THIS MODERN NIGHTMARE

THE "TORTURE PORN" DILEMMA - DISSECTED

So let's get down to brass tacks and talk about "torture porn" shall we?

Lenny Bruce once said that once you embrace a word and make it your own, it loses its power to offend. So on some level I want to embrace "torture porn." I want to be able to laugh about it and make it my own. And I come really close to succeeding.

But there's this real sense of judgment to the phrase. A kind of moral rectitude that grates on the nerves.

The esteemed reference Wikipedia (LOL), the encyclopedia of popular culture itself, defines "torture porn" as such:


"In the 2000s, there has been a resurgence of films influenced by the splatter genre that depict nudy, torture, mutilation and sadism, sometimes disparagingly labeled "torture porn" by critics; also referred to as "gorno" (a portmanteau of "gore" and "porno").The Eli Roth film, HOSTEL (2005), was the first to be called "torture porn" by critic David Edelstein, but the classification has been applied to Roth's first film, CABIN FEVER (2003), SAW (2004) and its sequels, THE DEVIL'S REJECTS (2005), WOLF CREEK (2005), and the earlier films BAISE-MOI (2000) and ICHI THE KILLER (2001) as well. A difference between this group of films and earlier splatter films is that they are often mainstream Hollywood films that receive a wide release and have high production values."


The first thing I notice, of course, is that all of the movies they list as "examples" are movies' I've enjoyed.

Look, the phrase may have originated with movie critic David Addleson, (gee, thanks David!) but, if you've noticed, the religious right and their ilk readily embraced the term and made it their own. This was, after all, an affront to American values and morally reprehensible. It doesn't matter that the current administration has had real-life scandals like the Abu Ghraib fiasco. It's the FICTIONAL use to torture and horror that is truly offensive.

I don't like decisions based on a "moral argument," because it tends to be reactionary and there's usually very little thought behind it. But the proliferaton of the phrase "torture porn" into the mass media isn't just the result of the right. The left has been eager to use the term too. Don't forget that the "alleged" Democrat Joe Leiberman ran his first presidential campaign with the censorship of movies clearly defined as a key issue. And I'm quite sure that MSNBC has used the term as often as FoxNews has.

And you can see how this sense of moral judgment effects otherwise "objective" reviewers too, as when Roger Ebert dismisses a well-made horror flick like WOLF CREEK (or CHAOS, but that's another story) because it is morally offensive to him (and in this case the film's actually merits appear to mean nothing, unlike the latest brainless chick flick or action film, because those don't offend his sensibility and thus are reviewed in a much different way) and gives it zero stars. Okay, so he may be reviewing it with his mainstream audience in mind, but to judge a film on purely "moral" grounds is not what movie critics are supposed to do. They're supposed to judge a film on its merits and weaknesses, without giving us a fucking sermon. I've seen other critics dismiss the recent HOSTEL: PART II, by simply saying it is "deplorable" or "despicable." This is responsible and intelligent film comment?

What it is is a way of saying "You're too dumb to decide whether this movie has any merit, or to be able to look at a film objectively on its strengths or weaknesses, so you should simply avoid it completely, because I say so." And that's not what I'm looking for in a film review. I'm looking for a smart, informed opinion. Then I make up my own mind.

"Torture porn" suggests two things. The first is that porn is bad, which is highly debatable (and another moral battleground), the second is that, if you somehow see one of the movies thus labeled, and you actually like it, then there is something wrong with you.

That's funny. I thought if you liked DADDY DAYCARE with Eddie Murphy or THE BREAK-UP with Jennifer Aniston, that there was something wrong with you. I guess I didn't get the memo.

I hate to quote someone else to make my point, but Stephen King probably put it best (in the same Wikipedia entry) when he defended HOSTEL: PART II and so-called "torture porn" overall, stating, "sure it makes you uncomfortable, but good art should make you uncomfortable."

That's right, boys and girls. Horror is actually supposed to fuck with your head sometimes. And I, for one, don't want only safe little monsters that disappear when the sun comes up. I also want horror with teeth. And films like the HOSTEL films and WOLF CREEK and even the SAW films are much more effective than the fifteenth FRIDAY THE 13TH sequel or FREDDY VS. PREDATOR, or whatever mainstream, watered-down bullshit it playing the multiplexes to sold-out audiences.

I like movies that make me feel a little distrurbed when the end credits come up. And a lot of the movies unfortunately labeled "torture porn" have done this, and done it well. But with a label like "torture porn" your stigmatizing an audience as well, not just the movies, so no wonder the ticket sales for HOSTEL: PART II were down. Hell, even GRINDHOUSE, maybe the best movie of the year so far, was given the same label unfairly (something which is untrue – it's nothing like those other films and is a homage to '70s exploitation films), and its box office was lower than expected. Is there a link?

Instead of bandying these stupid labels around, why not judge each film on its own merits? And if violence or even a nihilistic tone offends you, and you can't judge them fairly, then maybe some critics shouldn't be reviewing these films in the first place. Just like I wouldn't presume to be a good choice to do reviews of kids' movies. Aren't there usually "special reviewers" who pinch hit for the kinds of movies the big critics don't want to bother seeing?

I can't tell you if the latest movie given this label, CAPTIVITY, is any good, because I haven't been allowed to see it, thanks to poor distribution. But I do notice that any horror films that actually try to do something interesting have been doing badly at the box office, and the stale, watered-down PG-13 "horror pablum" that's dumbed down and made for mass consumption for the teenagers who have lots of mommy and daddy's money to spend are doing just fine (of course, the critics find no reason to label these kinds of movies with any kind of derogatory, business- killing catch phrases, because they don't hurt anyone and are nice and safe). And what that means is less interesting flicks, and more of the same old garbage.

