Several months before The X-Files debuted on television, Fire in the Sky invaded movie theaters hoping to exploit tabloid interest in alien abductions. Promotional materials boasted its ‘based on a true’ premise and promised a frightening abduction scene. In addition, the cast included plenty of recognizable faces including a rising star in DB Sweeney. Despite […]
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Nature hates us. Look no further than the slew of killer animal movies for proof. Throw in movies about killer, mutated insects for good measure. Since the 1970s eco-horror and ‘when animals attack’ thrillers have become their own subgenre. Sometimes the animals or bugs make sense. Sharks and spiders are inherently terrifying. Yes, grizzly bears […]
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Sometimes good movies just find their audience. Such is the case with the 1997 independent Canadian sci-fi/horror hybrid, Cube. After Cube screened at the Toronto International Film Festival, it only saw a marginal theatrical release. But late-night showings on cable television and VHS gave this Kafkaesque thriller a much-deserved second chance. Followed by two so-so […]
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No amount of nostalgia can change the fact that horror hit a low point in the first half of the decade. Technically, Silence of the Lambs mixed crime drama, suspense, and horror elements. Major horror franchises – including Friday the 13th and A Nightmare on Elm Street – were running on fumes. Aside from the […]
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By and large, if Stephen King has written it, Hollywood has filmed it. From his major works (The Stand, It) to minor short stories (Children of the Corn, Graveyard Shift), studios have left no stone unturned in adapting the Master of Horror’s visions. When studios didn’t want to bankroll a major theatrical release, they could […]
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Somewhere in the mid-1990s, before Scream revived the genre, horror wasn’t in the best place. Arguably, the year 1995 was the nadir for horror in the decade of flannel and grunge. Yes, Se7en shocked audiences across cineplexes that year. Maybe you personally loved Demon Knight, though it’s hardly a classic. But Vampire in Brooklyn, Village […]
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As an individual movie, Tobe Hooper’s The Texas Chainsaw Massacre remains among the greatest horror movies produced. Unfortunately, the legacy of its sequels, prequels, and remakes is checkered. In between Hooper’s misunderstood sequel and the crater-sized disaster that was Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation, New Line Pictures took a more straightforward approach to the […]
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Before Scream, Wes Craven’s New Nightmare, and In The Mouth of Madness, a small slasher movie called Popcorn experimented with meta-horror. Today meta-horror is common enough to sometimes wonder if straightforward horror wouldn’t be more revolutionary. But in 1991, Popcorn was just taking a risk daring to recycle tired slasher tropes. Adopting films-within-a-film was a […]
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