Black Gate

I only remember two things about the 1998 remake of the pop culture film Godzilla (and that’s saying quite a lot since most people don’t remember it at all).

The first is that it starred Ferris Bueller, I mean Matthew Broderick, in a role that was in no danger of making us forget his previous day off.

Second, I remember thinking how nice it was for Tri-Star Pictures to put the lizard effects guys from Jurassic Park back to work. Their unemployment benefits had very nearly run out since The Lost World wrapped in 1997.

Godzilla movies and their collective cheesiness have always been fun in an Ed Wood sort of way, but the 1998 version was cringe-worthy on a whole different scale: which is why I have always fantasized about ambushing Sarah Jessica Parker at a red carpet event to ask her how it feels to be married to the star of a cinematic pile of lizard poop.

And though such a statement might cause Ms. Parker to fall right off her $1200 pumps, it is clearly no such deterrent to the rest of Hollywood who apparently has never met a remake they didn’t like.

Get Industrial Light and Magic on the phone and let’s hope they haven’t chucked those velociraptor puppets…

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At a recent family function my 11-year-old nephew pulled me aside to say, “A friend of mine at school saw the Tall Man.”

Now it’s common knowledge among all the kids in the family, as well as their friends, that Aunt Goth Chick is conversant with all topics of the otherworldly variety. When they were all a bit younger I had a fabulous time not dispelling the notion that I was a substitute professor at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

As they got a bit older my role was to correct misconceptions about whether or not vampires were really afraid of crosses, or whether wolfmen actually turned all the way into wolves at the full moon.

But now, in that misty gray, pre-teen area between believers and skeptics, the local chapter of the Goth Chick Fan Club – Junior League needs to be handled carefully; take them too seriously and I could easily be sidelined as covertly making fun of them, not taking them seriously enough could result in the same.

And frankly, I enjoy my minor celebrity status as much as I enjoy being reminded of a time in everyone’s life when magic and mystery were still very possible and very real.

So even though I had never heard of the Tall Man, the seriousness in the little guy’s face told me it was something important and a topic that I, of all people, should be versed in. Luckily the arrival of dessert saved me from needing to make an in depth response and bought me the time to do a little homework.

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Apparently The Woman in Black truly is a supernatural, immortal being.

When we first told you about it, the seriously creepy novel by Susan Hill was a long-running play in London’s West End, a made-for-TV movie in the UK, and barely a rumor from Hammer Films about a theatrical remake starring Daniel Radcliffe (Harry Potter); which turned out to be true after all.

Thankfully that bit about it potentially being shot in 3D never materialized…

At least not yet.

Hammer Films, which grossed $112 million globally on a $17 million investment has already made the no-brainer announcement that it’s moving forward with a sequel and perhaps more.

The Woman in Black: Angels of Death is currently in development with Jon Crocker once again writing the script based on a story by Susan Hill.

But don’t look for this one at your local bookseller, at least until after the movie is released sometime in 2014. Ms. Hill got busy on the follow up at the behest of Hammer Films.

The first film saw Radcliffe as lawyer Arthur Kipps who travels to Eel Marsh House on an assignment, only to discover the house belonging to his client is haunted by the ghost of a woman who is determined to find someone and something she lost.

The Woman in Black: Angels of Death will take place during World War II, forty years after the events in the original. Daniel Radcliffe will likely not be involved though there have been some recent rumblings that a cameo isn’t out of the question for continuity reasons.

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