A Cult Classic in the Mistaking.

I was quoted in an ad for the first paid writing gig I ever did. It was a Fangoria Magazine review of Mario Bava's RABID DOGS, which had been released in a limited edition DVD (at a time when DVDs themselves were limited) back in early '98, and no more than a month after the quote arrived than the ad arrived in the next issue of Tim Lucas' Video Watchdog magazine. My Fangoria editor took issue with the quote, only because I got quoted for the first thing I'd ever written for the magazine, and while I've had quotes hit here and there, I've never seen my name on the back of a DVD box. Until now.

Last summer, I saw Chris Stapp and Matt Heath's hilarious THE DEVIL DARED ME TO at the Fantasia Film Festival and loved the hell out of it. I wrote a very positive review here at HQ 10 that I know was seen by the film's producer, Anthony Timpson, who also happens to be a damn good friend of yours truly. So while I knew that THE DEVIL DARED ME TO had been sold to Vivendi Visual Entertainment (distributed by Universal), and retitled DICK: THE DEVIL DARED ME TO (apparently due to the film's lead villain, the brilliantly named Dick Johansonson, and because the word "dick" also means "penis"), I had no idea that not only had it already come out, it's been on the shelves since early August. Thanks for the head's up, Ant! So with this in mind, I planned on doing a little write-up to let everyone know that the film is finally available here (avilable at most best Buy locations) and well worth seeing. What I didn't know until I was pulling artwork for the title for this very piece is that the back of the box features a quote that comes from this very website ("A cult classic in the making") that is attributed to another source, that being Fangoria Magazine.

Now, I've written for Fangoria for many years (though in a much more on-and-off basis these days) and that's what many people associate me with, but the source is simply incorrect. More so than that, Fango's Michael Gingold positively reviewed the film from the same Fantasia screening on the Fango website back in July '07, so if you want to credit that then you should go ahead. I can understand that more people know Fangoria than they do HQ 10, but then again I'd never heard of eatmybrains.com and yet, they're quoted, too. I have the feeling that this came about when someone associated me as a Fangoria writer without checking to see if Fangoria was the source, but I don't want there to be any confusion. I'm sure that the packaging is probably never going to be recalled, so I'd just like people to know that Fangoria called THE DEVIL DARED ME TO "A crowdpleasing riot", which is just as good a quote (if not better) than "A cult classic in the making". I'm more than happy to have my name on the back of the box, but I don't want to step on the good toes of the Fango folks while doing so.

Regardless of all this, DICK - THE DEVIL DARED ME TO is out now and well worth seeing. You can quote me on that.