NEAR DARK REMAKE CANCELLED...FOR BEING TOO SIMILAR TO TWILIGHT?!

Alright Edward, it's time to nut up or shut up.

I'm a few years late to the party on this one (what else is new?) but my blind fury cannot be contained when it comes to this discussion.  After the success of Twatlight, Platinum Dunes (the company responsible for nearly every horrible horror remake) thought it would be a great idea to ride the wave and remake Kathryn Bigelow's slice of perfection, Near Dark.  First of all, Near Dark is quite possibly one of the most bad ass vampire films of all time, OF ALL TIME, so remaking it would be a huge slap in the face the only woman to score an Oscar for Best Director. Not to mention, it was made LONG before Stephenie Meyer ever set on her crusade to destroy the vampire mythos and push back feminism, so if anything, TWATLIGHT is too much like Near Dark.  For fear of sounding redundant, let's not even talk about the whole 'remake' nonsense.  The horror genre is obsessed with remakes blah blah blah, we get it.  The matter it hand is that the reason they're pulling the plug on the remake isn't because someone finally wised up and thought "Hmm...this movie is pretty fantastic, let's not get our grubby paws in it and leave it as it" but rather "Hmm...this is liek totes mcgotes like Twilight and like, Bella and Edward are the true vampire/human love story and liek, people totally won't want to see this".  Fuck me gently with a chainsaw, are you serious?  ARE YOU SERIOUS?!

Basically, he's the horror equivalent to Michael Bay

What I'm posting is a direct quote from producer Brad Fuller, and I janked it off of THIS website.  "I think that Twilight was the same type of thing.  Were going for although ‘Near Dark’ was a much darker, sexier, rated R version of that. But I'm concerned that, conceptually, that ‘Near Dark’ and Twilight are too similar in terms of a vampire movie.  For now, that movie is on hold...with the success of that film [Twilight], it would not measure up. It’s not the right time to make that".  What mighty words coming from the man who helped bring travesties like the The Unborn, The Hitcher, and let us not forget the Nightmare on Elm Street and Friday the 13th remakes.  As far as I'm concerned, this man has absolutely no leg to stand on when it comes to the success of a remake.  Then again, this bastard measures success by decimals and dollars rather than providing art that is not only aesthetically pleasing to the fans, but also retains the heart of the original work.  Lest us not forget that Twatlight and Near Dark are two entirely different entities. The teen vampire love story follows a girl who abandons everything about her life in order to be with a vampire who stalks her at night and who's family is super nice to her unless she bleeds all the while still going to school, being a bratty teenager to her loving father, and cheating on him with a shape-shifting, homoerotic, Native American wolf-man.  Near Dark is a vampire/western about a guy who falls in love with a girl who turns out to be from a vampire family that he only discovers after another family member previously attacked him and turned him into a vampire that travels the highways in stolen cars from people they brutally massacre and who randomly breaks into places and kills everyone witness in order to feed.  I'm sorry, but what?!  The only thing they have in common is that someone outside the vampire clan falls in love with someone in a vampire clan.  As far as Twatlight is concerned, I'm using the word "love" very lightly. 


Now, this whole hoopla went down in 2008 and Platinum Dunes has put out an asinine amount of terrible films since then.  I just don't understand what is going through the minds of people like Brad Fuller anymore.  It makes me sad all day.  At least we can rest easy knowing that if Twatlight did anything right...it was saving the Near Dark remake.

THE HORROR FILM INDUSTRY HAS LOST ITS DAMN MIND: MEGAN FOX WANTS CARRIE WHITE?!

HER NAME WAS BJ-C, AND TODAY IS HER BIRTHDAY

My darling womanizers, I am officially 21 years old!!!

This is quite the accomplishment for me, as horror movie rules would have wiped me out by 19.  

I will most likely be inebriated today (I don't care that it's a Monday) , and I've set this as an automatic post at midnight.  I may be late to the party, but I'm in good company!

EEEEEEEEEE! I'll probably be experiencing a Horror Hangover for the next few days, but I'll be back with a TpT on Tuesday!

MY BABY SISTER WON THE PAGEANT!

i guess it runs in the family :)

WHAT DO HORROR MOVIES HAVE AGAINST TIARAS?

