The Mutilator Carves Out a Bit of Cult Status From Its B-Movie Kills

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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Class of Nuke ‘Em High Revels in the Crude Schlock That Defined Troma

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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Siege An Underrated Canuxploitation Entry From the 80s

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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Adam & Evil A Forgettable Dollar-Bin Slasher Movie

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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Spookies: Rare 80s Horror Re-Defines The Meaning of ‘So Bad, It’s Good’

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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Aquarium of the Dead: Latest Asylum Release Comes with Do-Not-Resuscitate Order

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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Butcher Baker Nightmare Maker: Little Seen 80s Oedipal Exploitation Thriller

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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