Although we sometimes have a tendency to think of horror as being a relatively niche genre of interest, the truth is that, from a cultural standpoint, its an absolute juggernaut. Horror iconography is everywhere. The genre’s most famous films, characters, and tropes have been referenced, parodied, and alluded to in and on nearly every single possible piece of merchandise and media imaginable. And while TV … Continue reading Music Video Macabre
Sometimes, less is more. This is why, often, we find ourselves laughing way harder at a dumb Vine or Tiktok than we ever do with a feature-length comedy film, no matter how good it may be. Without all the narrative, three-act trappings and structural padding of an hour-long story, a talented filmmaker can distill whatever emotions they want to convey down to their purest, most … Continue reading Short Film Showcase Sunday: Bite-Sized Terror
Closing out our franchise countdowns is sort of the black sheep of the pop-culture horror icons. Friday the 13th and Halloween both stick to fairly standard slasher tropes, with a stray exception here and there, and A Nightmare on Elm Street, while having a slightly more surreal and fantastical premise, still mostly feels stuck squarely in the same camp. You see one movie in these … Continue reading Legends of Horror, Ranked: Child’s Play
There’s a certain tendency with younger audiences, one which I myself can be guilty of as well from time to time, to naturally skew towards newer films rather than those that came out before they were born. If you give them a choice between a modern release and something from decades ago, especially if it’s in black-and-white, they will almost certainly choose the contemporary option. … Continue reading Two-Tone Terror: Horror in Black-and-White
With a lot of horror films, plot is somewhat of an afterthought. This is particularly apparent in long-running franchises where the number of sequels and installments begins to outnumber the amount of braincells it took to write each respective script. Saw, Hostel, and Friday the 13th are all series in which is becomes increasingly clear over time that the stories for each film were being … Continue reading What a Way to Go: The Worst (Best?) Deaths in ‘Final Destination’
Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: A huge, hulking figure, silent as the grave, and wearing some sort of mask, stalks and slaughters a group of teenage stereotypes one dark and stormy night. Sound familiar? Well it should, because I just described to you what 90% of all slasher films in the 80s looked like, down to exact details. Despite going down in … Continue reading Legends of Horror, Ranked: A Nightmare on Elm Street
I’ve made this argument before here on this hellish collection of rambling, incoherent thoughts I call a blog, but I’ll say it again: As a general rule, I hate remakes. It’s the absolute bottom of the barrel in terms of sheer creative bankruptcy. It’s a studio and a collection of writers, producers, directors, and actors all getting together and saying “Hey, we don’t have a … Continue reading Back From the Dead: The Best Horror Remakes
A lot of horror cinema is very gimmick-centric. While the goal of every film is ultimately to get enough butts in enough seats to turn a profit on the production, it seems that horror in particular has taken that goal as a challenge. Going back to the 1950s and 60s with the films of William Castle, who was the king of the theater gimmick, horror … Continue reading Keep Filming: The Best of Found Footage Horror
On week two of our tour of the “Big Three” icons of the slasher subgenre, we’re taking a look at the granddaddy, the OG, the king of the strong, silent type-brand of masked killers: Halloween, and its designated mass-murder, the butcher of Haddonfield himself, Michael Myers. If you’re even a casual fan of movies, the word “slasher” likely conjures one of two images: Either the … Continue reading Legends of Horror, Ranked: Halloween
I love horror. It’s a fantastic genre, full of a wide-ranging plethora of different flavors and styles of filmmaking. There’s so many unique and fascinating subgenres and breeds of horror films that odds are, even the staunchest critic of the genre can find something that suits their interests. But that isn’t to say that it isn’t without its flaws. Chief among these is the way … Continue reading Distressing Damsels: The Ass-Kicking Leading Ladies of Subversive Horror
The Blogger Under the Stairs 