A visual mash-up combining a salute to Beyonc

Good news: MGM is making a live-action film of The Hobbit with Peter Jackson attached to direct. Bad news: That is news to Peter Jackson. Good news: He’s game, though! (Hat tip: Jason Adams.)

Bad news: As previously hinted by producer John Harrison, the Abarat film/theme-park/multimedia-extravaganza project at Disney is officially no longer at Disney, says mastermind Clive Barker. More bad news: Weaveworld the Showtime miniseries is no longer in production at Showtime. Good news: There’s still every intention of making the Weaveworld miniseries and the Abarat films, as well as books 3, 4, and 5, Galilee 2, The Third Book of the Art, possibly Cabal 2 and 3, definitely Pinhead/Harry D’Amour mash-up The Scarlet Gospels (3,000 pages into the manuscript and counting)…all this, plus fascinating musings on writing, theatre, music, painting, and god knows what-all else in this extra-long interview with Barker at official site Revelations. (Hat tip: Pete Mesling.)

More Barker: That little Google Ads sidebar to your right reveals limited edition giclee prints from Abarat for sale at Every Picture Tells a Story.

Frank “Sin City/Dark Knight” Miller waxes patriotic at NPR.

Loren Coleman at Cryptomundo reminds us that the late, great Steve Irwin once took a turn for the cryptozoological when he devoted part of an episode of The Crocodile Hunter to the elusive, presumed extinct Thylacine, or Tasmanian Tiger.

Finally, I’ve posted my picks for the 7 Best Horror Movies of the Past 7 Years (give or take a few films).

After finally catching The Descent over the weekend (in the tiniest gigantic-cineplex theatre I’ve ever seen, Theatre 2 at the AMC 25 on 42nd Street–great place to see a movie, f’real), I finally feel equipped to take part in the meme that was all the rage in the horror blogosphere a few weeks ago: The 7 Best Horror Movies of the Past 7 Years.

Ever the maverick, though, I’ve opted to go with 8 selections. I tried narrowing it down, but I realized that no matter which one I eliminated I’d be cutting something I truly believed belonged on the list. So never let it be said that ADDTF doesn’t deliver something extra for its readers.

The 8 Best Horror Movies of the Past 7 Years (give or take a couple of movies)

1. The Blair Witch Project: The scariest movie I

God bless America
Land that I love
Stand beside her
And guide her
Through the night with a light from above
From the mountains
To the prairies
To the oceans
White with foam
God bless America
My home sweet home

—–
As he followed her inside Mother Abagail’s house he thought it would be better, much better, if they did break down and spread. Postpone organization as long as possible. It was organization that always seemed to cause the problems. When the cells began to clump together and grow dark. You didn’t have to give the cops guns until the cops couldn’t remember the names…the faces…

Fran lit a kerosene lamp and it made a soft yellow glow. Peter looked up at them quietly, already sleepy. He had played hard. Fran slipped him into a nightshirt.

All any of us can buy is time, Stu thought. Peter’s lifetime, his children’s lifetimes, maybe the lifetimes of my great-grandchildren. Until the year 2100, maybe, surely no longer than that. Maybe not that long. Time enough for poor old Mother Earth to recycle herself a little. A season of rest.

“What?” she asked, and he realized he had murmured it aloud.

“A season of rest,” he repeated.

“What does that mean?”

“Everything,” he said, and took her hand.

Looking down at Peter he thought: Maybe if we tell him what happened, he’ll tell his own children. Warn them. Dear children, the toys are death–they’re flashburns and radiation sickness, and black, choking plague. These toys are dangerous; the devil in men’s brains guided the hands of God when they were made. Don’t play with these toys, dear children, please, not ever. Not ever again. Please…please learn the lesson. Let this empty world be your copybook.

“Frannie,” he said, and turned her around so he could look into her eyes.

“What, Stuart?”

“Do you think…do you think people ever learn anything?”

She opened her mouth to speak, hesitated, fell silent. The kerosene lamp flickered. Her eyes seemed very blue.

“I don’t know,” she said at last. She seemed unpleased with her answer; she struggled to say something more; to illuminate her first response; and could only say it again:

I don’t know.

–Stephen King, The Stand

Cult-fave survival-horror manga series Dragon Head is apparently no longer going to be one of the titles publisher Tokyopop sells exclusively on its website (as opposed to bookstores, comic shops, and other online retailers), a move that until this seeming repeal had generated a storm of controversy and is likely to continue to do so. Me, I’m just glad I can buy this thing without breaking the bank–did you see what Tpop charges for shipping? (Hat tip: Tom Spurgeon.)

The Lost Experience ARG has been solved, and this is the result: a “training video” explaining the origin and purpose of the Dharma Initiative, straight from the mouth of Alvar Hanso himself. Needless to say, SPOILERS abound.

Bitchin’!

