Theme parks all across America are planning Halloween festivals
See what Disney is doing right now HERE
A Guide to Halloween 2024 at Top U.S. Theme Parks
From TravelAge West
The summer months and the winter holiday season are always popular times for theme park vacations, but Halloween has become one of the hottest times to go — and this year it will be even hotter, with celebrations starting in August. Here’s a guide to this year’s festivities, from the family friendly Halloween Time at Disneyland to the bone-chilling Halloween Horror Nights at Universal Parks.
Halloween Time: Disneyland Resort
From Aug. 23 through Oct. 31, Halloween Time at Disneyland includes spooky decor throughout the resort, themed treats and popular seasonal attraction overlays. In addition, Haunted Mansion Holiday will be available via virtual queue this year.
At Disney California Adventure Park, clients can expect themed ride overlays like Mater’s Graveyard JamBooree, Luigi’s Honkin’ Haul-O-Ween and Guardians of the Galaxy – Monsters After Dark. The daytime "Mickey's Trick and Treat" show debuts for the first time this year, and Plaza de la Familia commemorates the Day of the Dead with a traditional Dia de los Muertos ofrenda and a retelling of the story of “Coco.”
The separately ticketed and after-hours Oogie Boogie Bash – A Disney Halloween Party returns to California Adventure on 27 select nights from Aug. 25 through Oct. 31. The event features themed treat trails, the Frightfully Fun Parade, the Villains Grove walk-through experience and rare Disney villains who only appear during the spooky season.
Halloween Horror Nights: Universal Studios Florida and Universal Studios Hollywood
At the opposite end of the scare spectrum, Universal’s separately ticketed Halloween Horror Nights event starts earlier than ever at Universal Studios Florida, with 48 select nights from Aug. 30 through Nov. 3 and runs on 40 select nights from Sept. 5 through Nov. 3 at Universal Studios Hollywood.
This year, Florida’s event features ten haunted houses, five scare zones and jump scares galore, with six original houses, including The Museum: Deadly Exhibit, Major Sweets Candy Factory, Goblin’s Feast and Slaughter Sinema 2, the sequel to a 2018 haunted house that takes place in Carey, Ohio, the fictional town where Universal routinely sets its horrifying original stories.
In California, clients will experience eight all-new haunted houses, including Dead Exposure: Death Valley (the first Hollywood haunted house to follow the Dead Exposure storyline that debuted with Dead Exposure at Universal Studios Florida in 2008 and continued in Orlando with Dead Exposure: Patient Zero in 2018), plus Monstruos 2: The Nightmares of Latin America, a sequel to the 2023 house.
All-new “Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire” haunted houses in both Hollywood and Orlando will bring the “Ghostbusters” franchise to life — including iconic ghosts and creatures from the movies — as guests catch up with the original Ghostbusters to face a vengeful spirit who threatens to freeze everyone to death.
Brick-or-Treat: Legoland Parks
Legoland Parks in Florida, California and New York celebrate Halloween with family-friendly Brick-or-Treat events. The festivities offer smaller clients the chance to celebrate Halloween with shows, exclusive Lego characters and trick-or-treating (all included with park admission).
In addition, clients can see “The Great Monster Chase” 4D movie and ride the Dragon Coaster, which gets its annual disco party-style makeover with a groovy “Monster Mash” soundtrack and party lights.
Brick-or-Treat akes place on select weekends from Sept. 14 through Oct. 27 in Floridla and California and on select dates in September and October in New York.
Hersheypark
Hersheypark amusement park announced the return of its Hersheypark Halloween seasonal event and Dark Nights immersive haunt experience for more haunting dates than ever before from Friday, Sept. 13 through Nov. 3, 2024.
For 25 days, including Halloween night on Thursday, Oct. 31, guests can experience five haunted houses, including the all-new Estate of Evil haunted house, three Scare Zones with the new Darkstone’s Hollow: Battle for Spring Creek scare zone, 50 attractions and dark coaster rides, Hershey’s Trick-or-Treat Trail and more - all included with a Hersheypark Halloween ticket. The eight-weekend event will also feature exclusive culinary creations, including the return of the popular Dark Nights Tasting Pass, plus the new Avenue Of The Afterlife path with themed food and drink offerings, pop-up retail and live entertainment.
