After a holiday break, the Bits are back!  Now contemplate the following Tids on the Hundred Acre Tree of Woe…

Rob Zombie has co-written a novelization with B.K. Evenson for The Lords of Salem.  The book, which will apparently delve deeper into the film’s story, will hit store shelves on March 12th.  The film itself is scheduled to debut on April 26th.

Undying Love has lost one interesting filmmaker and replaced him with another.  The vampire noir actioner(?!?) was originally slated to get off of the ground with Alexandre Aja at the helm once he completes duties on Horns.  That no longer seems to be the case.  While no specific reason has been given for Aja’s departure, one can only assume that financing on Cobra: The Space Pirate has come together quicker than he expected.  Undying Love will now set sail into production with Joe Carnahan calling the shots.  No exact start date is set, but an early 2013 start is expected.  More as it develops.

Now that Bond has given them a nice cash flow and The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey is poised to do the same, MGM is starting to get other remakes going beyond Poltergeist (in pre-production) and Robocop (shooting).  First up?  The Town That Dreaded Sundown.  The project is currently out to writers and directors, so expect the studio to sign some talent within the coming months.  If, like me, you’ve never seen the original, don’t forget that it will be hitting Blu courtesy of Scream Factory next year.

FX has renewed American Horror Story for a third season.  The press is already hounding Jessica Lange about whether or not she expects to return for a third go ’round on the anthology horror series.  Her response?  Maybe, maybe not.  A vague answer for a dumb question.  Things are likely still in the early stages for the third “film” and there’s no way she would know much of anything about it…let alone if they plan on offering her another role.  That said, I’d say it’s likely that they will want to keep her as a core member of the cast.  I’m far more interested in seeing what they follow up Murder House and Asylum with.  Summer Camp, perhaps?

Sundance 2013 has announced part of its Midnight slate and the likes of S-V/H/S and Jim Mickle’s We Are What We Are remake are among the roster.  If you have a chance to attend, be sure to clue the rest of us in on how these (and others) turn out, you lucky bastards!

Lucky McKee (May, The Woman) and Chris Sivertson (The Lost) have teamed up again to remake their 2001 DTV effort, All Cheerleaders Die.  Production is already underway with a 2013 release targeted for the supernatural horror comedy.

Steven C. Miller (The Aggression Scale) is on a roll lately!  His remake, Silent Night, just hit stores shelves and he has another effort (Under The Bed) already in the can for next year.  In addition to being attached to a remake of Motel Hell, Miller recently signed on to direct the kidnapping thriller Scavenger.  While I have yet to sample the filmmaker’s work of myself, you can’t deny that kind of work ethic…especially when the results are generally considered decent to pretty damn good.

Director Julian Richards is working on getting a sequel to 2003’s The Last Horror Movie off the ground.  The follow-up, currently titled Murder On Demand, is currently being written.  Kevin Howarth is expected to reprise the role of the psychopath, Max.

Poster for Troma’s upcoming sequel.

While it has been suspected for some time, it is now official:  Lost Boys IV is KIA.  No more sequels.  No TV show.  All potential for the follow-up died when Warner’s DTV production house closed earlier this year.  Good riddance, says I.  Now let’s all sit back and wait for the inevitable remake announcement…

Bravo is working on a television remake of Robert Zemeckis’ 1992 horror comedy, Death Becomes Her.  The idea is to craft an hour-long series from the concept and Bob is on board to executive produce.  Good idea?  Bad?  Who knows.  Probably the latter, but I’m rather indifferent.  As much as I love the existing film, this is the kind of thing where the showrunner and cast will make or break it.

Casey Affleck has come on board to produce and potentially star in a film about The Boston Stranglers.  If he steps in front of the camera, he will be playing a cop tracking down the titular foes.  The project is set up at Warner Bros.  There’s no word at this time on whether or not it is the same one that Gale Ann Hurd and Brian De Palma have been trying to get off the ground for years.

While Chris Carter keeps teasing the fans with a possible X-Files 3 happening in the near future, long-time producer Frank Spotnitz seems to be taking the more realistic route.  Ole Frank seems to think it is far more likely that Fox will just try to reboot the franchise on down the line and I agree with him.  For better or worse, it seems that The X-Files: I Want To Believe will remain the final adventure for Mulder & Scully in their original incarnation.

Did you think Akyroyd had given up on his “Ghostbusters in Hell” idea?  Silly rabbit.  Dan is now simply hoping that Ghostbusters 3 will do well enough to warrant a fourth entry that follows his long-developed idea.  Meanwhile, rumors are cropping up that Murray might pop up in a small role after all.  At this point I wish they’d just shoot the damn thing so I can stop reading and writing about all this insanity.  Fall 2013 (the expected start) can’t get here quickly enough.

Jonathan Demme has walked away from his intended adaptation of Stephen King’s 11/22/63.  Apparently he and King didn’t see eye to eye on how to bring the novel to the silver screen and amicably parted ways.  Demme had purchased the rights himself, so don’t expect any movement on this until someone else decides to scoop them back up from King.

Tobe Hooper has chimed in to support Texas Chainsaw 3D, calling it a “perfectly terrifying follow-up to the original”.  If this were the mid-80s, I’d take that as a sign to get a little more enthusiastic about the film.  Nowadays?  Not so much.  Hooper hasn’t made a decent film since his Toolbox Murders remake and even that wasn’t all that remarkable.  I’ve read good things about the still-unreleased Djinn, but given its legal troubles we likely won’t see it for ourselves anytime soon.  Regardless, there’s no way the new TCM could possibly be any worse than TCM: The Next Generation.  That might be damning with faint praise, but such is the state of the franchise.

Things are lightweight on the home release side of things lately:

  • Frankenweenie is set for release on DVD/Blu on January 8th.
  • Hotel Transylvania lands on both formats January 29th.
  • Sinister will be hitting Blu-ray/DVD/VOD on February 19th.
  • Bad Meat seems to be scoring a DVD-only release on February 19th.
  • Olive Films will be issuing Night of the Demons 2 on Blu this February 19th.  This will also be offering up a reissue of The Monster Squad, though likely without the extras that the now-OOP Lionsgate release carries.
  • Phantasm II will arrive on Blu-ray & DVD on March 5th.
  • From Beyond hits the same on March 26th.

That’s all folks!  See you next weekend!

Ho-ho-ohdeargod.