Stephen Romano: author/screenwriter

AVAILABLE NOW FOR PRE-ORDER ON AMAZON.COM AND HITTING THE STREET ON FEB 9, 2010: Stephen Romano Presents SHOCK FESTIVAL: A three-disc DVD tribute set inspired by and based on the award winning book, containing over SEVEN HOURS of vintage grindhouse madness! Check it out:
Okay, kids, let me explain what this is exactly: we've spent an entire year combing the globe for the baddest-ass grindhouse movie trailers of the seventies and eighties. You know those sets like the 42nd STREET FOREVER volumes? We'll that's the idea . . . only GODZILLA-SIZE-IT, BABYEE! This is a three disc set containing literally HUNDREDS of trailers and TV ads and radio spots---all authentic, vintage stuff that will blow you away! ANd my collection is different. It's quirky and all-inclusive, containing stiff you simply will never find anywhere else, from sleaze classics like Little Oral Annie's TITILLATION (this trailer must be seen to be believed!) to the rarely-screened CAPTAIN AMERICA movie of 1991, directed by Albery Pyun! These are the films that inspired my book and we pay tribute to them here with all the bells and whistles money can buy! There are TWO feature-length trailer collections, plus a TV section, exclusive easter eggs and special extras and an ENTIRE disc filled with over three hundred original radio spots! PLUS, we have some ALL NEW tribute trailers based on the FAKE movies in my book! And each trailer volume on the set features TWO complete, outrageous, feature-length commentary tracks---over FIVE HOURS of the most insightful, fascinating, and outright shocking alternative audio ever presented on a disc set like this. TRACK ONE is hosted by the amazing UNCLE CREEPY, editor and creator of the premiere Internet horror website DREAD CENTRAL.COM, whose famous take-no-prisoners attitude has never been sharper, as he lays it down about each trailer on display, providing hilarious insight and information about the films, looking back in nostalgia at an age of cinema long gone. From the fan-favorite subject of "Fulci versus Argento" to the current state of modern horror films, Creepy's zany spin on SHOCK FESTIVAL will have you screaming! TRACK TWO is my own lecture on exploitation and horror cinema of the 70s and 80s, touching on various elements of the films on display, but also relaying in detail many of my own personal experiences in the film world, additional heroes of the alternative cinema, the history of early home video and even a few fairly complex examinations, such as "what makes a horror film" and "blaxploitation as real art versus social menace." Whatever your taste and whatever you're in the mood for, my SHOCK FESTIVAL dvd set delivers the goods---and then some! Plus, you get a free all-new poster (pictured above) and a cool booklet with the set, too! Here's the cover of the booklet below. It lays it right on the line, kiddies. Get it now at AMAZON.COM. Or else! He. He. He.
AND STILL AVAILABLE FROM IDW PUBLISHING and RAW ENTERTAINMENT! MY AWESOME NEW BOOK WHICH HAS JUST BEEN VOTED "BEST FICTION BOOK OF 2008" by RUE MORGUE MAGAZINE!
It's finally here, and available at AMAZON.COM at the amazingly LOW PRICE of just 26 bucks and some change! It's a very cool "illustrated novel," which is presented in the style of psychotronic film journalism, depicting a fictional B-movie universe, illustrated with hundreds of swell posters, like the ones you see in this ad right here:
And, yes that's THOMAS JANE! He plays the role of Elliot Swann, just one of many bizarre characters you will find in SHOCK FESTIVAL, which is getting rave reviews. But allow the critics to explain:
"Take a drop of Joe R. Lansdale's blood. Then a slice from David J. Schow's scalp. Scrape some phlegm off Tarantino's tongue. Inject some of Robert Rodriguez's sperm. Pour in some Karo syrup. Mix it in a blender. Pour. These are just some of the ingredients of Stephen Romano's unique work . . . If the buzz surrounding his new book, SHOCK FESTIVAL, is any indication, Stephen Romano's work will not only turn heads, it's going to make heads roll . . . "
---CHUCKPALAHNIUK.NET
“A stone groove and as badass a tome as you're likely to come across this year or the next. If you love grindhouse, sleaze cinema, or B-movies in general, you owe it to yourself to pick up a copy.”
