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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ON THIS DAY IN HORROR - April 15th

"THE AMITYVILLE HORROR" released in 2005

In December 1975, George and Kathy Lutz (Ryan Reynolds and Melissa George) along with their three children move into an elegant Long Island house. What they don't know is that the house was the site of a horrific mass murder a year before, in Andrew Douglas' re-imagining of the classic haunted house chiller, The Amityville Horror!

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In late 1975, recently married George and Kathy Lutz (this marriage her second following the death of her first husband) plan to start a new life with her three children - Billy (Jesse James), Michael (Jimmy Bennett) and Chelsea (Chloë Grace Moretz). As George tries to eke out his place in their life which is not to replace the memory of their father, George and Kathy want to buy another house in which they will live. In nearby Amityville, they find what they consider the perfect waterfront colonial which they are surprised is just within their price range. After falling in love with the house, they learn that the reason for the low asking price is that one year previous, the former owners, the DeFeos, were murdered in the house. With this information in hand, they proceed to buy the house anyway, with George planning to turn the basement into an office for his contracting business. Before buying the house, they are unaware of the details of the murder, where twenty-three year old Ronald DeFeo, Jr. (Brendan Donaldson) had moved back in with his family, living in the basement. He progressively began to feel possessed when finally on his twenty-eighth day in the house, he killed his parents and four siblings in the middle of the night, hearing voices telling him to kill them. After the Lutzes move into the house, some of the family members begin to see visions and hallucinations, none of them telling the others for one reason or another. Slowly, the forces within the house start to consume them to various degrees where they know that something is not quite right. The questions become if they will figure out that there is a force overtaking them before they are no longer able to get away, or if they are doomed to the same fate as the DeFeos on day twenty-eight of their residence. If the latter be the case, there will be the next "Ronald DeFeo, Jr." who will be the one of who the rest of the family needs to be afraid of?!

[Father Callaway speaks with Kathy outside]
Father Callaway: You know the doll with one eye that your daughter is holding?
Kathy Lutz: Yes, well...
Father Callaway: Well, that belonged to the little girl who lived here before you.
Kathy Lutz: Yes, it was left here.
Father Callaway: No, Mrs. Lutz, it was not left here.
Kathy Lutz: Father, what exactly are you trying to tell me?
Father Callaway: I knew the DeFeo's very well. I presided over their funeral. Jodie DeFeo was buried with that doll.

Top:   Newly married Kathy and George Lutz (Melissa George and Ryan Reynolds) decide to buy the beautiful old Victorian house in Amityville;

Above:   Almost immediately after moving in, one of the Lutz children, Chelsea (Chloë Grace Moretz) begins seeing frightening visions.

After the successful release of the horror remake The Texas Chainsaw Massacre in 2003, productions company Platinum Dunes - headed by producers Michael Bay, Andrew Form and Brad Fuller - began looking for their next project. It was not long before their were contacted by MGM, who were beginning to experience financial difficulties, to produce a remake of The Amityville Horror. Development got off to a rocky start however, after MGM claimed the remake was based on new information uncovered during research of the original events. Unfortunately, George Lutz later claimed nobody ever spoke to him or his family about the project, and when he initially heard it was underway, his attorney contacted the studio to find out what they had in the planning stages and to express Lutz's belief they didn't have the right to proceed without his input. In June 2004, the studio filed a motion for declaratory relief in federal court, insisting they had the right to do a remake, and Lutz countersued, citing violations of the original contract that had continued through the years following the release of the first film (the case would remain unresolved when Lutz died in May 2006).

Producers once again turned to their Texas Chainsaw Massacre screenwriter Scott Kosar to draft the updated screenplay, with British director Andrew Douglas chosen to helm the remake. in his feature film debut. Australian actress Melissa George and Canadian actor Ryan Reynolds were soon cast as the lead characters Kathy and George Lutz, with child actors Jesse James, Jimmy Bennett, and Chloë Grace Moretz (in her feature film debut) joining the cast as the Lutz children, Billy, Michael and Chelsea respectively. Veteran character actor Philip Baker Hall was soon cast as Father Callaway, with Isabel Conner as the spirit of the departed Jodie DeFeo, and Brendan Donaldson as the demonic Ronald "Ronnie" DeFeo, Jr. Megan Fox auditioned for the role of Lisa the babysitter originally, before Rachel Nichols secured the role.

