Cinefantastique Online

Well, what is happening in the vast reaches of cyberspace? Let’s take a look…

You’ve probably already heard this, and if you haven’t already heard it, you probably don’t care, but VH-1 is going to run a “Scream Queen” contest, a reality series that will whittle down 10 unknown actress until the winner gets a major role in an upcoming Lionsgate film (yeah, I’m sure they’ll need a “major” victim for the next SAW movie).

WALL-E: The Scottsman offers up an article on the upcoming Pixar computer-generated film. The story focuses on the contribution of sound designer Ben Burtt, who previously gave voice to R2D2 in the STAR WARS films.

In “Metropolis Now,” New York Times critic A.O. Scott takes an intriguing look at science-fiction films that present pessimistic vision of the urban future: METROPOLIS, BLADE RUNNER, etc.

“Kids in Horror“: Reflecting on why children in horror films get under our skin, Theofantastique’s John Moreland opines:

In my view there are at least two primary reasons why we find evil children so repulsive and fascinating in horror. First, children represent our individual and collective future, both in terms of the continuance of our individual family lineage as well as in the continued existence of the human race. We want our progeny to reflec the best of our contributin to the human race, not detract from it in significan ways. Secondly, the presence of evil children challenges parents in how well they did or did not raise their child, which raises the spectre that they may have contributed to the evil conducted by their offspring. Both aspects are tremendously important and may reflect on a portion of our angst over kids in horror.

The Courier-Jounal post a Q&A with fantasy author Ray Bradbury.

San Francisco’s Another Hole in the Head festival of science-fiction and horror is going on now. Get details here.

In “The Horrors!” former Cinefantastique writer Daniel Schweiger takes stock of a slew of recent CD soundtrack releases, including MUTANT, THE ABANDONED, and EYE OF THE DEVIL.

“HILLS RUN RED finds its stars“: Hollywood Repoter tells us that Sophie Monk, Tad Hilgenbrinck, and William Sadler have joined the cast of this film, which is shooting in Bulgaria. Script by David J. Schow (THE CROW) is about a film geek searching for a complete print of a lost slasher movie; the quest leads to the isolated location where the film was shot. According to HR: “They realize too late that filming never ended — and now they must survive a nightmarish onslaught or become part of the movie forever.”