We are thrilled to announce the upcoming release of Dave Alexander’s Untold Horror (the book!). The tome takes a dive into some of the most interesting unproduced and unreleased films that we have come across in the last few years of research. […]
They called it “Jaws with claws” and it was a huge hit in the summer of 1976, earning nearly $40 million on a $750K budget. William Girdler’s Grizzly – a really fun riff on Jaws, featuring a fifteen-foot-tall grizzly terrorizing campers – was a no-brainer for a sequel, but it took until 1983 for one to go into production. Grizzly II: The Predator (a.k.a. Grizzly II: The Concert), however, was never finished; only an incomplete bootleg version is out there (easy to find on YouTube). The plot has a big concert taking place in the park as a giant grizzly starts to kill again. As a park ranger tries to control the chaos, a seasoned hunter is tasked with taking the beast down as it tears its way through campers and hunters, creating a path of destruction to the big gig, where it eventually meets its end. According to a 2014 story in the New York Post, the production went entirely off the rails, with one of the producers disappearing with a bunch of money, the production moving to Hungary and leaving the director behind (without being told he was replaced!), the new Hungarian director having no experience, the caterer rewriting the film(!), and the bear attack scenes left unfinished because the creature animatronics didn’t work. Lawsuits and debts have kept the film locked away ever since. What exists in the bootleg is hilariously awful – a nonsense plot, goofy performances and some terrible ’80s bands given way too much screen time to perform. The bear is reduced to some POV shots, a couple laughable practical effects and grunting noises. But Grizzly II does have a load of notable actors in it. Charlie Sheen, Laura Dern and George Clooney all become bear food, with the latter two having a roll […]
We’re very excited to drop this press release on ya… This coming Friday, November 30, Untold Horror is presenting a rare 3-D screening of Joe Dante’s 2009 young adult horror classic The Hole at Hollywood’s legendary TCL Chinese Theatre. It will mark the first of a series of planned events connected to Untold Horror, a multi-media brand dedicated to shining the spotlight on unmade, lost and under-the-radar films. The screening will include a special Q&A session with Dante (The Howling, Gremlins), hosted by his long-time friend John Landis (An American Werewolf in London, Blues Brothers). Although the movie – and Dante’s work in general – is considered a major influence on popular films and television shows such as Super 8, It and Stranger Things, this quirky slice of coming-of-age terror never received a proper theatrical premiere in the United States and has rarely screened in 3-D. A decade later, Untold Horror will expose it to a whole new audience with this special screening. Created by former editor-in-chief of Rue Morgue magazine Dave Alexander and filmmaker Mark Pollesel, Untold Horror is anchored by the currently in-development documentary series produced in partnership with legendary television producer Mark Wolper (Salem’s Lot, Bates Motel) and filmmakers Tim Sullivan (Detroit Rock City, 2001 Maniacs), Kevin Nicklaus (Bates Motel), Garo Setian (Automation) and Allen Copeland (Night Songs). The Hole stars Chris Massoglia (The Vampire’s Assistant), Haley Bennett (Equalizer, Girl on a Train), Nathan Gamble (The Mist, The Dark Knight), Teri Polo (Meet the Fockers) and Academy Award nominee Bruce Dern (The Hateful Eight, The Great Gatsby). Tickets will be available via Fandango and the TCL Chinese Theater’s website . About Joe Dante Joe Dante is a master of tongue-in-cheek terror, with classics such as Gremlins, The ‘Burbs, The Howling, Twilight Zone: The Movie and the original Piranha. Having also helmed Explorers, Innerspace and the cult classic Matinee, Dante helped shape […]
“This is truly one of those magical (cursed?) objects that I cannot believe has fallen through the cinematic cracks .” That’s how bestselling author Daniel Kraus describes – on his Twitter feed – seeing the unreleased GEORGE A. ROMERO film THE AMUSEMENT PARK, for which we’ve reposted some of the stills he took. Kraus, who co-wrote with Guillermo del Toro the Trollhunters and The Shape of Water novelizations, is currently completing the unfinished Romero novel The Living Dead (planned for a fall 2019 release). Part of his immersion into Romero’s world was to watch the unreleased 1973 film (shot in between Season of the Witch and The Crazies), which is not a horror movie but a meditation on ageism, set in an amusement park, that’s so scathing, it was shelved. A synopsis of it, for a screening at the Spectacle Theater in Brooklyn (no date listed yet, just the description of the film), reads: “An elderly gentlemen sets out for what he thinks will be a normal day at an amusement park and is soon embroiled in a waking nightmare the likes of which you’ve never seen! … Witness a crackup on the bumper cars where the police and insurance agents show up! See swindlers and hucksters take advantage of old people left and right! Witness a coffin plunked right in front of innocent attendees!” As Kraus describes it, “It’s hellish. In Romero’s long career of criticizing American institutions, never was he so merciless.” The film, which also features a cameo from its creator, sounds absolutely fascinating, and the good news is there’s a plan in place to restore and release it. And you can help by donating to the GARF: the George A. Romero Foundation (georgearomerofoundation.org). Founded by George’s wife, Suzanne Desrocher-Romero (also the President), and overseen by […]
