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Goth Chick News: New Indy Horror 36 Saints and Interview with Star Frank Gonzalez — Plus Free Swag

Goth Chick News: New Indy Horror 36 Saints and Interview with Star Frank Gonzalez — Plus Free Swag

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image002As always, this year’s Chicago Comic Con had no shortage of material and believe me, it was difficult to know where to look first. But the best discovery is when I meet up with the creators of indy films – twice as nice when the films are in my favorite genre.

Indy film folks are hungry and passionate without all the Hollywood jadedness that eventually comes with one or two big box office hits. They put love into every detail of their creations and their enthusiasm is infectious, so I was particularly excited to meet Joey Dedio; actor and producer of the soon-to-be-released horror thriller 36 Saints.

As he explains the premise, you can tell Dedio is psyched about every aspect of this film and his excitement is palpable.

According to the kabbalah teaching, at any given time there are at least 36 holy persons in the world. These holy people are hidden; nobody knows who they are and they themselves are not aware of their role. For the sake of these 36 hidden saints, God preserves the world even if the rest of humanity has degenerated to the level of total barbarism.

36 Saints is like if the movie Seven met The Da Vinci Code. New York’s Police Headquarters is confronted with the horror of a serial murderer whose targets appear to be group of students. Weaving myth, legend and Biblical stories together, this film is filled with suspense while officials try to find the killer before it is too late and more people are killed.

As enthusiastic as Dedio is about the film, he’s clearly thrilled with one of the film’s stars, Frank Gonzales (aka “Franky G”). So when it came time to find out more about 36 Saints, Dedio deferred to Gonzales, which was fine with me considering Gonzales’s horror cred was pretty substantial.

So everyone, meet Franky G – Franky G, this is everyone.

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Goth Chick News: Surviving the Dying Light

Goth Chick News: Surviving the Dying Light

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image002I absolutely love shooting dead things.

Nothing takes the edge off a stressful day like arming up to the teeth on my PS3 and blasting the snot out of rampaging zombies or other marauding creatures of darkness.

Not that I have anything against creatures of darkness – no siree. I mean, at this point, some three years into writing Goth Chick News, the reanimated dead are not only some of my most prolific subjects, but often constitute the bulk of my party guests.

It’s just that “real” violence, or in this case realistic violence (i.e. Saints Row and Hitman), makes me queasy in a way that offing the undead does not. So I was as giddy as Rick Grimes at a Home Depot axe sale when I found out about Dying Light.

Dying Light is a first-person, action survival horror game set in a vast and dangerous open world. During the day, players traverse an expansive urban environment overrun by a vicious outbreak, scavenging the world for supplies and crafting weapons to defend against the growing infected population. At night, the hunter becomes the hunted, as the infected become aggressive and more dangerous. Most frightening are the predators which only appear after sundown. Players must use everything in their power to survive until the morning’s first light.

Developed by Techland for Warner Brothers Entertainment (the geniuses who brought you Dead Island), Dying Light will be available in PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Xbox 360 and PC formats, which is part of what I love about these guys. Development of solid games for the PC is dwindling, but until the PlayStation can fit with me in a coach airline seat, I appreciate anyone who creates this sort of fun for my lap top.

Now, join me in relishing the 12-minute gameplay walk through. It rocks utterly.

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Goth Chick News: Welcome to the 2013 Chicago Comic Con

Goth Chick News: Welcome to the 2013 Chicago Comic Con

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image002Spandex, chainmail, body paint…

Oh my.

Yes, it’s that time of year again and Chicagoans are not immune.

That is to say, when faced with one of the largest venues in the area packed wall to wall with artists, comics, swag of all types and Zachary Quinto , trance-like they will don too-snug lycra and a face mask, then venture forth into public to meet, greet, and pose for pictures.

Wizard World’s Comic Con stormed into the Rosemont Convention Center last week and once again, Black Gate photo Chris Z and I had a front row seats.

“Chicago’s premier pop-culture event” did not disappoint.

Final numbers aren’t in yet, but the Tribune stated that “tens of thousands” of visitors came through during the four-day festivities, spending what can only be estimated at virtually millions of dollars. Which caused Chris and I to speculate on whom precisely would drop $400 on a 4 foot by 6 foot artist’s rendition of Wonder Woman?

