Satan was alive and well in America during the 1970s and 1980s. On the heels of Rosemary’s Baby, religious-themed supernatural horror from The Exorcist to The Omen dominated horror for the next decade. As the 70s gave way to the 1980s and heavy metal, a new wave of Satanic panic took hold of Americans. All […]
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After a COVID-disrupted year in 2020, the first half of 2021 has slowly seen theaters open in select locations. And with theaters opening their doors, studios have started releasing all those delayed movies we’ve been dying to see. To date, Godzilla vs Kong, Spiral: From the Book of Saw, The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me […]
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Contrary to the idea of ‘elevated horror‘, genre movies focused on atmosphere and psychological themes are not new. Not too long ago an Esquire article boldly claimed that the 2010s was the decade that “horror got smart”. But the author glosses over decades of clever, unnerving horror. In the late 1960s, George A Romero re-imagined […]
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As theatres slowly re-open in America, studios are finally starting to unload their bigger movies. While religious horror The Unholy likely wouldn’t be considered a ‘big release’ amongst genre fans, Sam Raimi’s (Evil Dead, Drag Me To Hell) role as producer would have ensured a theatrical release. Raimi’s Ghost House Pictures has scored some winners […]
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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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Plenty of horror movies draw on religious imagery in straightforward tales of good versus evening. As a subgenre, however, religious horror centers its conflict on either questions of faith or the dangers of dogmatic faith. There’s no shortage of horror movies seeped in Christian faith and imagery. But traditional Jewish horror movies are in short […]
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As 2021 marches on, Shudder continues to lead the way in original horror programming. To date, Shudder has added new feature length horror movies each and every Thursday. While some of these releases have missed the mark (Shook), Violation, Hunted, Lucky, and Slaxx delivered solid chills early in the year. In addition to offering horror […]
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Before M Night Shyamalan rehabilitated his image with back-to-back successes in The Visit and Split, he hit rock-bottom with 2010’s The Last Airbender. Oh, Shyamalan would still drop one more bomb called After Earth. But the divisive filmmaker took a small step in the right direction by stepping back. Though the story wasn’t necessarily original, […]
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