In case you're new to the DotW scene, BJ-C is a former pageant queen, current pageant coach, and all around supporter of pageantry in most of its forms.  Right now, I'm gearing up to host the local pageant in my community so I've been surrounded by all things tiara and tulle gowns.  I just have to ask this one question, what do horror movies have against tiaras?  I mean, I understand that society has labeled beauty pageants as demeaning and sexist programs even though the Miss America organization provides a ridiculous amount of scholarships for girls and a majority of pageants in The United States do not require a swimsuit portion and it is universal in ALL pageant systems that the interview portion is worth the most amount of points...but that's no reason for people to never allow pageant queens to survive horror films.  Scummy people survive horror movies all the time, and pageant girls get a bad rap because not only do they tend to be pretty, but they're also doing wonderful things as far as volunteer services are concerned. Hell, if you win say Miss Illinois, you take a year off of school/work in order to fulfill your duties helping the state.  It's not all gowns and tiaras, that's just what sells on TV.   It's easy for us to hate pretty girls who are also assholes, it's harder to hate ones that actually do good for the world.  I digress. ANNNNYWAY.  Horror movies just don't like tiaras.  If you don't believe me, let me offer a few examples that prove this point.

Let's go with the obvious first and talk about Prom Night. (I'm talking the 80's version here. Not the one with if "I arch my eyebrows then I am acting scared" Brittany Snow) The poor girl should be celebrating one of the happiest memories of her high school career that isn't overshadowed by the immense date raping done by the star quarterback, and she's running from a killer.  Give the damn girl a break!  Why didn't he go after the art class president or the pitcher on the softball team?  Why did they HAVE make her the prom queen?  Need another example? Look at I Know What You Did Last Summer.  Poor Helen, all she wanted to do was give up her title gracefully, but the killer had to chop her hair to bits and kill her boyfriend while she was on stage.  Let me just tell you, giving up a title to a new girl is difficult enough, but having to watch the love of your life get hacked to bits while the rest of the crowd is oblivious and concerned as to why you're crying like a maniac...that's just really exacerbating things.  Not to mention, she died later.  Of course the blonde beauty queen dies before the "plain brunette with bangs".  Damn you 90's stereotypes!

Then we have the mother of all tiara hating horror movies, Carrie.  We can all accept right away that everyone treated Carrie White like total garbage even before she was crowned the prom queen, but I think that the students at Bates High School knew that putting a tiara on her head would immediately bring her turmoil and used the tiara as a weapon to set her up for destruction.  First you get the crown, then you get the pigs blood.  Not much of a congratulatory present, you think?  Plus, cleaning rhinestones is total bitch.  You can all say that she got her revenge by killing them all, but did she really?  She killed an entire school only to go home to a crazed mother who didn't console her and instead tried to kill her.  That doesn't sound much like revenge to me.  Let's face it, horror films just have something against tiaras.  Maybe it's because the tiara is sparkly and something everyone wants and horror movies are just jealous, or maybe it's because tiaras represent universal acceptance and that's something that horror fans never seem to fully get from the "social norm".  This can be analyzed any way we'd like but I think that instead of constantly making tiara clad characters the insta-kill, we should let them survive at least once. 

WOMEN OF THE WEEK: THE SOSKA SISTERS

Your eyes do not deceive you, this IS the return of Woman of the Week here at Day of the Woman.  From this moment on, Day of the Woman will no longer be plagued with absences due to school work or other outside forces, and BJ-C is going to kick off the reboot full force by showcasing not one, but two of the horror industry's greatest female assets.  Unless you've been living under a rock, it's safe to say that Jen and Sylvia Soska are currently two of the fastest growing horror icons.  The Twisted Twins are known for their Women In Horror Recognition Month Blood Drive videos, multiple short films, and of course-Dead Hooker In a Trunk. 

It was during film school that the flame beneath The Soska Sisters was ignited, and started a horror revolution.  When the funding for one of their final projects was pulled, the twins continued on and created the film with their own cast and crew, on their own time, and paid for it out of their own pockets.  In the trend of Grindhouse, the twins created a "fake trailer" for a film containing all of the "inappropriate" subjects their school had listed.  It was then that the twins joked to eventually turn the fake trailer into an actual film, and so was the birth of Dead Hooker In A Trunk.

