You're about to get RSS spam. I neglected to update the RSS feed after Comic-Con, a situation which I'm rectifying now. However, it does mean that you'll be all these entries at once. Sorry.

Nate Yapp
Editor-in-Creep

I have to be completely honest. When the publicity people for Rogue Pictures upcoming thriller Cry Wolf contacted me about doing an interview during Comic-Con, I was apprehensive to say the least. What little I'd seen so far did not say a lot to me, especially since I'm pretty burned out on modern horror and especially the slasher genre.

However, I ended up going (mostly because the woman from Rogue was super-nice) and I don't regret it for a second. If the film displays as much passion as these people obviously feel for it, then it's going to be at least a very watchable film. I have high hopes for it now. I've never been in a room with so many funny, interesting people who all had something to say not only about the film, but the genre itself. And so very, very pretty, the lot of them. I think the next time I have that many beautiful women all wanting to talk to me at the same time, it'll be never.

Twice during the interview I went off the record to be a fanboy, and at the end I had them all sign a Cry Wolf poster for me. Not very professional, I know, but... I'm a fan first and a journalist second. I think that's the best way to approach a site like this until I make enough money to not need a real job.

Anyway. Cry Wolf people were AWESOME. Look for the interview soon-ish.

Nate Yapp
Editor-in-Creep

I am completely exhausted post-Con, but I'm looking forward to posting all the coverage just as soon as it's written!

Nate Yapp
Editor-in-Creep

So, the big clever plan behind running three reviews this weekend was so that our 400th would be posted on the 4th of July.

Heh. You may have noticed that didn't so much happen. Various forces and me being lazy conspired to bring down this grand scheme. So, yeah. #400 will probably go up Wednesday. Or Thursday. I haven't decided.

Oh, and Classic-Horror will be at Comic-Con in San Diego from July 14th-17th. We don't have a table or anything. We (and by we, I mean myself, Emily, and possibly Jenn) will be wandering around the various horror panels. I'll be the incredibly tall, lanky fellow with the emo glasses looking lost, or at least misplaced. Feel free to stop me in the halls and say, "Hey," followed by whatever praise/criticism of the site you have a mind to tell me.

In the next couple of days, I'll post my tenative schedule so that I'm easier to track down.

Nate Yapp
Editor-in-Creep

First of all, longtime readers may recall that these used to be titled simply The Caligari Awards. Well, to my embarassment, I discovered the name had already been taken. It's a German award for excellence in design or somesuch. Whoops. So I had to quickly rethink the name of our awards scheme and retroactively change everything but the original graphics (which I may just take down).

The CC's were a particular joy of mine during the early days of C-H. Call me sick, but I loved tallying up those entries and seeing what was coming up the vine and what was slowly losing steam. Certain films made the list every year, but there were always surprises. In any case, I see the Awards as an opportunity to celebrate with our readers what the site is about: classic horror films that mean something to us.

If you haven't voted yet, do so now. The more votes we get, the more films we can celebrate!

Werewolf Week has been a really good reminder to me as to why we don't publish daily anymore -- I have the time, I don't have the sanity. Prepping, proofing, and publishing a review every single night of the week has really taken its toll, especially since I also have to juggle a burgeoning social life on top of that. I'll be happy when we go back to three a week next week (where you can expect reviews for The Exorcist II and III and Malevolence).

Nate Yapp
Editor-in-Creep

Sometime in the near-future, we'll be running a Werewolf Week. Four or five reviews of werewolf movies, with a neat specialty logo and everything. I'm looking forward to it.

I haven't been writing any reviews of late, but I plan to hop back on the horse tonight. I still have to finish out the Frankenstein series with House of Frankenstein, and then I might hop onto some more Roger Corman classics. A shipment of some of my old stuff from back home revealed a treasure trove of horror videos, including The Witches, Nightmare on Elm Street, and Black Christmas (this last is a particular surprise, as I didn't even remember owning it). I also have a copy of Malevolence sitting on my coffee table waiting to be viewed and reviewed.

Hope everybody's having a spook-tastic April.

Nate Yapp
Editor-in-Creep

Just spent a few days meticulously submitting links for each individual review to The Internet Movie Database. Traffic's taken a slight dip since January and I'd like to see it up again, because the staff's turning out some fantastic reviews that deserve to be read.

In other news, received a few new reviews in this morning, so looks like this streak of regular updates may continue. I have a few other reviews promised to me, so if they come in, we'll have enough material to carry us to mid-April. Now, that's organ music to my ears.

Well, not werewolves so much as Joe Dante's The Howling. One of my favorite films from high school is finally getting the full Classic-Horror treatment, and it's been really tough going. How do you write about a film that accomplishes nearly everything it set out to accomplish, even though the sights were set lower than fabulous? I think I've found an angle I can work with, but this is my third attempt in the last six months to write this review, so I make no promises.

That said, we have some kickass reviews coming up, including Jacob's Ladder (which goes up tonight) and Phantom of the Opera '25.

As always, if you're a person with a love for horror films old and new, and you believe you can write to the standards of Classic-Horror, please shoot me an e-mail: nate.yapp AT classic-horror.com.

Nate Yapp
Editor-in-Creep

...and most from Kairo. Keep an eye out in the future for Jacob's Ladder, Cabin Fever, and the horror film that bears the writer's name (or the writer that bears the film's name, really). Also, we should be seeing a review of Oldboy, a Korean film that's making its U.S. theatrical debut on March 25th.

Also, a writer from a few years back may be turning in a review of a seminal genre film here, and I'm looking forward to it.

As for myself, I'm sticking to editorial duties for the moment, although I may pop in House of Frankenstein some night soon just to round out the Universal Frankenstein series.

