September 10, 2023.Reading time 12 minutes.
With nearly $650 million dollars in box office receipts, The Conjuring Universe is an unqualified success. Outside of Marvel, James Wan and company have accomplished something pretty noteworthy. The fact that this is a horror universe just makes its success even sweeter for genre fans. Yes, critical reaction to the movies have varied widely. Nonetheless, […]
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June 4, 2021.Reading time 10 minutes.
With nearly $650 million dollars in box office receipts, The Conjuring Universe is an unqualified success. Outside of Marvel, James Wan and company have accomplished something pretty noteworthy. The fact that this is a horror universe just makes its success even sweeter for genre fans. Yes, critical reaction to the movies have varied widely. Nonetheless, […]
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April 30, 2020.Reading time 24 minutes.
They’re a Hollywood staple. Call them franchises or, the more en vogue term, ‘shared universes’. If you don’t have one, you want one. Already have one – develop more of them. Aside from the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Warner Bros has their DC Extended Universe and the MonsterVerse. But the horror genre has always had franchises […]
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February 20, 2020.Reading time 9 minutes.
What scares you? The best horror movies exploit our most basic fears. Home invasion movies, for example, undermine our sense of security in the place we should feel the safest. Killer bug movies understand that most people hate ‘creepy crawlies’. And sharks – they’re basically freight trains with teeth. But some people have strange fears. […]
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April 24, 2019.Reading time 7 minutes.
Sequels are going to happen. And not just to good horror movies. Yes, there’s Friday the 13th, A Nightmare on Elm Street, and Halloween – good horror movies that produced successful franchises. But even mediocre, and sometimes, bad horror movies beget neverending repeats. Did the world really need follow-ups to Children of the Corn or […]
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September 3, 2018.Reading time 6 minutes.
When James Wan unleashed The Conjuring in 2013, he helped to re-invent the ‘haunted house’ horror genre, along with Insidious, which Wan also directed. While it wasn’t as warmly received by critics, The Conjuring 2 was the rare sequel that managed to maintain the overall level of quality of its predecessor. Even when Annabelle, the […]
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June 1, 2018.Reading time 5 minutes.
Several years ago, in 2013, director David F. Sandberg released a short horror film on YouTube called Lights Out. The film had a simple yet brilliant horror premise – a shadowy monster that only appeared when the lights went out. A viral success, Sandberg’s little short film opened doors for him. With his first feature […]
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