural. With the glorification of the fanboy the last few years -- the typical one of which at least has a soft spot for old-school fare like "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" -- not only is it not declasse to produce these films, it's actually cool.

But the second, and possibly more important, reason is business-related -- that the genre seems resistant to the problems plaguing all these other categories. Production budgets need to be high to draw viewers? Not here. Stars are expensive and unreliable as box-office draws? Don't need stars here. DVD sales slowing down? Actually, in horror they'e picking up. Young people deserting the movie theaters? Here they're the core demo.

The irony -- or maybe the reason -- is that it's happening as modern-day brands like Lionsgate's Saw and Hostel franchises, and labels that have been around a few years like Fox Atomic, are getting long in the tooth or simply fading. The newer entrants -- Sandler's movie could go through Overture, with whom financier Leomax has a first-look deal -- will ensure we'll be seeing a lot more of these movies for years to come. We'll leave to others whether that's funny in an Adam Sandler kind of way or just scary.

Roth Vs. Solomon

Over at Cinematical.com, “Hostel: Part II” director Eli Roth has been engaged in something of a moderated war of words with After Dark Films’ Courtney Solomon. Both filmmakers may be trafficking in hard-R fare, distributed by Lionsgate, but that doesn’t make them bosom buddies. Last week, before “Hostel” opened and promptly hit a wall at the boxoffice, Roth complained to Cimatical’s Eric Davis of the After Dark crew that “everyone hates those guys. And word of mouth is that ‘Captivity’ sucked.” He goes on to blame After Dark for creating problems for other horror filmmakers with the MPAA’s rating board because of the flap that occurred when After Dark allowed billboards to go up for its “Captivity” using torture images that the board hadn’t approved. After Dark was disciplined -- the board suspended the ratings process for “Captivity” for 30 days which led to a postponement of the movie’s release -- and Roth claims that made life harder for him. “They did not got before the MPAA with those posters,” he says. “It really puts everyone on edge when that happens. And suddenly, who’s the next one up? Oh, thanks, it’s me.” Solomon returns the volley in an interview that’s just been posted, claiming Roth “has spent most of his publicity tour talking about the ‘Captivity’ posters and dissing us.” Solomon goes on to say he’s just completed “Captivity” -- so how can there be word-of-mouth on a movie nobody’s seen? -- and “it’s got a lot more substance than his movie does.” He adds Roth “keeps going on and on about our billboard, our billboard, our billboard -- at the end of the day, he should have been worried about the substance of his film.” Let’s just hope no one brings out the knives. (Gregg Kilday)

Schickel's LAT Op-Ep: Apocalypto = Infantile Porn

The Los Angeles Times has a must-read Op-Ed by Time film critic Richard Schickel psychoanalyzing Mel Gibson and "Apocalypto:"

I know the movie topped the box-office charts last weekend. But I suspect that in the end, "Apocalypto" will perform like your average horror movie — doing well with bloodthirsty adolescent males for three days, then dropping 50% or 60% the following week. Maybe we should just let it die its death. Generally, we do not comment extensively on road kill. We just avert our eyes and hurry on past it.

Like Kenneth Turan ("Bloody movies needn't be black and white"), Schickel too contrasts Gibson's take on violence with Clint Eastwood's:

I thought that was particularly true of Kenneth Turan, writing a follow-up piece in this newspaper in which he compared Gibson's approach to that of Clint Eastwood in his two current releases, "Flags of Our Fathers" and "Letters From Iwo Jima," both of which depict death and make us question its military necessity but do not linger on the agonies of the final moments of people we've come to admire in the course of the films. This is, one might say, old-fashioned moviemaking, and the two films are the better for Eastwood's discretion. Or should we say his maturity? Full story. -- posted by sheigh

A Violent Season at the Movies

Monday night's screening of Children of Men was my last UCLA Sneak Previews class. I didn't realize it when I was booking the ten screenings, but this fall season, with the welcome exception of Marie Antoinette, Fur and Stranger than Fiction, I put this group of seasoned movie lovers through the wringer. And I didn't even show them some of the most violent stuff: The Last King of Scotland, The Departed, Flags of Our Fathers and its companion piece Letters from Iwo Jima, and Apocalypto. Judging from the films we did see, we are living through troubled times indeed.

