My good pal Eric Dee Snider and I were recently enjoying some Instant Messenger banter, and our main topic of conversation was this: Why are studios and distributors so damn scared of their own horror movies? Sure, I know the obvious answer: Of all the rotten movies released in one calendar year, a good portion of 'em will be horror movies -- because horror movies often represent the best low-overhead investment for a production company that's looking to earn a quick buck. Yes, a lot more potentially profitable than a comedy, a drama or (dear god) a low-budget action flick.

So if you KNOW you just finished post-production on a real stinkeroo, of course you'll want to "hide" it from the press for as long as possible. But here's what annoys me: Nowadays the distributors don't seem to have even the slightest clue as to what they're looking at. Case in point: This weekend's The Ruins, which (if measured on its own merits and its specific intentions) is a pretty damn effective horror movie -- so why did DreamWorks / Paramount refuse to screen it for the professional movie nerds? OK, to be fair, there was a press/promo screening at 9pm on April 3 -- but that means they're screening the flick THREE HOURS before it opens?

I have this theory that everyone was freaked out by something in their childhood, something that haunts them for years on end. My younger brother used to burst into tears if anyone so much as mentioned the Incredible Hulk (and boy, is he glad I just revealed that to the world). I have one friend who can't bear to watch balloons float up into the sky, and he's blocked out the memory of why that is, exactly (maybe his parents broke up while he was watching The Red Balloon?).

Me, I spent years traumatized by Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory. Patrick Walsh has already mentioned Willy Wonka in his brilliant post on non-horror movies that scared the crap out of him as a kid, but for me it wasn't the tunnel scene that did me in. All I remember is seeing a kid (Augustus, as it turned out) falling into a chocolate pond and getting sucked up a tube with a look of abject horror on his face -- and I ran from the room in a blind panic. From then on, even thinking about the movie made me shudder in fear; and when I finally forced myself to watch it just a few years ago, I felt 100 percent vindicated. Man, that is one creepy flick.

Celebrities aren't so different from you and me. Recently, in honor of Halloween, we asked a bunch of them what movie freaked THEM out when they were kids, and their responses were immediate, sometimes surprising and always interesting, even (or especially) if it wasn't a horror movie that haunted them -- Michael Douglas, for example, couldn't shake the memory of his father, Kirk Douglas, playing Vincent Van Gogh. But their confessions included tons of classic and obscure horror movies, too. Which movie makes Ellen Page cry after sex? Who spent their childhood terrified of Stephen King's clowns? Why did Cate Blanchett spend years avoiding swimming pools? Perhaps most interesting is that so many of them were allowed to watch horror movies when they were so young. Quick, someone call protective services! It's not too late, Adrien Brody!

Check out our lineup of movies that scared celebs when they were kids, and see if any of their fears match yours. Then let us know: Which movie from your childhood still makes you break out in a cold, cold sweat?

Some people go to film festivals to rub elbows with fancy folks; others go to see small foreign documentaries or glitzy Hollywood product. And others go just because their boss is paying for it. (These are the most annoying people of all.) But my main focus at any film festival is the scary stuff. Doesn't matter if it's a prestigious event like Toronto / Sundance or a down-home good time like SXSW, Philly or Fantastic Fest -- my eyeballs always search for the horror flicks first ... and rare is the genre film that can avoid my attention come festival time.

All of this explains why I've seen a whole lot of horror films that haven't been released yet. Over the course of this three-part series, I hope to give you a bunch of titles (21, to be precise) that have not hit the screens (or shelves) just yet. I'm not saying they're all classics, but on the other hand ... I wouldn't be throwing crap titles in there, now would I? In no particular order, let's start with...

Inside (A l'interieur) -- It stunned me at Toronto and it wormed its way into my heart at Fantastic Fest. It's the very simple story of a very pregnant woman, a very psycho bitch and a collection of very sharp weapons. NOT for the squeamish, the pregnant, the hemophobic or wimpy, but it's definitely a flick that'll keep the fans talking for a while. (Full review here.) Arrival: All I know is that the Weinsteins own it, which means it'll probably hit DVD (under the "Dimension Extreme" label) some time early next year.

