New Moon is coming! Between its release on November 20th, Christopher Lee's knighting ceremony this week (that's now Sir Count Dracula to you), and FEARnet's own 20 Days of Vampires, the children of the night are everywhere this month - and I, for one, could get used to the taste of blood.
If it's Halloween, it must be... Paranormal Activity?
If you’ve been paying any attention to FEARnet since Comic Con, you know that this Monday sees the premiere of our new, original series, Fear Clinic! If this is the first time you’ve heard of it, what the heck are you doing over here? Get on over to the Fear Clinic page and check it out!
Paranormal Activity should have gone the way of most independent horror movies: straight to DVD. It had everything against it—unknown actors, a tiny budget, and worst of all, an original concept. But something happened—something huge—that's giving it an opportunity to thrive and compete with the box office's big-budget horror remakes. That something? You.
Zombieland comes out today! I’ve watched the trailers, I’ve read the interviews, and I’ve witnessed the hordes of zombies shuffling down Hollywood Boulevard in honor of its premiere. Woody Harrelson looks awesome in the role of Tallahassee, a gun-toting zombie killer determined to find the world’s last Twinkie. Needless to say, I can’t wait to see this! But alas, FEARnet'ers, I must confess— I’m not generally a big fan of zombie movies. Before you start moaning and groaning, hear me out: I’m a horror fan. I enjoy being scared, and I’ve found most zombie films to be...laughable.
I spent the past two day in San Diego for Comic-Con, working hard but really having a blast. I love this convention and love being immersed in a sea of passionate fans.
The biggest pop-culture event in the world (or at least the western hemisphere) kicks off this morning with the first full day of the San Diego Comic-Con 2009.
Recently, Entertainment Weekly critic Owen Gleiberman posted a theory about why Sam Raimi's Drag Me to Hell didn't do so well at the box-office. He felt the PG-13 rating hurt the movie with horror movie audiences, who like their scares R-rated. Maybe, but then Gleiberman goes one step further, proposing: "The horror audience doesn't want to be scared, exactly. It wants to be shocked, ritually brutalized, wowed by sadism."
Brutalized? I don't think so.
Drag Me To Hell opens today. Are you as eager to see it as I am? Even the New York Times is on the bandwagon – recently they ran a huge piece about Sam Raimi and his return to our favorite genre. When was the last time you saw a horror film get glowing coverage on the front page of the Arts section of a major national paper?
And the love doesn't stop there - a lot of horror films are getting noticed this year, in a good way: the Friday the 13th remake, My Bloody Valentine 3D...even The Unborn opened to an impressive $20 million at the box office. A lot more are on the way too – films that seem destined to strike a chord with both horror fans and newbies. The new Nightmare on Elm Street is just around the corner, Piranha 3D, Joss Whedon's Cabin in the Woods, the horror western Jonah Hex, and a remake of one of my favorite films, The Birds.
So why are horror films so popular again?
They make you feel something, just like comedy. As Raimi himself said, "Horror can be similar to comedy the way you set up expectations and lead the audience down a path. The punch line of a joke is not that different from the punch line in a horror scene. Each results in an involuntary audible reaction."
Are you like me, always feeling like you're defending the genre? Do folks tell you they don't like horror, and, when they say that, act as though that makes them superior? Are they shocked to hear women like horror just as much as men?
(Why women? Well, most of the time, even in slasher films, it's the women who kick butt and, in the end, kill Mike Myers and Jason!)
What do you think? Are more people getting it, or do you still have to justify your love of flicks like Drag Me To Hell?
True Blood is back next month, new episodes of Dexter are coming...that’s a lot of great scary TV to look forward to! Especially on cable and on demand, where you can get away with more blood and gore. Though my sixteen-year-old daughter and I also like the soap opera elements in those shows – in our house True Blood is family viewing! Thank god we’ve come a long way from the cheap sets and cheesy storylines of Dark Shadows.
Thanks again, everyone, for continuing to ask Time Warner and Bright House Cable to put FEARnet back.
Some of you have commented that, upon calling, you were told that FEARnet will never be coming back. This is simply not the case. We are actively negotiating to restore FEARnet to Time Warner and Bright House cable. Your calls and e-mails do make a difference, so keep letting them know.
In addition to our 800#, we've started a new Facebook "petition", so be sure to sign it (by joining the group) and let your friends know about it as well.
So many of you have been calling 1-877-FEAR-247 and asking Time Warner Cable to put FEARnet back -- thanks!
One thing we've heard from you is that Time Warner says there are substitutes. We all know there is no substitute for FEARnet.
