Latest Columns & Features

5 MINUTES WITH JOE FRANKLIN

Franco Frassetti

A mountain of “stuff” constructed itself into a sturdy structure that encircles the chair. A couple of telephones placed among the heap ring constantly. A few folding chairs face the swivel chair where the King of Talk, Joe Franklin, holds court. For fifty years, Joe Franklin’s guest list was quite impressive.

INDIE CORNER SPRING 2010: “GET IT JUST RIGHT!”

Glenn Andreiev

“If you don’t get it right, what’s the point?” might be words of wisdom, but these words are now a banshee cry amongst Hollywood executives. Those words are a famous (or infamous) quote from director Michael Cimino, who helmed of the most notorious financial flop in film history – HEAVEN’S GATE.

CAMP DAVID FEBRUARY 2010: “MEN CRIED OUT TO HER AT DAWN”

David Del Valle

I am 11 years old and it is late in the evening on a Saturday night. I sit cross-legged on the floor in front of the television set with rabbit ears watching the Shock Theater premiere of DRACULA’S DAUGHTER. The scene unfolding in front of me takes place in a forest shrouded in darkness, the ground swirling in mist, the trees filled with fog. In the distance a wolf howls at the moon. In the foreground is a tall, aristocratic woman clothed in the blackest of velvet…

CAMP DAVID JANUARY 2010: IN HOLLYWOOD NO ONE CAN HEAR YOU SCREAM

David Del Valle

The recent passing of genre writer/director Dan O’Bannon caused me to unearth my picture file on his directorial debut, RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD, which since its first screening has steadily built a substantial horror fan base as a classic zombie film in the tradition of the original NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD.

BEST OF THE DECADE LISTS

Roy Frumkes

It’s never too late to sum up the previous decade. The writers of FIR choose their favorite films of the 2000s. With selections by: Roy Frumkes, Guglielmo Anthony, Bryan Layne, Max Pemberton, Glenn Andreiev, John Larkin & Mark Gross.

GRAEME WHIFLER’S BACKLASH

Franco Frassetti

Screenwriter and director Graeme Whifler and I met a few years ago at the New York City Horror Film Festival as he was screening Neighborhood Watch. This is the very film in which a person next to me fainted. Yes, it is true. The irony? The person was a special effects artist.

LARRY COHEN INTERVIEW

Bryan Layne

Although he now lives in Hollywood, you just can’t think of a Larry Cohen film without synonymously thinking of New York City. His insurgent style of filmmaking has helped to capture the best and worst of the greatest city in the world to the point where the city itself became an essential character in many of Cohen’s films…