Lost Weekend - Part Two

By: Andrew Hershberger
Date: Saturday, February 02, 2002

In part one of CINESCAPE's coverage of Fangoria's Weekend of Horrors convention, our intrepid correspondent detailed his visit to the event, which took place at New York's Brooklyn Marriott Hotel on January 5th and 6th. Today we continue to explore the dark and musty depths of the indie-horror filmmakers who attended the convention trying to hawk their latest films, while also recounting a visit with the people behind Troma Entertainment.

Rounding out

my look at the various independent film companies, I stopped by the Light & Dark Productions booth where they were selling copies of their films THE FAMILY TREE and FEAR OF THE DARK. There's a lot of buzz surrounding FEAR OF THE DARK; it won the Merit Award for "Storytelling in a Narrative Feature" at the Putnam County Film and Video Festival, has received exposure in the New York Times, there's a picture from the film in Fangoria #210 ("Video Chopping" section) and the lead actress Rosemary Gore (who plays Alice) has recently been featured in Paxil commercials. Judging by the downloadable trailer from their website www.lightanddark.net, FEAR OF THE DARK looks like an effective tale in the slasher genre featuring a new horror icon, the Black Rose Killer. Talking with Glen Baisley, president and writer/director of FEAR OF THE DARK, he told me of the concept that underlies his films. All the stories occur in the same universe, ala Stephen King, and an upcoming project, THE TENEMENT, a four-story horror anthology, will feature an origin tale of the Black Rose Killer. (Also look for the upcoming SINS OF THE FATHER, which is a sequel to FEAR OF THE DARK.) Sounds interesting, so be sure to check out the website for information on their titles and the latest news.

(Interesting aside:

on the site in the "Recent News" section they mention that a person from Cinescape interviewed them at the Fangoria convention and snapped some pictures for an online article. I wonder who the hell that was, cause I told everybody I wrote for Les CaShiers du Cinema.)

Finishing up with the booths I ran outside for a smoke and who should I run into but Doug Sakmann, head of production for Troma Entertainment. Can you believe the luck?! As everybody knows, Troma Entertainment is the oldest surviving independent studio and has brought to this cold, dark world such killer films as THE TOXIC AVENGER, CANNIBAL: THE MUSICAL, TROMEO & JULIET and CITIZEN TOXIE: THE

TOXIC AVENGER IV (now playing at cinemas across the country). I asked Doug what's the latest project coming out of this glorious studio. He told me about a project Troma was so excited about they were already prepared to bill it as "the worst movie ever." What is this classic, this movie to endure the ages? Why, it's INDIA ALLEN PRESENTS: TALES FROM THE CRAPPER! You might recall Allen's previous Troma four-star successes THE CHOSEN ONE and THE ROWDY GIRLS (available for purchase at www.troma.com) or you may not. Or you might be familiar with Allen as the winner of Playboy's Playmate of the Year 1998. Whatever you know, or don't know, Allen from, be sure to get to know her when TALES FROM THE CRAPPER hits the market. Featuring Lloyd Kaufman (president of Troma Entertainment and creator of the Toxic Avenger) as the Crap Keeper, lots of beautiful women and lots of blood, it sounds like a plop... errr, hit! It marks the first truly Troma produced all-digital video film, so watch out Lars von Trier!

With Doug

were performance artists Jester and Zhora recently featured at Tromadance (www.tromadance.com) - who in their own words are "Live performance artists using sex as a gimmick mocking the sex obsessed culture in which we all live." So keep your eye out for one of their "Lesbian Mud-Wrestling" events so that you can mock along with them. (Find out more about Zhora (Shivers420@aol.com) and Jester (Sicjester@aol.com), their vision and their performance dates, via e-mail, but you know, be cool about it, don't psych out.)

Suddenly there's a voice, it's saying, "But what about the celebrities in the auditorium?!" Is it a spectral being? A guilty conscience? No, it's my roommate, pissed off that nothing has yet been said about the big guns, or at least not much has been said. Worry not. We'll be taking care of that next in a little wrap up section that I'd like to call: ANDREW'S KUNG FU, KICK-ASS DIARY OF EVENTS SEEN AND UNSEEN AT FANGORIA'S WEEKEND OF HORRORS.

What more can be said, but check back tomorrow for the conclusion of our coverage of Fangoria's Weekend of Horrors. It will be kung fu and kick-ass.