Once again, much bloody water has passed under the bridge since my last posting. Let’s see, where to start… okay, here’s what happened since I last scribbled…

In October, I went to LA for two-and-a-half weeks. The visit took on the form of various stages, and was planned with unusual military-esque cunning. Had four days in West Hollywood, on the ‘La Cienega/House Of Blues/Hyatt Hotel’ stretch of Sunset Strip, which is my favourite part of LA. Did a bit of shopping and relaxation, while fighting off the jetlag. Also hit the Rainbow Bar & Grill with my good friend, actor Eric Spudic, and met my excellent lawyer Jeff Mackler for lunch and had a great time with him: the perfect combination of social fun and educational banter.

The first weekend, I relocated to a hotel near Hollywood Boulevard, to be within walking distance of the Screamfest event, which I’d enjoyed so much last year. Saw some good movies and – as with any festivals – some bad. The festival opened with the world premiere of The Tripper, a slasher movie from the stable of Coquette, the production company founded by Scream pair David Arquette and Courteney Cox Arquette. It was a pleasant surprise to see the couple coming out with a fairly gory movie: David clearly has a genuine love of horror movies – he turned up to his premiere in a white suit splashed with red blood effects. Among the other worthwhile movies I caught at Screamfest were Slither (bizarrely, I hadn’t seen it before – and met stars Michael Rooker and Nathan Fillion afterwards), The Lost (a nasty Jack Ketchum adaptation with a fine central performance from young actor Marc Senter) and a disturbing road-trip slasher named Rest Stop. Then there was the terrible virtual reality low-budgeter The Phobic, the duller-than-its-title-sounds Beach Party At The Threshold Of Hell and the over-rated but fun zero-budget zombie flick Automaton Transfusion.

During my five days at the event (I had to leave before the end, sadly), I met up with film-maker Robert Sexton, who had his Legion short there last year. We had many a beer and a laugh – especially when I became so inebriated that I referred to the cinema screen as a triangle. Oh dear…

I left a Hollywood a few days’ short of Screamfest’s close, shifting to the LAX Marriott: one of the hotels where the annual Screenwriting Expo was taking place. This was a tremendous event for me, stuffed full of classes, talks, social opportunities and most potentially exciting of all, pitch-fests, in which you get five minutes to sell your script/script idea to someone from a prodco/agency/management company. I did eleven different pitches of my second script – a teen sci-fi affair – and ended up really enjoying the pitch process. In fact, I’d go so far as to say I became addicted. It’s a rush, walking up to a complete stranger at a table, then getting them excited about your script in a short space of time. This didn’t always happen, of course, but two of the 11 company reps actually took my script, which is apparently very unusual and therefore a pretty good sign. We’ll see what happens, of course. The best class I attended at the Expo saw two current screenwriters shooting the breeze: the Saw trilogy’s Leigh Whanell and The Grudge movies’ Stephen Susco. I taped the chat and will try to post some on Slasherama soon.

At the end of my trip I had two more nights back on the Sunset Strip, where I finally met up with the producers who want to make my Panik script a living, breathing piece of celluloid. They're great guys, so I'm optimistic. On the last night, I introduced Messrs Spudic and Sexton, at the cool Residuals bar, up in Burbank (I think!). I also met Ken Hall, co-writer of the 1989 movie Puppet Master, which was nice.

After LA, it was back home for a quick breather, then off to San Sebastian a few days later for the 17^th Horror & Fantasy Film Festival. This event is always a pleasure – this was the third year I had attended – and while 2006 proved a little quieter than usual, it was still a considerable delight. For one thing, the town of San Sebastian itself is GREAT fun – a labyrinth of cool little bars and restaurants – and my writer pal Jay Slater is always great company and highly entertaining. We had a splendid time as usual, even though I had a chest-cold which is STILL clinging to me three weeks later. In our favourite Chinese restaurant we were shocked to be presented with a bottle of liquor containing two green lizards. Then, of course, we tried a shot each. Then Mr Slater tried several more and spent the rest of the day helpless in the slimy grasp of Mr Lizard...

Saw some fun films during the week. Let’s see: there was End Of The Line, handled by Maurice Deveraux, the Canadian writer/director behind the likes of $lasher$. Set in an underground tube network, EOTL sees religious freaks going on a murderous rampage. Then there was the French movie Them, which successfully scared me in a Blair Witchy way – at least until the final revelation, which was undeniably an original twist. Anything else? Hmmm. How about a movie which you’ll probably have already seen, but I managed to miss out on until San Seb – The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning? I saw this at roughly 2am with a big cup of beer in my hand, and had a rollicking good time with it. Gory, nasty, intense… all that good stuff.

So that’s been my month-or-so. In terms of that Panik script, the option agreement is indeed going ahead, so there is much reason to rejoice. Even if nothing further comes of this, someone in Hollywood believed in my screenplay enough to try and get the elements together in order to make it into a movie. How damn cool is that, I ask you?