When I say that these women created a film, I mean they CREATED a film. The sisters both took part in the film by directing, producing, starring in, and performing the stunts for the film.  Not only are these women bad ass enough to create a film, they even do their own stunts.  DHIAT has completely taken the horror world by storm and has easily become a fan favorite by both reviewers, filmmakers, and festivals.  The film currently holds an underground sensation status and seems to be developing as a cult classic already.  Dead Hooker In A Trunk and The Twins themselves were even praised by Eli Roth who went on record saying, "you should check out the Soska sisters, who made a film called Dead Hooker In A Trunk. They made it low budget and it's fucking awesome. It's really violent and the stunts are superb. They are two Canadian twin sisters who made a feature that they wrote, produced, directed, and starred in. And it's fantastic."  Everyone knows that Eli Roth is a total doucher, so impressing him was no easy feat.  The Soska sisters however, blew him away.

After the success of Dead Hooker In A Trunk, The Twisted Twins embarked on their newest film adventure, American Mary.  Not only is this another time for the sisters to showcase their skills as filmmakers, but they've also managed to nab Katherine Isabelle (of Ginger Snaps fame) as their leading lady.  The film is set to shoot this summer and I cannot express my excitement.

To put it simply, Jen and Sylvia Soska are quite possibly the two most inspirational women for the female horror fan of the new millennium.

TERRIBLE POSTER TUESDAY: THE FINAL

Yes, I know it's Saturday.  Don't get all Rebecca Black on me when it comes to what day it is.  I have officially finished up my final exams at university and it dawned on me that it's been nearly seven months since my last TpT.  That just will not do.  Inspired by what I'm going through at the moment and the fact that Day of the Woman is about to go back to the way things were, I present to you THE RETURN of Terrible Poster Tuesday!

The Final, where should I even begin with you?  Let's start with the obvious, shall we?  You put a girl in the middle of the poster in a catholic school girl's costume and gave her ratty black hair so you can barely see her face.  Congratulations, you've just shown off the fact you've seen J-Horror films.  I mean, associating your characters with Samara from The Ring is a good thing...if that character had anything to do with your film, which it doesn't.  Her blank stare is sort of effective, except the size of her hair is making her look like one of the shrunken head men from Beetlejuice.  Also, the uniform?  It's a school.  I see the chalkboard, I see the desk, I see the papers, YOU DON'T NEED THE GOD DAMN UNIFORM. The school you're portraying isn't in a Catholic school, so the uniform is just adding to the redundancy of this poster.  Oh, and way to make the girl pigeon toed as an attempt to make her appear innocent and thus more creepy. Grats.

Okay, and now there is paper scattered across the floor.  This I actually really enjoy.  Oh, wait, what in the Hades is that? It looks like someone squished a gusher on the floor.  My mistake, it's actually a clip art hand print that was photoshopped on top of the papers and left no remains of blood anywhere else. It's either that or my only guess would be that some child came by with blood on their hand and thought giving their math test a high five would be a good thing to do before running away from their killer.  I also see that you've learned to fade the corners of a photo to brighten the center.  Where'd you learn that one, the picnik app?

Bart Simpson would be proud of the handiwork behind your J-Whorer.  I would like to note that the handwriting looks like a small child's and not that of a high school student.  Then again, thanks to computers, we all write with chicken scratch. I retract my comment.  I WILL say that the rest of the examples of text on this poster are dreadful.  The title isn't nearly big enough or bright enough.  When my main focus is where the film is playing and NOT what the film actually is...we have a problem. 

MOMENTS IN HORROR THAT MAKE ME CRY.

Towards the end of April, Dread Central did a post on the Top Ten Tearjerker moments in horror and that same day, Johnny Squires of Freddy in Space compiled a list of his own.  I'm quite the fan of lists and I'll be the first to admit that I'm a total girl when it comes to watching horror movies.  A lot of people think that because I've watched so many horror movies that I'm completely desensitized but it really isn't the case.  I get scared out of my mind and yes, cry.  I've been thinking long and hard about it and have made as many attempts as humanly possible not to copy other moments featured on the lists.  THIS LIST CONTAINS A HOARD OF SPOILERS.  You have been warned. Proceed with caution.

