Equinox and the Odd Story Behind a Fan-Made, Theatrically-Released Horror Film

If you follow the film industry as much as I do, then you'll know how often directors clash with studio executives when determining the final cuts of big-budget films. Such conflicts between the artists who create the art and the people who fund the art and mistakenly think that they are artists too have resulted in a long, long list of expensive failures. (Alien 3 (1992) and The Invasion (2007) immediately comes to mind.) Of course, it continues to happen--so much so with Hollywood productions that it's almost inevitable at this point--but how would you feel if the same thing happened with the theatrical release of a low-budget, fan-made film?

Such was the case with Equinox. It began as an amateur horror fan film made in 1967 (its original title: The Equinox: Journey into the Supernatural), and then it was re-edited, partially re-shot and distributed theatrically by Tonylyn Productions in 1970. For a long time, the Tonylyn version of Equinox was the only version that was available to the public; when Criterion released their two-disc set of Equinox back in 2006, they included both the original 1967 cut with the theatrical cut on the same disc (both with commentaries) for direct comparison. While neither cut are examples of horror filmmaking at its finest, the differences between the original edit and theatrical edit are astonishing and reflect how much the fans got right--fans who meticulously studied the craftsmanship that went into their favorite movies--and how much the so-called professionals got wrong.

Read on for my complete comparison of the two versions of Equinox, and how no movie is too small for creative differences between creators and producers.

In both edits, Equinox is about a group of college students who travel to the cabin owned by college professor, Dr. Arthur Waterman (Fritz Leiber Jr.), to check up on him because of his recent absence from their campus. They arrive to find that the cabin has been torn apart and Waterman is missing. Their search for the professor leads them to a mysterious text called the Book of the Damned that is filled with ancient inscriptions and spells intended to open a portal to a demonic parallel world--a portal that Waterman has already opened....

What Equinox is widely known for is that it features the early work of three special effects artists who would later work on some of the most popular films of the 70s, 80s, and 90s. These artists were Dennis Muren (Star Wars, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, E.T., Terminator 2, Jurassic Park, A.I., War of the Worlds), Dave Allen (The Howling, Willow, Ghostbusters II, Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, The Arrival) and Jim Danforth (Clash of the Titans, Creepshow, The Thing, The Neverending Story, Day of the Dead, Prince of Darkness). Muren produced the film for only $6500 and he co-directed the original cut of Equinox with Mark Thomas McGee, who also wrote the film's script. Muren and Allen worked on the stop motion effects, while Danforth provided the cel animation and matte paintings.

A forced perspective shot from Equinox.

Essentially, Equinox is a demo reel for the early effects work of Muren, Allen and Danforth; that the demo reel also happens to have an intriguing and creative story--albeit a poorly acted, poorly scripted and somewhat disjointed story--is simply a bonus. Considering that the film was shot on a tiny budget with amateur talents, the end results are very impressive.

Many aspects of Equinox echo the influence that the horror and sci-fi fan culture of the early-to-mid 20th century had on budding young filmmakers; depending on how you look at it, Equinox is a love letter of sorts to the creature features of that era. Muren and Allen were devoted fans of pioneering stop motion animators Willis O'Brien and Ray Harryhausen, and several of the effects scenes in Equinox are clearly influenced by O'Brien and Harryhausen movies such as Mighty Joe Young and It Came from Beneath the Sea.

Forrest J. Ackerman makes an uncredited cameo in Equinox by lending his voice to an audio recording that plays early in the film (he also provided a video introduction for the Criterion Equinox set). Ackerman's contributions to the horror and science fiction genres were numerous, and his biggest legacy to the fans of those genres was a magazine he published called Famous Monsters of Filmland. Famous Monsters differed from other entertainment magazines of its time by focusing on the artistry that's performed behind the scenes, such as special effects and creature costume designs. Muren and his production crew must've been devoted acolytes of Ackerman's magazine and the movies it covered, because their love of classic creature features and the techniques that brought them to cinematic life is on display in each frame of their original cut of Equinox. Such open affection provides a sort of charm that offsets some of the amateur film's more uneven aspects.

The theatrical release poster for Equinox.

Dennis Muren and Mark Thomas McGee 

were not credited on this poster.

The theatrical version of Equinox saw the addition of new footage, footage that was produced by Jack H. Harris and written and directed by Jack Woods. Some of the new footage consisted of re-shoots of what was in the first version, while the other new footage added new scenes, new characters and new dialogue. Unfortunately, the new additions to the story add nothing of value to the film; if anything, Equinox becomes even worse because of it. The dialogue is more wooden and is loaded with redundant exposition, the new subplots weigh down the film's pacing, and some of the original effects footage was cut to accommodate the new footage (!). Adding insult to injury, the theatrical version of the film begins and ends the same way as the original version--which emphasizes exactly how useless the new footage is.

All I can figure is that Woods thought that Equinox would be his big break as a writer and director (hint: it wasn't), so he tried to put as much of his stamp on it as possible. It should also be noted here that the theatrical version of Equinox lists Woods as director and co-writer, while Muren's credit went from being the co-director and producer to just associate producer. Woods even put himself in front of the camera as a new character named Asmodeus, a demon who assumes the guise of a park ranger and exerts his sinister influence over young ladies by making funny faces at them before feeling them up (no, I'm not kidding). Considering that Harris made a name for himself by producing The Blob in 1958 for only $120,000, it's a shame that he was willing to let Woods run roughshod over the work that was so passionately and cost-effectively made by Muren and his crew.

