ON THIS DAY IN HORROR - April 30th

"A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET" 
released in 2010

Freddy Kruger is back to haunt the children of the parents who murdered him, by stalking and killing them in their dreams, in Samuel Bayer's remake of the cult-80's slasher film, A Nightmare on Elm Street!

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Kris Fowles (Katie Cassidy) goes to the Springwood Diner to meet with her ex-boyfriend, Dean Russell (Kellan Lutz), who falls asleep at the table and meets a man covered in burn scars, wearing a red and green sweater, a fedora and a clawed glove on his hand. The burned man cuts Dean's throat in the dream, but in reality it appears that Dean is cutting his own throat as his friend, waitress Nancy Holbrook (Rooney Mara), looks on with Kris. At Dean's funeral, Kris sees a photograph of her and Dean as children, but cannot recall ever knowing Dean before high school. Kris begins to dream about the burned man herself and refuses to go to sleep for fear that she will die in her dreams. Jesse Braun (Thomas Dekker), Kris's ex-boyfriend, shows up at her house to keep her company while she sleeps, but Kris meets the burned man in her dreams and is murdered. Covered in her blood, Jesse runs to Nancy's house to try to explain what happened and he learns that Nancy has been having dreams about the same man: Freddy Krueger (Jackie Earle Haley).

Above:   The line between dreams and reality merge as Nancy begins to experience "micro-naps" due to her insomnia.

Jesse is apprehended by the police under suspicion of murdering Kris, and is killed by Krueger when he falls asleep in his jail cell. With her friends dying, Nancy begins to question what everyone's connection is to each other, given that none of them can remember each other before their teenage years. Eventually, Nancy and her friend Quentin Smith (Kyle Gallner) discover that all of them attended the same preschool together. Nancy's mother, Gwen (Connie Britton), reluctantly tells Nancy and Quentin that there was a gardener at the preschool, Fred Krueger, who abused Nancy and the rest of the kids. Gwen explains that Nancy was his favorite, and that she came home one day telling her mother about a hidden space in Krueger's room and the things he did to her there. Gwen claims Krueger skipped town before he was arrested. Nancy does not believe her and attempts to track down the remaining kids from the school. Nancy eventually discovers that all of the other kids have been killed, most of them in their sleep. Meanwhile, Quentin tries to accept that his nightmares are nothing more than repressed memories, but he falls asleep during swim practice and witnesses what really happened to Krueger. Quentin sees everyone's parents hunt down Krueger, and then burn him alive. Quentin and Nancy confront Quentin's father, Alan Smith (Clancy Brown), about murdering Krueger with no evidence that he had committed any crime (thus, Nancy and Quentin believe that Krueger wants revenge on them for lying as children). However, as a result of their insomnia, Nancy and Quentin begin sporadically dreaming while they are still awake. To try to stop Krueger, they decide to go to the preschool and learn what they can; when, on the way, Nancy falls asleep and is attacked by Krueger, but when Quentin wakes her up they discover she has pulled a piece of Krueger's sweater out of the dreamworld and into reality. With time running out, Nancy and Quentin make a last desperate plan to lure Freddy into the real world to destroy him once and for all, before they meet the fate of their friends!

TRIVIA:   Jackie Earle Haley would often improvise his lines on the set, feeling this might help unease his other cast members if they didn't know what line he was going to say.

Top and Above:   Burned alive by the vengeful townspeople of Springwood, Freddy Kruger (Jackie Earle Haley) returns to haunt their children's nightmares!

On January 29, 2008, Variety reported that Michael Bay and his Platinum Dunes production company would be rebooting the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise with a remake of the original 1984 film. The remake was originally going to follow the same design as Platinum Dunes' other remake, Friday the 13th, with the writers taking what they thought were the best elements from each of the films and creating a single storyline with them. Eventually, they decided to use Craven's original storyline instead, and try to create a scarier film; deciding to remove the one-line quipping Freddy, who had become less scary and more comical over the years, and bring him back to a darker nature (this included developing the character as a true child molester, something that Craven wanted to do originally in 1984 but changed to a child killer instead). Wesley Strick was initially hired to pen a script for a new Nightmare on Elm Street, after he impressed New Line Cinema president of production Toby Emmerich with a prequel script he wrote for the 1995 film Seven - which was never produced. In all, around 15 different drafts of the script were written, with the final film is a hybrid of four of them. Eric Heisserer was subsequently hired to provide a rewrite of Strick's script before the film moved into production, and brought in the concept of the micro-naps, allowing the filmmakers the chance to blur the lines between reality and the dreamworld by offering an explanation for how the characters could slip so easily into a dream.

According to Emmerich, producer Michael Bay advocated heavily for director Samuel Bayer's hiring, as Bay, Bayer, and director David Fincher came up as commercial directors together. It was Bay's opinion that Bayer had "the ability to capture the kind of seductive and unsettling imagery that would make Nightmare feel like a fresh, visually arresting moviegoing experience". Bayer, however, took a certain amount of convincing to accept the job, after turning down the movie twice (as well as turning down the chance to direct several other Platinum Dunes films, including The Amityville Horror (2005) and Friday the 13th (2009)). It was not until Bay sent the director an email "talking about the business", and explaining what kind of opportunity it would be for Bayer that he finally agreed. Bayer explained his approach to the remake in a 2010 interview, ""It's definitely not a standard slasher film. This is a movie that you can mention to people and their jaws drop [...] because of that franchise, that character, had a profound effect on their childhood. [...] I hear things like, 'Freddy scared the hell out of me.' [...] What everyone involved wants to do is re-invent the character for a new generation."