---FILM THREAT.COM
BOOK OF THE MONTH! “One of the greatest homage to B-cinema ever undertaken . . . Shock Festival is a breathtakingly thorough overview of over 100 movies and a slew of filmmaker and actors who never existed -- but which you'll believe actually did by the time you finish reading. The breadth and variety of personalities and events rival many a “serious” novel. ”
---FANGORIA
BEST FICTION BOOK OF 2008! "While the term "mockumentary practically wrote itself, it's going to take a clever writer to describe Stephen Romano's fictional alternate history of exploitation films . . . (Romano) has created a vivid universe filled with films you'd love to see and personalities you'd line up at a convention to meet, lavishly illustrated with a plethora of eye-popping posters, lobby cards, on-set still and ad mats for such fictional films as THE UNDERTAKER AND HIS WIFE and STARFIRE BEYOND THE GALAXY . . . Fans swept up in the recent wave of grindhouse nostalgia NEED to buy this book!"
--RUE MORGUE MAGAZINE
“Stephen Romano is the Robert Rodriguez of horror! Whether he's writing short stories, novels, comics, screenplays, or designing movie posters, it seems there's nothing this cat can't do. Not only do I give (SHOCK FESTIVAL) my highest recommendation, I'm even calling it my favorite book of 2008.”
--COMICS 101.COM
“Hilarious, crude, incisive, exploitative . . . Romano’s pseudo-journalistic Endeavour (is) a genuine revelation, an event that’s rarely, if ever, been done before . . . the merging of fact and fiction into something too outrageous to be the truth, and too disarmingly ghastly/gorgeous to be anything but.”
--THE AUSTIN CHRONICLE
“Spectacularly over-the top and gloriously fictional . . . the posters are eye-poppingly accurate riffs on the genre; the profiles of the principals, though fictional, are arresting and reflect the interview-driven reporting of cinema studies. It’s a sure conversation starter, and an inspiration to revisit some of those real guilty pleasures of the grindhouse past.”
---BUTLER UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF LIBERAL ARTS AND SCIENCES
HOT DAMN, HUH!!!? Get you copy now! They're selling fast!!!
Here is one of my favorite images from SHOCK FESTIVAL:
And here's one of the cool lobby cards. Umm . . . no actual sharks were riddled with bullets in the making of this book, FYI!
STEPHEN ROMANO IS THE NEW KLOWN PRINCE OF HORROR!!!!
And once you read The Riot Act, you will never be the same!!!
But don't take our word for it, just look at what THEY are all saying:
“These stories are controlled rawness, designed insanity, and they are dangerously on target . . . truth is, this may be the best new short story collection I’ve read in years. Stephen Romano isn’t fucking around. He means to get under your skin, bump around inside there, and with these stories he manages just that. I promise you, THE RIOT ACT is one of the most intense and unique horror story collections you will ever read.”
JOE R. LANSDALE from his introduction
Best-selling author of THE TWO BEAR MAMBO and THE DRIVE-IN
"His voice is polished, clean, powerful, and more than all that, CONFIDENT. This is a guy with a vision, a real narrative style, a dark and mesmerizing worldview. It's as if Joe Lansdale, Dave Schow, John Skipp, and Norm Partridge all had a long, wild weekend in Vegas replete with moonshine, .45s, snakeskin boots, twleve kilos of uncut Colombian coke, Five Thai hookers, and the dug-up corpse of Jim Thompson, spent three days out of their minds, and woke up the following morning to find little baby Steve Romano in the middle of the hotel room gurgling, "Daddy! Daddy!" And yes, that really IS the only way to explain how solid his fiction is. Brutal, full-on street-cred, sharp, insightful, human, authentic, bloody, savage, asskicking, but smooth and altogether pure. Seriously, you've got to check him out."
