Johnston's Got Nards

So implies Scott Stuber, one of the producers on Universal’s Wolfman remake, in this interview with Empire. He goes on to elaborate a bit on the narrative, the special effects (no CG!), and Benicio Del Toro’s wolfmanphilia. Mostly, though, he talks up director Joe Johnston, which some are interpreting as a direct reaction to negative press that bubbled up when original director Mark Romanek left the project.

While I’m just as excited as everyone else about the two promo stills that emerged last week, and at the prospect of Rick Baker doing another werewolf movie, the idea of Universal doing damage control this earlier in the film’s gestation does raise some questions.

Right now my only question is: anybody got a spare $8,000?

Starting March 28, four of Stan Winston’s original monster costumes are up for bids on eBay. You can see the rest of the bunch here, here, and here.

Creating A Monster?

In a later chapter of Susan Tyler Hitchcock’s entertaining Cultural History of Frankenstein, the scholar/instructor/Frankenut notes how the rising popularity of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley’s classic novel in the mid-late 20th century spawned a legion of literary “adaptations” designed for a variety of reading levels, mostly the Scholastic Book Fair crowd – condensed versions that skip the literary whipped cream and present a bare-bones story in a simplistic fashion: guy makes monster, monster kills guy’s wife, guy and monster go ice surfing. As I considered the proliferation of these, it occurred to me that I couldn’t remember for sure if I’d ever actually read the real novel, or just some Golden Books knockoff.

While exploring the labyrinthine recesses of a recently released DVD, desperately wishing for a trail of digital breadcrumbs, I started wondering if the same thing could someday happen with movies – if it hasn’t already. Last summer, following the release of Rob Zombie’s Halloween The Michael Myers After School Special, “the boards” predictably filled up with fan reaction and commentary, but the bulk of the horror kids weren’t LOLing about what was shown in theaters. A significantly different “workprint” of the film that had leaked online a week prior dominated most of the chatter. Even some major news sites slanted their coverage/reviews toward the workprint, most of them citing it as a superior film. I didn’t see the workprint, preferring to spend my time studying the art of noodling rather than waste another 90 minutes on Rob Zombie’s vision of Haddonfield, but I couldn’t help but wonder about the origin of the workprint and how its widespread exposure might affect the overall legacy of the film. Was it Zombie’s initial cut? A test print used to gauge audience reaction? And what happens if the workprint becomes more popular and commonly regarded than the “official” cut? What makes the “official” cut… official?

The matter was muddied even further when the film was released on DVD, including one disc that presents a version that incorporates some of the elements that appeared in the workprint, but not all – a hybrid cut. Is this now the definitive cut? Is Zombie going to pull a Blade Runner and wait 25 years before he makes up his mind? By that point, Halloween will have been remade four more times, each with fourteen different home video releases featuring variant holofoil/scratch-n-sniff covers. How can one be bothered to even watch a movie when there’s a scratch-n-sniff cover?

The new I Am Legend DVD raises similar questions by providing the film’s original ending as part of a second full-length presentation of the film. Those who prefer the original ending can now throw out Disc 1 and pretend like the theatrical version didn’t even exist. But what happens if their tastes change over time and suddenly they decide they want to like the theatrical release better? Do they remain faithful? Do they develop split personalities, each with his or her own favorite version of the film? Will Pop Rocks and Coke kill you?

While we wait for the answers, check out Hitchock’s Monster Sightings blog, which chronicles the appearance of Frankenstein references throughout culture and society. I wonder if this post qualifies.

Slightly Less Lame, But No More Legendary

I think it’s a given that the literal ending of Richard Matheson’s I Am Legend novel translates rather unsatisfactorily to the screen (see the ending of the otherwise excellent Last Man on Earth for viewable proof), but I’d take an inadequate rendering of Matheson’s scribbles over what Warner Brothers and Francis Lawrence gave us in the most recent Legend adaptation.

That ending was a late-in-the-game reshoot, prompted either by the studio’s or test audiences’ displeasure with Lawrence‘s original conclusion. The WB is including the original ending as a bonus feature on the film’s upcoming DVD, but those who can’t wait to start debating the pros and cons of each can see it here now (hurry! Warners’ lawyers come out at sundown in search of video pirates’ blood).

Based on the commentary that accompanies the clip at the above link, there are some who clearly feel that the original ending was vastly better than what made it to theater screens. If Lawrence continues to have a solid career, there may even be film classes fifty years from now in which students and instructors point to Legend as yet another example of a Hollywood studio quashing the far superior vision of a director. But I’m not biting.

