Hero Complex

'Troll 2': The best worst movie ever?

October 30, 2009 | 4:04 pm

Its awfulness is nearly unmatched. Some have even declared it the worst movie of all time. For many, “Troll 2,” the shameful 1990 horror movie, is the best worst movie.

Now there’s a documentary to prove it. In “Best Worst Movie,” director Michael Stephenson — the child star of the undisputed cinematic disaster, which has a rating of 0% on the film critic website Rotten Tomatoes — reunites with his former “Troll 2” costars and investigates the improbable rise of the film to the status of pop-culture touchstone.

“Up until four years ago, I wanted nothing — nothing — to do with ‘Troll 2.' ” says Stephenson. “Then, out of nowhere, I started getting these messages from kids all over the country on MySpace asking if I was the Michael Stephenson from ‘Troll 2.’ Some would send pictures from parties they’d throw. ... I just stared at them and thought, ‘Why would anyone do this? How can anyone like this film?’ That’s how it all started.”

His documentary, shot over a three-year span, has been making the rounds on the festival circuit. It won the “best nonfiction motion picture award” at the Sitges Film Festival in Spain. And it took home the best documentary award from the Indianapolis International Film Festival. The film plays Saturday at the AFI Film Festival in Hollywood.

“It was very cathartic, making the film,” the 31-year-old director says. “I’ve seen the positivity and the fun and the enjoyment that people are having around this awful, awful film.”

“Troll 2,” directed by Claudio Fragasso, centers on the Waits family as they vacation in a deserted town called Nilbog (“goblin” spelled backward); things go awry when they’re pursued by small vegetarian goblins who turn people into plants before they devour them. Don’t be confused, though. It’s not a sequel to the 1986 Empire Pictures film “Troll,” despite the title.

It was filmed in three weeks in a small town in Utah in summer 1989. Twenty years later, the ultra-low-budget horror film has been resurrected into a treasure — much the way “The Room” and “Showgirls” have become cult favorites. In Chicago and New York, and even in Canada and Austria, fans savor every minute of the film; some travel to attend screenings, others host viewing parties.

The documentary includes fan testimonials and scenes from the horror flick, as well as a glimpse into the lives of the actors. At the center is George Hardy, the film’s father figure, who’s now a dentist in Alabama; he’s touched and confused by the movie’s status.

“I didn’t want to simply focus on the pandemonium surrounding this horribly bad movie,” Stephenson says. “I was most interested in having people get to know the cast who had been part of this cinematic car crash.”

Hardy drills cavities by day and moonlights as a cult figure, attending screenings where he often reenacts the infamous scene in which he declares one should not urinate on hospitality (in a more colorful way, of course).

“I remember a patient of mine gave me the VHS about a year or two after it came out,” Hardy says. “I remember ... putting it in and thinking, ‘Ugh, I can’t watch this.’ ”

It wasn’t until he attended a 2006 New York screening — the first scene Stephenson filmed — that Hardy saw the film’s effect, as hundreds of fans attended.

“The way people have embraced it ... it speaks to the power of film — good or bad.”

--Yvonne Villarreal

Photos, from top: "Troll 2" goblins; George Hardy and Michael Stephenson on the set of the awesomely bad film. Credits: Michael Stephenson

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"The Haunting" at the Alex Theatre on Saturday

Listen in on sound masters at the Academy's 'Horrorshow'

October 29, 2009 | 2:13 pm

Continuing our countdown to Halloween is another Susan King special touting what will be a cool look by many of the creators of audible terror at some of film's greatest scary tales -- from 1925's "The Phantom of the Opera" to "Poltergeist" and "The Thing." Just spotlighting another event for fear-seeking fanboys and followers of classic Hollywood alike. -- Jevon Phillips

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences explores the things that go boo tonight at the Samuel Goldwyn Theater. But don’t expect any scholarly examination of the use of sound in horror films at "The Sound Behind the Image III: Real Horrorshow!"

"I think what it really amounts to is a ... horror movie night in the doors with friends, pizza and some horror movies," says the program host, veteran sound editor David E. Stone, who won an Oscar for his spook-tacular work on the 1992 horror hit, "Bram Stoker's Dracula."

"What we are going to do is have a handful of basically post-production sound people each introducing clips of a horror movie where we think there is something interesting to say on how the sound was treated," says Stone. "The most exciting role that sound can play in a horror movie is that enhances what you don’t see , and that adds to the suspense."

Sometimes silence is golden in horror movies.

"Scholars tell us sound was always thought about in silent films," says Stone. "It was made part of the story by the composition of music or the characters’ miming that they heard something."

To illustrate the point, Stone will be showing the famous clip from 1925's "The Phantom of the Opera" where Mary Philbin rips off the mask of the Phantom (Lon Chaney), and her silent scream literally echoes in audiences’ ears.

Besides Stone, Oscar-nominated sound effects editors Mark Mangini and Richard L. Anderson will offer a behind-the-scenes look at how the chilling sound effects were created for 1982’s "Poltergeist." Foley artist Vanessa Theme Ament will discuss the work of master foley artist John Post, who was responsible for the terrifying sound effects on John Carpenters 1982 "The Thing." And veteran Oscar-winning production sound mixer Gene Cantamessa and supervising sound editor Don Hall will discuss their work on Mel Brooks' classic 1974 horror spoof, "Young Frankenstein."

Doors open at 6:30 p.m. For more information, go to www.oscars.org.

-- Susan King

Photo: Winona Ryder stars as Mina Murray/Elisabeta and Gary Oldman stars as Dracula in "Bram Stoker's Dracula." Credit: Columbia Pictures

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"Phantasm," the 30-year reunion interview

'The Haunting' -- and the haunted -- at the Alex Theatre this Saturday

October 21, 2009 | 5:30 am

You know what's scary than watching a screening of the "The Haunting," director Robert Wise's classic about paranormal activity? Viewing it while seated next to the darkened aisles in a haunted theater.

This Saturday, the grand old Alex Theatre in Glendale will present two showings (one at 2 p.m. and, for you braver souls, an 8 p.m. screening) of the spooky 1963 film that starred Russ Tamblyn, Julie Harris, Claire Bloom and Richard Johnson. (You can see the trailer below) But there's more: Michael J. Kouri, an author and self-described psychic-medium and parapsychological investigator, will be on hand for to describe his repoire with ghosts and also show footage of a seance staged in the 84-year-old Glendale movie palace.

Kouri, has a number of books and the latest is “True Hauntings of Glendale & Beyond,” had a, um, spirited conversation with Hero Complex contributor Susan King regarding the five dozen ghosts or so that inhabit the Alex.

