David Cronenberg

I, like practically everyone on the planet, have my vices. Aside from my deeply unsettling addiction to Italian post-apocalyptic cinema, my biggest vice would have to be the purchasing of DVDs and VHS tapes en mass. "But Brian/' you say, "everybody buys movies!" Silence lemmings! The difference is that I tend to buy movies I haven't seen based on the smallest of positive word-of-mouth. So I have quite a few titles languishing on my shelf that not only have not yet been viewed, but in many cases are still confined to their shrink-wrapped gulags. In an effort to be proactive, and quell my wife's urge to kill me, I will not buy another DVD or VHS until I watch every unviewed film I currently own.

Today's fare: Demon Seed

Back on December 14th, the LA Times published a story stating that filmmaker Breck Eisner had signed on to direct a remake of David Cronenberg's 1979 cult classic, The Brood. There was much hemming and hawing once this news broke, because Cronenberg is a genre icon and like Dario Argento, remaking his films seems pointless because it's the director who made the titles so uniquely compelling in the first place.

As it turns out, the reports of Eisner signing to direct the remake appear to have been premature. The director is currently doing press junkets for his re-imagining of George Romero's The Crazies-and when he sat down with SyFy he had this to say about his involvement with The Brood.

"I'm not signed on [The Brood], no. I was approached about the movie, and I'm just in discussions about it."

Eisner then added that while he's not officially attached, he's still very interested in the project. "I like the writer, Cory Goodman's, script," he says. "I'm a big fan of the original. I still have yet to decide if it's something I really want to be doing. Is it a movie for me? I'm still kind of soul-searching on that one."

The director is starting to cultivate a reputation as a horror remake filmmaker. Aside from this project and his completed updating of The Crazies, Eisner was also involved in the development of a remake of The Creature From the Black Lagoon. He's no longer attached to that film.

Get your first look at some of Eisner's work on February 26th when The Crazies infects theaters across the country.

We're about a month away from a one-night-only screening of Clive Barker's Nightbreed, uncut. The film will be shown at HorrorHound Weekend in Indianapolis, which takes place March 26-28. I have never wanted to live closer to Indianapolis before in my life, but jealousy abounds as I write to you from my desk on the East Coast, broke as a mofo.

The story of Nightbreed is a long and sad one but here's the gist. Basically, the studio screwed Barker by forcing him to release an edited version of his original cut. Poor marketing and what seems like a general lack of interest on the studio's part made the film fade away. Fans supported the film, however, and it was elevated to something of a cult flick. Hardcore Barker freaks speculated about the lost film footage since the film's release and recently Barker's friend, Mark Miller, learned that the footage did still exist and was sitting a vault the whole time. When Miller approached studio execs about the find, he was told that the film didn't warrant the money needed to produce an extended cut. Fans signed petitions on Barker's website and continue to build a case for the film's DVD release, which you can help out with here.

For years, people talked about 25 minutes worth of scenes excised from the final version, but it was revealed that a 145 minute version of the film's mid-1989 workprint exists. Barker's website posted this:

With Breck Eisner's remake of George Romero's cult film The Crazies set to debut in February, many folks have started to wonder what the guy would direct next. The filmmaker was attached to direct a remake of the 1950's classic The Creature from the Black Lagoon, but that fell through earlier this year.

With that project off the docket, the LA Times' Hero Complex blog is reporting he'll be tackling a different remake for his next cinematic outing--an updating of David Cronenberg's The Brood. Cronenberg's version debuted in 1979 and featured Art Hindle, Samantha Eggar, and Oliver Reed in a tale of cult-like psychology, murderous mutant children, and the usual Cronenbergian themes of body modification.

Truthfully, remaking The Brood is a terrible idea. Cronenberg's films are all uniquely his own. The recurring themes in his work aren't something that someone else can just walk in and replicate. This is particularly true of The Brood, which is one of the filmmaker's most personal works. The dissolution of family on display in this particular movie mirrors Cronenberg's own acrimonious divorce. Somehow, I'd imagine that's going to be lost in a remake.

The announced Videdrome remake had people (rightfully) up in arms--yet news of Hollywood tinkering with something as unique as The Brood is even more troubling. Maybe Eisner can pull it off--I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt until we see the finished product.

(Old-school reprint from Cinematical. Happy Halloween!)


Wow, this is going to be hard for two reasons. On one hand I'll find it tough to rank my very favorite Stephen King movies because the ones I love ... I really love. On the other hand there's been a whole LOT of rotten King flicks churned out over the years -- and I actually like some of those, too! But as a lifelong King kook I think I'm able to separate the wheat from the chaff -- even if, yes it's true, I actually sort of enjoyed Tobe Hooper's The Mangler. (It's just so enjoyably stupid!) So with that I bring you my own personal picks for the best Stephen King adaptations yet (not counting TV shows, mini-series or short films).

Christine (1983) -- Yes, the book is better and sure, a few important things were monkeyed with on the way from page to screen, but there's so much I do like about John Carpenter's adaptation that it makes the speed bumps a lot easier to handle. From the filmmaker's creepy score to an excellent lead performance by Keith Gordon, the flick's just got an admirably bad-ass attitude. Stripped down to its essence, Christine is not much more than another "geek fights back" revenge-centric horror flick, but Carpenter makes the movie his own with a solid production design, a few excellent set pieces and a pace that moves at an appreciable clip. Plus that car is just so damn cool.