The true 80s story of Catch a Fire shows the prolonged and repeated torture suffered by Derek Luke's Patrick Chamusso, the South African oil refinery worker-turned-rebel whose serene family life is destroyed by chronic abuse by the South African police. In one scene, a group of rebels is massacred by machine guns.

In Blood Diamond, Ed Zwick follows Sierre Leone farmer Djimon Hounsou and African mercenary Leo DiCaprio through the world of blood diamond mining, complete with torture, kidnapping, murder, hand hacking and worse. Hounsou suffers terribly as he tries to reclaim his son, who has been turned into a child soldier by a rebel militia. When I interviewed Hounsou after the screening, he admitted that he tapped into powerful emotions from his deprived childhood in Benin to play this role, and that he found it hard to play second fiddle to DiCaprio's character, to be "subservient." That resentment also informs his extraordinary performance.

After Babel's Cate Blanchett is shot through the tour bus window in the neck by two Moroccan boys playing with a hunting rifle, she winds up bleeding on the floor of a village hut as husband Brad Pitt desperately tries to take care of her. Meanwhile, two young rich American kids are taken across the Mexican border illegally by their nanny, who winds up putting them in mortal danger as she tries to bring them home again.

In The Good German, fresh-faced Tobey Maguire screws his whore girlfriend Cate Blanchett from behind and slaps her around. Clooney's hapless journalist is viciously beaten. Several key protagonists in this movie don't make it to the final credits.

The same is true of Children of Men, which shocks the audience by disposing of several key figures early enough so that you have no idea who will be next. Shot in long real-time takes, the movie's roving hand-held cameras place you close to the violence; director Alfonso Cuaron blows people up before your eyes.

Home of the Brave was both timely and grisly, revealing the real-life dangers of a battle in Iraq that sends several soldiers home with wounds both corporal and psychological.

Perhaps the movie most disturbing to the class was Pan's Labyrinth, a magical fairy tale about how an innocent young girl deals with the horrors of the Spanish Civil War. The movie creates an imaginary underground world of fantastical beauty, while also not stinting on showing the horrors of fascism, sadism and war.

We had multiple walkouts on every one of these films, which earned both passionate detractors and supporters. These smart-house adults embraced Babel, Pan's Labyrinth and Blood Diamond the most warmly. Children of Men confused them by throwing too much info at them too fast. And they were shocked and bewildered by The Good German.

THE NYT's David Carr gets into the impact all this violence could have on the Oscar Race. He's right. Oscar voters have no trouble voting for movies soaked in violence—as long as it's set in the right context.

The Mummy 75th Anniversary DVD

Visionary Media's Scott Essman is on a campaign to promote a 75th anniversary DVD release of The Mummy. Here's his email pitch:

Do you want your Mummy? How badly? How much do YOU care?

Due to sluggish sales of the recent DRACULA and FRANKENSTEIN DVD sets, and due to something called "low tracking numbers," Universal is balking at releasing a 75th anniversary DVD with all-new bonus features for the 1932 Boris Karloff classic, THE MUMMY.

Aren't you sick of complaining about endless repackagings when a classic DVD is re-re-released AGAIN with no new features??? Now's your time to voice your opinion, WHILE THERE IS *STILL* TIME.

THE MUMMY was an instant icon and spawned four 1940s sequels, and numerous remakes and retellings at other studios, but the 1932 film is still undeniably the greatest of them all. SO, GET INVOLVED! If you want to save THE MUMMY, send me an e-mail and tell me so ONLY to:

mummy75th@yahoo.com

TELL YOUR FRIENDS, USERS, READERS, and CONSTITUENTS by Dec 1!!!!!!

Turistas Vintage Travel Spots

Fox's new youth-oriented genre arm, Fox Atomic, is run by the same guy, John Hegeman, who pioneered the viral video marketing campaign for 1999's The Blair Witch Project at Artisan Entertainment. So here he goes again, promoting their first horror release, Turistas, with authentic-seeming vintage travel videos on YouTube:

And here's the straightforward trailer.

