Even if it was the ‘Golden Era’ of the slasher, not every slasher title released in the 1980s found an audience. Before the slasher franchise cycles kicked into effect and a Friday the 13th or Elm Street sequel released every year, micro-budgeted slashers still snuck into theaters. By the late 80s, the direct-to-video market offered […]
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If you’re a horror fan or B-movie lover and came of age in the 80s, you’re likely at least familiar with Troma Entertainment. The brainchild of Lloyd Kaufman and Michael Herz, Troma movies mix ‘shock’ and ‘schlock’ on paper thin budgets. This is the studio that gave us The Toxic Avenger and Surf Nazis Must […]
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When crime rates and urban decay were peaking in the United States, the urban-crime thriller became a B-movie staple. Early 70s box office hit Death Wish proceeded a bevy of imitators. Movies like Fighting Back, The Exterminator, Bronx Warriors, Savage Streets, and Vigilante imagined major US cities as dystopian, crime-ridden hellholes. Even the relatively safe […]
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Sometimes a late night with a cheesy horror movie isn’t a bad thing. Wooden acting, mindless story, choppy editing, visible boom mics – the kind of movies you’d find at the bottom of a $5 DVD bin in a grocery store. The 1980s defined itself with these sorts of B-movies you’d find on video store […]
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Do you like bad movies? Like really bad movies? Horror has plenty of them for the true aficionados of bad cinema. There’s the more obvious casual fan candidates – Nic Cage’s Wicker Man remake, Snakes on a Plane, and Deep Blue Sea. And then there’s the ones familiar to horror fans like Basket Case, Silent […]
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For over two decades, American film company The Asylum has specialized in a micro-budgeted horror schlock movies. Often referred to as mockbusters, The Asylum strategically releases movies with similar titles and/or premises to major blockbusters. The big difference – Asylum movies are micro-budgeted retreads designed to exploit inattentive filmgoers. Want to watch The Amityville Horror […]
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As 1970s’ exploitation and splatter horror gave way to the slasher era of the 1980s, horror movies occasionally straddled styles. The result was some tonally oddball movie like Nightmare Beach, Pieces, Humanoids from the Deep, Sleepaway Camp, and Madman. While these movies had recognizable slasher DNA, their atmosphere and aesthetics felt like spiritual descendants of […]
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If you’re old enough, Canadian slasher movie Humongous might look familiar. Even if you never saw the movie, you probably caught the VHS cover along the top shelf in the horror section. Yet even at the height of the slasher movie cycle, Humongous didn’t make much of an impression. Its director, Paul Lynch, fared much […]
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