SK: So the Alex Theatre is haunted?

Michael J. Kouri: It’s very haunted. I grew up in Burbank and I used to go there to watch movies. I would often see a woman in the men’s room dressed as an usherette. And this is a weird thing to say, but I was at the urinal and somebody pinched me on my butt. I didn’t notice a ghost or anything. But while I was washing my hands I could see her reflection -- in the mirror behind me -- holding towels. Because I can see ghosts I could talk with her mentally, telepathically. I ask her her name and she didn’t say anything. Then I asked, 'Why are you here?' And she said, 'Because I like my job. Wouldn’t you stay where you liked your job?'

I told my girlfriend the story. We went back to our seats. We were seated in the balcony and saw a strange light like a ball of lightning come down the middle aisle like an usher was helping somebody to their seat. Denise, my girlfriend, noticed it. There was no one humanly attached with it, but she thought she saw a hand on the flashlight. I could see it, too. I could see the same woman holding the flashlight, but I could also see a man and a woman both beautifully dressed. The usher was helping the woman to her seat, which was a couple of rows back and across from us. There are so many spirits there, they are doing the things they were doing when they were alive.

SK: Wait, so ghosts don’t just haunt the place they died?

Kouri: It’s a misnomer that they only haunt the places that they die. The thing is, they go back to places they enjoyed themselves. That was a place where the usherette had a regular routine. Her clothing looked like the period of the 1930s. I am a historian and an antiques dealer so I know the styles really well. She’s not always there. She’s only there at night.

SK: Can you enlighten us about some of the spectral presences at the Alex?

Kouri: There is a couple that used to go to the theater every Tuesday. They always sat in the 13th row, in the center. They are often been heard talking during movies and programs. People will shush them and the man will turn around and say ‘’I can talk as loud as I want!’ and then he dematerializes from view. Many, many people have told me that story.

The last time I heard that story was when the Russian Ballet was in town. I think it was Christmastime a year ago and some people were sitting in that area and they kept hearing this couple talking. They couldn’t make out what they were saying but they could hear this bickering [about dinner]. The woman [I talked to] said she could only see the backs of heads because it was dark. She leaned over and said, "Could you talk about your dinner some other time?" The man turned around and looked at her. She said the man’s eyes were glowing yellow like a cat. She was so scared she left her husband there [and went into the lobby for help]. But they were gone...

SK: Truly creepy.

Kouri: I have interviewed people from the Gay Men’s Chorus that use that facility and they say they have seen a haggard woman in the dressing room and she’s always wearing a wedding gown.

I know that there was a woman who was an actress who came to Glendale in 1927. She and her fiancee performed at the Alex Theatre in a play. They rented an apartment in Glendale. She was stood up at the alter at a church right up the street on Brand Avenue and later she found out he had died in a car accident. She never moved on from that. She finished the play and went on to another city. Since her death, she haunts the basement of the theater. She’s seen wearing an old, torn-up wedding gown and her face is kind of gaunt and gray and her eyes are dark. She looks like a ghoul. I have seen her, too. I try to help spirits understand they are no longer in the living and they don’t have to stay there. So I try to help them make peace with their existence.

"The Haunting" at the Alex Theatre, 216 North Brand Boulevard, Glendale. Tickets are $13.50; $9.50 seniors (65+) and $8 for full-time students with I.D. For more details on this event or the venue, go to the website of the Alex Film Society.

-- Susan King

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Technorati Tags: ghosts, Glendale, paranormal activity, Robert Wise, seance, The Haunting

Happy birthday, Tall Man! 'Phantasm' turns 30

October 16, 2009 | 2:40 pm

Originally released in 1979, the cult gem "Phantasm," about a pair of brothers and an ice cream vendor who run afoul of the mysterious, cemetery-raiding Tall Man, has all the hallmarks of a trippy independent production from that era. It was shot at various Southern California locations over the course of about a year – often on nights and weekends – and featured a cast and crew comprised mostly of friends and aspiring professionals.

Its surreal storyline originated from director Don Coscarelli’s fascination with “the American way of death” and is both creepy and idiosyncratic, what with its packs of snarling, robed hobgoblins and silver metal spheres that fly through the air and violently bore into victims’ foreheads with mechanized knives and drills. And then, of course, there’s that super cool vintage Plymouth Barracuda, which featured prominently in the three sequels that Coscarelli would go on to make.

All four “Phantasm” movies will be screened at the inaugural Big Bear Horror Film Festival this weekend, where Coscarelli, along with the films’ stars, Angus Scrimm and Reggie Bannister, are to appear in person. Hero Complex contributor Gina McIntyre caught up with the spooky trio by phone before they made their way north for the weekend events ...

GM: How does it feel to realize that 30 years have passed since “Phantasm” was released?

Coscarelli: The goal was just to finish the movie and get it out in a few theaters. To think that decades later people would still be thinking and talking about it, I could have never imagined.

Scrimm: What’s surprising is that one film has so saturated my life all these years! From the very beginning it was such a huge success. I was just looking over my clippings from ’79 – it opened at No. 1 in Paris at the box office and [in] one clipping I have it was still No. 1 after five weeks. I believe it was the top hit in Paris all summer and in Hong Kong and Japan and London. It was just a phenomenon. I was just titillated to get fan mail from Europe, I, who had never had a fan letter. I still get letters from odd places like Poland. New Jersey seems to be the center of horror fandom. Most of my mail has always come from New Jersey.

Bannister: By the time it came out, I was working at nights playing music, but my day job was at a place called Sunnyside in Long Beach. It’s a cemetery/mortuary/mausoleum. I delivered flowers for them. We actually shot some stuff for "Phantasm" there. I just answered an ad and it turned out to be this place that we’d shot at and I had family interred there. I remember there was a drive-in theater on this corner where I used to go to this gas station to fill up my van. I remember standing there and filling up my flower delivery van and looking over at this marquee and it said "Phantasm." Here I am pumping gas into my delivery van while I’m being a star on the screen, the irony.

GM: Where did the idea for the film come from?

Coscarelli: I had a compunction to try to do something in the horror genre and I started thinking about how our culture handles death; it’s different than in other societies. We have this central figure of a mortician. He dresses in dark clothing, he lurks behind doors, they do procedures on the bodies we don’t know about. The whole embalming thing, if you ever do any research on it, is pretty freaky. It all culminates in this grand funerary service production. It’s strange stuff. It just seemed like it would be a great area in which to make a film.

GM: What was the budget of the movie?

