There’s a modded version of Left 4 Dead out there – featuring Silent Hill. Check it out at youtube.

~~Streebo

From Wearemoviegeeks.com:  This past weekend, Netflix delivered me a documentary that I have been wanting to see ever since I missed it at SLIFF back in 2007. The film was ‘Spine Tingler: The William Castle Story’. For those of you that don’t know who William Castle is, I implore you to check out ‘The William Castle Collection’ that was recently released on DVD (click here to see it at amazon.com) which also includes said documentary. While the meat of the story is how a man who turned some B-Movies into Grade-A events at movie theaters by offering a thousand dollar life insurance policies to attendees of one of his films if they die of fright. While I have always been a fan of Castle and his gimmicks/promotions, this really made me reflect advertising of film past.

homicidalWhen films really started becoming mainstream, the majority of the films were carried by the actors and actresses who headlined or had top-billing for a film. While Castle never had this courtesy, he knew of a way to get people in the seats. He created gimmicks. Believe it or not, PSYCHO by Hitchcock had a gimmick of – which the documentary points out as well – not allowing anyone after the first 15 minutes of the film has been shown. William Castle’s audience participation gimmicks ended in 1965 with ‘I Saw What You Did’ where seat belts were installed in seats to keep you from jumping out of your seats from fright. His ideas made movie watching a bigger thing. He wanted you to experience the film, to make the film fun. He also showed Hollywood and other film makers on how they could promote a film regardless of the content and quality.

Read the rest of the article at the link below.

via I Heart Horror: The Gimmick | We Are Movie Geeks.

From Fangoria.com:  After watching hundreds (or thousands?) of horror movies over the course of decades, how many horror fans still get scared after watching a horror movie? I’m not talking about merely feeling tension because a character is in danger, but actually feeling frightened by a film.

All too often, it seems that people complain that a horror film was “bad” because it wasn’t “scary”. Without any context, this is essentially meaningless. For example, when was the last time a movie scared them, and what was it?

I feel that this “problem” has less to do with the quality of a film than it does with someone’s having built up a tolerance. Besides being a horror fan, I’m also a fan of very spicy food, and I have an assortment of hot sauces made from habanero and scotch bonnet peppers in my refrigerator at all times. My tolerance of spicy food is significantly higher than average, but my fiancee would argue that just because I don’t feel a dish is spicy, this doesn’t necessarily make it so.

Curiously, when horror films aren’t being accused of being bad because they’re not scary, it’s because they’re “not fun”. This seems to be a by-product of the ’80s, when so many horror films were glutting the market that the genre largely descended from “fright films” into horror-comedies – intentional or not.

I’m not talking about films that use comic relief to briefly release tension, I’m talking about films where you’re laughing at the film more than you’re laughing with the film – or are scared of the film.

With that, if a horror film isn’t “fun” is it a bad horror film? I don’t remember Tobe Hooper’s Texas Chainsaw Massacre being a particularly fun film, but does this make it a bad horror film?

I also find it puzzling when people suggest that I’m “immature” when I don’t find a film that emphasizes shadows, noises and even action from off-camera “scary”. It may simply be a by-product of getting older, but I stopped being afraid of the dark – and creaky houses – decades ago, though I hardly feel that this is a sign of my immaturity.

So have at it – are horror films supposed to be scary or fun? Both? Neither?

via Are Horror Films Supposed To Be Scary Or Fun?.

From AMC Horror Hacker:  I’ve decided I can completely ignore everything my parents ever taught me. Why should I bother with their boring advice when Hollywood gives me all I need to know? Stupid horror teens imparted many lessons about life, as did those ever-so-reliable monster hunters with their timeless wisdom. But for the more esoteric subtleties, you really must sample the tidbits of insight offered by the ultimate icon of horror movies — the vampire.

Blood Is Thicker than Water

Every family has an idiot. If you can’t think of anyone in your family who’s an idiot, then guess what? That’s right: It’s you, because every family has an idiot. And yet that idiot is still family, so you have to go to bat for them, even if they get mixed up with the wrong people. And yeah, that includes the wrong undead people — just ask poor Seth Gecko in From Dusk Till Dawn. His brother Richard takes him into the mouth of Hell, and Seth goes to bat for him. You can’t always save your idiot relative, but dammit, you gotta try, because blood is thicker than water (and apparently much tastier).

Always Look Fabulous!

Why are all vamps dressed so dang well? Apparently there’s no excuse for not looking sharp, and that includes being dead. What’s up with that, Interview with a Vampire peeps? And what’s with the leather body suits, Underworlders? And do you even need to look beyond Bela Lugosi in the original Dracula to see the devastating effect of a sharp-dressed man? Sure, vampires may rip the throats out of their victims and bathe in blood, but I think it’s clear they’re always wearing clean underwear. Their vamp moms should be so proud!

