R.I.P. Michael Crichton

Author, screenwriter and director Michael Crichton died yesterday at age 66 after a battle with cancer. While most people will likely remember the prolific sci-fi writer as the guy behind Jurassic Park, he'll always have a special place in our hearts for writing and directing the classic thriller Looker, in which he had models spin around in cheap curtains and fall out of windows onto cars.

He will be missed.

Why you should never offer head to a stranger on a Greyhound

From Reuters:

WINNIPEG, Manitoba (Reuters) - A man sleeping on a Greyhound bus as it rolled across the Canadian Prairies was killed and decapitated by his seatmate on Wednesday night, other passengers who were on the bus told media on Thursday.

"All of a sudden, we all heard this scream, this bloodcurdling scream," said Garnet Caton, who was sitting just in front of the victim, in an interview with CBC Television.

"The attacker was standing up right over top of the guy with a large hunting knife -- a survival, Rambo knife -- holding the guy and continually stabbing him, stabbing him, stabbing him in the chest area," Caton said.

The attack continued as other passengers fled the bus and waited for police on a desolated stretch of the TransCanada Highway near Portage la Prairie, Manitoba, said Caton, who helped bar the bus door to prevent the attacker from leaving.

"He calmly walks up to the front (of the bus) with the head in his hand and the knife and just calmly stares at us and drops the head right in front of us," Caton said.

"There was no rage in him ... It was just like he was a robot or something."

CBC reported the Royal Canadian Mounted Police took the attacker into custody, but the police have not yet commented.

Dead: "Original Gill Man", Ben Chapman

I know I don't write much about old-timey horror movies here because ... well, because I don't really like them. But I'm saddened by the death of Ben Chapman, the man who played the Gill Man in the 1954 3-D classic, The Creature From the Black Lagoon. It's not because he turned in a stellar performance (he wasn't even credited and didn't do any of the underwater shots, which were performed by a stuntman), but because I met Ben at a horror convention 6 years ago and he couldn't have been sweeter. (My Buffy-nut friend Amanda actually knew him from growing up in Hawaii, where Ben lived. Her mom taught him how to use a computer or something.)

The actor was six-foot-five and a former Marine, and was a staple of the convention circuit. He will be missed. Here's an interview with the actor with some great clips...

Insert "Bigger Boat" Joke HERE

Actor Roy Scheider, best known for playing Chief Martin Brody in the 1975 film Jaws, died over the weekend. There was no cause of death released, but he was apparently receiving treatment for cancer of the blood. He was 75.

Scheider was nominated for two Oscars (for The French Connection and All That Jazz) and appeared in like 2000 films. He will be missed.

Dead: "Savage Weekend" actor Christopher Allport

In a bit of sad news, Fangoria reported on Friday that Christopher Allport, an actor who appeared in numerous genre projects including personal fave Dead & Buried (he gets whacked right at the beginning), Tobe Hooper's Invaders from Mars remake, and the better-than-it-has-any-effing-right-to-be killer snowman movie Jack Frost.

But queer horrorhounds may know Allport best for his role as Nicky, the bar-brawling sissy, in the pervy 1979 slasher Savage Weekend. In a day and age when the few gay characters who made it onto screens were mincing, weak, and made vulnerable by their sexuality (see: Cruising, Cruising, Cruising), Nicky was a standout in that he was mincing, aggressive, and batshit crazy.

In an early scene, Nicky - after being taunted at a roadhouse by some upstate yokels for ordering a martini, wearing short-shorts and basically making Richard Simmons look like Steve Altas - accuses one of his tormentors of sleeping with his mother and unexpectedly flies into a furious rage, breaking beer bottles and pool cues over the heads and backs of the unsuspecting hicks and hissing, "I wasn't raised in the South Bronx for nothin!" before strutting safely out of the bar.

Of course, being a slasher movie, things don't go that well for Nicky for too long, and he meets his death while bedecked in pantyhouse and full makeup. Atta girl!

Anyway, back to Allport: the poor guy died when he was caught in an avalanche while skiing in San Bernadino (Allport wrote a story for the LA Times in 2004 about the pleasures of back-country skiing). He was 61 when he died and had been married to his wife, Carolyn Bohannan, for nearly 30 years.

And no, the irony of the fact that the guy starred in a movie about a killer snowman and died in an avalanche has not been lost on me, nor should it be ignored. Don't blame me, blame the universe.

VIdeo: Finding meaning in tragedy, or just a bad joke?

And I'm not talking about interactive midnight screenings of Showgirls here, but rather the death of Heath Ledger earlier this week.

Hard to argue that the actor's untimely-as-all-hell death qualifies as a true Hollywood tragedy (despite taking place in Manhattan): he was extremely talented, young, a father, and by all accounts a very nice guy. He also had a knack for challenging himself in his work, which is a rare trait these days for A-listers.

So one the one hand this video is a bit icky, as it uses a single shot of the actor's (covered) body being gurneed out of the SoHo apartment (not M-K's!) in which it was found. But on the other hand, the point made by the added audio is a hard one to argue with ... and given Ledger's own unease with his celebrity, quite poignant. Probably only one step away from gallows humor, but at least it's a step with a point.

Ten Things I Hate About Heath Ledger's Death

1. The Joker won't be back for another Batman movie, or they'll cast some shithead like Hayden Christensen to play him.

2. His daughter, Matilda, has no father.

3. Michelle Williams looks terrible in black.

4. No Brokeback sequel.

5. That he actually outlived Bob Dylan. Bob Dylan actually outlived him.

6. The fact that his body was discovered by a masseuse, which has a very Jackie Collins ring to it.

7. No more actors named "Heath".

8. He was a great actor.

9. He was a human being.

10. I'm going to cry even harder next time I watch Brokeback.

This is so fucking sad.

Okay, this is even sadder: I just had an accidental nap while watching I Know Who Killed Me (blame cold medicine, not Lindsay!) and I woke up convinced that Ledger's death was a brilliant viral marketing ploy by the Batman people.

And really, with shit like Cloverfield and all the Joker sites out there, can you blame me? Not to mention this:

Indeed.