Movies
George A. Romero’s ‘Deadtime Stories 2’ Already Filming
While George A. Romero Presents Deadtime Stories made its rounds at last months American Film Market, plans were already underway for a sequel. This morning a new story hit the web detailing DEADTIME STORIES 2, which is already lensing for a 2009 release. In addition, the story also reveals that there will in fact be a DEADTIME STORIES 3! It’s hard to get excited this early in the game considering we haven’t even seen the first anthology yet, but the trailer we brought you does look cool. Read on for all of the details on the sequels.
Article from Pittsburgh Live:
A werewolf running wild in Monongahela?
Don’t panic. It’s just a film crew shooting a segment of a George Romero horror film.
Production work for “George A. Romero Presents … Deadtime Stories 2” took place Tuesday night and early this morning in the city.
“Deadtime Stories” is a trilogy of films by Romero, the filmmaker who wrote and directed “Night of the Living Dead” and sequels that grew from the ghoulish flick.
Romero is not on location with the actors and crew for “Deadtime Stories.” However, two of the directors have local ties.
Jeff Monahan is one of three directors for “Deadtime Stories 2.” The film comprises three scary shorts. The style is similar to the format of the old “Night Gallery” and “Twilight Zone” series.
Monahan is a Connellsville native and his short for the “Deadtime Stories 2” is set in an urban town named Connellsville.
The storyline: People have been disappearing for years in Connellsville, and nobody knows why. In fact, more people have disappeared from Connellsville than any small town in the world.
The crew shot some scenes in Connellsville on Monday and will be there Wednesday and Friday.
The scenes shot in Monongahela depicted two young sweethearts in a car at “Lovers Leap” who are attacked by a werewolf who flips the car onto its roof.
The scene is set in the 1950s, however the movie quickly flashes forward to the present.
Another of the directors, Matt Walsh, has a film production company in Monongahela, 555 Films. The scene of the car flipping was shot on 555’s property.
Monahan, who also produces and does a lot of the writing for the segment – titled “Quota” – in the film, said he was happy to include his hometown in the film.
“I called my urban city Connellsville. I figured why not?” Monahan said. “We actually shot scenes at a small dairy in Connellsville.”
Walsh said the first “Deadtime Stories” edition is already completed and an April 2009 release date in planned.
“Deadtime Stories 2” is expected to be released in November 2009, Walsh said.
“What was really nice is that we received funding for the second movie before the first movie was even completed,” Monahan said. “We’re hoping to get these movies out and be popular enough to continue making more of them.”
Production on “Deadtime Stories 3” is set to take place in the summer, Walsh said.
Each movie features Romero, sitting in an armchair with a large book, getting ready to tell his scary tales.
The film crew is expected to return to Monongahela on Thursday evening to wrap up shooting on the film.
The movies are being produced through Monahan’s 72nd Street Films, along with Romero, Christine Romero and 555 Films.
The trailer for Ti West’s upcoming adaptation of A Christmas Carol raised a lot of eyebrows when it dropped earlier this week. While plenty of folks initially dismissed Ebenezer as a derivative project meant to cash in on the recent wave of unnecessary prequels that expand the backstory of beloved characters (such as 2023’s Wonka), Charles Dickens’ original novel already made a point of exploring Ebenezer Scrooge’s origins in detail – meaning that this new film is likely just a particularly faithful adaptation of the source material under a different name.
Couple that with the fact that the movie is being helmed by a genuine horror auteur and I think it’s safe to say that the latest iteration of the first modern ghost story is in good hands.
That being said, one detail that immediately jumped out at me during the brief teaser (other than a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it nod to Johnny Depp’s iconic bedroom death scene from the original A Nightmare on Elm Street) is the fact that many of Ebenezer’s ghosts appear to have been directly lifted from the iconic John Leech illustrations that accompanied the first edition of Dickens’ novel.
Here are a couple of stills from the trailer compared to the original artwork:
The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come in ‘Ebenezer’ and ‘A Christmas Carol’
The Phantoms in ‘A Christmas Carol’ and ‘Ebenezer’
Marley’s Ghost in ‘Ebenezer’ and ‘A Christmas Carol’
Mainly working with old-school wood and steel engravings that would later be transferred to print, Leech was instrumental in crafting the iconic look of history’s most influential phantoms – especially since Dickens is said to have been deeply involved with the creation of these so-called “comic illustrations.”
And since the novel is commonly said to have popularized spiritualism in Victorian England, much of the ghostly iconography that we still see in genre media to this very day (including some of Ti West’s previous films) can be traced back to the author’s partnership with Leech.
Ebenezer won’t be the first A Christmas Carol adaptation to borrow heavily from these designs, but I can appreciate how Ti West is incorporating an important part of horror history into his latest film.
Ebenezer will be available in theaters starting November 13.
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