If that's what you want, fine. But I want something more. I want movies that challenge me, and might even offend me. I want something that's going to make me actually feel something. But most people don't go to the movies to feel. They go there to escape.

So I'm sitting here wondering if I should embrace the term "torture porn" and just laugh about it instead of going off on a rant about why it's simplistic and reactionary. And I guess it doesn't really matter, because I'm going to be interested in seeing certain movies no matter what they're called, and turned off by others. And there's nothing I can do to change the media, because it thrives on catch-phrases and sound-bites and keeping things as one-dimensional and dumb as possible.

GREGORY LAMBERSON INTERVIEW - PART 3

PART 3 - (Where we conclude by letting you know where to get all these goodies, and talk a bit about SLIME CITY.)

SOARES: Okay, so when is the JOHNNY GRUESOME novel coming out and how do people get it?

LAMBERSON: The novel is currently available for pre-order from Bad Moon Books; www.badmoonbooks.com. It features six beautiful, full color illustrations by Zach McCain and an introduction by jazzy Jeff Strand, who has been a big help to me with the novel in a lot of different ways; he sort of became Johnny's godfather. The retail should be $45, which I think is a great price for a limited edition with color pictures! There will be 250 copies, which makes me happy.

SOARES: And how do people get the movie or the CD?

LAMBERSON: The "Mini-Movie" isn't for sale, it's free on the web! I want as many people to see it as possible, because that may inspire them to buy the novel or the CD. My site usually gets 100 hits a day, and we had 1,000 in the day and a half after the film went on-line, so it's already a success from a marketing standpoint. You can see a beautiful version by following the links on www.johnnygruesome.com to www.gravethoughtsrdio.com, where Greg Kurczynski built a virtual drive-in to show it. We have a lesser quality version in www.ifilm.com, which people are already copying to their MySpace pages. You Tube is right around the corner. The CD is also available on our website, and Marcy and G and I will be dealing it at (conventions like) Horrorfind, Festival of Fear, and Rock and Shock.

SOARES: And let's not forget the online comic book version of JOHNNY GRUESOME on the website www.johnnygruesome.com; with art, script and lettering by Kelly Forbes. The artwork is great! (There's also some great artwork on the website from Zach McCain who did the cover and illustrations for the Johnny Gruesome novel).

Oh yeah, tell us about the Johnny Gruesome mask. This thing looks pretty cool

LAMBERSON: I always liked the Don Post Studios masks of the Universal Studios classic monsters advertised in the pages of FAMOUS MONSTERS OF FILMLAND. When I placed a casting ad for the Mini Movie in a local weekly paper, Matt Patterson (www.mattymask.com) got in touch with me. He sculpts custom masks, and it didn't take long for us to work out a partnership on a Johnny Gruesome mask. At first I thought it would just be cool to have one in my office even if no one bought it, but as Matt progressed on the sculpture, I started to think people will actually buy this. Now it turns out that he's already got some buyers lined up, and we haven't even put it out there yet! It's a beautiful, full head, deluxe mask, hand painted with hair and sunglasses. It's a limited edition, only 500 copies will be made, and it goes for $45, the same as the novel. I think we'll do well with it at conventions.

SOARES: This has been a real multi-media event! So what's next for Johnny Gruesome?

LAMBERSON: A mass market paperback deal, I hope. Johnny's such a commercial character, I think a paperback would be very successful if promoted properly. A publisher has expressed interest, so we'll see. The problem is, publishers of horror paperbacks want you to sign away all your rights for very little money. You're dependent upon them to market your book, but they want you to stay as far away from the marketing decisions as possible. I've had such a great time working with Team Gruesome (the Italianos, Matt Patterson the mask maker, the comic book artists, Roy Robbins at Bad Moon Books, and the whole film crew) that I don't really buy that someone reading a synopsis of the book knows how to market my character better than I do. Have you seen some of the covers on these paperbacks? It's embarrassing.

SOARES: As someone who's seen the previous feature films you directed, I've been eager to see more by you (Greg made the films SLIME CITY (1988), UNDYING LOVE (also known as New York Vampire) (1991) and NAKED FEAR (1999)). Any plans to direct any more full-length films?

LAMBERSON: I wrote a screenplay called THE SOULLESS for Nicanor to direct in Argentina; that was fun to do and I like how it turned out. Believe it or not, I'm currently writing a family movie for someone—I enjoy experimenting when I work for other filmmakers. Whether or not I direct again depends on whether or not someone raises money for me, because I'm not a fundraiser. I have a few people who are trying, but it's tough. I want to direct a script called DEADLY RITES, which a friend of mine wrote. It's a great script, and we have some talent attached. We're trying and we'll see. Directing (the short film) GRUESOME was a way of saying, "I'm sick of waiting for a budget and I'm anxious to show that I've grown as a filmmaker."

SOARES: What was the reaction to the recent reissue of SLIME CITY on DVD? This flick's become something of a cult movie, hasn't it? Any plans to do a sequel?

