Once again, the FANGORIA Weekend Of Horrors kicked off on Saturday morning with an introduction by Fango editor Tony Timpone & CREATION Entertainment's Adam Malin. They started the show off with a slew of upcoming genre films such as Peter Jackson's King Kong and 'The Fog'. This lead right into the first panel with Jeff Lieberman, the creator of Squirm and Blue Sunshine who was on hand to preview his new horror film 'Satan's Little Helper' & give out autpgraphed promotional posters.





After the first panel, Robg. bumped into Tony Timpone outside the auditorium & he was nice enough to pose for a picture. He also introduced us to Sage Stallone, who was just arriving to the event with Cannibal Holocaust's Robert Kerman & Gabriel Yorke.

The first huge panel of the day was for the upcoming Showtime series 'MASTERS OF HORROR'. We were treated to a kick-ass trailer, and then series creator and director Mick Garris took the stage with fellow director John Landis! The duo covered just about everything you'd want to know from these two. They showed a clip from the John Landis episode of Masters Of Horror titled Deer Woman, which features Michael Benben (of Dream On fame) getting kicked across a room by a woman with deer legs. Needless to say, the clip was hilarious. They told us a bit about what to expect for the upcoming series. The pair said that Roger Corman is recovering from a heart attack but will be directing an episode for Season 2. Yes folks, MASTER OF HORRORS is intended to be an ongoing series! They confirmed that for the Dario Argento episode, Goblin will be doing the score. And then they went on to comment about everything from Garris' Psycho IV (which Landis loves) to Michael Jackson and the Twilight Zone movie. Both Garris and Landis feel that Jacko did not molest any children but that he may very well be insane. Landis called the Twilight Zone incident a horrible "tragedy" and despite it all, he feels that one day Universal will in fact make another Twilight Zone movie. Landis got choked up when asked about John Belushi and said that he's still mad at him for not getting help. This was a heartfelt & difficult moment for audience members, as we've not used to Landis being anything other then playful & funny. This panel was a nice start to the convention and turned out to be one of the best panels from any of our convention experiences. After the panel, Landis and Garris stuck around for a while, and were more the happy to sign for fans for FREE!

At about 2:30pm, we were treated to a scene from the upcoming flick 'SLITHER' and then writer/director James Gunn (writer on Dawn Of The Dead 2004), producer Paul Brooks, stars Michael Rooker (HENRY: Portrait Of A Serial Killer), Gregg Henry and (the beautiful) Elizabeth Banks took the stage for a panel. The film looks like an entertaining all out gorefest (with plenty of sick humor.) We were treated to a scene in which a woman is stuffed with these horrible slug like creatures & explodes, releasing them. (Anyone ever read Garth Ennis's Just A Pilgrim?) Afterwards, James Gunn & Michael Rooker hit up the vendor room where they were happily meeting & greeting fans.











Elizabeth Banks who plays Betty Brant in the Spider-Man flicks, refused to give away the Spider-Man 3 villians indentities. (Even though airhead Kirstin Dunst already mentioned it in an interview this past week). Michael Rooker answered questions ranging from everything about HENRY: Portrait Of A Serial Killer to Days Of Thunder.

Here's a panel we were really looking forward to. The Fangoria Blood Drive Volume 2 panel. Why, you may ask? Well, not only are we friendly with a lot of the great filmmaker's who are featured on this compilation, but their films happen to actually be REALLY good!!! Seriously, I know a lot of you thought the original Blood Drive was "egh", but I can surely say that between 'We All Fall Down', 'Mainstream', & 'Means To An End', this collection will be worth checking out. Taking the stage from left to right - Paul Solet, Jake Hamilton, Erik Candiani, Adam Barnick, Brad Palmer and William Rot. (cont'd)













We were treated to clips from each of the films on the comp and then the filmmakers fielded questions from both the audience and each other. Paul Solet slowly started bleeding out mid-panel, first from his arm, then from his leg and finally from his head. This garnered much attention & laughter from the audience. Overall, a very entertaining panel from a slew of guys we except to hear a lot about in the future. Check out the Blood Drive: Volume 2 DVD on Oct. 4th and see for yourself!

