Andy Fickman trusted with RKO's horror classics
Andy Fickman, I know we've had our problems here and there. Last year when I called your comedy THE GAME PLAN with The Rock"a lazy assed effort", I didn't mean to insult you. Your subsequent e-mail to me letting me know that you and your crew had worked extremely hard on that movie was nicely received... though slightly worrying because it indicated that what I saw was the best you could do. And that's fine when your directing small time kids comedies at Disney, which I wouldn't pay to see anyway. But it's NOT FINE when your handling remakes some of the greatest and most influential horror movies of not only the first half of the 20th century but of all time. Variety say Fickman will direct at least one of the four upcoming horror remakes at Roseblood Movie Company and Twisted Pictures, specifically one of the Val Lewton produced trio of RKO classics I WALKED WITH A ZOMBIE, THE BODY SNATCHER and BEDLAM or the 1939 classic FIVE CAME BACK. Fickman will direct one and "godfather" the rest.
After Frankenstein and the Wolfman came Lewton and RKO, and what they lacked in budgets they made up for with atmosphere, imagination and great directors making horror with psychological flair, Fickman told Daily Variety. It was on the heels of WWII, when Nazi Germany showed that the scariest enemy might be the person who looked like your next door neighbor. It didnt have to be some creature.A RKO chairman Ted Hartley claims he has never met anyone with as much passion for Lewton as Fickman. I find it hard to believe that anyone has more passion for any horror period than John Landis but there you go. I know a huge chunk of our readers probably won't have heard of those aforementioned horror movies but I can't recommend them to you highly enough. Without them... who knows if the mass production of the genre in the 70's and 80's would have ever happened?