LAMBERSON: I never wanted to do a sequel to SLIME CITY when it made sense to do one. A couple of "company men" suggested it, but they wanted me to work with even less money than I had on the first one. Do I seem like a crack whore? I want to make better movies, not worse ones. But 2008 is the 20th anniversary of SLIME CITY; With Robert Tomaro, who composed the score, I'm releasing the soundtrack on CD. It will include the tribute song that a band called Holy Mary Motor Chain did a couple of years ago. In October, (SLIME CITY star) Robert Sabin and I are introducing a screening of the film at a convention called Silicon in San Jose, and in January, the Beloit International Film Festival is flying me, Robert, and Mary (Huner) out for the film's Official 20th Anniversary Screening. The time feels right, and I came up with a wild story that's got me excited. I call it "a prequel, a sequel, and a post holocaust musical!" I haven't had time to write the script, but I want to get to it soon. Robert and Mary will be back, and there will be a lot of surprises.

SOARES: What's next for you, as far as movies and novels?

LAMBERSON: I was halfway through the first draft of a new novel when Johnny Gruesome took over my life. I'll get back to it after I complete CHEAP SCARES. I've decided I don't want to discuss it until it's ready to come out; it will be the exact opposite of the way I've promoted JOHNNY GRUESOME. I'm going to vanish from the message boards, then re-appear and say, "Here's my new novel!" If Johnny is successful, I can see doing some novella continuations, not novels. But what I'd really like to do, where my heart is and what would make me happiest, would be to write a series of novels starring Jake Helman, my PERSONAL DEMONS protagonist. I don't see any point in that unless DEMONS is published as a mass market paperback. I really don't know why Leisure and Kensington passed on it. I'm vexed—I'm very, very vexed!

SOARES: I would think filmmaking and writing novels are very different. One is more a collaborative effort and one is pretty solitary. Which one do you prefer?

LAMBERSON: Apples and oranges, my friend. I like the privacy of writing novels and the camaraderie of making movies. On JOHNNY GRUESOME, I had it both ways. But let me shine this light on your question: when SLIME CITY originally came out on VHS, it received some good reviews, some mediocre ones, and a lot of bad ones. It faded into obscurity, my other films didn't take off, and I wrote my first novel. PERSONAL DEMONS received the best reviews I've ever had; unanimously positive reviews, many of them glowing. And it was completely overshadowed by the DVD release of SLIME CITY, which also received very positive reviews—a real turnaround over the course of time, let me tell you. And there is simply no way that a small press horror novel that sells a few hundred copies can compete with even an obscure movie that sells 4,000 or 5,000 DVDs in terms of reaching an audience. Thanks to my www.slimeguy.com site and MySpace, I actually receive fan mail for that film, 2 years after the DVD came out, from all over the world, and from people who claim to have seen it 100 times. Can you imagine? Such a flawed, rough-around-the-edges effort, and yet something about it really works for some people. Which is another reason why I want to do the sequel, which is called SLIME CITY MASSACRE: I want to make a movie that's as entertaining as possible as a "thank you" to the people who have given that film a third life.

SOARES: I really want to thank you for a great interview. And I wish you a lot of success with JOHNNY GRUESOME, in all his incarnations.

***

FROM GREG'S MYSPACE PAGE:
On Friday, July 13th, 2007 – Bad Moon Books founder Roy Robbins announced that the horror novel JOHNNY GRUESOME is now available for pre-order through the company website, www.badmoonbooks.com. The novel is the creation of Gregory Lamberson, author of the 2004 novel Personal Demons and the filmmaker behind the cult classic midnight movie Slime City. This deluxe hardcover edition, limited to 200 signed and numbered copies, features six full color illustrations by artist Zach McCain and an introduction by Jeff Strand, author of last year's Bram Stoker Award nominated novel PRESSURE. The book will be signed by Lamberson, McCain, and Strand.

CAPTIVITY CENSORED?

Just wanted to take a quick intermission from the GREGORY LAMBERSON interview to mention that something very weird has been happening with the movie CAPTIVITY. After a controversial ad campaign and a big push to get the word out that it was opening on "Friday the 13th!" yesterday came and went, and CAPTIVITY didn't show up. Well, not in the city. It's playing out in the boonies in some suburban theaters which you need a car to get to (I don't have a car). What the fuck is this about?

I'm not sure if this was the choice of the filmmaker/studio to try to quiet down some of the controversy, or if it's an act of blatant censorship, keeping the movie out of certain theaters. Of course, if you go online and try to find answers, there aren't any.

As a fan of movies like HOSTEL, I was looking forward to this one. Not only does it star the hot Elisha Cuthbert (sure, she was pretty laughable as Kim on "24," but she's hot as hell), but the script was written by Larry Cohen (the guy who gave us such classics as IT'S ALIVE, Q: THE WINGED SERPENT and GOD TOLD ME TO), and it was directed by Roland Joffe (who previously directed THE KILLING FIELDS and THE MISSION).

Of course, it's the subject matter that got this one in hot water. Cuthbert plays a model-actress who is stalked and kidnapped. She wakes up in a dungeon where a hooded captor torments her. Then at some point she meets another captive (Daniel Gillies) and they plan their escape/revenge.

When they released very controversial billboards to promote the movie, the MPAA forced them to take them down. The release date was also changed at least once.

Whether the way they're releasing the film is intentional, or an act of censorship, the entire thing just pisses me off. You would think a major city would show a new movie that has been getting a lot of hype, whether it was controversial or not. What is this bullshit?

*****(a little later in the day)*******

I just called one of the bigger movie theaters in Boston (which recently played Hostel Part 2) to find out why CAPTIVITY is not being shown in the city. The Manager was very nice and answered all my questions, but he really had no idea why this happened. It isn't because the theater is offended by such movies (they just had Hostel 2). He thought maybe with all the big blockbusters coming out, they just didn't have any screens available, but that this kind of decision would be made by the higher ups. I don't feel like I'm any closer to solving the mystery, but at least the guy was pleasant enough to discuss it with me.