Freddy Krueger: Why are you screaming?
[pause]
Freddy Krueger: I haven't even cut you yet!
[laughs]

Top and Above:   Nancy (Rooney Mara) and Quentin (Kyle Gallner) begin to encounter Freddy in their dreams.

In February 2009, The Hollywood Reporter revealed Robert Englund would not reprise the role of Freddy Krueger for the remake, but on April 3, 2009 Entertainment Weekly reported that Jackie Earle Haley was cast to take over Englund's most well-known role. Bayer stated that he and producers Andrew Form and Brad Fuller managed to acquire the screen test Haley gave as Rorschach for Watchmen; after viewing it, Bayer said it "blew [his] mind", and that he knew Haley would be able to go deep and create a believable character who was a "[psychopath] with a burned face and a claw". Filmmakers soon cast Rooney Mara as Freddy's nemesis Nancy Holbrook. In preparation for the role, Mara stated that her Nancy would be different than the role of Nancy Thompson, performed by Heather Langenkamp, and described her character as "socially awkward and timid and really doesn't know how to connect with people" (like Haley, Mara also signed on for a sequel, although there is no indication as yet that a sequel will be produced any time soon).

Kyle Gallner was cast as Quentin, who forms a connection with Nancy, and described his character as "a mess, more jittery and more 'out there' than Nancy is". Gallner pointed out that his character is like this because of the amount of pharmaceuticals he ingests to stay awake, while Fuller commented that Gallner brought a sense of "humanity and relatability" to the role with his compassion and intellect. Other cast members include Katie Cassidy, Thomas Dekker, and Kellan Lutz. Cassidy performed the role of Kris. According to Cassidy, Kris becomes an emotional wreck throughout the film. Cassidy described her character's ordeal: "She is literally dragged through hell, having to crawl through dark, claustrophobic tunnels. She's always crying and freaking out as her nightmares of Freddy bleed into her everyday life. Kris suspects there's something that connects her with the others; she even confronts her mother about it, but no one's talking." Connie Britton and Clancy Brown also star as Nancy and Quentin's respective parents, Gwen Holbrook and Alan Smith. Original Nightmare on Elm Street stars Heather Langenkamp and John Saxon were offered a cameo in the remake, but they were unable to fit it in their schedules. 

[Jesse is strung up in the boiler room]
Freddy Krueger: [to Jesse] Did you know that after the heart stops beating, the brain can function for well over seven minutes?
[pause]
Freddy Krueger: We got six more minutes to play.
[Freddy laughs while Jesse begins to scream]

Top and Above:   Nancy's friend Kris (Katie Cassidy) and her ex-boyfriend Jesse (Thomas Dekker) also encounter Freddy in their nightmares!

With principal photography beginning on May 5, 2009, Platinum Dunes chose to film in Illinois because of pleasurable filming experiences in the state when the company produced The Amityville Horror and The Unborn (Platinum Dunes also received a thirty percent tax break for filming in the state). The filmmakers were also able to convince two different area high schools - Elk Grove High School and John Hersey High School - to serve as locations for scenes in the film, but only after assuring the School board that none of the characters would be killed during a big pool scene involving 200 extras played by actual local high school students. Interestingly though, the Elm Street home was filmed on an actual Elm Street in Barrington, Illiniois.

The Freddy gloves were the most protected props on the set, as previous films had issues with the gloves being stolen. Most notorious was a glove was stolen from one of the films and appeared in Evil Dead II (1987) hanging in a shed.

Discussing his physical appearance, Form and Fuller explained that Freddy would be more similar to a real burn victim (similar to what Wes Craven originally wanted back in 1984), and, according to the producers, the crew had many reference photos of actual victims, which detailed how white the skin would appear after healing. Form, however,  noted how horrific some of the images were and did not want the audience to turn away in disgust every time Freddy was on the screen, so they opted to hold back on some of the realism. To achieve this, make up designer Andrew Clement incorporated green appliances as part of the Freddy makeup, so it could be digitally altered in post production via green screen technology especially for portions of his face — like his cheek — that appear open. For this, the special effects crew that worked on The Dark Knight, who created the computer-generated images for Two-Face's face, were brought in to work on the effects. Haley also had to wear contact lenses as part of his make-up; one was bloody and the other one was cloudy, the latter making it really difficult for the actor to see properly. Unfortunately, Haley scratched his corneas with the contact lenses during filming, delaying production for a short time (he also had the whites of his eyes turn blood red for two weeks because of this). Haley's voice was then digitally altered in post production in an effort to give his voice a "supernatural quality". When production first started, Clement and his crew would spend six hours applying Haley's make-up; eventually, the crew was able to streamline their process, reducing the time needed to a little over three hours. 

TRIVIA:   Wes Craven was reportedly not approached about this remake (he has however publicly spoken against it). However,  Robert Englund gave his personal blessing to Jackie Earle Haley to replace him as Freddy, saying "the torch has been well passed".

Top:   Director Samuel Bayer;

Above:   Bayer on set with actress Rooney Mara

According to Fuller and Form, Warner Bros. suggested A Nightmare on Elm Street be converted and released in 3-D, with the recent surge in 3-D films showing increased box office revenue. But it was the opinion of the Platinum Dunes producers that if a film is not initially conceived as 3-D then it should not be converted to 3-D. In other words, given that the original Nightmare on Elm Street was not a 3-D film, Fuller and Form fought with the studio to keep the remake from being converted to 3-D. The producers note that at the end of the day, Warner Bros. and Platinum Dunes came to the agreement that presenting the film in 3-D would not be presenting "the best version of the movie".

