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Universal Pictures keeps on pumping out Jurassic Park and Jurassic World movies and cartoons – in fact, another Jurassic World movie will be reaching theatres in 2025, and there are two seasons of the animated series Jurassic World: Chaos Theory dropping onto the Netflix streaming service this year. But while that’s all cool to have, one dinosaur series I wish had more installments is the Carnosaur franchise, which was produced by the late, great Roger Corman. The first Carnosaur (which was inspired by a novel written by Harry Adam Knight) was released in 1993 as a mockbuster alternative to Jurassic Park, and was followed by Carnosaur 2 in 1995 and Carnosaur 3: Primal Species in 1996. Sadly, while there were two spin-offs of sorts with Raptor in 2001 and The Eden Formula in 2006, we haven’t gotten an actual Carnosaur movie in almost thirty years, and no sort-of spin-offs in almost twenty years. While I...

"It's like a Syfy Channel movie with extra gore," is precisely how my friend, colleague, and astute schlock aficionado Peter S. Hall described the latest "direct-to-video" horror flick from Universal. "Does it seem like the movie has any connection to the Benicio del Toro remake of The Wolfman?", was my next question, and for that answer I had to watch the movie. Short answer: no. Louis Morneau's Werewolf: The Beast Among Us has no connection to Joe Johnston's The Wolfman. What we have here is a very broad, very obvious, and very low-budget piece of anachronistic period-piece horror silliness that, while peppered with familiar faces and (as Pete mentioned) enthusiastic moments of gruesome gore, amounts to little more than a goofy trip to Romania for a visit with some werewolf hunters that don't actually hunt werewolves all that frequently.   The over-plotted and broadly written screenplay is overstuffed with subplots and extraneous characters,...

Back in June it was first rumored Universal was looking to re-write and rework Michael Tabb's would-be sequel to the failed 2010 effort The Wolfman starring Benicio del Toro and directed by Joe Johnston into a new werewolf franchise. A month later, Moviehole reported Joy Ride 2: Dead Ahead, The Hitcher: I've Been Waiting and Carnosaur 2 helmer Louis Morneau would direct for a fall shoot. Now, it has become a reality as Universal announced the start of production on what they describe as an "all-new supernatural Untitled Werewolf Thriller" with Morneau directing. Filming will take place in and around Bucharest, Romania and the film won't be heading to theaters as the studio confirms it will be part of their DVD Originals line alongside such titles as The Scorpion King: Rise of a Warrior and the upcoming January release of [amazon asin="B005TK0WG8" text="The Scorpion King 3: Battle for Redemption"] starring Ron Perlman and Billy Zane. This Untitled Werewolf Thriller will be released on Blu-ray,...

Who knows what ‘The Wolfman’ would have been if director Mark Romanek had stayed as director. Joe Johnston’s film was a bit of a mess and performed badly at the box-office, whilst Romanek went on to direct the brilliant ‘Never Let me Go’. So no sequel for ‘The Wolfman’ but Universal recently announced that they wanted to reboot the franchise with the new title of ‘Werewolf’. It’s simple and catchy, who better to direct it then than Louis Morneau, the auteur behind another one word creature feature, ‘Bats’.

What, you haven’t heard of it? Surely then you must have seen his other classics ‘Carnosaur 2′, ‘Joy Ride 2: Dead Ahead’ and ‘The Hitcher 2: I’ve Been Waiting’. What, none of them? And you call yourself a movie buff.

Here’s a trailer for Bats (it which the bats themselves appear to say “Trick or treat”):...

The last time we heard about Universal's future plans for The Wolfman, the report was that the studio is essentially planning to pretend the 2010 film by Joe Johnston (who stepped in at the last minute) never existed. A new film called Werewolf, written by Michael Tabb, is supposedly the angle Universal will take to further exploit the classic horror property. And now the film might have a director: Louis Morneau. It's possible that the name, reported by Moviehole [1], means nothing to you. I can't say it meant anything to me. That's because I haven't seen Joy Ride 2: Dead Ahead (his last film, from 2008) or The Hitcher II: I've Been Waiting, or Bats, Soldier Boyz or Carnosaur 2. Ok, wait, I have seen Carnosaur 2, but can't tell you enough about the 1995 film to be of any use now. Morneau came out of the Roger Corman machine, and that doesn't...

