Well hello from across the pond, all you wonderful British blood-munchers. It is I, an American called Scott Weinberg, but for the sake of FrightFest's purposes you can call me The Bloody Yank. (Or ... Scott.) When Mr. Ian Rattray (yes, of the East Croydon Rattrays) asked if I'd like to contribute a monthly journal entry to the FrightFest website, my first reaction was "Sure, thanks, but ... what could I tell this crew that they don't already know? If I try to impress them with my vast stores of knowledge regarding Pieces, Humongous, and Galaxy of Terror, they'll just sneer mockingly (or mock sneeringly) before seeing my bet and raising me two Witchcraft sequels and an uncut bootleg of Halloween 6 that has a scene in which Michael Meyers plays Super Nintendo with Paul Rudd. So that's out."
Then I asked Ian if maybe I should do a "Stump The Bloody Yank" piece in which you fine Britons try and stone me with your toughest horror trivia. We both nixed that idea on the basis that I might come off looking really stupid. So instead I'm pulling out the one asset I've got that you have not: America-style release dates. Yeah, baby. Welcome to Region 1. Express elevator to hell.
I'm not sure if this is necessarily the case in the UK, but here in the States, January and February are generally known as "the dumping ground season." This is when the studios, who employ tons of people who tell them that A) nobody goes to the movies when it's cold out, and B) everyone's out seeing the award-bait "prestige" movies at the beginning of the year, drop all their cinematic crap directly onto our laps and say "Here's a spoon!" Case in point: Just last Friday (Jan. 4th) we had one (1) wide release here in the U.S. It was a drop-dead wretched PG-13-rated J-horror remake-ripoff snoozefest turd called /One Missed Call/. Pray it goes direct-to-video in the UK. Further pray that nobody rents the damn thing. And this week we (finally!) get Uwe Boll's latest masterpiece: The awesomely-ensembled and hilarious-looking /Dungeon Siege/ thing. Can't wait.
Moving on to the 18th we have that oh-so-cleverly-marketed /Cloverfield/ flick that looks like a cross between /Godzilla/ and /The Blair Witch Project/ ... which means, of course, that I can't freaking wait to see it. On that same day we also get /Teeth/, which I saw at Sundance last year and quite enjoyed. (Yes, it's that one about the girl who has teeth in her ... private sector.) And then on the 25th we'll be getting (get this) ANOTHER Uwe Boll movie. Yes, it's that /Seed /thing that I keep hearing so many (terrible) things about. But really, two Bolls in one month? Wonderful. Also on the 25th we get the latest /Rambo /sequel (dear lord), a retarded-looking big-budget cyber-thriller called /Untraceable/, and a flick that looks to redefine the word horror: /Meet the Spartans/. (Like I said: Dumping Ground Season!)
Things look equally colorful in the R1 DVD department this January. If you're one of those insatiable horror geeks who loves to order crap from the American outlets, you should have a good time this month: /Resident Evil 3/, /Saw 4/, /White Noise 2/, /Boogeyman 2/, /Lake Placid 2/, /Maneater/ (Gary Busey vs. Killer Tiger!), /Mammoth/ (Tom Skerritt vs. Killer Mammoth!), /Dragon Wars/, and that awful, awful /Invasion /remake that Nicole Kidman did to pay off her non-stop facial reconstructions. Oh, and we also get that /When Evil Calls /DVD this month. Isn't that a product of YOUR horror system? Can't wait to check it out; I hear it's near-unwatchable.
But there are some great discs this month too: I recently got a great DVD of the underrated /Sunshine/, a fantastic 2-disc director's cut of David Fincher's /Zodiac/, and a pair of solid indie thrillers called /Right at Your Door/ and /Joshua/.
Oh, and if some of these titles (like /White Noise 2/, for example) hit the UK like nine months ago, please forgive me. I'm just used to us stingy Americans getting all the movies before you do. Except /Children of Men/. You lucky SOBs got that masterpiece MONTHS before we did, and it drove me crazy!
So there you have it. My inaugural column. I feel confident asking for feedback because everyone knows the British are just so damn polite (plus if you're mean to me I'll have the guy who wrote /Severance/ come to your house and fondle your bum). But beneath that cordial facade, we know we lurks beneath: crazy lunatic horror freaks who stay up till 6am watching the goriest French movies ever made. I miss England already.
Doing my part for global civility,
Scott.
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