A Nightmare on Elm Street was released on April 30, 2010 to 3,332 theaters and approximately 4700 screens, making it the twelfth widest opening for an R-rated film in the US. Although early estimates put the opening day gross at approximately $15 million (with a projected opening weekend of $35 million), ultimately the film finished its opening with $32,902,299, placing first for the weekend ahead of How to Train Your Dragon (6th week in release), Date Night, (4th week in release) The Back-up Plan (2nd week in release). Eventually grossing  $63,071,122 at the domestic box office, A Nightmare On Elm Street is the second highest-grossing film among the recent slasher remakes, like When a Stranger Calls (2006), Black Christmas (2006), Halloween (2007), Prom Night (2008), and My Bloody Valentine 3D (2009) but behind Friday The 13th with $65 million.

The remake was panned by critics, however, with Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gaving the film 1 star out of 4, writing in his review, "I stared at A Nightmare on Elm Street with weary resignation. The movie consists of a series of teenagers who are introduced, haunted by nightmares and then slashed to death by Freddy. So what? Are we supposed to be scared? Is the sudden clanging chord supposed to evoke a fearful Pavlovian response?". Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly gave it a "B–" and concluded that, "I did jump a few times, and I liked Haley's dour malevolence, but overall, the new Nightmare on Elm Street is a by-the-numbers bad dream that plays a little too much like a corporately ordered rerun. One, two, Freddy's coming for you. Three, four, we've been there before", while Michael Rechtshaffen of The Hollywood Reporter criticized the acting calling it "lethargically lifeless" and criticized Haley's portrayal of Krueger, saying, "Even with his electronically deepened voice and a pointless amount of backstory, there's just no replacing Englund". 

ROTTEN TOMATOES SCORE:   15%

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ON THIS DAY IN HORROR - April 26th

"JASON X" released in 2002

In the future, Earth is no longer inhabitable, so humans have colonized in outer space. One colony receives two cryogenically frozen bodies, and when they defrost them, one of the bodies turns out to be.....who else? Jason Voorhees, of course! Jason's no longer in Camp Crystal Lake anymore in Jim Isaac's sc-fi slasher, Jason X!

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Finally captured in the year 2008, Jason Voorhees (Kane Hodder) is held inside a government research facility whose scientists try to answer the question that keeps eluding them - why one of the most infamous mass murderers in history cannot die. Once Rowan (Lexa Doig), leader of the research project, prepares the specimen for cryogenic suspension, the greedy Dr. Wimmer (David Cronenberg) goes over her head and comes to remove Jason, only to have the mad slasher break free and slaughter him and his entire entourage. Tricking Jason into following her, Rowan eludes him into entering the cryogenic freezer and begins the process, but a breach in the system causes her to freeze with him. The government denies any evidence of the project and buries the secret deep underground, until nearly four centuries later, during which time the Earth has gradually become less and less habitable (and humans have relocated to a planet in another star system that they've named Earth II), a team of young students, led by the morally dubious Professor Brandon Lowe (Jonathan Potts), descends onto the ruined Earth, where they find the frozen bodies of Jason and Rowan in the forgotten research facility and take back on board their ship with them. Rowan is thawed and revived, but the team mistakes Jason to be dead, having no idea of his abilities or motives. Before long, Jason awakens to the sound of young people having premarital sex once again, and the carnage erupts once again as the ship proceeds to Earth II. The remaining survivors fight for their lives as the centuries-old mad slasher proves that he is just as evil and just as indestructible during their time as he was centuries before!

[Dr. Wimmer arrives with soldiers to take Jason from the facility]
Rowan: What are you doing here?
Dr. Wimmer: I'm taking the specimen.
Rowan: Well, you can't. I haven't prepped the cryostasis chamber.
Dr. Wimmer: I don't want him frozen, Rowan. I want him soft.
Rowan: We've already discussed this.
Dr. Wimmer: Yeah. Well, I had to go over your head. I'm moving him to our Scranton facility.
Rowan: Dr. Wimmer, you can't risk transporting him through open country.
Dr. Wimmer: This isn't open for discussion. His unique ability to regenerate lost and damaged tissue... I mean, it's just cries out for more research.
Rowan: And you'll risk the deaths of innocent civilians if he escapes?
Dr. Wimmer: Yes.

Top:   Science student on a "field trip" to Earth I, find the frozen remains of Jason Voorhees (kane Hodder);

Above:   Also found at the site, and regenerated, is government scientist Rowan LaFontaine (Lexa Doig).

After the success of Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday, original Friday the 13th producer Sean S Cunningham (who reacquired the rights to the series after the release of Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan), concentrated solely on producing the long awaited Freddy vs Jason crossover. However, the constant delays from studios Paramount Pictures and New Line Cinema (who owned the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise) began to frustrate Cunningham, who soon decided to make another entry in the Friday the 13th series, hoping to maintain Jason's popularity at the box office until the horror match-up Freddy vs Jason was given the green-light. During Jason X's development process, the filmmakers kept with the concept used in Jason Takes Manhattan - whereby taking Jason outside of Crystal Lake - director Jim Isaac, producer Noel Cunningham (Sean's son), and screenwriter Todd Farmer kicked around any scenario they could think of it; typically "Jason in [insert blank] (the hood, snow, underwater, the arctic, in L.A. fighting gangs, on safari)." They even considered something involving the NASCAR circuit. Farmer suggested "in space" because he knew Freddy Vs. Jason was on the way, and it'd be best if Jason X was set after the events of that epic battle. So, they needed to jump into the future, and going into space certainly did that!