Bad enough I'm not allowed to see Captivity due to poor distribution. Now Comcast (the local cable company here) just took Turner Classic Movies away from me. As of yesterday, July 13, Turner Classic movies is part of something called the Sports Entertainment Package, and you have to buy the entire package to get TCM.

I fuckin hate sports and there is no way I'm buying an entire cable package just to get one channel. But for the life of me I can't figure out what TCM has to do with sports. A lot of people who like old movies probably don't give two fucks about the NFL Network and shit like that. So why are movie buffs being penalized?

I wrote an email to the corporate office, but I don't expect an answer, and if I do get one, it will just be some form letter bullshit.

INTERVIEW WITH GREGORY LAMBERSON - PART 2

PART 2 (Where we continue to discuss the JOHNNY GRUESOME short film)

SOARES: Tell us how you got Erin Brown (aka "Misty Mundae") to be in the JOHNNY GRUESOME film. And tell us about the rest of your cast for the "Mini-Movie."

LAMBERSON: I've had an interesting non-history with Erin. E.I. Cinema, aka POP Cinema, aka Shock-O-Rama Cinema and Seduction Cinema, released my film UNDYING LOVE on VHS (as NEW YORK VAMPIRE); they re-released SLIME CITY on VHS; and they released SLIME on DVD for the first time. I love the job they've done with SLIME CITY. They'd send me their catalogue, and I'd actually be embarrassed to see my films—which are quite marginal, make no mistake—listed alongside the T & A crap that they produce and acquire. It's not the non-stop, almost pornographic nature of these films that offends me, but the insipid humor and idiotic dialogue; they make these things as dumb and pandering as they possibly can—and they make a lot of money! I got to know the people at the company a lot better when we planned the SLIME DVD, and I sat at their table at a number of conventions when it first came out. And I got to know who some off these women were in these films, and how big their fan base was. I finally saw Erin in action as "Misty Mundae" when I saw a screening of SKIN CRAWL, directed by Justin Wingenfeld, and then in SHOCK-O-RAMA. To my surprise, she wasn't bad. I pitched the script for GRUESOME to her via e-mail, but she takes forever to respond to e-mail, and she doesn't have an agent or a manager. It's very frustrating from a producer's standpoint. When I didn't hear back from her, I offered the role to Erika Smith, an actress in a lot of the same films. Predictably, Erin expressed interest in the project the next day. I had tot ell her that I'd given Erika the part, and she was very professional and told me Erika would do a great job and wished me luck. Two weeks before shooting, Erika informed me that she'd been offered a high paying job in BACHELOR PARTY 2, which required her to spend a month in Miami. How could I say no? My wife encouraged me to try Erin again, which I did. But coming off of THE LOST (based on the novel by JACK KETCHUM) and MASTERS OF HORROR (Erin was in Lucky McKee's episode in Season 1, entitled "Sick Girl"), Erin wasn't exactly cheap, at least in relation to our budget. My wife told me I couldn't miss the opportunity and picked up the tab.

Erin shot a film in Argentina right before GRUESOME, which was coincidentally co-written by Nicanor Loreti, a friend of mine. I was worried that anything could happen to her down there, but she made it back in one piece. She was very easy to work with, very friendly to the cast and crew, and I think she did a great job.

I think the whole cast was great. Ryan O'Connell, who played Johnny, works as the manager of the copy center I use. I knew that Jennifer Bihl, the cheerleader with and without the middle finger, was going to be great when I saw her headshot and read her resume. And Dan Loughery did an excellent job creating a character for Gary just with his comical expressions. They all did good work and the film is better because of it.

SOARES: I know we're both big George A. Romero fans. There are some scenes in the JOHNNY GRUESOME movie that are a homage to Romero, right?

LAMBERSON: I knew that the shot of Johnny lumbering through the cemetery was going to be very Romero-esque. We shot it on an overcast day, so everything was gray, and Ryan shambled around just like Bill Hinzman, the ghoul from the opening of NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD. That was very much intentional. We shot G at a different cemetery, and he performed on an interior set at the house of Horrors Halloween attraction. Jason Mager, my editor, made a very astute creative decision to render all of the cemetery scenes in black and white, which would make them match each other better, and would also hide the fact that Johnny's flesh is blue for most of his zombie time, but green in the last scene! So this editorial decision designed to cover up some rough spots actually worked very well in a creative way. You can't look at that footage and not think of NOTLD.

I used two different cinematographers. Bob Lingle, a local kid who just graduated from college and produced the JOHNNY GRUESOME: MEETING HIS MAKER documentary for class, shot all of the cemetery stuff—interior and exterior—as well as the bathroom sequence. I brought in Matthias Saunders, a professional DP, to shoot all of the stuff with Erin because I knew I could never afford to bring her back if anything needed to be re-shot. That bathroom was narrow, with a low ceiling, and Matthias advised us to use the actual florescent bulb to light the scene, which we did. And the bulb flickered non-stop! It was like a David Lynch movie. I really like how that scene turned out; it's very minimalist, like a 70s movie, which are my favorites, and it reminds me of the scenes in DAWN OF THE DEAD when the main characters first snoop around the shopping mall. A local filmmaker told me I should re-shoot it because it doesn't match the other footage, and I wanted to scream. No sense of film history, and he's a few years older than me! I mean, shit—this is what's wrong with digital filmmakers today: they want everything to be so slick, and they do all this CGI and so-called "impact editing" to enhance everything. Where's the texture? Where's the subtext? I like to make as much of the movie as possible on the set, with the actors, not in post production. Another guy criticized some of Dave Gray's make-up, which may not have been perfect, but I wanted to say, "Are you so young that you don't see this is a deliberate attempt to evoke an 80s horror movie?" I think GRUESOME is a badass little movie, and I'm not displeased with its little imperfections.

