Ahoy, squirts! Quint here after a whirlwind weekend here in San Diego. I only attended a couple panels, but I got lotsa info. Let's start, shall we?
SEED OF CHUCKY
Jennifer Tilly was there promoting the film and boy does she live up to her reputation as being a loony bitch. Don't get me wrong, she seemed really nice, but the shit that would flow out of her mouth... she's either putting on a great act or is just plain loopy.
But she did bring two clips with her. Chucky himself introduced the scene in a prerecorded video... Not Brad Dourif, but the doll. He apologized for not appearing at the Con, but unlike all of us he has a life, he said. In his hand he clutched a bloody knife... a bloody hand wobbles into frame and Chucky gets pissed. "Die, Goddamnit, Die!" he screams and plunges the knife below frame a few times. Then he presented the clip. Warning of some spoilers below as I'm gonna describe the clip as well as I can remember it.
Clip one: I'm pleasantly surprised by the cinematography, especially after seeing some terrible cinematography in most horror films of late. CoughCemetaryGatesCoughCough. It opens with a dude in a Santa suit walking through a graveyard at night, snow gently and beautifully falling around him. He's on his cell phone with his girlfriend who brakes up with him. A knife rips through the big sack he's toting... arguing with his new ex-girlfriend, he doesn't notice. After he hangs up, he realizes the toys in his sack have fallen out.
He sees the Chucky doll (same stitching design from BRIDE OF CHUCKY) sitting up against a tombstone, bends down to examine him... the eyes are creepy and he realizes a bit too late that something is wrong there. His fake Santa beard gets cut off and the pillow covering his stomach is cut. Chucky and Tiffany inspect the gagging, dying man. Tiffany is designed a bit differently... a bit more elegant. She looks as the removed beard and the feathers sticking out of the gash on his stomach and says, "You're not real!" They are apparently offended that he's a fraud. Chucky starts stabbing him repeatedly saying "You know how that can fuck with your head! You know how that can fuck with your head? You know how that can fuck with your head?"
The Santa raises his head and goes, "The bloody Chucky doll is broken again!" or something like that and the camera pulls back to show that this is a movie within the movie. Jennifer Tilly is sitting onset bitching to the costume and/or make-up lady... How she's sick of hearing about Julia Roberts. "I could have played that part without the Wonderbra!" My favorite line she said was, "I'm an Oscar nominee for Christ's sake, and now I'm fucking a puppet."
That was clip one. Before clip two, Jennifer Tilly rambled crazily for a bit... talked about how she is banned from saying anything too detailed about the movie, then decided to on in great detail about certain aspect of the movie.
They talk about Billy Boyd doing the voice for Glen, the titular SEED OF CHUCKY. The baby was born at the end of BRIDE OF CHUCKY and doesn't know where his parents are, so he's traveling the world looking for them. He spends a lot of time in England and his voice will have an Artful Dodger quality, according to Tilly. The child also believes he's from Japan due to a birthmark he has that says "Made In Japan." Apparently he's watching TV and sees an entertainment show doing a special from the set of the Chucky movie, so he treks to Hollywood to find his mom and pop.
We're also told that when dealing with the mother, father, son relationship, Tiffany has taken a 12 step program to not be violent, wanting to lead a new life. Chucky on the other hand wants the kid to be a man, so he takes Glen out people-hunting. We're also supposed to see Tiffany's dolly nipples in the movie as well as the son, Glen... well, he "is revealed," according to Tilly.
She also brought up some of the bigger cameos in the film, including John Waters playing the Pervy Paparazzi and Redman playing the director of a Biblical epic called THE PASSION OF THE MARY. This led into the second clip they showed.
