Despite the slower-than-expected installation of digital projectors into theaters, yet another movie is slated to be released in digital 3-D (which of course requires digital projection plus additional equipment such as a special screen). According to The Hollywood Reporter, New Amsterdam Entertainment plans to re-release George Romero's 1978 zombie classic Dawn of the Dead into theaters after the film is modified, or "dimensionalized," to be shown in stereoscopic 3-D. The transition from 2-D to 3-D will be handled by In-Three, the company that handled George Lucas' presentation of a segment of Star Wars in 3-D at ShoWest back in 2005. The project is expected to be finished within the year. Romero's Dawn of the Dead, which New Amsterdam remade in 2004, will likely be only the second film to be re-released with a 3-D version, the first being The Nightmare Before Christmas.

As wonderful as it is, the original Dawn of the Dead seems like an odd choice for 3-D, which often capitalizes on the gimmick of having objects jump out at the audience. With this film, we'll instead get to see zombies ever-so-slowly coming towards us as we nonchalantly continue eating our popcorn without fear. Perhaps we'll even have time to head to the restroom before the zombies actually seemingly make their way out into the space of the auditorium. See, that was part of the humor of Romero's Night of the Living Dead sequel, that the characters had time to run in circles around the undead mallrats. It would be much more frightening to see a dimensionalized version of the remake, which featured much quicker zombies. Presently there appears to be no set release date for the re-release, but depending on how crowded the 3-D marketplace is a year from now, I'd guess New Amsterdam is hoping for a 2009 bow.

Man oh man, sometimes I read a concept that's so up my alley that I want to physically punish myself for not thinking of it first. And this is one of 'em: It's a comic book called Last Blood, and here's the concept: A band of vampires has no choice but to defend the planet's last remaining humans from teeming throngs of zombies.

It makes perfect sense! Without human blood, the vampires would go extinct! So if zombies threaten to eradicate all mankind ... aw, man. It's so simple it's beautiful. The comic book was created by Bobby and Chris Crosby, and the boys are now in the movie business with the comics-lovin' Benderspink Productions. (They also have adaptations of Area 52, Y: The Last Man, and Pet Robots in development at various studios.)

Aside from this brief Variety piece, we don't have much more info on Last Blood, but you can check out the source material online right here! (Now I have something fun to do tonight!)

Get ready to break out your copies of The Zombie Survival Guide, and be sure to stock up on bottled water and "lobos" (you know, those weapons with which one decapitates the living dead in hand-to-hand combat) -- Max Brooks's World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War is being made into a film, with J. Michael Straczynski (who's also scribing Silver Surfer) adapting the book for the big screen. The film is being produced by Brad Pitt's Plan B Entertainment and Paramount is distributing.This is probably old news to some of you, but it's exciting news to me, since I just last night finished reading World War Z.

I was absolutely immersed in this book and found it hard to put down. I've had deliciously scary zombie nightmares regularly while reading it, and have spent waayyyyyy more time than is probably healthy in discussions with my husband about the practical issues surrounding surviving a plague of the undead, comparing World War Z to Stephen King's plague book, The Stand, and pondering whether such a thing as an undead plague could actually scientifically happen (see, this kind of freakish obsessiveness is why I don't read or watch a lot of horror ...).

I love George A. Romero for what my Cinematical colleague Ryan Stewart does not -- the "symbolism bat," which allows Romero the freedom to use zombies to comment on whatever he wants. To me, that's a strength, not a weakness. Plus, Dawn of the Dead made me afraid of shopping malls, Day of the Dead made me claustrophobic and Land of the Dead made me wish I didn't work for a corporation.

His latest, George A. Romero's Diary of the Dead, debuted at Toronto and fairly well divided audiences. I've heard from supporters, detractors and those in the middle -- Scott Weinberg was on the positive side -- but I can't wait to see it for myself. And hey! Romero made it completely independently, so that's in his favor. Jason Morgan at AMC's Monsterfest blog points to Box Office Mojo, which lists a release date of February 15, 2008. (Our friends at Moviefone also have this release date.) However, neither The Weinstein Co. site nor the film's MySpace page confirm the date yet, so plan your life accordingly.

