Somewhat Horror-related… Eli Roth presents Raiders of the Lost Ark: The Adaptation

I went to a screening of a film tonight at Grauman’s Chinese Theatre which was presented by Eli Roth. The film is a shot-for-shot remake of Raiders of the Lost Ark done over 7 years in the mid-80’s by a couple of kids in Mississippi (max age 17ish). Raiders of the Lost Ark: The Adaptation was kitsch gold. I wished that all of the Dead Lantern/Grand Horror crew was there to see this DIY masterpiece. It probably won’t ever make it to DVD because of the obvious copyright restrictions but it has been making the indie-theatre circuit for 5 years with the blessing of Mr. Roth who hooked the filmmakers up with a renewed career in film and even a meeting with Stephen Speilberg himself.

Spinning from this amazing backstory is a Daniel Clowes (Ghost World) screenplay (and perhaps comic?) and Paramount project in the works based on the kids who made it (now in their late 30s).

When I get to catch things like this, it’s pretty fucking rad to live here.

Steve’s Random Thoughts #1

So I happen to be an organ donor. I don’t know why but my drivers license has the little donor heart symbol on it. Well I don’t want to be an organ donor. I hate people and want most of them to die from horrible diseases. So I think when I go to get my license renewed I’ll have my donor status revoked. Think about it. How many life saving organs can you donate after death? Six? Seven? I’m not really sure. I mean you can donate your eyes supposedly but you can live without eyes so those don’t count. I’m talking about stuff like a heart or your kidneys. We’ll say six organs. The way I look at it then is if you die and you’re not an organ donor, it’s like you’re taking six people with you then. And I know that’s not exactly the high score or anything but I still think those should count dammit.

10 Golden Rules of Survival Horror Games

Via Destructoid.com, a fun list of survival horror clichés. I like #5…

5: Architects are clinically insane:
Can we truly be sure that Raccoon City’s inhabitants were the victims of the T-Virus? My personal theory is that, rather than becoming infected by a biologically engineered disease, they were simply driven mad by years of having to use keys in the shape of helmets and pushing blocks around rooms just to open fucking doors.

It seems that most buildings in survival horror games were designed by schizophrenic lunatics who felt that it should take two hours to get from the kitchen to the bathroom, with a collected eighteen miles of backtracking in between. Why does a hotel need a working music box to open a door? How did the local council give that planning permission!? It doesn’t matter, because it’s part of why survival horror is awesome.

“Up yours, Procrastination!”

Well what do you know? I’m back. “Why so soon?” you may ask. Well I have this really bad characteristic that seems to be ingrained into my very being. I procrastinate. A lot. I’ll put off just about anything if I get the mind to do so. When I’m not procrastinating, I’m getting things done at a speed that would make molasses feel like Michael Johnson. This is most evident in my school work. I absolutely will not do anything relate to college work/assignments/research until the very last possible minute.

This is the week before Finals and I planned on, once again, getting either nothing done or moving slowly. Turns out, I got this wild hair up my ass to finally get everything done ahead of time. For example, instead of waiting until today to do an 8 page paper that had to be submitted by midnight, I did it yesterday. I also did all of my other assignments early this week as well which means I suddenly have nothing but free time on my hands (other than working on video, which I don’t consider “work”).

See this dude? He’s Augustine of Hippo. He’s the architect of all of Western Christian thought for the past 1500 years. I’m in a debate this coming Monday and as a representative of Cicero, I had to find a way to dismantle the entire logic behind Augustine’s system. I found it…I think, in a philosopher named Adorno that I studied in my Film Theory class. Can film theory sucker punch Christian philosophical structure? We’ll see on Monday….

Anyway, expect daily updates to Dead Lantern to resume in short order.

Splattercast 75

Has been uploaded - check it out

Disclaimer: DeadLantern.com will not be held responsible if downloading this mp3 inadvertently summons the Cenobites.

Website downtime tonight

Hey there loyal readers, this is just a heads-up about some downtime we’ll be experiencing tonight. Our hosting company is doing some maintenance and server moves that will take our site down for a while.

The outage is scheduled to begin Friday, February 8, at 10PM PST, and is expected to last up to 8 hours, until Saturday, February 9, 6AM PST.

Hopefully it will all go smoothly and the site will come back up on schedule. I know you guys all just sit there at your computers 24/7 hitting “refresh” on our page, so the downtime will be a hardship, but why not take the opportunity to go see Rambo at the theatre, or watch some Howling DVDs? Just hold your loved ones close and we’ll make it through this together.

