FANGORIA Magazine Is Returning Just In Time for Halloween

If you were a horror fan growing up in the pre-internet era of the ’80s and ’90s, then your number one source for all the goods on horror cinema was Fangoria magazine. It was the magazine that helped lift creators like George Romero, John Carpenter, Clive Barker, and Wes Craven to the exalted status they deserved but other movie magazines pretty much ignored. For all horror hounds of the era, there was no way around it–Fangoria was essential reading. Besides, where else were you going to get a fold out pin-up of Pinhead or Freddy Krueger? Sadly, the rise of the internet helped to slowly kill the magazine, leaving a huge hole in the world of horror fandom.

Now, after a far too long hiatus, Fangoria is returning! And not just as website, but also in print. Thanks to a new investment, a new Editor-in-Chief, and a new publisher, the world’s highest-profile horror movie magazine is reemerging as a collectible quarterly with the first issue set to drop this fall in time for Halloween.  Cinestate completed the deal to acquire all the assets and trademarks of the Fangoria brand, including the magazine, from The Brooklyn Company. Cinestate CEO Dallas Sonnier courted the previous publisher Thomas DeFeo for several months, with the two signing an agreement turning over the rights to Sonnier and Cinestate.

Sonnier’s first move as the publisher was to hire his favorite film writer Phil Nobile Jr. as the Editor-in-Chief for Fangoria. Nobile comes to Fangoria from his role as Editor-At-Large for the website Birth.Movies.Death. and as a writer and producer for Stage 3 Productions in Philadelphia. Nobile will also act as the Creative Director for the entire Fangoria brand.

“There needs to be a Fangoria,” says Nobile. “The magazine was a constant presence in the genre since 1979 – and then one day it was gone. That felt, to us, tragically incorrect. Fango was, for multiple generations, a privileged window into the world of horror. It gave us access to filmmakers’ processes and secrets, opened our eyes to movies we might have otherwise missed, and nurtured a wave of talent that’s out there driving the genre today. I’m proud and excited to be part of the team that’s bringing this institution back.”

As part of the arrangement, Cinestate controls all material from over 300 issues of Fangoria Magazine, including articles, photos, and exclusive interviews, spanning the past 39 years. The contents of the now-infamous Fangoria storage unit in New York, a veritable treasure trove of horror history collected over decades by former staff, has arrived at the Cinestate offices to be sorted and cataloged. Cinestate will further develop Fangoria into a brand for producing movies and podcasts, as well as publishing horror novels.

Are you as excited as we are for the long awaited return of Fangoria? Be sure to let us know your thoughts down below in the comments.

Images: Fangoria, TriStar Pictures, New Line Cinema

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