Author: dinosaurinafez

Reviews, You Should Watch This

Why the Underrated ‘Season of the Witch’ is the Most Halloween-y ‘Halloween’ Sequel

John Carpenter’s 1978 slasher Halloween was a smash hit (and one of the most financially successful independent films ever made), and for good reason: It was a tense, atmospheric thriller that relied on its mastery of suspense to scrounge up scares, rather than over-the-top blood and gore. It had a stellar lead in final girl Laurie Strode, launching Jaime Lee Curtis to well-earned stardom overnight. … Continue reading Why the Underrated ‘Season of the Witch’ is the Most Halloween-y ‘Halloween’ Sequel

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Director Showcases, Rankings and Lists

Short Film Showcase Sunday: Short Films as a Springboard for Mainstream Success

For our final Sunday of the month, I thought I’d show you guys just exactly why these internet short films are so cool. Sure, they’re great bits of horror content in their own right, provided quick little jolts of spooky atmosphere to your system like a 5 Hour Energy shot. But the really exciting thing is how they’ve leveled the playing field for filmmakers. Long … Continue reading Short Film Showcase Sunday: Short Films as a Springboard for Mainstream Success

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Reviews

‘Wendell & Wild’ Is Middling Stop-Motion Madness

Is there any movie more synonymous with Halloween than The Nightmare Before Christmas? It’s pretty much the ultimate holiday movie, pulling double-duty as both the perfect film for the spooky season as well as its holly-jolly counterpart in December. Plus, I’m pretty sure that it single-handedly keeps Hot Topic alive as a business model. The tragic thing about it though is that people continuously lump … Continue reading ‘Wendell & Wild’ Is Middling Stop-Motion Madness

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Rankings and Lists

Fatal Finales: The Bleakest Endings in Horror

Horror isn’t exactly known for being a genre full of sunshine and rainbows. It can be depressing. Grimy. Morbid. And sure, a lot of horror films have (reasonably) happy endings. Our heroes may lose friends or loved ones, and even lose a limb or two themselves along the way, but in the end, they usually manage to beat whatever’s chasing them and live to see … Continue reading Fatal Finales: The Bleakest Endings in Horror

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Editorials

Missing in Action: Horror’s Dormant Icons

Some horror franchises are seemingly as unkillable as their murderous antagonists appear to be. No matter how many terrible sequels, how many box-office bombs, how many needless reboots and remakes, they just keep on coming (for better or for worse). There’s loads of false starts, lulls and breaks between installments, but they always return, in one form or another. And a lot of these films … Continue reading Missing in Action: Horror’s Dormant Icons

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Rankings and Lists, You Should Watch This

Bad Moon Rising: Horror’s Most Fantastically Ferocious Werewolf Flicks

Werewolves are one of the most enduring pieces of horror pop culture iconography. And although they’re considered to be one of the quintessential mascots for the genre, and for the Halloween season, I would wager that the vast majority of people have never actually seen a werewolf movie. Well, a good one, anyhow. Twilight, Underworld, and Van Helsing all feature the beasts in some capacity, … Continue reading Bad Moon Rising: Horror’s Most Fantastically Ferocious Werewolf Flicks

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Reviews, You Should Watch This

‘Dead Silence’ is Horror For Dummies, And I Kind of Love It

You know what’s really creepy? Ventriloquist dummies. Seriously, look at this little bastard: There’s no way that thing hasn’t killed a child. I hate those things with a fiery passion. As a child, I was shown Bride of Chucky at a waaaay too early age by a nefarious cousin, and it messed me up pretty bad, sparking a decade-long fear of anything remotely in the … Continue reading ‘Dead Silence’ is Horror For Dummies, And I Kind of Love It

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Reviews, You Should Watch This

Mile-High Danger in Wes Craven’s ‘Red Eye’

I consider myself to be a fanatic for the works of Wes Craven, who gave us such iconic horror films as A Nightmare on Elm Street, Scream, and The Last House on the Left, among many, many others. As such, I was arrogant enough to assume that I had seen everything that he had either written and directed (well, mostly everything; You couldn’t pay me … Continue reading Mile-High Danger in Wes Craven’s ‘Red Eye’

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Director Showcases, Rankings and Lists

Short Film Showcase Sundays: The Backrooms

The internet, to the absolute surprise of no one in the Fake News era, is a fertile breeding ground for mythology and lore. The urban legends and campfire stories of days past have since given way to stories told in obscure chat rooms and anonymous forums, built up over time before eventually breaching the mainstream and ingraining themselves into popular culture. From the earliest days … Continue reading Short Film Showcase Sundays: The Backrooms

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Reviews

‘V/H/S 99’ is Flashback, Millennial Horror Fun

I’ve talked a lot on this site about found-footage horror films. It’s probably my favorite subgenre of horror. I’ve also been equally vocal about my love of anthology horror films, serving up bite-sized, easily digestible chunks of spooky goodness without running the risk of boring the audience with unnecessary narrative beats. And luckily, these two flavors of horror mix together wonderfully, working in tandem to … Continue reading ‘V/H/S 99’ is Flashback, Millennial Horror Fun

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