SOARES: Is there any chance you could get financing for a feature film of JOHNNY GRUESOME? Are you shopping the short film around?

LAMBERSON: Right now, my every waking moment is devoted to promoting the JOHNNY GRUESOME novel, the GRUESOME CD, The Johnny Gruesome Death Mask, the Mini-Movie, and the on-line comics. I expect the novel to be sold out by Halloween, and G and Marcy and I will be finished pushing the CD at cons for this year shortly after that, and I'll know how the Mini Movie performed at film festivals by then, too. My manuscript for CHEAP SCARES! HOW TOMAKE A LOW BUDGET HORROR FILM is due at McFarland on November 15th; after that I need a break, and I'll see what the prospects for a feature are. Unless something comes my way sooner; you never know. I wrote the novel because I didn't think I'd ever get to make the movie, and I got to do a lot more in the novel than I could have in a movie. It's a win-win situation for me either way.

END OF PART TWO
(This interview concludes tomorrow)

SCREAMING SPOTLIGHT NUMBER 1: GREGORY LAMBERSON

Okay kids, we're going to do something a little different this week. I'd like to introduce a new feature on the blog called SCREAMING SPOTLIGHT, where I interview various people in the horror biz. My first interviewee is Gregory Lamberson, a filmmaker who has made such cult classics as SLIME CITY and UNDYING LOVE (aka NEW YORK VAMPIRE). He's also a novelist, having written the Anubis Award-winning novel PERSONAL DEMONS. His new novel, JOHNNY GRUESOME, is coming soon and he's created a fun marketing campaign for it, including a CD, a short film, and a death mask. I recently spoke to Greg about his new book and his other work. He was very forthcoming and gave me some thoughtful answers. Here is the first part of a three-part interview that will be posted throughout the weekend.

***

SOARES: Good to have you here, Greg. So tell us a little about the origins of JOHNNY GRUESOME. This was originally written as a screenplay, right? How far back does the character go?

LAMBERSON: Like most creative projects, there are a number of factors to Johnny's creation, not one "Aha!" moment of inspiration.

In high school, one of my favorite novels was Peter Straub's GHOST STORY. I read the book and loved it, then saw the movie and realized how complicated the adaptation process was. They blew it, no doubt about it. And the fact that some of the casting was so good, and Dick Smith's criminally abused make-ups were so beautifully sculpted, only made the creative failure of the film all the more painful to me. I especially missed the subplot with the teenagers, Peter Barnes and Jim Hardie, because I was their age and identified with them. At the time, I kind of daydreamed about there being a sequel with them but not the Chowder Society of old men. So that's a direct influence.

After my one year of college in NYC, I worked in a movie theatre, where I found this crummy 4-color poster for a J.D. (juvenile delinquent) film I never saw and don't recall the title. It showed one hood threatening to cut the throat of another hood while a hot blonde watched, a look of excitement in her eyes. I took the poster home to the Queens apartment I shared with Peter Clark (my Director of Photography and Co-Producer on SLIME CITY), and while I sat on the wooden floor of my bedroom, pounding out drafts of the SLIME screenplay on my manual Olivetti typewriter, I used to glance at that poster and imagine a story to fit that image. That was in the summer of 1984.

That winter, early in '85, I went home to my mother's house in Fredonia, a small village an hour outside of Buffalo, to write a screenplay. Being back home, I experienced all sorts of nostalgia. The combination of a classic Western New York Winter, being near my high school--and especially the bridge over the creek that figures so prominently in the story--and thinking of that poster and what had happened to the GHOST STORY movie, all coalesced into the screenplay for JOHNNY GRUESOME.

SOARES: So what made you decide to turn the screenplay into a novel?

LAMBERSON: I lived in NYC for 21 years. During most of that time, I worked on one film or another in between video store and movie theatre jobs. I wrote (my first novel) PERSONAL DEMONS after 9/11 but before my wife and I decided to move to Buffalo. On April 19th—my birthday—I came home from another shitty movie theatre job to discover that I had won the Anubis Award for Horror, which meant that PERSONAL DEMONS was going to be published. It was snowing. In April. That's Buffalo. I grew up with last minute, dying gasps of winter, snow squalls on most of my birthdays. Anyway, I had originally planned to write a different book as a follow up to PD, something that was also very action packed and Manhattan-centric. But being close to Fredonia again, and experiencing these winters—which are really only bad once every seven years or so—got me to thinking about Johnny again. And it was at the Halloween Horror Picture Show in Florida, while hawking both the trade paperback of PD and the DVD of SLIME CITY, that Steve Biro, who distributes horror movies on his Unearthed Films label, got me thinking that I should take another stab at making the JOHNNY GRUESOME movie again. And SLIME CITY started getting all kinds of attention, so that seemed like a better and better idea. But the drawback about making movies—even low budget horror movies—is that they still cost a lot of money. I've never had access to real funds, or to someone else who did. And then Tamar got pregnant. I got serious about writing the novel when my daughter was born. I had this idea that I would write it while she worked in the day. That was the craziest, most uninformed idea I ever had! Taking care of a baby is a full time gig, and I found myself writing late at night and falling asleep at the keyboard every night. Another thing that convinced me to revive the project in some form was this: I really liked the grunge era of music; to me, Curt Cobain was the biggest musical genius since John Lennon. But all that music made me think Johnny's brand of heavy metal was passé. When I moved back here, I discovered that the radio stations were playing the exact same songs I grew up with, often buy the exact same DJs! I was like, "Johnny is from around here, just like me. He'd be listening to the same songs I did!" Then Steve Wedel and a few other people read the manuscript and wondered why my characters had cell phones and computers if the story was set in the 80s!

