News of the Monster Cruise

It has been announced that Shay Baker and Kayla Gill -- stars of Jim Wynorski's monster comedy, Monster Cruise -- both did well in the 2009 Golden Cob Awards, to be precise Best Rising B Movie Actor for Baker and Best Rising B Movie Actress Runner-up for Gill. The Award ceremony will be held at this year's "B Movie Celebration" in Franklin, Indiana, on September 24. This event will also see the premiere of the Monster Cruise, which is to be the opening film. The world premiere will take place at the Historic Artcraft Theatre in Franklin, Indiana at 7:00 pm. Tickets for the premiere are US$25 and include a wine and cheese reception afterwards.

If you go along maybe you'll meet the main star:

Other films-of-interest screening at the B-Movie Celebration are the Asylum's Megapiranha and The 7 Adventures of Sinbad, as well as Jim Wynorski's other big monster flick Dinocroc vs Supergator, Slime City Massacre, and lots of classics.

• Source: B-Movie Celebration site; via Avery Guerra
• Previous Undead Backbrain/Brainspasm articles

The Ballad of Nessie

Another tale of the world's most famous lake monster? Why not?

This one's a "traditionally animated" (i.e. not CGI) theatrical cartoon short directed by Stevie Wermers-Skelton and Kevin Deters for the Walt Disney Animation Studios.

The hand-drawn cartoon will accompany one of Disney's feature films, possibly The Princess and the Frog. It will display "art direction evocative of the Disney shorts of the 1940s and 50s" and is touted as telling "the honest to goodness true story of Loch Ness and its most famous resident".

The cartoon is well into production, but release dates are up in the air and no imagery has so far been previewed. Avery -- Lake Monster Fan Extraordinaire -- will have to wait patiently to see what it's like.

Source: Blue Sky Disney; Walt Disney Animation Studios; Wikipedia entry; via Avery