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#SDCC Roundup: ‘Blair Witch’, “Walking Dead”, “Evil Dead”, and “Preacher”

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BLAIR WITCH (the Woods) image courtesy of Lionsgate

San Diego Comic-Con proved to be a big weekend for horror. It helps that so many shows on television are horror. Bates Motel cast Rihanna as Marion Crane. I actually interviewed the casts and creators of Walking Dead, Ash Vs. Evil Dead and Preacher below. On the movie side, three horror movies screened: Lights Out, Don’t Breathe and one big surprise I’ll get into below. Here’s a roundup of the biggest Comic-Con stories.

Blair Witch Reveal

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It was enough that Lionsgate was screening the new Adam Wingard/Simon Barrett movie at Comic-Con. The team that brought us You’re Next and The Guest had a new movie titled The Woods. When the movie started with text of Burkittsville, MD and some very familiar climactic footage of an abandoned house in the woods, we all knew what it was before they mentioned Heather and the Blair Witch. By the time it was over, the true title Blair Witch was revealed.

Bravo to Lionsgate for committing to marketing The Woods as a huge misdirect. The movie delivers as a standalone and a follow-up to The Blair Witch Project and you know Brad loved it. He’s quoted all over the trailer too.


The Walking Dead Promises New Zombies

After seven seasons, how can The Walking Dead keep it fresh? Even George Romero only made six zombie movies. The show’s producer Greg Nicotero told us in a press conference that season seven will feature walkers unlike any we’ve seen before.

“We also don’t want to see the same zombies every single episode,” Nicotero said. “So my team and I spend a lot of time just finessing things and fine tuning things. We did a walker on Wednesday on set and my guys were like, ‘This is my favorite walker we’ve done ever since the beginning.’ They still bring the same enthusiasm to the job and that’s critical. I would’ve thought at some point that they were like, ‘F***, do we have to do another zombie?’ But they’re still in it and they’re still committed every day.”

The show also revealed a glimpse of Ezekiel in a new trailer, and Shiva the tiger, which Robert Kirkman promises is a CGI tiger. Maybe it’s Richard Parker from Life of Pi. And no, they still won’t say who Negan shot in the finale.


Ash Vs Evil Dead Goes Back to Evil Dead 2

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Starz did a panel for season two of Ash Vs. Evil Dead, and we interviewed Bruce Campbell, Lucy Lawless and producer Robert Tapert. Tapert, part of the original Evil Dead films with Sam Raimi, said there’s a scene this season that mirrors Evil Dead 2. With Ted Raimi guest starring it was even more deja vu. 

Bruce and Ted and myself found ourselves back in 1986 in the exact same scene, at the exact same moment going, ‘Oh my God, what has happened to our life?,” Tapert said.

Those still hoping for an Evil Dead 4 will have to wait. Campbell hopes to do at least five seasons of Ash Vs. Evil Dead. “I wish we could’ve done this a long time ago because that’s the only way you can get to inhabit a character,” Campbell said. “It’s not making a movie every decade. It’s doing him every day for weeks and weeks and weeks, season after season. I hope we get five seasons out of this because there’s so much I feel like we can do with the character.”

Campbell assures fans that they’ve topped even the record breaking amount of blood from season one. This was a bit of a shock to guest star and TV veteran Lee Majors. “I think we did [top it] because there’s more characters to get it,” Campbell said. “Lee Majors had his first experience with blood and he’s like, ‘What the hell is this?’ You can’t predict what it’s going to be like if you’ve never done it before. I know what it’s like to get slimed so it was a big eye opener. So yeah, we had more characters, more opportunities to bloody them all, so we did.”

Lawless previewed a subplot where Ruby would team up with Kelly (Dana DeLorenzo). “There’s a bit of firepower going on, girl power,” Lawless said. “They go on a rampage so [Ruby]’s kind of brought into the fold which just means you get shot with a lot more mucous. You get vomited on, you get blood, brain matter. That means you’re in the game, you’re in the family. We’ll see how that goes.”

Tapert also spoke to figuring out what an Evil Dead TV show would be. After season one, they have a much clearer idea. “I can say from a creative point of view, the show was harder than I ever thought it would be,” Tapert said. “I think we were all surprised that it was hard. Hard adapting these small movies into television shows that want to cram as much as you can in a half hour. So it was a real clash of what works in horror which was telling a small story in a very elongated fashion as opposed to a very big story in a compacted fashion. That’s been a creative challenge.”