Unfortunately, he was decked out in a Green Lantern costume and refused an interview, but that didn’t stop us for meeting a whole gaggle of brilliant and creative individuals which is what makes Comic Con a seminal event in the Black Gate calendar.

So let’s wade in, shall we?

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Goth Chick News: Music From Where It All Began

Goth Chick News: Music From Where It All Began

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image002It might have been at a sleep-over, huddled around the TV and a local public broadcasting station, or more recently around an older sibling’s laptop.

It could have been in a midnight show at the broken-down theater in the town where you attend college or, heaven-forbid, at the cliché of a drive-in.

Wherever it was, you’ll never forget it – that night (for it certainly was at night) when you discovered the classic movie monsters.

Who was first?

Dracula?

Frankenstein?

It doesn’t matter. The impact was the same. And whether you went on to be a lifelong fan of the genre or just a Lugosi devotee, there will forever be a place in your heart for that first time.

It’s a lot like love, only with more running and screaming.

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Goth Chick News: Elijah Wood Gets Too Freaky for New Zealand

Goth Chick News: Elijah Wood Gets Too Freaky for New Zealand

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Maniac poster-smallAnyone who saw Sin City knows that Elijah Wood can be one creepy dude.

Forget the lovable, hairy-footed Fodo Baggins. As easily as Woods can tear up and give good old Sam Gamgee a hug, he can drop into the role of a glassy-eyed, sociopathic killer with disturbing believability.

Believe me. Because apparently, Wood has his craft so finely tuned that he has managed to skeeve out an entire country.

In a decision revealed Wednesday, New Zealand’s Office of Film and Literature Classification (OFLC) banned Franck Khalfoun’s film Maniac starring Elijah Wood from general screening in New Zealand, saying it can’t be shown outside of film festivals.

The ruling also means the movie can’t be distributed on DVD at a later date.

A remake of William Lustig’s grindhouse cult classic from 1980, Maniac opened in the U.S. last month courtesy of IFC Midnight and had its world premiere at Cannes in 2012.

It was due to screen next at the New Zealand International Film Festival, running July 26th through August 11th.

Explaining the ruling, a representative for the New Zealand fest said that the OFLC informed them that:

The POV (“point of view”) nature of the film mixed with the psychopathic behavior of actor Elijah Wood is more than disturbing, that it’s potentially dangerous in the hands of the wrong person — that is, a non-festival-goer.

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Goth Chick News: Frankenstein’s Army, Or If Nazis and Hellraiser Had Kids

Goth Chick News: Frankenstein’s Army, Or If Nazis and Hellraiser Had Kids

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image001Okay, I admit it.

Much like the kid who gets the giggles reading the “dirty” words someone highlighted in the classroom Webster (and yes, I admit doing that as well), me and my sophomoric inclinations are a sucker for anything deemed inappropriate.

I would normally conduct a dramatic eye-roll if I received an email about an upcoming film called Frankenstein’s Army. The actual email that landed in my in-box, however, was accompanied by the somewhat taboo but ultimately irresistible “Red Band” trailer.

If you’re not familiar with the MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America) classifications, movie trailers are generally tailored for “All Audiences,” even if the movie itself is rated “R.” Such trailers state as much with the wording housed in a green “band” across the screen.

A “Red Band” trailer is definitely not for all audiences, and generally contains something naughty. Sadly, red band trailers often signal that shock value will be replacing story/production/acting values… although there are rare exceptions.

But unable to resist the red band, I opened it – oh yes I did.

And I watched the trailer for Frankenstein’s Army.

And I understood why it received a “red band” designation.

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Goth Chick News: Stoker’s Manuscript by Royce Prouty

Goth Chick News: Stoker’s Manuscript by Royce Prouty

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image002Tell me a good story and I’ll follow you anywhere.

This is what I mean at least, when I say “willing suspension of disbelief.” It doesn’t imply your narrative has to be perfect, with every “T” crossed and every “I” dotted. Instead it implies that close is good enough, if you tell me a tale sufficiently riveting to distract me from the details you might have missed.

Case in point: World War Z the movie.

I recently read a review that outlined three major flaws in the plot; specifically, things the audience would need to get over in order to enjoy the movie. Having read the book, I was prepared to not get over any of it, and suffer through the potential cinematic bastardization just so I could tell you not to.

