Brian W. Collins - Horror Movie A Day: The Book

FOREWORD

by ToddFarmer

Myname is Todd Farmer. I went from being that one guy sitting around the campfirein Kentucky telling ghost stories, to being one of the many sitting aroundHollywood writing screenplays. Although I had some raw talent (and by raw Imean unpolished, unstructured and ungood at spelling), I was extremely lucky tofind myself working as a writer within a month of my 1996 arrival. I startedout in horror working for Sean S. Cunningham, the director of the first Fridaythe 13th. Back then, most writers started in horror; low budgets, low pay,low risk. Horror was a stepping stone. A rite of passage. And while therewasnt the competition you find today, it was still tough to get your foot inthe door because only a few places (like New Line and Dimension) were unafraidto make horror. You see, back then horror embarrassed most executives. Mostproducers were above it. Then Scream came out and shoved 100 millionup Hollywoods keister. Before you knew it, every studio and production arm hada genre branch. Genre, because the word horror still embarrassed. As aresult of this newfound financial interest in horror, I found myself withpretty steady work. Craven, Carpenter, Raimi I have even been lucky enough towork with horror royalty! Yeah. Horror has been good to me and with theexception of one challenging year, I have paid my bills as a writer since 1996.I accomplished this with some talent, knowing the right people, a whole lot ofluck, a reliable computer, a love of life experience (both good and bad), andsince 2007, Brian Collins.

I met Brian in January of 2009 when he hosted a Q&A for therelease of My Bloody Valentine 3D (a movie he only supported to get anuncut release of the original). But Id been aware of him because he had beenwatching a horror movie a day for nearly two years. In fact, according to alink I found in an old outline, my first run-in with his website was likelyAugust of 07. A meeting had been set with producers who wanted to remake Stigmata.So, while I waited for the Netflix DVD to arrive I ran across Brians review. Notonly did it refresh my movie memory, it made me laugh. Brian referenced StarshipTroopers without being so boring as to actually mention StarshipTroopers. He referred to a sequence in the movie as a music video edited ona broken Avid. He referred to actor Rade erbedija as the archenemy of spellcheck. More importantly, hegave me his opinion of pros and cons in a uniquely entertaining way. In acompletely outside-the-box-thinking kind of way.

In 2003 I wrote a screenplay for Revolution Studios called Scarecrow.After eleven writers, two directors (one being future friend and partner,Patrick Lussier) and a studio shift, the movie was released in February of 2007as The Messengers. A month later I was contacted by Ghost HousePictures. One of the execs there had read my original draft and thought itmight make a great prequel. One script enters, two movies leave. Since theoriginal concept was, in fact, a scarecrow movie and since Raimi actually lovedscarecrows, by the end of the year I was reading every review Brian had writtenthat contained a scarecrow. Because as Brian wrote in one such review Likejust about every other killer scarecrow movie, it s just fucking stupid. Inthe end, that movie wasnt perfect, but I think we were able to avoid stupid.

Around the same time, I was pursuing the Bedlam remake atRKO pictures. So once again, I checked out Brians site. And sure enough, ofthose 900 or so current reviews, the 1946 Bedlam was one of them. Infact, he even commented on how ripe it was for a remake. I dont think Irealized it at the time but Brians site had become a real resource for me. I wasntjust going there for work; it had become a part of my morning routine. Ofcourse, he wasnt perfect. For instance, he didnt bother to review 1981s MyBloody Valentine until we were in preproduction on the remake. And it isntlike we always agreed. In fact, we rarely do. I mean, I get that Jason Xhas its flaws but ranking it behind Jason Takes Manhattan? Dipshit.

After