TOM PICCIRILLI
Bram Stoker Award-winning author of A CHOIR OF ILL CHILDREN, THE DEAD LETTERS, HEADSTONE CITY and NOVEMBER MOURNS
"This is the hard stuff, folks: the heavy metal you listened to in your car as cops with bulldog faces cruised by while you hid your joint and beer bottle between your legs; the hot chick you fantasized about before you knew she had a thing for razors and then that only made it better; the tough guys you wished you were as you watched them whaling on some kid you thanked your lucky stars you weren't; that slightly bloodstained gun in the dumpster you knew you shouldn't touch...This is the horror of lives derailed, past, present and future. This is horror in its purest form and to see it in all its grisly, gory fucked-up beauty, we can either look at the news, out the window, down into the shadows of the alley, or into the pages of The Riot Act. Both scare me equally. When I picked this book up, I had a feeling it wouldn't be my kind of thing. I was right. It wasn't. But it is now. Stephen Romano is Jackson Pollack and The Riot Act is a canvas dripping with blood red energy. Herein lies a hyper-kinetic ricochet inside the Technicolor skull of a true pioneer of urban nightmare."
--KEALAN PATRICK BURKE
Bram Stoker Award-winning author of CURRENCY OF SOULS.
“Stephen Romano is a literary gunslinger who shoots from the hip: he aims for the heart or the balls--usually both, since he’s not interested in taking prisoners. This is one storyteller you do not want to mess with.”
PHILIP NUTMAN
Award-winning author of WETWORK
AND THE CRITICS LIKE IT, TOO!!!!
"ROMANO has created a selection of tales that – even though separate – are linked together by characters and places. He has moulded a dark world that spans decades with the skill of a master professional. (His) writing is a force to be reckoned with. It has the delivery of a high powered, fully automatic weapon in the hands of an expert marksman. He creates scenes and images that assault your eyeballs, and burn through the retinas before boring in to your brain and exploding your skull with the ease of a hollow point round. I dare you to take the risk and venture in to a world that is controlled by THE RIOT ACT."
GARRY CHARLES, Hadesgate.co.uk
"Romano rips out your heart, turns it inside out, then makes you swallow it whole. He has a bloodshot eye for horror that doesn't blink in the presence of pure evil."
S.D.HINTZ, Author
There! I’m sexy and cannot be stopped!!!! Buy my shit, own the sunrise, rule the world, never say die, don’t grow up. And all that.
Friday, July 15th, 2006
TOTALLY NEW INFO DEPARTMENT: New pictures, new friends, first update in months . . . and my new book THE RIOT ACT comes out this month and you'll be able to purchase a brand spanking new copy right here on MYSPACE (for what it's worth), and at the new ACRADRETRO website, which should be up soon. Got the first test pressings back today and they look swellsville, daddyo. Here's what the cover looks like:
JOE R. LANSDALE, best-selling novelist and award-winning sumbitch extrodinaire, has indeed penned the gushing indroduction, which is flattering as hell to say the least. You'll find all manner of darkness in this bizarre bastard, from heartwreching true life confessions (LOVE LETTER TO AUNTIE FAYE) to over-the-top psycho-sexual monster science fiction (RATBOY AND DOGBREATH) . . . and other whacked-out gems such as ELLIE MAYHEM RULES THE KINGDOM, FOUR DEAD GUYS IN ZLIKER PAK and my favorite, ROCK 'N' ROLL SUICIDE WITH ROBOTS. It's a few hundred pages of the best work I've ever done . . . so get in line now! And BUY MY MOVIE, too! That's the MASTERS OF HORROR thing. We won a fucking EMMY!!!! See photo gallery below . . .
Sunday, September 1.
