So let’s talk about the last reason, Variety dropped the bomb that RZ’s going to be directing and writing Halloween 2 (which they can’t actually title it unless they want legal issues with Paramount).  Ok, so yeah, it’s not fair to give the Halloween Remake Sequel (for now being titled only H2…stupid) any sort of shit because it hasn’t been made yet, but, I mean, come on, really?  First off, he said he had no intention in any way of doing a sequel, so he’s gone back on that, something to do with an assload of cash no doubt, Tyler Mane is going to be back as the man behind the mask, no surprise there.  I sort of hope they don’t bring back Scout Taylor Compton, though I think she’s contractually obligated and they’d have to explain that out or just outright ignore it, but she just thouroughly was a big pile of shittastic in the first flick. Horrible actress…horrible.

RZ’s mentioned in his blog a bit about it in that he’s not going to do a full-on remake of the original part 2, so, I wonder what he’s going to do.  I dunno, I don’t have much else to say about it at this point but I predict it’s going to suck. So, here’s a teaser poster and some teaser art from the flick, nabbed from the boils ‘n ghouls over at Shock Till You Drop:

Sources say they’ve really pushed for a “Hard R” for this one, and I, for one, am definitely going to be checking this one out.  3D Horror? Hells Yes!

Speaking of Christmas, it’s going to be a sour one here at ‘ol casa de Backwoods as I was officially canned from my job at GeekSquad for insubordination.  Fuckers. Ask a few questions and you’re fired; can’t have the drones thinking freely and all that jazz.  So, an open request…if anyone who works on a professional horror news and reviews site (i.e. can pay me) and needs another writer, let me know. Wouldn’t be a full-time gig, I realize, but every little bit helps pay the rent (and server costs, and bandwidth, etc. etc.)

Anyhow, expect new posts more frequently now.  Apologies for the absence.

Your friend in horror,
Aaron J. Howell

The following courtesy of the Associated Press:

Forrest J Ackerman, the sometime actor, literary agent, magazine editor and full-time bon vivant who discovered author Ray Bradbury and was widely credited with coining the term “sci-fi,” has died. He was 92.

Ackerman died Thursday of heart failure at his Los Angeles home, said Kevin Burns, head of Prometheus Entertainment and a trustee of Ackerman’s estate.

Although only marginally known to readers of mainstream literature, Ackerman was legendary in science-fiction circles as the founding editor of the pulp magazine Famous Monsters of Filmland. He was also the owner of a huge private collection of science-fiction movie and literary memorabilia that for years filled every nook and cranny of a hillside mansion overlooking Los Angeles.

“He became the Pied Piper, the spiritual leader, of everything science fiction, fantasy and horror,” Burns said Friday.

Every Saturday morning that he was home, Ackerman would open up the house to anyone who wanted to view his treasures. He sold some pieces and gave others away when he moved to a smaller house in 2002, but he continued to let people visit him every Saturday for as long as his health permitted.

“My wife used to say, ‘How can you let strangers into our home?’ But what’s the point of having a collection like this if you can’t let people enjoy it?” an exuberant Ackerman told The Associated Press as he conducted a spirited tour of the mansion on his 85th birthday.

His collection once included more than 50,000 books, thousands of science-fiction magazines and such items as Bela Lugosi’s cape from the 1931 film “Dracula.”

His greatest achievement, however, was likely discovering Bradbury, author of the literary classics “Fahrenheit 451″ and “The Martian Chronicles.” Ackerman had placed a flyer in a Los Angeles bookstore for a science-fiction club he was founding and a teenage Bradbury showed up.

Later, Ackerman gave Bradbury the money to start his own science-fiction magazine, Futuria Fantasia, and paid the author’s way to New York for an authors meeting that Bradbury said helped launch his career.

“I hadn’t published yet, and I met a lot of these people who encouraged me and helped me get my career started, and that was all because of Forry Ackerman,” the author told the AP in 2005.

Later, as a literary agent, Ackerman represented Bradbury, Isaac Asimov and numerous other science-fiction writers.

He said the term “sci-fi” came to him in 1954 when he was listening to a car radio and heard an announcer mention the word “hi-fi.”

“My dear wife said, ‘Forget it, Forry, it will never catch on,’” he recalled.

Soon he was using it in Famous Monsters of Filmland, the magazine he helped found in 1958 and edited for 25 years.

Ackerman himself appeared in numerous films over the years, usually in bit parts. His credits include “Queen of Blood,” “Dracula vs. Frankenstein,” “Amazon Women on the Moon,” “Vampirella,” “Transylvania Twist,” “The Howling” and the Michael Jackson “Thriller” video. More recently, he appeared in 2007’s “The Dead Undead” and 2006’s “The Boneyard Collection.”

Ackerman returned briefly to Famous Monsters of Filmland in the 1990s, but he quickly fell out with the publisher over creative differences. He sued and was awarded a judgment of more than $375,000.