Instead, twenty minutes in I was utterly willing to forget why anyone would be the least bit interested in Gerry’s (Brad Pitt) survival considering he was neither a scientist nor a doctor, and was at best a disenfranchised United Nations worker of some kind. I just let it all go while watching a horde of manic zombies crawl over each other by the thousands to scale an insanely high wall and eat the inhabitants of Jerusalem.

Just tell me a good story and I’m right there with you…

And that is why I feel particularly abused when a good story stretches my disbelief to the breaking point, utterly diverting me from the tale and making it impossible for me not to say, “Huh…?”

Which brings us (finally) to Royce Prouty’s freshman outing, Stoker’s Manuscript.

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Goth Chick News: They’re Heeeerrrreee… Again

Goth Chick News: They’re Heeeerrrreee… Again

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image002At the end of June, MGM and Twentieth Century Fox announced they will co-finance and distribute a remake of the 1982 horror classic, Poltergeist, causing fans all over the globe to let out a howl of collective agony.

Any movie that can send practically an entire generation into therapy over a stuffed clown and television static should be left entirely alone.

Seriously.

But of course Hollywood cannot seem to keep its hands to itself.

Gil Kenan (Monster House) is set to direct from a screenplay by writer David Lindsay-Abaire (Oz: The Great and Powerful) and the film is being produced by Sam Raimi (Evil Dead) and Rob Tapert (The Posession) via Ghost House Pictures.

Okay, the credentials had made us feel only slightly better before the synopsis sent us right back into a tailspin.

A family man called Eric Bowen (rather than Steve Freeling – GC) moves his wife and kids to a new town in the hopes of a fresh start, a plan which goes horribly wrong when his daughter, Madeleine, is abducted by evil forces.

Wow… original.

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Goth Chick News: New Music from Our Orchestral Crushes

Goth Chick News: New Music from Our Orchestral Crushes

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image001Did you really think a Goth Chick would have a thing for One Direction or NKOTB? Okay, forget I even know who they are in the first place; there are some things you just cannot escape when you spend all your free time studying pop culture.

Nope, instead it is imperative that as purveyors of the dark and disturbing we crush on the equally dark and disturbing musicians who write and play tunes that worry people older than us and align with our own personal, parent-scaring idioms.

Which is precisely why I am Midnight Syndicate’s devoted Chicago-area groupie.

Whether they like it or not.

For almost two decades, composers Edward Douglas and Gavin Goszka have been known as Midnight Syndicate, creating symphonic soundtracks for the secret dimensions of our minds’ eye (cue lightning and thunder clap).

To many of their fans, they are Gothic music pioneers, brewing a signature blend of orchestral horror music and movie-style sound effects. To others, they remain the first “haunted house band” that forever changed the Halloween music genre and became a staple of the October holiday season.

And still others know them as the duo that teamed up with Hasbro and Wizards of the Coast to produce the first official soundtrack to the legendary Dungeons & Dragons roleplaying game, or the lucky devils who created the ear candy for Hugh Hefner’s Playboy mansion Halloween bashes.

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Goth Chick News: Zombies and the Lost Art of Radio Drama

Goth Chick News: Zombies and the Lost Art of Radio Drama

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image002Welcome ladies and gentlemen. Before we begin, I should warn you that some of you may find what you are about to hear rather… disturbing.

(Evil laugh and blood-curling scream).

Before TV and way before DVD’s and the Roku, home entertainment consisted of the family radio and more specifically the radio drama. As purely acoustic performances with no visual component, radio dramas depended on dialogue, music, sound effects and talented actors to help the listener imagine the characters and story, making radio drama the perfect mind theater to play host to some extremely effective tales of terror.

Inner Sanctum, Quiet Please, Suspense and The Shadow have become neo-classics with a cult following. But sadly, radio dramas in the US have become very difficult to find in the modern day, though they still enjoy mainstream popularity in the UK and Germany.

That is until KC Wayland and Shane Salk decided what the world really needed was a revival of the radio drama, or rather radio horror, and what better subject to explore than a zombie apocalypse?

These days, of course, no radio is required.

Point the web accessible device of your choice to www.zombiepodcast.com and discover what over a million of us other zombiephiles already know; We’re Alive is a contemporary radio drama about a zombie outbreak in Los Angeles and the band of survivors that are struggling to stay alive day to day.

And it is awesome.

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