Emily Perkins took the stage at around 4:45pm for her first ever convention apperence! Most genre fans are familiar of her work as the character Bridgitte from the 'Ginger Snaps' movies & Bev from Stephen King's IT. She talked a bit about her experiences on the Ginger Snaps sequels, citing the second film as her favorite of the trilogy. She mentioned that there is talk of doing an ongoing television series for Ginger Snaps, but weather she'd be involved is still up in the air. Tim Curry apperently took great pleasure in terrorizing the kids while in clown make-up, while John Ritter went out of his way to make jokes during the production of IT. At the end of the panel, FANGORIA'S Tony Timpone & Michael Gingold came out to present Emily Perkins with her Fango Chainsaw Award, as voted by the fans of the magazine.

Come 5:15pm, there was a panel for FANGORIA TV!!! It was hosted by the wacky Prof. Griffin (who made the rounds and interviewed some of the guests), rocker Dee Snider, actress Debbie Rochon, and company president Tom DeFeo. They annoucned that while they still work out a cable deal, FANGORIA TV will launch via the world wide web next month. Keep your eyes pealed on the Fango website for details!










Straight from the Project Greenlight series, it's the 'FEAST' panel with Diane Goldner, John Gulager, Clu Gulager and Judah Friedlander. Jsyn wants to chime in personally for this one, so here we go: "I don't care what you think you know about Project Greenlight, FEAST, or John Gulager. I don't give a flying fig what those hyper-jealous fanboys and armchair directors think they could have done better, why they should have won instead, why John should NOT have won, or if they think Project Greenlight is a rigged, fixed, tax write off. I'll say this: I was lucky enough to spend some time with John, Clu and Diane. I was lucky enough to see Sage Stallone's "Vic" (which John shot). It was humbling to sit just a few inches away from the legendary actor Clu Gulager and his family, while we watched one of the most beautiful, heartbreaking works of film I'll ever see. But I'll be damned if they weren't the sweetest, most "real" people we met all weekend. I watched the trailer to FEAST with a whole convention full of other people too. Quite simply, FEAST is going to rock. Hard. If it's even 1/10th the movie it looks to be from the trailer and from talking to John, I think we're gonna have another contemporary classic in the vein of FROM DUSK TILL DAWN or EVIL DEAD 2!  Bold statement, I know...but John Gulager is going to become a force of nature in the coming years. His visual style is simply brilliant and his talent is woefully overlooked because of asinine preconceptions. Give John a few years and let him make the movies he wants to make, the way he wants to make them and mark my words he'll have the title "Academy Award Winner" before his name. If by some snowballs chance in Hell FEAST isn't the ass-kicker I know it's going to be... well, I'll eat my hat. I mean it, I'll eat my hat right here on ICONS OF FRIGHT for all to see. John also mentioned there was the possibility of him directing the adaptation of the video game THE SUFFERING, but he wasn't very confident it was going to pan out. Personally, fuck that shit John! You are too good to make movies outta video games, and deserve much better. Save that horseshit for Uwe Boll, I say."

The final panel of Day One was with the duo behind last year's surprise hit 'SAW'. Director James Wan and actor/writer Leigh Whannell stopped by to preview this Halloween's 'SAW II'. They showed a gruesome clip from the film and praised it's director Darren Lynn Bousman. They knew after the success of the first film, that the studio's were going to make a sequel with or without them, so they opted to take part in the sequels production as much as possible. When asked if the new film will have a surprise twist ending like the first, Leigh commented, "We both feel you'll all be very satisfied with both the film itself and the ending." Leigh also mentioned how cool it is to see action figures of Jigsaw and his puppet at a recent trade show. "Once they make a figure of me, I'm done. I can retire and you'll never hear from me again!", he laughed. James talked a bit about the new version of 'SAW' titled 'SAW: Rebirth' which hits DVD in October. "It's a slightly different cut. I was in Australia when they cut the theatrical version together, so there's a few things I wouldn't have done. I've gone back and changed a few things. Added back the gore, which I'm surprised was removed in the first place. And I was unhappy with the color on the original DVD release, so I went back and color corrected the entire thing." (cont'd)