Moviehole says Universal has hired Louis Morneau, director of Joy Ride 2, Carnosaur 2 and Bats (no we weren’t aware of them either) to helm the latest reboot of their classic movie monster ‘The Wolf Man‘. The new movie, currently titled Werewolf is being penned by Michael Tabb (writer of this forgotten ‘gem’) and that we were told last month ‘shares a link’ to the original George Waggner 1941 black and white classic The Wolf Man.

Famously brought to life in 1941 by actor Lon Chaney Jr, the Wolf Man quickly became one of Universal’s best loved horror icons alongside Kaloff’s Frankenstein and Lugosi’s Dracula. Chaney Jr played the character for many years in several sequels and spin offs.

In 2003, Universal attempted to revive all these characters in the dreadful Van Helsing. The movie was a domestic bomb and the studio learned that they needed to put these characters...

Since Universal's attempt to revive the classic movie monster Wolfman pretty much fell flat on its face, the studio has since wisely decided against a sequel. However, still interested in keeping the moonlighting monster alive in pop culture, Universal is instead crafting another remake of the classic monster movie, but this time with the title of Werewolf. Moviehole also reports that Louis Morneau, the man behind horror sequels like Joy Ride 2: Dead Ahead, The Hitcher: I've Been Waiting, Carnosaur 2, and Bats starring Lou Diamond Phillips, will be at the helm of this new remake working from a script by Michael Tabb. Apparently this project will have some sort of link to the original George Waggner film from 1941, so this may be like a pseudo-sequel/reboot rather than a straight-up remake. The plan is to have the film ready for production in the fall and casting will begin very soon.

After Captain America: The First Avenger director Joe Johnson's critically muddled Wolfman, Universal Studios decided to reboot the beast once more and this time they've hired Louis Morneau (Joy Ride 2) for the job. Director Louis Morneau is notorious for his low budget horror flicks, mainly consisting of direct to video sequels such as The Hitcher II and Carnosaur II. His biggest project is likely the B-movie romp Bats, which starred Lou Diamond Phillips. The upcoming Werewolf will be a period piece much like the recent Benicio Del Toro headlined Wolfman. Despite the criticisms Wolfman received regarding story structure and performances, the film went on to win an Academy Award for its makeup effects. The basis for the new reboot comes from a script by Michael Tabb, which was actually...

Blockbuster – the one-time giant in the home video rental business which went bankrupt last September – was bought at auction this past week by Dish Network for $320 million. According to Dish, it intends to combine its wireless technology with Blockbuster’s brand name recognition, studio relationships and digital rights to re-establish Blockbuster as a player in the direct-to-home market against Netflix and newer contenders like Amazon and a Warner Bros. online rental service to be offered on Facebook.

However this plays out long-term, the auction buy is the last page in a final chapter begun back in September when Blockbuster busted. To trot out the old cliché, it’s the – everybody now — end of an era.

The business Blockbuster used to be in seemed revolutionary in its day, though it seems almost quaint now; come Friday, some delegate from the family would trot to the neighborhood video store hoping to get...

By Harris Lentz, III

Character actor John Davis Chandler made his film debut as the sniveling psychotic gangster in the title role of 1961’s Mad Dog Coll. Over the next three decades he appeared in numerous films and television productions, often typecast as weasely villains in western and crime productions. He was the crazed Acid in the 1968 exploitation film The Hooked Generation, a shark poacher in Mako: The Jaws of Death (1976), and a vicious pot farmer in Whiskey Mountain(1977).

Chandler was born in Hinton, West Virginia, on January 28, 1937. He appeared frequently in films and television from the early 1960s. His film credits include Sam Peckinpah’s Ride the High Country (1962) as Jimmy Hammond, Major Dundee (1965), the werewolf tele-film Moon of the Wolf (1972) with Bradford Dillman and David Janssen, Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid (1973), Capone (1974) as gangster Hymie Weiss, The Outlaw Josie Wales (1976) with Clint Eastwood, Chesty Anderson, Usn (1976), the horror...