“Like the Bible says, ‘When there’s no room in Hell, the dead will walk the Earth.” “That’s from a movie.” “The hell it is!” “It’s not even, it’s from the poster.” That bit of dialogue from the pilot for Babylon Fields is a taste of what could’ve been had the proposed network series been green lit past the pilot stage. In 2007 – three years before The Walking Dead hit television – Michael and Gerald Cuesta and Michael Atkinson brought the zombie-themed series to CBS. Unlike The Walking Dead, Babylon Fields features a mass resurrection of the dead who aren’t mindless ghouls craving flesh, but rather confused revenants who want to return to their lives, with results that range from heartbreaking to horrifying to hunourous. It’s a premise that was explored previously in the obscure 2004 French film Les Revenants, which spawned two seasons of a 2014 T.V. series of the same name, plus an American adaptation of that series, called The Returned, which was cancelled after one season. Judging by the pilot, which you can watch online here, Babylon Fields, was less haunting, funnier and equally creepy. Aside from the aforementioned dialog between gun-happy rednecks confusing the Bible with the poster for Dawn of the Dead, the episode features a zombie who rekindles his sex life with his wife, a formerly abusive cop who realizes he was murdered by his family when he finds a gaping axe wound in the back of his head, and milky-eyed zombies clawing their way out of the ground en masse. The intriguing element of the premise, is, of course, how the living deal with the dead they’ve already said goodbye to and who no longer have a place in their world. Some treat then like movie zombies, attacking and shooting them; others struggle […]
In our ongoing research into Untold Horror, we have uncovered a variety of projects which for better or worse went unrealized. Many of them only exist in pitch material artwork if nothing else. This ongoing series, entitled “Unknown Untold”, will shine a light on artwork for movies that never existed beyond what is seen on the page. If you have any further knowledge of any of the images posted, please let us know – Email mark@untoldhorror.ca with any details you may have about these projects! Phantom of the Paradise… The Rocky Horror Picture Show… Repo: The Genetic Opera… Cannibal! The Musical… … and that’s about it. Unlike other film genres that Horror so easily blends with, the (English-language) Musical isn’t high on that list. And perhaps for good reason. Horror is all about building tension – and it is pretty difficult to do that when you are breaking out into musical set-pieces every so often. Perhaps the only way to achieve it correctly is to embrace the ridiculousness of it, as those who have successfully combined the genres, have indeed done. Studio decision makers are notorious for not getting behind anything that isn’t necessarily a straight-up horror film. Event the legendary George A. Romero can count a (couple) of unproduced attempted Horror-Musicals, among his Untold Horrors. Diamond Dead perhaps being the best know stillborn production within the strange subgenre. For this Unknown Untold, we’re looking at a trade ad that ran in the early 80’s, for a never-would-be horror musical. One of the most adapted characters in the history of cinema is Bram Stoker’s bloodsucker, Dracula. The Count has been presented in literally just about every single possible interpretation up on the silver screen. From animated, to romantic, from comedic, to heroic, and everything in between. However, on screen, for better or worse, we […]
Initially, the idea of a lauded French New Wave auteur teaming up with a Marvel comics personality seems absurd, but from its early days in the 1950s, the cinematic movement had an obsession with American pop-culture – including its directors celebrating Alfred Hitchcock films in Cahiers du Cinéma, Jean Paul Belmondo imitating Humphrey Bogart in Jean-Luc Goddard’s Breathless. Alain Resnais, who became famous for Hiroshima mon amour (1959), Last Year at Mareinbad (1961) and Je t’aime, je t’aime, loved Marvel comics so much that he wrote a fan letter to Stan Lee. They became pen pals, and eventually Resnais travelled to America to meet Lee and stay at his house on Long Island. The friendship between the two creators led to them collaborating on a pair of unrealized film projects. One of them, titled The Inmates, was described by Lee – in the 