Mac Carter and Jeff Blitz created the comic, which integrates biographical elements of author H.P. Lovecraft’s life with elements of his horror novels, setting up Lovecraft to battle the very demons he wrote about, which are released from a cursed book. Carter, known for directing commercials, is set to write the script. Both he and Blitz will be executive producers. Howard and his Imagine partner Brian Grazer are producing. David Bernardi and Chris Wade are co-producing.

As you’ll read in any copy-and-pasted run through of this story, Lovecraft died in 1937 and is considered one of the most influential horror writers of the 20th century. Still, with all props to Howard it’s difficult to imagine Lovecraft getting the right treatment from the director. If the project goes through, here’s to hoping they get Lovecraft right.

That said, go read the novella The Case of Charles Dexter Ward. Here’s a link to a downloadable version.

“NORTH END GHOULS AGAIN ACTIVE.”

You just have to love that headline from the Thursday edition of the Evening Bulletin, eh? Lol. Go read the book, you’ll understand what I mean. Yes, Lovecraft was the man of making things go bump in the night. Now is that the sounds of rats coming from my walls?

Give the curse away? Kinda of like Stephen King’s (a.k.a Richard Bachman) Thinner, hmmm? Here’s a synopsis, from IGN.com.

Director Sam Raimi (Spider-Man trilogy, Evil Dead series) returns to the horror genre with Drag Me To Hell, an original tale of a young woman’s desperate quest to break an evil curse. Christine Brown (Alison Lohman) is an ambitious L.A. loan officer with a charming boyfriend, professor Clay Dalton (Justin Long). Life is good until the mysterious Mrs. Ganush (Lorna Raver) arrives at the bank to beg for an extension on her home loan. Should Christine follow her instincts and give the old woman a break? Or should she deny the extension to impress her boss, Mr. Jacks (David Paymer), and get a leg-up on a promotion? Christine fatefully chooses the latter, shaming Mrs. Ganush and dispossessing her of her home. In retaliation, the old woman places the powerful curse of the Lamia on Christine, transforming her life into a living hell. Haunted by an evil spirit and misunderstood by a skeptical boyfriend, she seeks the aid of seer Rham Jas (Dileep Rao) to save her soul from eternal damnation. To help the shattered Christine return her life to normal, the psychic sets her on a frantic course to reverse the spell. As evil forces close in, Christine must face the unthinkable: how far will she go to break free of the curse?

Oh well, at one point in the trailer the Gypsy woman looks an awful lot like the bloated hag in Evil Dead 2. If you want more, here’s one review. Drag Me to Hell opens in theaters on May 29. Ropeofsilicon.com has photos here.

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button had nine total nods, Iron Man had eight, Valkyrie seven and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull as well as Changeling each had six nominations.

Up for Best Horror Film? The Happening, Hellboy II: The Golden Army, The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor, Quarantine, Splinter and The Strangers. I don’t know about you, but it’s hard to imagine The Happening or The Mummy getting the nod (I must go rent Quarantine this weekend…).

Mind you, The Day The Earth Stood Still is up for Best Sci Fi flick.

The awards show will take place on June 25, at a site to be announced. You can read more about the awards and the Academy here.

You can watch all six episodes on Hulu, or Fear.net. Here’s the link to Sony Pictures’s 30 Days of Night flick. One of my all-time favorite vampire movies.

Now don’t watch if it you can’t take gore, because there is plenty. Humor, too. The story is told in three parts (Transmission I, II and II), written and directed separately. The film’s official site is here. The following is yahoo.com’s blurb:

It’€™s New Year’™s Eve in the city of Terminus and chaos is this year’€™s resolution. All forms of communication have been jammed by an enigmatic transmission that preys on fear and desire driving everyone in the city to murder and madness. In a place once marked by conformity but now sent into complete anarchy, the rebellious Ben must save the woman he loves from the bedlam in the streets as well as her crazed sadistic husband. But the only way he can tell who to trust or who has given in to violence is by uncovering the true nature of The Signal.

Anyway, The Signal gets a big thumbs up from me. Nothing like watching a good end of the world via technology-creates-apocalypse flick to get the New Year started right. You can watch it at Amazon.com’s VOD here. Whatever you do, don’t judge the horror flick by the first three minutes.

“The Vesper or Vesper Martini is a cocktail that was originally made of gin, vodka, and Kina Lillet. Origin: The drink was invented and named by fictional secret agent James Bond.”

” “A dry martini,” [Bond] said. “One. In a deep champagne goblet.”

“Oui, monsieur.”

“Just a moment. Three measures of Gordon’s, one of vodka, half a measure of Kina Lillet. Shake it very well until it’s ice-cold, then add a large thin slice of lemon peel. Got it?”

“Certainly, monsieur.” The barman seemed pleased with the idea.

“Gosh, that’s certainly a drink,” said Leiter.

Bond laughed. “When I’m…er…concentrating,” he explained, “I never have more than one drink before dinner. But I do like that one to be large and very strong and very cold and very well-made. I hate small portions of anything, particularly when they taste bad. This drink’s my own invention. I’m going to patent it when I can think of a good name.”

-Ian Fleming, Casino Royale

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Travel industry officials told the Peninsula Daily News that fans of the vampire novels have been making the drive to the Forks to get a bats-eye view of the haunts of Isabella Swan, Edward Cullen and Jacob Black. I don’t know if this is true, but I heard a rumor that Meyer’s picked Forks after goggling the city in the US with the highest rain totals. A trailer is now available for the first movie taken from the books, with a release date of 11/21/08. Here’s a gander:

Twilight HD Exclusive Trailer

Back to point, Variety is reporting that D.B Weiss is writing the first version of the script, from a story created by Smith, producers Akiva Goldsman and James Lassiter, and director Francis Lawrence. As Variety says:

“The prequel will chronicle the final days of humanity in New York before a man-made virus caused a plague that left Smith’s character the lone survivor among a mutated mob in the city.”

According to Variety, I Am Legend grossed $584 million worldwide for Warner Bros. Weiss, you may remember, was one of the screenwriters for Peter Jackson’s Halo movie, adapted from the superb Bungie video game.

The storyline? Four years after a murder involving a killer chair in the abandoned Blackwater asylum, a psychology prof and his students return to the scene with the accused killer searching for the truth (key words: occult mystery, blood-drenched, supernatural thriller). On the onset, it sounds like Matheson’s Hell House (and for that reason all the more worth renting).

The UK has been churning out some great horror movies over the last decade (Dog Soldiers, 28 Days Later). The movie’s official website is here.

For more, check out the slick website put up by Miramax. Great open. For the journey to story took from novel to screenplay to screen, the LA Times has an interesting column that came out this week (Joe Penhall, who adapted McCarthy’s The Road, is quoted in the article). The film stars Mark Ruffalo and Julianne Moore (it also opened the 2008 Cannes Film Festival). You can read Guardian (UK) review of the film here. Peter Bradshaw gave the film 4 stars.