Renaissance Fear Festival

The true weird tale has something more than secret murder, bloody bones, or a sheeted form clanking chains according to rule.
- H.P. Lovecraft

I recognize terror as the finest emotion and so I will try to terrify the reader. But if I find that I cannot terrify, I will try to horrify, and if I find that I cannot horrify, I’ll go for the gross-out. I’m not proud.
- Stephen King


There are a few of us in the moviehouse who share an unabashed affection for horror movies. There are, as well, experts in horror media, from E.A. Poe and H.P. Lovecraft to Stephen King and Wes Craven, who have expounded exhaustively on why we enjoy getting the daylights scared out of us. Unfortunately, that’s as pointless as attempts to analyze comedy. We don’t care if horror flicks reflect reality. We don’t care if horror is cathartic. Fear is fun! And the popularity of DVDs has inspired a renaissance in horror franchises.

But every renaissance has to be preceded by a nascence, and for us, we have to go back to the early years of TV. The Golden Age of Television in the 1950s brought memorable live drama into family living rooms. Anthology programs such as "Playhouse 90," "Kraft Television Theatre" and "The Philco Television Playhouse" boasted scripts by acclaimed writers Paddy Chayefsky, Gore Vidal, Horton Foote and, among others, Rod Serling, while providing early training for directors the likes of John Frankenheimer and Arthur Penn.

Inevitably, the burgeoning medium of television ushered in filmed TV series. Befitting its host, "Alfred Hitchcock Presents," which premiered in 1955, depicted tales of suspense and the macabre. Rod Serling’s "The Twilight Zone" debuted in 1959, as did "One Step Beyond," which dramatized true accounts of the paranormal. From 1960 to 1962, Boris Karloff hosted the horror anthology show "Thriller," noted by Stephen King as the best series of its kind in U.S. television history. The cult science-fiction series "The Outer Limits" ran from 1963 to 1965.

A new version of "The Outer Limits" aired from 1995 to 2002. "Alfred Hitchcock Presents" was likewise revived in 1985, as was "The Twilight Zone," the latter for a four-year run, featuring such notable directors as William Friedkin ("The Exorcist"), Wes Craven ("A Nightmare on Elm Street") and John Milius ("Red Dawn"). A second, short-lived revival of "The Twilight Zone," narrated by Forest Whittaker, aired 2002 to 2003. Rod Serling himself had tried to recapture his flair for eerie tales in the TV series "Night Gallery" (1970-1973). Despite his presence as the host and as a major contributor of scripts, he was denied the creative control he had enjoyed on "The Twilight Zone," and by the final season, he tired of being ignored by the program’s executives and all but disowned the series.

"Tales from the Darkside," which aired in syndication from 1983 to 1988, was produced by director George A. Romero, the undisputed master of zombie cinema, from the original "Night of the Living Dead" (1968) to "Dawn of the Dead" (1978), "Day of the Dead" (1985), "Land of the Dead" (2005), "Diary of the Dead" (2008) and the upcoming "Island of the Dead." "Darkside’s" tales of horror and the unexpected were often capped by an ironic twist. In 1988, Richard Rubinstein, a longtime friend and associate of Romero’s, produced a spin-off anthology series, "Monsters," which, despite the appearance of grotesque aberrations, was more interested in dark comedy than horror.

In 1985, Steven Spielberg created the anthology series "Amazing Stories," inspired by the fantasy and sci-fi pulp fiction he read in childhood. A number of big names were attracted to the program as segment directors, including Martin Scorsese, Clint Eastwood, Joe Dante, Burt Reynolds and Tobe Hooper ("Poltergeist"). Although the series was nominated for several Emmy Awards (winning five), it failed to win over viewers and was gone by 1987.

North of the border, the low-budget Canadian-produced series, "The Ray Bradbury Theater," was shown on HBO from 1985 to 1992. All 65 episodes were written by Bradbury, who hosted the show from his cluttered writer’s den, which he described as his "magician’s toyshop," introducing each story as "exactly one half exhilaration and one half terror." Featured guest stars included Peter O’Toole, Drew Barrymore, Jeff Goldblum, Donald Pleasence, Leslie Nielsen, William Shatner, Eugene Levy and David Carradine.

"Friday the 13th: The Series," shown in syndication for three seasons from 1987 to 1990, was initially intended to be titled "The 13th Hour," but producer Frank Mancuso Jr. (who had produced several titles in the "Friday the 13th" film franchise) thought the "Friday the 13th" hook would lure a larger audience, never mind the fact that the undying, hockey-masked serial killer Jason Voorhees was a nonentity in the series. Instead, the horror anthology show centered on the premise of a hellish antique shop, the young inheritors of which must weekly hunt down and retrieve cursed curios. A persistent rumor suggested that the last episode would connect the TV series with the movie series by featuring the final evil object recovered be Jason’s hockey mask.

Loosely based on the successful "Nightmare on Elm Street" films, yet another syndicated horror anthology series, "Freddy’s Nightmares," premiered in 1988. Each story was introduced by "dreamy" serial killer Freddy Kruger (portrayed by actor Robert Englund), and the pilot episode was directed by Tobe Hooper. The show’s demise after a mere two seasons was probably due largely to viewer complaints about violence. "Friday the 13th: The Series" had similarly succumbed to pushing the envelope by depicting bloodshed on par with R-rated horror flicks.

In his 1981 treatise on the influence of horror on popular culture, Danse Macabre, Stephen King concluded that television was simply too boring and unimaginative to handle real horror, but that was before the boom in subscription cable networks.