1970s, in the Marvel fan magazine FOOM – as a philosophical sci-fi meditation about humanity’s place in the universe. “It’s not a far-out science-fiction thing,” he noted. Lee wrote a treatment for the film but it never went past that stage. The other project, however, did become a screenplay. Titled The Monster Maker, it was a socially-conscious creature feature. In video interview recently posted at criterion.com, Lee delves into the project, recalling that the story revolved around a B-movie maker named Larry Morgan, who’s in love with a woman named Catherine Reynolds, but she has her sights set on a respected British auteur filmmaker named Peter Hastings; meanwhile Larry doesn’t notice that his writer, Patricia Hill, is in love with him. “I started out by basing it on a fellow named Roger Corman, who had done many inexpensive movies that did very well st the box office,” says Lee. “They weren’t intellectual movies; they were low budget, […]
In our ongoing research into Untold Horror, we have uncovered a variety of projects which for better or worse went unrealized. Many of them only exist in pitch material artwork if nothing else. This ongoing series, entitled “Unknown Untold”, will shine a light on artwork for movies that never existed beyond what is seen on the page. If you have any further knowledge of any of the images posted, please let us know – Email mark@untoldhorror.ca with any details you may have about these projects! “Whacked out Mutants on a Rampage Without Credit Cards” – Tagline for “L.A.B.C” … Doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue, does it? It’s been a while, but today we’re back with another addition to our “Unknown Untold” series. Taking a look back at some of the amazing and evocative artwork created for trade magazines, for films that were never realized. Today, we’re looking at what would have been a Charles Band produced film under the “Beyond Infinity” and “Titan Productions” banners. Credits for both companies line-up with other Empire-Era Band films, such as Sorority Babes in the Slimeball Bowl-O-Rama, Breeders, Robot Holocaust, and Robot Holocaust, during the mid-late 1980s. And looking at this poster – it certainly fits the look and feel of all those films. Implications of over-the-top, insane violence and gruesome fun, with monsters and mutants. Next to Cannon Films, the most fun delving into some of these old trade magazines is finding Sales art for Band productions – is seeing some of the wild artwork for movies that never were…. And some of the unrelated sales art for films that were. I mean, a side note.. But take a look at this Variety advertisement for Ghoulies. So much… and maybe 1% (The titular Ghoulies and house, I guess?) of it is actually related to the […]
Happy Halloween from all of us at Untold Horror! We recently had the opportunity to check out GUILLERMO DEL TORO: AT HOME WITH MONSTERS, currently on at the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO), and speak with curator of the exhibit Jim Shedden. As you’ll see in our clip, there’s an astounding amount of eye candy, including original artwork from THE SHAPE OF WATER, which is del Toro finally getting to make a version of CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON, and one of the gnarly, mutated penguins created for his aborted H.P. Lovecraft adaptation, AT THE MOUNTAINS OF MADNESS. More on that last item later, but for now, a peek at GUILLERMO DEL TORO: AT HOME WITH MONSTERS, which is on display at the AGO until January 8, 2018.
We are very excited to be returning to the Fantasia International Film Festival later this month. Earlier today, the festival announced their complete list of programming, and we are thrilled to be participating with a very unique, live event! More details to come…. UNTOLD HORROR LIVE: GENRE REBELS IN DEVELOPMENT HELL (Live multimedia event) Remakes of WITCHFINDER GENERAL and THE ORPHANAGE. The MANIAC COP sequel you were supposed to see. A Tarantino collaboration that almost was. A stillborn post-apocalyptic rock opera centered around a “Breeding Festival.” Hear these and other jaw-dropping tales from the cinematic trenches in UNTOLD HORROR LIVE: GENRE REBELS IN DEVELOPMENT HELL. Presented by Untold Horror – an in-development series born at Fantasia’s Frontières market dedicated to exploring the greatest genre movies never made – and hosted by co-creator Dave Alexander (former Editor-in-Chief of Rue Morgue magazine), this round-table discussion – with accompanying A/V presentation – will delve into unrealized projects by our favorite genre filmmakers. William Lustig (MANIAC, MANIAC COP), Richard Stanley (HARDWARE, DUST DEVIL), Gary Sherman (DEATHLINE, DEAD & BURIED), Larry Fessenden (WENDIGO, THE LAST WINTER), and Buddy Giovinazzo (COMBAT SHOCK, LIFE IS HOT IN CRACKTOWN) will reveal their fascinating projects that failed to launch, the reasons why, and what it taught them about the often-volatile film business. Plus, a sneak peek at Untold Horror! Event Details: www.facebook.com/events/147276739157439
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