In running a tiny drive-in, I found over time that people were not coming for new releases or even often caring that it was an old movie, they wanted a special movie experience. This got me thinking about how to customize the experience of going to the cinema, horror and […]
Sometimes They Come Back: Bob Clark’s Deathdream (Blue Underground)
By Thomas M. Puhr. Much more than an interesting time capsule…it’s also a minor horror classic in its own right, one well-deserving of a spot alongside Clark’s superior genre work.” Movies like Bob Clark’s Deathdream (aka Dead of Night, aka The Night Andy Came Home, 1974) operate by blunt-force symbolism. […]
Interdisciplinary “Others”: The Monster Theory Reader
A Book Review by Caroline Joan S. Picart. The edited collection aspires to supply a set of ‘tools’ for researchers and students – that is, common approaches and vocabularies for theorizing monstrosity – and then provides an interdisciplinary selection of important readings theorizing monsters and monstrosity….” The Monster Theory Reader […]
A Tribute on the Making of Horror: Joshua John Miller and M.A. Fortin on The Exorcism
By M. Sellers Johnson. I wanted to address the horror of watching somebody slowly becoming disfigured and losing their grip on sanity…. To me, that was the scary part of the movie and what we really wanted to do.” —Joshua John Miller At the time of its release, the iconic […]
In Love and Pain – Vampires in Silent Cinema by Gary D. Rhodes
A Book Review by Dávid Szőke. A carefully detailed account of the vampire archetype’s journey from literary and folkloric origins to the silent screen….” “Schreck’s peculiarities are like lovemaking games,” so says the fictional F.W. Murnau (John Malkovich) in E. Elias Merhige’s Shadow of the Vampire (2000), a vampire film […]
Podcasting Horror and Conspiracies: Filmmaker Matt Vesely on Monolith
By Jenny Paola Ortega Castillo. When you’ve only got one actor, you’re constantly thinking about how to make it cinematic…. Our film is about people telling stories from their past; it’s a slower burn and about piecing together a mystery.” Matt Vesely’s ‘Monolith’ is a remarkable eerie sci-fi mystery that […]
It’s Alive (and Horny)! Zelda Williams’ Lisa Frankenstein (2024)
By Thomas M. Puhr. Newton really shines and has a funny swagger about her. It’s too bad the surrounding film never quite matches this winning performance.” Lisa is lonely. Her widower father, who has promptly remarried and moved in with Lisa’s new stepmother and stepsister out in the candy-colored suburbs, […]
Illustrative but Incomplete: Dario Argento Panico
By Jeremy Carr. Ideal for Argento newcomers but ultimately lacking in fresh perspectives….” Dario Argento Panico, a new documentary about the iconic, enigmatic, and—especially during the peak of his career—astonishingly inventive director, is a well-illustrated and reasonably informative look at the life and work of the man who largely defined […]
Tom DeLonge Wants You to Believe: Monsters of California (2023)
By Jonathan Monovich. Despite its imperfections as an introductory feature film, fans of the sci-fi, horror, and adventure genres will walk away with a smile and will want to believe.” “We all know conspiracies are dumb.” Knowing his extraterrestrial obsessions, it’s a lyric sung ironically by Blink-182’s Tom DeLonge in […]
Not a Creature was Stirring, Not Even a Demon: Jenn Wexler’s The Sacrifice Game (2023)
By Thomas M. Puhr. Maybe I was too harsh toward last year’s Violent Night after all; at least that one seemed to enjoy its own company.” If you saw The Holdovers (2023) and wondered, “What if this were a horror movie, and not good?” then The Sacrifice Game (2023) might be for you. In […]