Okay, kids, it's OFFICIAL:
The Showtime original anthology series MASTERS OF HORROR bows its ugly mug at ten o' clock in the PM on FRIDAY, OCTOBER 28th. "Just in time for HALLOWEEN," as the trailer ads all say. It's 13 original one-hour films, each directed by a famous horror guy, such as JOHN CARPENTER, TOBE HOOPER, DARIO ARGENTO and DON COSCARELLI! That's just naming a few, kids. The premiere episode is called INCIDENT ON AND OFF A MOUNTAIN ROAD, and it's the one I WROTE! Above is a picture of little old me, getting along well with a bunch of fake dead people created for the infamous "BASEMENT SEQUENCE!" (Moo-hoo-hah-hah!!!) Below is a nifty guided tour of images that track some of the production, with a few amusing stories about what we went through to make this damn thing! I worked and/or consulted with the director every step of the way, from casting, through principal photography in Canada, all the way to final editing. I was flattered and blown away that I got to have so much input into things, and Im sure Ill never have another experience like that again (. . . well, maybe on another Don Coscarelli movie!) Not to mention that our script was the only one in the entire MASTER OF HORROR series that stood on a SINGLE DRAFT. What that means is that from the time we submitted the thing to the people producing the series, to the start of photography, NOT ONE CHANGE was requested by any of the suits in charge! Do you have any idea how rare that is, people? Well, Ill simply say this: IT NEVER HAPPENS IN HOLLYWOOD!!!! Only guys like James fucking Cameron get away with shit like that! The changes we eventually were forced to make were a result of the chaotic and rushed shooting schedule and a great many Murphys Law things that kicked us in the nuts as we went along . . . but thats the name of the game in filmmaking. The shoot was a real tough one, but I learned a lot. And I wasnt the ONLY ONE who was blown away by my hands-on participation in things. All the producers were shocked and befuddled at how much Don trusted my creative instincts and everyone was constantly whispering behind our backs when we were re-writing the script on set as we went. Some of this led to a bit of political friction, which I wont go into here . . . but that's ALSO the name of the game in filmmaking, folks. I hope they invent a new game soon. It disgusts and amazes me that I can't imagine myself doing anything else for a living!
This is MOONFACE. He's a scary seven-foot-tall albino serial killer with silver capped teeth. He's played in our film by the coolest dude in the world, namely JOHN DE SANTIS, who was also LURCH in THE NEW ADVENTURES OF THE ADDAMS FAMILY. He was also the big lead demon in THIRTEEN GHOSTS. (Or was he a GHOST in that? I can never get these things right!) Anyway, John was really swell to work with and he's scary as hell in the movie!
THIS is our fearless director DON COSCARELLI. He's my pal. And he directed PHANTASM, THE BEASTMASTER and BUBBA HO-TEP . . . so he's way up in the cool book, too! Don and I wrote the screenplay together, and he was nice enough to let me make up almost all of the dialogue! Cooler still, the script is based on a GREAT short story by one of my favorite living authors, the amazing JOE R. LANSDALE! Do you know what that fucking MEANS, people? It means I got to work with TWO of my all-time favorite creative artists on my very first big-deal Hollywood movie----AWESOME!!!! We made INCIDENT in just TEN DAYS, and it wasn't easy. (Actually, it was eleven days, because we ended up with a lot to do at the end of the shoot, and we whined and begged the execs in charge to give us more time to get the movie right. It would still be unfinished to this moment had they not given us that extra day.) I LOVE this picture of Don. He looks like a real badass. Don't fuck with him.
Here's HOWARD BERGER in the makeup trailer, doing John up with his swell face for the film. Along with his partner in KNB Effects, Greg Nicotero, Howard is one of the most in-demand special makeup effects artists working today, having done every damn movie you can think of, including PULP FICTION, LAND OF THE DEAD, SIN CITY and the upcoming film version of THE LION THE WITCH AND THE WARDROBE. Here he is assisted by the incredible MICHAEL FIELDS, an up-and-coming hotshot at the KNB effects company, who was really great to hang with on the set and watch at work. Every single morning, John Desantis had to sit through two hours of what you're seeing here, which is having a LOT of rubber glued to his mug . . . and then he had to go through another half hour getting his shoulders and arms airbrushed white to complete the albino effect. I almost never saw him out of makeup. He also wore red contacts, which were applied by a really hot lens technician from Germany, who's name I can't remember to save my life. (Her name doesn't show up in the credits either for some insane reason or another.) But shit, she was hot . . . and she had a nifty exotic accent, too. Never got a picture of her. DAMN!!!!