Another independent horror film just found its leading lady. Brittany Murphy has signed to star in the psychological horror flick 3:30 a.m., according to Variety. Murphy has dipped her feet into the horror pool in the past (The Prophecy II, Cherry Falls, arguably Don't Say a Word). Mick Davis wrote and will direct 3:30 a.m., which is "about a young woman who leaves Gotham after the death of her father to work in a country hotel." The film is said to explore "the connection between dreams and reality." Davis is credited as a co-writer of The Invisible, one of the worst-reviewed movies of the year, but also wrote the original Swedish version; he is currently filming Dylan, starring Kevin McKidd as the Welsh writer Dylan Thomas. 3:30 a.m. is scheduled to begin filming in January 2008.

There's too much symbolism

I realize that this problem can largely be laid at the feet of George Romero, and I'll accept that, but every time I watch a Romero movie I feel like I'm being smashed in the face with the symbolism bat. It's not that he's an unskilled filmmaker -- although some have argued as much after seeing Diary of the Dead -- it's just that he's all-too-eager to use his zombies to advance whatever cause he wants to flog at the moment. Zombie movies are about ... racism. No, wait, zombie movies are about ... consumerism. No, no, the threat of nuclear war. Actually, go back to the first one -- they're about racism. Diary of the Dead, which I haven't seen, apparently uses zombies to set up the argument that there's too much reality TV. Has it come to that? I realize that zombies make a good catch-all, unlike, say, vampires, but there's a point where enough is enough. No more zombie message movies.

There's no growth in concept

No growth whatsoever, going back even before Bela Lugosi in 1932's White Zombie. One of the few interesting things about Resident Evil: Extinction was that it featured a subplot wherein the evil scientists try to reverse the zombie status of a zombie. They try to make him learn and regain some the cognition of a normal human -- but even this has been done before. Hell, the notion of zombies emerging from the fog of zombiedom has even been done by George Romero. What else have you got? The 28 Days Later films make zombies run fast and take care to not call them zombies, but that's hardly groundbreaking stuff either. Maybe the most innovative zombie movie I've seen in the last few years, Joe Dante's Homecoming, did something a little intriguing -- it gave the zombies a political motivation and had them intent on going to the voting booth. But even this is campy, and brushes up against my problems in point number one.

It's too bad that Flight of the Living Dead is heading straight to DVD, because it's so obviously a midnight movie. I watched it during the day with a sparse audience at Fantastic Fest, and that's just not right. If you want to see New Line's latest permutation of the Snakes on a Plane formula (this time, if you're bitten you don't stay dead) you need a lively crowd filling a theater at midnight. If everyone's been drinking a little, so much the better. The film does ably deliver what its title promises, in the cheesy way that is the trademark of midnight movies.

I shouldn't have to tell you the storyline, since it doesn't matter and you'll be able to guess it anyway. A flight from the U.S. to Paris contains some top-secret government cargo, and the doctors on the plane who are associated with the cargo are very nervous. When turbulence causes the cargo to pop open, the fun begins. Next thing you know ... zombies on a plane. Every potential plot twist is preceded by hints that a child could guess, and you should be able to figure out who will live the longest after the first 15 minutes. The scenes of crazed zombies overrunning the plane (and believe me, I am spoiling nothing by telling you this) are the best parts of the movie.

Zombies continue to be the place to be. They're hotter than vamps and werewolves combined. Heck, they're almost more popular than tales of LiLo and drugs. In just the past year, we've had talk of zombies that span both the globe and cinematic themes. There's Grecian zombies. Grindhouse zombies. Funny servant zombies. An American Zombie. Corbin Bernson-directed zombies. And, of course, someone would have to revolutionize the theme at some point. Then there's zombies hunted by Tyrese. Remake zombies. Flying zombies. Afghani zombies. And, we can't forget the sequel zombies. Now we're getting Irish zombies.