[Trapped in the bedroom closet, Lisa is confronted by Jodie's spirit]
Jodie Defeo: Hi, Lisa. Look what Ronnie did.
[moves her hair away from her head so can see, she has a hole in her head made by the gun]

 Top and Above:   Visitors to the house are brutally attacked by the departed spirits; Father Callaway (Philip Baker Hall) is attacked by a swarm of flies and babysitter Lisa (Rachel Nichols) is confronted by the spirit of Jodie DeFeo (Isabel Conner)!

While the reproduction of the Amityville House's famous exterior was constructed in Silver Lake, Wisconsin, many of the interiors were built on a temporary sound stage in an empty building located in a corporate park in Buffalo Grove, Illinois. The production company took out building permits in the village of Silver Lake, Wisconsin (in Kenosha County) and spent about $60,000 to adapt the historic Rustman House summer estate on the south shore of Silver Lake at Kenosha County Highways F and SA for its cinematic debut. For the closet scene with the babysitter, the production crew had originally ordered in a rubber door. But after shooting the scene a few times, they decided it didn't look right, and they ultimately decided on using a real wooden door, so actress Rachel Nichols had to bang her hands on the door for two days straight while filming the scene!

Ryan Reynolds chose not to become close with his "movie" children. He was not mean or rude to them, just very distant. So distant in fact that the children often confided to those on the set that "Ryan doesn't like us!" Ryan said that he did not want to "fall in love" with the kids. Ryan did this so that when George Lutz started changing, he would have no trouble easing into the verbal and physical abuse. Reynolds' also wore special contact lenses in many scenes to make his eyes seem black with just a white ring around them.

TRIVIA:   Chloë Grace Moretz did most of her own stunts, despite only being eight years old!

 Top:   Director Andrew Douglas on set with Ryan Reynolds and Melissa George;

Above:   Producer Michael Bay on location

The Amityville Horror was the last picture Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer released as an independent company, with the studio being acquired by several companies, including Sony, in the middle of the promotion for the film. The Amityville Horror opened on 3,323 screens, grossing an impressive $23,507,007 on its opening weekend (ranking first in the domestic box office), and eventually grossing a total of almost $43 million at the US box office, plus an additional $65 million gross in the international markets (totaling over $108 million against a relatively small $19 million budget).

However, The Amityville Horror remake received mostly negative reviews from critics, with Peter Travers of Rolling Stone rating the film one star and commented, "First-time director Andrew Douglas crams in every ghost cliché, from demonic faces to dripping blood. This house springs so many FX shocks it plays like a theme-park ride. Result? It's not scary, just busy. For the real thing, watch Psycho . . . The Shining . . . The Haunting . . . or The Innocents . . . What all those films have in common is precisely what the new Amityville Horror lacks: They know it's what you don't see in a haunted house that fries your nerves to a frazzle." Manohla Dargis of the New York Times said, "Low-key creepy rather than outright scary, the new Amityville marks a modest improvement over the original, partly because, from acting to bloody effects, it is better executed; and partly because the filmmakers have downgraded the role of the priest, played in all his vein-popping glory by Rod Steiger in the first film and by a considerably more subdued Philip Baker Hall here." Ruthe Stein of the San Francisco Chronicle gave a slightly more positive review, writing, "the truly shocking thing about the new version is that it's not bloody awful . . . The decision to use minimal computer-generated effects, made for monetary rather than artistic reasons, works to Amityville's advantage. It retains the cheesy look of the 1979 original, pure schlock not gussied up to appear to be anything else."

ROTTEN TOMATOES SCORE:   23%

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ON THIS DAY IN HORROR - April 10th

"THE HOWLING" released in 1981

After a bizarre and near fatal encounter with a serial killer, a television newswoman is sent to a remote mountain resort whose residents may not be what they seem, in Joe Dante's cult classic werewolf movie, The Howling!

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Karen White (Dee Wallace) is a Los Angeles television news anchor, and is currently the only in communication with a vicious serial killer named Eddie Quist (Robert Picardo). Karen later agrees to meet Eddie at a sleazy porno theater, acting as bait so the police can catch him; over the strong objection of Karen's husband Bill (Christopher Stone) and friends Chris and Terri (Dennis Dugan and Belinda Balaski). Events at the meet go awry, and the police end up shooting Eddie, with karen left suffering from amnesia. Haunted by vivid nightmares of that night, Karen is persuaded by her friend, and her therapist, Dr. George Waggner (Patrick Macnee) to spend a few days at The Colony; a secluded resort in the countryside where he sends patients for treatment. Karen and Bill soon discover The Colony is filled with strange characters, and one, a sultry nymphomaniac named Marsha Quist (Elisabeth Brooks), tries to seduce Bill. When he resists her unsubtle sexual overtures, he is attacked and scratched on the arm by a wolf-like creature while returning to his cabin. After Bill's attack, Karen asks Terri to visit her at the Colony, where Terri connects the resort to Eddie Quist through a sketch Eddie left behind in his apartment. Finally realizing the true nature of the Colony, Terri vainly tries to call Chris, but is attacked and killed by a revived Eddie in his true werewolf form. Arming himself with silver bullets, Chris races to the Colony to rescue Karen before she shares the same fate as Terri's at the fangs and claws of the brutal werewolf pack!