Pet Sematary (1989) -- Just about every hardcore horror geek I know holds Pet Sematary in pretty high regard, and just one visit with this bleak and unflinching piece of pulp horror will explain why. It's a remarkably grim and unapologetic tale of dead cats, cute kids and a patch of land that, well, it resurrects dead tissue is what it does. And if you've read even one "back from the dead" story, then you know they never end well. (Pet Sematary, both the book and the movie, packs one doozy of a dark denouement.) OK, so maybe Dale Midkiff and Denise Crosby aren't exactly the rock-solid thespians you'd want for a screenplay this devilishly mean-spirited, but the pair do what they can, plus they've got good ol' Fred Gwynne supplying background color by the bucketful. (And don't forget about poor sickly Zelda! Yuck.)

Carrie (1976) -- The very first (and arguably one of the very best) of the Stephen King movies, Carrie hit the screens courtesy of a young Brian De Palma, and the director pulled out a big bag of Hitchcockian tricks to bring the story to the silver screen. It's about a socially bankrupt young girl who tries to cobble together a normal social life ... much to the chagrin of some snotty she-bullies and a resoundingly devout lunatic of a mother. Some might say the flick takes a long while to get where it's going, but between the prom night finale and the graveside stinger, Carrie more than delivers its share of grisly goods. Sissy Spacek and Piper Laurie make it watchable all by themselves, but De Palma is the real star here. (OK, De Palma and a young, evil John Travolta.)

Yes, The Fly is getting remade again. No, it's not necessary. Yes, I have never been more interested in a remake in my life. Why? Because David Cronenberg is the best director still walking this Earth and making movies. The Fly is the second best horror film of all time. These are facts. They are not malleable, they are carved in unobtanium and frozen in carbonite.

Okay, so maybe that's a little bit of hyperbole, but it goes to show just how highly I regard the filmmaker and that particular film. So if he wants to return to a film he made in 1986 in 2009 and remake it, I say bring it on. It could be a Michael Haneke'esque shot-for-shot remake of the original Jeff Goldblum, Gena Davis awesomeness, and I'd be okay with it. Because it's David Freaking Cronenberg and The Freaking Fly reunited once again (in something that isn't a stage musical).

Now the bad news is that David Cronenberg will be working with 20th Century Fox on the picture. Things have changed just a tad in the 23 years since Cronenberg first brought The Fly to the studio. Fox has garnered a reputation in the last few years of being particularly restrictive of directorial vision (both Matthew Vaughn walking off of X-Men 3 and all of the overrides Alex Proyas received during the production of I, Robot comes to mind), so the only thing that could possibly make me lose interest in the project would be if Cronenberg gets shoved aside in order to serve some higher studio agenda.

April 07 reprint!

Wow, this is going to be hard for two reasons. On one hand I'll find it tough to rank my very favorite Stephen King movies because the ones I love ... I really love. On the other hand there's been a whole LOT of rotten King flicks churned out over the years -- and I actually like some of those, too! But as a lifelong King kook I think I'm able to separate the wheat from the chaff -- even if, yes it's true, I actually sort of enjoyed Tobe Hooper's The Mangler. (It's just so enjoyably stupid!) So with that I bring you my own personal picks for the best Stephen King adaptations yet (not counting TV shows, mini-series or short films).

Christine (1983) -- Yes, the book is better and sure, a few important things were monkeyed with on the way from page to screen, but there's so much I do like about John Carpenter's adaptation that it makes the speed bumps a lot easier to handle. From the filmmaker's creepy score to an excellent lead performance by Keith Gordon, the flick's just got an admirably bad-ass attitude. Stripped down to its essence, Christine is not much more than another "geek fights back" revenge-centric horror flick, but Carpenter makes the movie his own with a solid production design, a few excellent set pieces and a pace that moves at an appreciable clip. Plus that car is just so damn cool.

Pet Sematary (1989) -- Just about every hardcore horror geek I know holds Pet Sematary in pretty high regard, and just one visit with this bleak and unflinching piece of pulp horror will explain why. It's a remarkably grim and unapologetic tale of dead cats, cute kids and a patch of land that, well, it resurrects dead tissue is what it does. And if you've read even one "back from the dead" story, then you know they never end well. (Pet Sematary, both the book and the movie, packs one doozy of a dark denouement.) OK, so maybe Dale Midkiff and Denise Crosby aren't exactly the rock-solid thespians you'd want for a screenplay this devilishly mean-spirited, but the pair do what they can, plus they've got good ol' Fred Gwynne supplying background color by the bucketful. (And don't forget about poor sickly Zelda! Yuck.)

Carrie (1976) -- The very first (and arguably one of the very best) of the Stephen King movies, Carrie hit the screens courtesy of a young Brian De Palma, and the director pulled out a big bag of Hitchcockian tricks to bring the story to the silver screen. It's about a socially bankrupt young girl who tries to cobble together a normal social life ... much to the chagrin of some snotty she-bullies and a resoundingly devout lunatic of a mother. Some might say the flick takes a long while to get where it's going, but between the prom night finale and the graveside stinger, Carrie more than delivers its share of grisly goods. Sissy Spacek and Piper Laurie make it watchable all by themselves, but De Palma is the real star here. (OK, De Palma and a young, evil John Travolta.)