SOARES: Whose idea was the soundtrack? How did it come about? (I have to admit, it sounds like something I could picture Johnny listening to in his car and the songs, especially "Gruesome," are very catchy)

LAMBERSON: It was my idea to have a song on my website, just something that would be cool for people to hear when they checked out the site. It just made sense that a heavy metal zombie should have his own theme song. I knew that even though Giasone Italiano –"G"—wrote and recorded ballads, he loved horror movies and Alice Cooper songs. I knew he would be perfect for the project, and we had already discussed him scoring DEADLY RITES, which was dangerously close to being made. I pitched him my idea and sent him a two-paragraph description of the screenplay. Three days later, he sent me a demo. I didn't realize it at the time, but his wife Marcy had co-written the song with him. It was a rough, basement recorded track, but it was so dead on I would have been thrilled to put that on the website. Soon after that, while we were planning the studio recording of the song, G said that he and Marcy wanted to do a whole CD, with half the songs based on Johnny and half dealing with other aspects of the genre, sort of a concept anthology. I had been thinking it would be neat to do a full CD too, so we went from there. It wasn't until much later, when I'd heard demos for maybe half the songs, that I realized how instrumental Marcy was in the creation of the songs. It's cool that there's a CD companion to my novel; it's cool that it's so good; it's cool that it was created by a husband and wife team; it's cool that the wife is also a horror writer; and it's cool that another horror writer, Brett Savory, played drums on most of the songs. Cool, cool, cool!

SOARES: Okay, so let's talk about the short film you've made, based on JOHNNY GRUESOME. What made you do the short film? And why make it more like a music video than a traditional film?

LAMBERSON: It was a natural step to do a music video that would promote both the CD and the novel, and allow me to visually tell the story I'd never been able to do as a feature. I never considered making it a straight narrative short; doing a music video allowed me to do abstract things, like having G plug his guitar into Johnny's gravestone, and telling the story in quick cuts. But the story kept growing, and even while we were shooting I suspected we might have to make it a video for 2 songs, and that's sort of what we ended up doing. I have to say, I love the "Mini-Movie," as I call it. I can watch it over and over, I'm really proud of it. I think it's a first rate piece of work, and I look at those dolly shots and believe in my ability as a filmmaker, a feeling I don't get when I watch my features.

END OF PART ONE

(In Part Two: More details on the Johnny Gruesome short film)

CLOVERFIELD AND JOHN

So what exactly is CLOVERFIELD and why is it spreading like a wildfire throughout internet chat rooms, message boards and the like? Well, I hear it all began at the TRANSFORMERS movie, which I haven't seen, but beforehand there are the usual movie trailers, and one of them was this weird little camcorder thing that didn't have a name. All people knew was that it was produced by J.J. Abrams (the guy who gave us LOST and ALIAS, and who is supposed to be working on a Star Trek prequel these days) and that it's coming out 1-18-08.

Then the trailer started popping up on the internet, in the usual places like YouTube, and more obscure sites, and just as quickly they were being taken down after Paramount had a problem with it. I hesitate to post any possible sites here, because there's a good chance the trailer is still down wherever you go. But check YouTube every once in awhile, and maybe it will come back at some point.

The trailer itself is simple enough. It begins with a going away party in what appears to be New York City. A bunch of friends gathered in a hall, having fun, when all of a sudden, there is this tremendous roar and the lights go out. Car alarms go off. The people run up to the roof and see a big ball of flame in the distance. Then they go down to the street and - it's hard to tell since it's dark out - but a plane appears to be shot down with flame, and I'm told the head of the Statue of Liberty is flung out (although I still couldn't make that out in the version I saw). People run around the streets, screaming that something is coming. And then it ends with the information about Abrams and the release date.

And that's it.

It's filmed on a shaky camcorder, like the BLAIR WITCH PROJECT, to give us the raw feel of reality, like it's some kind of documentary about normal people being attacked by some giant monster. And for some reason I really like the idea.

People have speculated everything from it being the trailer for a new Godzilla movie (the roar does sound similar, and there's the flames), to a Voltron movie (not really sure how that rumor got started) to an American remake of the recent Korean horror film THE HOST, to something to do with Lost (Lost has its own roaring monster as well, but there doesn't seem to be anything here to connect the two otherwise).

A website has since gone up at parasitemovie.com and 1-18-08.com (both go to the same site). The "parasite" mention seems like it could be a possible tie-in to The Host rumor, but it's all just speculation at this point. And it really doesn't look like The Host. It looks like a different animal completely.

I have to admit, though, I'm as suckered in as anyone else. I can't wait to find out more about this thing. The website I mentioned does not reveal anything new. There are some photos from that going away party from the trailer, and some weird ball/puzzle that I couldn't figure out. But if you find out anything else, let me know.

By the way, Cloverfield is some kind of code word. I have no idea what it means. Supposedly the movie has been shrouded in secrecy for awhile now. I know it's all part of some huge marketing campaign, and I'm being manipulated just like everyone else. But I don't care.