Wrong Turn 2 -- Between my positions at FEARnet and DVDTalk, I see a whole bunch of 'direct-to-video' movies -- and the sequels are usually the worst. So imagine my surprise when this flick brought me back to my giddy days of Friday 2 and Chainsaw 2! (Full review here.) It lacks the seriousness of the first Wrong Turn, but it's pretty enthusiastically gory -- and it kills off a bunch of reality show contestants. Now that's fun. Arrival: The Fox DVD arrives this Tuesday.

S&Man -- "A darkly insightful and entirely fascinating study of the most disturbing material out there ... and why we like to watch it." That's what I said about this great little flick ... about two years ago! (Rocchi's review here.) Director JT Petty has The Burrowers and Goth on the way, but this dark little doco deserves to be seen already. Arrival: Word from Mr. Petty himself is that, well, release plans are still pending.

I'm an animated (and frequently loud) guy, but the truth is I'm kind of a baby. I can't watch the evening news for fear of some story about a dumpster baby or a dying child; I often trickle a tear at even the corniest of sincere sentiment; and aside from roller coasters I'm pretty much afraid of amusement park rides. So how is it that such a sensitive little Sally like me has become such a passionate student of the horror genre? Well that's a good question, and it's one that's fascinated parents, filmmakers and psychologists since long before I was born.

So to welcome in my favorite month of the year -- and to kick-start Cinematical's month-long ode to all things related to scary cinema -- I thought I'd get the ball rolling on the WHY of the horror film. As in: Why do completely normal and emotionally healthy people enjoy producing, watching and dissecting pieces of art / entertainment that are A) grim, B) brutal, C) terrifying, and / or D) frequently unpleasant to look at?

The answers are as numerous as you can imagine, but I'll offer a few opinions before welcoming the month of mayhem:

1. People like seeing things on the screen that they'd never want to see in reality: Imagine if Friday the 13th actually happened. It'd be too freakin' tragic to imagine. (Anyone remember Gainesville?) But toss a bunch of fictional teenagers up on the screen and we get to experience a vicarious little thrill. Some might even say that horror movies are healthy and cathartic. Some like me.

2. The roller coaster effect: With very few exceptions, roller coasters are totally safe -- yet amazingly scary. It's that people can fill their brain with 90% terror -- and yet still there's that 10% that reminds us how safe we actually are. Plus it feels pretty good to come out of a nasty little horror movie and see that the sun's still shining, babies are still beautiful, and life's a whole lot better for you than it was for the screaming victims you just said goodbye to.

Yeah, blah blah blah. Here's the intro paragraph where I remind you (yet again) how much I love horror movies, foreign action movies and bizarre comedies that'd probably never play your local multiplexes. But we've been down this road once before so I'll skip all the foreplay and cut right to the chase: This year's Toronto Film Festival Midnight Madness slate looks pretty damn wild. It's basically a mixture of well-known masters and unknown imports ... all of which I aim to see (and review) at the festival next month. Here's what Colin Geddes and his genre posse have put together for us:


À L'Intérieur (France) -- TIFF Guide Quote: "Hailed by Fangoria horror film critic Alan Jones as "the goriest film since Peter Jackson's Dead Alive ... a fresh work of Caesarean terror that reaches beyond the current American horror trend of Saw or Hostel." Yum! Sign me up!

Dainipponjon (Japan) -- TIFF Guide Quote: "A wickedly deadpan spin on the pop image of giant Japanese superheroes like Ultraman, Dainipponjin body slams with a stinging dry wit that ricochets to ever-higher levels of audacity." Ha! And get a load of this IMDb synopsis: "An eccentric man aged about 40 lives alone in a decrepit house in Tokyo. He periodically transforms into a giant, about 30 meters tall, and defends Japan by battling similarly sized monsters that turn up and destroy buildings. The giant and the monsters are computer-generated."

The Devil's Chair (USA) -- TIFF Guide Quote: "Evoke(s) John Hough's 1973 paranormal gothic favourite, The Legend of Hell House, fiendishly mashing it together with the crass literary stylings of Irvine Welsh and serving it up with a devilish wink to the audience." And if you'd like to see director Adam Mason's first film (Broken), it hits DVD on September 25. Suffice to say it's not for the squeamish.

Diary of the Dead (USA) -- TIFF Guide Quote: "Mixing Romero's brand of social commentary amid all the gut-munching, George A. Romero's Diary of the Dead critiques the media and its place in today's world of disaster and terror." From the little I've read on this flick, it seems to be Blair Witch meets Night of the Living Dead -- which would normally make me verrrrry skeptical. But c'mon, it's Romero.

