The Rondos Are Coming! Some Choice Nominations

We here at Famous Monsters love the Rondos, and who wouldn’t?

Begun in 2002 by David Colton and Kerry Gammill over at the scare-tastic Classic Horror Film Board, the Rondo Awards are dedicated to honoring achievements in classic horror, recognizing everything from “Best Movie,” to ”Best DVD Commentary” to “Best Horror Host.” Lucky winners receive a beautifully sculpted bust in the likeness of famed horror star Rando Hatton (The Pearl of Death, House of Horrors), for whom the award is named. And now, every year, the cool ghouls of the internet come together to celebrate the best and brightest in the world of classic horror, science fiction and cult films.

The best part is that anyone can vote. Your voice matters! As a fan of all that is classic horror (and surely that is you, fair reader, for who else would frequent the abode of the Ackermonster?), it is your sacred franchise to cast your ballot in favor of your favorite fiends.

Hit up the Rondo Awards’ official site when it is Kong-venient, and cast your vote!

While every category should be of great interst to FM readers, we wanted to single out a few awards and nominees that have particularly wowed us this year.

A bounty of excellent films from 2009 is present In the Best Movie category. Last year was a particularly rich one for genre fans, and pictures like Henry Selick’s beautiful Coraline, Neill Blompkamp’s astounding and provoking District 9, Sam Raimi’s delerious Drag Me To Hell and Duncan Jones’ mind-bending Moon represented the best of what genre cinema can be.

Fan favorites from the TV category include the final season of SyFy’s milestone Battlestar Galactica, Fox’s brilliant head-scratcher Fringe, as well as perennials Lost and HBO’s vampire drama True Blood.

This writer needs to single out the extremely overdue release of Night of the Creeps in a wonderful collector’s edition, for the Best Classic DVD category, as well as the Beware the Moon documentary from last fall’s excellent An American Werewolf in London special edition. When it comes to Best Commentaries, we were blessed with an embarrassment of riches last year, with Fred Dekker offering insights into the aforementioned Night of the Creeps, ace film historians Greg Mank and Tom Weaver (with guests Bob Burns and Charlotte Austin) lending great depth and context to classic Karloff creepers The Walking Dead and Frankenstein 1970, respectively, as well as another great duo of commentaries from Japanese film experts Steve Ryfle and Ed Godziszewski for the Toho Science Fiction Collection.

If you head over the Rondo site, you’ll be greeted by the incredible nominees for Best Magazine Cover, including a Plague of the Zombies/The Reptile tribute, in the form of a startling contribution to Little Shoppe of Horrors by Bruce Timm.

Best Website has a daunting number of nominees (including yours truly, a-thank you), and surely one of the coolest of the bunch has to be director Joe Dante’s amazing Trailers From Hell, where Joe invites several celebrity buddies in to provide commentary for some of the greatest genre trailers. Everything from Attack of the 50ft. Woman, to Stanely Kubrick’s classic crime caper The Killing is up for your amusement, with commentators like Larry Cohen, John Landis, Eli Roth, Edgar Wright, and Roger Corman himself!

Nominated for Best Article is Steve Vertlieb’s excellent “The Most Famous Monster of Them All: A Personal Remembrance of Forrest J. Ackerman,” a feature FM is proud to have re-presented on our site. Also relating to Forry, Joe Moe’s wonderful tribute to the Ackermonster at the Egyptian Theatre is nominated for Best Fan Event.

The Best Toy, Model or Collectible category has too many goodies to name, but who wouldn’t want that Dracula ornament for the tree? Or to have Boris Karloff (with three changeable heads!) glaring down at you from the top of your desk?

And we would be remiss if we didn’t remind readers that we’re all partial to Eric Powell’s fantastic The Goon and Mike Mignola’s always brilliant Hellboy, which are both nominated for Best Horror Comic.

Count Alucard’s Controversy of the Year has some gems, including fans’ debate over whether or not a snippet of Bela Lugosi’s original Monster dialogue can be heard in a scene from Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man, as well as the growing trend of big studios pressing specialty DVD’s by order, as opposed to standard releases.

There’s so many more categories and so much more to choose from, so head on over the Rondo Awards site for a full list of nominees and be sure to cast your vote! The polls are open until midnight, April 3rd.