Where Horror Lives
Horror movies often work best when they place extraordinary events in relatively ordinary settings. Halloween scares because its inexplicable evil just happens. It has no motive or reason, and it happens right next door. The family in Poltergeist could be your family. And the neighbours in Rosemary’s Baby seem so damn ordinary. As the “Master […]
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Poor Get In. Or Furie. Though Netflix makes a relatively good effort to acquire and stream international movies, they’re less committed to letting you know these titles are available. You’re forgiven if you didn’t know Get In was available earlier this week. Netflix forgot to mention it. To make matters worse, the streaming giant re-christened […]
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If horror fans are getting tired of zombie movies, Hollywood and indie filmmakers haven’t noticed. Even with The Walking Dead declining in the ratings, we’ve still seen a steady influx of undead horror. Overlord and Jim Jarmusch’s The Dead Don’t Die are the most recent zombie theatrical releases. Meanwhile Netflix has streamed several recent zombie […]
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South Korea has given the horror genre some of its best movies over the last two decades. ‘Zombies on a train’ movie Train to Busan is deservedly a fan favourite. But South Korean filmmakers have also delivered I Saw The Devil, Thirst, A Tale of Two Sisters, and The Wailing. Don’t complain about subtitles. Each […]
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British author Henry James published his Gothic novella, The Turn of the Screw, in 1898. Though Hollywood has adapted the source material several times, Jack Clayton’s 1961 movie The Innocents still stands as the definitive cinematic version. Alejandro Amenabar’s The Others isn’t really an adaptation, but it shares common DNA. Earlier in 2020, Universal Pictures […]
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Over the last 20 years, Hollywood has raided most major horror masters‘ closets for remakes. Romero (Dawn of the Dead, The Crazies), Craven (The Hills Have Eyes), Carpenter (Halloween, The Thing) – each of these filmmakers has seen their work re-imagined with mixed results. It was only a matter of time before someone turned their […]
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After years away from feature narrative film-making, director Richard Stanley is back in a big way. Stanley’s early eclectic work included bizarro cult classics Hardware and Dust Devil. Sadly, film-goers most likely recall Stanley from his very brief work on the disastrous The Island of Dr Moreau. New Line Cinema notoriously fired Stanley just days […]
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A close cousin to ‘Creepy Kids’ horror, high school horror movies have always enjoyed a small niche in the genre. After all, most people would agree that high school is generally pretty awful. And the angst, brooding, and narcissism that characterizes adolescence makes it fertile ground for horror. From the dark snark of Heathers and […]
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Few things are better-suited for one another than horror, heavy metal, and Satan. Much has already been written about the Satanic moral panic that emerged in the 1980’s. Heavy metal bands that infused their music and public image with Satanic themes – Black Sabbath, Iron Maiden, Motley Crüe – drew the ire of moral entrepreneurs […]
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Writer and director Padraig Reynolds, whose prior effort was the somewhat interesting Rites of Spring, is back with Dark Light. What kind of movie Reynolds has in store for audiences depends on the promotional material you’re looking at. Some posters tease an alien invasion angle. Other promotional materials hint at subterranean monsters. Everything suggests a […]
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