Flash Point (China) -- TIFF Guide Quote: "Hits melodramatic zeniths, ticking off the checklist of cop-flick conventions, but it matches them with fierce kicks and punches. The climactic bout between Yen and Chou will make you wince and hold your breath with every crushing blow." Neat. Some IMDb commenters have called it "awesome."

Frontièrres (French) -- TIFF Guide Quote: "Follows close on the trail blazed by Alexandre Aja's Haute tension, serving a vicious head-butt to the often diffident, condescending face of French cinema, a Grand Guignol tale for the twenty-first century." Fantastic. I love Haute / High Tension! Plus the director also has Hitman on the way, so this will be a good chance to see what he's made of. And I could be wrong, but I think this flick has something to do with "cannibal neo-nazis." Which is not something you see every day.

The Mother of Tears (Italy) -- TIFF Guide Quote: "Welcome to one of the most highly anticipated events in horror fandom – The Mother of Tears, Dario Argento's finale to The Three Mothers trilogy that started with Suspiria and Inferno." Woohoo! New Argento! I might have to bone up on my giallo before the festival hits!

Stuck (USA) -- TIFF Guide Quote: "Stuck is a departure from traditional horror genres, instead taking its inspiration from a true story in which a nurse near Fort Worth, Texas, struck a homeless man and fled the scene with the body sticking out from her car." Director Stuart Gordon is one of my all-time favorites, so I'm definitely down for this one.

Sukiyaki Western Django (Japan) -- TIFF Guide Quote: "Miike slices and dices the genre with an Americana-kabuki-baroque style: Buddhist temples sit alongside saloons, samurai swords hang from gun belts, and sake flows with blood." Takashi Miike's first English-language film? And with Quentin Tarantino as a gunslinger? Dang that sounds amusing.

Vexille (Japan) -- TIFF Guide Quote: "Reaches new levels of excellence in the world of animated art, placing expressive characters against a landscape of stunning vistas." Not always my cup of tea, but what would Midnight Madness be without one piece of flashy new anime?

And as an added bonus, here are a few genre-centric titles that are not playing as part of Midnight Madness, but most definitely ARE on my "to see" list:

The Orphanage -- TIFF Release Quote: "From producer Guillermo del Toro comes a film about a woman's return to the abandoned orphanage where she grew up and her conviction that something long-hidden and terrible is lurking inside." Ummm, you had me at "del Toro." Plus this flick has been getting mega-raves on the international festival circuit. Yay!

The Substitute -- A family friendly horror / sci-fi / comedy from Denmark? Sure, why not?

They Wait (Canada) -- TIFF Blog Quote: "There seems to be some back and forth about whether or not They Wait is a bona-fide "horror film," but I can attest to some jumps from the ghosts that inhabit the story." Plus the flick comes from the director of the underrated Cube Zero, so color me curious.

Weirdsville (Canada) -- According to a TIFF release, this one's about "two men who get in way over their heads after the overdose of a friend finds them at an abandoned drive-in to dispose of her body. But things get worse when they discover and disrupt a satanic cult performing a sacrificial ritual, run afoul of a psychotic drug dealer, and incur the wrath of an angry mall security guard." Plus it stars Wes Bentley and Scott Speedman, of all people. Sounds fun.

Lastly (well, until the full festival slate is announced on Wednesday) we have an amusing little tidbit from the very handy website TIFFReviews.com: Although not officially announced yet, the site believes that a movie called Terror Inside will play at the festival. Why is that amusing? Two reasons: It stars Corey Feldman -and- check out the trailer.

Extra, extra! Read all about it! Professional gore-slinger Eli Roth to attend South By Southwest this March, sit on a horror-geek panel, and show off a brand-new clip from his upcoming movie Hostel: Part 2! Cool!

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

First the panel news: The event ("Panel of the Dead: Horror Films of Today") will be held on March 11, with AICN's Harry Knowles moderating the discussion. Panelists will include Mr. Roth, filmmaker Scott Glosserman (Behind the Mask), producer Lauren Moews (Cabin Fever, Borderland) and yes, yours truly, because if you're going to invite a film critic to sit in on a horror panel, you should probably choose one who actually appreciates the fine art of cinematic horror ... as I so definitely do. (There may be some more panelists announced down the road, so stay tuned!)