TRIVIA:   Robert Picardo improvised the line "I want to give you a piece of my mind" before pulling out a bullet from his head.

Top and Above:   Karen (Dee Wallace) and Chris (Dennis Dugan) desperately search for a way to escape The Colony, run by the sultry, yet vicious, pack-leader Marsha Quist (Elisabeth Brooks) and the sinister Dr. George Waggner (Patrick Macnee).

 Based on the novel by Gary Brandner, The Howling was to originally have been directed by Jack Conrad with Terence H. Winkless writing the screenplay, but troubles with the studio forced them both to leave the project. The film eventually fell into the lap of director Joe Dante, who brought aboard John Sayles, with whom he had previously worked for Piranha (1978), to write the screenplay. Sayles rewrote the script with the same self-aware, satirical tone that he gave Piranha, and his finished draft bears only a vague resemblance to Brandner's book (however, Winkless still received a co-writer's credit along with Sayles for his work on the screenplay). Many in-joke references in The Howling include numerous references to wolves: The Big Bad Wolf from Ub Iwerks' Little Boy Blue (1936) is seen on TV; Sheriff Newfield is seen eating Wolf Brand chili and a similar can is seen on the counter in Eddie's cabin; a copy of the Allen Ginsberg book Howl appears; a mention of disc jockey Wolfman Jack; a bottle of Wolfen-brand medicine on the counter from which Karen picks up the acid; and in Karen and Bill's cabin there is a picture of a wolf who killed a sheep within the flock. Even the characters in the film are named after horror film directors who directed other films that featured werewolves, including George Waggner - inspiring the character name of the main villan Dr. George Waggner - who directed The Wolf Man (1941).

Dee Wallace was later cast as the lead Karen White, with Dennis Dugan, Christopher Stone, and Belinda Balaski appearing as Karen's husband and friends, Bill Neil, Chris Halloran, and Terri Fisher. The cast also featured a number of recognizable character actors such as Kevin McCarthy, John Carradine, Kenneth Tobey and Slim Pickens, many of whom appeared in genre films themselves, in supporting roles of TV producer Fred Francis, and The Colony denizens Erle Kenton and Sam Newfield, respectively. Canadian actress Elisabeth Brooks was cast as werewolf siren Marsha Quist, with Robert Picardo as evil serial killer Eddie Quist. Legendary B-movie producer Roger Corman makes a cameo appearance as a man standing outside a phone booth, as does screenwriter John Sayles, appearing as a morgue attendant and James Murtaugh as one of the members of the Colony.

TRIVIA:   This film and Howling IV: The Original Nightmare (1988) are both based on the same novel by Gary Brandner. Interestingly, Howling IV actually represents the more faithful adaptation of the book than the original film does.

 Top and Above:   Director Joe Dante on set and location.

Filmed in 28 days (plus numerous days of reshoots), The Howling was most notable for its special effects, which were state-of-the-art at the time. Rick Baker was originally doing the special effects for the film, but he left to do An American Werewolf in London (1981), leaving the effects job for this film in the hands of assistant Rob Bottin (interestingly, both The Howling and American Werewolf were released the same year and both received praise for their makeup work). Bottin's most celebrated effect was the on-screen transformation of Eddie Quist, which involved air bladders under latex facial applications to give the illusion of transformation. In fact, the final transformation had to be done all in close-up because the film had exceeded its budget by then, and this had to be shot in an Dante's office because they had no money for sets anymore. There were times during shooting when Robert Picardo was very despondent about the hours he had to spend in makeup, later remarking in an interview that,"One day, after spending six and a half hours in the makeup chair, I was thinking, 'Trained at Yale, two leading roles on Broadway. My first acting role in California, my face gets melted in a low-budget horror movie.' All the crew had to say to that was, 'Bob, next time read the script all the way through first!"' The Howling also features stop-motion animation by David W. Allen, and puppetry intended to give the werewolves an even more non-human look, as highlighted in the scene where we see the silhouette of Bill and Marsha having sex as werewolves.