Preacher Creators Debate Religion

Even with only two episodes left to air this season (now only one when this story publishes), Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg wouldn’t talk about what’s coming in the finale or season two. Or maybe they did. This sounds like they’re joking, but you never know on Preacher.

“Space,” Rogen said. “We’re going to space. No, we can’t tease anything.”

Goldberg added, “We can’t say anything more than space and time travel.”

More substantially, they discussed dealing with religion on the series. The dark, violent adaptation of Garth Ennis’s comic features characters from heaven and hell. The main character is a preacher who uses a cosmic power to make people follow his word. Goldberg made a good point that the show gives a balanced argument.

“The trick to that is just having the argument on screen instead of telling people what we think,” Goldberg said. “Cassidy has his thoughts and Jesse has his thoughts. When they have their arguments, they’re having proper arguments and there’s two sides and they both have valid opinions. That’s kind of how you strike the balance, by having each side go for it as hard as they can but representing numerous sides.”

No one would accuse Preacher of being religious, but at least they’re not calling it sacrilegious. “As long as it feels like you’re exploring an idea rather than telling people your beliefs, I think it’s a lot easier to delve into subject matter maybe some people would think is very hard subject matter to delve into,” Rogen said. “It’s a conversation. It’s not a statement. It’s a dialogue, not a monologue. I think that is hopefully what keeps it from being alienating and what keeps it feeling preachy, for lack of a better word.”

Oh yeah, and Ennis himself was there. He revealed that he is considering writing an episode of the show. “Yes, a provision has been made for me to do so,” Ennis said. “I do have this ongoing feeling that I should just sit back and leave them to it. What they’re doing is so good, but yes, I would like to try my hand at it eventually.”

Interviews

“I Don’t See Retiring from This” – Joe Bob Briggs Talks New “Last Drive-In” Format and the Show’s Future [Interview]

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Hey everybody, have you heard the news? Joe Bob is back in town!

The Last Drive-In with Joe Bob Briggs has returned for its sixth season on Shudder. While the show’s format has been slightly revised adopting a new biweekly schedule with one film instead of a double feature the beloved horror host’s approach is much the same.

“It didn’t really change anything,” Briggs tells Bloody Disgusting. “We were crowding all of our movies into 10 weeks once a year and then having specials, and we found that people would rather have more weeks. It’s actually more movies than we had before.

“And some of the people on the East coast fall asleep in the second movie,” he laughs. “It’s about a five-hour show when it’s a double feature because we talk so much. Also, it’s hard to get thematic double features every single time. So our specials are still double features, but our regular episodes are single features.”

The season kicked off last week with The Last Drive-In Live: A Tribute to Roger Corman, celebrating the legendary filmmaker’s first 70 years in Hollywood with a double feature of 1959’s A Bucket of Blood and 1983’s Deathstalker. The special was filmed live in front of a fervent audience of Briggs’ fan base lovingly dubbed the Mutant Family at Joe Bob’s Drive-In Jamboree in Las Vegas last October.

In addition to his usual hosting duties, Briggs conducted a career-spanning interview with Corman and his wife, fellow producer Julie Corman. They were also joined by one of Corman’s oldest friends and collaborators, Bruce Dern. In a heartfelt moment of mutual admiration, Briggs and Corman exchanged lifetime achievement awards on hubcaps.

“I’ve known Roger for about 35 years, so I’ve only known him for half of his career,” Briggs chuckles. In his long history of reviewing, interviewing, and talking about Corman and his legendary work, one emblematic encounter sticks out to Briggs.

“I remember the very first time I went to the Corman studio, which was a lumber yard on Venice Boulevard. He had a standing set for a spaceship control room, a standing set for a strip club, and I think he had one other one, and then he had all of his editing facilities there, but it was still a lumber yard. They had not really changed any of the buildings or anything.

“He’s showing me around the studio, and we were walking past a pile of debris, and I said, ‘Roger, is that the mutant from Forbidden World?’ It had just been thrown over in a corner. And he just said, ‘Yes, Joe Bob, I believe that is. He was apparently no longer needed.’ I said, ‘Roger, you gotta get with it! That stuff is worth money.’ But he was like, ‘When the movie’s over, the movie’s over.’ That was Roget to a T.”

At least part of Corman’s longevity can be attributed to his shrewd business practices and pragmatic approach to the industry, which has included working in every conceivable genre of cinema. “I couldn’t think of a single genre he has not made,” Briggs says.

