Last chance to pre-order the book - or why not come to the launch?

If you want to save yourself a couple of quid off the cover price of Urban Terrors: New British Horror Cinema 1997-2008, you need to get your order in before this Saturday as 1st December 2012 is the official publication date. It's still worth every penny at the cover price of £17.95, but you can get it for £15.25 (and hot off the press) if you're quick.

If you live anywhere near Leicester (everywhere's near Leicester!), do please come along to the official launch next Wednesday, 5th December. I will be signing copies in the University of Leicester Bookshop between 5.30pm and 6.30pm (and there will be some wine/juice and nibbles laid on). If you're coming from outside the city, the University is within easy walking distance of the railway station (parking on campus is very limited). The bookshop is on the front of the big, square glass library in the middle of campus. Make sure you come to the University of Leicester, not our local rivals De Montfort University.

E-mailing me if you're thinking of coming along will help us to estimate numbers - and means I'll be looking out for you among the clamouring throng.

After the signing, there will be a free screening of British Horror Revival classic The Last Horror Movie in one of the uni lecture theatres. Julian Richards has very kindly given me permission to screen this (check out this crazy French DVD sleeve I just found!). After the film, I presume that there may be some drink and chat in a local hostelry.

'Last Horror' sequel: the return of Max Parry!

Crikey! Just as Darklands receives its long-overdue US release, Julian Richards has announced that he is working on a sequel to The Last Horror Movie, reuniting with scripter James Handel and 'Max Parry' himself, the BHR legend that is Kevin Howarth:

“Max has been living in Los Angeles for several years since the release of Last Horror Movie and has made some interesting observations. He has also become obsessed with new technology and now uses social networking sites to select victims and mobile phones to track and record his murders, some of which are already available to view on the undernet.”

That's from Dread Central. TLHM is one of the absolute best films in the whole British Horror Revival and it will be great to catch up with Max again.

Decay - a British zombie film produced at CERN!

Imagine you're studying for a PhD in Physics. As part of your research you get the opportunity to spend some time at CERN, home of the Large Hadron Collider (and birthplace of the world wide web). What do you do on your days off?

That's right, you make a zombie film!

A zombie film set at (but not authorisd by) CERN. A zombie film featuring the LHC and the search for the Higgs Boson. This could be the coolest, geekiest film ever made. And it looks pretty good, too. Here's the trailer:


Decay (great title) will be available for free online from 8th December, but if you want to see it on the big screen, there's a world premiere at the University of Manchester on 29th November. Tickets are free and can be booked through the film's website. Here are a few stills:

Salvage on iPlayer

I was really annoyed to only find out in retrospect that the BBC had screened Lawrence Gough's  Salvage this week, as it's a film I've been looking out for. So I'm delighted to find that they've slapped it up on iPlayer - because BBC Films was one of the backers, presumably.

It's available until the small hours of Thursday morning.

Indexing the book

I have spent the past few nights indexing Urban Terrors. There are two indices: one of about 1,200 names and one of about 1,000 titles. There was no way to fit these into the already hefty book so instead I'm making them available as PDFs. Here they are on Scribd:

• Index of names
• Index of titles

This also has the advantage that you can peruse the indices and see if you and/or your work is featured, without having to find a physical copy of the book.

The indexing did show up a number of typos which didn't get spotted during proofing, but they are mostly misspelt names in the little boxes listing brief credits (which my publisher evidently retyped rather than cut and paste). These are the least important part of the book - it's not a reference work and if you want cast/crew names, they're all on IMDB anyway. So that's all right.

As I pretty much expected, the most frequently mentioned people are Paul Hyett (27 pages), Kim Newman (26 pages), Variety critic Derek Elley (25 pages), Neil Marshall (21 pages), Johannes Roberts (19 pages) and Jake West (16 pages)

Gangsters, Guns and Zombies UK premiere next week

With one week to go until this year's Day of the Undead zombie-bash here in Leicester, the 'mystery film' has been revealed, and damn me if it isn't yet another British tile. A week tomorrow Phoenix will be screening the UK premiere of Gangsters, Guns and Zombies, directed by Matt Mitchell.

With Before Dawn, The Eschatrilogy and Cockneys vs Zombies, that's a solid six hours or so of new British horror goodness (with a slice of Charlie Higson in the middle). I should be there for all four, and will be plugging my new book to anyone who will listen. In fact, I'm off round Zombie Ed's house tomorrow to drop off some Urban Terrors fliers.

GGZ will be released on VOD this Thursday and hits US DVD on 11th December. Although it seems it's actually already available in France, where the DVD was released last month.

French film festival celebrates 21st century British horror

The Amiens Film Festival, which starts next week, features a retrospective on the British Horror Revival!

Screening in the Brit Horror strand are Shaun of the Dead, The Descent, The Cottage, Eden Lake, The Children, Wake Wood, the TV mini-series Dead Set and three films by festival guest of honour Christopher Smith: Creep, Triangle and Black Death.

As far as I know, this is the first festival to celebrate the 21st century British Horror Revival in this way. More please!