Today, deformed hillbillies terrorizing big-city folk deep in the woods is old hat. Since ‘Dueling Banjos’ played for the first time in Deliverance, horror movies have exploited urban fear of the rural. Call it hillbilly horror, redneck horror, or rural, it’s a subgenre that includes The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Hills Have Eyes, and Wrong […]
Read More
By all accounts, Wrong Turn is a minor entry in the horror genre. On its release in 2003, the cannibal hillbilly horror Wrong Turn impressed few critics. But the familiar story of hip, young urban folk running afoul of inbred backwoods maniacs did well enough at the box office to spawn a direct-to-video franchise. And […]
Read More
They can’t all be Friday the 13th, Halloween, or A Nightmare on Elm Street. To fill the void between A-list horror franchise releases, you need some B-list franchises – Child’s Play, Final Destination, or Resident Evil. Even Hellraiser had few decent theatrical sequels before churning out discount bin straight-to-video “hell” crap. And then there are […]
Read More
‘Hillbilly’ backwoods horror has been alive and kicking since before even The Texas Chainsaw Massacre shocked audiences. Arguably, you could go back to the 1968 cult movie, Spider Baby, starring Lon Chaney Jr, for the first real backwoods horror movie. From Motel Hell to Wrong Turn, horror gives each new generation of fans its own […]
Read More
Yes, this French movie is actually called Girls With Balls. That’s either the best thing – or worst thing – about this horror-comedy. Netflix released this French riff on ‘hillbilly horror‘ earlier in July. Based on the promotional materials, Girls With Balls is best described as Wrong Turn meets Mean Girls. Tonally, the movie looks […]
Read More
Happy Spring Break! Hundreds of parents will be herding their kids into cars to brave traffic for a March Break getaway. To celebrate March Break, in Re-Animated, I’ll be looking at the Wes Craven’s classic ‘family vacation gone wrong’ movie, The Hills Have Eyes. Released in July 1977, The Hills Have Eyes was a modest […]
Read More
John Boorman’s 1972 film Deliverance is considered a landmark achievement in cinema. Its story of four ‘big city’ friends stalked and assaulted by backwoods locals on a wilderness canoe trip earned multiple Golden Globe and Oscar nominations. While not a horror film, Deliverance played a significant role in popularizing one of horror’s most popular subgenres […]
Read More
Fifteen years ago I dragged a girl I was dating to see Wrong Turn. She wasn’t a fan of horror movies. Needless to say we didn’t date for very long but I’ll always have Wrong Turn. The “redneck” slasher film that was part Texas Chainsaw Massacre and part Deliverance was released on May 30 2003. In […]
Read More