In the 1970s, Wes Craven directed two landmark horror movies – The Last House on the Left and The Hills Have Eyes. A Nightmare on Elm Street and Scream followed in the 80s and 90s. That’s an impressive legacy. Yet somewhere in between The Hills Have Eyes and Elm Street, Craven struggled to connect with […]
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Amidst the remakes, Torture Porn, and New French Extremity, the 2000s produced some strong genre movies. Boogeyman was not one of those movies. In a decade where House of the Dead, FearDotCom, Ghost Ship, and The Wicker Man remake all hit theatres, Boogeyman still stands out as a noteworthy stinker. Before Sam Raimi’s production company […]
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Nobody’s perfect. Even the best have an off-day once in a while. Critics and horror fans alike regard John Carpenter as one of the genre’s greatest filmmakers. Certainly, the praise is well placed. Carpenter’s filmography includes bona fide classics – Halloween, The Thing, and Escape From New York. And his smaller movies – Assault on […]
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After dominating the 1980’s, Friday the 13th closed out the decade with a whimper. Jason Takes Manhattan, which hit theaters in 1989, remains the lowest earning movie in the series. And its ending didn’t seem to leave much direction for future sequels. Toxic waste that first regresses you to childhood and then melts you tends […]
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If Friday the 13th is the A-lister and The Burning is the cult alternative, Madman is the ugly stepchild of 80s camping slasher movies. Though all three movies share obvious similarities, The Burning and Madman are clearly spiritual cousins. Both slashers share the same story DNA – the Cropsey urban legend was the influence for […]
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After Wes Craven completed his Scream trilogy, horror fans waited several years for the director’s next movie. By 2005, the wait was over – Craven released two movies that year. One of those movies was a decent thriller, Red Eye, that enjoyed some success. As for the second release, Craven’s werewolf thriller Cursed lived up […]
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In 1992, across two back-to-back months, two Stephen King movies made their way to theaters. One of those movies, The Lawnmower Man, bared little resemblance to King’s short story. Clearly unimpressed, the author sued to remove his name from the credits. As for the second movie, Sleepwalkers, King conjured up the story of ‘shapeshifting feline […]
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Steven Spielberg’s Jaws is an unparalleled masterpiece. As a franchise, however, Jaws may offer the best illustration of diminishing returns. Three years after Jaws scared people away from the beach, Jaws 2 reminded it us it still wasn’t safe to go back in the water. Though it never came close to approaching the original’s quality, […]
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