For those of you who cannot wait until October for Halloween to begin, the ScareLA convention returns to the City of Angels on August 9 & 10, 2014. 

From the press release:

ScareLA returns on August 9 & 10, 2014 as the first Los Angeles convention dedicated to celebrating Halloween. Situated in the entertainment capital of the world it will combine the city’s top talent and unique cultural setting with a twist! Drawing fans and haunt entertainment professionals, the event will feature top attraction designers and operators, manufacturers, artists, filmmakers and more. The weekend-long Halloween season teaser will celebrate California's hottest scary faire with attraction unveils, workshops and classes, top industry panels, haunt experiences, screenings and activities. Share, inspire, play – ScareLA.

Among the functions attendees can expect:

• Curated collection of exhibitors showcasing scary goods, services & job opportunities

• Expert and celebrity panels on the haunt business, horror entertainment and more

• Presentations of top and upcoming local haunts with sneak peeks and unveils

• Performances by local horror themed theatre companies and musicians

• Professional demos of makeup, set building, costume creation, animatronics and more

• Hands-on workshops taught by top haunt industry professionals for all skill levels and ages

• Onsite  interactive experiences

• Screening room showing premiere attraction walk-throughs and local horror filmmakers

• Games, roaming monsters and more!

For more information, visit http://scarela.com/.   

The North American rights to a new documentary, Eurocrime: The Italian Cop and Gangster Films That Ruled the 70's, have been acquired.  The film is due for release on DVD in the fourth quarter of 2014.  Directed by Mike Malloy, the nearly 140-minute documentary features interviews with many actors and directors involved in the making of these films, among them Franco Nero, John Saxon, Henry Silva, Fred Williamson, Enzo G. Castellari, Joe Dallesandro, and John Steiner.  

Click here to see the film's Facebook page.

Click here to see the film's IMDB entry.   

Click here to see the film's official website. 

HouseofHorrors.com will keep you updated as the release date nears. 

A new Canadian documentary on the horror film genre entitled WHY HORROR? will be featured at the Cannes Film Festival this month.  The film follows horror fan Tal Zimerman across the globe as he talks to filmmakers on the nature of horror to understand why audiences pay good money to be scared.

With stops in Japan, England, Mexico, the United States and Canada, WHY HORROR? features interviews with Eli Roth (HOSTEL), George A. Romero (NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD), John Carpenter (THE THING) Alexandre Aja (HIGH TENSION), Alex de la Iglesia (THE LAST CIRCUS), Ben Wheatley (KILL LIST) Simon Barrett (V/H/S/2), Takashi Shimizu (THE GRUDGE), Don Coscarelli (PHANTASM, Nicolas Lopez (AFTERSHOCK), writer Kier-La Janisse (HOUSE OF PSYCHOTIC WOMEN) and FANGORIA Editor-in-Chief/filmmaker Chris Alexander.

Directed by Rob Lindsay and Nicolas Kleiman, WHY HORROR? is being prepped for release just in time for Halloween 2014.

For more information, visit this link. 

From the press release:

May 12, 2014 - Los Angeles, CA - Award-winning publisher Archaia, an imprint of BOOM! Studios, is excited to announce the June debut of JIM HENSON'S THE DARK CRYSTAL: THE NOVELIZATION, the second in a planned series of three hardcovers that reprint the prose novel adaptations of fan-favorite Henson properties. The book follows the recent April release of JIM HENSON'S LABYRINTH: THE NOVELIZATION and will be followed by the August release of JIM HENSON'S STORYTELLER: THE NOVELIZATION.

JIM HENSON'S THE DARK CRYSTAL: THE NOVELIZATION, written by author and playwright A.C.H. Smith and overseen by Jim Henson, reprints the long-out-of-print prose novel of the classic 1982 fantasy film for the first time in hardcover and features illustrations and concept designs by legendary illustrator and concept artist Brian Froud (The Goblins of Labyrinth, Faeries) that have never before been published. The book also contains an exclusive peek into Jim Henson's creative process with a transcription of over 20 never-before-seen pages of his detailed notes on an early draft of the adaptation.

"There's an entire generation of Jim Henson fans who never had the opportunity to enrich their enjoyment of classics like Labyrinth and The Dark Crystal with the prose novel adaptations," said BOOM! Studios Editor-in-Chief Matt Gagnon. "We're honored to be working with The Jim Henson Company and The Jim Henson Archives to give these reprints the Archaia treatment and present them in beautiful new editions."

Archaia began publishing comic books and original graphic novels based on The Jim Henson Company's most popular titles in 2010 with the FRAGGLE ROCK comic book series and has consistently published new projects since that time. Archaia's relationship with The Jim Henson Company resulted in the Eisner Award-winning JIM HENSON'S TALE OF SAND, based on the lost screenplay by Jim Henson and Jerry Juhl and illustrated by Ramon Perez, along with critically acclaimed interpretations of JIM HENSON'S THE STORYTELLER, THE DARK CRYSTAL, and FRAGGLE ROCK.

JIM HENSON'S THE DARK CRYSTAL: THE NOVELIZATION goes on sale in comic shops and specialty stores on June 4th under Diamond Order Code APR140989, and wherever books are sold on June 10th (ISBN 978-1-60886-418-8). The 6" x 8", 224-page hardcover prose novelization will retail for $19.99.

More sad news to report.  H.R. Giger, the artist whose nightmarish creations provided the basis for Ridley Scott's Oscar-winning Alien (1979), passed away yesterday at the age of 74 from injuries sustained in a fall, according to the H.R. Giger Museum in Gruyeres, Switzerland. 

Mr. Giger was born in Chur, Switzerland and was an artist at a time when audiences for his type of work was few and far between.  This is difficult to believe now as so many artists were influenced by his original melding of people and machines.  His father had him train as an industrial designer while his mother encouraged his zeal for morbidly grotesque artwork which initially took the form of ink and oil before he discovered airbrushing while using his own freehand technique. 

He was commissioned by 20^th Century Fox to design and create the sets and titular monster in the aforementioned Alien which became a smash hit and launched a successful franchise while inspiring legions of fans to become artists and filmmakers.  He won a well-deserved Oscar for his work on the film.        

Mr. Giger worked as a set designer for Dune (1984), Poltergeist II: The Other Side (1986), and Species (1995).