And that's all I know. So far.

I'm also continuing to watch JOHN FROM CINCINNATI on HBO, and I can't tell you why. Call it masochist television. Because I can't justify why I haven't just said "fuck it" and given up on this show yet. It's still irritating. Several of the characters (especially John and Ed O'Neill's character) still get on my fuckin nerves. And yet, I was such a rabid fan for David Milch's previous show DEADWOOD (and before that I was loyal watcher of his show NYPD BLUE), that I kind of feel like I owe it to him to give it a chance. To let it unfold at its own pace and give us answers when it wants to.

The show is growing on me on some weird level. I don't think it's a good show. I don't particularly like it. But I won't give up on it just yet. I'm waiting for the payoff. I'm hoping it's good enough to make the whole thing worthwhile.

And at the same time, I'm hoping it's not just a gigantic scam.

More on this one as it develops. At the end of the season, I'll either be praising this show as a work of genius, or cursing the fuck out of it.

THE PROBLEM WITH PG-13 HORROR

A lot of times I mention that I have a problem with horror films rated PG-13 and of course the first thing people say is "Oh, all you want is more blood." But that's not it at all. I guess it's time I actually spelled it out.

Back when the rating of PG-13 was instituted (instead of just the plain old PG), it wasn't really a marketing tool. It was just another rating. Some decent movies, including horror films, got this rating. For example, M. Night Shyamalan's THE SIXTH SENSE is rated PG-13, and I liked that movie a lot. That was back when M. Night actually turned out movies worth seeing.

But as soon as the studios and the marketing people realized they could exploit the PG-13 rating, it became a lot more than just some letters and numbers. It became a way to rake in more cash. Teenagers spend the most money at movie theaters these days. Unfortunately, older people tend to wait for the DVD and can't be bothered to go to theaters anymore. So most of this desired audience is under 18, and there are a lot of them. At the same time, because of these facts, the studios noticed that attendence for R-rated films was going down.

Also, this desired demographic tends to like horror films.

So two things started happening. 1) Horror films that would have gotten an R-rating get cut, mutilated and sanitized to get a PG-13. That way more people will see them and spend their cash and maybe you can release the harder version on DVD later, or 2) movies are purposely made from the get-go to fit a safe, non-offensive PG-13 mold.

What this means, obviously, is a lot of bland horror movies without any real scares, and often very little substance to them. Instead of movies, we get sanitized "product" which is spoon-fed to its eager audience. Nothing too scary, nothing too offensive.

Is every PG-13 horror movie bad? Of course not. But when you have certain kinds of movies being made to order on an assembly line, just to part kids from their wallets, you're going to have a rather high amount of bad films.

Because good films are usually made by people who are trying to share their personal vision. Rather than watering down and tailoring that vision to appeal to the widest possible audience.

APOCALYPTO - MEL'S MASTERPIECE

Back when APOCALYPTO originally hit theaters, director Mel Gibson had just gotten arrested for drunk driving and went into an anti-Semitic rant that was heard around the world, and pretty much overshadowed the movie. As a result, some people avoided the movie. Others just didn't care. And the result was that a great movie - probably the best one Gibson has made so far - fell between the cracks.

APOCALYPTO is the story of the Mayans, taking place in the time just before the Spanish explorers came and wiped the native people out. More specifically, it's the story of Jaguar Paw (Rudy Youngblood), a young Mayan warrior. The film begins with Jaguar Paw and several of his peers hunting in the rainforest for a tapir, led by his father. While hunting, another tribe appears and asks for permission to pass through their land. When asked where they are going, the answer is simply that their land has been ravaged and they are moving on. Jaguar Paw takes this to be a bad omen, but his father admonishes him to live without fear. They go back to their village, and the next day are attacked by a ruthless tribe that captures the men and women and leaves the children behind. Jaguar Paw is able to hide his pregnant wife and son in a pit, but is soon captured. What follows is a grueling trek across the forest as Jaguar Paw and his beaten tribe are forced back to the bloodthirsty tribe's camp.

Once there, they learn that the men are to be sacrificed to their gods, and the women sold into slavery. The men are painted blue and forced to walk to the top of a pyramid, where men are ritually slain (their hearts are sliced from their bodies) and then decapitated, their heads tossed down the pyramid stairs to the crowds below. Thanks to a solar eclipse, taken as a message from their gods, the bloodthirsty tribe is convinced their god has drunk enough blood and Jaguar Paw is spared. But it's not that easy. Instead of being killed in ritual, he and his remaining tribesmen are brought to a vast field where they are told they can run to freedom, but once they start running, the vicious tribe shoots arrows and throws spears at them, and making it almost impossible to escape.

Jaguar Paw somehow beats the odds and gets away, leading to the second half of the film, where he struggles to make it back to his wife and son, while being pursued by the most vicious warriors of the bloodthirsty tribe.

The movie is beautiful to look at, and despite (or rather, because of) the lack of big-name actors, you are drawn in and identify with these characters.Everyone in the film also speaks the Mayan language, which adds authenticity to the proceedings, but which probably limited its audience further.

No matter what I may think of him as a human being, I think Mel Gibson is a talented filmmaker, but personally I found BRAVEHEART (which I know many people love) to be rather boring, and while I could appreciate THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST on a purely visual level, I didn't much care for its religious storyline. APOCALYPTO is finally a Gibson movie that I can fully sink my teeth into, and it might just be Mel's masterpiece.

APOCALYPTO is one of the best films I've seen in a long time, and I regret not seeing it on a big screen. The movie doesn't shy away from violence, but that's par for the course considering the subject matter.

