FourFour’s Rich Juzwiak went to see Neil LaBute’s The Wicker Man so you don’t have to. Interesting perspective, given that he’s not nuts about the original.

That werewolf-centric TV on the Radio video I mentioned the other day is up at AOL Music’s Indie Blog, and it’s awesome, both musically and visually. (Link courtesy of Pitchfork.)

Finally, Steven at The Horror Blog brings word via Fangoria that the production company behind 300, Slither, and the Dawn of the Dead remake are planning a prequel to John Carpenter’s The Thing. If it weren’t for the curve-breaking excellence of Dawn, I’d probably be a lot more nervous about this than I am.

Courtesy of Antipax’s Hellraiser Gallery comes this super-informative interview with producer John Harrison at iF Magazine. A collaborator of both Clive Barker’s and George Romero’s, Harrison reveals among many other juicy tidbits that the forthcoming Diary of the Dead is most definitely a return to the initial zombie outbreak portrayed in Night of the Living Dead rather than a sequel moving us further forward into the post-apocalyptic world of the subsequent Dead films; that Barker’s multimillion dollar Abarat project at Disney might well have seen its film incarnation die with Disney’s feature animation department upon the absorption of Pixar; and that the framing stories from Barker’s Books of Blood series are being combined into a film entitled, appropriately enough, Clive Barker’s Books of Blood. Jeez, go and read it already!

Some know-it-alls will indulge in Darwin Awards-style idiocy. They fail to undestand that Steve Irwin was a man who lived and died in an effort to impress upon people that all animals–even the scary, ugly, deadly ones–deserve our compassion, respect, and protection. Good on ya, Steve. I’ll miss you.

Over at the day job, I had a hand in editing our big pre-Season Three Lost feature, sort of one-stop shopping for catch-up info, speculation, and established facts about this October’s big comeback (for which there’s already a promo or two buzzing around). Not a bad read for a lazy Labor Day afternoon.

My contribution to the Horror Blog’s Horror Roundtable this week: the story of how The Missus and I lucked into seeing the premiere of one of the best shows on television.

Speaking of both the Horror Blog and television, courtesy of the HB’s quote of the day I’ve learned that the new video for avant-rock combo TV on the Radio will involve a pair of awesome things: werewolves and America’s Next Top Model. (This is still pretty cool even if they’re using ANTM winner Naima, who always looks like she just smelled a fart.)

Finally, the remake of the The Wicker Man came out this week, for better or for worse, and my Wizard co-worker Jeremy James interviewed director Neil LaBute about it. Me? I saw The Illusionist last night–now that’s a good time at the movies! Recommended.

I didn’t know that even one great white shark had been successfully held in captivity, but the Monterey Bay Aquarium recently unveiled its second white shark. My sea-monster-loving hormones just went into overdrive.

Meanwhile, in far bleaker real-world news, the mother of Johnny Gosch, a little boy who was disappeared while on his paper route 24 years ago, says she’s received a picture of the boy bound and gagged. But potentially even more disturbing are the reasons for skepticism about this development professed by astute and tireless crimeblogger Steve Huff.

Courtesy of Fantagraphics’ house blog Flog! comes word that Charles Burns, author of the horror graphic novel Black Hole, and Chuck Palahniuk, author of the horror prose novels Lullaby, Diary, and Haunted (as well as Fight Club, duh) will be holding a joint appearance at Seattle’s Bumbershoot arts festival. Holy smokes.