I’ll agree with anyone who feels that the last minute or so of the theatrical cut felt like a church bake sale tacked onto the end of a two-hour striptease, but I can’t say that Lawrence‘s original closing does the film that preceded it any better justice. My disappointment with the film started twenty minutes before its conclusion, when two needless characters crashed Will Smith’s party and what had been an impressive lead performance degenerated into a Tom Hanksian train wreck, an error Lawrence failed to correct with his original capper. And while the biggest gripe about the theatrical release among Legendites is its complete disregard for Matheson’s central theme and the inspiration for the title itself, this clip doesn’t come any closer to solving that problem. If anything, it’s even less faithful to the spirit of the book; imagine if Spielberg’s adaptation of Duel had ended with the diabolical semi making junkyard love to Dennis Weaver‘s Plymouth -- Legend’s original close is basically the same thing.

Just nowhere near as brilliant.

EDIT: After revisiting the film (and both endings) on DVD, I'm feel compelled to retract some thoughts above and align myself with the original ending. It may not maintain the themes of the novel as explicitly as the theatrical ending, but at least it doesn't pander or bludgeon me over the head with its intent.

Now, on to more pressing questions regarding the film -- like, for instance, why don't the putty vampire people wear more clothes?

Hail to the King, Baby

While I was in Hollywood this weekend enjoying good times with good friends (and a peanut butter & honey milkshake chaser), King Kong celebrated his 75th anniversary. It’s not too late to send him a birthday present; I hear Peter Jackson’s severed head is right near the top of his list.

The Midnite Special

HD-DVD is officially dead, and Blu-Ray holds the dagger. Et tu, Blu-Ray?

Since I don’t own either kind of player, yesterday’s announcement means little to me. I assume I’ll eventually upgrade to a high-def home vid format, but considering the piles of unwatched “traditional” DVDs I’ve amassed, it’s hardly a priority.

More importantly, as cursory search reveals, the pickin’s ain’t plump. Of the tiny horror crop currently available on the Blu-Ray format, there are only a handful of flicks I’d be interested, all of which I already own in standard DVD form (or, in the case of the original Dawn of the Dead, on standard DVD, VHS, Beta, Laserdisc, Video CD, stone etching, cave painting, etc.). Old-school DVD (what do you even call that, anyway? Clear-Ray?) is where it’s at for obscure discoveries or treasured trash, and fans of both will find good news over at DVD Drive-In.

Fox/MGM have launched a new site for their Midnite Movies line, and in addition to trivia, trailers, and my favorite page layout of the last 14 minutes (just listen to the crickets!), the site offers the opportunity to buy previously out-of-print double-features (along with all of the current/new releases) directly from Fox, all wrapped up with garish cover art that makes me want lick Sam Arkoff's ear. You’re not gonna find The House on Skull Mountain on frickin’ Blu-Ray, doll.

Plan 9.5

In which the remains of a beloved Hollywood horror icon will hopefully be interred in a place equally suited for peaceful rest and shameless tourism.


Early last week some friends of the late Maila Nurmi (better known as the original late-night TV horror host, Vampira), who died on January 10 at the age of 85, issued a release detailing plans to have the actress immortalized in the Hollywood Forever Cemetery. The group has established a MySpace page to solicit donations (they need to raise $8,000 – no word on where the running total sits).


Hollywood Forever is a morbid wonderland of celebrity memoriam nestled in vintage Hollywood, right next to the Paramount Pictures backlot (the close proximity of the two provided the setting and inspiration for Ray Bradbury’s novel A Graveyard for Lunatics). Part resting place, part theme park, part coffee shop, the relatively small cemetery is the final home to some of classic cinema’s biggest stars, including several horror notables like Peter Lorre Fay Wray, and as such draws many more visitors than the average graveyard. Local wanderers frequently haunt the place, some picnicking or sitting watch among the tombstones daily, and in October the gates are opened for outdoor screenings of classic horror movies. Originally known as Hollywood Memorial --, the park fell into disrepair over the latter half of the last century, but was purchased and restored by St. Louis-based Forever Cemeteries. The HBO documentary The Young and the Dead is a great chronicle of the refurbishment process.

If there's anyone in Hollyweird who truly belongs in such auspicious surroundings for all of eternity, it's Vampira. Help her legacy live by donating here.