Secret Retro Slasher Projects Revealed – APRIL FOOLS!

Last year John Klyza, Amanda by Night, and myself were approached by a television network in desperate need of ghost writers. The writer strike was on and the network that shall remain nameless needed some slasher experts to jazz up some scripts for an upcoming series. In exchange for our cooperation, the network promised each of us our own special Halloween project to be broadcast in October. So now, after complete secrecy on my part and numerous hints from Klyza and Amanda, I can finally reveal the three Retro Slasher Halloween Specials coming your way this fall.

ABN will be hosting Made-for-TV horror movie double features for TVLand. The films and dates are Moon of the Wolf and Deathmoon (Oct. 3), This House Possessed and Death at Love House (Oct. 10), Dark Night of the Scarecrow and Don’t Go to Sleep (Oct. 17), The Bermuda Depths and Look What’s Happened to Rosemary’s Baby (Oct. 24), and The Night Stalker and The Night Strangler (Oct. 31). Check back with Retro Slashers in the coming weeks for images from the set and pics of ABN dressed in her horror host costume.

John Klyza is making his directing debut with the remake of Hillbillys in a Haunted House for VH1, only this version is based on a Dee Snider script and called Heavy Metal Maniacs in a Haunted House. The basic plot is Dee Snider and Bret Michaels have a party to announce their new tour in a house haunted by the victims of rocker Sinner Steel, who went nuts and killed his band and several groupies twenty years ago. Since VH1 is producing expect to see cameos from many of their “stars”, including Danny Bonaduce, Joanie “Chyna” Laurer, Christopher Knight and wife Adrianne Curry, Ron Jeremy as Dee Snider’s sleazy manager, and Jeff Conway. Ed French is handling the gore effects. H.M.M.i.a.H.H will be broadcast on Friday Oct. 30 on VH1 at 9 p.m. The uncut dvd should be released in November.

My pet project is a script for The Ghost and Mr. Chicken remake on CBS Oct. 25. Jon Cryer stars as Luther Heggs, a reporter for The Rachel Courier Express who comes face to face with the supernatural when he spends the night in the Simmons place. Most of the cast are regulars on CBS programs but I did talk the producers into hiring a few familiar genre faces. Angus Scrimm is playing the ghost of Old Man Simmons, Linda Blair is the ghost of his murdered wife, and Tom Noonan is playing the sinister Nicholas Simmons. This story is different from the original in that Luther will really encounter the supernatural. None of that “tuning keyboard under the pipes” crap in my script. I will be supplying the voice yelling “That a boy, Luther!” during the crowd scenes.

While we won’t make appearances in each other’s projects, we did throw in an in-joke that will connect all three projects. There will be a “John” and “Thomas” on ABN’s shows (John suspects one will be a pet rat and the other will be a pet snake), an “Amanda” and “Thomas” in Heavy Metal Maniacs in a Haunted House, and an “Amanda” and “John” in The Ghost and Mr. Chicken. John actually took the in-jokes much further by including references to many of his slasher blog buddies. Some are pretty obvious. His Final Girl is named Stacie, ponder that one for a minute. Others take a little thinking. One character is an anchorwoman and she will be in peril.

Expect more updates, interviews, and photos from the sets of all three projects as we get closer to October.