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The one thing that can make or break a horror movie before it’s even been released is the trailer. The all-important trailer is crucial in not only garnering interest for a movie, but also loosely outlining the plot of a movie without giving too much away. In recent years, many trailers have been accused of giving too much of the …

With any horror film that strikes a chord with the audience and has them flocking to the theatres, it is always tempting to build on the successes of the first film and make a sequel, or two, or three and the next thing you know you have a full blown franchise on your bloodied hands. While many don’t quite carry …

Greetings creatures of the night, I’m home again. After my long break from Horror I have returned to bring you my top five list of horror films that you can’t just watch once. This list is comprised of horror movies so good that they merit multiple viewings. These films get inside of you and they never let go of you. …

Sometime, in the late 1960s, the horror genre changed; it became mainstream, with big-name stars and bigger budgets. It was no longer more or less the main province of genre fans and stars like Vincent Price, Boris Karloff, or Lon Chaney, Jr., or established genre directors like Terence Fisher or Freddie Francis. In this post from my personal blog, I …

Horror cinema is riff with franchises. It’s both a burden and something of a joy to shift through the countless series based on anything from child-cults to murderous cookies. What isn’t so fun is when a promising set of films goes unfinished leaving fans wondering what might have been. Those are the sort of films we’re talking about today as …

There’s a rule that there are some movies which should just be left alone. Some remakes are quite enjoyable, but there are also others which just hit the mark entirely. With seemingly more remakes, reboots and re imaginings of classics being made, it seems appropriate to make a list of the horror movies which didn’t need remakes.

In 1924 the first major theatrical production of Bram Stoker’s Dracula opened on stage in England. Starring writer-actor Hamilton Deane, the play was such a success that it was transferred to London’s West End. In 1927 the production opened on Broadway starring a young Hungarian actor named Bela Lugosi. Universal pictures purchased the screen rights that same year for US$40,000, …

My last post was about the most famous male actors and their very first horror film roles. Well now I present to you the female edition of that very same list. Most of the women on this list were sex icons in the horror films they debuted in, and others just get naked. So be sure to check out these movies and …

We have all been touched by fictitious persons at numerous points in our lives. They have moved or amused, horrified or inspired us since early childhood. Story-telling is one of the most fundamental of human activities, probably as necessary to our mental health as eating, drinking and breathing are to our physical well-being. Story-telling is almost inconceivable without villains. In …

Return of the Living Dead After the success of Night of the Living Dead, the partnership between George Romero and John Russo soon ended, with Romero continuing to write and direct his own set of sequels. John Russo continued to write, but mostly novels instead of scripts, except for the few exceptions were he ended up writing a script from …

With the fresh release of The Nun, there has been a recent resurgence of the classic ‘nunsploitation’ movies and the newest release to the scene is no exception to the other brilliant entries to the genre. Nuns are terrifying at the best of times, but there seems to be something about nuns being added to the equation in a horror …

Night of the Living Dead (1968), directed by George Romero; starring Duane Jones and Judith O’Dea as two strangers who join forces to survive the original Zombie Apocalypse. One of the most influential horror movies ever made, Night of the Living Dead was initially dismissed by many critics as a cheap “exploitation” film (Rex Reed was a notable exception). In …

Dear “The Living”, I’m writing you this evening from the Crypt as I’ve crossed over to the other side… again. I feel the rigormortis kicking in, so the earthworms are helping me type. I want to give you guys a heads off (or is it heads up) that I have started doing the Video Madness column, so when you are …

Scream queens: those beautiful, blood-spattered actresses who build a career and fanbase in horror. These ladies appear in film after film, becoming as iconic as actors as Jason or Freddy are as actors. Everyone knows the scream queens of yesteryear; Jamie Lee Curtis, Linnea Quiqley, Langenkamp, etc. But how many of you know names like Tristan Risk or Jessica Cameron? …

I have to be in a certain mood to watch Asian horror. I must confess that I mostly haven’t been in that mood for quite a few years. In the previous decade, I was quite taken with Asian horror (along with everybody else) and I watched all the classics, as well as the American remakes: The Ring, The Grudge, The …