After their panel, James and Leigh were more then happy to stick around and sign promotional posters for fans. The Fango crowd really seemed to get a kick out of this joking twosome! They sold the whole room on 'SAW II'. 'SAW II' will feature Donnie Wahlberg along with returning cast members Dina Meyer, Shawnee Smith, and Tobin Bell and features a script co-written by SAW creator Leigh Whannell & director Darren Lynn Bousman.

Sun. Sept. 25th, 2005

Christopher P. Garetano stops by the Icons Of Fright/Horror Business table with his girlfriend Lisa before heading up to the Diamond Room to introduce the day's first screening - his documentary 'HORROR BUSINESS'.



Christopher Garetano introduces his documentary 'HORROR BUSINESS' which features Mark Borchardt, David "Slave" Stagnari, Ron Atkins, John Goras, John Brodie and features special appearances by Herchell Gordon Lewis, Sid Haig, Fangoria's Tony Timpone, Joe Bob Briggs and many, many more!

Sunday's show started out with a presentation from Anchor Bay Entertainment. They previewed a slew of their upcoming releases including Bruce Campbell's 'The Man With The Screaming Brain' and 'Alien Apocalypse'. They also mentioned that 'The Cemetary Man' DVD is definitely still on the way! This lead directly into the panel for Dante Tomaselli's 'Satan's Playground', which Anchor Bay officially picked up for distribution and release!!!



Writer/director Dante Tomaselli took the stage with Ellen Sandweiss, Danny Lopes, and Christie Sanford. They started off with a 5 minute clip of various scene's from Dante's latest 'Satan's Playground'. The group was very thrilled with the official announcment from Anchor Bay about adding 'Satan's Playground' to their library. Dante assured the audience that he only intends to make horror films during his career and unlike most filmmakers, he's proud to be associated with the genre. He also mentioned what "a dream" it was to work with Ellen Sandweiss, because he had always been a fan of 'The Evil Dead' since he first saw it at age 12. He talked a bit about his next film, 'The Ocean' which will shoot later in the year in Puerto Rico and will also star Felissa Rose, Jessica Harper (Susperia!) and Judy O' Dea (Barbara from the original Night Of The Living Dead)















After the panel, Dante and the cast stuck around for a bit to meet fans and sign 'Satan's Playground' promotional items!







At 1:30pm, there was a 'SCARE FLIX PANEL', which featured up & coming indie filmmakers Larry Fessenden (Last Winter), Ti West (The Roost) and James McKenney (Death To The Automatons), each of which were previewing their latest films. (All being released by Larry's Glass Eye Pix production company.) James McKenney explains that Death to the Automatons was shot on super 8. It was one of the most impressive trailers of the entire convention. (Basically because it featured home made robots beating the crap out of each other.) The trailer for The Roost was also very strong and sported a very classic old-school vibe. The story revolves around of a group of friends that are trapped in a farm house and are forced to fend off against all kinds of monsters. A clip from Larry's new film The Last Winter featuring Hellboy's Ron Pearlman was shown. It exhibited the same claustrophobic tension & style as John Carpenter's The Thing. Great previews. Great panels. And three films we all look forward to checking out!