Knotts Berry Farm
Select Nights September 19 – November 2, 2024
Knott’s Scary Farm is the longest-running and most haunting Halloween theme park event in Southern California. With over 50 years of nightmares, unimaginable scares and innovative thrills, Knott’s Scary Farm has left no tomb unearthed, no crypt un-rattled and no fear untouched.
Experience the fully transformed theme park, with uniquely haunted mazes and attractions, sinister shows, and more than 1,000 horrifying creatures lurking in the fog and hiding across every inch of the park.
Knott’s Scary Farm is not recommended for children under 13. All guests, regardless of age, need to have their own paid admission ticket.
TO CELEBRATE JOE R. LANSDALE'S NEW BOOK, HE IS GOING ON TOUR! MAYBE IN YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD?
See where Joe will tour HERE
TEN THINGS YOU DIDN'T KNOW ABOUT THE EXORCIST
By Meagan Navarro
Since its initial theatrical release 51 years ago, on December 26, 1973, The Exorcist has remained among the highest grossing horror movies of all time. The first horror movie to be nominated for Best Picture at the Academy Awards, this seminal classic fundamentally altered the genre irrevocably. Centered on a possessed teen girl and a priest suffering a crisis of faith, The Exorcist became the standard by which most horror films that followed were judged, in terms of scare factor, anyway. Not only did every possession film that came after draw inspiration from this film, but it spawned multiple sequels, prequels, television series, theatrical re-releases and more in its four-decade-long legacy. The original, true-story exorcism story that inspired author William Peter Blatty’s novel, tales of a curse plaguing the set of the film, and many other details surrounding The Exorcist have long been uncovered already. But here are 10 things you might not know about this horror classic:
10. Rosemary’s Baby paved the way for The Exorcist
Having embraced religion from a young age, and deeply inspired by the 1949 case about a possessed boy in Mount Rainier, Maryland since his college days, author William Peter Blatty really wanted to write a story inspired by the exorcism. Most mainstream movies tended to lean heavily for or against religion, though, making Blatty feel as though what he sought to do with his story would never fit mainstream ideals. However, when he saw Rosemary’s Baby in the theater he was inspired by the way the film turned the ambiguity and questions of faith and belief into a mainstream film. It was the push he needed, and he wrote the novel in a mere 10 months.
9. William Friedkin got the job because of William Peter Blatty
By now it’s likely well known that Friedkin wasn’t the first choice to direct. The studio approached the likes of Stanley Kubrick and Mike Nichols first, who both turned the project down. Then the studio eyed Mark Rydell. Blatty, however, pushed for Friedkin. Between Friedkin’s work on hit The French Connection, and Blatty’s assertiveness in getting his way, well, Friedkin got the job in large part to the screenwriter.
8. William Peter Blatty played dirty to get his way
Typically, screenwriters don’t get so intertwined with the film. They write, and then it’s handed over from there. But no one was as invested in their story as Blatty, who was so passionate about The Exorcist and getting it correct. In Jason Zinoman’s novel Shock Value, it was revealed that Blatty actually snuck into producer Paul Monash’s office and went through his personal files until he found a paper trail revealing a deal with Warner Brothers that involved a completely restructured script. Blatty took that to his agent, who then went to Warner Brothers’ vice president, claiming false representation. Monash was removed from the project, and Blatty then became producer instead, his story once again intact.
7. Mercedes McCambridge provided the voice of Pazuzu
One of the most riveting performances in the film (among many stellar performances) is also one of the most unheralded. The demonic, possessed voice of Regan MacNeil (Linda Blair) was performed by radio actor Mercedes McCambridge. Her radio acting skillset combined with her distinct voice, further made husky by insistence on drinking whiskey, chain-smoking, and swallowing raw eggs contributed to a terrifying performance. Having suffered from chronic bronchitis, McCambridge cleverly used her wheezing to create the bone-chilling breathing of Pazuzu. For a long while, McCambridge didn’t receive credit for her voiceover work; she didn’t want to take away from Blair’s performance according to Friedkin.
