Vampires 2
A sequel to the bloodsucker saga John Carpenter’s Vampires is on the cards but in a more modest version than its original incarnation. John Carpenter Presents Vampires: Los Muertos is the title and Mrs. Carpenter, Sandy King, who has produced seven pictures for her husband including the still-shooting Ghost of Mars, said the film will be done on a much smaller canvas than the original. “We originally wanted to continue the original story into the next day, but the studio wanted to go with a younger cast and a more modest budget.”

Barstow
Ed Gein has single-handedly revived Steve Railsback’s career – or so it seems. The Lifeforce star gives a great performance as the Wisconsin ghoul and he has now been cast in numerous movies.

Talking with the actor at the world première of Ed Gein at FrightFest 2000, he told me “I’ve just played a key role in the new untitled Todd Solondz movie and I’m currently preparing to shoot Barstow, a Horror tale which follows the lives of five people. I want to shoot it like the Big Brother TV show. It’s going to be shot with a through-the-keyhole effect so that viewers feel they are eavesdropping. It’s a winning formula.” By the way, Ed Gein, which earned much applause for Railsback’s moving interpretation, will be released in Britain next March.

Clive Barker's Bloody Mary
Walt Disney’s Touchstone Pictures has picked up the dark psychological thriller Bloody Mary written by Silvio (Urban Legend) Horta. Hellraiser creator Clive Barker will produce the film inspired by a non-fiction article in the Miami New Times three years ago.

The article, written by Lynda Edwards, deals with the urban legend of Bloody Mary, a monstrous, vengeful bogey-woman who snatches the souls of children and lives in the supernatural plane between reality and illusion. The story explores the way human imagination deals with fear.

Barker explained, “Fantasy works best when it’s working on a lot of levels, when something has you really wondering, ‘Is it real, or isn’t it? These homeless kids are living in a world that’s on that borderline, because they are living through the reality of social evils and abuse. What I wanted to do was use the conventions of urban myth to express our anxieties about the real world. This is not going to be another Candyman. I just don’t make those kinds of pictures anymore. That sort of in-your-face gore is a young man’s game”.