The man everyone wanted to see, the big show himself, CLIVE BARKER hit the stage to thunderous applause after Tony showed us a cool little promo reel of his Greatest Hits. As usual, Clive was a consummate gentleman... intelligent, well-spoken, engaging and funny. He talked at length about all of his upcoming projects, which further whipped us already-salivating masses into a frenzy. He absolutely beamed when talking about his collection of paintings, 'Visions Of Heaven and Hell'. It's a gorgeous coffee-table book with literally hundreds of his unique paintings and illustrations. Clive explained how he is completely free when he paints, how there is no outside influence fucking up his creative flow. He also spoke at length about his new literary opus, 'The Scarlet Gospels'. It combines mythologies found in the Harry D'Amour (Lord of Illusions) and Hellraiser stories, and was written with the ultimate "death" of Pinhead in mind! Yes, Mr. Barker plans on giving 'ol Pinhead a fitting farewell, burying him "...someplace even Dimension Films could not get a hold of him!" He felt that he should be the one, and only one, that writes the final word on a character that honestly got away from him. When asked about the rumored Michael Myers Vs. Pinhead film, she simply let out a "HA!". "It came across my desk for 2 seconds, and then the producers behind the Halloween films decided they didn't want to degrade their character by putting him in a movie with Pinhead. (pause) As if Michael Myers is f**king Hamlet!" He did mention that one of his all time favorite movies is 'DESTROY ALL MONSTERS' and that if he DID get the chance to tackle a "vs." film, he would put Jason, Freddy, Michael, Pinhead and the rest in one big movie with the intent of destroying them all. (cont'd)





Clive told us about the second and third books in his Abarat series. He acknowledged how even though they were considered "children's books", they had some pretty dark content and it was going to get even darker as the series went on. The movie version, alas, was at the mercy of the Disney company who owns the film rights and he did not know a concrete start date. Another odd project (but cool nonetheless) was a line of plush toys (!) he created called the Jump Tribe. Each one comes with it's own little book, written and illustrated by Barker. These were created with children in mind, because as he puts it, "a child's imagination needs to be encouraged...it's a muscle that needs nourishment." A topic that seemed to be the unofficial whipping boy of the entire weekend was the absurdity of "PG-13 horror". Clive weighed in about the sheer ridiculousness of PG-13 versions of his work on film, and remarked on how hard and frustrating it was to work inside the studio system. "There is no way anything from the Books Of Blood could be a PG-13 movie! It's impossible!" This led to the announcement that the first films to be produced by his new independent production company will be a recently completed film called 'The Plague', followed by an adaptation of his Books of Blood story, THE MIDNIGHT MEAT TRAIN. Clive promised a nasty, gory, dark little movie that followed closely to the source material. He also stated that he intended on filming in New York, as per the setting of the story. He mentioned how he would like to further explore the world of CABAL (Nightbreed), but not in another film. He talked about how television was "actively talked about" as a possibility and even hinted at returning to the directors chair! (cont'd)





Also, the big-screen version of his gruesome McFarlane Toy series TORTURED SOULS was a bit delayed (because of DOOM lol), but definitely in the works over at Universal, and should start production next year. At one point Clive very sincere about was the importance of individuality. He said that he wasn't alright with simply being accepted as "normal". His creativity, sexuality, tastes and interests make him different and he embraces that, because we are ALL different and that's what makes us special. It was a very touching and eloquent statement, and in my opinion, the whole room felt a lot cozier with all us so-called weirdos together celebrating our uniqueness. Clive finished up with a funny story about whale meat, and proceeded to sign autographs and take the time to speak with every single person that asked. It's no wonder why Clive Barker is a Fango favorite and a true class act!





Sage Stallone hosted the next panel for his Grindhouse production company, which has a slew of amazing special edition DVD's on the way! Among the titles previewed were completely restored versions of 'Cannibal Holocaust' (FINALLY!), PIECES, Scum Of The Earth & The Tough Ones. Robert Kerman & Gabriel Yorke, the stars of Cannibal Holocaust were on hand to talk about their experiences on the film. We at Icons got an exclusive peak at disc two of the Cannibal Holocaust DVD and we can assure you, that THIS is the end all, be all version to own! Disc one will actually feature two versions of the film. One with all the real-life animal violence cut out and the other a completely unedited version. "It's a shame more people haven't seen it BECAUSE of the animal violence. Even director Ruggero Deodato himself has said that he wished someone would just take it out. So, we did, but being a purist, I had to include a completely uncut version of the film as well", explained Sage. (cont'd)