Here's another couple of hotties I got to work with on the film. On the left is Bree Turner, a fine actress and a swell human being. She made her movie debut in that first DEUCE BIGALOW flick as the "Aquarium Girl." (The character had a name in the film, but I can't remember what it was.) In our story, she's the fearless heroine who battles Moonface to the death, and she gave a GREAT performance! On the left is the LOVELY miss DANA HAMEL, who did everyone's "straight" makeup on the film, including some of John's. She's an award-winner, you know, and made Bree look really icky in these basement scenes. Since we were shooting all over the script on any given day, Dana really had to think on her feet and keep plenty of Polaroid continuity snapshots handy to determine whether or she would make Bree look like she'd been slapped around, run through the woods, banged on the head until bloody, or just plain cute. (The cute stuff only happens in the first five minutes, before all the mayhem starts---most of the time, everybody in this film looks like they've been brutally savaged in some bizarre gardening accident.) She was one of the people on the crew I was most impressed with, and she was nice to me. Plus she's a snappy dresser! So is Bree.
Another hot chick. Jesus, Stephen. No, really, shes beautiful AND TALENTED! This here is SARAH GRAHM, who was Howard Bergers other key makeup artist on the film. She was in charge of a couple of the deep stabbing effects that will really gross you out. Sarah never talked to me much, but she really enjoyed her job, and I was impressed by one particularly nasty bit of gore she came up with---so shes in the cool book, defacto, hands-down!
Okay, one more chick before we move on, okay? This is our amazing set decorator, looking all silly for the camera, getting the nasty basement set ready for shooting. You can see here some of the detail on the set, which was really expensive and very elaborately tricked-out with incredibly realistic and BLOODY corpses, most of which you will NOT see in the film because the rushed schedule (and other problems) did not allow for shooting many close-ups. Thats a shame, because some of this stuff is truly disturbing and would have been great to include on film! Our Set Dec babe was really cool to me, and she let me keep many props from the film, most of which I gave away when I got back to America to my friends. (I kept the nastiest, way-coolest trophy for myself, of course . . . but I cant tell you what it is. YET! Moo-hoo-hah-hah . . .)
Ahhhhh . . . . my old friend ANGUS SCRIMM. Don and I wrote a part into the film especially for this incredible guy, who is also the star of the PHANTASM pictures as The Tall Man. Angus (real name Rory Guy) just loved the character, and stayed religiously on-script during his performance, speaking nearly every word of the dialogue exactly as I wrote it for him! I kind of hoped he would run with it a little more, but he insisted that the character was perfect. He plays a crazy old guy who Moonface keeps around in his basement as a sort of mascot. Angus loved the finished film and he even called me a genius recently in print. Man, is that a TRIP or what? I GREW UP watching this guys movies!
That's Coscarelli, directing John DeSantis as Moonface. Cool, huh?
This is the creepy cabin that was built in six sections just for us and placed on top of a mountain! No, really, they actually DID THAT! And they had these gigantic helium baloons that floated over the whole mountain, casting giant rays of artificial moonlight over the entire location. We had cranes, lightning rigs, and about a million crew guys busting theier assses to get these shots. This photo was taken during lunch, just before the sun went down and they started on this location. Since the actual shots in the scene take place in the dead of night, you can't even tell we're on a real mountain most of the time . . . but we were, dammit!
This is the first day of shooting. The cast and crew has already shot THREE major dramatic sequences with Bree Turner and her co-star ETHAN EMBRY (an amazing character actor who gives what I believe to be the performance of his entire career as a really haunting and scary survivalist) . . . and were all cold, tired and we want to go home. You see, on most films, you get a whole day---sometimes even a FEW DAYS---to film an emotionally-draining and logistically sticky scene like the THREE Bree and Ethan just did. We had TEN DAYS for our whole damm movie! So we managed to get those crucial sequences in the can before lunch (they came out great!), and now were in the woods behind the main location set, shooting a confrontation with Moonface! In the end, we will get FIVE key dialogue and action bits completely wrapped in ONE DAY of shooting. This was the only day, by the way, where things went almost exactly on schedule. Every other day was an uphill climb against rapidly-escalating odds. Thats me on the right, mugging it up in the freezing Vancouver summer. My buddy Justin on the left, who came up with me from Austin to watch the shoot.
For EVEN MORE about the making of MASTERS OF HORROR, and a few more swell photographs, check out my gallery, and the most recent BLOGS, which will be forthcoming as I have time to spew. ENJOY, fuckers . . . and watch my MOVIE in October!!!!