Greg Nicotero Takes You For A Drive With His Directorial Debut

Greg Nicotero is one of the leading men working in the special effects and make-up  business today.  Although Nicotero’s talent lies in using his hands to create grisly effects, it seems the guy wants to try his hand at directing as well.  Arrow In The Head got the exclusive news from the man himself, that he is being attached to direct The Drive-In. Based on a series of books by Joe R. Lansdale, The Drive-In is about a group of people that get stuck at a drive-in movie theater during a late night horror fest.  For more info on the books as well as the career of one of the pioneers of FX work, read on.

The synopsis from Amazon says this about the popular stories: 

Friday night at the Orbit Drive-in: a circus of noise, sex, teenage hormones, B-movie blood, and popcorn. On a cool, crisp summer night, with the Texas stars shining down like rattlesnake eyes, movie-goers for the All-Night Horror Show are trapped in the drive-in by a demonic-looking comet. Then the fun begins. If the movie-goers try to leave, their bodies dissolve into goo. Cowboys are reduced to tears. Lovers quarrel. Bikini-clad women let their stomachs’ sag, having lost the ambition to hold them in. The world outside the six monstrous screens fades to black while the movie-goers spiral into base humanity, resorting to fighting, murdering, crucifying, and cannibalizing to survive. Part dark comedy part horror show, Lansdale’s cult Drive-In books are as shocking and entertaining today as they were 20 years ago.
 
Knowing Greg Nicotero’s knack for creating gory works of art, I would say this would be a dream project for him to work on.  Nicotero has made quite a name for himself in the film industry.  In 1988, with then friends Howard Berger and Robert Kurtzman, Nicotero co-founded KNB Efx Group.  With this company, Nicotero has worked on such films as Army of Darkness, Cabin Fever, Hostel, Sin City, and more recently Piranha 3-D and the upcoming The Walking Dead T.V. series.  When I got to meet Greg Nicotero this past spring at Horrorhound Weekend, he was extremely excited and proud of his upcoming work in The Walking Dead.  We will get to see his work on the show when it premiers this Halloween. If you want to brush up on the story that will bring the wizard of gore to the directing chair, you can find the link to the book below.

Somewhere between growing up on a steady diet of Saturday morning trips to the local comic-book shop, collecting an unhealthy amount of action figures, and frequent viewings of Ray Harryhausen and Hammer Horror films, came forth a nerdy boy that was torn between journalism and the arts. In high school, Michael found himself writing a movie column for the school newspaper. Yet, he went on to get a BFA in Studio Art at Webster University. When not writing about films, you can still find him discussing classic horror, collecting action figures, and reading Batman. Clearly, not much has changed.

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