Coscarelli: I think maybe $300,000. It was never actually known because there were no accountants. We didn’t know what we were spending. But it was done on very modest means. It was shot with friends and students, and yet for some reason the movie has had this impact on people. I certainly never could have foreseen how that would happen, but it’s probably a combination of that aforementioned embalming and funeral stuff that preys on people’s psyches. But it also has to do with this performance from Angus Scrimm as this strange and bizarre undertaker. He brought a level of intensity and strangeness to this character.

GM: You previously had worked with Angus, under the name Rory Guy, on your first film, 1976's "Jim, the World's Greatest." You must have had some sense of what he would bring to the character.

Coscarelli: I really didn’t have any idea that he would take it to the level that he did. He always wore his hair to the side, but his hair was combed back and his cheeks were hollowed out and he glared at me in the mirror and did the raised eyebrow thing, I could see it was going to be a very powerful character. It’s one of the coolest things about directing, really. You’re like the first audience for elements of the movie and when something wonderful like a performance is evolving you’re the first one to see it.

GM: Angus, were you an aficionado of horror films?

Scrimm: I had grown up admiring William Powell and Cary Grant and I wanted to do suave drawing room comedy but they sort of stopped doing suave drawing room comedy after the '30s and '40s. I became very fond of horror films at the age of 12, the age when my parents decided I was old enough to see them. That was the year, coincidentally, that Universal re-released "Frankenstein" and "Dracula" on a double bill. I saw those and was immediately hooked. I spent a year or two seeing every old re-release that came out like "The Old Dark House" and all the James Whales, of which there weren’t nearly enough, and Tod Brownings. After my college years, I disdained horror for a decade or more and wouldn’t see anything that didn’t come from Europe.

I was intrigued and kind of delighted in the most improbable situation, the British Encyclopedia of Horror printed a book with a little thumbnail sketch in which I was alluded to as -- this is a decade or more ago -- as a minor American horror icon. So I wrote them a letter and I said, I’m so grateful to be listed at all, and I realize at my age I’m not apt to attain the record of a [Boris] Karloff or a [Bela] Lugosi, but if I manage before my end to make another two or three significant horror films do you think I might be up to a middling horror icon? I never got a letter. I think they’re still pondering it.

GM: Did you have a lot of input into the character of the Tall Man?

Scrimm: Don and I pretty much decided that he did represent death, but not a lot [of input]. I think one of the first scenes we did was the Tall Man’s encounter at the beginning of the picture with the older brother when he startles him in the cemetery by clapping his hand on his shoulder. Don had almost choreographed that himself. He gave me the line reading. He gave me everything. As we went on, he began to trust my instincts and I made a stronger contribution. ...

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Is "Paranormal Activity" on track for a "Blair Witch"-style success?

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'Paranormal Activity,' a study in careful execution

October 8, 2009 | 9:17 am

John Horn, who covers film for the Los Angeles Times, has been mapping the curious path of "Paranormal Activity," the dirt-cheap horror film that may shape up as one of the unexpected success stories of 2009. Here's his analysis of the movie's marketing -- and the secret message conveyed by long lines at movie theaters.

The positive buzz about this micro-budget spectral thriller started building at a Park City, Utah, film festival, word of mouth spread quickly via the Internet, early nationwide college-town screenings sparked even more interest, and a slowly expanding theatrical release fed the flames.

It's the model that made "The Blair Witch Project" a cultural phenomenon and box-office blockbuster exactly a decade ago, and it's a carefully crafted plan that Paramount Pictures is following nearly to the letter with “Paranormal Activity.”

While there are minor differences between the releases -- "Blair Witch" premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, "Paranormal Activity" played at the smaller Slamdance Film Festival -- the similarities are striking. What's also noticeable is how well both films performed in the initial weeks of their theatrical premieres.

Opening in July 1999, "Blair Witch" initially showed in 27 theaters, with a staggering per-screen average of $56,000. Playing in only midnight shows last weekend (or about a fifth of the normal showings in a typical weekend) in 33 theaters, "Paranormal Activity" sold about $16,000 of tickets in each venue (well more than a fifth of the "Blair Witch" grosses) with hardly any paid advertising to drive traffic.

While it's far too early -- there's only $851,000 in sales so far -- to predict how well "Paranormal Activity" will ultimately perform, Paramount executives and any number of exhibitors are starting to believe the little $15,000 scare story about a nocturnal visitor is poised for greatness. For weeks, theater owners have been calling the studio asking to play the film.

"That's a call we never get," says Rob Moore, Paramount's vice chairman.

"Paranormal Activity" this weekend expands to 46 markets and more than 170 theaters playing the film throughout the day and evening. Although the film still hasn't been reviewed by many leading news organizations, the early notices have been about as stellar as audience recommendations spread through Twitter, Facebook, Yahoo and genre fanboy sites. Now Paramount is using a website largely designed to bring rock bands to out-of-the way towns to drum up interest in booking the film.

"Blair Witch," which grossed $248.6 million in worldwide box office, was the film that transformed the Internet into a movie-marketing machine. In an era when many people still used dial-up connections, Artisan Entertainment launched a low-tech "Blair Witch" website to create what felt like an authentic groundswell of audience interest, while also perpetuating the myth that the film represented found footage from some real-life event.

"It felt natural and viral," says John Hegeman, who was Artisan's marketing head at the time and now holds a similar position at New Regency. "It was the only place you could go to find out things about the film. And because the Internet was new to so many consumers, there was a mystical element."

High-speed Web connections are ubiquitous these days, so Paramount looked for a new way to create a similar sense of mystery and generate pent-up demand for "Paranormal Activity." It found the perfect place -- in movie theaters, and the lines snaking into them.

By intentionally booking the film into just a few theaters and then limiting the showings to midnight, Paramount turned "Paranormal Activity" into a sometimes-impossible ticket to get. Hundreds of would-be moviegoers were turned away across the nation, and the lines into theaters (some "Paranormal Activity" audience members would start queuing up five hours before showtimes) became walking advertisements for the movie.

"In this era of the 10,000-print release, the idea that there's a movie out there that you can't get into -- that created even more interest," says Moore. "It's that sense of discovery -- that you know something somebody else doesn't. There's a sense that you are part of the discovery..."

THERE'S MORE, READ THE REST

-- John Horn

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Photos: "Paranormal Activity" credit: Paramount Pictures; "Blair Witch" credit: Artisan Entertainment.

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'Trick 'r Treat' is (finally) knocking at the door this Tuesday

October 5, 2009 | 11:02 am

This looks like an October to die for if you're a horror fan.

