September Odds and Ends: What We're Reading

While you were busy reading this blog, you probably missed some important developments on some of our favorite Web sites. Here's a quick wrap up:

* Over at Video Junkie, William S. Wilson gives us the scoop on a forgotten, unfinished horror film called Bloody Pulp from New York filmmakers Thomas Doran, Frank Farel, Brendan Faulkner and Paul Levine.

The anthology film was originally promoted in a February 1982 Fangoria article that also spotlighted The Deadly Spawn and Pranks (a California film later retitled The Dorm that Dripped Blood). The production was shut down, and the film was never heard of again -- until the redoubtable Mr. Wilson tracked down Doran and Farel and got the skinny on its troubled production, as well as another unfinished New York omnibus film, Tales That Will Tear Your Heart Out. Fright fans may remember that Wes Craven also contributed an episode to that lost epic, and some of the footage later turned up in the American cut of Doctor Butcher, M.D. by way of Roy Frumkes (who later produced Street Trash).

You can read all about it here.

Wilson also provided a nice write-up on our favorite white trash Satanist flick from Michigan, The Demon Lover (1977).

* The folks over at the Monster Movie Blogspot provided a nice synopsis and some sound clips from Two Thousand Maniacs!, and Stanley.

* In other musical news, Nightmare USA author Stephen Thrower, Nightmare Movies scribe Kim Newman, and Friday the 13th composer Harry Manfredini were at Queen Elizabeth Hall in London earlier in the month for a panel discussion on the art of horror film soundtracks. You can read about it here and here.

* Bruce Holecheck at Cinema Arcana posted some nice shots of the VHS art for Donald Farmer's Demon Queen (1986) as part of his VHS Archives series, including examples of how the same artwork was re-used for multiple films and its origins as the cover art for Fred Mustard Stewart's book Star Child.


* DVD Drive-In has posted write ups on Final Exam, Haunted, and Manos: The Hands of Fate (Special Edition), which includes extras from our friend Daniel Griffith.

* Also on the DVD release front, Basket Case is out on Blu-Ray from Image, as is Troma's Mother's Day; Mardis Gras Massacre was due from Code Red; and Something Weird's H.G. Lewis documentary is available on both Blu-ray and regular DVD.

* Finally, we've gotten word that McFarland, after a big facility move, is ready to get back to work on the upcoming Dead Next Door book (I'll keep you posted), I've completed interviews with Southern Shockers director Dave Coleman and producer David Hopper (coming soon to this blog), and I'm already ramping up some good material for the coming Halloween season.