Asmodeus (Jack Woods), as he grimaces, puckers, clenches 

and frowns his way into the soul of an innocent victim.

Equinox has long been rumored to have greatly influenced yet another low-budget cult classic, Sam Raimi's The Evil Dead. To be sure, the films are very different from each other, and the Evil Dead films (particularly Evil Dead 2) are much darker, scarier and better plotted than Equinox. However, the Evil Dead movies feature so many of the same details as Equinox--the cabin in the woods, the prominent role of a tape recorder, an ancient book of dark incantations that summons demonic creatures and opens portals to other worlds, a necklace that is key to warding off evil, a group of teenagers being attacked by monsters that appear and disappear, and so on--that it's hard to deny the connection. Click here to see a visual comparison between Equinox and the Evil Dead movies on The Lucid Nightmare site.


The way I see it, Equinox and The Evil Dead are low-budget bookends of sorts to the changes that horror cinema went through during the 70s. Equinox reflects the heavy influence of O'Brien, Harryhausen and Ackerman on one generation of horror film fans, whereas The Evil Dead reflects the heavy influence of George Romero, Tobe Hooper and Wes Craven on a later generation of horror film fans.

Because Equinox at its best is a cheap fan-made film, your interest in seeing it will greatly depend on how much you would like to see this kind of film from another time in film history. In other words, you don't watch Equinox to see a classic horror film; instead, you watch it to see an example of how fans from a particular era applied what they learned about the crafts practiced by their movie idols to a film they financed and produced on their own, and how that film was later changed for the worse by someone else for theatrical release.

I've seen plenty of movies that were released on DVD and Blu-ray as both a theatrical cut and a director's cut, but this is the first and only time I've seen this situation occur with a fan film. For that reason alone, I highly recommend Criterion's release of Equinox for anyone who is interested in horror and sci-fi fan culture. You should also try to see Criterion's Equinox if you believe that modern CGI-based special effects lack the creativity and finesse of older special effects techniques such as matte paintings, forced perspective and stop motion animation. Click here to read Glenn Erickson's review at DVD Talk of both discs that are in Criterion's set; however, if you are interested in seeing both versions of Equinox but have no interested in buying it, the first disc of the Criterion release is available for rental through Netflix.

In 1985, Equinox was distributed on VHS by 

Wizard Video under the title The Beast.

2012: The Year of the Ultimate Bruce Shark Collector’s Set

When it comes to scale-accurate Jaws replicas, you can't go wrong with Shark City Ozark. I've previously posted about their Jaws-related work here and here, and 2012 marks their most ambitious Jaws project yet: The Ultimate Bruce Shark Collector’s Set, which will consist of four 1/12 scale maquettes that are modeled after the mechanical sharks used in each of the four Jaws movies. Each maquette will be released quarterly, with the first one based on the original mechanical shark used in Jaws.

You're gonna need a bigger display case.

The first maquette measures 25 inches in length and it includes the following:

• Removable pectoral fins to match behind the scenes photos, as well as accurate fin gaps.
• Modeling based on the new and untested platform sharks, before they sustained damages during the location filming of Jaws at Martha's Vineyard.
• A free hand-crafted stand and a Certificate of Authenticity.

You can place your pre-order for the first maquette here, which will begin shipping before the end of March. Keep checking back at the Shark City Ozark site throughout this year for the upcoming releases of the maquettes for Jaws 2, Jaws 3D and Jaws: The Revenge.

Trailer Thursday: Batman - Death Wish

Cool looking fan film:

The Great Book of Movie Monsters Retrospective

Looking back, I grew up during an interesting time in the history of horror movies. I was in elementary school in the years that immediately preceded the rise of the home video industry, so that left most of us fledgling horror fans with syndicated television, magazines and books to satiate our horror needs in between horror film releases on the big screen. When it came to books, Crestwood House published a series about classic horror monsters and movies that were picked up by school libraries all over the country. These books familiarized monster kids with the best that classic horror films had to offer--which was fantastic, considering that we couldn’t always see these movies ourselves. (Read my post about Crestwood House's movie monster books here.)

In addition to reading Crestwood House books, I was also fortunate enough to pick up a fantastic horror movie reference book at my local bookstore in 1983: The Great Book of Movie Monsters, by Jan Stacy and Ryder Syvertsen. I don’t remember the exact circumstances that led me to purchase this book--or what convinced my parents to let me purchase this book--but to this day I’m glad I have it as part of my personal collection. While it has its share of errors and quirks, The Great Book of Movie Monsters is still one-of-a-kind in many ways and an absolute treat for horror fans of both popular and obscure horror titles. Read on for my complete retrospective, including pictures from the book that provide examples of its unique design.