Read the rest of the article here:

via AMC – Blogs – Horror Hacker – Scott Sigler – Everything I Need to Know I Learned From Vampire Movies.

From Fangoria.com:  If you want to talk about badass crap, you really can’t do a hell of a lot worse than the horror genre. Whether it’s crazy Eastern Europeans with slicked-back hair and overly developed canine teeth chomping down on the necks of scantily clad maidens or demented, murderous psychopaths running around in body armor made from human skin and carving X’s into the chest cavities of wayward coeds with gasoline-powered gardening implements, horror never seems to disappoint when it comes to violent homicide or paint-bombing dungeon walls with a thick coat of crimson substances. Therefore, in an effort to promote my new book BADASS: A RELENTLESS ONSLAUGHT OF THE TOUGHEST WARLORDS, VIKINGS, SAMURAI, PIRATES, GUNSLINGERS, AND MILITARY COMMANDERS TO EVER LIVE (in which I talk about such real-life badasses as the notorious Vlad the Impaler; see the trailer here), I will attempt to discuss some of the toughest heroes and villains the genre has to offer.

Now, I would never for a moment presume to try and dictate a definitive list of anything horror-related to a fan base as rabid as FANGORIA’s, so please allow me a brief caveat before I get too much further along in this process. I will say only that these are among my own personal favorites, and in no way an attempt to quantify or rank horror-movie badasses in any order other than chronologically. In the presumably likely event that you disagree with my decisions, I strongly encourage you guys to utilize the comments section below to express how brain-crushingly unfathomable it is that I didn’t include your favorite movie, character, fictional person, artificial construct, clothing article or food product on this list.

Abraham Van Helsing (DRACULA, 1897)

badassesofhorror1vanhelsingThese days, it seems like you can’t chuck a crucifix into a crowded room without accidentally impaling some crappy vampire-centric romantic comedy/drama about a dark, brooding, impeccably dressed blood-chugging metro douchebag flitting about in the woods with his whiny high-school girlfriend and talking about forbidden love ad nauseum, until pretty much everyone watching wants to barf up whatever is left of their rapidly shriveling brain cells. Well, back in the day (and by “the day,” of course I mean the late 19th century), everybody just thought vampires were complete bastards good for only one thing: getting pointy wooden stakes rammed through their chests at high velocity by Abraham Van Effing Van Helsing. This grizzled, hardass old Dutch physician/cryptozoologist/crazy occult genius dedicated his long and single-purposed life to training his mind and his body in the fine art of murdering the undead with extreme prejudice all the way up their cadaverous asses, and he was so good as his job that nowadays, his name is pretty much synonymous with stomping vampires’ balls into a thick marinara-like sauce smelling faintly of garlic and failure.

via Badasses of Horror: Part One.

From Horror Hacker:  When I mention the trite phrase that horror movies are horribly sexist, I bet some female readers of this column shout an instant, fist-pumping “Preach on!” When I clarify that horror movies are horribly sexist against men, that’s when those same ladies decide that this preacher actually spews misogynistic lies. The prevailing belief is that horror flicks are sexist and that the targets are women. But if you do the basic math, the sexism is against men.Let’s look at this from a scientific perspective, and by “scientific” I mean in light of the theories of that early legend of science, Charles Darwin. Maybe you’ve heard of him? He’s the guy who coined that pesky phrase “survival of the fittest.” If only the fittest survive, and most horror movies feature a “final girl,” then what does that say about the genre’s stance on men? Or let’s go at this issue another way: Do you actually think horror movies portray females as weak? Tell that to Halloween’s Laurie Strode. Tell that to Scream’s Sidney Prescott.The winner of any fight is the one left standing — no one cares how you survive, as long as you do. If that survival comes wrapped in screaming, crying, pleading, more crying, running, a little more screaming, tripping, not being able to put the car keys in the lock and then finally sticking a knife in a bad guy? Yeah, you still won. So I don’t care how “weak” a final girl may look, if she’s the one who walks away, she’s the survivor and therefore the fittest.
Read the rest at the link below:

via AMC – Blogs – Horror Hacker – Scott Sigler – Dumb Dudes Die While Leading Ladies Live… Ah, the Sexism of Horror.

The 87-year-old star, famed for his role as Count Dracula in a string of Hammer horror movies, was honoured by the Prince of Wales for his services to drama and charity.

Lee is one of the U.K.’s most prolific actors with roles in 1973’s The Wicker Man, 1974 Bond movie The Man With The Golden Gun, and more recently appearing in the new Star Wars films and the Lord Of The Rings trilogy.

Rocker Joe Brown was also presented with an MBE (Member of the British Empire) for his contribution to music during the ceremony in London. »

via Christopher Lee Knighted.