Horror Highlights: Rod Serling Centennial Celebration, AZRAEL, FRANKIE FREAKO

Statue honoring Rod Serling to be dedicated during SerlingFest 2024: “The Rod Serling Memorial Foundation will dedicate a six-foot statue of the renowned Twilight Zone creator during the organization’s annual SerlingFest in his hometown of Binghamton, New York. Featuring presentations about Serling’s life and career, panel discussions and screenings, SerlingFest 2024 will run from Friday, Sept. 13, to Sunday, Sept. 15.

The culmination of a four-year effort by the Rod Serling Memorial Foundation, the larger-than-life statue depicts Serling in an iconic narration pose familiar to fans of his landmark fantasy anthology series, The Twilight Zone (1959-64). The bronzed figure of the celebrated writer stands in front of a slightly open door inscribed with words from one of his Twilight Zone openings: “You unlock this door with the key of imagination.”

The statue will be located in Recreation Park, near Serling’s childhood home on Binghamton’s west side. The dedication ceremony, which will be attended by members of the Serling family, is scheduled for noon on Sept. 15. For more details about SerlingFest and the Foundation, visit rodserling.com.

The dedication ceremony for the statue will be the highlight of this year’s Serling Centennial Celebration. Although born in Syracuse, New York, on Dec. 25, 1924, Serling grew up in Binghamton and always considered it his hometown. “Everybody has to have a hometown,” the six-time Emmy-winning writer said. “Binghamton’s mine.”

The site of the statue couldn’t be more fitting. The 18-acre Recreation Park opened in 1925, just a few months after Serling’s birth. It became a fixture of his cherished childhood, inspiring the Twilight Zone episode “Walking Distance” and other nostalgia-tinged work. The park already is the home of a carousel decorated with scenes from classic Twilight Zone stories and a bandstand with a plaque honoring Serling.

“It would not be hyperbole to say that my dad would have been shocked that one day there would be a statue of him in Binghamton, New York,” said Anne Serling, a Foundation board member and the author of the acclaimed memoir As I Knew Him: My Dad, Rod Serling. “As I wrote in my memoir, driving back to his hometown was a pilgrimage my dad took every summer until his death . . . I recognized that these visits re-centered my dad.”

Jodi Serling, Rod’s oldest daughter, agreed: “Binghamton was the center of his universe and the starting gate for his creativity. So it’s clearly appropriate that his statue stand in Recreation Park, representing his love and dedication to the town in which he grew up.”

The statue was created by the Utah firm Statues.com, with the Foundation board closely involved in every step of its design and creation. Anne Serling visited the facility during the process to consult on and approve the likeness of her father.

Assemblywoman Donna Lupardo, long a proponent of Foundation endeavors, helped secure a $50,000 New York State grant to fund the effort. A 2023 Kickstarter campaign raised more than $42,000 and additional funds for the project, which cost approximately $140,000 total, were raised through private donations. During the dedication ceremony, the Foundation will formally gift the statue to the city of Binghamton.

“Rod Serling loved Binghamton and he was never shy about professing that love for his hometown,” said Nicholas Parisi, president of the Rod Serling Memorial Foundation board. “This monument is our way of reciprocating the affection that he displayed for the place where he grew up. There are several tributes to Rod Serling around Binghamton, but nothing as substantial as a statue. We intend this to be a monument worthy of Rod Serling’s contributions to the arts and humanities – to remind the world that one of the 20th century’s greatest writers called Binghamton home.”

Upon graduation from Binghamton Central High School in 1942, the 18-year-old Serling enlisted in the Army, joining the 11th Airborne Division’s 511th Parachute Infantry Regiment. A paratrooper serving in the South Pacific, he was awarded both a Bronze Star and a Purple Heart. After the war, he enrolled at Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio, where he discovered writing.

Although best known as the creator, host and principal writer of The Twilight Zone, Rod Serling was a prolific and versatile writer whose works included two of the most lauded scripts of television’s golden age of live dramas, Patterns (1955) and Requiem for a Heavyweight (1956). His screenplay credits included adaptations of Seven Days in May and Planet of the Apes (co-written with Michael Wilson). And his 1969 TV movie Night Gallery led to the 1970-73 series for which Serling was both the host and a frequent contributor. He died at the age of 50 on June 28, 1975.

The Rod Serling Memorial Foundation was formed in the 1980s “to educate the public about Rod Serling’s genius and his passion, hoping that they will understand and appreciate his mastery of the creative arts, his unique understanding of human relationships, his esteem as a writer, his generosity as a speaker in and around Binghamton, and his uncompromising commitment to quality.”

“And now, thanks to all of the hardworking people, and those who began the Rod Serling Memorial Foundation, to the present board, to Assemblywoman Donna Lupardo and to the city of Binghamton, we bring my father home again,” Anne Serling said. “There is a degree of magic to this celebration. To that, I cannot think of the occasion without mention of two people without whom there would be no Rod Serling, no statue. And that’s his parents, Esther Cooper Serling and Sam Serling. On the day of dedication, I’d like to think of them there on a hill in the distance, looking proudly on at their son, this man they created who has meant so much to so many for so long.”

For more information and to attend SerlingFest, visit: https://rodserling.com/serlingfest-2024/

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AZRAEL Trailer: “In a world in which no one speaks, a mysterious, devout community hunts down a young woman named Azrael (Samara Weaving) who has escaped their imprisonment. Recaptured by its ruthless leaders, she is to be sacrificed to pacify an evil which resides deep within the surrounding wilderness – but Azrael will stop at nothing to ensure her own freedom and survival. From the seeds of this gritty, relentless parable of sacrifice and salvation, comes an immersive, real-time, action horror tale from the visionary minds of Simon Barrett and E.L. Katz.”

• Director: E.L. Katz
• Writer: Simon Barrett
• Cast: Samara Weaving, Natahan Stewart-Jarrett, Vic Carmen Sonne, Katariina Unt, Sebastian Bull Sarning
• Genre: Horror
• Language: English
• Runtime: 85 minutes

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FRANKIE FREAKO: “Are you ready to get Freako? Mischief, puppets and absurdist humor come together in Frankie Freako, a new monster-driven horror comedy by cult-favorite director Steven Kostanski (PG: Psycho Goreman, The Void). Loaded with ‘80s nostalgia, this delightfully chaotic misfit adventure opens exclusively in select theaters on October 4, 2024 from Shout! Studios. Frankie Freako had its world premiere at the 2024 Fantasia International Film Festival, where the sold-out screening enjoyed a positive reception from both critics and fans.

After calling a late-night party hotline that promises out-of-this-world fun, uptight yuppie Conor Sweeney must battle the pint-sized forces of evil unleashed through his phone line, led by the maniacal rock n’ roll goblin Frankie Freako.”