In the late 1980s and early 1990s, safe psychological thrillers had mostly supplanted the edgier resurgence of neo-noir. Thrillers like Pacific Heights, Sleeping With The Enemy, and The Hand That Rocks the Cradle were suspenseful star-laden affairs that were tailormade for wide theatrical releases. None of the chills were likely to disturb mainstream audiences and […]
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Nature hates us. Look no further than the slew of killer animal movies for proof. Throw in movies about killer, mutated insects for good measure. Since the 1970s eco-horror and ‘when animals attack’ thrillers have become their own subgenre. Sometimes the animals or bugs make sense. Sharks and spiders are inherently terrifying. Yes, grizzly bears […]
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Following the modest box office success of Demon Knight, Universal Studios booked another feature-length date with The Crypt Keeper. In fact, Universal apparently saw a lot of potential in the Tales from the Crypt franchise. Rumor has it that they had their eyes set a trilogy. And that’s when Bordello of Blood happened. No one […]
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A lot of great horror movies hit theatres in the 1990’s. But horror was also a genre in transition in the decade of flannel and grunge. Slashers, which had dominated the 1980s, had fallen out of style. Major horror franchises – including Friday the 13th and A Nightmare on Elm Street – were pretty stagnant […]
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Maybe it was the impending fear of Y2K, but the summer of 1999 was a memorable one for horror movies. Both The Sixth Sense and The Blair Witch Project hit theatres over the summer months. And Deep Blue Sea surfaced amidst the hot summer months, while Stir of Echoes closed out the season. Of course, […]
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Most of us probably still remember those scholastic book orders from elementary school. If you were a budding horror fan in the 1970s and 1980s, the closest you could get to Stephen King was Lois Duncan’s I Know What You Did Last Summer. Goosebumps novels wouldn’t hit bookshelves until the 1990s. And Duncan’s teen suspense […]
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After Silence of the Lambs took the Oscars and box office by storm, serial killers were all the rage. Copycat, Body Parts, Jennifer 8, Ghost in the Machine – without exception none of these movies approached Hannibal Lecter. By the late 1990s, the serial killer moral panic had largely faded. But that didn’t stop filmmakers […]
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At face value, The Puppet Masters had a lot going for it. For starters, its source material was a well-regarded, influential novel. Donald Sutherland headlining your movie is never a bad thing. And its premise, while familiar, touched on themes that translate across time. Too bad none of these made The Puppet Masters a better […]
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