K & B Radio News Bulletin

With Your Host Stevie Wayne


--- Hard Rain: Part Deux - It appears as though the latest Silent Hill release has finally been granted an official title (heretofore known as simply Silent Hill 8), Silent Hill: Downpour. Um, yeah. How wonderfully evocative and creatively sounding like something concocted from, well, the mind of someone with a bankrupt imagination. Hopefully this uninspired turn isn't any indication of the actual game's content, further burying the franchise which has been plagued with a bad case of identity crisis since the original creators left the series after the less than favorable reception of Silent Hill 4: The Room. More here.

--- As Long As It Is An Experiment - In what amounts to a rather annoying bit of news for this fan, reports have come in that the latest film from Oldboy and Thirst director Park Chan-wook will be a 30 minute short titled Paranmanjang shot entirely on an iPhone. I still maintain that one cannot truly watch a movie on an iPhone, so I suppose it remains to be seen what kind of work can be made with one. No news on whether or not the use of the iPhone as the film's singular source of filming will place Paranmanjang in that cinéma vérité camp of storytelling the likes of which Paranormal Activity and Cloverfield have made so popular of late.

--- Holy Rolling Horror - Islamic preachers and scholars have taken issue with our beloved genre. Up in arms over what they believe is content that can "weaken the minds of Muslims" they are calling for all local makers of horror films to consult with them before proceeding with any productions. It's a good thing that I'm not making horror films in Islam as I am certain that I would have had a fatwā issued on my head by now. More here.

--- Heaping Helping Of Sumptuous Scares - Joe Maggio's culinary, foodie fright film Bitter Feast hit DVD shelves yesterday. It's received mixed reactions from fans though the critics so far seem to have enjoyed themselves. I say anything released under the Dark Sky Films / Glass Eye Pix banner is worth more than a cursory glance (what with indie heavyweights like The House Of The Devil, The Last Winter and I Can See You under their belts to name but a few). You can order your copy here.

--- Speaking Of... - Glass Eye Pix, Larry Fessenden's (bless him) throwback to the bygone days of vintage radio shows, Tales From Beyond the Pale, has been rolling out nicely. With now nine releases in the project, the word of mouth and critical accolades have been nothing but glowing, laying compliments at it's feet like this one "[Tales From Beyond the Pale] has strong writing, strong acting talent and some people running the show who are truly reverential of the genre". Though I have yet to experience an episode for myself unfortunately, I gotta say that I agree with that last bit wholeheartedly. The talent involved (genre icons and veterans alike) is staggering. AJ Bowen, Gary Pullin, Vincent D'Onofrio, Nick Damici, Joe Maggio, JT Petty, Ron Perlman, Doug Jones, Amy Seimetz, Shea Whigham, James Le Gros, Kevin Corrigan, Paul Solet, Graham Reznick, Angus Scrimm, Don Coscarelli, Ti West and yes, Larry Fessenden, are but a few involved in this amazing undertaking. Heres hoping that I myself will be dimming the lights, closing my eyes, firing up my imagination and settling in for a night of some old-time radio spookiness soon. If you are interested in purchasing episodes of Tales From Beyond the Pale, you can so here.

--- The Reluctant Scream Queen Returns, Again - News has reached us that not only has Neve Campbell, (outspoken non-fan of horror movies) returned to the genre that made her a household name once this year with Scream 4 but that she is in fact going to be encoring in The Glass Man, the feature length directorial debut from Mother of Tears star Cristian Solimeno. Campbell will be co-starring with one of The October Country's favorite supporting men, Andy Nyman (Severance, Dead Set, Black Death). No synopsis has been made available yet, but you can visit the production's official Facebook page for a wealth of stills.



--- Is The Studio That Once Dripped Blood Hemorrhaging? - Things haven't been off to a very good start for the recently resurrected Hammer Films, once home of classic, British monster movies. The fresh from grave studio rolled out it's debut feature last year with Matt Reeves' Let Me In (the remake of the 2008, Swedish masterpiece of vampire cinema, Let the Right One In) to very poor box office. Despite it receiving critical praise, the consensus seems to be that most were so offended at the idea of an Americanized retelling (count me amongst that camp), that they chose to stay away regardless of it's alleged merits. Now, Hammer's second feature, The Resident, is going directly to DVD despite starring A-list, Oscar winner Hillary Swank, Jeffrey Dean Morgan and Hammer veteran Christopher Lee. Two gigantic blows like this to such a small company can spell some seriously bad news. Here's hoping that they can pull it around with their remake of the 1983 hidden gem (well, hidden to everyone outside of the UK) The Lady In Black. Seeing as how the production stars the now legally delectable Daniel Radcliffe, I think that the odds might be in their favor with this one. Fingers crossed.

--- The Camp Blood Saga Continues - No, there isn't another Friday the 13th film underway (and considering any film bearing that moniker will now be a sequel to the abominably awful remake, I hope there never will be again) rather the shit is kind of hitting the fan for John Gray, organizer of what was to be the ultimate Friday the 13th event, Camp Blood: Friday the 30th- a Convention. Nonexistent guests, a flux of date changes, hundreds of future attendees swindled out of their hard earned fanboy dollars. Sounds downright criminal (and way worse than my experience at the misbegotten Horror Hound Con last fall). The good folks over at The Bloodsprayer have more here and here.

---- In Personal News - I'm still sick. Very, very sick. I think what started out as a sinus infection has evolved into a beast capable of devouring not only myself, but the city and perhaps entire state where I reside. Which is why I haven't been posting anything of great length of late. It's near impossible for me to sit put and concentrate long enough to collect and summarize my thoughts on a film in 500 some words when say, my head is floating 10 feet above my body on a cloud of Nyquil. There is a bright side however. The time off nursing my ill health has afforded me the hours to lie in bed and marathon horror movies the past few days. Amongst the recently viewed, in no particular order (and for no particular reason) were The Ninth Gate, Love Object, Scream, The Devil's Playground, Zombie Girl: The Movie, Saw 3, In the Mouth of Madness, Pandorum, Taxidermia, 976-Evil and just because, Bronson. But the truly wonderful occurrence has been the arrival of Ramsey Campbell's Told By the Dead in the mail today. It, along with S.T. Joshi's biography on Campbell, has been one of his rare, pricey novels I thought I would never get my hands on. Yet, here it is sitting in front of me, 1st edition hardback and signed by the author himself (numbered 44 out 500). Swoon! Perhaps now I can get my poor put-upon husband to read me a story or two from it before bed while I no doubt sail away on a tranquil sea of cold medicine.

This has been a K & B Radio news bulletin. We now return to our regularly scheduled broadcast.