Haunted Newsreel

Special effects guru Stan Winston passed away Sunday, June 15th, 2008, at age 62, after a long struggle with multiple myeloma. Winston straddled the worlds of makeup and visual effects, contributing to such horror films as Dead & Buried, The Monster Squad, and Interview with the Vampire. Over the course of his career, he was nominated for ten Academy Awards, winning four of them (one each for Aliens and Jurassic Park and two for Terminator 2).(read more...)

MGM is putting together a 20th Anniversary Special Edition DVD of Tom Holland's 1988 killer doll movie Child's Play, to be released by Fox Home Video on September 9th, 2008. The disc will feature a new 1.85:1 widescreen transfer, a 5.1 Dolby Digital soundtrack, an audio commentary, a "selected scene" commentary by the film's villainous doll Chucky (Brad Dourif), a series of featurettes (Evil Comes in Small Packages), a vintage featurette (Introducing Chucky: The Making of Child's Play), a trailer, a photo gallery and more.(read more...)

Doing a list-style feature can be an easy way to generate content. I like the idea in principle, but I try to avoid presumptuous "best of" lists when I can (and sometimes, I'll admit, I can't).

With this in mind, I've concocted the "Shiverin' 6" (with apologies to the Cinematical Seven). This irregular feature will present a list of a half-dozen really excellent films (or television episodes or fictional characters or whatever) that represent a certain topic, category, or subgenre. These items will not be touted as "the six best", but as "six of the best." Readers can (and should) leave a comment telling us about their favorites -- agreeing or disagreeing with our choices and making their own additions.(read more...)

Variety Asia Online reports that Tartan Films USA, the American branch of UK-based Tartan Films, appears to have shut down. All of its assets, including office furniture and the company's 101-title film library, were auctioned off on May 19th in a foreclosure sale. No word yet on who picked up the titles, which include several East Asian horror titles like Oldboy, Shutter, Marebito, and R-Point, as well as art house films such as The Death of Mr. Lazarescu and Cave of the Yellow Dog.(read more...)