Fangoria, one of the top horror magazine’s is branching into making films and comic books starting this year. The folks over at yahoo.com gave us the interesting new:
Horror brand Fangoria is launching a genre film label and has tapped agency CAA to raise the financing, which is expected to top $100 million….the label will focus on the development and production of horror projects for theatrical release. Fangoria Entertainment also teamed with Fuse to launch the fuse Fangoria Chainsaw Awards, the premier awards show spotlighting the best in music, horror, cinema and television. This year, the company will introduce Fangoria Comics, a line of comic book titles based on original horror characters and themes.
“We are using our brand to be a one-stop shop for horror,” said Tony Timpone, editor of Fangoria magazine and sister Web site Fangoria.com, who will play a producing or consulting role on Fangoria’s films, depending on the project. “We want to be the Disney of horror.”
Horror fans and critics making the movies and comic books they love? Sounds like a dream job. The people will be enthusiastic about their work, with the website and magazine they will have no problem advertising their films.
There are some big problems with this venture though the rewards if done right are much larger. What immediately comes to mind is the biased reporting they will have to avoid, if they release a film and there is one coming out by a different studio that same weekend it could jepardise their credibility as a fan magazine dedicated to horror should they talk about one and not the other. Even if they try very hard to be fair their word could be in question quite a bit. Also fans do not always make the best versions of movies that they love.
True there are exceptions, Quenten Tarantino being the biggest, most of his movies pay homage to his great loves in cinema and perhaps there are some budding creative minds at fangoria who are now being given the same opportunity. However there is a large chance that because the people there all breath, eat and sleep gore the perspective they have might be quite skewed.
Do I think they should give it a go? Hell they would be nuts not to. But I also think that even if they are successful there will be ample blood and gore spilled along the way.
