While it’s hard to believe, over 20 years have passed since The Blair Witch Project became one of the most profitable independent movies of all time. Audiencies were split on the mix of shaky cam and more psychological horror. Yet it spite of this mixed reaction, there is no doubt that The Blair Witch Project had an impact like few other horror movies.
Once upon a time, long before streaming platforms and specialty channels, network television movies were kind of a big deal. Yes, made-for-television movies and two-part special event movies that premiered on a Sunday or Monday night meant something in the day. And in those days, there was a clear distinction between a television movie and […]
No, the 1996 slasher The Dentist was not about America serial killer, and dentist by profession, Glennon, Engleman. Maybe a news headline influenced writers Dennis Paoli, Stuart Gordon (Castle Freak, The Pit and the Pendulum), and Charles Finch to draft up a screenplay. But let’s face it – a slasher movie about a killer dentist […]
Gothic writer Edgar Allan Poe may have passed away in 1849, but his legacy continues to loom over horror. Later this year, Mike Flanagan’s latest Netflix series adapts one of Poe’s works – The Fall of the House of Usher. Both Universal Studios – in an adaptation starring Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff – and […]
The 1990s saw a boom and bust field of Stephen King adaptations make their way to both the big and small screen. Hollywood delivered some classics including The Shawshank Redemption, The Green Mile, and Misery. There were some middling ones including The Dark Half and Apt Pupil. And we got quite a few forgettable duds […]
Following the success of Wes Craven’s Scream, the mid- to late 90s saw a surge in teen horror. These movies included neo-slashers (Urban Legend, Cry Wolf), thrillers (Disturbing Behavior, Teaching Mrs. Tingle), and even some sci-fi horror (The Faculty). Among the most successful of these movies not called Scream was I Know What You Did […]
Along with Bless the Child, End of Days, and Lost Souls, Stigmata was a religious-themed horror movie produced in anticipated of the Millennium. In the months proceeding the calendar flipping to the year 2000, there were plenty of Y2K-themed moral panics. Never one to miss a bandwagon, the horror genre obliged by producing a slate […]
Sixty years after its release, Robert Wise’s 1963 adaptation of The Haunting of Hill House remains a horror classic. In addition to Wise’s haunted house chiller, author Shirley Jackson’s Gothic novel provided the source material for the critically acclaimed Netflix series. Somewhere in between those two interpretations, action director Jan de Bont (Speed, Twister) delivered […]