“When we did this interview at the Jamboree, I said, ‘I’m gonna name the genre, and you tell me what you love about that genre,’ and every comment that he made involved money and box office performance,” he snickers. “None of it was involved with love of cinema, although I did get him to say that his favorite genre is a genre that he didn’t dabble in much other than his first movie [1954’s Highway Dragnet], and that was film noir.”

While the fourth annual Drive-In Jamboree is still in the planning stage, Briggs is delighted by the event’s continued success. “The Jamboree is something that we literally just threw together. We’ve had three of them now. It’s something where we just show up and try to come up with programming for each day.

But I really think the Jamboree is more about the mutant family meeting the mutant family. It’s more about people who know each other online gathering and partying with each other in person. It’s not so much about what movies we have. I mean, we always have an anniversary movie, and we always have some special guests and everything, but it’s more about the gathering of the mutants. It’s fun from that point of view. They’re exhausting, I can tell you that.”

The zeal among Briggs’ audience has only grown over the years, from hosting Joe Bob’s Drive-In Theater on The Movie Channel from 1986 to 1996, to MonsterVision on TNT from 1996 to 2000, and The Last-Drive-In on Shudder since 2018. “I’m amazed, having been in the business for this many years, that I still have a show at this time, because they say you can’t repeat TV,” Briggs notes.

“Nobody wants to see old TV, and yet I’ve done the same show three times on three different networks, and every time I try to change it everyone says, ‘No, no, don’t change it! That’s the part we love.’ I always want to do something new, and I’m always told, ‘No, you’re the CEO of Coca Cola who went to New Coke.’ You can’t do that. People will revolt. So we’re still doing it.

“It’s one of the few shows that I know of that’s just sort of grown organically over, gosh, almost 40 years. We’ve just added elements to the show. We try things. If something doesn’t work, we throw it away. If something works, we do it forever!”

The mutant family will be happy to know that Briggs plans to continue hosting and writing about movies for as long as he’s able to. “I don’t see retiring from this or retiring from writing. I’m primarily a writer, and the good thing about writing is long after they don’t wanna see you on TV anymore you can still write.

“The difference today, though, is I was pretty much the only guy doing genre films when I started. Now, there are academics that do it. There are entire books written about Dario Argento and Tobe Hooper and even lesser names than those, and there are, of course, a massive number of websites, including your own, so that when something comes out today, there’s immediately a hundred reviews of it; whereas in 1982, I was sort of the only guy, because the movies were considered disposable trash. So I have been surpassed in my deep knowledge, because who can keep up with all that? It’s impossible!”

Diana Prince, who serves as Briggs’ co-host Darcy the Mail Girl and was instrumental in getting him back in the hosting chair, has been promoted to an associate producer this season. “She was sort of always the associate producer, but I guess they finally gave her the title,” Briggs explains.

“Diana Prince is in on all the decisions about programming. I always listen to Austin Jennings, the director, and Diana Prince, the mail girl, because they come from opposite ends of the spectrum in terms of what kind of movies they wanna watch, and we try to strike a balance between. You know, she’s not gonna vote for Possession, and he’s not gonna vote for Mountaintop Motel Massacre,” he chortles.

“They’re probably the principal advisors, as far as what we show. Of course, [Diana] has a lot of social media clout, and she’s extremely knowledgeable about pop culture. Wow! She has seen everything. She’s seen more than I’ve seen!”

While surprises are part of the fun of The Last Drive-In, Briggs previews some of what’s in store this season. “The place we normally live is the neglected ’80 slasher, and we still live there,” he assures. “But we’re gonna pay a lot more attention to the ’70s especially. I’ve always thought the ’70s are more interesting than the ’80s anyway. And we’re gonna pay attention to some really recent stuff.”

He teases, “We’re gonna bring back Joe Bob’s Summer School, which is something that we used to do at MonsterVision. And we may have a marathon. There’s a possibility of that. But I’ll be digging this new format of being on every other week between now and at least up to Labor Day.”

While Briggs’ hosting format hasn’t changed much across four decades, the world around him certainly has and that’s why The Last Drive-In remains relevant. He points out, “In the era of streaming, where everything is menus and there are thousands and thousands and thousands of choices, we are that thing called a curator that can direct you to the fun places on the spectrum of streaming.

“Streaming is very confusing for people, and a lot of people don’t like it for that reason. I hope what we’re doing is cutting through the weeds and bringing things into perspective. And, you know, it’s just more fun to watch a movie with us!” he concludes with a Texas-sized grin.

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