Forrest James Ackerman was born in Los Angeles on Nov. 24, 1916. He fell in love with science-fiction, he once said, when he was 9 years old and saw a magazine called Amazing Stories. He would hold onto that publication for the rest of his life.

Ackerman, who had no children, was preceded in death by his wife, Wendayne.

Thanks to SHOCK TILL YOU DROP for the Pic

Sad to say it, I’m actually looking forward to this one. I mean, all of the subsequent Fridays were practically remakes of the second one, well the third if you want the hockey mask goodness. The problem, I think, is that, though the original fridays had a sort of humor to them, a sort of “good natured fun” aspect, even though, you know, there was violent killings ‘n all, that this one will probably lack. We’ll see.

Rob Zombie Returning for Halloween 2?
Source:Ryan Rotten, Managing Editor
December 2, 2008

Update - 11:59pm Pacific: Trancas International tells us they are sending out a press release regarding the sequel in the next day or so. It appears we may be on the money with this. This afternoon, I put in one call to one of Zombie’s reps and received a “no comment.” In regards to something of this nature, I fully understand that the producers would want to give it a proper break in the trade papers. So, if confirmation does indeed come down in the coming days, just remember where you read it first!

Too good to let slide until we get some hard facts, a morsel of info has come our way regarding a sequel to Rob Zombie’s Halloween.

It’s been widely reported at this point that Inside helmers Julien Maury and Alexandre Bustillo have parted ways with Dimension Films and Trancas International’s proposed Halloween 2, leaving the door open to anyone. An insider phoned in this afternoon exclusively informing ShockTillYouDrop.com that Rob Zombie may reprise his duties as director and carry on the new Myers legacy that he forged with Tyler Mane behind the mask.

Where does that leave Tyrannosaurus Rex? Well, according to our source, the project is on hold for now since Halloween 2 is expected to start shooting in March. But questions remain: If this is true, has Zombie been at work on a story? Is a script complete? Will a script be complete by March? The man is busy hatching his new album, where’s his focus?

There’s much to consider.

Pretty cool. I’ll definitely be picking these up, and the fact that 3 will actually be in 3-D is just fucking amazing.  BUY ‘EM!

I’m sadly excited for this flick…

Ok, this flick apparently (according to the almighty internets) has something of a cult following.  I don’t know why. This was one of the biggest snoozefests I’ve seen in a while, and I just watched SYNGENOR.  I took a shit-ton of notes (kind of like a play by play) while watching this thing and found THAT more entertaining.

Here’s the reader’s digest version.  Weird Shit is going on in this lab at the college. To get a little extra money, this guy Pete is told by his pal Oliver that he can subject himself to a couple of experiments at $100 a day.  Ok, college kids do stuff like that all the time for extra money, right? Uh…right?  Anyway, so there’s this whole convoluted backstory about a Doctor LeSage and behavioral-mind-altering-weird-as-fuck-shit going on before Pete was born and now the lab is under the microscope *ahem* again as kids start turning up dead in this small, sleepy, murder-less town.  Pete’s dad is the Chief of Police by the way and he has a certain personal history with LeSage possibly being responsible for his wife’s death and all, but LeSage is dead, right, so what’s going on?

Ok, this movie sucked ass.  It was boring, the gore was almost non-extant, we get to see man-ass in the first few minutes of the thing (with no boobs to balance out this horrid equation), and the story was just, meh.  There were some definite Lynchian-wannabe efforts made here with some weird scenery and dialogue.  I think the one scene that really held my interest was when we found this 11 year old kid getting hacked up by some fat chick.

There were some interesting parts here and there, but, I mean, oh fuck I just realized I’m never getting that time of my life back.  MotherFUCK!  This movie is the perfect thing if you have insomnia.  Very light on gore, story, entertainment value, it’s just sort of…blah, just sort of…there.  That’s the best thing I can say about this movie, it’s just sort of…there, with no real purpose or reason for being.

The DVD was light on features, some trailers and stills and filmmaker bios (if I remember right), but that’s about it, no commentary or anything so fairly bare-bones, not that I’d really invest much into super-special-featurettes territory either for this one. Blah.  The transfer’s fairly nice though, so if you ARE a fan and have an old VHS copy hangin’ about, it’s a worthy upgrade.

If you’re looking for something worth a damn, look elsewhere.  Check out the trailer below and you can have a gander at my notes after the break.

Notes
STRANGE BEHAVIOR
(music by TANGERINE DREAM?)

