TMZ reports that Bob Clark, director of the original BLACK CHRISTMAS and other cult horror favorites, was killed in a car crash on the Pacific Coast Highway early this morning at age 67. He was riding in a silver Infiniti with his 22-year-old son, Ariel Hanrath-Clark, when they were struck by an SUV driven by 24-year-old Hector Velazquez-Nava. Both Clarks were killed, though Velazquez-Nava survived and was arrested for driving under the influence of alcohol; he’s scheduled to be booked for gross vehicular manslaughter once he is released from the hospital.

Clark began his career with the offbeat 1972 zombie film CHILDREN SHOULDN’T PLAY WITH DEAD THINGS and followed it up with 1974’s DEATHDREAM, a.k.a. DEAD OF NIGHT, about a soldier who returns home from Vietnam as an undead flesheater, and the same year’s CHRISTMAS, the influential stalker film about a houseful of sorority girls terrorized by a murderous obscene phone caller. He went on to such diverse successes as the Sherlock Holmes-vs.-Jack the Ripper thriller MURDER BY DECREE (1979), the raunchy megahit PORKY’S (1982) and the sentimental favorite A CHRISTMAS STORY (1983). In recent years, his horror films began enjoying a newfound popularity that inevitably translated into remakes; an adaptation of DEATHDREAM called ZERO DARK THIRTY stalled, but the updated BLACK CHRISTMAS opened on its namesake day last year and hit DVD this week. Clark himself was to take the helm of a new CHILDREN SHOULDN’T PLAY WITH DEAD THINGS set to film this year. Fango mourns the passing of this genre trendsetter. —Michael Gingold

I read this thread but posted on the other thread.