After the Cannibal Holocaust panel, Sage Stallone introduced his short drama film 'VIC', which stars Clu Gulager and was shot by John Gulager. Unfortunetly, the venue was having problems with the DVD player and the audience only got to see 5 minutes of the 30 minute short. However, late on Saturday evening, Sage sat with the Icons Of Fright crew and screened the film for us and it was FANTASTIC. You will never see a more touching and beautiful performance from Clu Gulager then what he delivers in 'VIC'. It's a shame we were the only one's who got to see this during the weekend, but Jsyn will have an in depth review of it up soon. Keep a look out for when this screens again.





Full Moon head honcho Charles Band stopped by for a panel and had plenty to say. He showed a trailer for the soon to be released (and destined to be a cult classic) Gingerdead Man starring... ah-hem... Gary Busey! He gave the audience a few great Gary Busey stories, one of which is that he only films one line of dialouge at a time. (He likes to improv a lot. Go figure!) He also mentioned how during his voice over session, he rushed 6 hours worth of voice over work into a half hour to go keep "a date with a new girl". Charles talked a lot about the older Full Moon titles and said the reason we haven't seen his new Wizard Entertainment company put them out is because Paramount still owns most of the rights. This is also why it'd be difficult to release a Subspecies box set, because different companies hold the rights to the different sequels. Speaking of Subspecies, he did mention that there is a great script for a Subspecies 5 that he would love to make, but at the moment, it would be too expensive to produce. You never know though, right? He did tell us that you'll be able to find a lot of import versions of the older Full Moon library on his official website.


Director Steven Shea, the uber-hot Debbie Rochon and a cast of lovlies spoke about the upcoming "horromedy" HOODOO FOR VOODOO. It looked really fun, like in the vein of Broken Lizard's CLUB DREAD except in Louisiana instead of an island resort. Jsyn (being a huge Jaws fan) thought the line, "We're gonna need a bigger goat" was brilliant. We also immediatley liked Steve Shea because he reminded us of Napoleon Dynamite without the perm (No offense bro). The cast and crew spoke about their experiences making the movie and reflected on the recent events that took place at various shooting locations. Everyone was really affable, the trailer looked good and had a cool theme song and we're pulling for their movie...it would be nice to see a voodoo-themed horror movie that is intentionally funny. I'm looking at you, VENOM!







GOTHAM CAFE

We had never even heard of the Steven King story this was adapted from, but honestly that's because we haven't kept up with Mr. King lately. This cool little film might change that for all of us though, because it was definitely odd and interesting to say the least. It's pretty much about how a matre'd goes nuts and slices people up in a restaraunt called the Gotham Cafe. The equally gorgeous and talented triple-threat Julie Sands - who wrote, produced and starred in GOTHAM CAFE spoke enthusiastically about this pet project of hers, and she definitley did not disappoint. It was tight, flashy and visually interesting with a solid cast and some cool gory bits. It also had a few nice touches of dark humour and even a cameo by Mick Garris. (And Stephen King's voice!?) The crowd seemed to like it too, and even though we're not exactly sure when or how this is being released, we suggest you check it out when you can. Jsyn spoke briefly to Julie Sands afterwards to compliment her work and she was very gracious. He was totally gonna ask for her digits but he chickened out... I guess men ARE intimidated by successful, creative women!


Clive Barker stayed after the event was over to insure that every fan got to meet him. He spent a few minutes with each & every person that came up to his table, instigated in-depth conversations with his fans, and happily signed as many items as you brought. His art book 'Visions Of Heaven and Hell' (released next month) was selling exclusively at this Fango show and was completely sold out by the end of Sunday evening! Again, Clive is truly a class act!







-robg.

Have you checked out page one of our coverage with Icons Of Fright in the vendors room and the WICKED FX FREE demos? Click here for more!!!

Want to get a good look at the Fango schedule? Click on the thumbnails below
and they will open enlarged in a new window.

back to:

back to Main page