Movies
RIP Morgan Jones; Clive Barker Awakens From Seven Day Coma?!
They almost come in threes… (thank God)
Just the other day we lost the original Romero zombie, Bill Hinzman, while this morning we woke up to see that Morgan Jones, a character actor in TV and film, died in Tarzana, Calif., on Jan. 13. He was 84. Jones amassed more than 170 television credits, appearing as a series regular in “The Blue Angels” in the early 1960s, “The Twilight Zone” and recurring on Broderick Crawford series “Highway Patrol.” The actor also appeared in more than 25 feature films, including The Giant Claw, Forbidden Planet and the 1957 cult classic Not of This Earth.
In other news, acclaimed horror author/artist/director Clive Barker survived a near-death experience having just awoken from a seven-day-long coma.
15 Days ago Barker hit Twitter with the following message: “Dear Friends, I’ve had some medical issues that have recently forced me away from my beloved desk and into the hospital…” He then vanished for over a week returning to explain that he received “Toxic Shock” from a visit to the dentist that put him into a coma. “In my case the dental work unloaded such a spillage of poisonous bacteria into my blood that my whole system crashed, putting me into a coma. I spent several days in Intensive Care, with a machine breathing for me,” said the relieved artist.
“Later, my Doctors said that they had not anticipated a happy ending until I started to fight, repeatedly pulling out the tubes that I was constantly gagging on. After a few days of nightmarish delusions I woke up to my life again, tired, twenty pounds lighter but happy to be back from a very dark place.”
He later added, “I’ve played down just how close to dying I was, but in truth I was very close.”
I can only imagine what horrible nightmares he had over the course of a week. But we’re thankful that the 60-year-old auteur pulled through to bring us more horrific visions in the coming years. Get well soon!
Movies
Christopher Landon to Helm Feature Adaptation of Grady Hendrix’s ‘The Final Girl Support Group’
A new feature adaptation of author Grady Hendrix‘s slasher book The Final Girl Support Group is now on the way from Paramount Pictures, and Deadline reports that it’s found its director in Christopher Landon (Drop, Happy Death Day).
The two previously collaborated on My Best Friend’s Exorcism.
In The Final Girl Support Group, “Lynette is a real-life final girl who survived a massacre. For more than a decade, she’s been meeting with five other final girls and their therapist in a support group for those who survived the unthinkable, working to put their lives back together. Then one woman misses a meeting, and their worst fears are realized—someone knows about the group and is determined to rip their lives apart again, piece by piece.”
“But the thing about final girls is that no matter how bad the odds, how dark the night, how sharp the knife, they will never, ever give up.”
I wrote in my novel review for BD, “Hendrix puts his characters through the absolute wringer. It’s a bloody, vicious voyage for the flawed heroine, both physically and emotionally. In terms of action and horror, Support Group delivers breakneck pacing and thrills.”
Five years ago, Andy Muschietti & Barbara Muschietti (Mama, It, It Chapter Two) were attached to produce a planned series adaptation for HBO Max alongside Charlize Theron. While Theron is no longer producing, the Muschiettis remain on board under their Double Dream label.
Paramount Pictures is also developing Hendrix’s sci-fi novella, BadAsstronauts.
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