This column is so often steeped in skepticism that it's a relief to declare unequivocally: I cannot freakin' wait for this movie. Just as I was starting to think that the zombie sub-genre was becoming played – the recent trend toward athletic, lightning-quick zombies hasn't really cured the zombie movie's fundamental repetitiveness – World War Z threatens to revitalize (your gratitude for not writing "resurrect" or "reanimate") the genre by hauling it, straight-faced and dead serious, into the real world.

The first thing Brooks does is set ground rules. Once infected and undead, zombies are essentially monomaniacal brains unmoored from brains' normal contingencies – e.g. a pumping heart, a digestive system, oxygen. Until the brain itself is destroyed, it will stupidly, relentlessly pursue human flesh, using whatever parts of the original body remain at its disposal. Zombies move slowly, with arms – if available – raised toward their target. If a zombie finds prey, it will moan; if a nearby zombie hears a moan, it will move toward the source and let out a moan itself. You see how this could escalate.

As much as I enjoyed the shaky-cam mayhem of Cloverfield, I'm pretty bummed about the idea of Matt Reeves helming a remake of the 2008 vampire film, Let the Right One In. Even before the original film had hit theaters stateside, there were deals in place for Reeves to remake the film for U.S. audiences -- and that's what has me worried. Whenever something is remade for North America, what it usually means is that a little 'sanitation' is in order. For better or for worse, audiences tend to react badly to seeing children in a decidedly non-childlike way, and that's what made The Right One so memorable. But I guess I better get used to the idea, because Reeves recently told the L.A. Times that he's been scouting locations and that a second draft of the script has already been completed and now has the new title, Let Me In.

Let the Right One In was the story of Oskar, a young boy living in the suburbs of Sweden who begins a friendship with a vampire child named Eli who has moved in next door. For Reeves' remake, he's kept the time period in the 80's, but relocated the story to Regan-era Colorado. Most importantly, he's promised that he won't be making his Oskar and Eli any older in an attempt to appeal to the 'Twilight Crowd', and the success of his remake will all come down to who Reeves casts for his two leads. The director has already started working with Avy Kaufman to try and find the perfect cast, and luckily, Kaufman has experience when it comes to casting 'creepy kids', having been the casting director for The Sixth Sense and The Ice Storm.

After the jump: the original film's director and screenwriter give their two cents...

Guy Pearce just doesn't do enough movies for my liking. It's not as though he's vanished, but he seems to maintain a fairly low profile every time he blows everyone away with a big, meaty part like L.A. Confidential or Memento. But he has a lot of great projects coming up (the most exciting of which has to be The Road), and he's added a very intriguing one to his slate: the remake of 1973's telepic Don't Be Afraid of the Dark.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Pearce and Bailee Madison have joined Katie Holmes in Troy Nixey's remake. It's a fairly loose adaptation of the 1973 original, which was centered around a couple, Sally and Alex, who inherited an old mansion from Sally's grandmother. Sally accidentally uncovers a hellish portal that allows a bunch of demons to escape and wreck bloody havoc. Naturally, no one believes her, and is convinced she's having a nervous breakdown thanks to all that home repair. Because it was the 1970s, it didn't even end well for Sally who just wanted a new fireplace. For those tired of seeing "remake" tacked onto everything, and for fans of the original, you'll be happy to know that the new Dark isn't so much a remake as a story "inspired by" those demonic creatures of old.

Check out the rest of the story at The Horror Squad

It looks like wolves won't be sharing the spotlight with vampires much longer. While our moon-led friends pop up in the likes of Underworld and the upcoming New Moon, a werewolf frenzy has taken over Hollywood, and there are no signs of it stopping, and no corner it won't touch. Less than two weeks after Teen Wolf was set to get the remake treatment, The Hollywood Reporter posts that Dimension Films is looking to remake John Landis' An American Werewolf in London. (Confirming a tip from Bloody Disgusting on Sunday.) Because apparently, no one is interested in making a new wolfy story.

This whole plan is still in the early stages, but per usual remake plans, Dimension wants "to make an elevated genre picture that will keep the fun comedy elements of the original as it seeks to be relevant to contemporary audiences." Relevant how? The wolf loves a girl in love with a vamp, and then finds an uber-creepy way to stay in her life?

Most remakes bring, at best, apprehension, but I really wish companies would stop with the cult classics. Or, at the very least, not all foam at the mouth to remake them. Dramas, action, horror -- these genres can often get remade well, because most of the success relies on quality and craft. But comedy and cult? It's as much about the time and place as it is about the talent involved.

Fine. Take our excellent Landis wolves and remake them. Make them "relevant." But whatever is done, I bet it won't be a cult classic, nor worthy of the name An American Werewolf in London.

Not long ago a friend of mine caught a super secret advanced screening of the Diablo Cody-scripted horror flick Jennifer's Body, starring Megan Fox as a demonically-possessed cheerleader who begins to off the male students at her school in what I can only imagine are very creative ways (knowing Cody's mangled sense of humor). The verdict from my friend was ... "eh, it's what I expected -- though I was surprised at how lesbian-ish it was ... not that there's anything wrong with that." Granted, my friend isn't a big fan of Cody's work, and so that's probably part of the reason why he was lukewarm to it -- but then he pulled out a whole bunch of stills from his magical briefcase, and, well, regardless of how "good" this movie is, my Megan Fox fixation went into hyper-drive.

