Other places you can find us

A few months ago, my good friend at EI Cinema, Mike Raso, approached Amy and I to contribute to the suppliamental section to the anniversary DVD of John Russo's Santa Claws. We managed to run down Bill Hinzman, another friend, who appears in the movie and did the movie's cinematography. We interviewed him, I whipped up some liner notes and additional interview questions for Debbie Rochon and sent the raw footage in.

The DVD finally hit the shelves in September. EI sent me some copies, which I promptly misplaced during the Genghis Con hoopla. Debbie emailed me to compliment me on the liner notes, though, particularly in my restraint as I refrained from ridiculing the movie in the slightest. Santa Claws is a fun little slasher that opens itself up to a lot of cheap shots. I felt it was my duty to mention Russo's missteps with Night of the Living Dead: 30th Anniversary Edition and Children of the Dead, but they aren't slams. It wouldn't be fair to beat up on the movie you were hired to introduce. It was the first "film scholar" duties I was hired to do since the commentary for SRS's DVD of Campfire Tales.

In October, a brand new edition of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre hit the stores in a snazzy gold tin keep case. It boasts a number of extras including a new documentary, Flesh Wounds: Seven Stories of the Saw, directed and edited by Mike Felsher of Red Shirt Productions. I had forgotten that he'd shot a good deal of footage at our first Genghis Con, PA show, when Gunnar Hansen and Ed Neal were our headliners. He also interviewed me about Chain Saw a month later at Monstermania in New Jersey.

A large amount of this interview actually wound up in the documentary, along with interviews with the extremely wonderful Ken Kish of Cinema Wasteland. I was shocked at how much Mike used, actually. I was also shocked at how self-deprecating I was during the piece, but oh well. Sometimes, that's me.

Even though I've been in the game as long as I have, it's always a surprise to see the things that I've contributed to or wind up involved with, even in small ways. I recently wound up as the publicist for the exemplary Severin-Films due to the recommendations from Alex and Ian at Heretic Films and Ed Samuelson from DVD Maniacs. Apparently, publicity is not something I suck at. But it was still nice to learn that people I work and with for have a high opinion of me.

I'm hoping that the work for EI turns into more work next year. Quite honestly, stuff like the job I did for Santa Claws and Campfire Tales were just fun. I'd like to do more. But, in the meantime, I'm content to kill myself over our own stuff. Speaking of such things, look for Blood Bath: Blood Wrestling Vol. 1 to be available in January. We're taking pre-orders now. We'll also be beefing up the official Happy Cloud site in the coming months and starting two new and exciting projects (as I've already mentioned). So maybe I shouldn't be so quick to wish for more work. I'm already busy with more than I can handle. If the Film Gods are truly benevolent, they'll let all this effort translate into money...