I’m still not 100% sold on the way the ARG treated some aspects of Lost the television show as fiction and others as reality, thereby making it pretty unclear how this little video fits into the canon of the TV Lost world. And there are some cringeworthy acting moments there toward the end. But still, pretty bitchin’. Anything that exploits what Infocult might call the Gothic potential of old media as astutely as this does is worth putting up with some problems for.

(Hat tip: This EXTREMLY SPOILERY entry at The Lost Blog.)

During this week’s Horror Roundtable at The Horror Blog, I make a startling admission.

During this week’s Thursday Morning Quarterback at Wizard, I take a stab at American Splendor #1, Jack Staff #11, The Exterminators #9, Detective Comics #823, The Atom #3 and more. Plus, some of my coworkers work blue.

Finally, thank you David Taylor for letting me know that Dark Horse has been releasing new English translations of Junji Ito’s horror manga Tomie. How did I miss that before?

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.

I think Morrison is treating Luthor as a manic-depressive who’s stuck on manic. Endless talking, constant moving, restlessness, euphoria, racing from one idea to another, grandiose thinking, irritability, belief in his own infallibility, aggression, provocative behavior–they’re all symptoms of the ‘high’ periods of bipolar people I’ve known, and Lex displays them all.

That’s yours truly on Grant Morrison & Frank Quitely’s All Star Superman #5, “The Gospel According to Lex Luthor.” For more where that came from, check out this week’s installment of Thursday Morning Quarterback, WizardUniverse.com’s weekly comics review roundtable discussion, in which I am a regular participant. Hope you enjoy them!

Offered without comment:

“There’s nothing more terrifying than Dick Cheney…I think he’s a sick monster who’s power hungry. I think that George Bush is terrifying. These people that are so out of touch with society, they kill people for real, and they try and go after guys like me. That’s the irony that it’s the filmmakers and the horror filmmakers that they try and shut up. No one ever died from a horror movie but people die all the time because of them and war.”

–Eli Roth, from “Eli Roth’s Hostel: Empty exploitation or sign of the times?”, by Stephen Applebaum, netribution.co.uk, August 5, 2006

Food for thought.

Posting that link to my Lord of the Rings Limited Edition DVD review yesterday reminded me that I frequently have work up on Wizard’s website.

Several of the trade paperback and graphic novel reviews I’ve written for the print magazine have made their way online:

Spider-Man Visionaries: Kurt Busiek Vol. 1

Absolute Dark Knight

More day-job stuff to come…

Over at my day job, I’ve reviewed the new Lord of the Rings Limited Edition double-disc sets (not to be confused with the Theatrical Widescreen, Theatrical Full Screen, or Extended Edition versions you may already own, having purchased them individually or in two- or three-packs). Check it out here.

In Horror Blog Steven’s latest Horror Roundtable, I sing the praises of David Jacobson’s excellent film Dahmer.

Does YouTube have a first-person horror mockumentary phenomenon on its hands? This post on the celebfotainment LiveJournal community Oh No They Didn’t indicates that it does, in the form of a series of video blogs by a homeschooled 16-year-old girl named Bree whose parents are slowly being revealed to be followers of…well, I’ll let you discover for yourself. As I’ve mentioned before (and hopefully demonstrated), it’s fascinating to watch the various media available on the Internet be put to use for horror storytelling.

Speaking of first-person horror mockumentaries, they’ve been much in the news lately. George Romero has revealed that the next film in his Dead series, Diary of the Dead, will be made in that style. Meanwhile, several pundits, notably Owen Glieberman of Entertainment Weekly, have brought up you-are-there fright flick and proto-viral marketing phenomenon The Blair Witch Project in their attempts to explain the relative failure of Internet-beloved Snakes on a Plane at the box office. (SoaP was great, incidentally, box office or no.) Could Sam Jackson’s Folly (along with such “yeah, I said it” critical praise as the oft-linked Seven Best Horror Movies of the Past 7 Years at Cinematical) be the unlikely catalyst for putting Blair Witch back in the horror pantheon where it belongs?

Finally, this past weekend my coworkers and I got liquored up and watched Red Dawn, Invasion U.S.A., and Rambo: First Blood Part II in the latest of our periodic Manly Movie Mamajamas. I rememeber hearing when I was a kid that action movies were destroying the moral fabric of our nation with their mindless, gratuitous violence, and wondering what they were talking about because the only action movies I was really watching at the time involved George Lucas or Steven Spielberg. Now I know exactly what they mean. Awesome.

I’m really happy to say that there’s an interview with me about my “autobiographical horror” blog The Outbreak over at Dark But Shining. Sam Costello, one of my favorite horror bloggers since way back when he was the only one I knew of, conducted the interview, and it was really rewarding to participate in. Added bonus: It’s DBS’s 666th post.

I hope you enjoy it–go check it out!