THE WALKING DEAD

Johnny featured a later episode of this series but my vote had to go to the pilot episode of AMC's The Walking Dead, which held absolutely nothing back and delivered one of the most gut wrenching moments of horror television history.  Poor Morgan and his son have been holding up refuge in their house as the zombie apocalypse surrounds them.  Unfortunately, their wife was not as lucky.  There are moments before that are pretty depressing as their son looks out the door and sees his zombified mother attempting to return home, but knowing she'll just try to eat him he is forced to let her alone.  In the show's final moments, we see Morgan telling his son to stay in his room as he tries to line up a shot to finally end his wife's zombified life once and for all.  That moment, that single last frame is what got me hooked to the rest of the series.

 

PET SEMATARY

I've stated many, many times that I am a total sucker when it comes to children being offed in horror films.  I don't care how demented or demonic they are...my heart will absolutely sink.  Sometimes horror movies really don't hold anything back and they kill off children who were absolutely innocent.  I freaking DIE everytime Gage gets killed by the truck in Pet Sematary.  I don't even know why.  That shot of the child's shoe bouncing across the road and the sound of the screeching brakes...I can't even handle it.  My eyes start burning every single time without fail.

 FLATLINERS

I'm going for a stretch in calling this a horror movie, but it contains enough supernatural forces to walk the line between thriller and horror. In general, this a pretty damn depressing film.  It deals with people voluntarily dying for one minute before being revived in order to see if there truly is life after death.  The red flags should be shooting up by now.  Some of the people end up passing, and some of them experience crazy after effects.  However, there is nothing more gut wrenching than watching Julia Robert's character, Rachel, reunite with her deceased father who had been haunting her after she "flatlined".  Holy Waterworks, Batman.

CANDYMAN

It was always you, Helen.  While this movie is famous for playing the urban legend "man in the mirror, say the name five times" game, it has by far one of the most depressing endings I've ever seen.  The poor woman has spent the entire movie trying to prove her innocence and prove that a supernatural being is the one murdering people, and how is she repayed?  DYING IN A FIRE WHILE RESCUING A BABY.  Set that alongside Phillip Glass' score and you're almost destined to feel sad.

 AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON

AWIL is a comedy, yes, but the ending of this film is filled with just as much "oh, come on!" as the ending of Night of the Living Dead.  After everything he's been through, we just want to see him prance away in his wolfy wonderment...and it doesn't happen. So, freaking, sad.

THE MIST

Okay, so everyone is including this on their list. I might as well do the same.  The ending of this movie was honestly the first time that I literally stared at a screen in disbelief.  Stephen King himself has even said that he can't believe he didn't think of it.  I've attempted to try and wrap my head around the emotional turmoil he must feel at the end of this film, and absolutely nothing comes even remotely close to accidentally resembling what he must have felt.  I'm not spoiling it, just watch it and get back to me.

 Oh, and this entire freaking movie. Tragically beautiful. Simple and Perfect.

HAMMER FILMS PICK UP U.S. DISTRIBUTION FOR "THE WOMAN IN BLACK" STARRING DANIEL RADCLIFFE

Let me just get this out of the way before I continue on with the rest of this article. HARRY POTTER ZOMG. *drool* Look at that face, and that beautiful hair, and those gorgeous eyes, and he's so cute, and AHHHH! I'm sorry, a little bit of my HP fangirl leaked its way out of my fingertips just now and I was absolutely unable to control what was just typed into this box.  Now that we've settled my lust for the loins of one Daniel Radcliffe, I can get on with the news that is a bit more relevant than seat wetting.

The classic novel The Woman In Black which was later adapted into a stage play as well as a made for TV movie has been remade with the help of Hammer Films and Alliance films.  Originally set to be made in 3-D, it has been THANK GOD decided to be shot in 2-D.  The story follows a young lawyer, Arthur Kipps (Radcliffe), who is ordered to travel to a remote village and sort out a recently deceased client’s papers. As he works alone in the client’s isolated house, Kipps begins to uncover tragic secrets, his unease growing when he glimpses a mysterious woman dressed only in black. Receiving only silence from the locals, Kipps is forced to uncover the true identity of the Woman in Black on his own, leading to a desperate race against time when he discovers her true identity.—Hammer Film Production

Harry Potter fandom aside, this actually looks pretty damn good and Daniel Radcliffe has proven time and time again that he's a much more complex actor and can do far better than just Harry Potter films.

