Blog

Categories
SCARY STORIES TO TELL IN THE DARK

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…
Read More
THE BRIDES OF DRACULA

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…
Read More
THE HILLS HAVE EYES

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. …
Read More
THE NIGHT STALKER

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…
Read More
THE REVENGE OF FRANKENSTEIN

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…
Read More
WENDIGO

WENDIGO

CAUTION–SPOILERS NEAR END      Like so many movies I wrote about, Wendigo sets its sights high.   It refuses to follow commercial formulas.  Not that it succeeds at everything it tries…
Read More
WITCHFINDER GENERAL

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…
Read More
REANIMATOR

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,…
Read More
FROM BEYOND (UNRATED DIRECTOR’S CUT)

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…
Read More
DEAD ALIVE

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…
Read More
SUSPIRIA

SUSPIRIA

    Sometimes you have to accept a movie on its own terms.  Many critics would mention I Walked With a Zombie as an example.  Like these critics, I feel…
Read More
NIGHT OF THE HUNTER

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…
Read More
CARRIE

CARRIE

    The years spanning the mid 60’s and the early 70’s saw some major changes in American movies, and in movies worldwide.  Barriers on nudity (The Pawnbroker, Women in Love)…
Read More
(REC)

(REC)

 For most of us, The Blair Witch Project (1999) was the first horror story we experienced that tried to disguise itself as real-life events.  (A few novels had actually done…
Read More
PET SEMATARY

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…
Read More
INSIDE

INSIDE

Keep reading
Read More
HENRY; PORTRAIT OF A SERIAL KILLER

HENRY; PORTRAIT OF A SERIAL KILLER

     Henry was definitely not the first serial killer movie.  For that, you need to go back to Fritz Lang’s M (1930), maybe further.  But it came out early…
Read More
THE SEVENTH VICTIM

THE SEVENTH VICTIM

    The Seventh Victim is a unique movie experience– in many, many ways.  Some may find it highly scary…others may find it more creepy than scary.  Others…find it neither.  Like…
Read More
AUDITION

AUDITION

     Audition begins as a quiet, thoughtful character study.  You may be reminded of Ordinary People, the under-rated late-60’s drama Rachel, Rachel, even a serious variation on Sleepless in Seattle. …
Read More
ALIENS

ALIENS

     I don’t write about many big-budget Hollywood blockbusters. But writing about Aliens feels like a privilege—like describing someone you feel honored to know. It has all of this: solid…
Read More