TREMORS is coming to Televison with Kevin Bacon

Bloody Disgusting reported that the TREMORS franchise is returning, this time to television, and Kevin Bacon is tagging along. Bacon will not only star in the series, he's executive producing.

According to EW, this new series will be written by Andrew Miller while Kevin Bacon is confirmed to be reprising his role as Valentine McKee. Our only hope is that Michael Gross will return to the series, reprising his role of Burt Gummer.

Earlier this year Bacon said he’d love to revisit the character. “I’d love to do something else with Tremors and revisit the character 25 years later,” he said. “Part of what’s great about that movie is there are next to no digital effects. The monsters are done with puppetry, and it’s still off, funny and scary — it’s a cool accomplishment.”

The original film produced four direct-to-video sequels, including the brand new Tremors 5, as well as a 13-episode TV series aired in 2003 on the SyFy network. As of right now, no further details have been released.  

Christmas is a Time of Ghosts

 A Review Midnight Syndicate's Christmas: A Ghostly Gathering
By Shane Parkey

             It seems like every year as soon as Halloween is over, if not sooner, you can’t walk into a store, restaurant, or elevator without being inundated by Christmas music. Every year it seems to start sooner and sooner, and it’s really easy to get burned out on the holiday spirit when all you hear is some Christmas standard being destroyed by the latest flavor of the month pop star. Enter Midnight Syndicate. The duo, known individually as Edward Douglas and Gavin Goszka, are mostly known for their soundtrack work on haunted rides, video games, and movie scores. This year, deciding to branch out from their gloomy roots and release their first Christmas album, Christmas: A Ghostly Gathering, they would take a chance and put their own minor-key spin on some classic Christmas tunes and throw in some original themed compositions, as well. 

What happened is a Christmas miracle.

              Christmas: A Ghostly Gathering is exactly that. The songs on this album call back to a time when the Christmas season was more about the gathering together of loved ones and reflecting on the year that had passed and not the over-commercialized spectacle we have all been led to believe that it is in past years. The opening song “Christmas Overture” welcomes you in, but at the same time, catches you slightly off-guard and lets you know this isn’t Bing Crosby. From there, the group takes you on a holiday-themed dark ride that at one moment will make you smile with joy, then in another make you tear up from the memory of a lost loved one or a long gone memory from a Christmas past. Christmas standards such as “Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy” and “Greensleeves” are given new life with beautiful arrangements, while the normally campy “Up on the Housetop” is given a dirge-like quality that may have you believing it’s Krampus with a bag of sticks and not the jolly ol’ elf who’s paying you a visit this year. The rest of the album follows suit with a healthy mix of re-imagined standards (“God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen”, “The Parade of the Tin Soldiers”) and original tunes (“Little Helpers”, “Winter Storm”) that stand shoulder to shoulder with the re-arranged and re-imagined classics. 

             When asked about their approach to a Christmas album, Goszka said “Our goal was to treat each song in a way that would merge familiarity with originality” and (to) “…make this collection uniquely their own”. Midnight Syndicate has done exactly that with this album. This is a collection of songs that you could put on as a soundtrack to your holiday festivities, but would be equally at home as you sit by the Christmas tree glow in the darkness while communing with the Yuletide spirits.

            The holiday season, and Christmas especially, is an emotional time of year for a lot of people for a variety of reasons. That theme plays a large part in the sonic landscape of this album. Happiness, sadness, joy, melancholy, elation, and gloom are just a few of the emotions that are reflected in these songs, yet no singular emotion overtakes another, much like most of us at Christmas time. It is the ability to weave the fine line between the light and dark sides of the holidays, at least musically, that makes Christmas: A Ghostly Gathering one of the best albums, holiday or not, that this author has heard in recent memory.     

                                                                                                                                                       

For more info on Midnight Syndicate, go to www.MidnightSyndicate.com

Shane Parkey is Mortis' Resident Musicologist and host of our monthly music segment, The House of Wax. Follow Shane on Twitter @ShaneParkey and follow The House of Wax @MortisWax. 

Copyright (c) 2015 Mortis Media. All Rights Reserved.

This article may not be duplicated or reproduced without express written consent of its author, Shane Parkey, or Mortis Media.

Robert Kirkman knows how "The Walking Dead" will end!

Bloody Disgusting reports from a recent interview with Marc Maron on the WTF podcast that Robert Kirkman, creator of The Walking Dead, knows where the show is going and how it can eventually end.

