At face value, The Puppet Masters had a lot going for it. For starters, its source material was a well-regarded, influential novel. Donald Sutherland headlining your movie is never a bad thing. And its premise, while familiar, touched on themes that translate across time. Too bad none of these made The Puppet Masters a better […]
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Stop me if you’ve heard this one before. A serial killer believed to be dead, resurrected from the grave, continues his bloody spree? Wes Craven did it in Shocker. Lance Henriksen hunted a serial killer’s spirit in The Horror Show. Body Parts, Trick or Treat, Fallen – they’re all variations on the same premise. At […]
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Everyone loves a good B-monster movie. Back when the drive-in ruled summers, monster movie fans enjoyed Them, The Tingler, and The Fly. During the 1980s, monster movie re-surfaced as nostalgia for the 50’s was at a high. From Night of the Creeps to The Stuff and Killer Klowns from Outer Space, filmmakers crafted loving homages […]
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Aside from a handful of exceptions, the period between the slasher’s ‘Golden Era’ and Wes Craven’s Scream was a downturn for horror. For every Jacob’s Ladder there was a Brainscan or Man’s Best Friend. And it was in this horror ‘dead zone’ that Universal Pictures released horror-comedy, Dr Giggles. Nearly thirty years later it’s hard […]
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After over forty years of filmmaking, John Carpenter stands amongst the masters of the genre. From the mid-1970s to the early 1990s, Carpenter’s output includes Halloween, The Fog, Escape From New York, They Live, and In the Mouth of Madness. Few horror directors can boast that kind of résumé. But even the best can have […]
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As the 1980s gave way to the early 90s, horror was waning amongst audiences. The golden age of the slasher had come and gone. By 1991, audiences were more interested in stylish psychological thrillers in the vein of Sleeping with the Enemy or Cape Fear. And it was this cinematic atmosphere that welcomed Steve Miner’s […]
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Following The Silence of the Lambs‘ box office and critical success, the serial killer was omnipresent in psychological thrillers. When FBI agent Robert Ressler coined the term in the early 1980s, mass media elevated the mass murderer to ]moral panic. But Jonathan Demme’s Oscar-winning adaptation of Thomas Harris’ novel proved the serial killer could do […]
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Over the course of his multi-decade filmmaking career, William Friedkin has amassed an eclectic resume. Of course, horror fans know Friedkin best for The Exorcist – his 1973 masterpiece remains among the best horror movies of all time. To date, Friedkin has successfully dabbled in crime dramas (The French Connection), action-thrillers (Sorcerer), neo-noir (Killer Joe), […]
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