WHAT DOES A FEMALE HORROR FAN LOOK LIKE?

Finals week is peering its ugly head from beyond the horizon and I'm only five days away from opening my first show in Chicago.  This weekend was spent participating in WIU's Theatre Department fundraiser, Macomb Madness: 24 hours of Theatre.  In just 24 hours, groups of people wrote, produced, and performed short plays.  Yours truly was selected as a playwright and had from 4pm Saturday evening to 4am Sunday morning to develop a 10 minute play. (Mine ran about 15 minutes...oops).  Our play topics were decided by pulling a person, place, and thing out of a hat.  I had my fingers crossed for zombies and was hoping I would be given something horror related to work with (I ended up with James Earl Jones, The Playboy Mansion, and Fairies), when someone said to me "Wait...you like zombies?"  I replied enthusiastically and shamelessly plugged my blog when they looked at me and said "You don't look like a horror fan".  At this point, I'm used to people knowing that I love horror films and it has been quite a while since someone has questioned my macabre loyalty.  I honestly didn't know what to say.  I just smiled and walked away unsure of how to handle the situation. 

Not too long ago, I wrote an article that poised the question of female horror fans and tattoos.  I received an overwhelming abundance of emails and comments from horror fans both male and female that have shared similar experiences of judgement because they don't "look" the part of a horror fan.  A woman I highly admire, Tenebrous Kate, commented "Women *in general* are judged based upon their appearances, and that there's this (stupid) idea that women are somehow new to the idea of being fans of genre entertainment (science fiction, horror, comics--you name it!) and evoke hostility just by being present at horror events. It's frustrating to see that there's still the lingering ghost of that awful choice between pretty OR smart, whether your definition of "pretty" includes technicolor hair and body modifications or leans towards a fresh-faced, clean-cut aesthetic."  She's absolutely right.  I will never understand the idea that anyone with a vagina is immediately seen as a n00b in the realms of anything outside of romantic comedies.  Women have been a staple in just about every genre and in some cases, are the backbone of the entire genre.  Don't believe me?  Where would the Halloween franchise have gone if there wasn't a Laurie Strode?

Jeanette Laredo of Monster Land has been another one of my female horror comrades that shares the stigma of "not looking like a horror fan" She says, "I think that it's about stereotypes and how we expect people interested in certain things to look a certain way. My husband always tells me that I look far too adorable to be talking about exploitation horror and bloodsucking monsters. We all look for signifiers to determine how we categorize people. This makes it hard for women not sporting tats and a cherry red moehawk who feel like they won't be accepted on the basis of their passion for the genre, which is complete BS. Female horror fans come in all shapes, sizes, and hair colors, so give a girl a break".  I just want to know, who the hell decided that all horror fans were living alternative appearing lifestyles?  When is the last time a woman starred in a horror film and was covered in ink, piercings, and edgy haircuts?  It seems that because horror films deal with things outside of cupcakes and bridal showers, that women must appear goth/punk in order to earn some sort of horror street cred. 

Lianne Spiderbaby, writes for Fangoria and has some of the most mad horror chops of any woman I've ever known.  She says "I don't have any tattoos or piercings... I used to look edge-ier back in the day (a marilyn, and a chelsea cut look), but I wanted to be different and stand out in the horror world, and I've achieved this by just being myself in the sense of looking more... "normal" I suppose. I successfully started writing for Fangoria magazine, writing my first book on exploitation actresses, and writing my first horror screenplay without having a tattooed-goth look..." So someone explain to me where this idea developed?  The horror genre has always been proud to accept all walks of life into their realms, and yet they have somehow now developed the stigma that you can't be a "true" fan unless you appear edgy and "out of the norm".  It just doesn't make any sense to me.

 *******************

Of course this isn't to say that looking "different" is a bad thing.  That's not what this is saying at all. What I'm trying to ask is, "why can't we both exist?"  As a group of people who should know better than anyone that bucking the system not only gets you snubbed at the Oscars but little to no respect from film critics, we should know by now that it isn't the exterior that matters, it's the heart.  Now, I'm well aware that there are TONS of people that do not share this same opinion of stereotyping people, I'm gearing this more towards the status quo.  I'm a horror fan, and I'm proud that I look the way I do.  It's only a matter of time before other people start doing the same.