There's the spirited success of "Paranormal Activity," the $15,000 film that is spooking up major word of mouth and will expand next Friday into new markets. Then there's the blood-and-brains charm of horror-comedy "Zombieland," which is getting cheered by critics and hit No. 1 at the box office this weekend. Meanwhile, "Saw VI" is revving up for its massive Oct. 23 release and director Ti West's 1980s-horror homage "The House of the Devil" arrives on Oct. 30 with some retro splatter.

There's another film taking a stab at the marketplace but not in theaters -- it's "Trick 'r Treat," which hits DVD and Blu-ray on Tuesday and will also be available on-demand and for digital download. I've seen fans saying they're eager to get their copy at midnight tonight, which may sound surprising if you don't know the back story of this film (more on that in a moment).

I dropped by the inaugural edition of the Long Beach Comic Con this weekend (and congrats to the organizers of that seaside start-up, I predict big things for them in the future) and one of the clear crowd favorites was the Saturday screening of "Trick 'r Treat," which was written and directed by Michael Dougherty.

The film presents four interlocking tales and there are some good actors in it, to say the least, with some of familiar faces to you Hero Complex readers, such as Anna Paquin ("True Blood," "X-Men"), Brian Cox ("The Bourne Identity," "X2") and Tahmoh Penikett ("Battlestar Galactica," "Dollhouse"). Here's the trailer...

"Trick 'r Treat" had become something of a Flying Dutchman in horror circles. The film was scheduled for release waaaay back in 2007 but it got caught up in the unpredictable currents of Hollywood studio scheduling. The film has become a minor legend with its strong reviews and relatively rare screenings over all these months.

I met Dougherty a few years ago when I traveled to the Sydney set of "Superman Returns" (which he co-wrote) and I remember most his pure enthusiasm for crowd-pleasing films; after a long day filming he and others from the set headed out to a midnight show of Steven Spielberg's "War of the Worlds" because they simply had to be at the very first screening. I tagged along, it was a great evening -- we were pretty much the only people in the theater -- but we were all completely exhausted when filming resumed early the next morning. Dougherty was all smiles, though, and was eager to discuss and debate the merits of the latest sci-fi film from his one of his directing heroes.

I'm sure Dougherty will be pleased to know that, in the wee hours tonight, a lot of hard-core horror fans will (finally) be digging into "Trick 'r Treat" with that same sort of glee.

-- Geoff Boucher

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LAT REVIEW: 'Paranormal Activity' would make Hitchcock smile

October 2, 2009 | 2:06 pm

Steven Spielberg reportedly got so freaked out by some strange occurences that he associated with his DVD advance copy of "Paranormal Activity" that he carried the disc out of his home in a garbage bag like some toxic artifact. Nice. Turns out Los Angeles Times film critic Betsy Sharkey was also a bit wigged out by the new horror film. Here's an excerpt from her review, with links added by me... -- Geoff Boucher

Just for the record, the time to tell your significant other that an evil force has been stalking you since you were 8 is long before you're engaged and have moved in together.

I'm not suggesting the whole demon/ghost/unidentified whatever is a deal breaker, but it should at least get a mention.

Consider the case of Katie (Katie Featherston) and Micah (Micah Sloat), the young couple at the terrifying center of "Paranormal Activity." By the time Katie tells Micah about her "problem" and by the time Micah takes it seriously, that "thing that goes bump in the night" has really built up a head of steam.

Before the lights go back up, and at some point you may wonder if they ever will, there will be a very tight coil of anxiety buried deep in your gut that is very hard to get rid of. I say that even though there's no hard research yet. But it is 3 a.m. as I'm writing this and what with all the lights, I'm guessing the local electrical grid is recording a spike.

The man to curse for all this darkness is writer-director Oren Peli, who has created a psychological thriller of such small scale and yet such heightened impact that no doubt Hitchcock, wherever he may be, is smiling. Though the story does not have the complexity of the master, the first-time director understands that it's what you don't see, and the way in which you don't see it, that counts.

We're dropped into Katie and Micah's lives just as Micah is setting up a DIY surveillance system so that he can record any suspicious activity in the house. As he begins shooting footage and talking to Katie we realize that he's merely going to elaborate lengths to prove that she is just imagining things...

THERE'S MORE, READ THE REST

-- Betsy Sharkey

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CREDITS: "Paranormal Activity" image from Paramount Pictures, "Blair Witch" from Artisan Entertainment.

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'Paranormal Activity' may be stirring up a 'Blair Witch'-style success

October 2, 2009 | 7:52 am

John Horn writes on the Company Town blog that "Paranormal Activity" has seized the attention of young horror fans in a big way and reminds some people of a box-office haunting from a decade ago. Here's an excerpt with links added by me. -- Geoff Boucher

Producer Jason Blum spent nearly two years bringing the ultra-low-budget thriller "Paranormal Activity" to theaters. "It finally feels," he says, "like we're entering the third act."

When Blum saw long lines snaking around the ArcLight Hollywood last weekend for midnight showings of writer-director Oren Peli's $15,000 tale of things that go bump in the night, he choked up. Had he visited the box offices selling tickets for this coming weekend's late-night showings, Blum might start bawling like a baby.

After taking the movie to a dozen college towns for a series of midnight-only screenings last week, Paramount Pictures is cautiously expanding the film's release, adding another 21 cities. The film will be shown in midnight-only screenings on Thursday, Friday and Saturday night, and theater owners say few seats are left. The ArcLight (which has other late-night screenings besides midnight) already has sold out many of this weekend's shows.

"The sales are incredible," says Maurice Peel, a manager at Santa Cruz's Nickelodeon & Del Mar Theatres. "We are looking to sell out every show this weekend."

"People are coming from Pittsburgh, Indianapolis -- four or five hours away," says Eric Brembeck, the owner of the Studio 35 Cinema & Drafthouse in Columbus, Ohio. The demand for "Paranormal Activity" is so strong, Brembeck says, that he's thinking of finally getting an online ticketing service for his 300-seat auditorium.

"I haven't seen anything like this for a long time," says Michael Stockhaus, a senior manager at the AMC Loews Universal Cineplex 20 in Orlando. "The level of excitement -- I can't compare it to anything. You just didn't see it coming..."

THERE'S MORE, READ THE REST

-- John Horn

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Woody Harrelson gets horrified for 'Zombieland'

October 1, 2009 | 11:22 am

Who knew Woody Harrelson, the star of "Natural Born Killers" and costar in "No Country For Old Men," had a squeamish side? It's all true, the 48-year-old native of Midland, Texas, tells Richard Abele in this feature that ran in today's Los Angeles Times. The links were added by yours truly.... -- Geoff Boucher

Were they to exist, zombies would be hard to ignore. Scripts about these flesh-eating creatures are real, though, and it seems they're easier to push aside. Especially if you're an actor who does his best to ignore such movies.

