"Why so serious?"

Why? Here's why.

Robert Altman died one year ago today at the age of 81.

Michael Bay, Uwe Boll, and Paul W. S. Anderson are still alive. Dammit man, we needed you.

"It's morning in America."

David Arquette's supply-side horror-comedy The Tripper pits a entire Pacific Northwest music festival's worth of stoned neo-hippies against their worst nightmare: a pissed-off Republican serial killer in a Ronald Reagan mask. Arquette's directorial debut is a visceral, highly amusing slasher. Calling in a galaxy of favors in the form of stunt casting (Tom Jane, Paul Rubens, Lukas Haas) and packed with psychedelic visuals, the film was fun, especially with a packed audience; I snagged the last available seat in the screening room, elbow-to-elbow with a thrilled crowd. Afterwards, Argquette graciously stayed to autograph every poster and take a pic with every member of the crowd.

Why do I keep closing my eyes in photos?

Miramax vs. Michael Myers

Daniel Farrands, screenwriter of Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers (aka Halloween 6) (1995). Despite posturing as champions of independent, iconoclastic directors, former Miramax and present Weinstein Company honchos Bob and Harvey Weinstein are very much cut from the classic cigar-chomping Hollywood studio mogul cloth. Their propensity for re-cutting films without the director's input, demanding drastic re-shoots, or burying films because of some petty personal grievance have befallen directors as notable as Bernardo Bertolucci, Martin Scorsese, and Guillermo del Toro.

Miramax's genre division, Dimension, was no exception, and Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers was a casualty of Harvey Scissorhands. The released version was an incomprehensible, sloppy mess, with a baffling cobbled-together ending that left me fuming. Much re-shooting and re-editing occurred, despite the death of star Donald Pleasence, making the original storyline into a hash, the worst kind of focused-grouped, by-committee filmmaking imaginable. The much bootlegged "Producer's Cut" which restores Farrands' original story, isn't really any good (it's still a Halloween sequel, after all) but at least it make sense and has a singularity of purpose.

Farrands had obviously put the whole mess behind him. "Hey, it gave me a career," he remarked when I caught up with him at Screamfest 2007. Recently, he wrote the well reviewed adaptation of Jack Ketchum's novel, The Girl Next Door and the upcoming The Haunting in Connecticut with Virginia Madsen.

Instead of cheese, we said, "Fuck Bob Weistein!"

Update: Fangoria.com reports Farrands is working on an official release of the "Producer's Cut" of Halloween 6. Check it out here.

Cashier Girl

Take a long look: recognize this actress? No? Need a hint? She was in a Friday the 13th sequel. Got it yet? It's not Kimberly Beck. Or Dana Kimmel. Lar Park Lincoln? Nope. Still guessing? No Google, please. I still don't see any hands. Okay, I give, here's the answer:

Remember Annie? Who could forget here blistering screen presence, scintillating sensuality, and streetwise charm that made her role as "Cashier Girl" in Friday the 13th Part 3 so memorable. Remember her immortal line, her timeless catch phrase reprinted on countless bumper stickers and t-shirts, delivered off camera in a nasally whine, "We don't take no food stamps?" Even all of these years later, I still can't stop saying it. It's like "I'll be back." or "We're gonna need a bigger boat," a timeless bon mot trotted out a water coolers and cocktail parties when there's a lull in the conversation.

Requested by Travis.

Freddy People

Screamfest 2007.

There are two kind of people in this world, my friend: You've got your Jason people and you've got your Freddy people.

Me, I'm a Freddy person.

Frankly, there was always something anonymous about Jason. Unknowable. Almost, forgive me, generic. He may have racked up more kills, but Freddy ruled the day. He was scarrier. Funnier. Darker. And certainly more creative. While a parade of (mostly) anonymous stuntmen have donned Jason's hockey mask over the years, only one man could slip on the glove and play Freddy: Robert Englund.

At some point during the development of A Nightmare on Elm Street, Wes Craven considered using a hulking stuntman to play Freddy, but reconsidered, recognizing the need for a genuine actor to play the role. Thank god he did. Because without Englund's performance, those films would've dried up. He embraced his star status with gusto and played each film to the hilt, giving us the first horror icon since Christopher Lee. Even in the lesser entries, when everyone else was just going through the paces, Englund was giving it his all.

When Freddy says, "You are all my children, now." He was talking to me.

That is why I waited three hours for an autograph from the man himself, Robert Englund. Snaking its way through the Wyndam hotel, into the parking lot, and down the sidewalk, the line was impossibly long. After two hours, I charted my progress:

I stared waaaaaay in the back, beyond the white fence on the left side of the pic. We were in that damn line so long that a couple got married in the hotel while we waited and I was still waiting an hour later. Honestly. Thank god I made friends with people in the line. It would've made for an excruciating three hours baking in the Florida sun without some fellow Freddy People to crack jokes at the expense of Friday the 13th Part 3's "Cashier Girl."

Finally, the moment approached. I gathered my reprint Nightmare poster and after after brief pleasantries, I stammered through an explanation:

"When I was growing up, horror movies were strictly verboten," I said. "Nightmare was my gateway drug into turning me into who I am today."

Englund silently considered this as he drew a Freddy caricature on the poster. I'm sure he'd heard thousands of variations on this story before.

After the drawing was done, he signed it. I burst out laughing at the dedication.

It said: "To James, Sorry I damaged your childhood. Robert Englund."

Damn, he's a fucking cool guy, to boot. Take that, Jason people.

Pluto

Screamfest 2007.

Michael Berryman, star of Wes Craven's original The Hills Have Eyes. Crammed between the wall and the now grown-up kid from Child's Play, he was friendly and chatty.

He told us that he'd been fucked out of a role in the sequel-to-the-remake, The Hills Have Eyes 2. He'd flown to L.A. on his own dime to discover that the director was "busy" and couldn't make his scheduled meeting. Despite enthusiastic comments from Craven (now a producer on the sequel/remake) and producer Peter Locke, he only later found out he hadn't been cast from a secretary. Over the phone.

It's hard out here for an icon, that's for sure. Hollywood is a cruel place.