The MC comes out and announces that prior to the panel, we will be treated to an exclusive 10 minute scene, and that parents with kids in the audience may want to remove their children because we would be seeing some zombie moments (which really got the crowd going). Don't know if you guys have seen it so I'll keep the moments you'd consider spoilers out of this description.

We start out with an overhead shot of a beautiful neighborhood (the inclosed type) and I guess our female lead (not familiar with her) driving home. She stops to talk to her neighbor (a 12yr old girl) who shows her she's learned to skate backwards. She pulls up to her driveway, goes inside and sees her man watching TV (some kind of American idol bullshit), they end up in the shower together at which point the regular television program is interrupted by an emergency announcement. From the shower they end up in bed and next thing you know it's 6:36 in the morning and their bedroom door slowly opens. We see the silhouette of a small girl. They both wake up to see her there and boyfriend gets up to see what's wrong with her. She opens her arms, he goes to her to pick her up and we see that her face is covered with blood and her whole left side of her lips have been ripped off (or bitten off). She lunges forward and literally goes for the jugular. Girlfriend jumps on her as she rips a chunk of neck off. She tosses her into the hallway and we see the scene in the trailer where she pops up to her feet and charges the bedroom. Girlfriend slams the door on her, runs to boyfriend and puts pressure to his wound, which is gushing lots of blood. As he dies and lil girl is slamming on the door, girlfriend tries to call 911 but all lines are busy. At this point, boyfriend stands, looks around and rushes our leading lady. She manages to escape through the bathroom window and we get a disturbing shot of the chaos that is consuming her once quite neighborhood. The camera pans to show some homes on fire, neighbors confused and in fear, cars driving recklessly and some burning, and people (or zombies) running in and out of homes. At this point she makes it to her car when she is accosted by a neighbor with a gun. She's trying to calm him down when something cool, but terrible, happens. As she gets in her car and speeds away, her man runs after her. He's caught up to her when his attention is now set on a family that's just walk out of their home. He runs and jumps on the fresh meat and next we're with our heroine as she's driving out of her neighborhood. We see more chaos, more destruction then we get a helicopter view of the city and I kid you not, it reminded me of the sky shots of LA during the riots (quit cool yet very terrifying). During this shot you get that end of the world feeling, especially when you see the craziness of the reckless traffic. After this is an additional two minutes that end with her crashing.

Now I know about the anger over the title, but if you disregard that you'll agree with Harry in that this will probably be a good zombie movie. The crowd sure gave its approval at the end of the teaser. As for the panel, the director, producer, three of the lead actors and the crowd pleaser, Ken Foree, were present. Typical stuff was said most notably Ken Foree saying that his cameo in the film is as a televangelist (so if you've read the script, I guess you know his role), and the whole panels admiration for G. A. Romero and his original trilogy and their hope that if their movie is successful, it will prompt a studio to finance Romero's fourth installment.

HellBoy Segment

I'll make this one short and sweet. Ron Perlman, Doug Jones, and Guillermo del Toro kicked ass. They answered every question thoroughly and with great enthusiasm, especially del Toro. The man is a funny motherfucker. They showed us a trailer that will soon be released exclusively on the Best Buy Coming Soon dvd they release once a month at their stores. A cool scene in this trailer that I've never seen before is HellBoy ripping his own horns off. They also showed a 12 min. featurette that showed us among other things, baby HellBoy, killer action scenes (HellBoy kicking ass, HellBoy getting his ass kicked), and some Rick Baker monster models. Thing of note, when asked what future projects he has in mind he mention that he was in cahoots with James Cameron on a project based on "The Coffin" comic book and was interested in making it in 3-D, also mentioned a comic book property he has been wanting to obtain for quit sometime. I'm just sorry I can't name it because although Guillermo spoke loud and clear, at this point we in the back were getting some loud feedback. This is also why I can't name his dream project. All I can say is that it is based on a HP Lovecraft story. AT THE MOUNTAINS OF MADNESS

Well, that's it except to say that the one and only David Carridine was also there, but he was just their to sign autographs and that was the only time you could get to him and I didn't get that chance. Other than that it was a great Convention.

Other notable news: It was mentioned that at the April edition of the LA Sci-Fi Comic Con which will be held at the Shrine Auditorium on the 25th the guest of honor will be the one & only great Ray Harryhausen. He'll be present for a book signing. Maybe the LA crowd will get to see you guys there.

Later

The Onemangang