Recently, we reported on a host of William Lustig-related news, including the upcoming new double DVD and Blu-ray debut of MANIAC, his second annual “William Lustig Presents” series at NYC’s Anthology Film Archives and the aforementioned cult slasher’s special screening at the Brooklyn Academy of Music (see that item here ). Lustig is clearly having a busy summer—and he also has a MANIAC remake to talk about.

As the New Mexico desert dust continues to furiously swarm the set of the Hughes Brothers’ THE BOOK OF ELI (out on DVD and Blu-ray from Warner Home Video June 15; see the first part of this report here), the chance to interview the film’s stars comes slowly but surely. Stationed in a huge tent rigged up for the cast and crew to eat lunch in, the gaggle of journalists here to visit the set are left to fend for themselves while the others go back to work.

Albuquerque, New Mexico…

There are several of us huddled in the tiny press tent, trying not to let the sandstorm outside frighten us, when the machine gun goes off. For the past 20 minutes, there has been no sound from outside other than relentless wind blasting sharp sand waves across the desert terrain. Gary Oldman just opened our tent’s flap, silently snapped a picture of us, then disappeared so quickly that I almost didn’t see the smirk on his face.

Glass Eye Pix, the New York-area horror factory run by independent filmmaker Larry Fessenden (pictured), has been busier than ever these days, with four features in a coproduction deal with Dark Sky Films wrapped and being readied for release, and SATAN HATES YOU, a collaboration with MonsterPants, just premiered and about to hit the festival circuit. As if all this big-screen activity wasn’t enough, Fango got the scoop that Glass Eye will be terrorizing the audiosphere via an on-line series called TALES FROM BEYOND THE PALE.

If there’s anything that the DVD era has taught film fans, it’s that where there’s a movie, there will be deleted scenes—moments that might be noteworthy in and of themselves but didn’t fit the director’s (or, just as often, the studio’s) vision of the piece. This is especially true on the documentary scene, where filmmakers routinely shoot double- or even triple-digit hours of footage that must be whittled down to a feature-length final product—and director Michael Stephenson (pictured) confirms that in crafting BEST WORST MOVIE, his chronicle of the TROLL 2 experience, some of the almost-best bits had to hit the cutting room floor.

David Everitt, the third Editor of FANGORIA, who died May 7 of ALS (see obituary here), was a professional. That’s the highest praise I can give him: a true pro.

With SHUTTER ISLAND, Martin Scorsese’s ultra-stylish (and oddly underrated) salute to ’40s noir and color-crazy Mario Bava horror movies hitting DVD and Blu-ray June 8, Fango sat down with the man who created the eerie, Freudian frightfest in print: best-selling, Boston-born author Dennis Lehane. The author—whose novels also served as the blueprints for Clint Eastwood’s MYSTIC RIVER and Ben Affleck’s GONE BABY GONE—is no stranger to mining the darker recesses of the human condition, but SHUTTER ISLAND is the closest he has come so far to creating a horror show.