A few news bits:

The producers of Ring Two have released a little featurette you might want to check out:

QuickTime 5 480 w x260 Large
http://www.dreamworks.com/trailers/ring2/clips/ring2_feat_qt_480.mov

QuickTime 5 352 w x192 Medium
http://www.dreamworks.com/trailers/ring2/clips/ring2_feat_qt_352.mov

QuickTime 5 240 w x128 Small
http://www.dreamworks.com/trailers/ring2/clips/ring2_feat_qt_240.mov

**

Apparently Quentin Tarantino is putting a kibosh on the rumors that he's taking over the Friday the 13th franchise, although he is expressing interest in doing a horror film. I always thought that Kill Bill Vol. 1 was a horror film with POV issues.

**

Nate Yapp
Editor-in-Creep

Well, that was a spectacular failure.

I'm an advocate for original aspect ratios. If a movie was made widescreen, the only version of it that should be available on the highly superior DVD format is the widescreen one. If you're going to watch a film that's "formatted to fit your television," you may as well stick to VHS, because you're wasting the possibilities that DVD provides.

This applies not only to good films, but also to bad ones. Kenneth Branagh's Frankenstein is a hyperkinetic mess that's a few deep, measured breaths away from being a decent film. Unfortunately, the disc that Netflix sent me was full-frame, which simply thrust the nauseating action up to the fill the screen, making the experience that much worse. I couldn't finish the movie, I just couldn't. If a widescreen copy comes my way, I will try again, but I can't watch the movie in a 4:3 ratio. I just can't.

Sorry, but that particular review must be left for a later time.

That Classic-Horror.com has an RSS feed? It's true! Run http://classic-horror.com/ch-feed.xml through your favorite aggregator and keep up-to-date on the happenings on the site at all times. We're adding new things constantly, and it helps to have the inside scoop.

If you're on Livejournal, the feed's already been set up for you at chorror_rss.

Hopefully, we can get this feature going regularly again. I rather liked the concept, I just let it lapse.

'lo, all. It's been hectic over here. I just shipped out the Dawn of the Dead contest prizes. Soon as I get the first confirmation of receipt, I'll post the winners.

I'm sitting on something like 10 reviews from Jenn for various classic/sorta classic/not really classic at all films. I'm also sitting on a Ringu review that I'm stalled editing (to my own shame, I haven't seen the film yet, and there's a clearly marked spoiler late in the review). I'm also sitting (notice a pattern?) on the Jeremy Kasten review. I'm going to do my best to get that up tonight.

I also have two screeners to review (Kichiku and Make a Wish) and I plan to start working through Universal's Legacy Collections for October.

Saw Shaun of the Dead yesterday - plan to have a review up sometime this week for that.

Otherwise, just doing various bits of update around the site.

Thanks to the WayBack Machine, I've been able to go back through the site's old instances and track down when we originally published about 150 of our current stock of reviews. The dates, for the most part, have been wildly inaccurate since the launch of the new design.

I used to have a notebook in which I meticulously kept track of every new item I put up on Classic-Horror. I started it in mid-1999 because I figured it was good to have a record of such things. It became a necessity when the reviews were just pouring in, several posted every day in 2000 (and what I wouldn't give for another prolific and strong reviewer like Doc Rogers). I kept that notebook current up through January of 2004, when I moved from the Midwest to the Southwest.

Somewhere in that move, the notebook, nearly four years worth of tracking, was lost. It may still be back home somewhere (which would be nice - that thing's a part of Classic-Horror's history), but for the moment, I don't have the records.

Now that I have half of the reviews fixed (optimistically), I can start the tedious detective work that goes into figuring out when the rest were published. I can remember my work well enough - I have an excellent sense memory for watched films - but some of the other staffers will be tougher. I'm going to have to go off of the period in which they worked, what dates I have covered already, and my own vague memories.

Yup. Fun city.

I do wish I had the old versions of the site still available somewhere. I have the current design, the maroon and black that came previously, and the bright red and black that came before that. The original site design (complete with frames!) is still up on Angelfire, as I don't know how to access that account anymore.

Oh, and once again, Classic-Horror is always looking for reviewers with a love of the genre, an appreciation (if not a sheer adoration) of the genre's early days, and strong writing skills. If you think you qualify, e-mail me at nate.yapp@classic-horror.com

Received in the mail today: one copy of Circus of Fear, the 1966 Christopher Lee mystery-thriller. Why is this important? Because it's the first video box (to my knowledge) that quotes Classic-Horror.com on the cover!

( Here's a big picture of it )

Big day for Classic-Horror, all told. And very exciting.

I've just completed an interview with Jeremy Kasten, the director The Attic Expeditions. I should have it transcribed by the end of the week. Hopefully, I can have it up by Monday.

On occasion, I'm going to post about my visions for the site - hopes, dreams, expectations, etc. A lot of it could be interpreted as so much website wankery, so to save you the trouble of *having* to read it (and these will be a bit ramble-like), I'm putting them behind a cut.

( Crafting a Review List for a New Era )

Just a heads-up - Classic-Horror may be accepting some ads here in the future. Big ones. I'm working with a layout-savvy friend of mine to tweak the current design a little, see if we can fit it in organically. I'd usually be against this, but I have to face some facts. This site not only costs me money, it costs me time. Over the last week it's been like a full-time job, practically, making sure everything's up and working. I'm not looking to make a profit - I'm just hoping I can recoup some personal expense.

Also, I've updated all the active staff with their e-mail addresses. Feel free to ask them about their work, but do remember that none of us can help you score a date with a hot Hammer babe. It's just not in our power.

I've been talking with a few people, and it looks like we may have a few additions to the active staff coming up soon. Keep an eye out for that.