"Zombieland" and a look at Shriekfest and Vampire Film Festival

What would a Friday be without a decent looking horror movie hitting the big screen? Well, just another excuse to down a few cocktails, I guess. No excuse is necessary this Friday because I'm actually pretty excited about this one, but only because I have soft spot for horror-comedies and I like Woody Harrelson when he acts like a retard. The movie, if you didn't already know about it, is "Zombieland". It's written by Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick and directed by Ruben Fleischer. Fleischer really hasn't done too many big films prior to this. In fact, it looks like he's just written and directed a few TV shows and did a couple straight to video projects. IMDB never tells the whole story, though. Reese and Wernick, on the other hand, who not only wrote the film, but also executive produced the film, are partners and have been involved in quite a few projects over the last decade. They went to high school together and formed Reese Wernick Productions in 2001. Wernick worked as a producer on various reality shows before really breaking out with "The Joe Schmo Show", which the two of them created, executive-produced and wrote. That opened plenty of doors and they created a pile of other reality shows, including "Invasion Iowa" and "Stuck on ODB". Now, they're in to feature films and "Zombieland" is their first. Next up is "Earth Versus Moon", an epic sci-fi war movie, which they're slated to write and executive produce. Also, they're currently penning "Venom" for Sony Pictures and Marvel Comics. As for "Zombieland", it's getting good reviews and the story revolves around a group of survivors that stop in an amusement park, where they believe they'll be safe. If you're interested, they're "28 Days Later" type zombies, not Romero type zombies... the funny story of note is, Woody had an altercation with a TMZ photographer shorty after filming and his defense was, "I was still in character and I thought he was a zombie". In any case, it looks pretty good and I'll be checking it out soon enough...

Really quickly, I also want to mention Shriekfest, as it starts today... or was it yesterday? Either or, head over to their site, which can be found here OR, you can reread the post that we wrote about our review of Shriekfest 2009, which can be found here. If you're in the LA area, you should definitely head out and support this festival. It's one of the better indie-horror festivals of the year and a great place to network and see what other filmmakers are up to. Now, get off your ass and get down there.

Lastly, I should mention the Vampire Film Festival, which is coming up in a few weeks and has been getting a bit of press these days. It looks like another festival that's going to become a staple in the indie horror world. Here's what one of their recent press releases had to say:

Vampire Film Festival is descending upon New Orleans for the FIRST time Oct. 23rd! After much anticipation, the vampires and their supernatural friends have finally come home! Tickets are now available at the official Vampire Fest website: VampireFilmFestival.com

Alright, that's all we have for this week... have a great weekend!

New Horror On The Big Screen & A Few Festivals To Mention

Well, it's officially Spring, it's officially Friday and there's officially a decent looking horror film coming out today, officially. "The Haunting in Connecticut", released by Lionsgate, comes out today and it's the second biggest release of the week, behind "Monsters Vs. Aliens", which is opening on 125,870 screens, 3 of which are in space. The artwork for "THIC" is awesome, very creepy... the trailer is well put together. If you're interested, it's supposedly based on the true story of the Snedeker family's encounter with the paranormal in Southington, Connecticut. It's directed by Peter Cornwell and it's his feature directorial debut... check it out, if you can. Otherwise, let's look at what's going on in festival world.

I was recently informed of a new festival called the "Vampire Film Festival" and it just recently opened for submissions. Just going through their press release here... "Vampire Fest" will come to New Orleans in late Autumn 2009 and they'll be accepting all films that could be classified in the context of vampire, supernatural and the bizarre. They'll accept any narrative or experimental film that emphasizes the grotesque, mysterious or desolate. Also, as werewolves and other supernatural creatures are interconnected with that of the vampire, "Vampire Fest" will be open to films of the Goth, zombie and werewolf, witch or ghost genre... and there will be awards in various categories. I haven't replied to their email yet, but I should be hearing more about the festival soon.

If you're in the Cleveland area, you should be getting ready for the Cinema Wasteland Movie and Memorabilia Expo, which is next weekend, on April 3rd-5th. They're going to be showing some classic horror films ON film, such as "The Corpse Grinders", "The Fun House" and "Day of the Animals". They're also screening a whole bunch on DVD or video and a lot of them are films that we've reviewed and talked about here, such as "Breaking Her Will" from Bill Zebub, "Isle of the Damned" from Mark Colegrove & Mark Leake and "Stockholm Syndrome" from Ryan Cavalline. There's going to be lots of good indie horror, there's Q&A sessions with a lot of the filmmakers and much, much more. So, definitely go support that if you're in the area!

I was going to mention a bunch of approaching deadlines and stuff, but I'll save that for later... I think this is enough information for today. Besides, I need to clear up a bunch of stuff in my inbox before I head out for the day. Have a good one, see you next week.