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Universal Monsters

In 1928, Carl Laemmle Senior made his son, Carl Laemmle Junior, head of Universal Pictures as a 21st birthday present. Woo hoo! Universal already had a reputation for nepotism – at one point, seventy of Carl Senior’s relatives were supposedly on the payroll. Many of them were nephews, resulting in Carl Senior being known around the studios as Uncle Carl. …

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Top 10 Horror Families

Hello again children, today I’ll be giving you the benefit of something many take for granted, the gift of family. We’ll be diving into the top families in the horror industry, but before we begin, I’d like to preface this list with a quick caveat. This list will specifically list the top horror families in terms of characters in film, …

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Early Special Effects in Film – The Grand Illusions

In the current climate of rampant digital effects, ultra-real prosthetics and virtual 3-D cinematography, audiences are being spoiled. Special effects have become commonplace and of such a high standard that jaws are no longer dropping. This wasn’t always so. Special effects have come a long way since the invention of cinema and the path they have walked is fascinating. Arguably, …

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Dissecting Critters Movie Franchise

Critters The success of 1984s Gremlins, with its unique blend of horror and sardonic humour seemingly inspired a number of other “little monster” films of that decade. Critters is one of the best. Although its makers deny any influence it shares with Gremlins a sense of mischievous glee but also possesses its own brand of charm. This is family-friendly horror …

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2012 or bust

It’s becoming more and more evident to me that our time on this planet is limited. It’s a strange thing, this 2012 rhetoric. I’m not one to easily buy into doomsday theories, but the last couple of months have been un-relentless with signs of the apocalypse. You need only look to the skies to see thousands of dead birds dropping …

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Werewolves (Robert Curran)

This edition of Unexplained Confidential is dedicated to Michele Gosciniak. Happy Birthday from Michael Joy and Horrornews.net ! It’s my favorite time of the year and it’s custom made for everything scary and spooky. Where did September go? I blinked my eyes and that month is history. I guess I’ll just have to put in some horrornews overtime this month. …

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The Invisible Man Saga – A Retrospective on a Lost Legend

Scientific knowledge was never one of the requirements needed for a successful Hollywood scriptwriter. At least science fiction authors are usually aware of scientific flaws and try to disguise them with pseudo-science. For instance, they’ve long got around Einstein’s law regarding the impossibility of faster-than-light travel by taking a short-cut through ‘hyper-space’. My old friend H.G. Wells was well aware …

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1970’s Frankenstein’s Monster

One of the most recognizable movie monsters in horror cinema is the Frankenstein Monster. Beginning with Frankenstein (1910) and, more famously, Frankenstein (1931) from Universal, Mary Shelley’s man-made monster has taken many forms. In 1957, Hammer Films jettisoned the creature into the Technicolor age with Curse of Frankenstein. Throughout the Sixties, Hammer Films would produce a variety of Monsters created …

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