Stacy and Syvertsen’s book is a reference book, so it is not meant to be read from beginning to end. Unlike other movie reference books, none of the movies are rated according to their quality; instead, the book’s gimmick is to provide individual profiles of the many monsters that have appeared on the silver screen, from the silent era to the early 80s. The profiles provide basic plot summaries of the movies in which each monster appeared and statistical data about each monster such as method of creation, size and weight, gender, superpowers, habits, and so forth. It is in these profiles that the book assumes a somewhat humorous tone: for example, a monster’s high number of victims is listed under “Accomplishments”, and other movie monsters that are similar to the one you are reading are listed as “Relatives”. Each profile also lists “What to Do If You Meet”, offering jokey solutions as to what you can do to stay alive when having a close encounter with the profiled monster.

At its worst, the humor in book’s profiles is somewhat uneven, particularly when Stacy and Syvertsen profile monsters in such grim and gruesome films as And Now the Screaming Starts, The Brood and I Drink Your Blood. Their humor works best when they apply it to notoriously hokey B movies such as Beach Girls and the Monsters and Invasion of the Saucer Men, which calls into question why they chose to include more serious horror movies as part of their book’s goofy approach. Then again, their selection of movies to profile--and not profile--can be baffling to understand at times. For example, many of Hammer Film Productions’ creature features are listed, but The Abominable Snowman and The Gorgon are conspicuously absent. Likewise, early slasher films such as Psycho and Halloween get profiles for their respective killers, but none are provided for Texas Chainsaw Massacre or Black Christmas.

None of the drawbacks in The Great Book of Movie Monsters detract from how well it works as a reference book for horror movies. The book features four indexes, which allow you to look for profiles according to monster, movie title, director, and studio. Each profile contains a picture of the monster and enough tantalizing details to convince you to seek the movie(s) that feature the monster. Best of all, many, many cult classics and obscure titles are included along with the classic movie monsters. This book introduced me to unique films such as Burn, Witch, Burn!, Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark, Equinox, The Mutations, and even a really strange, largely forgotten flick from 1953 called The Twonky. I haven’t seen any another horror movie book provide as much loving attention as The Great Book of Movie Monsters does to so many lesser-known titles. Its comprehensive scope alone convinced me that it was a labor of love for Stacy and Syvertsen to produce, and that they probably grew up glued to the TV set whenever their local TV stations ran a classic horror film from Universal’s Shock Theater library. (Click here to read my review of Jim Clatterbaugh's book, Shock Theater: An Illustrated History.)

The Great Book of Movie Monsters is a great addition to any horror fan’s collection, particularly for those who are interested in fan-friendly horror movie books from the 80s. It would also make for a great companion text to John Landis’ recent book, Monsters in the Movies. Below are a few pages from the book, which you can click to enlarge.

Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark and The Gate: Tiny Terrors Times Two

Way back in August 2010, I posted some thoughts about Guillermo del Toro’s then-unreleased remake of Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark, a TV movie from 1973 that’s become a cult classic among horror fans. I had an open mind about what the end product would be like based on del Toro’s previous work, although I had some reservations based on de Toro’s decisions to make the movie a “dark fairy tale” and changing the main character from an adult woman named Sally (Kim Darby) who is in a failing marriage to a little girl named Sally (Bailee Madison) who is visiting her divorced father and his new girlfriend. Unfortunately, my misgivings were right: I just saw del Toro’s remake, which he co-wrote and produced, and his changes to the original story only hindered its overall effectiveness as a horror movie. Even Troy Nixey’s capable direction couldn’t turn this remake into something that improves upon its low-budget predecessor.

Yet as I was thinking about how I’d review the Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark remake, I found myself remembering about another movie that pit kids against pint-sized monsters: The Gate, a film from 1986 that was directed by Tibor Takács. The Gate certified its place in movie trivia by outperforming Ishtar, one of the most notorious big-budget flops in American movie history, but it’s also a great example of how to tell a dark fairy tale that’s worth watching. Read on for my comparison, with some minor spoilers.

To be sure, the original version of Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark isn’t one of the best horror films ever made. What made it memorable, though, is that it was made by talented people who understood the significant limitations with which they were faced--especially in terms of a meager production budget and the TV movie format--and successfully applied their skills within those limits. In doing so, the movie not only kept the appearance of the monsters to a minimum, but it also kept the details behind the monsters’ origin as vague as possible.

On the basis of what you see in the movie, you can piece together that the monsters were probably summoned from another hell-like dimension through some kind of dark magic and then couldn’t (or wouldn't) be sent away, although none of the characters say as much. You hear the monsters much more than you see them, and what they say amongst themselves indicate just how sadistic and obsessive they really are. By keeping the monsters vague--their origins, their capabilities, and their intentions--the movie maintains eerie mood of tense uncertainty. Adding to the tension is how the presence of the monsters accentuates the growing rift between Sally and her husband Alex (Jim Hutton), all the way to the film’s grim, creepy conclusion.

By changing the nature of the monsters and the age of the main character, del Toro winds up putting more limitations on his remake than the mandatory ones faced by his predecessors. In the remake, it is explained that the monsters are some kind of creatures from ancient folklore who may have some connection to the Tooth Fairy legend, but that explanation sets up many inconsistencies within the narrative that are more frustrating than scary. For example, these creatures are said to crave children’s teeth every hundred years, but the end of the movie suggests that they’re just as content to go another hundred years without any children’s teeth at all (?). While I can imagine del Toro thinking that strained relationship between the child Sally and her divorced father would have the same dramatic effect as the original’s adult Sally and her career-driven husband, that plot thread quickly diminishes into the cliché of parental characters who refuse to believe their children when they see ghosts, monsters, and other improbable frights.

