Dead Silence sets its aim high, especially for a recent movie. The filmmakers clearly wanted to tell an original story, not something re-hashed from bits and pieces of other…
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DUST DEVIL
Dust Devil comes from a long tradition of stories with basic plot elements in common. They share these things: Modern, well-educated people find themselves up against something straight…
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NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD (1968)
In the uncertain days of 1968 a new, low-budget independently-made zombie movie was released. Reviewers (the few who bothered) mostly wrote it off as violent junk. It was soon…
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SCARY STORIES TO TELL IN THE DARK
Scary Stories is much more than a movie about naive but adventurous teenagers exploring a haunted house In their hometown. It re-creates an intense atmosphere of place and time; the…
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THE BRIDES OF DRACULA
After the great success of. Horror of Dracula, Hammer studios wanted badly to make a sequel. However, Christopher Lee, so effective as the count in…
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THE HILLS HAVE EYES
After Night of the Living Dead began to make big money, many low-budget filmmakers tried a similar approach. Small cast, few special effects or none, and a tight story. …
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THE NIGHT STALKER
A made–for-TV movie on a top-100 horror list. Hard to believe, for sure. The Night Stalker is peculiar in some other ways too. At times it is more of a…
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THE REVENGE OF FRANKENSTEIN
The Revenge of Frankenstein was the second of seven movies that Hammer Studios produced featuring Baron Frankenstein and his many creations. Six of them starred the remarkable Peter…
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WITCHFINDER GENERAL
Witchfinder General comes close to being the ultimate revenge fantasy. It is unique in other ways too. Vincent Price gives possibly his all-time best performance, working with a director…
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REANIMATOR
In 1984, a brilliant theater director and playwright made the jump from the stage into movies. Stuart Gordon was virtually an unknown outside Chicago. Out of all his choices,…
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FROM BEYOND (UNRATED DIRECTOR’S CUT)
Note—From Beyond was released in 1986 with an R rating. Years later, the deleted material was rediscovered and edited back, into the unrated DVD. This is the version the…
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DEAD ALIVE
Dead Alive is an easy movie to dismiss. It features non-stop humor, most of it over the top and too camp-y to believe. But its approach to the…
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NIGHT OF THE HUNTER
Even before the credits finish, you can tell Night of the Hunter won’t be your average western…or thriller…or anything else. You hear music—straight out of the most savage…
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PET SEMATARY
Some of us are fortunate enough to experience a novel, poem, painting…or movie, that strikes us as perfectly planned, all the way from the outline in the artist’s soul. Maybe…
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