* Horror triumphalism alert! You’ve got to get a kick out of Bloody Digusting’s take on The Strangers‘ $20 million box office success this past weekend:

Un-freakin-believable! This weekend horror took a huge step forward by taking on not only INDIANA JONES IV, but the highly anticipated SEX AND THE CITY in a three way box office battle. Obviously Rogue Pictures’ The Strangers (review) took the number three slot, but to pull in $20 million opening weekend against two giant blockbusters in the middle of summer is such a wonderful sign. Hopefully this will light a fire under Rogue’s ass to greenlight Hack/Slash, which is now near the top of my list as most anticipated horror films in the works. Hurray for horror!

It’s probably churlish to unpack this point by point, but: a) one horror movie doing very well does not mean “horror took a huge step forward”; b) one stylish, upscale-marketed horror film does not make an adaptation of a splatstick comic book whose heroine has posed for Suicide Girls any more likely; c) hooray for horror indeed. At least B-Sol at the Vault of Horror frames the reason to be excited for The Strangers‘ haul purely in box-office terms, citing it alongside Prom Night and presumably The Happening (though oddly omitting Cloverfield or the holiday-season smash I Am Legend) as signs of a strong financial year for the genre. As always I caution against touting the success of films of various origin, style, tone, content, and intent as some sort of victory for Our Beloved Genre.

* LOST SPOILER WARNING: I sadly forgot to link to this last week, but man oh man, is Lost‘s Harold Perrineau angry about how things went down for him on the show. Maybe slightly less so now, but hoo doggy. For what it’s worth, if I were him I’d be angry too; it’s easy to see how Michael could have become a main focal point of the show upon his return, and that not happening would be disappointing for any actor. However, given the horrendous paternal history of virtually every character on the show, his argument that the severing of Michael from Walt reinforces stereotypes about irresponsible black fathers really doesn’t hold any water. I mean, it’s not like Locke, Ben, Jack, Claire, Aaron, Kate, Sawyer, Sun, Alex, Hurley, and Penelope have great male role models either! (Via The Tail Section.)

* Jog reviews Gilbert Hernandez’s Speak of the Devil, a book I haven’t read. I bet it’s good.

* Finally, the guy who directed Catwoman is helming some sort of undersea fantasy epic called Mermaid Island, and its promo art looks like this.

Any chance the film will be half as crazy and awesome? Yeah, I doubt it too.

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