John Waters is stalking about outside of a Hollywood mansion taking pictures of Redman and Jennifer Tilly "auditioning" for the lead role in the biblical epic... You know, tongue fighting and cleavage lickage. Waters is happy as a pig in shit, clicking off pic after pic. His attention is drawn to a silhouette in another window. It's Chucky pulling his pud vigorously, but of course Waters recognizes it not as a living doll, but as a midget. You can imagine the look on his face... big actress and big director making out in a mansion with masturbating midgets.
Then he catches a glimpse of Tiffany peeking from behind the couch where Redman and Tilly are making out. The glee in his eyes is overflowing as he utters, "Oh, sweet Jesus God bless the little people." By the end of the clip we've seen Tiffany ask Tilly for an autograph (after putting Redman out of the picture) and Chucky holding a cup of his jizz.
I, for one, can't wait for this movie. It seems the filmmakers have found a great little horror/comedy niche with this series and Don Mancini seems to have stepped up to the plate on this film because it looks really good. The only thing they showed that didn't work at all in the scenes was the matching of the dialogue to the movement of Chucky and Tiffany's mouths. That was a little distracting, but it could still be being worked on.
SHAUN OF THE DEAD
Release is pushed back to September 24th, I'd imagine to avoid getting drowned by SKY CAPTAIN AND THE WORLD OF TOMORROW... Judging by the reaction of the people at the Con during the presentation and the screening, I'd say that's a smart idea.
The crowd ate up SHAUN OF THE DEAD. Director Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg were on-hand to watch the crowd react to not one, not two, but 3 screenings of the film and a packed house during their panel. I had people come up to me during the Con that had met me in previous years or at long ago film festivals that thanked me for supporting this film and overheard many more saying that SHAUN totally won them over. This one wins people over quickly and these fans are incredibly loyal.
They premiered the US trailer for SHAUN OF THE DEAD... which was fine, but I preferred the other cut... didn't give as much away and I don't recall Mr. Voice in the UK version. They also showed a bit of a behind the scenes documentary with interviews from everybody in the cast. They ended their panel with a 5 minute or so edit of SPACED, mostly stuff from Season 2 with scenes like the TEKKEN argument and the slo-mo finger gun fight. The audience went nuts for it.
Simon and Edgar were blown away by the crowd, you could tell... The panel itself was entertaining... it had a special surprise guest. Eli Roth himself made a cameo during the panel and one of the best responses to a Q&A question I've heard all weekend. I won't tell you the question, but the phrase that came out of Edgar Wright's mouth was: "No more handjob questions." No exaggeration. That's an exact quote. Think about it, man!
RIDING THE BULLET
Earlier that day I caught a panel with Mick Garris, Jonathan Jackson and one of the producers of the newest STEPHEN KING adaptation of his ebook called RIDING THE BULLET. I like the story, about a kid with a strange relationship with Death who's hitchhiking his way across the countryside to visit his dying mother in a hospital. Ghostly happenings and the such happen along the trip.
I like the story and the casting seems to be pretty good, but the look of the film is a little... flat. Garris is known mostly for his TV work on THE STAND miniseries and THE SHINING miniseries and I'm afraid that he got a little used to TV lighting. It could be the Avid transfer, I know he said the color wasn't completely tweaked and it wasn't 100% finished. I'm curious to see the movie and I hope it looks better when it locks print and we see it on the big screen.
They showed a clip from the film... a kind of mindfuck scene... where Jonathan Jackson is walking down a dark, wooded highway road and there are weird sound surrounding him. The bushes to his right start to tremble and rustle and out pops a scary, terrifying... bunny rabbit. Sigh of relief, then a big wolf jumps out and gobbles the cute little fucker up and then turns on Jonathan Jackson, who ends up on his back getting his throat ripped out. There's a flash and Jackson is fine and this wolf that was facing him down gets taken out by a bus on the highway.
That was about it. I think that about wraps up my panel coverage for the Con this year. I have 8 one-on-one interviews to transcribe and a couple more in the works... You should get those starting on Tuesday or Wednesday! 'Til then, this is Quint bidding you all a fond farewell and adieu.
-Quint
