Tag Archives: Rob Zombie

Jan 31 2017

TERROR CON 2017 HOSTS ‘HALLOWEEN’ REUNION

img_0090

Altered Reality Entertainment, owners of Rhode Island Comic Con, the Biggest Show in the Smallest State, celebrates the return of Terror Con with a Halloween Reunion.

Terror Con, which returns to the Rhode Island Convention Center after a two-season hiatus, welcomesMalcom McDowell, Tyler Mane, and Scout Taylor-Compton in celebration of the 10th anniversary of the 2007 remake of the original movie by Rob Zombie.

Throughout a career spanning over fifty years, McDowell is perhaps best known for the controversial roles of Alex DeLarge in Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange, the title character in Tinto Brass’ Caligula, and Mick Travis in Lindsay Anderson’s trilogy of if…., O Lucky Man! and Britannia Hospital. He is also known for his work in Cat People, Tank Girl, and The Artist. McDowell has had recurring roles in numerous television series such as Entourage, Heroes, and The Mentalist.

Tyler Mane is a former professional wrestler. As an actor, he is known for playing Sabretooth in X-Men and X-Men: The Official Game, Ajax in Troy, as well as Michael Myers in the remake of Halloween and its sequel, Halloween II. Scout Taylor-Compton has appeared in numerous television roles and feature films. In addition to her role as Laurie Strode in Halloween, her most notable role includes her role as Lita Ford in the film The Runaways.

Halloween is an American horror movie franchise that predominately focuses on the fictional character of Michael Myers who was committed to a sanitarium as a child for the murder of his older sister, Judith Myers. Fifteen years later, he escapes to stalk and kill the people of Haddonfield, Illinois while being chased by his former psychiatrist Dr. Sam Loomis. Michael’s killings occur on the holiday of Halloween, on which all the films primarily take place.

Terror Con, celebrating horror, paranormal, music, and wrestling, comes to the Rhode Island Convention Center on February 25th and 26th. Tickets are currently available through the event’s website, www.theterrorcon.com. Ticket prices range from $25 to $45. VIP packages are available for $99.99.

Jun 25 2014

Rock and Shock Starts Promoting Its 11th Show

Rock abd Shock 11

Rock & Shock is getting ready to turn it up to 11! In anticipation of the 11th anniversary of the horror and music convention that brings 3 days of monsters, music and mayhem to downtown Worcester, MA, Rock & Shock is giving the public an extra early sneak peak at this year’s attendees. While there are still plenty of big name acts yet to be divulged, Rock & Shock is pleased to announce that among this year’s guests will be Brad Dourif, John Ratzenberger, Jeffrey Combs, Nivek Ogre and Fiona Dourif. Meanwhile, King Diamond, Machine Head and Twiztid are among some of the convention’s scheduled performers.

Brad Dourif, the voice of everyone’s favorite flame-haired doll turned serial killer Chucky will be making a rare convention appearance at Rock & Shock 2014. Dourif is a legendary character actor who is best known for his appearances in Rob Zombie’s Halloween 1 & 2, The Exorcist III, The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers & The Return of the King, Dune, TV’s Deadwood and his breakthrough role as Billy Bibbit in Milos Forman’s 1975 classic One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. To make the event a true family affair, Dourif will be joined by his real life daughter and True Blood star Fiona Dourif. Fiona’s other screen credits include Curse of Chucky, Deadwood and Paul Thomas Anderson’s Academy Award nominated film The Master.

He has danced with the stars, voiced some of your favorite cartoon characters and even fought for the Rebel Alliance and this October, Cheers‘ very own John Ratzenberger will be returning to the place where everybody knows his name. In addition to portraying Cliff Clavin, postal worker extraordinaire on the seminal Boston-based TV series Cheers, Ratzenberger has appeared in films such as Motel Hell and House 2: The Second Story, competed on Dancing With the Stars and has become the voice of Pixar. Ratzenberger is, in fact, the only actor to voice for a character in every Pixar film; most notably Hamm the Piggy Bank in the Toy Story series, The Abominable Snowman in Monsters, Inc. and Mack the Truck in the Cars.

