9th Annual Rondo Hatton Award Winners Announced

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Rondo Hatton Awards

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http://www.rondoaward.com/rondo/rondos.html

This year’s e-mail vote for the 9th annual Rondo Hatton Awards, conducted by the Classic Horror Film Board, drew more than 2,900 votes as fans chose among 30 categories; and we here at Dread Central are both honored and humbled to have once again been awarded a Rondo for Best Website! Read on to find out who our 2011 co-winners are.

Rondo Hatton AwardsThe Rondo awards, named after Rondo Hatton, an obscure B-movie villain of the 1940s, celebrate the best in classic horror research, creativity, and film preservation as voted on by genre fans.

From the Press Release:
The restored version of the 1925 silent film Metropolis and the popular zombie franchise “The Walking Dead” each were double winners Wednesday, March 30th, 2011, in the 9th Annual Rondo Hatton Classic Horror Awards. Voters also decided that The Black Swan, the dark and stylish thriller that earned star Natalie Portman an Oscar, would add a Rondo as Best Film of 2010, narrowly topping Inception and the remake of The Wolfman.

Among other winners for work in 2010:

The discovery in Argentina of 25 additional minutes of footage helped produce the most complete version yet of Fritz Lang’s Metropolis. The Kino release was picked as Best Classic DVD and as Best Restoration.

AMC’s adaptation of Robert Kirkman’s “The Walking Dead” was an overwhelming favorite for Best TV Presentation, ending a three-year run by the BBC’s “Doctor Who” in the category. The zombie fest also won for Best Horror Comic.

A seven-DVD packaging of all 67 episodes of Thriller, hosted by Boris Karloff in the 1960s, was named Best DVD Collection; stop-motion legend Ray Harryhausen and Tony Dalton won for Best Commentary for Jason and the Argonauts, and “Pure in Heart,” a documentary about horror star Lon Chaney Jr., included in the 1941 The Wolf Man: Special Edition, was named Best DVD Extra.

The Art of Hammer: Posters from the Archives of Hammer Films by Marcus Hearns was named Book of the Year, and the Canada-based Rue Morgue won for a third straight year as Best Magazine. In an effort to recognize both mass market and fan-based efforts, Monsters from the Vault was cited as Best Small-Press Magazine.

The classic-oriented electorate picked a photo-rich history of wolfman films in HorrorHound #21 by Robert Aragon as Best Article and an interview with horror icon Christopher Lee by James Burrell in Rue Morgue #100 as Best Interview. Legendary artist Basil Gogos won Best Cover for his portrait of Bela Lugosi in the revived Famous Monsters of Filmland (#251), and the popular Daniel Horne was named Best Artist, his third Rondo.

The winner of the Linda Miller Award for Best Fan Artist was Shana Bilbrey (aka Belle Dee), whose playful caricatures of monstrous favorites has won her growing notice. (The award is named for the late horror artist Linda Miller).

In video categories, there was only the second tie in Rondo history: Best Documentary or Independent Film went to Aurora Monsters, a loving tribute to the plastic model kits that helped spark the monster boom of the 1960s, and to a double-feature DVD set by Larry Blamire: The Lost Skeleton Returns Again and Dark and Stormy Night. Rondo organizer David Colton said both projects were so close that declaring co-winners was appropriate in the hotly contested category.

A new category, Best Short Film, went to Greg Nicotero’s United Monster Talent Agency, a reimagining of the classic Universal monsters in a noir Hollywood setting.

In digital categories, the horror news site Dread Central repeated as Best Website, and Frankensteinia, an obsessive look at all versions of the Frankenstein Monster, was named Best Blog.

Rondo Hatton Awards

The largest collection of horror hosts ever for a tribute to the 1950s horror host Vampira helped HorrorHound Weekend in Indianapolis win Best Convention, and the first-ever Women in Horror Month from February 2010 was voted Best Fan Event.

The New England-based Penny Dreadful was voted favorite Horror Host for a second time, helped by her appearance in the Dreadful Hallowgreen Special, a horror host jam that was a runner-up in the video category starring Penny and past Rondo winners Count Gore DeVol and Dr. Gangrene.

Rue Morgue Radio won for a third straight year as Best Horror Audio Show, and Dark Shadows: The Night Whispers, an audio recreation of classic episodes featuring Jonathan Frid, was named Best Horror CD. A diorama of the Creature from the Black Lagoon and actress Julie Adams by Diamond Select won Best Toy, Model or Collectible, narrowly beating a life-size series of Boris Karloff busts by sculptor Ray Santoleri.

And Rondo voters for the sixth year urged that Island of Lost Souls, the 1932 thriller starring Charles Laughton and Bela Lugosi, be released on DVD, hopefully in a restored version.

In write-in categories, Bruce G. Hallenbeck’s exhaustive explorations of Hammer films in Little Shoppe of Horrors helped him take Writer of the Year honors. Video Watchdog’s Kim Newman was named Best DVD Reviewer for a second straight year.

The Tutor Project, a multimedia educational project that involved students in a collaborative horror film project, was awarded a Special Recognition Rondo.

Two longtime fans were named Monster Kids of the Year, the first time that award, which honors special achievement to keep the spirit of classic monsters alive and well, has been given to two winners: Horror and science fiction historian and writer Gary Gerani’s work on the Thriller commentaries and Twilight Zone archivist Marc Scott Zicree’s work on the Blu-Ray Twilight Zone — more than 60 commentaries old and new grace the two projects — stood out in a year where extra frills are increasingly rare as Hollywood retrenches from classic horror on DVD.

While others of course helped in the work, Gerani and Zicree’s tireless research culminated in the two projects, earning each the Monster Kid of the Year honors.

Finally, based on suggestions from Rondo voters, the following Monster Kid Hall of Fame inductees were named: Tim and Donna Lucas, editor and publisher of the influential Video Watchdog magazine; historian Tom Weaver, who for decades has been compiling an oral history of the genre through the recollections of stars and crew; fantasy artist William Stout, whose imaginations date to the 1960s and beyond; legendary poster collector and historian Ron Borst; famed director George A. Romero; and the late Verne Langdon, a veteran of the Don Post mask studios who exemplified the best in horror and science fiction enthusiasm and fellowship.

Many of the Rondo winners will receive Rondo busts, sculpted by Kerry Gammill, at the Wonderfest convention in Louisville, Kentucky, in May. Further information, including runners-up and all the nominees, can be found at the official Rondo Hatton Awards website.

Congratulations to the winners and runners-up, and thanks so much to all of the readers and fans who voted for us. You’ve made us very proud.

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