6. Father Damien Karras was Jason Miller’s first film role
After earning degrees in English and philosophy, Miller worked various odd jobs like welfare investigator, waiter, truck driver and messenger boy while writing plays. While he ultimately won a Pulitzer Prize for his play The Championship Season, the income wasn’t steady and he gave up professional writing for acting instead. The year he won his Pulitzer was the same in which he was offered the role of Father Damien Karras, the priest struggling with his faith. That role, his first in film, earned him an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor.
5. The projectile vomit scene took only one take
It’s now well known that the green vomit spewed by the possessed Regan was actually made up of pea soup. What’s not as well-known is that Miller’s horrified and disgusted reaction isn’t acting but genuine. Because it was real, the shot was nailed on one take. Originally, Regan’s projectile vomit was supposed to land squarely on Miller’s chest, but the tubing hose misfired, catching Miller off guard. It was a technical error that made Miller angry, he later confessed in interviews.
4. Max von Sydow went through a lengthy aging makeup process for his role
Father Merrin, the experienced veteran Catholic priest selected to perform the exorcism of 12-year-old Regan, is a 79-year-old with a weakened heart. At the time of filming, von Sydow was only 43. The actor underwent a 3-4 hour makeup application process every day to resemble the aged priest. Between the stellar makeup effects and von Sydow’s amazing portrayal of Merrin, it’s easy to forget how young the actor really was at the time.
3. Writer Blatty hated the movie’s ending
Different views on how to handle the story meant a lot of tension between Friedkin and Blatty over the course of production. For Friedkin, he wanted a much more ambiguous story, one that left the viewer questioning the mysterious nature of the possession and the motivations. Blatty’s story, however, was much more explicit in its meaning. His novel spells out exactly why Regan was chosen and what Karras’ sacrifice meant. Friedkin’s ending made Blatty feel it would be interpreted that the Devil won, which was in extreme opposition to the point of his story.
2. The original theater release caused "cinematic neurosis"
Over the holiday weekend that The Exorcist opened and the weeks that followed, visceral audience reactions swept the country. Fainting, vomiting, panic, and even reports of miscarriages and heart attacks lead to further reporting of panic and hysteria surrounding the film’s release. The frenzy was so publicized that it even lead to medical journalists giving a psychiatric name for the craze associated with the horror film, titled “cinematic neurosis.” To say that the film struck a nervous chord in America would be putting it mildly.
1. The Exorcist set the trend for the inevitable sequels for other horror movies
Warner Brothers didn’t think the film would be a huge hit. They didn’t bother to screen it for critics and they only put it out in 30 theaters at first. They were proved wrong right away, when the film caught on like wildfire, quickly become the must-see movie of the year. Wanting to capitalize further on its success, Warner Brothers jumped on the opportunity to continue the story of Regan and Pazuzu with The Exorcist II, opening in 1977. While this sequel was panned and nowhere near as successful as its predecessor, Warner Brothers essentially pioneered the horror sequel as we know it today. Major horror films before, like Night of the Living Dead or Rosemary’s Baby hadn’t had any follow ups. The Exorcist II paved the way for the standard practice of the horror sequel.
THIS MONTH'S WEIRD NEWS
Late French film star Alain Delon wanted his dog buried with him, even if he died first.
Delon, an internationally acclaimed and prolific actor and producer, died in late August 2024, aged 88, and will be buried on Saturday at his family home in Douchy, south of Paris.
He was quoted in a 2018 interview with Paris Match as saying he wanted Loubo, a Belgian Malinois he adopted in 2014, buried with him. “I’ve had 50 dogs in my life, but I have a particular relationship with this one,” he told the magazine. ”If I die before him, I’ll ask the veterinarian for us to leave together....I’d prefer that to knowing that he would let himself die on my tomb amid so much suffering.”
After Delon’s death, animal rights activists and concerned citizens raised the alarm about Loubo’s fate.