A legend in both the horror and sci-fi communities, Jeffery Combs will be making his triumphant return to Rock & Shock this year. Combs first made his name as Herbert West, the main character in Re-Animator and it’s two subsequent sequels. He followed that up with appearances in several classic horror films including The Frighteners, I Still Know What You Did Last Summer, House on Haunted Hill, FeardotCom and most recently, Would You Rather. However, science-fiction fans will best know Combs for his portrayals of several characters within the Star Trek universe, most notably the Vorta clone Weyoun on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.

Rounding out the early announcements is Skinny Puppy and ohGr frontman Nivek Ogre. Since forming Skinny Puppy in 1982, Ogre has wowed audiences as both a musician and an actor, appearing in films such as Repo! The Genetic Opera, 2001 Maniacs: Field of Screams and The Devil’s Carnival.

Speaking of world renowned musicians, this year’s performers are set to include: King Diamond, who will kick-off the event’s pre-party on Thursday, October 16, Machine Head, Children of Bodom, Epica and Battlecross, who will be rocking the Palladium stage on Friday, October 17 and Twiztid, back by popular demand with their Fright Fest festivities and scheduled to close out the event on Sunday, October 18. A very special guest headliner for Saturday is set to be announced in August, so let the speculation begin!

Tickets for Rock & Shock 2014 go on sale this Friday, June 27th at 10am and may be purchased at ticketfly.com, FYE stores or at the Palladium box office. There are still plenty of celebrity guests, musical acts and events yet to be announced so make sure to follow Rock & Shock on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and Instagram and visitrockandshock.com.

Oct 27 2013

Jennifer Jostyn: From Dancing to Acting

 

by Jason Harris

Jennifer Jostyn. Photo by Jason Harris.

Jennifer Jostyn. Photo by Jason Harris.

 

Jennifer Jostyn started out dancing before becoming an actress in movies like The Brothers McMullen, Deep Impact, and House of 1000 Corpses.

“I thought I wanted to be a ballet dancer.”

Jostyn studied ballet from a young age up until she was 22 or 23. She stopped when The Brothers McMullen won at the Sundance Film Festival and her career shifted from dancing to acting.

“I tried to sort of follow where I thought I was going to get work,” Jostyn said about changing careers.

There are moments that make her feel sad. These happen when she is watching live musical theater. This is when she misses ballet.

“I will see a show and I’ll think I would have loved to have done that. I like to try to never use the word regret in my life.”

She is appreciative of the work she has gotten and for working with two directors,

Edward Burns and Rob Zombie, both of whom she considers great directors and enjoys working with them.

She first met Burns through Michael McGlone, who was a co-worker at the restaurant where she was waitressing when she was 20 years old. McGlone told her one night when it was slow that he was working on a movie with “a cool guy who lives down in the West Village.”

McGlone also told her that Burns had no money, but was going to make something interesting. She received the role of Leslie 20 minutes after meeting with Burns. She spent the next couple of weekends going out to Burns parents’ house to shoot the movie.

She worked with Rob Zombie on House of 1000 Corpses. She didn’t realize at the time of her audition how big a deal it was being in a Rob Zombie movie.

Jostyn has also worked in television. She prefers movies, though, since she gets a little more time and freedom to play around with the role.

“Television shows usually happen pretty quickly, and there’s a lot of pressure to get it done quickly. You’re on a different kind of schedule.”

Her first starring role was in Milo, which she received two days before the film started shooting. She was first scheduled to play a much smaller role until she received the lead after being called into the director’s office. This happened on the day she had come to the production offices for a wardrobe fitting.

“I really loved that role and was excited to be able to go through the whole course of a 90 minute film. I’d never done that before.”

