Spoilers galore In a post Saw world, it’s hard to describe how transgressive watching either Hellraiser or Hellbound: Hellraiser II on cable felt as a teen. If you grew up in a religious family like I did, of course the title feels taboo. There’s also the aesthetics of those first two movies. The torture and... Continue Reading →
After watching The Brood, I knew I had to watch David Cronenberg’s Shivers. It’s the only one of his horror films I hadn’t seen. Part of the fun with Hooptober is in watching films you haven’t seen. So why not knock off a Cronenberg on my to watch list? Shivers occupies a unique space in... Continue Reading →
A question a couple of months ago on Twitter asked “Who is our greatest living horror director?” This is always a fun question to ask but also gauge where a person might stand with you. People have their reasons for their favorites. They directed a favorite from when they first got into horror, there’s a... Continue Reading →
Audiences only see any genuine joy on the face of Maika Monroe’s Julia at the beginning of Chloe Okuno’s Watcher. She rides in a taxi, taking in the sights of Bucharest, Romania. Only in this one moment, this new city offers her possibilities and adventures. Then the driver talks in Romanian to her husband. They... Continue Reading →
My first exposure to the world of Nigel Kneale’s science fiction hero Bernard Quatermass came via John Carpenter. Carpenter, a huge fan of Neale’s work, credited himself under the pseudonym Martin Quatermass for Prince of Darkness. Kneale supposedly hated the tribute for various reasons but it’s an appropriate nod. Carpenter’s remake of The Thing owes... Continue Reading →
In 2014, director Steven Soderbergh released two experiments in editing on his website. One of them was a 108 minute “Butcher’s Cut” of Michael Cimino’s four hour epic Western Heaven’s Gate. The other experiment turned Steven Spielberg’s Raiders of the Lost Ark into a black and white silent film with the score from The Social... Continue Reading →
Supposedly as Hammer’s Dracula films progressed, Christopher Lee began to detest them more and more. The scripts, as he claimed, never stood up to Bram Stoker’s novel. You get then why the idea of being in Jess Franco’s Count Dracula would appeal to him. Here, a filmmaker wanted to faithfully and finally adapt Stoker’s text... Continue Reading →
Charles B. Pierce’s The Town That Dreaded Sundown is a platypus of a horror film. Trying to describe this movie sounds schizophrenic. In the most memorable parts of the film, it mimics The Texas Chain Saw Massacre in intensity. For most of the running time, the film functions like a docudrama with law enforcement trying... Continue Reading →
Poltergeist is a film where I have a little bit of a personal connection with it. We almost share a birthday. Both of us were unleashed in 1982, though I’m a day older. But even before I knew that information, I’ve always felt drawn to this film. It’s one of the few horror films I... Continue Reading →
A couple of years ago, when Chris reviewed Eaten Alive for Hooptober 2015, he asked two good questions. Why do we praise Tobe Hooper and what makes a film uniquely one by him? Out of the Four Horsemen of 70s horror (the other three being George Romero, John Carpenter, and Wes Craven), Hooper’s work might... Continue Reading →
Cinema Dual 