Because Isaac wanted the acting in his film to "blow every other Friday movie out of the water", the associate producer videotaped the rehearsals on a camcorder for Isaac, who would view them afterward to get ideas from seeing his characters in action. Unfortunately, the problems with all the script re-writes meant a lot of the time Isaac didn't even know if what the actors were rehearsing was still going to be in the movie (which most of it wasn't). Among the first to be cast were stars Lexa Doig as Rowan and Lysa Ryder as robot Kay-Em 14, although both actresses were required to finish their scenes relatively early in the schedule so they both could return to film the new season of their sci-fi TV series Andromeda. Joining the cast was Jonathan Potts as Professor Brandon Lowe, Chuck Campbell as Tsunaron, and Peter Mensah as Sergeant Brodski. Screenwriter Todd Farmer also appeared as ship pilot Dallas, as well as a special cameo by genre director David Cronenberg - who agreed to appear in Jason X as a favor to producer Cunningham, but also because he reportedly really "wanted to get killed on screen!". And of course, the legendary Kane Hodder returns for his time as the unkillable Jason Voorhees.

[programmed to trick Uber-Jason]
VR teen girl #1: Hey, do you want a beer?
VR teen girl #2: Or do you wanna smoke some pot?
VR teen girl #1: Or we can have premarital sex?
[both remove their tops]
VR teen girl #1, VR teen girl #2: We love premarital sex!

Top and Above:   Nanotechnology enhanced Uber-Jason is confronted in a 80's virtual reality simulation by two semi naked "campers"... with predictable results!

As production progressed in Toronto in early 2000, neither the casting director, Robin D. Cook, nor Isaac's initially wanted to do the virtual reality scene. Cook was so adamant the scene was nothing but gratuitous nudity that she refused to cast the roles of the two topless girls - played by Kaye Penaflor and Tania Maro - and  relegated those duties to her casting assistant. Likewise, Isaac agreed that it was clearly just nudity for nudity's sake, and the only way he could personally justify it is if they had fun with it and made it really silly. The "virtual '80s" scene was originally meant to be much more detailed, including a number of topless women playing volleyball (although this would be toned down to just two). One idea even included the appearance of Pamela Voorhees, Jason's mother, and even went so far as to have Jason attack her, showing the extent of just how evil he had become. The latter idea was dropped. In fact, Betsy Palmer was doing a play in Toronto at the time Jason X was filming and, according to Palmer, one of the producers contacted her about possibly reprising her role as Pamela Vorhees. They did not come to an agreement, and the character was not included in the scene. Interestingly, Jason X recreated one of Hodder's favorite kills from the series, the "sleeping bag death" scene.

When Stony (played by Yani Gellman) opens the door and gets stabbed and his blood sprays in Kinsa's (Melody Johnson) face, she of course screams. But apparently, the effects guys weren't supposed to spray the blood into Johnson's face, and she was screaming - not because she just saw her characters boyfriend die - but because the fake blood was actually burning her eyes!

Jason X only suffered a couple seconds of cuts/alterations to earn an R rating from the MPAA, making it the least censored entry in the entire Friday the 13th series; even though Jason murders 28 people in Jason X, more than any of the other Friday the 13th movies (and it was also the first film in the series to rely on digital effects for death and gore shots). But approving an actual release date for the movie proved more problematic, having four different U.S. release dates before it was finally released. This latest installment in the series was a moderate success, grossing over $13 million at the US box office (against it's $11 million budget), but received mainly negative reviews from critics. Critic Roger Ebert wrote a scathing review of the film, even quoting one of the film's lines, "This sucks on so many levels." However, Jason X was better received in the United Kingdom (where it was the first Friday the 13th film to be rated '15' in the UK), gaining positive reviews from the country's two major film magazines, Total Film and Empire. Empire's review by Kim Newman in particular praised Jason X as "Wittily scripted, smartly directed and well-played by an unfamiliar cast, this is a real treat for all those who have suffered through the story so far."

ROTTEN TOMATOES SCORE:   19%

___________________________________________

ON THIS DAY IN HORROR - April 20th

"DAWN OF THE DEAD" premiered in New York

Following an ever-growing epidemic of zombies that have risen from the dead, two Philadelphia S.W.A.T. team members, a traffic reporter, and his television executive girlfriend seek refuge in a secluded shopping mall, in George A. Romero's cult zombie-apocalypse film, Dawn of the Dead!

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The United States is devastated by a mysterious phenomenon which reanimates recently deceased human beings as flesh-eating zombies. Despite the best efforts by the U.S. government and local authorities to control the situation, millions of people are killed and reanimate, and while some rural communities and the military have been effective in fighting the zombie hordes in open country, but urban centers are helpless and largely overrun. Meanwhile confusion reigns at the WGON television studio in Philadelphia by the phenomenon's third week, where staff members Stephen Andrews (David Emge) and Francine Parker (Gaylen Ross) are planning to steal the station's traffic helicopter to escape the city. Meanwhile across town, police SWAT officer Roger DiMarco (Scott Reiniger) and his team raid a housing project where the residents are defying the martial law of delivering their dead to National Guardsmen.  During the raid, Roger meets Peter Washington (Ken Foree), part of another SWAT team, and informs him of his friend's, Stephen's, plan to use the WGON helicopter to escape. That night, Roger and Peter rendezvous with Francine and Stephen and leave Philadelphia in the helicopter, and eventually comes across a shopping mall, which they decide to make their sanctuary. However, after several months of enjoying a hedonistic lifestyle with all the goods in every store available to them, all emergency broadcast transmissions suddenly cease; suggesting that the government has collapsed and a large portion of the population has been killed and reanimated. As the zombie horde outside the mall continue to grow, as well as the arrival of a brutal biker gang, the group makes plans to leave their habitat for a uncertain future.