An official with the Brigitte Bardot Foundation — a prominent animal rights group founded by the famed French film star, who was close with Delon — said he contacted Delon’s family after foundation members expressed concern.
“They said they would let the dog live.”
Jeani Rector queried folks on facebook (probably you!) to ask what their favorite horror movies of all time were. Below are the top 20 picks, in order according to the amount of votes they each received.
Also listed is trivia about each film.
The number ONE movie chosen by the most votes
THE THING (1982)
John Carpenter's The Thing didn’t go over well when it was released in 1982. Ignored by movie-goers, it was a box office failure. Reviled by critics, it even saw Carpenter being labeled a pornographer of violence by some reviewers. It was such a disappointment for the studio, they took another project away from Carpenter as punishment. But it gradually found its audience, building up a cult following. And soon, a legion of fans and critics alike began calling it one of the greatest horror movies ever made. It didn’t take long for The Thing to go from being known as reprehensible trash to being considered an all-time classic.
Actor Kurt Russell would take drags off of cigarettes to make his breath visible as though he were in cold temperatures. It has become a tradition in British Antarctic research stations to watch The Thing as part of their Midwinter feast and celebration held every June 21.
TWO
HALLOWEEN (1978)
The 1978 horror film Halloween was not an immediate success, but it eventually became one of the most successful independent films of all time. The movie, directed by John Carpenter and shot in Southern California on a budget of $325,000, had disappointing sales numbers during its first weekend. However, word of mouth helped the film gain popularity, with audiences telling their friends to see it. By the following weekend, sales had doubled, then tripled, and eventually increased tenfold.
Because of the film's tight budget, the production designer Tommy Lee Wallace had to use whatever he had at his disposal, or had to buy materials cheaply. When he created the Michael Myers mask, he made two versions. The first was an Emmett Kelly smiling clown mask that they put frizzy red hair on. They tested it out but it didn't achieve the desired effect. The other mask was a 1975 Captain James T. Kirk mask that was purchased in a costume shop on Hollywood Boulevard for $1.98. It had the eyebrows and sideburns ripped off, the face was painted bluish white, the hair was spray painted brown, and the eyes were opened up more. After testing out the mask, the crew decided that it was much more creepy because it was emotionless.
THREE
JAWS (1975)
Jaws, the American suspense and horror film of 1975, was directed by Steven Spielberg and is considered the first summer blockbuster ever due to the fact that over 67 million people in the USA went to see this film when it was first released. Based on the 1974 novel of the same name by author Peter Benchley, the film not only broke box office records at the time of its release, but also changed the way Hollywood marketed and distributed films, especially those released during the summer.
Peter Benchley himself can be seen in a cameo in the film as the news reporter who addresses the camera on the beach. Benchley had previously worked as a news reporter for The Washington Post before penning Jaws. Steven Spielberg also makes a cameo in the movie: His voice is the Amity Island dispatcher who calls Quint’s boat, the Orca, with Sheriff Brody’s wife on the line.
FOUR
THE LOST BOYS (1987)
As filming began, the comedic points in the movie were made up on the spot. The comedy confused Warner Brothers, and they would ask Joel Schumacher (the director) if he were making a horror film or a comedy. He responded with “yes” every time. The executives seemed confused about the combination of those two genres, and weren’t sure that a horror-comedy would work. The city of Santa Cruz, California, did not want to be connected to the crime that happens in the movie, so they asked the production to change the name of the town in the film. So the movie takes place in the fictional city of Santa Carla.
See movie trivia about The Lost Boys HERE
FIVE
ALIEN (1979)
Certainly the character of Ripley, played by Sigouney Weaver, would have appealed to readers in the Golden Age of Science Fiction. She has little interest in her employer's orders that it be brought back home as a potential weapon. After she sees what it can do, her response to Special Order 24 (Return alien lifeform, all other priorities rescinded) is: "How do we kill it?"
The blue laser lights that were used in the alien ship's egg chamber were borrowed from the rock band The Who. The band was testing out the lasers for their stage show in the soundstage next door.
