Author, filmmaker and Fear Zone editor Gregory Lamberson, whose horror novel Johnny Gruesome was released nationwide by Medallion Press last month, will launch his new filmmaking book, CHEAP SCARES! Low Budget Horror Filmmakers Share Their Secrets, at the world famous Dark Delicacies bookstore in Burbank, California, on Saturday, November 22nd, at 2:00 PM.

Lamberson will autograph copies of Johnny Gruesome and CHEAP SCARES!, as well DVDs of his cult horror film SLIME CITY, currently celebrating its 20th anniversary, the SLIME CITY Soundtrack CD, and GRUESOME, the rock CD by Giasone and Marcy Italiano based on Johnny Gruesome. He will be joined by screenwriter Robert Craig Sabin, who starred in SLIME CITY, and filmmaker Devi Snively (TEENAGE BIKINI VAMPIRE, DEATH IN CHARGE), both of whom are profiled in CHEAP SCARES!

"This signing is really the culmination of two years of hard work," says Lamberson. "I've been beating the drum for Johnny Gruesome for quite a while because the CD, mask and on-line comics were all available even before the novel was published. And writing CHEAP SCARES was much harder work than I expected, with all of those interviews I conducted and information I squeezed in. I've been at it almost non-stop since World Horror Con in Toronto a year and a half ago, and doing my first signing at Dark Delicacies seems like the perfect way to end this tour."

CHEAP SCARES! is published by McFarland & Company, a leading U.S. publisher of scholarly, reference and academic books, and is available through Amazon. The book, which is 99,000 words long and includes 92 rare behind the scenes photographs, details the process of making a low budget, independent film, from screenwriting through production, post production, obtaining distribution, and marketing.

Half of the book consists of Lamberson's advice to filmmakers based on his own experiences making low budget features, including the cult film SLIME CITY, and working on other filmmakers' projects, such as I WAS A TEENAGE ZOMBIE, Frank Henenlotter's BRAIN DAMAGE, and the crime drama WEST NEW YORK. The other half of the book consists of in-depth interviews with indie filmmakers Larry Fessenden, Roy Frumkes, J.R. Bookwalter, Scooter McCrae, Brett Piper, an entertainment attorney, a DVD distributor, and a marketing executive.

"Although the book is aimed at aspiring horror filmmakers, the lessons in it are applicable to any independent feature," says Lamberson. "There's an emphasis on storytelling and marketing, two areas where many low budget filmmakers are deficient. I laid my own successes and failures out there for everyone to see, and all of my interview subjects were very candid as well. It all comes down to learning from your mistakes, and we all wanted this book to actually help filmmakers and be entertaiing as well."

Lamberson's 2005 novel, Personal Demons, will be published as a mass market paperback in October, 2009 by Medallion, which has also acquired his new novel, The Frenzy Way, for 2010.

"Medallion was very bold in the way they promoted Johnny Gruesome," according to Lamberson. "Most publishers are running away from the 'horror,' label, but not Medallion. There was no attempt to change the book's title or promote it as a 'paranormal romance,' 'suspense thriller,' 'dark fantasy' or any other of the euphemisms sometimes use to misrepresent a book's content. This is a novel aimed squarely and unapologetically at horror fans. They even put 'Horror Beyond Horror' on the spine!"

Jeri Westerton, signing Veil of Lies, and Harry Shannon, signing One of the Wicked, will be joining Lamberson, Sabin and Snively.

Dark Delicacies is located at 4213 West Burbank Blvd, Burbank, CA and can be reached for more information at (818) 556-6660 or via email at darkdel@darkdel.com.

CHEAP SCARES! review

JOHNNY GRUESOME review