A sad day for science fiction and horror fans.  Dan O'Bannon has died.  According to Ain't It Cool News, the writer of ALIEN, TOTAL RECALL and LIFEFORCE, who directed RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD, passed today after a week long hospital stay.

The talented O'Bannon started off working with John Carpenter on DARK STAR, a silly space effort that would foreshadow his later, more successful works in outer space.  Though never a big name in Hollywood, he crafted intelligent scripts that are among the better screenplays in horror and science fiction.  He had a real feel for the genres, and was not averse to crossing them over, often to great effect.

O'Bannon's influence on genre films is still felt today.  His script for ALIEN spawned three sequels, two spinoff with the Predator, and a whole slew of rip offs that featured similar desolate locations in outer space and hunter aliens.  His script for RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD subverted all the Romero rules for zombies, and the film was a great success that led to two sequels, and a recent Sci-Fi Channel pair more recently.  Trioxin became a well known word to zombie fans.

 I've always been a big fan of O'Bannon's movies.  His scripts always had a subversive wit to them, and they were intelligently written.  He understood craft in screenwriting, and he should serve as an inspiration for horror writers for generations to come.

Though he hasn't written anything of note for a while, horror fans will genuine miss O'Bannon, and his talents.

 Read AICN's full article here.

 --Phil Fasso