Undead Backbrain

Giant Creatures: New Anthology

Posted on Tuesday, December 18, 2007 by Robert Hood

Meanwhile, hot on the heels of the release of Daikaiju! 2: Revenge of the Giant Monsters and Daikaiju! 3: Giant Monsters vs the World comes news of a proposed anthology of “giant creature” stories:

Permuted Press is now open to submissions for a collection of giant creature stories for an anthology to be released in 2008. Editor Ryan C. Thomas will be reading original stories of animals/insects/etc. grown to enormous sizes (or at least vastly bigger than they should be).

Full details can be found in the submission guidelines here.

Thanks to Leigh Blackmore for the information.

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Cloverfield

Posted on Tuesday, December 18, 2007 by Robert Hood

OK, I’ve been a bit negligent about “Cloverfield” — the new giant monster film from producer JJ Abrams, directed by Matt Reeves. Abrams has coordinated an effective lead-in campaign, using the internet to leak hints and snippets, cannily teasing the fans with half-glimpses of the monster but little more. The film’s central technical “concept” seems to be that the giant monster attack is seen from the point-of-view of ordinary people in the street, ostensibly recorded using current street-level technology — that is, digital cameras and cellphones. It’s an approach with a lot of potential — though speculation on the final product (of which there has been massive amounts on the internet) is rather pointless. All we can do is wait for 18 January 2008 and see!

Meanwhile, here is the latest trailer, nearly five minutes of it. The intro by Abrams is a further example of how canny he has been about marketing the film:

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More Godzilla 1994

Posted on Friday, December 14, 2007 by Robert Hood

Speaking of the “Lost Godzilla”, Todd Tennant’s graphic novel based on the original “Jan de Bont” script is proceeding very nicely indeed. Seven new pages went up this week, culminating with this:

The new sequence begins here.

For those who haven’t caught up with Todd’s magnificent work yet, the graphic novel project begins here.

Posted in Daikaiju, Godzilla, Graphic novels | 5 Comments

The Lost Godzilla

Posted on Thursday, December 13, 2007 by Robert Hood

Up for sale on eBay is evidence of what Jan de Bont’s unmade American Godzilla movie might have been like, if the job hadn’t be passed on to Roland Emmerich, in a studio-led decision that left fans torn between despair and anger. Up for auction is the Stan Winston Studio’s maquette for the proposed film. It measures 43 in. tall x 63 in. long (head to tail) and has a rather high asking price.

Beautiful, isn’t it?

You can check out the auction details here.

Posted in Film, Godzilla, The Lost | 12 Comments

The Orphanage

Posted on Thursday, December 13, 2007 by Robert Hood

This could be good. Guillermo del Toro is involved, and the film looks like it could share some of the concerns of the Pan’s Labyrinth director’s own excellent ghost film, The Devil’s Backbone.

Posted in Film, Ghosts, Horror, Preview | Leave a comment

Daikaiju! 2 Scores a Nomination

Posted on Friday, December 7, 2007 by Robert Hood

The finalists in the 2007 Aurealis Australian Speculative Fiction Awards have just been announced — and Chris McMahon’s epic giant monster story from Daikaiju! 2: Revenge of the Giant Monsters, edited by Robert Hood and Robin Pen, is on the SF shortlist. He’s up against Cat Sparks (who has scored with two stories here and three overall) and well-known writers Simon Brown and Penelope Love.

This is great news for Chris and for Daikaiju! 2! It’s a big boost for giant monster apocalypses as well!

You can check out the full list of nominees here.

Posted in Books, Daikaiju, News | 5 Comments

Review: The Booth

Posted on Friday, December 7, 2007 by Robert Hood

With a running time of just over 70 minutes, The Booth is a small J-Horror gem — though without “dead wet girls” or any of the other post-Ring stereotypes. Set almost entirely inside an old, disused radio broadcast studio, it uses its closed environment and bleak settings to full advantage, focusing attention not on startling (or otherwise) SFX, but on the main character and his struggle with guilt. As a ghost story, it has the occasional scare, but more to the point it is an unsettling supernatural drama that uses its fantasy elements to focus our attention on the emotional realities it explores rather than to overwhelm our imaginations through violence or creepy spectacle. The one time it does seem to draw on the “spectral woman” trope, it ends up undermining our expectations to good, and somehow even more creepy, effect.

Read the full review.

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Review: Night of the Living Dorks

Posted on Wednesday, December 5, 2007 by Robert Hood

Otherwise known as Die Nacht der lebenden Loser:

Cross-genre horror films are becoming more prevalent. It’s inevitable, really, as filmmakers attempt to break out of the rut of whatever contemporary trend is currently doing the rounds. The German zombie flick Night of the Living Dorks not only goes the route of zombie-comedy (as epitomised most famously in Britain with the now-classic rom-com-zom film, Shaun of the Dead — made at roughly the same time), but joins teen-comedy traditions of the Revenge of the Nerds kind with those of the zombie film. The result, much to my surprise, is thoroughly entertaining and rather funny.

Full review here.

Posted in Film, Review, Zombies | Leave a comment