"The one genre I don't watch is horror," says Woody Harrelson. "I get nightmares. For some reason, it really scares me."

Just to get the Oscar-nominated actor to read the script to "Zombieland," the title of which could lead any star to believe humans were secondary, was a chore for his agent. "I was like, 'Zombies, dude? Really?' " Harrelson says. "Then, finally, I read it and thought it was just phenomenal. [They're] more of a backdrop that brings all these characters together."

Opening Friday, the post-apocalyptic "Zombieland" has its share of splatter-rich mayhem and raving paragons of anatomical decay filmed in loving slow-motion. But at its heart, it's a personality-driven action comedy in which Harrelson's daring, quick-trigger character, Tallahassee -- a tough guy whose sense of loss drives him to daredevil zombie-destroying -- reluctantly teams up with a nervous young man known as Columbus ("Adventureland" star Jesse Eisenberg), who staves off fear (and survives) by adhering to his personal set of undead-avoidance rules.

Like Harrelson, Eisenberg -- normally drawn to such movies as "The Squid and the Whale," where emotions, as opposed to cannibalistic renderings, induce squirms -- had to be prodded into reading Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick's screenplay. He then discovered something more shocking than the de rigueur violence. "I realized this was better than most independent dramas I had at the time," says Eisenberg, "and had more authentic and well-rounded characters than many movies that focus only on characters. The movie can sustain itself without having to scare people."

First-time director Ruben Fleischer took pains to assure his cast -- which also includes Emma Stone and Abigail Breslin as a pair of survival-shrewd sisters -- that crunchy gore, terror, laughs and human beings could commingle effectively.

"Because you invest in the characters, that's why we're able to go in all these directions," says Fleischer, who believes "Zombieland," which follows its protagonists as they make their way across the country to a West Coast amusement park, is closer in tone and spirit to strangers-on-a-road-trip movies such as "Planes, Trains & Automobiles" and "Midnight Run" than sustained-mood chillers like the original zombie masterpiece, George Romero's "Night of the Living Dead." "The buddy-comedy aspect is what excited me about it. It's the classic odd couple, the brains and the brawn..."

THERE'S MORE, READ THE REST

-- Richard Abele

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Photos: Woody Harrelson and Jesse Eisenberg, photographed by Wally Skalij/Los Angeles Times. Harrelson on the set, photographed by David Strick/Hollywood Backlot.

Jigsaw, Michael Myers and Chucky team up for Universal Studios' Halloween Horror Nights

September 28, 2009 | 9:12 am

T.J. Kosinski is back as a contributor for Hero Complex, this time with a quick preview of the seasonal scares coming soon to Universal Studios Hollywood...

Want to play a game? This October, Universal Studios Hollywood wants to take you on a hellish ride with Jigsaw, Michael Myers, Chucky and more as part of its Halloween Horror Nights. This year’s event, entitled "You'll Wish it Were Just a Movie," is the biggest in park history, and there will be some very familiar faces lurking in the dark corners of four new mazes.

“Our big vision was to take the most popular horror movies in the world and turn them into living horror movies that people get to experience,” said Universal's John Murdy, the longtime horror aficionado who directed, designed and wrote everything the audience experiences in those mazes.

The mazes are based on three major horror franchises -- "Saw," "Halloween" and "Child's Play" -- and "My Bloody Valentine," which hit theaters with a splatter in January.

As you might expect, Universal officials say this is the biggest and baddest edition of the fright franchise, which launched at the Universal City park in 1986 with sequel years in 1992 and 1997 through 2000. The event was revived as an annual tradition in 2006 and has been a potent draw in Southern California, explaining the calendar expansion this year to 16 horror-dedicated days, the most ever.

For Lionsgate, which will release "Saw VI" on Oct. 23, the event is a fairly potent marketing opportunity, although the franchise is a killer all on its own; the worldwide box office for the films to date is $669 million, an impressive total considering the production budget for the first was $1.2 million and, reportedly, none of the sequels have cost more than $11 million to film.

In the "Saw: Game Over" maze, park-goers venture into the lair of Jigsaw, the demented and ingenious killer, and they dare to inspect some of his intricate death machines from the films, among them the razor-wire trap and the needle pit.

That may be the centerpiece attraction, but the other three mazes offer frights of different flavors.

"Halloween: The Life and Crimes of Michael Myers" takes brave souls through the odyssey of the masked mass murderer who first appeared on screen 31 years ago and has proved himself a supernatural survivor after nine films (with a 10th reportedly on the way). "Chucky's Funhouse" brings back everyone's favorite demonic doll (five films from 1988 to 2004) and gives him an army of playthings -- think "It's a Small World" but with a body count. "My Blood Valentine: Be Mine 4 Ever," keyed to the 2009 remake of the 1981 movie, digs deep into the horror of an abandoned mine where a pick-ax killer looks for unromantic revenge.

In addition to the mazes, there are six "scare zones" with varying themes -- two have "Saw" imagery (think pig-masked minions, like the one in the top photo); another is devoted to the zombie shenanigans of the 2004 film "Shaun of the Dead" -- and the park's signature back-lot tour has been refitted as “Terror Tram: Live or Die," with, you guessed it, a "Saw" theme. If you need a psychic break from the flood of arterial blood, there are also two ensemble performances: "The Rocky Horror Picture Show: A Tribute" and "Bill & Ted’s Excellent Halloween Adventure."

After all that, if you make it out in one piece, you might feel the true weight by Jigsaw’s famous words: “Congratulations. You are still alive. Most people are so ungrateful to be alive, but not you. Not anymore ...”

Halloween Horror Nights event dates are: October 2-3, 9-11, 15-18, 23-25, 28-31. The event will begin nightly at 7; closing hours vary by night throughout the event.

TICKETS AND MORE INFORMATION

-- T.J. Kosinksi

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Upper photos: Scenes from Halloween Horror Nights. Credit: Universal Studios

Lower photo: Sam Raimi. Credit: Ann Johansson / For The Times

Ghost in the Hollywood machine: 'Paranormal Activity' beat the odds (and gave Spielberg the willies)

September 20, 2009 | 3:24 pm

You may remember John Horn's name from our Comic-Con International coverage, he led our team of reporters in San Diego while I took a year off from the expo so I could sit on a beach in Hawaii with my wife and kids. Mahalo, John! Horn is one of the savviest journalists covering Hollywood, and today he's got a cover story in the Los Angeles Times Sunday Calendar on the against-all-odds path of "Paranormal Activity," an unsettling movie that even managed to spook the producer of "Poltergeist."

