2001 MANIACS is finally in the can. Robert Englund has worn the mask of Mayor George W. Buckman, he the leader of those Civil War ghosts conjured 40 years ago by Herschell Gordon Lewis for a splatter dream played out on Drive-In movie screens 1964. I was born that year. What could that mean…? Boom. Boom. BOOM.

Having co-written and directed MANIACS, nothing left to do but wait for its release. I should be writing anew. Deadlines due. A rewrite of SHE FREAK. An outline for 2002 MANIACS. And yet… Boom. Boom. BOOM. The ebony cases on my file cabinet beckon. Plastic coffins in which entombed lie memory encoded silver spheres. Circular testaments to a past filled with Creature Features and Chiller Theaters and Famous Monsters and Tales from the Crypt. A schoolboy crush that never went away. A love of the dark and the macabre and all things that go bump in the night. Boom. Boom. BOOM.

Now, as I sit before my computer, meaning to create shadow plays of my own, I find myself reaching for that plastic case and succumbing to my DVD fix. A jolt of midnight madness, courtesy of MGM Home Video. My name is Tim. And I’m a horror junkie.

I would not be where I am were it not for the monsters of my youth. Celluloid villains who graced my local TV stations and the Drive-In Theaters of my New Jersey summers. For years, mere memories recalled through black and white images in the pages of dear Uncle Forry Ackerman’s FAMOUS MONSTERS OF FILMLAND magazine, and later, thank you very much Kerry O’Quinn, splashed across FANGORIA in a blood red color perfectly matching the hue of my 80’s teen angst. Like a Frankenstein patchwork, these influences collided with a dream made reality through film school and a 90’s move to Hollywood, where I now find myself humbly and numbly (thanks to 2001 MANIACS) sitting at the feet of the “Masters of Horror”, the self named (with tongue firmly planted in cheek) gang of horror filmmakers who inspire and share my addiction. John Carpenter. Don Coscarelli. David Cronenberg. Joe Dante. Guillermo Del Toro. Mick Garris. Stuart Gordon. John Landis. Tobe Hooper. Eli Roth. Rob Zombie (naming but a few). Enablers all, we gather and share our stories. The movies that made us want to make movies. The movies we hope to make. The movies we wish we had.

The FrighT MasteR has asked me to share some of these stories here, with you. For if you are reading this, then you know of the heart palpitations of which I speak. You, too, spend restful nights wondering when MCA will release ISLE OF LOST SOULS, why MGM didn’t letterbox PUMPKINHEAD or why Paramount released the edited version of FRANKENSTEIN AND THE MONSTER FROM HELL on DVD when, on VHS, they previously released the uncut version. You know of the boom, boom BOOM. The jones for Jason Voorhees. The hankering for Halloween. If you know what I’m talking about, gather round. Here, I will review. Here, I will interview. Let us indulge together.

Keep an eye out on Upcoming Horror Movies.com for the next edition of this column when Tim kick starts SHOCK AND ROLL with “Freaks in the Funhouse”.