A letter from the editor
Look for a new “The Rotten Truth” on Monday, April 30th.
Not another horror website, I hear you groan now. Yeah, another horror site. Sliding across your corneas, wriggling beneath your eyelids and finding its way right into your brain with more genre information than you can sustain. Alright, nixing the metaphors for a moment, there’s nothing wrong with one more stop along your ritualistic web travels in search to be a more well-rounded and schooled horror fanatic out there. Scary movies are big right now…have been for a few years, if you haven’t noticed; rising and falling like a tide. And with the variety of online genre outlets thriving out there, it reminds me of the period when the newsstands of the late-’80s dripped with bubbly latex and gore – when premiere publications like Fangoria were joined by titles screaming garish names such as Gorezone, Toxic, or something as simple as Horror Fan – except this time this trend…um, it’s online.
With that said, welcome to the Beta launch of ShockTillYouDrop.com – ComingSoon.net‘s wicked little brother. Turns out, the masterminds of CS felt it was high-time they hitched a ride on the horror train, and I agree. ComingSoon has been around since…gee, as long as I’ve been writing for the web which began about six or seven years back with Creature-Corner.com. And CS has always stepped up to the plate with respectable journalism and reverence for this nutty biz we call Hollywood. But get this, they kidnapped me under the pretense that I will bring the same game to Shock. Crazy bastards. Seriously though, if some of you are familiar with my writing you know I try to bring a similar approach to horror reporting. For the rest out there reading this saying, “Who the hell is this guy?” well…
Hi, the name’s Ryan Rotten and I’m a crack baby for horror, nuzzling against its bosom draining it of whatever energizing nourishment it gives me, good or bad. As I mentioned above, my start in this career began shortly after moving to Los Angeles and enlisting with the Creature-Corner.com crew. There we stayed until some years later until my former partner and I founded DreadCentral.com; gypsy that I am, I later became a proud member of the Fangoria family working the news beat for their website while contributing to the magazine under the not-so-silly-name my parents gave me, Ryan Turek. (The “Rotten” moniker was born at Creature-Corner and has since stuck.)
To clear the air and get some basic questions answered: My favorite horror film is Fright Night; the best pieces of horror celluloid, to me, are James Whale’s Frankenstein and the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Nope, horror movie history did not begin in 1980. I’d love to see more original films getting made than remakes (unless it’s an update of The Car, then I’m totally down). Jill Schoelen, Paula Marshall, Charlie Spradling and Shawnee Smith were big high school crushes. So, you and me. Are we cool? Cool.
What can you expect from Shock Till You Drop? My belief is that the prestige of print journalism can translate and survive on the web so while you’ll be getting round-the-clock reliable news updates, keep your eyes peeled for insightful and informed features, set visits and interviews (sometimes via video) from myself and fellow CS staffers. The exclusives we’re debuting with will certainly not be the last and reviews will be plentiful. Last, but not least, every Monday you can check back in this spot for a new edition of “The Rotten Truth” – my platform to spew whatever’s on my mind about horror, whether it’s current trends, a recent release, or a reflection on the oldies. There are a few other special ingredients we’ve got in this stew; no, we can’t tell you what they are right away. As Drayton Sawyer once said when asked what made his award-winning chili so special, “It’s no secret, it’s the meat. Don’t skimp on the meat, I’ve got a reeeeal good eye for prime meat.”
Let’s just say, so do we. Dig in!
Source: Ryan Rotten