SIX
HELLRAISER (1987)
Based on the Clive Barker book titled The Hellbound Heart, Hellraiser was an orignal film in an era of cliches. Famous critic Roger Ebert panned it HERE, but moviegoers loved it. The movie was originally going to be called Sadomasochists from Beyond the Grave or Hellbound, but producer Christopher Figg suggested Hellraiser instead.
Since the movie was filmed in England, there was a law that stated that cockroaches of both sexes were not to be allowed on movie sets because they could cause an infestation. So, Barker decided to hire someone who could manage the cockroaches. He explained, “They were all male. And we had a fridge…we chilled the maggots and the roaches.”
SEVEN
THE FLY (1986)
Directed by David Cronenberg and starring Jeff Goldblum early in his career, the movie is about a scientist who accidentally merges with a fly during a teleportation experiment. Although most people prefer the 1986 version because of the lead character's charm and also because the film has great heart and soul, there can't help be some comparisons to the original 1958 version.
The first The Fly (1958) was a film that surprised even its producers. They knew the original story was a little silly and expected only a modest return on the film from a mostly young audience. Even the film’s name stars, Vincent Price and Herbert Marshall, could not take The Fly seriously. The audience, on the other hand, found that there was much to respond to in the film. The Fly cost $350,000 in 1958 dollars and only took 18 days to make, yet it grossed $3,000,000 (also in 1958 dollars), considerably outstripping any expectation at the time.
EIGHT
THE HAUNTING (1963)
The 1963 horror film The Haunting had a budget of $1.05 million in 1958 dollars but only made $1.02 million at the box office. The film was shot at MGM-British Studios near London, with exteriors filmed at Ettington Park in Warwickshire. It was based upon Shirley Jackson's famous book The Haunting of Hill House.
At the time it was released, The Haunting was considered to be a flop because it originally lost money. But over the years, it became a classic because of word of mouth and because of TV showings. There were some clever uses of lensing effects to heighten the strangeness of Hill House. By adjusting the props in the sets so that they are off by a few degrees, it helped to unsettle the viewer.
NINE
FRANKENSTEIN (1931)
Frankenstein is a Pre-Code film. Pre-Code movies are American films produced between the late 1920s and mid-1934, before the Motion Picture Production Code (Hays Code) censorship guidelines were strictly enforced. The term "pre-Code" is a misnomer because the Hays Code was adopted in 1930, but Hollywood filmmakers often ignored it, and oversight was poor until July 1, 1934. Before then, local laws, negotiations between studios, and popular opinion had more influence on movie content.
Universal Pictures exists today because of the monster movies. In 1930, Universal lost $2.2 million in revenues (over $36 million adjusted for inflation). Then, in February 1931, Dracula was released and made $700,000 (1931 dollars) in sales. It was clear to Universal producer Carl Laemmle Jr. that horror movies were what the public wanted. By November of that same year, Frankenstein was released. Bela Lugosi, who had shot to stardom at the studio following Dracula, assumed he would be playing the Monster. However, makeup tests showed the actor didn’t have the right look. Instead, the studio went with English actor Boris Karloff, and the rest is history.
TEN
28 DAYS LATER (2002 UK, 2003 USA)
28 Days Later took the traditional zombie movie horror formula and gave it a fresh coat of paint by changing the location, the tone, and of course, the monster in question. To properly give the feeling of a dead Britain shrouded in chaos, the filmmakers had to be careful with how and when they shot. Shots on the M1 motorway were done early in the morning between 7 and 9 AM under police guidance.
A real hospital was used for the filming to create a sense of authenticity. The hospital in question was open during the week but shut on weekends which allowed Danny Boyle and his crew to rent the space for shooting when nobody was around.
An extra benefit of this arrangement was that rental fees went directly towards the hospital's trust fund, representing one of the best kinds of business transactions one could wish for. Nothing like shooting a bloody horror movie and having a portion of the budget go towards a good cause.
See more HERE
ELEVEN
NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD (1968)
Written by George Romero and John Russo, Night of the Living Dead only had a $114,000 budget. It changed the movie world of how zombies were portrayed by using dissociation. Since the film was shot in black and white and had a really low budget, the crew never had to worry what color the blood was, so chocolate syrup was used. For the scene in which Karen Cooper (Kyra Schon) begins eating her father’s corpse, the crew’s leftover lunch was employed.