To accommodate del Toro’s changes yet still justify keeping both the title Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark and its PG-13 rating, the remake restrains itself frequently so that it doesn’t become as horrifying and vicious as it could be. In doing so, the characters--both human and inhuman--become dumber than their TV movie counterparts. The monsters appear to be as adept with tools as they were in the original, but they also announce their presence to Sally many times, they attack her in ways that don’t really hurt her, and they ignore the tactic of stealth enough so that even the clueless adults realize what’s happening by the film’s climax. Then again, adults aren’t that much smarter: Even after they accept the danger that Sally is facing, they still are willing to leave her alone in her room. Finally, I don’t care how bad the divorce of Sally’s parents was, she still shouldn’t be talking to strangers--especially strangers who are locked behind a tiny metal door in the basement of a long deserted mansion.

It should be noted that in an interview with Cineaste magazine about Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark, del Toro stated, “I love the Welsh author Arthur Machen and his idea that fairy lore comes from a dark place, that it’s derived from little, pre-human creatures who are really, really nasty vermin but are magical in a way, living as they do for hundreds of years. His books are what compelled me to do this.” (Machen is even mentioned by name in one scene of the remake.) With such intentions in mind, I can only wonder: Why doesn’t del Toro make a completely new movie based on the works of Machen, instead of trying to insert a Machen-inspired story thread into a remake of a TV movie that gained its cult classic status without such a thread in the first place?

In contrast to del Toro’s remake is The Gate. The Gate is about a young boy named Glen (Stephen Dorff) who notices that the hole left behind by the tree that was removed from his backyard is starting to exhibit unusual features. While his parents are away and his is left in the care of his sister Al (Christa Denton), Glen and his friend Terry (Louis Tripp) discover that the hole is actually a gateway to a nightmarish dimension populated by Lovecraftian horrors that are determined to take back the world, and the gate is slowly opening....

Like Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark, The Gate is rated PG-13; unlike Dark, director Takács and his crew had a better understanding of how to tell a spooky, kid-centric story than del Toro and Nixey. In particular, The Gate is told from the perspective of its three adolescent leads, and the few of adult characters that are in the movie only appear for a few minutes. By approaching its horrors from a more innocent, wide-eyed perspective, the movie lets the vivid imaginations of its adolescent protagonists--not the overuse of expensive special effects--set the tone of unease. This works better in establishing a dark fairy tale setting, as opposed to literally placing monstrous folklore characters into a story that's largely populated by adults. Then again, The Gate uses its own kind of folklore: in particular, the 80s era belief of some that heavy metal music is a deliberate recruiting tool for Satan worship. The movie's running gag is how Glen and Terry regularly consult the liner notes from a Canadian heavy metal album for information about demons, magical incantations, and inter-dimensional portals. (Blame Canada, indeed!)

The Gate’s loose and relaxed rules about the monsters that emerge from the hole in Glen’s backyard appropriately match the story’s setting and characters. There seems to be no limit to what can emerge out of the hole: a rotting zombie, shape-shifters, forces of levitation, telephone-melting possessions, and even a gigantic, multi-limbed demon all come out of the hole. (In that aspect, this movie feels like what one of Lucio Fulci’s “Gates of Hell” movies would’ve been like if he decided to make one with kids as the main characters.) Yet what this film is most known for is its horde of pint-sized demonic minions that terrorize Glen, Terry and Al. What the minions lack in intellect they more than make up for number and determination, and the forced perspective effects techniques that were used to bring the foot-tall freaks to life are much more impressive than the CGI-created monsters in Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark.

When looking at The Gate and the remake of Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark, I can only conclude that the imaginative application of low-budget practical effects to a simple yet solid script create a much more memorable film than the erroneous application of big-budget effects and sets to an overcomplicated and underwhelming script. Even though I admire del Toro’s other work and his understanding of the horror genre, his attempt to breathe new creative life into Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark is a frustrating failure that’s best left unseen. The original 1973 movie left plenty of room for improvement (if not direct continuation), but del Toro chose to impose his own ill-fitting vision on an original story instead of exploring and enriching the strengths that the story already had. I would recommend that horror fans either revisit the original Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark or see The Gate for great examples of how big scares that give kids big nightmares can come in very small, low-budget sizes.

Trailer Thursday: World's Finest

If only this could have been made it would have been awesome beyond belief...

A Look at Wii's Epic Mickey

I have a confession to make: I've never been a big Disney fan. Sure, I've enjoyed many of the Disney movies and the theme park in Florida and I know bits and pieces about Walt Disney's early attempts at getting his animation career off the ground during the early years of cinema. Yet I've never felt the urge to immerse myself in all things Disney ... at least until Epic Mickey came out for the Wii in late 2010.

The concept behind Epic Mickey, where Mickey Mouse ends up in a dystopian world that's the warped mirror image of the Disney universe, was just too fascinating for me to ignore. Now that I've finally gotten my hands on a copy and completed the game, I'm glad to say that it lived up to--and greatly exceeded--my expectations. Read on for my complete review.

