The Happening

The Happening, written and directed by M. Night Shyamalan, comes out on DVD tomorrow.

Here's a red band trailer for the movie's theatrical release. The movie received bad reviews, but the trailer looks great. And it does have Zooey Deschanel.

Man From the South

Most people are probably familiar with some of the children's books by Roald Dahl (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, James and the Giant Peach, Matilda, etc.).

He also wrote some great stories for grown-ups, 25 of which are included in The Best of Roald Dahl. This collection brings together Dahl's finest work, illustrating his genius for the horrific and grotesque.

One of my favorite stories in the collection is Man From the South.

This story was filmed twice as both 1960 and 1985 episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, and also adapted into Quentin Tarantino's segment of the 1995 film Four Rooms. This bizarre, oft-anthologized suspense classic concerns a man residing in Jamaica who wagers with visitors in an attempt to claim the fingers from their hands.

The 1960 Hitchcock version stars Steve McQueen and Peter Lorre. Peter Lorre makes a bet with Steve McQueen that McQueen can't light his cigarette lighter ten times in a row. If McQueen does, he wins Lorre's new car. If he doesn't, Lorre gets to chop off McQeen's pinky.

A film adaptation of the story first aired on August 7, 1955 as an episode of Cameo Theatre.

It was later redone in 1979 with José Ferrer as an episode of the syndicated anthology Roald Dahl's Tales of the Unexpected.

Midnight Meat Train

Thanks to FEARnet, Clive Barker's Midnight Meat Train is now showing on their Video On Demand, and will be premiering online on their site on October 30.

The film (which stars Bradley Cooper, Vinnie Jones, Leslie Bibb, and Roger Bart) follows a photographer as he develops a strange obsession with stalking a brutal killer, through the New York Subway System where he hacks up his victims one by one.

Here's the trailer.

Here's a link to a sneak preview of the first three minutes of the movie, with an introduction by Clive Barker.

Capricorn One

O. J. Simpson was found guilty late Friday on all 12 counts stemming from a confrontation in a hotel room last year, including armed robbery and kidnapping.

He had played roles in many films, including the movie Capricorn One.

Thanks to repeated showings on cable television and home video, this speculative thriller has built quite a loyal following since its release in 1978. The provocative "what if?" scenario still packs a punch, even if it is not always believable. James Brolin, Sam Waterston, and O.J. Simpson star as three astronauts who agree to spare the government embarrassment by faking their historic landing on Mars after their spacecraft is determined to be unsafe for blastoff. When a scheming mission controller (Hal Holbrook) plots to kill the astronauts in a staged capsule fire, the trio embarks on a dangerous mission to expose the truth. Elliott Gould costars as the journalist determined to crack the conspiracy, and director Peter Hyams turns up the tension with an exciting chase sequence involving Telly Savalas as an eccentric barnstormer who comes to Gould's aid.

Variety reported in an article last June that a remake of this movie is in the works.

Here's the trailer from the original 1978 production.

Zombie Haiku *and* a CONTEST

A haiku is simply a poem that follows a couple of simple rules. It has to be three lines, and those lines have to be 5 syllables, 7 syllables, and 5 syllables.

For a great book of haiku about - yes, zombies - I highly recommend Zombie Haiku, by Ryan Mecum.

As the publisher says: "Perfect for zombiephiles, video game addicts, grindhouse nostalgists, and horror movie fanatics, Zombie Haiku is the touching story of a zombie's gradual decay told through the intimate poetry of haiku. From infection to demise, readers will accompany the narrator on a zen journey through deserted streets and barracaded doors for every eye-popping, gut-wrenching, flesh-eating moment right up until the inevitable bullet to the brain. Plus the book is illustrated with over 50 photos from the zombie's eye and designed with extra blood, guts and pus!"

Some examples:

Biting into heads
is much harder than it looks.
The skull is feisty.

and

Nothing hurts me now.
Normally the screwdriver
wouldn't have gone there.

and

You are so lucky
that I cannot remember
how to use doorknobs.

This book is hilarious.

CONTEST:
In the comments for this post, feel free to share your own zombie haiku. Enter as often as you wish. We'll vote later on the best, and it will be posted on this blog underneath my profile for all to see.

Friday Night Frights: The Car (1977)

Welcome to the first episode of Friday Night Frights.

Fasten your seatbelts for the terrifying thrill ride that has become a cult classic - The Car! The peaceful tranquility of a small Western town is disturbed when a murderous car wreaks havoc by viciously mowing down innocent victims. New sheriff Wade Parent (James Brolin) may be the only one who can stop this menace in its tracks until he realizes that the driver of this indestructible vehicle is far more dangerous than any man - it is driven by pure evil.

The October Country

Today being the first of October, it seems fitting to mention a book that I always enjoy revisiting this time of year.

The October Country, by Ray Bradbury, is a classic collection of short stories to put you in the proper frame of mind as Halloween approaches (also see The Halloween Tree post).

As described on the authors website, THE OCTOBER COUNTRY is many places: a picturesque Mexican village where death is a tourist attraction; a city beneath the city where drowned lovers are silently reunited; a carnival midway where a tiny man's most cherished fantasy can be fulfilled night after night. THE OCTOBER COUNTRY'S inhabitants live, dream, work, die--and sometimes live again--discovering, often too late, the high price of citizenship. Here a glass jar can hold memories and nightmares; a woman's newborn child can plot murder; and a man's skeleton can war against him. Here there is no escaping the dark stranger who lives upstairs...or the reaper who wields the world. Each of these stories is a wonder, imagined by an acclaimed tale-teller writing from a place shadows. But there is astonishing beauty in these shadows, born from a prose that enchants and enthralls. Ray Bradbury's THE OCTOBER COUNTRY is a land of metaphors that can chill like a long-after-midnight wind...as they lift the reader high above a sleeping Earth on the strange wings of Uncle Einar.