But what about the movies? Well, in addition to the aforementioned Hostel: Part 2 clip, SXSW attendees will be able to enjoy the following fright-centric flicks:

Borderland (World Premiere) -- Sean Astin, Rider Strong and the amazingly gorgeous Mircea Monroe star in this tale of lost kids, wrong turns and human sacrifices.

Grimm Love (North American Premiere) -- Before he was handed the reins on the upcoming Hills Have Eyes 2, German filmmaker Martin Weisz created this unpredictable (and fairly controversial) tale of hardcore cannibalism. (Over the past year or so, I've been asked "Have you seen Grimm Love yet?" at least a dozen times.)

Mulberry Street (North American Premiere) -- SXSW producer Matt Dentler described this one to me as "Zombies overtake New York, only they're like Rat-Zombies. It's pretty damn wild." Sign me up.

Sisters (U.S. Premiere) -- All I know is that it's a remake of the Brian De Palma flick, and it stars Stephen Rea and Chloe Sevigny ... which is all I need to get at least somewhat interested.

Them (U.S. Premiere) -- A French chiller also known as Ils, it's about a couple who get absolutely terrorized by a group of unseen assailants. And by "unseen," that means by the audience as well.

...and of course the SXSW brain-trust has its collective eye on a few more horror titles, so if you feel like visiting Austin and you really like scary, spooky, splattery movies -- I say you make your trip mid-March.

If, like me, you're a Comcast subscriber who is also a pathetically ravenous and insatiable horror geek, then you've probably already caught wind of FearNet. It's not a typical cable station, but an on-demand service that promises to deliver tons of terrific terror in three distinct ways: on your television, on your cell phone and on your internet browser. (No kidding! You can click over to the website and watch free movies like 976-EVIL, Mindwarp and the original 13 Ghosts! Hey, they're free!)

Over on the cable box side of the equation, FearNet's inaugural batch of blood blisters includes titles like Carrie, Dressed to Kill, Pumpkinhead, Warlock and the original Japanese versions of The Grudge and its sequel. As far as the cell phone deliveries go, you'll have to click through the homesite to find out the process, because my cell phone is barely capable of sending and receiving phone calls, let alone feeding me all 103 minutes of Steve Miner's Warlock.

As for the FearNet website, it's actually quite a lot of fun. You can join the forums, of course, but there's also a very nifty horror movie database called The Web of Fear, which you can help "tag" to your dismembered heart's delight. There's also a decent dosage of news, reviews and features (some of which, yes, I'll be writing) for the insatiable terror trolls to traipse through (in addition to some colorful little toys and treats), so if The Dark Genre is your thing, give FearNet a click and poke around. (Fair warning: It's a high-bandwidth site, so you dial-uppers might be in for some trouble.) Plus, if you're already a Comcast digital subscriber then you already have access to the current FearNet offerings. So go watch Carrie again. It's worth it.

As our regular readers know by now, I'm pretty much a ravenous lunatic when it comes to horror movies. So when a big festival comes out and announces their "Midnight Screening" selections, I get pretty geeked out. (Doubly so when it's a festival I'll actually be attending.) Sundance, SXSW, and even the Philly Film Fest deliver fantastic late-night fare, but Toronto manages to kick some serious genre tail every year. (In 2005 they delivered Evil Aliens, Isolation, District B13 and Hostel; in 2004 it was Dead Birds, Creep, Kontroll, The Machinist and Saw -- among others.)

And it's that time of year again! Just yesterday the festival announced all ten of their Midnight Madness selections, and there's only ONE that I've already seen! Yes! (That one, by the way, is J.T. Petty's rather enjoyably disturbing S&Man.)

In addition to some nasty-sounding horror flicks from New Zealand (Black Sheep), Spain (The Abandoned), USA (All the Boys Love Mandy Lane), South Korea (The Host), France (Sheitan) and the UK (Severance), Toronto will also offer the epic piece of Danish animation called Princess and the North American premiere of Sacha Baron Cohen's Borat! (Yes!) Last but not least is an anthology chiller called Trapped Ashes, which comes from directors Joe Dante, Sean Cunningham, Ken Russell, Monte Hellman and John Gaeta -- and that's the flick I have a big red circle around. Although I'll try to catch 'em all.

(The pic comes from Weta Workshop; they did the gore effects on Black Sheep -- and yes, it's a movie about man-eating sheep. Cool.)