[the group watches a mass of zombies surrounding the mall from the roof]
Francine Parker: They're still here.
Stephen: They're after us. They know we're still in here.
Peter: They're after the place. They don't know why; they just remember. Remember that they want to be in here.
Francine Parker: What the hell are they?
Peter: They're us, that's all, when there's no more room in hell.
Stephen: What?
Peter: Something my granddad used to tell us. You know Macumba? Vodou. My granddad was a priest in Trinidad. He used to tell us, "When there's no more room in hell, the dead will walk the Earth."

Top:   Francis (Gaylen Ross) plans with pilot Stephen "Flyboy" Andrews (David Emge) to use a helicopter to escape the zombie pandemic in the city;

Above:   They are joined by SWAT officers Peter (Ken Foree) and Roger (Scott Reiniger).

The history of Dawn of the Dead began in 1974, when George A. Romero was invited by friend to visit the Monroeville Mall. After showing Romero hidden parts of the mall, during which Romero noted the bliss of the consumers, his friend jokingly suggested that someone would be able to survive in the mall should an emergency ever occur - thus inspiring the plot of Dawn of the Dead. Despite the huge success of Night of the Living Dead, Romero and his producer, Richard P. Rubinstein, were unable to procure any domestic investors for the new project. By chance, word of the sequel reached Italian horror director Dario Argento, who was a fan of Night of the Living Dead and an early critical proponent of the film, and was eager to help the horror classic receive a sequel. Argento agreed to secure financing in exchange for international distribution rights, and flew Romero to Rome to write the screenplay.

First to be cast was actress Gaylen Ross in the role of Francine Parker. Ross would have very strong feelings towards how her character would react, even going as far as to refuse to scream during filming (Ross felt that Fran was a strong female character, and if she screamed, the strength would be lost) She told this to Romero once when he told her to scream, but never asked her again. Romero was initially hesitant to cast Scott H. Reiniger as Roger, despite the fact that he loved Reiniger's audition, as he had already cast Ken Foree as Peter and was worried about the height disparity between the two actors. Reinger told Romero bluntly that after the first 15 minutes, no one in the audience would be paying attention to that detail, and, a short while later, Romero found Reiniger and told him he got the part. Actor David Emge was then added to the cast as the lead character, pilot Stephen "Flyboy" Andrews, completing the ensemble.

TRIVIA:   In order to save on production costs, director/editor George A. Romero had all the 35mm film stock developed into 16mm, and used that as his work reel. After choosing the scenes and takes he wanted, he had those alone developed into 35mm prints for the master reels.

Top and Above:   The survivors make an abandoned shopping mall their new home, all the while a growing number of zombies appear outside.

Principal photography for Dawn of the Living Dead (its working title at the time) began on November 13, 1977 at Monroeville Mall in Monroeville, Pennsylvania. Filming would typlically begin nightly once the mall closed, starting at 11 PM and ending at 7 AM, when typically the mall's automated music began playing over the loudspeakers which nobody in the production team knew how to turn off! As December arrived, the production decided against having the crew remove and replace the Christmas decorations — a task that had proved to be too time consuming - and decided to shut down during the last three weeks. During that time, the crew shifted to locations in and around Pittsburg. For the scenes set in the mall's "gun store" (which was a never an actual store at the Monroeville Mall), Romero filmed at Firearms Unlimited, a shop that existed in the East Liberty district of Pittsburgh, later editing the footage in to make it look like it was a shop in the mall. The living quarters where the four heroes shacked up in wasn't located in the mall either; it was a set built at Romero's then production company, The Latent Image, located in Pittsburgh (which also housed the elevator shaft set where Foree's charcater Peter meets his grisly demise). The airfield scenes were filmed at the Harold W. Brown Memorial Airfield in Monroeville, an airport located about two miles from the mall, that is still in use to this day.

For the make-up effects for Dawn of the Dead, Romero turned to Tom Savini, who had been offered the chance to provide special effects and make-up for Romero's first zombie film (before being drafted into the Vietnam War), and made his debut as an effects artist on Dawn of the Dead. Savini had a crew of eight to assist in applying gray makeup to two to three hundred extras each weekend during the shoot; most of which were famously paid $20 in cash, a box lunch, and a Dawn of the Dead T-shirt for appearing in the film. Savini choose the gray color for the zombies' skin, since the original Night of the Living Dead was in B&W and the zombie skin-tone was not depicted (Savini later said it was a mistake, because many of them ended up looking quite blue on film). Much of the fake blood used in the blood packets was a mixture of food coloring, peanut butter and cane sugar syrup, which Savini ultimately disliked as the final result looked fluorescent. However, Romero felt it was perfect for the film's comic book style. Many of the featured zombies (which took nearly three hours to apply all the make-up) became part of the fanfare, with nicknames based upon their look or activity — such as Machete Zombie, Sweater Zombie,and Nurse Zombie. Sweater zombie, played by Clayton Hill, was described by a crew member as "one of the most convincing zombies of the bunch" citing his skill at maintaining his stiff pose and rolling his eyes back into his head, including heading down the wrong way in an escalator while in character.

TRIVIA:   The two zombie children who attack Peter in the airport chart house are played by Donna Savini and Mike Savini, the real-life niece and nephew of Tom Savini. These are the only zombies in all of George A. Romero's "Dead" films that spontaneously run and never do the trademark "Zombie shuffle".

Top and Above:   Events spiral out of control when a marauding gang of bikers, led by Blades (Tom Savini) break into the mall - with predictable bloody results!

