News to me

Fearnet is showing the unrated director's cut of Return of the Living Dead 3 both online and on its cable TV service until November 30, 2009. Why is this a big deal? Back in the days of VHS, there were two versions available: the rated version (R) and the gorier unrated version. However, the DVD release only contains the R-Rated version.

It has come to my attention that a British horror magazine called "The Dark Side" has been accused of numerous acts of plagiarism. In fact, the webmaster of Naschy.com has made a website devoted to providing evidence for the allegations of literary theft.

The people behind Winterbeast are currently working on a new horror movie called Hooked. I even managed to find some cast and crew hiring information online. I sincerely hope that the filming goes much smoother than it did during the making of Winterbeast and that this won't be a "bad on purpose" film.

AD Vision, often known as ADV Films, has announced it is going to sell all of its assets to Japanese company Sentai Filmworks and a group of corporations registered by their former senior vice president of business and legal affairs. One of said corporations, Section23 Films, seems to be getting the most attention in the stories on the sale.

Although primarily known for their anime releases, I'm sure that many readers will remember when ADV had quite a library of live-action science fiction and horror films, from classics like Destroy All Monsters and the 90's Gamera trilogy to relative obscurities like Pulgasari and Lady Battlecop. In fact, I had always hoped that library would have carried them through the recession and the (in my opinion) eventual crash of the anime market. Especially since they survived what many viewed as a "near death" experience by selling off their old office supplies. "After all," I had thought at the time, "if they can survive that, they can survive anything!" ADV will be missed.

UPDATE: It turns out that I was mistaken and ADV isn't technically dead. Go here for more details.

The Fright Haven (previously mentioned on GdL) is closed for 2009, but will reopen in 2010. Happily, another Connecticut-based haunt called Rails to the Darkside appears to still be in operation.

Music Choice has recently started playing Halloween music on their "Sounds of the Seasons" channel. FINALLY!

Finally, there's a company called "Frankenstein's Recycling." It's not major news, but I thought they had a cool name and needed some more recognition.