Released in early 1981, The Howling was box office success, grossing almost $18 million against a relatively small $1.5 million budget. The film also received mostly positive reviews, with  Leonard Maltin writing that The Howling is a "hip, well-made horror film" and noted the humorous references to classic werewolf cinema. Roger Ebert's 2-out-of-4 star review described The Howling as the "silliest film seen in some time", but Ebert also said the special effects were good and the film was perhaps "worth your money, IF you get it two for one", while Ebert's television partner Gene Siskel liked the film and gave it three and a half stars out of four.  Kim Newman, in his 1988 book Nightmare Movies, called The Howling "a brisk chiller that effortlessly revives the prowling-through-misty-forests genre", and called Picardo's transformation sequence "the movies' most impressive werewolf monster".

ROTTEN TOMATOES SCORE:   66%

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ON THIS DAY IN HORROR - April 5th

"EVIL DEAD" released in 2013

Five friends who isolate themselves in a desolate cabin only to find themselves fighting for their lives - and souls, after they unwittingly unleash angry demons from the passages of an ancient book, in  Fede Álvarez's re-imagining of Sam Raimi's cult classic horror film, Evil Dead!

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David (Shiloh Fernandez) and his girlfriend Natalie (Elizabeth Blackmore) arrive at a cabin in the woods, where the pair meet up with David's younger sister Mia (Jane Levy) and his friends Eric (Lou Taylor Pucci) and Olivia (Jessica Lucas). After an awkward greeting, it is revealed the group plans to stay at the cabin to help Mia overcome her addiction to heroin; a fact David feels intense guilt over as he left Mia to care for their dying mother alone years before. That night, the group discover the cellar, littered with rotting animal corpses, a shotgun, and a book called the Naturom Demonto. Eric, having some knowledge of witchcraft, begins studying the book and, despite written warnings, he reads aloud an incantation and awakens a malevolent force that finds Mia standing outside alone. Mia begins seeing things, and when the group refuse to leave (believing Mia is simply suffering from withdrawl), she steals the keys to the truck; but a mysterious girl causes her to crash in a swamp. Emerging from the mud of the swamp, the demonic girl chases Mia through the woods, until she stumbles into a circular opening to a thorn bush and becomes entangled by vines. The girl, a demonic form of Mia, emits a black tar-like thorn vine from her mouth that slithers inside and possesses Mia! Returning to the cabin, Mia is locked in the cellar by the others, but not before being possessed herself and is later killed by Eric. Eric explains to David that, according to the Naturom Demonto, the unseen demon - known as the Taker of Souls - must claim five souls in order to unleash the Abomination. Soon, the remaining survivors are either possessed or killed, until David is the only one remaining to fight the demonic spirit. Alone , David makes one last deperate effort to save Mia before the fifth victim is claimed that will make the Abomination arise and blood rains from the sky!

[as the Deadites take possession of Mia]
Cheryl: You will die! Like the others before you, one by one, we will take you!
[Mia becomes eerily calm]
Mia: You're all going to die tonight.

Top and Above:   Recovering addict Mia (Jane Levy) is attacked in the woods by an unseen demonic spirit!

When producer Rob Tapert suggested the possibility of an Evil Dead remake to Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell, Raimi responded the most favorably, whereas Campbell was the least enthusiastic of the three. Raimi thought that The Evil Dead was exactly the sort of film that could be successfully updated and re-imagined by a new generation of filmmakers, while Campbell was not happy to pass on his iconic role of Ash. Campbell later relented when he heard that the film would feature a new set of characters, and the role of Ash would not be re-cast. But after years of development, Campbell stated in 2009 that the proposed remake was "going nowhere" and had "fizzled" due to extremely negative fan reaction. Then in 2011, it was suddenly announced that  Uruguayan filmmaker Fede Álvarez had been contracted to direct and co-write the remake. Having signed a $30-40 million production deal with Ghost House Pictures after the extremely popular YouTube release of his earlier short film  Ataque de Pánico! (Panic Attack), Alvarez began writing the script with co-writer Rodo Sayagues. Screenwriter Diablo Cody would later come on board to "Americanize" the dialogue since English was not the writers' first language.