The ad treatment even looks a bit like Blair Witch:

Horror Faves

Sergio Leone and the Infield Fly Rule samples his favorite buckets of horror, accompanied by great poster art.

Horror Cinema 101: John Carpenter

Houston film critic Joe Leydon goes back in time to revisit the great original Halloween. He says it holds up.

And if you're willing to go back even further in time to the roots of horror German Expressionist-style, he digs into The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, too.

Time Rounds Up the Horror Suspects

It's October and the spate of horror continues unabated. Time looks at some of the folks responsible: The Splat Pack.

Third Annual Saw III Blood Drive

This is one novel way to promote a movie (which I will never see): Lionsgate is inviting members of the press to come to their screening room next week and donate blood:

Give Till It Hurts... Donate at the 3rd Annual SAW III Blood Drive October XX, 2006 10am-4pm Santa Monica Lionsgate Screening Room Please drink plenty of water and eat before your appointment. If you have any medical questions, please call the American Red Cross 800-843-2949 ext.7066. A photo ID will be required to donate! MUST BE 17 years old and 110lbs to donate.

TIFF06: Sheeps on a Plain Shorn in Toronto?

Updated 2x (reviews, video)

— posted by Sheigh

While we were all breathlessly reporting the viral gyrations of Snakes on a Plane before it opened -- the best new B movie any of us we were likely to see this summer -- the movie that we laughed about among ourselves in the newsroom was (then in production) Black Sheep.

When the SOaP hype reached fever pitch, one of us would inevitably hold up a small red and black poster with a deranged sheep on it, and stage whisper: "There are 40 million sheep in New Zealand... and they're pissed off!"

So it is with no small amount of glee that we pass along David Poland's MCN hotblog rumor that Kiwi director Jonathan King's "Black Sheep" is looking like a hot sale at TIFF. Poland is guessing that Fox Atomic, now rich in cash from its "Little Miss Sunshine" success, is the most logical buyer. The movie's "gag is broad" and "people love farm animals," Poland surmises. And let's face it, the critter reversal holds much more appeal than SOaP's trapped slitherers. Snakes stay true to their nature — they just want to get off the mutherf*ckin' plane. These genetically altered sheep, on the other hand, turn into blood thirsty maiming mutton looking to terrorize a small pastoral town.

Peter Jackson's WETA Workshop provided the film's animatronic puppets and practical effects. Bloody-disgusting.com has a few good Black Sheep stills.

Update: Twitch has posted two Black Sheep film reviews out of Toronto.

Todd writes: "It can be surprisingly difficult to make an intentional cult film but King has done it here. The script is smart enough, striking the right balance between self aware cleverness and balls out gore, the effects strong enough, and all involved clearly big enough fans of the genre that everything comes together to capture just the right mood and tone. Very fun stuff."

Mack writes: "Black Sheep is flat out fantastic fun! It is a healthy balance of humor and horror, never shying on either, with a splash of bestiality."

Black Sheep clip: film footage, filmmakers

Fangoria Chainsaw Awards

It was inevitable. Given the current popularity of horror flicks, there's a new horror award show: the Fangoria Chainsaw Awards. Set to air at 9: 30 PM on October 22 on fuse, the nominees are as follows:

KILLER MOVIE (scariest movie)
The Descent: Neil Marshall
Hostel: Eli Roth
Wolf Creek: Greg McLean
The Hills Have Eyes: Alexandre Aja
The Devil’s Rejects: Rob Zombie

MOST THRILLING KILLING (best death scene)
Final Destination 3: Drive thru
Hostel: Train Suicide
The Omen: Decapitation
Snakes on a Plane: Guy attacked in toilet
Saw II: Emmanuelle Vaugier gets arm stuck in box of blades

DUDE YOU DON’T WANNA MESS WITH (hero)
Samuel L. Jackson: Snakes on a Plane
Kong: King Kong
Nathan Fillion: Slither
Jay Hernandez: Hostel
Scott Speedman: Underworld: Evolution