Both Romero and Russo played cameos in the film. Russo played one of the ghouls who managed to reach into the farmhouse only to be struck with a tire iron, while Romero can be seen in the Washington D.C. sequences as a reporter.
TWELVE
THE SHINING (1980)
Directed by Stanley Kubrick, it is widely known that this movie is not loved by its creator, Stephen King. But not many know why. According to David Hughes, one of Kubrick’s biographers, Stephen King wrote an entire draft of a screenplay for The Shining. However, Kubrick didn’t even deem it worth a glance, which sort of makes sense when you consider that the director once described King’s writing as “weak.” Instead, Kubrick worked with Diane Johnson on the screenplay because he was a fan of her book, The Shadow Knows. The two ended up spending eleven weeks working on the script and ignoring King's version.
THIRTEEN
PHANTASM (1979)
Phantasm (released as Never Dead in Australia) is a low-budget cult classic horror film produced in 1977 and released in 1979. The film was originally rated X by the MPAA because of the silver sphere sequence, and due to a scene involving a man urinating on the floor after going down dead. After Los Angeles Times film critic Charles Champlin made a telephone call in a favor to a friend on the board, the rating was changed from the (commercially non-viable) X-rating to R.
This movie was number 25 on the cable and streaming channel Bravo's list of the "100 Scariest Movie Moments."
FOURTEEN
THE EXORCIST (1973)
William Peter Blatty’s novel is supposedly based on the real-life 1949 exorcism of a young boy, known by the pseudonym Roland Doe. The story became national news, and caught the interest of Blatty, who was a student at Georgetown University at the time (hence the change in location). For the 1973 movie The Exorcist, the possessed child was changed to that of a girl.
Though it’s never stated in the film, the demon that takes possession of Regan MacNeil has a name: Pazuzu, which is taken from the name of the king of the demons in Assyrian and Babylonian mythology. Much of Regan’s moaning and grunting were created by remixing pig squeals. When the demon is finally exorcised from her body, the sound you hear is a group of pigs being led to slaughter.
FIFTEEN
CARNIVAL OF SOULS (1963)
Amateurish in many ways (the film does include some stilted performances, bad lip-synching, clunky editing and a few continuity errors), Carnival of Souls nevertheless continues to exert a strange fascination for many viewers. Not a conventional horror or ghost story, this film explores the psychological state of Mary Henry after a car accident as she emerges from the murky depths of a river.
Carnival of Souls was the only feature film to be directed by industrial and educational filmmaker Harold (Herk) Harvey. After completing Carnival of Souls, Harvey was to return to making industrial and educational films before retiring in the late 1980s (he died in 1996). Assembling a crew of just five – himself, cinematographer Maurice Prather, editor Dan Palmquist, assistant director Reza Badiyi, and production manager Larry Sneegas (all of them his buddies at Centron), Harvey managed to generate a budget of $33,000 after approaching local Kansas businessmen, who invested in packs of the production’s stock. He found his lead in the form of up-and-coming actress Candace Hilligoss, who turned down a role in Psychomania (1963) to star in Carnival Of Souls. “I was paid $2,000 for doing the film,” she later recalled. “At the time, it seemed like a fortune.”
SIXTEEN
TRAIN TO BUSAN (2016)
Roger Ebert called Train to Busan "a wildly fun action movie, beautifully paced and constructed, with just the right amount of character and horror. In many ways, it’s what World War Z should have been—a nightmarish vision of the end of the world, and a provocation to ask ourselves what it is that really makes us human in the first place."
Filming began in April 2015 and finished in August 2015, for a total of only four months. The movie is based on an original story created by Park Joo-suk. The film team tried to reference the movements of the zombies from the game 7 Days to Die, and also from the movies Ghost in the Shell and Silent Hill.
Train to Busan received a 94% rating from Rotten Tomatoes, and British filmmaker Edgar Wright, director of the zombie comedy Shaun of the Dead, highly applauded the film. He personally recommended it on Twitter and called it the "best zombie movie I've seen in forever."