Epic Mickey's plot is just that: epic. Taking a cue from "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" segment in Fantasia, Epic Mickey begins with Mickey entering the Sorcerer's workshop after the Sorcerer, Yen Sid, finished a long day of work. Yen Sid was putting the finishing touches on the Wasteland, a magical place where lost, discarded and forgotten Disney characters and ideas can go to continue on in their own special world. Unfortunately, Mickey's mischievous nature gets the best of him and he accidentally unleashes a dark force called the Shadow Blot into the Wasteland. Decades after Mickey's mishap, the Blot suddenly appears and drags Mickey into the Wasteland as part of a plot to take over the entire Disney universe. Armed with only a magic paintbrush, Mickey sets off to fix the damage he caused and to befriend many of the Wasteland's inhabitants as part of his quest to foil the Blot.

Epic Mickey tells a whimsical, touching story and its game play, which alternates between 3D and 2D platforming, is simple and fun. Yet what really sets Epic Mickey apart from other platforming titles are its magic paintbrush features and the Wasteland itself, which overflows with over 80 years of Disney history.

The magic paintbrush allows Mickey to use paint or thinner when interacting with the Wasteland and fighting the Blot's minions, and you use the Wiimote to aim where the paint or thinner should be applied. Using the thinner will dissolve enemies, while using paint will convert enemies into allies. The game tracks decisions that you make throughout the game, such as how often you use paint and thinner when dealing with enemies: If you use thinner more than paint, the game assumes a somewhat darker tone. Like Silent Hill: Shattered Memories, your choices are supposed to change the game's outcome, although from what I've heard only a few cut scenes are changed and the game's overall ending isn't affected at all. Thankfully, the game's story is entertaining enough to compensate for this feature's shortcomings.

The paintbrush also allows you to draw in objects that the Blot destroyed (objects such as walls, platforms and gears) to progress through an area, and to erase objects that conceal hidden passages, power-ups and other bonus items. Since Epic Mickey centers on cartoon characters and cartoon logic, the usage of paint and thinner as weapons and tools make perfect sense and add much to the game's entertainment value. That said, I kept expecting Judge Doom from Who Framed Roger Rabbit? to show up with a few drums of his deadly Dip mixture.

What impressed me the most about Epic Mickey was the Wasteland itself. Many areas of the Wasteland look like an alternate, skewed versions of Disney theme park attractions. For example, Wasteland areas such as Mean Street and OsTown are analogous (both in form and function) to the Main Street and Toon Town attractions in the Disney parks. There's also a Wasteland area called Mickeyjunk Mountain, which looks like a landfill made up of nothing but Mickey Mouse merchandise. These areas feature all sorts of visual nods to Disney's long history, and many of the game's characters were pulled from Disney's earliest efforts at animation. The most noteworthy of these characters is Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, a character that Walt Disney created with cartoonist Ub Iwerks before they created Mickey Mouse. In Epic Mickey, Oswald is portrayed as one of the first residents of the Wasteland. The game's central story revolves around Mickey and Oswald and it utilizes that relationship as a way to reflect how Disney has changed from its early, modest beginnings to the entertainment giant it has become since then.

(In the real world, Walt Disney lost the license for Oswald to Universal in 1927, which is why Disney had to create Mickey as a replacement star for his animated shorts. To get Oswald back for Epic Mickey, Disney CEO Bob Iger traded sportscaster Al Michaels in exchange for Oswald. Personally, I think that Epic Mickey would've been even more fun if it had Mickey Mouse raiding Universal Studios to get Oswald back--perhaps trashing the Universal Studios Theme Park in the process--although I doubt that Universal would've been very happy with that.)

In addition to the Disney-rich 3D sections of Epic Mickey, there are also the 2D sections. The Wasteland's areas are connected to each other through portals that are represented by film screens, which Mickey jumps into to enter a portal. To make it to the other end of a portal, Mickey has to traverse a 2D side-scrolling landscape. Each 2D portal landscape is based on a Disney short or feature-length film, and they look like they were pulled directly from the original cartoons and put into the game. Even when the platform play gets tiresome from time to time, the 2D screens are absolutely amazing to see. As an added bonus, clips from the animated shorts that inspired the 2D screens play during the game's end credits. You can also unlock and watch two full-length cartoon shorts: "Oh What a Knight" (1927) and "The Mad Doctor" (1933). Both of these shorts feature characters that tie in to the game's plot. With such attention given to Disney's early animation, I think that animation history buffs would enjoy and appreciate Epic Mickey much more than die-hard gamers.

Epic Mickey does have some problems. The most annoying for me were the numerous "fetch" mini-missions, mini-missions where you have to go from one area of the Wasteland to another to fetch a particular item and then come back to the previous area to collect your reward. This wouldn't be so bad if there were only a handful of these mini-missions, but there are dozens of them scattered throughout the game. To make matters worse, many of them are embedded in one of the game's charming aspects, the ability to "talk" to other cartoon characters. After several of them ask you to complete mini-missions for them, it becomes easier to just avoid them altogether as you progress through the game. Then again, I've read complaints in other reviews about the game's camera system, although I did not encounter many significant problems with it. It can be stubbornly inflexible at times, but never enough to hamper my progress and overall enjoyment of the game.