The executive producers of the 1989-1996 series "Tales from the Crypt," which was inspired by gruesome horror comic books of the 1950s, included such Hollywood heavyweights as Richard Donner, Walter Hill, Robert Zemeckis, Joel Silver and David Geffen, while the roster of directors featured John Frankenheimer, William Friedkin and Tobe Hooper, along with Donner, Hill and Zemeckis. Because it was on HBO, the program was allowed to depict censor-free gore, profanity and sexual situations.

In 1993, John Carpenter collaborated with Tobe Hooper on the made-for-cable-TV anthology movie "John Carpenter Presents Body Bags." The trio of unrelated tales of terror, starring Mark Hamill, Stacy Keach, Robert Carradine, David Warner, Deborah Harry and Twiggy (with cameos by Sam Raimi, Wes Craven and Roger Corman), was bookended with segments featuring Carpenter, Hooper and actor-comedian Tom Arnold as demented morgue workers. "Body Bags" was originally conceived as a series on Showtime, but after the pilot was completed, the network believed it was not in their best interest to continue it.

Over a decade later, Showtime, in what might be perceived as change of (tell-tale) heart, launched the series "Masters of Horror." The series was created in 2005 by executive producer Mick Garris, a familiar name to genre fans as the director of the Stephen King-based miniseries "The Stand" (1994) and 1997’s "Stephen King’s The Shining."

In 1977, Mick Garris created and hosted "Fantasy Film Festival," a Los Angeles cable-access interview program, featuring such guests as Steven Spielberg, David Cronenberg, Joe Dante, John Landis, John Carpenter, William Shatner and Christopher Lee. Garris eventually earned a reputation as a trusted director of "making-of" featurettes for movies, including "Scanners," "The Howling," "Halloween II," "The Thing" and "Videodrome." He was hired by Steven Spielberg as a writer and story editor for the series "Amazing Stories." Along with writing for "Freddy’s Nightmares" and "Tales from the Crypt," Garris also contributed to the screenplay for "The Fly II."

In 1990, Garris directed "Psycho IV: The Beginning," starring Anthony Perkins in his fourth and final portrayal of mama’s boy Norman Bates. Two years later, Garris directed "Sleepwalkers," from an orignal script by Stephen King. It was, in fact, at the request of King, that Garris should direct the six-hour TV adaptation of "The Stand." The relationship between the two continued with the three-part "Stephen King’s The Shining," "Quicksilver Highway" (based on a pair of tales by King and Clive Barker) and "Riding the Bullet" (based on an internet short story by King).

"Masters of Horror" followed the anthology format, with each hour-long episode helmed by a noted horror director. The first season boasted such directors as Joe Dante, John Landis, John Carpenter, Stuart Gordon ("Re-Animator"), Tobe Hooper, Don Coscarelli ("Phantasm"), Dario Argento ("Suspiria") and Larry Cohen ("It’s Alive"). Anchor Bay Entertainment originally offered each episode individually on DVD, promising over three hours of bonus content per release.

After the second season, Garris claimed that Showtime opted out of airing a third, and in 2007, he signed a 13-episode deal with NBC. Instead of a third season, however, a new show called "Fear Itself" was created, based on the same premise. It premiered on NBC in the summer of 2008 but was quickly put on hiatus for the Summer Olympics, and no subsequent episodes have been broadcast.

The After Dark Horrorfest (also known as 8 Films to Die For) is an annual film festival that opened the door for independent film directors. The first Horrorfest, in November 2006, played in 500 theaters in 35 U.S. cities, attracting genre fans with the claim, "The content of these films is considered too graphic, too disturbing and too shocking for general audiences."

After Dark Films itself is a film production company and distributor founded by Courtney Solomon, a Canadian producer with the films "Dungeons & Dragons" (2000) and "An American Haunting" (2005) to his credit. "I think everybody likes to be scared," Solomon noted. "Horror movies are an exciting alternative to action movies. It’s a great date-movie type thing. It’s a perfect movie to go to if you are a teenager…same thing for college kids."

The Halloween season of 2008 became all the spookier thanks to the launch of Ghost House Underground’s slate of eight self-described "provocative, independent horror films…with a focus on groundbreaking product from cutting edge young talent." Ghost House Underground is a branch of Ghost House Pictures, a horror genre company led by Sam Raimi, Rob Tapert and Mandate Pictures president Nathan Kahane, responsible for such successful titles as "The Grudge," "The Grudge 2," "The Messengers," "Boogeyman," "Boogeyman 2" and "30 Days of Night."

Tapert was a college roommate and best friend of Ivan Raimi, older brother of Sam and Ted Raimi. Ivan is a practicing doctor of osteopathic medicine whose work as a screenwriter, including "Army of Darkness" and "Spider-Man 3" (both directed by Sam Raimi) is a sideline. Tapert and Sam started Ghost House Pictures as a production company dedicated to the production of horror movies with modest budgets. The two main thrusts behind Ghost House is the influence of Asian horror films and the use of New Zealand locations (where Tapert resides), which is cheaper than U.S. sites. The first release, "The Grudge," based on the 2003 Japanese thriller "Ju-on," was not a mere "Americanization" but a straightforward remake, directed by the original’s Takashi Shimuzu.

It was in the spring of 2008 that Ghost House Pictures partnered with Grindstone Entertainment Group, the largest distributor of direct-to-DVD films, to extend the Ghost House brand to titles made for the home entertainment market. With the current slew of direct-to-DVD cheapies available, the attachment of a name like Sam Raimi’s provided a stamp of quality that made horror fans’ choices easier.

Sam Raimi noted, "It’s much more fun and relaxing making the pictures at Ghost House because, really, that’s about just working on a limited budget and relying on the smarts of the filmmaker and the craft of making a horror movie. Sometimes we fail, and sometimes we succeed, but I really like that back-to-basics approach without the big budget. I enjoy watching them work in the genre…I like the reactions the audience gives us when we’re successful."