* Shock Till You Drop reports that Ryuhei Kitamura’s adaptation of Clive Barker’s Midnight Meat Train will receive a limited 100-theater release. So much for The Strangers saving R-rated horror, eh wot?
* SPOILERY Descent/Descent 2 tidbits ahoy: The entire cast of the original Descent will be returning in The Descent 2 via flashback. (Via Bloody Disgusting.) So yes, the new film will pick up where the American cut of the first film left off. Since I find being haunted by guilt and failure for the rest of your life to be a more disturbing source of fear than remaining stuck in a cave full of creatures trying to eat you, I’ve always prefered the U.S. version to the U.K. version, so this news makes me pretty happy.
* At least one of those rumored Battlestar Galactica TV movies looks like a going concern for this year, while the show’s Sopranos-style “final season part deux” may pick up an additional 2 hours to go from 10 to 12, according to the Chicago Tribune’s Maureen Ryan. I’d have been marginally more excited about this news before the current half-season, but hey, I hear tonight’s episode is a real mind-blower. We’ll see. (Via Jason Adams.)
* I enjoyed Keith Uhlich’s essay on the new four-film Rambo DVD box set a great deal, because I think in comparing John Rambo varyingly to Frankenstein’s monster, Tintin, and the Hercules of Greek myth he gets at the heart of the character: Rambo is war. He’s offensive, heroic, and disturbing, easy to harness to propagandaiacal aims yet always too strange, complex, and dangerous to stay harnessed. (Via The House Next Door.)
* The Groovy Age of Horror’s Curt Purcell continues his examination of supernatural horror with a second critique of Freud’s “The Uncanny,” this one focusing on Freud’s (mis?)interpretation of his key source, E.T.A. Hoffman’s “The Sand-Man.”
* Your quote of the day comes from Jim Henley, discussing recent witch hunts in Kenya:
A working definition of “witch” has long been “a widow with some property.”
* Finally, just a friendly reminder that you can buy my comic book Murder for the low low price of three American dollars at the Partyka shop.
Carnival of souls
* Looks like Clive Barker is getting behind a fan campaign to persuade Lionsgate to give Midnight Meat Train a wider release. Here’s a brief statement from Clive to that effect (via STYD), and here’s a longer, more formal letter…