Epic Mickey is a delightful experience from start to finish. It takes Disney's rich and extensive history and turns it into a story-based game that's tailor-made for both Disney and classic cartoon lovers alike. There have also been rumors of a cross-platform, two-player coop sequel in the works for release in December, so I’m hoping that the sequel will live up the original and allow players to explore more of Disney’s early days.

10 Memorable Music Themes from Lesser Known Horror and Sci-Fi Titles

If you're a junkie of obscure movies, then you'll recognize this scenario: You're watching a film that isn't very popular among mainstream audiences. It could be that the film wasn't widely distributed or well promoted during its initial release but it nevertheless became a cult classic with a devoted fan base; it could also be that the film just wasn't that good. A few days (or weeks) pass and you'll notice a particular tune bouncing around your head that you can't identify ... until you remember that it's from the obscure film that you saw. This same scenario can also occur with TV shows and video games.

With that in mind, here are ten examples of horror and sci-fi movie, TV and video game themes that got stuck in my head over the years. This list is organized chronologically and most listings have a link to a YouTube video so you can hear these tracks for yourself (and perhaps get them stuck in your head, too). Read on....

1. Dune (1984)

Say what you will about David Lynch's flawed adaptation of Frank Herbert's classic sci-fi novel, but one thing is certain: Unlike the countless space operas that were appearing on both the small and big screens during the late 70s and early 80s, Lynch's Dune was the only one that neither looked nor felt like Star Wars. Adding to such distinction was its soundtrack by the rock group Toto, their first and only film score. Of particular note is the opening theme, which establishes the vast scope and dire mood of the story that follows.

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2. Wings of Honneamise (1987)

I saw this anime movie shortly after it arrived on VHS in the states. The animation is fantastic, even if the story itself--which tells of humankind's first steps into space on an alternate Earth--isn't particularly great. Ryuichi Sakamoto composed the movie's mesmerizing soundtrack, which reaches its apex with a suite that concludes the film and accompanies the transition into the end credits.

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3. Killer Klowns from Outer Space (1988)

There have been many, many spoofs of alien invasion films from the 50s, but few are as warped and wicked as Killer Klowns from Outer Space. The opening theme song by The Dickies perfectly captures the manic, over-the-top nature of this unique sci-fi parody.

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4. Communion (1989)

For a film that features Christopher Walken having close encounters with probe-happy aliens, Communion isn't quite as interesting as you think it would be. (This is especially tragic in light of Walken's gold watch monologue from Pulp Fiction.) The best thing about this film is its main theme, which was composed by rock legend Eric Clapton.

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5. Big O (1999)

Whoever composed the opening theme song of this giant robot anime series must've been psychically channeling Queen, because this sounds so much like something they'd perform.

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6. Crimson Rivers (2000)

As a thriller, Crimson Rivers has a lot going for it. It's based on a best-selling novel about a series of brutal murders on a French college campus that are somehow connected to a Nazi experiment in eugenics, and it features the ever-cool Jean Reno as one of the leads. Unfortunately, everything that works is largely undone by director's insistence on cutting out all of the "boring" explanations that give clarity to the plot, resulting in a film that looks great and is paced well but makes little sense. Regardless, the opening theme is memorable even if the solution behind the film's mystery is not.

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7. Ginger Snaps (2000)

Ginger Snaps is one of the best werewolf films ever made, and its two sequels are pretty good as well. (However, because the third entry in this franchise is a prequel, I'm a bit frustrated that we'll never see a continuation of the nasty ending seen in Ginger Snaps II: Unleashed.) Many werewolf films have a tragic element to them, and Ginger Snaps is no exception; thus, its mournful theme perfectly complements this frightening tale of teenage lycanthropy and sisterly love.

While the closing credits feature the entire theme, the visuals that accompany the opening credits are just as interesting.

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8. Marvel Nemesis: Rise of the Imperfects (2005)

Marvel Nemesis: Rise of the Imperfects isn't an innovative button-masher of a fighting game, but what sets this superhero slugfest apart is its dark, foreboding (and somewhat surreal) art direction and visual style. Adding heavily to the game's uneasy mood is its soundtrack by Trevor Jones, particularly its "Imperfects Theme" and "Superheroes Theme" tracks.

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9. The Broken (2008)

The Broken is the only title on this list that does not have any soundtrack clips available on YouTube. This movie features Sarah Connor Chronicles alumna Lena Headey as a woman who is slowly putting her life back together after a horrible car wreck, a wreck that happened while she was pursuing someone who appeared to be her doppelganger. The closing theme, which is partially played backwards, is a fitting conclusion to a chilling tale of fractured realities and fragmented identities.

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10. Skyline (2010)

The only noteworthy things about Skyline are its modestly budgeted special effects and its outrageous ending. To emphasize such a crazy ending is the rocking "Damage Control" track from the film's score, which plays during the end credits.

The Hidden Book Review: An Undead Apocalypse of a Different Kind

Of the many horror comic writers/artists I've read over the years, I consider Richard Sala to be a special find. I can't think of anyone else who can balance the goofy, the gory and the gothic within a single story so effortlessly, both in terms of plotting and visual style. His stories are rife with absurd characters and situations, yet they feature grizzly acts of violence and body counts that are higher than many "serious" horror comics. The best description I can think of to summarize Sala's work would be what horror comics would look like if the late cartoonist Charles Addams had decided to apply his dark humor and unique illustrations to expressionistic tales of terror. Yet even that fails to capture what makes Sala's work so unique and entertaining.