Steven Spielberg was certain his copy of "Paranormal Activity" was haunted.

It was early 2008, and the director's DreamWorks studio was trying to decide whether it wanted to be a part of the micro-budgeted supernatural thriller. As the story goes, Spielberg had taken a "Paranormal Activity" DVD to his Pacific Palisades estate, and not long after he watched it, the door to his empty bedroom inexplicably locked from the inside, forcing him to summon a locksmith.

While Spielberg didn't want the "Paranormal Activity" disc anywhere near his home -- he brought the movie back to DreamWorks in a garbage bag, colleagues say -- he very much shared his studio's enthusiasm for director Oren Peli's haunting story about the demonic invasion of a couple's suburban tract house.

"Paranormal Activity" was hardly a typical studio production. Peli, an Israeli-born video game designer who had no formal film training, shot the $15,000 movie in a week in 2006 with a no-name cast, a crew of several San Diego friends and a hand-held video camera.

But as Spielberg and the DreamWorks team believed, the movie held a special appeal -- it was original and scary. The challenge was to fit this round peg into a DreamWorks square hole -- a process that would ultimately take more than a year and a half, the delay exacerbated by the slow collapse of Paramount's acquisition of DreamWorks. For a time, it looked as if Spielberg was right: "Paranormal Activity" appeared cursed -- to sit on a shelf.

But now, supported by one of the more unusual marketing and distribution strategies conjured up for a studio release, Paramount is finally opening the film in 13 college towns on Friday, with a wider national rollout planned for mid-October. Scary movies are a dime a dozen these days -- at least 75 horror movies have been released theatrically in the last three years -- and "Paranormal Activity" doesn't have the franchise awareness or recognizable actors that help separate a handful of genre films from the teeming herd.

Yet as preview and film festival audiences can attest, "Paranormal Activity" exhibits something many fright flicks don't -- goose-bump inducing, gore-free scares. Now it's up to the film (and Paramount) to translate Internet buzz into a "Blair Witch Project"-style phenomenon.

"The movie could be stratospheric, or it could just become a cult favorite," says Stuart Ford, the chief executive of international sales agent IM Global, which sold "Paranormal Activity" to more than 50 foreign distributors. "It just depends on whether the studio can catch a wave."

"Paranormal Activity" has beaten the odds before.

Hardly any micro-budget movie ever escapes its creator's basement, and to travel all the way to the slate of a studio that releases "Star Trek" and "Transformers" -- that's beyond exceptional.

"Once every five years, a guy makes a movie for a nickel that can cross over to a broad audience," says "Paranormal Activity" producer Jason Blum, who, as a senior executive at Miramax Films, had a producing credit on "The Reader" and acquired the supernatural thriller "The Others." "And there are about 3,000 of these movies made every year, so this film is about one in 15,000..."

THERE'S MORE, READ THE REST.

-- John Horn

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UPDATED: An earlier version of this post implied that Spielberg was the director of "Poltergeist," a spooky film that Spielberg produced and Tobe Hooper directed. I hope the angry spirits don't come after me.

Guest blogger: Jaime King writes about hitting bottom on 'Mother's Day' set

September 18, 2009 | 7:42 am

One of my favorite people in Hollywood is Jaime King, the actress who has built quite the fanboy resume with roles in "Sin City," "My Bloody Valentine," "The Spirit," "Star Wars: The Clone Wars" series and the film "Fanboys" (which brought her together with her future husband, director Kyle Newman). King is beautiful, of course (she's always listed in the hot-chick rankings in men's magazines, such as the time she was listed at No. 16 on Maxim's 50 Sexiest Women), but I'm smitten with her firebrand sense of humor. I asked her to do some guest blogging for Hero Complex. Here's what she sent. -- Geoff Boucher

So I decided it would be fun to blog about my experience making my new film, “Mother's Day.” The horror film is a remake of Charles Kaufman's original 1980 Troma cult classic. It is being directed by Darren Bousman and stars me, Rebecca De Mornay and Deborah Ann Woll (the beautiful new vampire from "True Blood"). I nearly had a heart attack when I showed up at the cast dinner and saw Kandyse McClure from my favorite television show, “Battlestar Galactica.” I don’t usually get star struck but I do fall over now almost every time I see her in the makeup trailer and I try to bond by using the word 'frack' as much as humanly possible.

I knew filming this movie was going to be interesting from the start. I just got my appendix taken out 2 1/2 weeks ago and hey, I’m not method, but my character is pretty traumatized after the loss of her child so I thought, “Why not? I will use this pain for my acting because that is what actors do, right?" But, of course I promised I would take it easy and have a stunt double.

Cut to: Last night, exterior, dusk. Beth (my character) runs out of her house, chased by a gun-wielding psychopath, begging her neighbors to help. The neighbors, who are only 20 feet away unloading groceries but don't hear her because (cue the loud tornado sirens) her panicked screams are muffled in the din (think "Lady in a Cage"). Beth gets kicked to the ground, she kicks back, she gets dropped hard on her butt, she gets dragged by one arm and shoved back into the house. Basically, it sucks to be her. So I did the first one myself, then for the hard falls they bring in the stunt double. I see the shot, and like every other paranoid perfectionist actor, decide I am the only one who can do the action the way it really needs to be done.

We do it six times, six angles, six adrenaline-fueled takes during which my body feels nothing.

First I knocked my head, then my knee swelled up, then I popped my wrist out and, lo and behold, after the final shot ... I can’t walk. So they carry me to the hospital, while at the same time everyone tries to get their continuity photos as I wail in pain. (Gotta make sure my hair matched for the next shot!) My awesome producer, Richard Saperstein, stunt coordinator Bobby King, and my best friend, Sara, come with me to the hospital where I am forced to get hopped up on painkillers just to cut the agonizing pain. Turns out, I fractured my tailbone on the third day of filming. Bummer.

When the Percocet kicked in, I felt a level of intoxication that would put Cheech and Chong to shame. I then proceeded to make a slew of raunchy jokes that just sort of tumbled from my lips in a dirty and uncontrollable way. I am lucky to still have a job let alone be considered a lady after this impromptu comedy routine. I rememebr one particularly crude exchange; the nurse came in to give me a shot in the butt and said I’m going to poke you with this, but promised she wouldn’t push it in all the way. To which I replied “Oh, don’t worry, I’ve had worse down there,” but it wasn't quite phrased like that. Groan.