The Hollywood Reporter tells us that Dark Sky Films, a distribution company for genre films, has started production on their first original feature -- Plague Town. The flick is about a "dysfunctional family that goes on vacation and discovers an even more dysfunctional Irish town full of zombies." Principal photography got underway this week in Connecticut, with a cast that includes Josslyn DeCrosta, Erica Rhodes, David Lombard, Lindsay Goranson, Elizabeth Bov Or is it Bove?), and James Warke (who might want to change his screen name considering what a Google search brings up).

The undead fest is being directed by writer/director David Gregory, who has a whopping 90 projects to his name -- mainly behind-the-scenes doc work from high-profile films like Evil Dead and The Deer Hunter to shorts about those saucy Emmanuelle movies.

Additional link: Check out Bloody Disgusting for some press release info.

The critics might not like it, and also can't agree on whether it's better or worse than its two predecessors, but Variety reports that Resident Evil: Extinction topped the box office this weekend, pulling in an estimated gross of $24 million (from 2,828 runs). While we won't know if the success will continue into next week, this sci-fi horror flick is a perfect example of the sequel syndrome. The first, and often cited as the best, Resident Evil raked in $17 million in 2002 (on its way to $40.1 million), and the second, Resident Evil: Apocalypse, collected $23 million (heading to $50.7 million) in its first weekend. The increase has slowed, but it's still there.

Number two, of course, was another zombie flick, Good Luck Chuck. Okay, so it isn't about the undead, but it might make you one, if a 3% fresh rating is to be believed. A rating at 60, 50, or even 40% can be open for discussion, but it's usually the Justin and Kelly variety of schlock if it drops below 10%. So, we've got already-made zombies in a post-apocalypse Vegas battling an abysmal comedy that might make people into zombies. Oh, and we should mention that moviegoers packed the theaters for Rob Zombie's Halloween. Yup, it's zombie's all around! The question is: can they last? Will viewers not only disagree with the critics again, but continue to visit the flicks in droves, or will this batch bow their heads and agree, leaving next week to be open for new fare as the zombies meet their maker, once again?

I've never found clowns particularly amusing. Annoying? Sure. Creepy? Definitely. There's something about the painted-on grins, baggy pants and gigantic shoes that lend themselves more to horror than hilarity. Scary clowns worked pretty well in Killer Klowns From Outer Space and the TV adaptation of Stephen King's It, though the slasher flick Fear of Clowns has quickly become one of my least favorite movies of all time. Dead Clowns, just out from Lionsgate, is the first flick that I know of to use zombie clowns, so I went into this one with a modest sense of optimism.

The town of Port Emmet is being pummeled by a hurricane. The last time a storm of this intensity came through was in 1954 and that storm, aided by a bridge support weakened by a drunken tugboat captain, sent a circus train plummeting into the bay. Parts of the train were eventually brought up, but the clown car has remained buried at the bottom of the ocean ever since. Now stirred up by the storm and angered at the neglect that their mortal remains have suffered, the clowns emerge from the bottom of the bay to feast on the flesh of the residents of Port Emmet. The only warning their victims get is the distant sound of calliope music.

Welcome back to the Hall H show direct from Comic-Con International in beautiful downtown San Diego. For the last few days its been Comic-Con, Comic-Con, Comic-Con and will be probably be that way or the next few days too -- that is if Kevin and I both don't keel over first from all the running around, fighting to get into Halls and chasing reluctant celebs who would rather do almost anything else than be interviewed. Which, if you think about it, is sorta odd for someone who makes their living in the public eye.

Anyway, once again I'm in the still-freezing Hall H to bring you all the latest news, pictures and maybe even some surprises or two.This time around I'm attending the Sony Pictures / Screen Gems presentation to take a look at some of their upcoming projects. On the menu this afternoon we've got an eclectic mix of films, genres and stars to hopefully spark you're interest and generate a little excitement. The films that we get to partake of today include a couple that I, being a huge horror fan, am really looking forward to: Resident Evil: Extinction and 30 Days of Night.

We're also going to get a look at a couple of projects from the mind of comic genius and all-around nice guy Judd Apatow, writer and/or producer of such classic comedies as The 40 Year Old Virgin and Knocked Up. He'll be bringing us the deets on his latest films Superbad and Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story. With a title like that, the film just has to be funny, right? Well, let's find out, shall we?