Over the holidays, I received a copy of The Hidden, Sala's latest book. (Note: Sala's The Hidden is not to be confused with the awesome 1987 space parasite movie of the same name.) Sala retains his distinct style in this new title; however, by placing it in a story about the end of the world, he takes themes he has previously explored into eerie new territory. Read on for my complete review.

The Hidden tells the story of a young couple who discover that the world has begun to violently fall apart while they were away on a hiking trip in the deep wilderness. During their search for survivors, they encounter a man who can't remember his name or where he's been ... but he may hold the key to understanding the mystery behind the apocalyptic horrors. To say anything more about this story would give too much away.

Other critics have noticed the similarities of themes and ideas between The Hidden and Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, which is true. The story also reminded me at times of Richard Matheson's I Am Legend, Edgar Allan Poe's The Masque of the Red Death, and Lucio Fulci's unofficial "Gates of Hell" trilogy of movies. Yet the central subtexts of the story--the futility of denying one's own mortality and inevitable horrors that arise when death is cheated--have appeared in Sala's other works, such as Mad Night. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if a sequel to The Hidden (something I'd love to see, of course) would include nods to Septimus A. Crisp and Massimo Ibex, characters who have appeared in Sala's other stories.

While Sala remains true to his style in The Hidden, it differs from his other work in a few significant ways. Some of his prior tales of terrors have featured multiple conspiracies and covert plots that somehow fit together no matter how convoluted or preposterous they got. In contrast, The Hidden features a few subplots and details that are never fully explained or developed further. Such a fragmented approach adds to the characters' lingering anxiety and the story's dour atmosphere--much more so than Sala's previous works.

Welcome to the end of the world. Have a nice day!

In spite of its depressive mood (you know, with it being about the end of the world and such), The Hidden exemplifies the effectiveness of Sala's application of a "less is more" visual style to broad, complex stories. His drawings are simple and cartoonish, a style that provides an ample amount of flexibility to match whatever kind of story he aims to tell. Where humor and horror are mixed into a single setting, such drawings both facilitate and accentuate shifts in mood; in situations where the horror has both corporeal and existential dimensions, Sala uses his drawings to bestow a palpability of sorts to the most fantastic of frights. It is as if by portraying the possible and the impossible in a modest, straightforward fashion, both achieve the same sense of presence. Thus, when the ghastly, gangly reasons for the world's end finally appear alongside of the survivors in The Hidden, the cartoon pictures assume qualities of menace and shock.

I can't recommend Sala's books enough, and The Hidden is one of his best works to date. Be sure to pick up a copy if you're looking for something more than global plagues and cannibalistic zombies in your world-ending entertainment. Go to Richard Sala.com for more information about The Hidden and other Sala books.

Goodbye JawsFest DVDs, Hello TalkFest Online Radio Show!

When we last left Lou and Dianna "Yana" Pisano, they had finished their trilogy of excellent JawsFest DVDs (read my reviews of the DVDs here and here). At the conclusion of the third JawsFest video, the Pisanos announced that they would not make any additional JawsFest DVDs. Thus, the Pisanos' contributions to the fan culture of the Jaws franchise is over ... or is it?

Last month, I heard that the Pisanos were considering their own online radio show called Lou and Yana's TalkFest. They aired their first episode on December 23, and Lou and Yana are as affable as ever. They take calls from fellow fans, play music, and discuss their many favorite franchises, such as the Jaws, Halloween and Superman movies and TV shows such as The Incredible Hulk and The Six Million Dollar Man. They also broadcast material they collected from their previous fan endeavors, including Lou's interview with Joe Alves that he recorded as part of his Jaws 2 retrospective that's being published in SCREAM magazine. They are on the air every Tuesday at 6:30 PM EST, and each episode is about an hour in length. It's a great fan-friendly radio show, and you can listen to episodes here on the BlogTalkRadio site.

Yet if you miss the Pisanos' video productions now that their JawsFest trilogy is over, never fear. Lou has set up his own channel on YouTube, where you can see some additional JawsFest snippets and two HalloweenFest video shorts. Check it out here.

A Look at Dead Rising: Chop Till You Drop

With Nintendo closing shop on Wii game development and focusing its attention on the upcoming Wii U system, I've decided to catch up on games that I missed earlier in Wii's run, particularly horror games. With other planned Wii horror games such as Last Flight and The Grinder stuck in development hell, it seems that the older Wii horror games are the only options I have until the Wii U arrives. During the recent holiday season, I got a copy of Dead Rising: Chop Till You Drop, which was released by Capcom in 2009.

I initially avoided Capcom's remake of their first Dead Rising game for the Wii because it seemed like a lesser version of something that was already done better on the Xbox 360. Yet as an avid zombie fan, I found it too irresistible to avoid playing a game that's so similar to George Romero's original Dawn of the Dead (more about that later). It turned out that my initial impressions were wrong, and that Chop Till You Drop is a satisfying and addictive game in its own right. Read on for my complete review.