On the podcast, Robert Kirkman had the following to say:

"It’s a very popular show, and [the executives at AMC] seem to want it to go for fifty seasons. And it may go for fifty seasons, but there is definitely an end point at some point. The idea is that this story that’s longer than it has any business being, but it’s that length and watching those characters evolve over that time that’s gonna make it be this piece, that when it’s all done, you’ll look back on it and be like ‘what the hell, I thought they were just killing zombies. There’s totally an arc here and a thing going on, and I didn’t think the story was about this! 

I do hope that “The Walking Dead’ goes on long enough that when it ends, it’s like, ‘good thing we took care of those zombies.’

 People talk about how ‘The Walking Dead’s’ very bleak, and if you take a certain cross-section of the story, yeah, it’s horrible. People [are] getting their loved ones eaten and they’re having a horrible time. But I see the story from beginning to end, over many, many years, so I think it’s a very hopeful story about humanity overcoming this insurmountable, apocalyptic situation… it’s just gonna take them a long time to do it."

Even though the sixth season airs this October, reports have stated that AMC, Robert Kirkman, and the show's producers have an outline of how things will play out through season twelve. When the comic for The Walking Dead was created, Kirkman pitched a story that had the potential to never end. 

What do you think? Does the television show have that same potential or should there be an end-game in mind? Do you have an idea on how the show should end? Let us know in the comments.

Here's Johnny! Download a FREE boardgame based on The Shining!

The Shining board game.

Did you know that in 1998 Stephen King helped create a FREE board game based on his novel, The Shining? He was even the first tester for the game. 

Dangerous Minds pulled a review from the Official Stephen King website and it seems to be a short, but really fun play. This two player game has one act as the Torrence family, maneuvering through the Overlook Hotel. The other player acts as the hotel itself, doing its best to add the family to its collection of ghosts. 

A sample room and player pieces from the actual game.

Sounds like fun.

If you want to download and play this game, click HERE. The game is about halfway down the page. 

Here's the player pieces you can print off.

CUJO being remade- Dog origin story in question

Today, Film School Rejects reports that the classic Stephen King inspired film, Cujo, is being remade with a possible serious change to the dog's "origin story".

Here's what they had to say about it:

What’s interesting about the remake — or reboot, as it’s being called — is the title has been changed to the acronym C.U.J.O., which is said to stand for “Canine Unit Joint Operations” (IMDb lists the movie fully as Cujo: Canine Unit Joint Operation). That sounds like it will be straying more from the King novel, which was published in 1981. Could he be some sort of police dog instead of the one owned by remote car mechanic? Could there be a whole unit of rabid Cujos? Given that it’s referred to as a reboot, maybe Elliott wants a franchise, and so maybe multiple murderous mutts. Or just one really big one who isn’t immediately killed off.

 

So, what you you think about Cujo becoming C.U.J.O.? We're dying to know what you think. Sound off in the comments below or let us know on Facebook.

First Look at Pages From the “Ash vs Evil Dead” Necronomicon!

 

Bloody Disgusting has caught more Ash vs. Evil Dead news from EW, this time in the form of a sneak peek of a few pages from the Necronomicon.

Not only does the article show a few pages from the Necronomicon, it gives a few details about the show:

Ash will once again mistakenly awaken an army of evil spirits when the Evil Dead franchise returns with Ash vs Evil Dead this fall on Starz. “This is a guy who thought he could just quietly live a life of quiet desperation and—no,” says Campbell. “He brings it back upon himself and the world, and he of all people must save the world from his own doing. That’s classic Evil Dead. Ash is basically responsible for everything.” Of course he is.

In the 10-episode “Ash vs Evil Dead” series premiering this fall, Campbell will be reprising his role as Ash, the stock boy, aging lothario and chainsaw-handed monster hunter who has spent the last 30 years avoiding responsibility, maturity and the terrors of the Evil Dead. When a Deadite plague threatens to destroy all of mankind, Ash is finally forced to face his demons –personal and literal. Destiny, it turns out, has no plans to release the unlikely hero from its “Evil” grip.”

Here at MORTIS, we're getting really excited to gas up our chainsaw's and check this one out. Check out some more pages (below) and let us know how excited you are for Ash vs. Evil Dead.

Fright Night Documentary in the Works

 

If you've listened to the latest episode of MORTIS, you've heard the Fright Night review by our own Stephen J. Semones. If you're a fan of the classic 80's vampire flick, you're in luck. There's a documentary in the works from Dead Mouse Productions. 

Having recently met their Kickstart goal, the director, Gary Smart, stopped by Dread Central and gave some more juicy bits about the three-plus hour documentary,  You're So Cool, Brewster! The Story of Fright Night. You can read the interview here.

If you're a fan of Fright Night, this is definitely going to be something to add to your collection. We know we will sinking our fangs...er...teeth into this one.

To find out more about the documentary, keep up with the film, and find out more information, visit the official Facebook page here.