America has miles of empty, desolate highway. And horror movies have exploited these for some classic results. From Steven Spielberg’s Duel to Jeepers Creepers, horror movie characters have been running on fumes cross-country in the USA. Common sense would suggest that drivers would be best to avoid hitchhikers (The Hitcher, House of 1000 Corpses). But […]
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Most horror fans of a certain age remember Silent Night, Deadly Night. At the height of the slasher movie’s ‘Golden Era’, it was the movie that sparked a wave of controversy around its promotional material featuring an ‘evil Santa Claus’. Even Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 2 has hovered in public consciousness due to its […]
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There’s Canuxploitation. And then there’s Ozploitation. The Babadook, Wolf Creek, and Rogue are just a few examples of some the great horror movies that the land Down Under has exported to us. But New Zealand doesn’t have much of a reputation for its horror exports. Peter Jackson (Braindead) does come from New Zealand and the […]
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As the Hays Code receded and the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) rating system too over, Western cinema took a drastic turn into the experimental in the late 60s and 1970s. Briefly, this was an era that saw a rise in more risky story-telling. Art-house sensibilities mixed with box office mainstream in movies like […]
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As the 90s gave way to the 2000s, the serial killer psychological thrillers that dominated the decade began to recede. Too many thrillers tried, and failed, to recreate the horror of Silence of the Lambs and Se7en. Moreover, Torture Porn and the New French Extremity were just off in the distance. Somewhere in between these […]
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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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From the New French Extremity and splatter flicks to ‘nature strikes back’ horror, Alexandre Aja has amassed an impressive filmography. To date, Aja’s highs – High Tension, Crawl, Piranha 3D, The Hills Have Eyes – outnumber his career lows – Mirrors. But Aja’s latest release, Oxygen, marks a significant departure from past work. What looks […]
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Let it be known, Unhinged was the first movie to do a wide theatrical release amidst COVID. That may be a good, bad, or completely indifferent fact. But in a year where studios delayed our most anticipated movies, Russell Crowe and company braved the pandemic and hit our local cineplexes. It’s April and I’m just […]
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