Don’t ask me how it happened, but in hindsight (hah!) I’ve come to the conclusion that I was possessed by Seth Rogen. Finally, we left the hospital and made a pit stop at the local A&W, where Sara got me to eat a whole double cheeseburger and French fries ... probably in an attempt to sober me up.

And now it’s onward and upward. I will continue to film, sitting on an inner tube but without a river, without the sun, and without a bottle of Boone's. What I do have is an amazing cast, a sick script and the knowing that I have the most interesting, amazing opportunities given to me and an awesome film on the way that (hopefully!) people will really love.

-- Jaime King

JAIME KING IS A NOMINEE FOR THE SCREAM 2009 AWARDS, YOU CAN VOTE FOR HER IN THE CATEGORIES OF BEST HORROR ACTRESS AND BEST FANTASY ACTRESS.

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Photo credit:Jaime King

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Guest Essay: A response to the horrified horror fan

September 16, 2009 | 3:12 pm

Gina McIntyre, the pop music editor at the Los Angeles Times, wrote a sharp guest essay for Hero Complex taking Hollywood to task for its current stab-first-and-ask-questions-later approach to remaking horror films. She was especially distressed to hear that "Mother's Day" was getting another whack at the American moviegoers. Now, here's a response by Shara Kay, co-producer of the upcoming film:

Gina, I appreciated your essay, "Horror Remakes" and the strong points you made, but as a woman and co-producer on Darren Lynn Bousman's "Mother's Day," I feel obliged to respond.

I share your passion for the genre, as do many women; in fact women now make up 52% of the overall audience for horror films. That said, the new "Mother's Day" is very different from -- and only loosely inspired by -- the 1980 film directed by Charles Kaufman.

Ours is, at its core, a battle of wits between two female heroes (Rebecca De Mornay and Jaime King). The details of the plot have to be kept under wraps, but I can tell you that it revolves around strong female characters and the lengths to which they will go to protect what is dearest to them.

Again, I appreciate your interest in the film and only ask that you reserve judgment until you've seen it. I think you'll agree Darren's approach is not what you expected.

-- Shara Kay

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Horror remakes: Where do we draw the line?

September 11, 2009 | 10:21 am

GUEST ESSAY

Gina McIntyre is the pop music editor at the Los Angeles Times but is a longtime devotee of horror films in all their gory greatness. She's not a person of tender sensibilities but after watching the recent history of Hollywood splatter she finds herself, well, horrified.

Alright, that’s it. Maybe I’m a little behind the times in remake news, but I’ve just read in the Hollywood Reporter that director Darren Lynn Bousman has decided to resurrect the 1980 exploitation flick “Mother’s Day,” and somehow has managed to recruit Deborah Ann Woll, who’s delightful as vampire Jessica on HBO’s hit series “True Blood,” to star along with Briana Evigan. Brett Ratner is among the producers.

Admittedly, I have not read the script for this update, so the outrage I’m now feeling is based solely on the idea of remaking this movie. But as a woman who loves horror films, I have to ask, can’t we aim a little higher?

For those who might be unfamiliar, the original “Mother’s Day” is about a pair of young ladies who are captured by a backwoods family and sexually assaulted by the two sons, with the knowledge and blessing of their mother. Yes, they eventually kill their torturers and escape, but as is the problem with the rape/revenge subgenre, of which this movie is a part, the emphasis always seems to be on the rape. Allow me to state the obvious here: debasing women on film for shock value or cheap titillation is not entertainment.

The genre offers writers and directors tremendous creative opportunities to visualize original, exciting scenarios and to examine real world issues through a fantastic lens – or simply scare audiences, which for some of us is a truly welcome form of catharsis. Sometimes brutality is involved, and it’s absolutely true that witnessing humanity’s all-too-real capacity for ugliness, especially when it’s taken to extremes, can be especially frightening.

But directors who specialize in gritty, brutal fare need to take the greatest care, to be the most responsible about the images they present, preferably to make sure those images are in service of a larger, compelling idea -- in short, that they mean something. Otherwise, they’re presenting violent pornography.

I realize that Bousman – whom I interviewed for a piece on the state of horror earlier this year – has directed three of the movies in the “Saw” series, a franchise that often has been classified as “torture porn.” As far as I’m concerned, that terminology really only ever aptly applied to Eli Roth’s “Hostel” films (considering Roth coined the term) with one or two exceptions. Bousman also directed “Repo! The Genetic Opera,” which I thoroughly enjoyed as a visually stimulating exercise in high camp, a movie that seems destined to be a future cult favorite. I would have hoped that he would have followed “Repo!” with something equally original in tone.

Of course, Hollywood continues to be obsessed with remakes, and when it comes to horror, almost all of the American studio releases are updated versions of much older films. Sometimes, that’s great: Cases in point, Zack Snyder’s “Dawn of the Dead” and Alexandre Aja’s “The Hills Have Eyes,” the latter of which is a gritty, brutal movie that includes a graphic rape scene but also has bigger, fascinating ideas at its core. But for every one of those, there are plenty of others that are creatively bankrupt shells of their predecessors, movies that are slickly done but don’t have anything substantive to offer. (This spring’s remake of “The Last House on the Left” was particularly disappointing.)

I suppose I should take heart in the prospect of “Jennifer’s Body,” due out later this month, which was clearly intended as a feminist update on the slasher movie. And there’s enough exceptional fare out there – whether it’s last year’s gorgeous “Let the Right One In,” Sam Raimi’s unfairly overlooked “Drag Me to Hell,” Park Chan-Wook’s stellar “Thirst” or even “True Blood” – to make it easy to avoid the baser material. But the thing that saddens me the most is when people wrongly dismiss the horror genre as something contemptible with no artistic merit. While I hope that Bousman will do something entirely smart and surprising with his remake, due out next year, I fear that producing more projects like “Mother’s Day” could only reinforce that decidedly incorrect notion.

-- Gina McIntyre

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Malcolm McDowell, doting family man despite the film career of ultraviolence

August 28, 2009 | 5:03 pm

Susan King caught up with Malcolm McDowell, who has made a career of perverse sneers and cerebral malice and wrote up this feature on the home-life of the "Halloween II" star...

It's hard to envision veteran British actor Malcolm McDowell cooing, but the 66-year-old star of such classic films as Lindsay Anderson's "If . . . " and Stanley Kubrick's "A Clockwork Orange," for which the actor will always be remembered as a vicious hood, turns out to have a weak spot: his three youngest children.