The climactic biker rampage through the mall was shot over two nights back at the Monroeville Mall, with several members of the marauding band of bikers being played by members of the local chapter of the Pagans Motorcycle Club - along with their own elaborate motorcycles. With such a shoestring budget, the filmmakers couldn't afford professional stunt people outside of drivers, so Savini and assistant and friend Taso N. Stavrakis volunteered for the task. They were responsible for almost every stunt seen in the film, though not all went perfectly as planned. When filming a dive over the rail of the mall, Savini almost missed his pile of cardboard boxes, with his legs and back landing on the ground and had to work from a golf cart for the next several days. The shot where Stavrakis swung down from a banner was also poorly planned and he wound up continuing on and slamming into the ceiling!

According to the original screenplay, Peter and Francine were to kill themselves in the end; with Peter shooting himself and Fran by sticking her head into the path of the rotating main helicopter blades. The ending credits would then run over a shot of the helicopter blades turning until the engine winds down, implying that the two would not have gotten far if they had chosen to escape. However, during production it was decided to change the ending of the film to have Peter and the pregnant Fran escape. Dawn of the Dead would then be re-cut and re-edited again for it's international prints, due mostly to Argento's rights to edit the film for international foreign language release. The version Argento created included changes such as more music from Goblin than the three cuts completed by Romero, removal of some expository scenes, and a faster cutting pace. In Italy it was released under the full title Zombi: L’alba dei Morti Viventi, followed in March 1979 in France as Zombie: Le Crépuscule des Morts Vivants, in Spain as Zombi: El Regreso de los Muertos Vivientes, in the Netherlands as Zombie: In De Greep van de Zombies, in Germany by Constantin Film as Zombie, and in Denmark as Zombie: Rædslernes Morgen.

Dr. Millard Rausch, Scientist: The normal question, the first question is always, are these cannibals? No, they are not cannibals. Cannibalism in the true sense of the word implies an intrapecies activity. These creatures cannot be considered human. They prey on humans. They do not prey on each other - that's the difference. They attack and they feed only on warm human flesh. Intelligence? Seemingly little or no reasoning power, but basic skills remain and more remembered behaviors from normal life. There are reports of these creatures using tools. But even these actions are the most primitive - the use of external articles as bludgeons and so forth. I might point out to you that even animals will adopt the basic use of tools in this manner. These creatures are nothing but pure, motorized instinct. We must not be lulled by the concept that these are our family members or our friends. They are not. They will not respond to such emotions.
[the gathered crowd starts arguing]

Top:   Writer/director George A. Romero;

Above:   Actor Ken Foree filming inside the Monroeville Mall in Monroeville, Pennsylvania.

Dawn of the Dead performed well thanks both to commercial advertising and word-of-mouth with ad campaigns and posters declaring the film "the most intensely shocking motion picture experience for all times". Dawn grossed an impressive $900,000 in it's opening weekend at the box office, and eventually grossed $5 million in the US, with an additional $40-50 million in the international markets, making it the most profitable film in the Dead series.

Dawn of the Dead — unlike many other "gory" horror staples of its time — has also received acclaim from film reviews since its initial release, with many critics regarding the movie as as one of the best films of 1978. Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave it four out of four stars and proclaimed it "one of the best horror films ever made." While conceding Dawn of the Dead to be "gruesome, sickening, disgusting, violent, brutal and appalling," Ebert said that "nobody ever said art had to be in good taste." Steve Biodrowski of Cinefantastique praised the film, calling it a "broader" version of Night of the Living Dead, and gave particular credit to the acting and themes explored: "the acting performances are uniformly strong; and the script develops its themes more explicitly, with obvious satirical jabs at modern consumer society, as epitomized by the indoor shopping mall where a small band of human survivors take shelter from the zombie plague sweeping the country." He went on to say that Dawn of the Dead was a "savage (if tongue-in-cheek) attack on the foibles of modern society", showcasing explicit gore and horror and turning them into "a form of art".

It would be another seven years before Romero returned to the Living Dead series, when he released Day of the Dead in 1985, and a further twenty-years before returning again with Land of the Dead in 2005 (released one year after director Zack Snyder's remake of Dawn of the Dead premiered in 2004). Since then, Romero has directed two more movies in the series - Diary of the Dead (2007) and Survival of the Dead (2009) - and is currently developing another entry, Origins, with his son G. Cameron Romero writing and directing. The latest installment is set to be a prequel story set at the height of the Cold War and explains the original origin of the zombie outbreak, and was the subject of a successful crowdfunding campaign in late 2015. However, since then, there has been no further mention of when Origins will go into production.

ROTTEN TOMATOES SCORE:   92%

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THIS DAY IN HORROR - April 15th

"SCREAM 4" released in 2011

Ten years have passed, and Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell) has finally put herself back together, thanks in part to her writing, returns to her hometown of Woodsboro - where it is not long before she is visited by the Ghostface Killer once again, in director Wes Craven's last film, Scream 4!

