Saturday, August 29th, 2009

I've yet to see Halloween II yet, and even though I still plan to do so, most of my class and work conversations today somehow drifted off to how awful Rob Zombie's latest in the franchise reboot actually is. The good thing however, is that the release has given us reasons to talk about classic horror cinema, like John Carpenter's original flick. In fact, the picture in the corner there of Jamie Lee Curtis is part of a gallery on Rotten Tomatoes of their favorite pictures of movie scream queens, which covers everyone from Faye Wray of the original 1933 version of King Kong to Scout Taylor-Compton, the actress that took over the role of Laurie Strode in Zombie's version of the Halloween franchise, originally portrayed by Curtis, as evidenced above. Worth a look on a slow news day.

Continuing on the topic of Rob Zombie, when he announced yesterday that a possible re-make of the 1958 horror flick The Blob could be in the works, he must have loosened the ground for Joel Silver not to care to upset a few horror fanatics by announcing today, via Collider, that he plans on remaking the 1982 comic-to-film adaptation of Swamp Thing, originally directed by Wes Craven. This is a case that to me, is exactly like yesterday's statement concerning The Blob. Sure, special effects could update the film, but really, the only reason people even remember the mostly bad Swamp Thing is the kitsch factor and that should be left alone. Also, if you read the article, it sounds more like Silver is concerned with capitalizing on the medium of 3-D instead of searching for a film that would actually work well with the gimmick. Instead of jumping on the bandwagon with the first property he can find, maybe he should focus on a finding a project that works on its own. I would jump aboard this though if it got a decent enough writer that would follow Alan Moore's work with the comics, but if anybody's ever read what Silver said his version of Watchmen would have been like, I seriously doubt we could see the representation of the un-commercial work of Moore make the big-screen horror/3-D market.

Cinematical has an interview up with Patton Oswalt. If there is anybody that actually reads my blog, you may recall that I've been saying from what I've seen, I am very much hoping for an Oscar caliber performance from Oswalt in Big Fan, which debuted yesterday. Do I think it will happen, not a shot in hell, but I'm still very much a supporter of this film even though it came nowhere near me and once again, I will probably have to wait for the DVD release before I can enjoy it. The directorial debut of Robert D. Siegel looks great though, and if you are like me and awaiting your chance to see this, the interview should tide you over for a bit.