Green Lantern Creator Dies

Martin Nodell, creator of one of the most enduring American comic book heroes, Green Lantern, has died at the age of 91. I had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Nodell about 15 years ago at the Dallas Fantasy Fair, and he was good enough to sign an autograph for me. The character has evolved significantly since Nodell first drew him, and in the pages of DC Comics many characters have worn the emerald power ring. The guy you see pictured here is a modern interpretation of Nodell's original Green Lantern, Alan Scott by artist Alex Ross (I think). You can read the AP obituary here.

SCARY MARY POPPINSFan Made Trailer

I love horror films and the first movie I ever saw in a theater was Mary Poppins. For me, it was only a matter of time before the two met. A gentleman named Chris Rule has edited together scenes from Mary Poppins and added sound effects and music to create the greatest trailer for a horror film that never was. I found the link to this Youtube video on Boing Boing this morning, and it rocks. I imagine if, in some parallel universe, Mario Bava had been given the chance to direct Disney's Mary Poppins, the trailer would have looked exactly like this:

KILLER B'S ON DVDShameless Self-Promotion

As regular readers of this blog have probably noticed, posts have been rare as of late. I'll wait now for you to stop laughing at the notion of me having regular readers.

All set? OK.

Rat-faced bastard that I am, I've been blogging behind Omega Channel's back, for the last few months. I'm a contributing writer over at Cinematical.com, which is part of AOL's Weblogs, Inc., and I have to say it's a pretty cool gig. Of particular interest to folks who like the kind of movies I write about here on Omega Channel, I've just started an ongoing feature on Cinematical called Killer B's on DVD. Please feel free to check out the first two installments in which I examine the six new DVD releases of Elvira's Movie Macabre, covering the likes of Frankenstein's Castle of Freaks, The Devil's Wedding Night, Werewolf of Washington, Count Dracula's Great Love, Legacy of Blood, and the magnificently awful Doomsday Machine. Here's the link to Part 1 of the piece, and here's Part 2. Stop on by and feel free to leave a comment if you're so inclined.

WEREWOLF IN A WOMEN'S PRISONTrailer

I've come across a tale of cinematic lycanthropy whose title is sheer genius. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Werewolf in a Women's Prison. It's a title that unabashedly gets to the point, melding two classic exploitation genres, in much the same way that Werewolves on Wheels (1971) combined horror movies and biker flicks.

When Sarah and her boyfriend Jack are attacked by a werewolf while camping, Jack is killed and Sarah is badly mauled. Since no one believes her story, Sarah is convicted of Jack's murder and sent to a third world women's prison for the criminally insane. The usual women-in-prison movie staples follow -- lesbianism, catfights, gratuitous nudity, etc. -- but Sarah brings something new to the mix; having been bitten, she is now a werewolf herself. Jack isn't completely out of the picture as, in a bit swiped from An American Werewolf in London, his mangled corpse appears to Sarah and tells her that the only way to break the curse upon her is with her own death. Man, what a negative Nancy.

The trailer (which, I should stress, is not safe for work viewing) looks about as low-rent as you might expect -- like something Fred Olen Ray (Bad Girls From Mars, Scream Queen Hot Tub Party) would have produced. Costumes and sets are minimal, though, in the case of the costumes, this is a sexploitation film after all, so less is more, if you get my drift. The film seems to deliver on the gore too.

Sadly, I'm 95% sure the movie will suck.