Flick opens with some kid smokin’ while mom’s away. Mayor’s kid. Power goes out, he goes downstairs, lights a candle, walks around, starts making shadow animals and we see a shadow figure kills him. Some weird guy blows out the candle.
Then we open on some kid gettin’ shoved awake. And THEN we have to be subjected to his ass and his dad’s in the same room and doesn’t think it’s weird his kid’s wanderin’ around naked.
Drive around town, small town, all-american blaggidy blah.
These guys are in high school? They’re like 30.  Two main characters so far, Oliver and some other guy Pete Brady, John Brady’s his dad, who wants to get in a local college, GALESBURG.  They sit in on some weird-ass class where the professor is dead and his lectures were filmed and he’s still teaching class. Fucking weird.
Ha, funny line, “Lucy Brown Gets Around.” “She’s only 13 for Christ’s sake.”  The two boys go to some costume party. Fucking weird.  “There are some very strange looking people at this party.” What the fuck, these people are the weirdest fuckers ever, must be Canadian.  There’s some odd dance montage to some stupid song.   Some guy in a Tor Johnson lookin’ mask kills lardass Waldo who was tryin’ to make the moves with ‘ol Lucy Brown.  Tor Johnson chases after her and stabs her leg, she falls in a pool and Tor’s about to knife her, but she’s rescued.  Then we find out OH SHIT, IT’S OLIVER!!!! OMGZ!!!
But he doesn’t remember a thing about last night.
Then Pete goes to the lab.He’s goin to the lab to do some clinical shite so he can get some green to apply to GALESBURG college (henceforth, GAYSBURG).  Then there’s this haunting image of what looks like a human scarecrow out in a field, eyes cut out or something. Weird.
PRL-B58, a drug to make you smarter, first pill for Pete.  Ah, Brian was the human scarecrow/mayor’s kid.  Pete’s dad’s the Sheriff.  Seems like all the chicks in the lab smoke.
This flick is both weird and boring. Don May Jr. must HATE me.  Pete asks out the lab receptionist.  Blah Blah. Receptionist chick takes him back to her place.
Chicago Homicide Detective Shea shows up.  He tells a fun story about a house full of nurses, 9 of ‘em, different body parts in different rooms. “One guy did ‘em all, he’s back  out on the street now.”
Trying to stay interested.  A lot of Coke product placement.
Some old lady comes into some house callin’ for some kid called Timothy who’s not in his room.   Why the fuck is she in his house. OH FUCK, kid cut his own hand off, or his hand was CUT off or something. 11 y/o kid supposedly.  Oh, ok, we find some fat chick hackin’ off his other hand. Think she was eatin’ him.  I think this fat chick was at the lab earlier.  Fat bitch stabs the old lady in the back and then cuts her throat.
Back at the lab, crazy ILSA lab bitch was about to stab ‘ol Pete in the eye with a huge-ass needle when chief, papa Brady shows up at the lab, asking about crazy fat bitches.  The old lady got a call out before she croaked.  Pete’s screamin, but he’s in a soundproof room.  Receptionist chick almost finds him, but Crazy Lab Bitch gets there first and shoves the huge fucking needle into Pete’s eye and injects some kinda re-animator-green goop in.
Chief Brady visit’s his dead wife in the cemetery, old ass cemetery.  Meh. Pete wakes up.  Looks like the goop is there to condition Pete to kill his pops…BUT WHERE!?!?!?!  Some ‘ol cougar’s after Pete’s dad, too.  There’s some backstory about the head of that lab, LeSage.  Apparently he’s some evil mad doctor.  OOOOO, we see an early Steak ‘n Shake. Cool pink neon fags!  Oh FUCK, Pet’s pissin’ blood, and messily too, all over the toilet ‘n shit, blah, THIS is why I hate public restrooms.
Soooooo, Cheif Brady’s breakin’ into LeSage’s crypt.  Weirder and weirder.  He opens the coffin and…two leg bones, that’s it.  Uh….ok.  Well, it seems that Cheif Brady’s wife worked with LeSage…back in the day, all the whispers started about all the weird experiments up there at the college.  The wife decided to quit, and so one night she didn’t come home.  Chief Brady found her over her desk, gasping.  She died, supposedly of asthma.  Anyway, Chief Brady always blamed LeSage.  Now he’s armed to the teeth and ready to kick some ass.  What’s funny is, he put some old man glasses on before doing so.  Some real ass kicker old man glasses. What the fuck?  Not sunglasses, but like, huge-ass Tortoise Shell glasses.
Pete goes after his dad but not under his own control.  They’re at the lab and it’s Chief Brady and Pete and the Ilsa Lab Bitch on a television monitor telling Pete to take his dad’s guns away and strap him into this chair.  He’s like a zombie.  Then we meet LeSage. The good doctor’s still alive.  He’s one creepy fuck in a wheelchair.  He’s still alive and working on behavioral studies.  He makes Pete slit his wrists in front of his dad.  Then he tells him to kill his father.  Oh this guy is awesome, hand wringing and all, but Pete stabs the old doctor to death instead.  THE FORCE IS STRONG WITH THIS ONE. Heh.  The lab bitch tries to get away but is caught by the cops.
Ok, and now we have a useless ending where Chief Brady marries the old cougar. Oliver by the way is never punished for slicin’ and dicin’ Fat old Waldo.