As an individual movie, Tobe Hooper’s The Texas Chainsaw Massacre remains among the greatest horror movies produced. Unfortunately, the legacy of its sequels, prequels, and remakes is checkered. In between Hooper’s misunderstood sequel and the crater-sized disaster that was Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation, New Line Pictures took a more straightforward approach to the […]
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In less than a week, Scream 5 will hit theatres and officially kick off the 2022 horror movie schedule. Aside from Halloween Ends, it’s arguably this year’s most anticipated genre offering. Over a decade has passed since the last Scream movie and a lot has changed in horror. James Vanderbilt and Gary Busick take over […]
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Cannibal Holocaust introduced grindhouse fans to the found-footage format. Two decades later, The Blair Witch Project took the format mainstream with its pre-viral marketing campaign and pseudo-documentary approach. A handful of found-footage horror movies would surface in the early 2000’s. Yet Paranormal Activity was the true follow-up box office hit that cemented the approach as […]
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Though it’s hard to believe, nearly 15 years have passed since Paranormal Activity rode a brilliant marketing plan en route to massive box office success. If The Blair Witch Project introduced mainstream audiences to the found-footage format, Oren Peli’s Paranormal Activity solidified it as a bankable horror subgenre. Five sequels follow over the next eight […]
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At the peak of the format’s popularity, the found-footage subgenre produced a handful of successful horror franchises. Arguably, The Paranormal Activity franchise – which also has a belated sequel surfacing soon – was the most lucrative. Though much smaller in scale, the Hell House LLC trilogy produced decent, but diminishing, scares. With four movies and […]
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Based on Clive Barker’s novella The Hellbound Heart and made on a relatively small budget, Hellraiser surprised enough at the box office to earn an immediate sequel. Its follow-up, Hellbound: Hellraiser II, performed a little below its predecessor at the box office. In addition, critics were less impressed with the results this time around. Not […]
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After dominating the 1980’s, Friday the 13th closed out the decade with a whimper. Jason Takes Manhattan, which hit theaters in 1989, remains the lowest earning movie in the series. And its ending didn’t seem to leave much direction for future sequels. Toxic waste that first regresses you to childhood and then melts you tends […]
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Who would have thought that a modestly budgeted home invasion thriller would spawn such a successful franchises? In retrospect, The Purge, which hit theaters in 2013, was exactly the kind of movie upon which Blumhouse Productions has built their success – big concept, small budget. Even if The Purge wasn’t a great movie per se, […]
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