While I unfortunately do not have any of those photos to show you today (one included Fox wearing next to nothing while holding her tongue out over the open flame of a lighter, and another showed Fox's bloody-as-all-hell mouth full of whatever poor human boy she just tore apart), Empire Magazine did premiere a few images in their latest issue and our friends over at Film School Rejects scanned them for us to see. I'm sure more clearer versions of these will arrive online this week, but for now check out two of them below and the rest over at FSR.



Jennifer's Body is due out on September 18.

Back at last year's Fantastic Fest, I was privy to a conversation between Scott Weinberg and screenwriter Marcus Dunstan about the latter's latest project (he'd just done some Saw sequels and was in town for his Feast follow-ups). It was called Midnight Man at the time, and if I could remember what it was about, I'd tell you. (Honest!) I just remember being vaguely psyched for it.*

Well, the film's done now, under a new name of The Collector and accompanied by a bunch of solid buzz from genre sites all over and none other than Alamo Drafthouse head honcho Tim League himself. Thusly, Fantastic Fest and our own Horror Squad have teamed up to bring an early screening of the film to Austin before its July 31st theatrical run.

For more details on this free (!) sneak peek, head on over to Horror Squad.

*"Vaguely psyched!" - Go ahead, put that on the poster.

It's understandable if you don't get a shiver down your spine when you hear the name Danvers unless you're a fan of abandoned insane asylums, horror movies, or H.P. Lovecraft. But if you've caught the criminally underseen Session 9, which was written and directed by Brad Anderson, you'll know an apartment at the newly renovated Avalon Advantage in Danvers is not the hottest property investment on the market.

Session 9 is one of the scariest movies I've ever seen, and it boasts a fine performance from David Caruso as well, with nary a pair of sunglasses in sight. And, most pantswettingly, it was actually filmed on location in the Danvers State Hospital for the Criminally Insane in Danvers, MA. (Anderson also wrote and directed the equally excellent and underseen Transsiberian.)

As per the wonderful website Atlas Obscura, "While it was built with a surprisingly caring and modern attitude toward the mentally ill, by the 1930's the site was crowded, falling into disrepair, and was using shock therapies and lobotomies on a regular basis. The addition of criminals, alcoholics, and the mentally retarded to the overcrowded hospital made it very difficult for the hospital to help cure any of its mental patients. The hospital was shut down in 1992."

Read more at Horror Squad

Over two years ago, Ethan Hawke decided to change things up and go for some vampiric fare by grabbing Daybreakers -- a vampire movie set in the future, and not exactly his normal genre. Now, finally, Yahoo has the trailer, which you can watch after the jump (or right here).

Hawke plays a researcher in 2019 named Edward Dalton. Some pesky plague has turned most of the world's population into vampires, and humans are at the edge of extinction. But seeing that vamps sort of rely on human blood, they've got to farm the remaining humans to keep up their food source, or find a blood substitute. But it isn't a wasteland of chaos -- the vamps are leaders, cops, you name it. As the supply decreases, a rogue crew finds a way to cure vampirism and possibly save the human race, and they enlist Dalton to help.

The trailer has its goofy moments, and I really don't get Hawke's hat-topped getup, but dare I say: this movie looks fun. It's got the teeth and the usual vampiric snarling, but even better -- it's got a twist that hasn't been overused to the point of insanity. There's no teen romance, no vamp/wolf combo. It even plays on our expectations -- this future isn't a post-apocalyptic wasteland of blood, but one that continues societal structures. And best of all, we've got Willem Dafoe getting creepy again as one of the rogues. That's enough for me. You? The film will hit screens on January 8, 2010.

Some critics' groups rush to hand out awards weeks before the year of eligility is over. Other groups, like the Academy of Science Fiction Fantasy & Horror Films, prefer to take their time. The 35th annual Saturn Awards were presented last night in beautiful downtown Burbank, California, honoring the best in genre films for the 2008 calendar year. The top awards, as listed by FearNet, went to Iron Man (Science Fiction), The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (Fantasy), Hellboy II: The Golden Army (Horror), and The Dark Knight (Action / Adventure / Thriller).

The Academy also found room to honor Angelina Jolie as Best Actress for Changeling, which makes me wonder how that film could possibly qualify as a genre flick. Horror, perhaps? More major awards went to Robert Downey, Jr. as Best Actor and Jon Favreau as Best Director for Iron Man, Heath Ledger as Best Supporting Actor, and Tilda Swinton as Best Supporting Actress. Wall-E took home Best Animated Film and Let the Right One In was presented with the Best International Film award. And here are the awards that make the Saturns stand out for genre fans: Lance Henriksen received the Life Career Award, and Leonard Nimoy nabbed the Lifetime Achievement Award.

I was following the awards show via Twitter, and the most entertaining account was the one by loquaciousmuse; she made it sound like a blast. If you're out of state, $40 buys an Academy membership with award voting privileges. The least expensive in-state membership is $150, which also grants access to more than 100 special screenings.