Horror, Fantasy & Science Fiction Films
News, reviews & interviews about non-fiction books that cover horror, fantasy, and science fiction movies; also, horror, fantasy, and science fiction novels and fiction that have been adapted into films.
MTV’s Movie Blog has a brief interview with writer-director Guillermo Del Toro, in which he expresses his enthusiasm for a film adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft’s novel At the Mountains of Madness: “I remember when I was a kid out of the studios came the big event horror movies, ‘The Exorcist,’ ‘Alien,’ ‘Jaws,’ ‘The Shining,’” del …
The Hollywood Reporter reveals that J.R.R. Tolkien’s estate has filed a lawsuit that, if it prevails, could prevent New Line Cinema from producing their planned two-film adaptation of THE HOBBIT, Tolkein’s predecessor to the mammoth epic LORD OF THE RINGS. On Monday, J.R.R. Tolkien’s estate — a British charity called the Tolkien Trust — filed …
Eiji Tsuburaya, the special effects director responsible for the classic Toho monster movies, is a figure of major importance in the history of Japanese fantasy films. Inspired by the stop-motion special effects of Willis O’Brien (e.g. 1933’s KING KONG), Tsuburaya yearned to create his own movie monster, and he finally got his chance when producer …
Read More “Eiji Tsuburaya: Master of Monsters – Book Review”
Over half a century ago, Hammer Films, a small British Company, reshaped the face of horror, abandoning the old cobwebbed, black-and-white atmospherics of Universal’s 1930s classics (DRACULA, FRANKENSTEIN, etc) in favor of a bold new approach, loaded with bright Technicolor, sumptuous sets, heaving bosoms, and laced with blood. Films like CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN (1957) and …
Ray Harryhausen and his films probably appeared on the cover of Cinefantastique more than any other person in the history of the magazine, so I thought it would be nice to update CFQ’s extensive past coverage of Harryhausen’s career with this interview which covers three of Ray’s recent projects: his two beautifully illustrated volumes from Billboard Books, written …
By a strange coincidence, I have just re-joined the staff of CFQonline, only a few days after receiving the first copies of the new book I edited, Visions of Death, which contains two of Richard Matheson’s original shooting scripts for House of Usher and The Pit and the Pendulum. For years I’ve wanted to publish Mr. Matheson’s …
Read More “Supernal Dreams: Richard Matheson's Poe scripts published by Gauntlet”
Where would Hollywood horror be without graphic novels? 30 DAYS OF NIGHT hits screens soon. We recently heard tell of cinematic adaptations of Baltimore and Virulents. Now we learn that FRAGILE – Stephan Raffaele’s tale of what happens when the Earth is overrun by zombies – is coming to the movies, with Eduardo Rodriguez directing …
David Goyer, who scripted the three BLADE feature films and directed the third, has signed on to helm yet another vampire film, an adaptation of Baltimore, or the Steadfast Tin Soldier and the Vampire. The graphic novel, Mike Mignola (Hellboy) and Christopher Golden (The Myth Hunters), tells the tale of Lord Henry Baltimore, bitten on …
Russell Mulcahy has signed on to direct ZEN AND THE ART OF SLAYING VAMPIRES, based on the first of a thre-book series by Steven-Elliot Altman. The story follows a man who is attacked by vampires but struggles to defeat the blood-thirst by utilizing Zen mediation. Altman is writing the screenplay. Mulcahy said he like “the …
The Los Angeles Times has posted an article about the late science-fiction author Philip K. Dick, whose work presage the cyberpunk era, forming the basis for such films as BLADE RUNNER, TOTAL RECALL, MINORITY REPORT, and A SCANNER DARKLY. The gist of the piece is that his family has formed a production company to oversee …