SEVENTEEN
ROSEMARY'S BABY (1968)
This wildly entertaining nightmare, faithfully adapted from Ira Levin's best seller, stars Mia Farrow as a young mother-to-be who grows increasingly suspicious that her overfriendly elderly neighbors are in a pact with Satan. With a comparatively small budget of just $3.2 million (1968 dollars), Rosemary’s Baby grossed over $33 million worldwide upon its release, making it by far the most commercially successful of Polanski’s ‘Apartment Trilogy’ films.
According to Mia Farrow, the scenes where Rosemary walks in front of traffic were spontaneous and genuine. Director Roman Polanski is reported to have told her that "nobody will hit a pregnant woman." The scene was successfully shot with Farrow walking into real traffic and Polanski following, operating the hand-held camera since he was the only one willing to do it.
EIGHTEEN
RE-ANIMATOR (1985)
Re-Animator (also known as H. P. Lovecraft's Re-Animator) is a 1985 American comedy horror film that is loosely based upon the 1922 H.P Lovecraft serial novelette titled Herbert West: Reanimator. Originally devised by director Stuart Gordon as a theatrical stage production and later a half-hour television pilot, the television script was revised to become a feature film. Filmed in Hollywood, the film received an R Rating at the box office, but it garnered its largest audience through the unrated cut's release on home video.
The special effects department went through twenty-four gallons of fake blood during the shoot, and makeup effects artist John Naulin said that Re-Animator was the bloodiest film he had ever worked on. In the past, he had never used more than two gallons of blood on a film. The building used for the Miskatonic Medical School is the same one as the Cyberdine Headquarters in Terminator 2: Judgement Day.
NINETEEN
PSYCHO (1960)
Psycho was seen as a departure from Hitchcock's previous film North by Northwest since it was filmed on a small budget in black-and-white by the crew of his then-television series Alfred Hitchcock Presents. Initially, the film divided critics due to its controversial subject matter, but audience interest and outstanding box-office returns prompted a major critical re-evaluation. Psycho was nominated for four Academy Awards, including Best Director for Alfred Hitchcock and Best Supporting Actress for Janet Leigh.
When the cast and crew began work on the first day, they had to raise their right hands and swear an oath not to divulge one word of the story. Hitchcock also withheld the ending part of the script from his cast until he needed to shoot it.
TWENTY
NOSFERATU (1922 Germany, 1929 USA)
Nosferatu, also known as Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror (German: Nosferatu – Eine Symphonie des Grauens) is a 1922 silent German Expressionist vampire film directed by F.W. Murnau and starring Max Schreck as Count Orlock. Even with several details altered, Bram Stoker's heirs sued over the adaptation, and a court ruling ordered all copies of the film to be destroyed. However, several prints of Nosferatu survived, and would resurface through second-generation reels. The movie was banned in Sweden due to excessive horror. The ban was finally lifted in 1972.
The vampire's unblinking stare was central to the unnerving effect the creature cause for audiences. Count Orlok is only seen blinking once on screen, near the end of Act One.
Today, the film is regarded as an influential masterpiece of early cinema and the horror genre, as reported by Deadline. That’s Friday the 13th.
Jeani Rector’s Advice on Writing is a folksy, easy to comprehend step-by-step process that covers in detail such techniques as character development; substance, structure and style; pacing suspense; suggestions about promoting your work and other valuable information.
What makes an editor choose one story over another for publication? What are the secrets to make your work stand out from the pack? How can you bring out the best in your potential? This book shares insider information to help you succeed in the competitive world of writing.
It is on sale for a low price of $8.99 paperback and $2.99 kindle HERE
THE HORROR ZINE IS PUBLISHING BOOK REVIEWS
The Horror Zine welcomes book review requests.
To learn how to submit your book for review, go HERE.
Did you know that BloodyDisgusting has a horror forum? Post your thoughts about horror HERE
Take the Plague Quiz HERE
Would you survive the bubonic plague? Find out HERE
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