"It's pretty magnificent on the whole," says McDowell of his second time around as a father, as he scrolls through his iPhone looking for pictures of his children with third wife, Kelley Kuhr -- 5-year-old Beckett; 2-year-old Finn and 7-month-old Seamus.

"They are such magnificent creatures," he says, flashing his magnetic blue eyes. "Here's a picture of the whole lot of them."

McDowell proffers a photo of the adorable trio. "This is the baby," he adds, displaying a portrait of the equally blue-eyed, roly-poly Seamus. "He's lovely," McDowell beams.

He also has two adult children, Lily and Charlie, with his second wife, actress Mary Steenburgen. Back then, though, they both were working a lot and the children had nannies.

Now, if a job keeps him away from their Santa Barbara home for more than two weeks, the family goes with him -- something of a mixed blessing.

"It's so hard to travel with them," McDowell says. "It's like moving an army."

This real-life family man is a far cry from his current role in writer-director Rob Zombie's "Halloween II," which opens Friday. In it, he reprises his Dr. Sam Loomis character from Zombie's 2007 remake of John Carpenter's "Halloween." In the sequel, Loomis, who nearly died at the hands of his psycho-killer patient Michael Myers in the first movie, has now become a self-absorbed celebrity after writing a book about Myers (Tyler Mane).

"In the first one I am very earnest," says McDowell, who is ensconced in a suite at the Four Seasons, where he's also keeping an eye on the TV to watch his favorite soccer team, Liverpool. "Now he's turned into a total jerk. He's the only one who made money from this desperate, poor family. Of course, that's the American way. Let's write a book about it."

McDowell acts as the film's much-needed comic relief as the masked serial killer returns to his hometown of Haddonfield on Halloween to slice, dice, stomp and garrote everyone in his wake.

"Malcolm was my first and only choice for that role," says Zombie...

THERE'S MORE, READ THE REST

-- Susan King

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A zombie that never sleeps: Rob Zombie has 'sickness' that keeps him in motion

August 26, 2009 | 1:50 pm

Nicholas White , a freelance journalist here in Los Angeles, is back with another Hero Complex contribution, this time a conversation with Rob Zombie, the rocking Renaissance man of horror, whose new film "Halloween II" lands in theaters with a splatter this Friday.

What horror lurks in the mind of a pop nightmare maker?

"I think it's kind of a sickness I suffer from," Rob Zombie, director of "Halloween II," said on the eve of his new movie's release. "I cannot relax and settle down. My brain is always racing with ideas. I can't calm down. I'm like that all that time. My wife [actress Sheri Moon Zombie] knows how to relax. I don't so much sometimes. So, I drive her insane with it."

On closer look, Zombie's practiced professional insanity -- whether through bloody bodies onscreen or macabre imagery in his music -- appears more of a character than the real guy.

Strip away the stringy, cobwebby hair and caked-on white makeup, and Zombie (whose given name is Robert Bartleh Cummings, born in 1965 in progressive working-class Massachusetts) is just another very hard-working performer in the Hollywood industry.

In addition to directing movies, creating comic books (his 2007 "The Haunted World of El Superbeasto" was made into a still-unreleased movie voiced by Paul Giamatti), and a platinum-selling recording career, Zombie is, simply, a painter.

"Drawing and painting are always one of my first loves -- that's what I have always done," Zombie, a onetime painting student at New York's prestigious Parsons School of Design, says. "That's always been the thing that's fallen away. Now it's something I've gotten back into. And I love it.

"Movies, music -- I love all that, but it plays on a different scale," he says. "It's millions of dollars, you're expected to make back millions of dollars. You have millions of people come see it. Painting
is much purer. I'm not doing it to set up a show and sell things. I just do it to do it."

While he has no plans for another comic book or graphic novel, Zombie is painting "gigantic figure-study" paintings of people at his house, he says. "Kind of classic stuff."

"The reality of the business now is that if you have an idea for a movie and if you have done it first as a graphic novel, it really makes trying to sell that idea to somebody much easier," Zombie says.
"That was the hope with 'The Haunted World of El Superbeasto.'"

Zombie's fourth film in seven years, "Halloween II," bearing the name but not the plot of the 1981 original movie, hits theaters Friday. Opening against the similarly themed "Final Destination 3-D,"
"Halloween II" has big expectations.

Its distributor, the Weinstein Co., is said to be in financial straits after a string of unprofitable movies. While Zombie's 2007 "Halloween" grossed more than $80 million worldwide for the Weinsteins, the production company could use a hit.

The Weinsteins' other big late-summer horse, "Inglourious Basterds," had a surprising $38-million opening weekend, buoyed by Brad Pitt's star power and a kamikaze marketing campaign. Quentin Tarantino's last collaboration with the Weinsteins, "Grindhouse," a double-feature ode to raw B-movies of the 1970s, grossed less than half its nearly $70-million production budget.

Does Zombie feel pressure to keep the Weinsteins on life support?

"I have never heard that from them, they have never said that to me," Zombie says. "I have only read that on a couple of Hollywood websites. But, no one has ever said it to me personally, like, 'Oh, this film
has to do this for us.' The only pressure I feel is to make the movie great." As for working with the Weinsteins, which he has now twice after "Halloween"?

"I don't know," Zombie says, succinctly. "It is what it is. Everything is a difficult process, and this can be a very difficult process at times."

Zombie, by most accounts, has shown a progression in ease with the camera since his rocky, cultish 2003 debut, "House of 1000 Corpses."

The narrative-lite "Corpses" (which dragged in mostly subpar reviews) had a distinctive brutality reminiscent of early 1970s Wes Craven, even if Zombie's aesthetic wasn't completely developed. His next film,
2005's "The Devil's Rejects," was a more polished effort.

"It doesn't really get easier, but you get more confident in what you can accomplish," he says. "There is a moment in every movie where the whole thing can come crashing down. Movies are funny because you need a thousand things to go right everyday, and you only need one thing wrong to derail the whole thing."

How many filmmakers have howled at the moon in front of sold-out arenas and huge festival crowds? Zombie proved himself both as a solo artist and as front man for the 1990s rock band White Zombie. His new album is finished and hits stores Nov. 10, he says, and he returns to touring in Japan on Oct. 1 and circles back to the U.S.stage on Oct. 15.

"I love music and I love movies, but they're so opposite, the process, that it's such a great release," Zombie says. "I can tour the whole world and meet thousands of fans on a daily basis, and get the vibe of
what's going on. That's a great luxury."

-- Nicholas White

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