Initially Lily Collins was scheduled to play the lead female role of Mia, but eventually dropped out of the project in January, 2012. Jane Levy replaced Collins the next month, in her first major horror role. Actor Shiloh Fernandez was cast in the lead male role of David, with Lou Taylor Pucci (who wanted to wear old style glasses and long hair as a tribute to the early 1980s when the original film was made), Elizabeth Blackmore, and Jessica Lucas later joining the cast. Interestingly, every girl in this film leading the cast is a scream queen; Elizabeth Blackmore is best known for The Vampire Diaries (2009), and Jessica Lucas has previously appeared in The Covenant (2006), Cloverfield (2008), Amusement (2008) (while Levy would also work with Alverez again  in his follow up horror film, Don't Breathe in 2016).

[Mia traps the Abomination Mia under a truck]
Abomination Mia: I will feast on your soul!
[Mia revs her chainsaw]
Mia: Feast on this, motherfucker.

Top:   Olivia (Jessica Lucas) is one of the first to be possessed;

Above:   As the blood rain falls, Mia prepares her chainsaw to face the risen demon, the Abomination!

Principal photography on Evil Dead began on April 11th, 2012 on location in Muriwai Beach, Woodhill outside Auckland, New Zealand, with most of the film being shot in chronological order. The filmmakers decided of this approach as most of the action takes place in a controlled environment and the level of blood and violence gets worse and worse as the film progresses. Also by shooting in order, they can throw blood on the walls and not worry it will mess up another shot where it needed to be clean.  

Before they moved on to make Ash vs Evil Dead (2015), Sam Raimi, Rob Tapert, and Bruce Campbell confirmed that this film is set in the same continuity as the original trilogy and their plan was to make Army of Darkness 2, a sequel to this film starring Mia, and one final film with Ash and Mia teaming up to fight Deadites. Since Universal Studios passed on Army of Darkness 2, with Ash's adventures now being told in Ash vs. Evil Dead, and the sequel to this film appearing to have been shelved, it is doubtful that this team-up will ever happen.

Although he has a background in CGI, Alvarez chose to go with practical effects for the film's visuals, mainly out of tribute to what Raimi achieved on a very limited budget back in 1982. This allayed some fears of fans of the series that the remake would resort to CGI rather than practical effects. However, some CGI was used to add fire, & remove wires and equipment used for the effects. Alvarez later stated in an interview that, "We didn't do any CGI in the movie [...] Everything that you will see is real, which was really demanding. This was a very long shoot, 70 days of shooting at night. There's a reason people use CGI; it's cheaper and faster, I hate that. We researched a lot of magic tricks and illusion tricks."

TRIVIA:   According to reports in the press, the film used 70,000 gallons of fake blood. In an interview, Fede Alvarez said they used 50,000 gallons for the final scene alone. This is compared to the 200-300 gallons used in the original.

Top:   Co-writer/director Fede Álvarez on set with Jane Levy;

Above:   Actor Lou Taylor Pucci preparing to shoot a scene reading from the dreaded Naturom Demonto.

Evil Dead  first received an NC-17 rating, which prompted cuts in order to obtain the contractually obligated R-rating by distributor TriStar Pictures, despite Alvarez and Raimi's original intention to keep the higher MPAA rating (despite this, the film was still banned in Ukraine for its extreme violence!). After premiering at the SXSW Film Festival in Austin, Texas on March 8, Evil Dead was widely released on April 5th, debuting first at the box office with a gross of almost $26 million. Evil Dead would go on to earn a little under $100 million worldwide, making the Evil Dead remake a financial success.

Critics were also mostly positive about the reboot, with John DeFore of The Hollywood Reporter calling it a "remake that will win the hearts of many of the original's fans." Evan Dickson from Bloody Disgusting reviewed the film at SXSW and went on to say, "Evil Dead is amazingly gory and fun" and gave the film 4/5 stars, while  Emma Simmonds of The List commented, "Evil Dead has ample cheap shocks and few bloodcurdling frights but it builds to something gorily bravura and, if that's your bag, you'll come away satisfied. It's a while before anyone picks up a chainsaw, but boy is it worth it when they do." Richard Roeper, however, rated the film one star out of four, criticizing the film's unoriginality, the characters' lack of intelligence, and the film's reliance on gore for what he felt were cheap scares. He concluded his review by saying, "I love horror films that truly shock, scare and provoke. But after 30 years of this stuff, I'm bored to death and sick to death of movies that seem to have one goal: How can we gross out the audience by torturing nearly every major character in the movie?"

ROTTEN TOMATOES SCORE:   61%

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