Jostyn is drawn to acting because she likes everything about it and being around creative people.

“I find it very exciting to watch great minds like Rob [Zombie] and Eddie [Burns] and other people I have had the pleasure to work with. I think they’re so smart and interesting and unique … I just wanted to be near it. I really don’t care in what capacity. It’s exciting to me to get to pretend to be different people. I can’t imagine who wouldn’t want to do that.”

Along with acting, Jostyn has also written and produced a movie, The Life Coach, back in 2005. She describes it as a mockumentary in the vein of a Christopher Guest movie, and it’s about a Hollywood life coach to the stars.

Oct 21 2013

Lew Temple Talks about ‘The Walking Dead,’ Rob Zombie, and Baseball

By Jason Harris

Lew Temple. photo by Jason Harris

Lew Temple. photo by Jason Harris

Lew Temple’s time on The Walking Dead has ended, but he’s still proud of the work he did on the series, even though he thinks his character Axel had more to do in the show.

“I was obviously disappointed,” Lew Temple said. “I thought he was going to be serviceable to the group.”

Temple was given the news three weeks in advance that his character was going to die. He was in denial at first, but after some time he had to commit to it, he said.

“My intent is to always serve the story and that was my job. I wanted to do the best job possible.”

Temple did feel “disappointed for Axel,” though. As an actor, he will go on and work, but Axel is gone forever, he said.

The character of Axel will live on in The Walking Dead comic books and in reruns.

Temple did use the comic book character of Axel as a blueprint. Since comic books are one-dimensional, he had to make the character three-dimensional.

“I’m certain that we were able to use some of Robert [Kirkman’s] characteristics of Axel, but also brought some of my own to it as well.”

The producers on the zombie series knew of Temple before he came on in season three since he had been in to see them for the pilot.

“They looked at me for the role of Merle, originally, and then after that they hired Michael Rooker. Then they needed Merle’s brother, Daryl, who at that time was not even named.”

Temple auditioned for Daryl by reading Merle’s lines differently, which he was asked to do by the producers.

“Thankfully, they hired Norman Reedus. So when Axel came around they came to me and we were able to make that work.”

Temple was aware of the popularity of The Walking Dead, but not of the cross-cultural phenomenon it has become.

“I would say it hasn’t hurt me,” Temple said about Hollywood recognizing him from the popular series. “I would say prior to The Walking Dead I had a certain body of work Hollywood was aware of, and I was working prior to The Walking Dead …”

He admits that the series has elevated his visibility, which has helped him. He doesn’t know if his time on the series has defined him, which only “time will tell.”

“I like to do diverse stuff. I’m certainly proud of the work I did on The Walking Dead and to be part of that show. It’s been such an incredible hit.”

Temple has worked with writer and director Rob Zombie on Halloween and The Devil’s Rejects. He has “a really great relationship beyond a working relationship” with Zombie.

“I adore working with him because he knows what he wants and wants what he knows so there’s not a lot of grey area in-between. He is an absolute perfectionist and he does whatever it takes to make the day work, and if that means he needs to provide something on set, he does so.”

He does expect to work with Zombie again because he thinks they work well together. He just doesn’t know when that will happen.

“I think that I bring something to his story that he appreciates. It wouldn’t be a surprise to see Lew Temple in a Rob Zombie production yet again.”

Along with acting, Temple is “an incredible baseball fan.” He adores the game and it has been his first passion since he was a little boy. He’s even played it all the way up until the minor leagues with the Seattle Mariners and Houston Astros. When he couldn’t play the game, he worked as a baseball scout for the New York Mets. Now he roots for the Atlanta Braves.

“I would say I’m excited for the Red Sox, but rooting for the [Detroit] Tigers.”

Temple also writes music.

“I think that I am a pretty interesting songwriter. I think that I am able to spin a tune, at least in my head.”

He has a record deal with Universal through the Rob Zombie production, Banjo and Sullivan.