For those of you who know absolutely nothing about the original Dead Rising game, here's the basic plot: Freelance photojournalist Frank West goes to Willamette, Colorado to investigate why the town has been sealed off by the National Guard. His search leads him to the gigantic Willamette Parkview Mall, where he becomes trapped inside with a horde of flesh-eating zombies. While West waits for a helicopter that will pick him up from the mall within 72 hours after his arrival, West fights off zombies, rescue survivors, battle a variety of non-undead psychopaths, and search for the truth behind the zombie outbreak.

What surprised me the most about Chop Till You Drop was how Romero-esque this game is. It has many of the narrative beats that I've come to expect from a Romero zombie movie--in particular, a dwindling number of surviving main characters throughout the course of the story and the appearance of human adversaries who are as bad as or worse than the zombie menace. Throw in a shopping mall setting where survivors take shelter in an area that the zombies can't access and then go on treks into the mall to find supplies in the various stores--as well as a comic book visual style and an anti-consumerism subtext--and Dead Rising is near-perfect video game version of Dawn of the Dead. The similarities are so close that the MKR Group, which holds the copyright to Dawn of the Dead and its 2004 remake, filed a lawsuit against Capcom in 2008. The lawsuit was dismissed, although I'm somewhat baffled as to how that happened.

(Here's another interesting Dead Rising/Dawn of the Dead comparison: The gun shop in the game appears to occupy its own corner of the mall, in an area that's mostly under construction. In Dawn of the Dead, the weapon store scenes were shot at a location outside of the mall, but were edited into the film to look like it was a store in the mall. A similar comparison can be made to where the survivors take shelter in the mall.)

Capcom's decision to release a horror survival game that closely follows the narrative style of Romero's zombie movies is a sharp contrast to its Resident Evil games, which use the Umbrella Corporation and its ever-changing T-Virus conspiracy to keep their stories distinct from Romero's work. (Ironically, Romero was on board at one point to write and direct the first Resident Evil movie, and you can read his unproduced script here.) Even though Dead Rising is not like Resident Evil in terms of atmosphere and narrative, the game engine from the Wii edition of Resident Evil 4 was used to adapt Dead Rising for the Wii; as a result, there is much more gun-based zombie killing in Chop Till You Drop than in the original game.

As if last-minute Christmas shopping wasn't bad enough ....

For as much as I hate seeing Romero get cheated, it would've been a shame if Dead Rising never reached the store shelves. Capcom hyped Dead Rising as the horror survival game where players could use anything they can find in the mall--an open world sandbox environment--to bludgeon, stab, burn, shred and/or decapitate as many zombies as they can. That feature is still present in the Wii version, albeit with some limitations in terms of weapon variety. This isn't to say that there isn't a central narrative thread in the game, but the utilization of an open environment where everyday objects can be utilized as weapons gets closer to the frantic, chaotic mood present in many monster movies. Such a setup encourages you to get creative in how to survive and save others, an element that's missing from many first-person horror shooters due to the overabundance of firearms. That said, I would encourage you to look up a walkthrough of Chop Till You Drop before playing it so you can familiarize yourself with all of the items, attacks, and special features you can use to make the most of you gaming experience.

Creative zombie killing isn't the only thing that this Capcom game has to offer. If the various survivor-rescuing missions get a bit boring, you inner anarchist will be entertained by the mall environment itself. You can take whatever you want from the stores (clothes, books, weapons, power tools, cosmetics, money, food, etc.) and if a store is locked, you can smash one of its windows to gain access. You can even ride the roller coaster in one of the mall areas. Indeed, vandalizing the mall was almost as fun as killing the zombies; in that sense, the game could've been re-titled Grand Theft Zombie Mall.

Curiously, even though the game's expansive mall setting was not modeled after any particular shopping mall, it reminded me so much of the Mall of America in Bloomington, Minnesota. In fact, I'm kind of miffed that Capcom didn't design the Willamette Parkview Mall directly in the image of Mall of America. Such a design would've offered a wider range of zombie killing environments, including a complete amusement park, a water park (zombies on a water slide!), a miniature golf course, an aquarium (zombie fish!), and four floors worth of stores and restaurants to pillage.

If you ever had the overwhelming desire to kill hordes of zombies while wearing

a goblin mask and a summer dress, Dead Rising is the game for you!

Whatever technical limitations are present in the Wii version of this Xbox 360, it didn't keep the game from being fun or telling an interesting zombie story. (Click here to see a complete overview of differences between the Xbox 360 and Wii versions of Dead Rising.) Because the Wii's processing capabilities only allow for up to 100 zombies to appear on the screen at once (as opposed to the Xbox 360, which allowed for up to 800 zombies), zombies have a tendency to suddenly appear in front of you as you proceed through the mall. This feature never bothered me because it played much like the randomly appearing zombies that populated Hunter: The Reckoning, another horror game that the Mrs. and I used to play on the GameCube. I also thought that the controls were easy to use, and I much prefer the multi-file save feature available in the Wii version than the game save feature in the Xbox 360 version.

Dead Rising: Chop Till You Drop ranks alongside Dead Space: Extraction, House of the Dead: Overkill and Silent Hill: Shattered Memories as one of the best horror games for the Wii. Furthermore, if it isn't mandatory that all die-hard George Romero fans must play this game at least once, it should be.