Thanks for your patience!

Happy Birthday: George A. Romero

george.jpg

Happy 68th Birthday, Mr. Romero.

Just about everyone’s favorite Romero film is one of his Dead flicks, but I think in terms of the film I like the most, it would have to be Creepshow. It’s just got such a fun over-the-top way about it.  I love all the stories in it and I think, as a film, it stands up quite nicely to the Dead trilogy (no, I’m not counting Land as part of the canon. I’m still angry about that movie) though it’s generally overlooked.

So, what’s your favorite Romero flick?

Fun Fact: George Romero is younger than John McCain by almost 4 years :)

They were always real to me.

Watch this video.

They were always real to me.

That makes me really pissed off the G1 style models weren’t used in the movie.

I’m up watching the Oscar nominations….

Yeah, I’m a geek and I get up early specifically just to watch the Oscar nominations (eat your hear out, Jeff :) )

Johnny Deep and Javier Bardem both got nods. No Country For Old Men nominated for Best Picture (along with Juno!?). Crazy stuff. Now I’m going to geek out some more.

Vaginas! With Teeth!

Teeth

A movie about Mat’s worst nightmare! I’m not kidding. It’s a movie about vaginas…with teeth! The movie is about Dawn, who decides to go get her cooter checked out because something is wrong…down there. Mayhem ensues. Check out the trailer here.

Retarded Wheelchair Zombie!

Holy shit, I actually posted something to Whistling Past the Graveyard!

Go lookie.

The Mist is mystifying me

I saw a headline on Drudge that linked to this article about Stephen King’s gushing of Darabont’s new ending to The Mist. He’s quoted as saying: “Frank wrote a new ending that I loved. It is the most shocking ending ever and there should be a law passed stating that anybody who reveals the last 5 minutes of this film should be hung from their neck until dead.”

I don’t know how much more hype I can take about this film. I mean, Stephen King has been known to greatly exaggerate on about a thousand occasions, and I’m inclined to think that he likes Darabont’s ending better because his endings almost always blow harder than a cheap hooker at a Motel 6, but geez, this is just another piece of amazingness being thrown at the film.

Consider that one reviewer has already stated that it’s better than Shawshank and another has said that it’s a 21st century version of The Thing. Horror fans seem to be praising the hell out of it. As all of you know, I always take a shotgun to the “Next Big Thing” that’s hyped, but damn it if I’m not going to go into this giddy like a kid. Which is weird, because I really didn’t think the trailers made it look very promising.

It’s almost enough to make me forgo No Country for Old Men today, but I’d rather see The Mist with the Deadlantern gentlemen.

While we’re on the topic of Lovecraftian monsters eating people, did you see the new trailer for Cloverfield? CHUD is making the argument that the monster is actually Cthulu. There’s a lot of really good horror coming out in the coming months!

Did somebody say Pakistan was Hell’s Ground?

One of my favorite non-Deadlantern horror blogs on the internet is AMC’s Monsterfest blog. They always dredge up some great stories that might be overlooked by the big horror sites. I thought this story was interesting. It’s about this Pakistani horror film called Hell’s Ground that seems to be bucking Musharaff’s police state and going to theatres. The article says it’s the first Pakistani modern horror film. I don’t know how accurate that is since I’m no scholar on Pakistani horror (seems like they have enough of that in real life), but it is interesting to think about how widespread the horror genre is. Even in places like Pakistan, where you might not think our lovable genre exists.

Here’s hoping the filmmakers don’t get sent to prison. I need to get a copy of this movie somehow. On a philosophical note, do you think an Islamic horror movie gets blamed for causing violence like American movies do? :)

Happy Halloween from Deadlantern.com

Have a safe and happy Halloween!

30 Days of Suck in 2-D

30 Days of Night was pretty cool….until they showed the vampires. This movie blows and seriously, the head vampire was the most non-frightening vampire since Zandor Vorkov. He reminded me of a gothic cross-eyed Russian hobo. I’m still wondering why the vampires didn’t just knock out all the generators that were apparently being used to light up the entire town like a Christmas tree?

Continuing my sucky horror movie night, I caught Night of the Living Dead 3-D, in glorious 2-D because the DVD doesn’t come in 3-D apparently, and it is one of the worst films I’ve ever seen in my life. I’m talking Children of the Living Dead bad. Expect a review soon. On the DVD extras, the director said the found out Dead was in the public domain so they decided to do a remake. For the love of Romero, don’t see this movie. Sid Haig, shame on you.

Steve, you and I must get to work on a Night remake.