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After 10-years, Sidney Prescott returns to Woodsboro to promote her new book, Out of Darkness, with her publicist Rebecca Walters (Alison Brie). Unbeknownst to Sidney, the night before - on the fifteenth anniversary of the original Woodsboro murders - high school students Jenny Randall (Aimee Teegarden) and Marnie Cooper (Brittany Robertson) were attacked and brutally murdered by a new Ghostface. Dewey Riley (David Arquette), who is now the sheriff of the town, and his deputies Judy Hicks (Marley Shelton), Anthony Perkins (Anthony Anderson), and Ross Hoss (Adam Brody), caution Sidney to remain in town until the new investigation is completed. Sidney stays with her aunt Kate Roberts (Mary McDonnell), where Sidney's teenage cousin Jill (Emma Roberts), who is dealing with the betrayal of her ex-boyfriend, Trevor Sheldon (Nico Tortorella), gets a threatening phone call from Ghostface herself. Later that night, one of Jill's friends Olivia (Marielle Jaffe), who lives next door to Jill, is attacked and killed by Ghostface as Jill and her best friend Kirby (Hayden Panettiere) watch in horror. Sidney and Jill rush in to save Olivia, but the killer injures them and gets away. Later, when Sidney and Jill are taken to the hospital, Rebecca is attacked and murdered in the hospital's parking lot by Ghostface. Former reporter, and now Dewey's wife, Gale Weathers-Riley (Courteney Cox), soon joins forces with two high school movie fanatics Charlie Walker and Robbie Mercer (Rory Culkin and Erik Knudsen), who explain that the killer is using the rules of movie remakes to commit the new series of murders, and conclude that killer will likely strike at a party being held that night. When Sidney later discovers that Jill has snuck out of the house to attend the party as well, Sidney must once again face off against this new killer - or killers - before another person she loves is murdered!

TRIVIA:  Since Emma Roberts was the shortest cast member of the group of teens (standing at 5 feet 2 inches), she had to wear high heeled boots that gave her 3 extra inches to stand as tall as everyone else (the boots can actually be seen near the end of the film). She also had to wear hair extensions since her hair was relatively short before production of the film.

Top:   Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell) and her cousin Jill (Emma Roberts) must now face a new Ghostface killer;

Above:   Sheriff Dewey Riley (David Arquette) and his wife, former reporter Gale Weathers-Riley (Courtney Cox).

Although the Scream series was always intended to be a trilogy, a fourth movie was rumored on and off several times since the release of the third installment. Then, in 2008, Scream 4 was tentatively announced by The Weinstein Company, with an expected release date of 2011. Bob Weinstein and Harvey Weinstein once again turned to Scream-creator Kevin Williamson to draft the new screenplay. After missing a Thanksgiving and a January 4th deadline, Williamson finally delivered the first draft of the script in mid-February 2010. However, Williamson soon clashed with the Weinstein's regarding script changes, who eventually brought in Scream 3 writer Ehren Kruger for rewrites. Among the changes made to Williamson's script was the original opening would have taken place at a party celebrating Sidney's completion of her book, during which Ghostface would have attacked and Sidney would've been badly stabbed (the rest of the film would have then taken place three years later); however, this opening was vetoed by Bob Weinstein, who thought the time jump disrupted the flow of the film. Also removed from the script was the fact that Dewey and Gale had had a baby - but this was changed after it was decided bringing a baby into the film would make shooting "impossible". Additional rewrites were made by Paul Harris Boardman, and, in keeping with Scream tradition,  the actors were only given the first 75-pages (of a 140-page script) in order to protect the identity of the Ghostface killer.

In July of 2009, after years of rumors and negotiations, David Arquette and Courteney Cox signed up to reprise their roles as Dewey Riley and Gale Weathers-Riley, while Neve Campbell was confirmed in September 2009. On March 22, 2010, Variety announced that director Wes Craven had officially signed on as director. However, in May 2010, Cathy Konrad, who produced the first three films in the series, filed a $3 million lawsuit against The Weinstein Company, alleging that they violated a written agreement that entitled her company, Cat Entertainment, first rights to produce all films in the series and accused the Weinsteins of surreptitious behavior and "a scheme to force Plaintiffs to walk away from the Scream franchise without compensation," enabling them to cut costs by hiring someone else to produce (it wasn't until a few days before the release of Scream 4 that it was reported that the Weinsteins had settled out of court with Konrad. The details remaining confidential, though it was claimed that she would receive a cash payment plus a percentage of the profits from Scream 4).

[Kirby speaks with Ghostface on the phone, while Charlie is tied to a chair outside her door]
The Voice: I hear you like horror movies, Kirby. But do you like them as much as him? Forget watching Stab, instead you get to live it.
Kirby Reed: No. No, no, no, no. He's the expert. It's not me.
The Voice: Warm up question: Jason's weapon?
Kirby Reed: Uh,it's a machete.
The Voice: There. You see? You do know the genre. Michael Myers?
Kirby Reed: Uh, butcher knife.
The Voice: Leatherface?
Kirby Reed: [crying] Chainsaw! Please!
The Voice: Just ask Sidney if you need some help. Freddy Krueger?
Kirby Reed: Razor-hands.
The Voice: Name the movie that started the slasher craze: Halloween, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Last House on the Left or Psycho?
Kirby Reed: Psycho.
The Voice: None of the above! Peeping Tom, 1960, directed by Michael Powell. First movie to ever put the audience in the killer's POV.
Kirby Reed: Wait. No, no, no. Please, just ask me one more question. Just one more.
The Voice: Alright, Kirby, then it's time for your last chance. Name the remake of the groundbreaking horror movie in which the vill...
Kirby Reed: Halloween, uh, Texas Chainsaw, Dawn of the Dead, The Hills Have Eyes, Amityville Horror, uh, Last House on the Left, Friday the 13th, A Nightmare On Elm Street, My Bloody Valentine, When A Stranger Calls, Prom Night, Black Christmas, House of Wax, The Fog, Piranha. It's one of those, right? Right?
[silence]

Top:   Jill's friends - Robbie Mercer (Erik Knudsen), Charlie (Rory Culkin), Olivia (Marielle Jaffe) and Kirby (Hayden Panettiere) - find themselves targets of the new killer; 

Above:   Dewey and his deputies - Judy Hicks (Marley Shelton), Ross Hoss (Adam Brody) and Anthony Perkins (Anthony Anderson) - find incriminating evidence in the trunk of Sidney's and her publicists, Rebecca Walters (Alison Brie - far left) rental car.