I totally recommend it.

SICKO

Michael Moore has a talent for making movies that get audiences fired up. Whether it was the examination of corporate greed in his first film ROGER AND ME, guns, fear and violence in America in BOWLING FOR COLUMBINE, or the unanswered questions that surrounded September 11th in FARENHEIT 911, Moore creates documentaries that make you think and enflame your emotions, whether you agree with him or not. And that’s a pretty amazing talent, especially in a country where most people don’t normally go to see documentary films in movie theaters.

SICKO is more of the same, but I don’t think people will be as divided about this one, because it deals with something that affects everyone in America – the healthcare situation. Sure, healthcare may not be the “sexiest” topic for a movie, but Moore makes it entertaining, and it’s certainly relevant. The movie starts out examining the people in America who do not have healthcare and have to pay insane prices for the smallest procedures, then it goes on to people who do have insurance – but that doesn’t make them any safer. With insurance companies going out of their way to deny services (and thus increase their profits), having insurance doesn’t necessarily insure you’re not going to lose everything when you have a major illness.

Moore then goes to countries such as Canada, Great Britian and France to show how their healthcare systems work. Sure, they’re not perfect, but nobody loses their life savings because of an illness and all procedures are free. In France, they even have mandatory 6 months (paid) leave for new mothers with another 6 months unpaid leave if they want it, and a minimum of 5 weeks vacation for all workers.

There's also the (now-famous) scene where Moore takes ill rescue workers from 911 to Guantanamo Bay to get treatment (supposedly the prisoners there have exceptional healthcare) but are declined and instead go to nearby Cuban hospitals for treatment instead. What happens next might surprise you.

All in all, a sobering look at the American healthcare system that's bound to put a chill down your spine.

GHOST RIDER

Well, I finally saw GHOST RIDER, after going out of my way to avoid it during its theatrical run. For some reason, I'm feeling generous today. I don't know if it's because I recently saw the travesty which is SPIDER-MAN 3, which I absolutely despised, or if it's because I've recently seen two good Nicolas Cage films in a row (LORD OR WAR and THE WEATHERMAN) and he's starting to grow on me a bit, but GHOST RIDER didn't seem half as awful as I expected it to be. That said, it's far from perfect and I'm glad I didn't spend $10 to see it at the movies.

In this one, Nicolas Cage plays Johnny Blaze, a motorcycle stuntrider who makes a pact with the devil (Peter Fonda) to save his father's life. Barton Blaze is dying of lung cancer, and Satan promises to cure him if young Johnny agrees to hand over his soul. Johnny accepts the deal and the devil cures Barton, however the man soon dies during a motorcycle mishap during his carnival act. So much for trusting the devil.

Satan says that he'll call in his chips when the time comes, and Johnny takes off for parts unknown, leaving the girl he loves (Eva Mendes) behind.

We jump ahead to the present day, where Johnny is the biggest stuntrider alive, jumping over football fields and helicopters, seemingly without fear, because he knows the devil won't let him die just yet. That's when the devil's son, Blackheart, decides to come to earth and devises a plan to usurp his father as king of hell (involving an ancient contract for 1,000 evil souls), with the help of some elemental demons. The devil turns Johnny into a "satanic bounty hunter" and demands he put an end to Blackheart's plans. Johnny Blaze transforms into the Ghost Rider by night, a monster with a flaming skull for a head, and a flaming motorcycle to boot, and goes about doing the devil's work.

In the meantime he finds his true love again, and struggles with his human emotions while trying to gain control of his demonic side.

Nicolas Cage really hams it up here, and sometimes his performance is a bit grating, but overall, it's tolerable enough, despite his penchant for jellybeans and listening to Carpenter's tunes. The Ghost Rider himself, a terrific, visually-interesting character who started out in Marvel Comics in the '70s has always been one of my favorite comic book characters, but also one who has never really lived up to his full potential. He certainly doesn't reach that potential here, but at least they don't ruin him, either.

Peter Fonda actually makes for a pretty boring devil (how many times can we get a Satan whose basically a smooth talking guy dressed in a fancy suit - it's becoming incredibly cliché), and the villains are adequate, but not all that exciting. Eva Mendes is also pretty unexciting as the love interest.

Sam Elliot does a good job (well, as good as he can) as a previous Ghost Rider who originally lived in the old West and who kind of acts as a mentor for Johnny.

There are some filmmaking flaws that make the events seem amatuerish at times, (when Mendes is reintroduced later in Johnny's life, she is bathed in light, which is just hokey, and there are lots of weird awkward moments where characters point at each other and shout "You!" which is obviously meant to tap into the language of comics, but doesn't work at all), and there are a lot of inconsistencies and plot threads that never get resolved (like, by the end, is Johnny Blaze still wanted by the police?). One particularly glaring scene involves Johnny stopping his motorcycle on a busy freeway in front of Mendes's Television News van, in order for him to ask her out on a date. Once she agrees, the van pulls away, even though the motorcycle was supposedly still in front of it. That's just sloppy filmmaking.

In the hands of a better director, this could have been a lot more interesting. But for dumb fun, it fills the bill well enough. I certainly enjoyed it more than SPIDER-MAN 3, the first FANTASTIC FOUR movie, or abyssmal garbage like the DAREDEVIL and ELEKTRA movies. As far as adaptations of Marvel Comics characters, I'd put GHOST RIDER right in the middle. And I still think the character looks cool as hell. But I'm glad I didn't pay to see it at the movies. This one has "rental" written all over it.