It seems AMC has removed the unrated release of HATCHET II from all of its theaters in North America, citing poor performance as the reason behind their decision.

The most treasured of all Antarctic deep-freeze creepfests, John Carpenter’s THE THING, is at last seeing a long-mooted follow-up courtesy of Universal Pictures. Not a remake or a reboot, but a prequel, whose final reel will end immediately where the Carpenter classic begins. So yes, we’ll finally get to witness first-hand the original discovery of the alien craft—seen only in silent, black-and-white video footage in Carpenter’s 1982 film—and experience the bloody events leading to the destruction of the Norwegian camp, from which the shapeshifting “thing” escaped to U.S. outpost #31 and its inhabitants, including pilot R.J. MacReady (Kurt Russell).

Find out where and when Simon Rumley’s RED WHITE & BLUE and James Felix McKenney’s SATAN HATES YOU are playing, as well as the lineups for Film4 Frighfest’s Halloween All-Nighter and the Sinister Sunday of Shock! taking place at the Glasgow Film Theatre.

Celebrating our favorite holiday, a pair of horror festivals will be terrorizing New York City later this month: the Film Society of Lincoln Center’s Scary Movies 4 and NewLatino Filmmakers’ The HORRORphiles #6: Miedo Mashup, while Los Angeles’ American Cinematheque is hosting a whole bunch of special screenings under the Halloween Horror umbrella. Read on for the details.

Fango has nabbed some exclusive pics (see below the jump) from NEEDLE, the Aussie chiller that makes its North American premiere at LA’s Screamfest this Saturday, October 9 at 7:30 p.m. Director/co-writer John V. Soto gave us some comments on the movie as well.

You have already seen THE HUMAN CENTIPEDE. Regardless of whether or not you’ve actually watched the film itself, the movie you’ve conjured up within your imagination has undoubtedly been playing on heavy rotation in your own cerebral cineplex ever since you first heard of Tom Six’s moderately controversial high-concept monstrosity. Now here’s the rub: The film you’ve made in your mind is far gorier, far more grotesque and potentially far better than the one Six committed to celluloid.

Anybody interested in the paranormal ought to consider the Booth Brothers’ portfolio. For the past several years, these flamboyant twin filmmakers (Christopher and Philip) have turned themselves into virtual paranormal archaeologists, traveling to some of America’s most distressed locations to turn over rocks that may be holding down nasty supernatural secrets for documentaries like SPOOKED and CHILDREN OF THE GRAVE. They’re at it again with THE HAUNTED BOY: THE SECRET DIARY OF THE EXORCIST, which just made its DVDebut, and they provided Fango a few exclusive images.

After interviewing Chris Diani, the writer/director of CREATURES FROM THE PINK LAGOON (get the links here), I knew I needed to speak to one of the film’s cast as well. So I set all journalistic ethics aside and picked the cutest guy from the ensemble, Vincent Kovar. (Cue angry e-mails from the rest of the actors…)

Find out about Brian James Freeman’s THE PAINTED DARKNESS, the upcoming Cemetery Dance publication that WOWIO has selected as their October Book of the Month.

Nick Lashaway, Denzel Whitaker and Paulina Olszynski, three actors in Wes Craven’s MY SOUL TO TAKE, will be meeting and greeting guests at Universal Studios Hollywood’s Halloween Horror Nights.

Fango spent this past weekend in beautiful upstate New York attending the Woodstock Film Festival, where BITTER FEAST (pictured left) and STAKE LAND, two collaborations between Larry Fessenden’s Glass Eye Pix and Dark Sky Films, had their East Coast premieres. We came back with photos and info on when the movies will receive further big-screen exposure.