Between June and August, 2010, the remaining cast was assembled with Hayden Panettiere and Rory Culkin, playing teens Kirby Reed and Charlie Walker respectively, being the first to join the film. Twilight star Ashley Greene was originally offered the role of Sidney's cousin, Jill, but the role later went to Emma Roberts. Interestingly, both Scream 4 stars Campbell and Roberts both admitted to being terrified of horror films; Roberts stated she was hid under the covers while watching the first three Scream films, while Campbell stated a while back that she can't watch the films, because she doesn't like being scared! The Hollywood Reporter later reported that Anna Paquin and Kristen Bell would have cameos in the beginning of the film (it was later revealed that their parts were originally written with Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan in mind!), with Shenae Grimes and Lucy Hale also set to briefly appear. As with previous installments, Craven himself was also set to have a small cameo, and later went to Twitter to ask fans to pick his role (sadly, Craven's appearance was cut from the final film). As the production date loomed, the film suffered two casting changes in quick succession; Lake Bell, who had originally been cast as Judy Hicks, was forced to drop out (which she announced via her Twitter account on June 24th 2010) due to "scheduling conflicts" and was replaced by Marley Shelton. And six days later, Lauren Graham, who was originally cast as Kate Roberts, dropped out also citing "scheduling conflicts" as well as "script changes." She was replaced by Mary McDonnell.

Stars Courtney Cox and David Arquette, who were married in 1999 after meeting during the making of Scream (1996), had filed for separation in October of 2010. Although there was slight tension on the set, they were said to have remained professional and respectful of each other. They later divorced in May of 2012.

On a budget of $40 million, principal photography began on June 28, 2010, shooting in and around Ann Arbor, Michigan. To keep the mood light on set, there was an ongoing prank on set where somebody dressed in the Ghostface mask would jump out and scare an actor at a time when Ghostface wasn't scripted to appear. For example, an actor would open a door expecting nobody to be behind it, and instead somebody in the mask would jump out. On at least one instance, this prank was pulled on an actress during a scene where she was scripted to be chased by a killer, rounded a corner and met an unscripted appearance by Ghostface! With filming completed on September 24, a test screening was held in January, 2011, where Craven and Bob Weinstein found two scenes they felt did not play well for the audience. As a result, actors Aimee Teegarden and Alison Brie returned to Detroit in late January and early February 2011 for four days of additional shooting. The new scenes involved Teegarden's character who is stalked at her home and Brie's character who is attacked in a parking garage.

Scream 4 also extensively used computer-generated imagery for the first time in the franchise, including the use of a "collapsing knife", with the knife's blade being added during post-production with CGI effects. Anthony Anderson's death scene in which he is stabbed in the forehead and walks a few feet while talking before finally falling to his death, was not in the script but was inspired by a "real-life medical emergency" Craven had seen in a documentary about a person being stabbed through their head and walked into an emergency room. He thought it was "extraordinary if somebody was stabbed in the head and still be alive for a while". Craven also did not tell the studio that he was taking this approach for the death scene, jokingly saying he hoped he would not be fired the next day!

TRIVIA:  The footage from Stab includes the credit "A Robert Rodriguez Film" - Rodriguez really did direct the Stab footage for Scream 4

Top:   Director Wes Craven on set with Ghostface;

Above:   Craven and stars Courtney Cox and David Arquette "working hard" on set.

Scream 4 was released in 3,305 theaters on 4,400 screens, grossing over $1 million at it's midnight previews, and $19.3 million in its opening weekend; finishing second at the box office. Despite the "disappointing" opening weekend box office (being the second-lowest opening of the Scream franchise), Scream 4 took another $19 million at the US box office, and another $37.3 million from 30 territories; topping the box office in the United Kingdom (taking over £2 million), came in second in France, third in Mexico and fourth in Australia.

The latest installment was also met with mixed to positive reviews from critics, with Lisa Schwarzbaum of Entertainment Weekly praising the film, stating "It's a giddy reminder of everything that made Scream such a fresh scream in the first place", while Betsy Sharkey of the Los Angeles Times wrote that "Scream 4 finds a way to live up to its gory past while it carves out new terrors in new ways." Roger Ebert, however, gave the film two out of four stars, criticizing the film for using the clichéd formula of the slasher genre, but complimenting Craven's direction and Williamson's dialogue. Lisa Kennedy from the Denver Post stated that Scream 4 "pays plenty of homage to their 1996 original", but that it is not close to its greatness, despite calling it a "cut above most slasher flicks".

In a march 2011 interview, Craven confirmed that he was contracted to work on a fifth and sixth installment of the Scream franchise, to be made if the fourth film achieved a successful release and reception; but further stated that he would need to see a finalized version of a script for Scream 5 before committing to the production, in order to avoid the past difficulties with script rewrites on Scream 2, Scream 3 and Scream 4, often with pages only being ready on the day of filming. However, on June 4, 2012, it was reported that MTV was in the early stages of developing a weekly television series spun off from the franchise, with Craven serving as Executive Producer. In February 2013, the cast announced  with Willa Fitzgerald, Bex Taylor-Klaus, Bobby Campo, Connor Weil, Carlson Young and John Karna set to star. The show was filmed in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, between April and July, 2015, premiering June 30th on MTV. The Scream series was well recieved by TV audiences and was quickly renewed for a second season on July, 2015. Sadly, however, original Scream director Wes Craven passed away in his Los Angeles home in August 2015, with the final episode of the first season, "Revelations", being dedicated to his memory.

ROTTEN TOMATOES SCORE:   59%

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