Death In the Aisle

The horror genre’s a difficult thing to figure. It’s at once ridiculous due to the backing stories and plots that are needed to bolster any sort of ethereal stuff that occurs in a film, but it can also be artfully put together. Countless problems abound with such a confluence of high art and genre schlock, but in that is something that retains such a draw to viewers that it’s difficult to properly understand.

Mario Bava is generally cited as one of the most visually influential directors of the genre. And that’s how it should be. Subsequent to having a go at a career in fine art, but finding it lacking on the monetary side of things, Bava began working alongside his father who was, at the time, one of the more highly regarded folks working with special effects. Read more

No sorry, that pimple is impossible to remove
Once in a while you come across a horror flick that leaves you feeling fluffy-happy and nostalgic. And, as I recently discovered, Waxwork falls rather snugly into this category. Released in the 1980s, this cheesy horror-comedy was directed by Anthony Hickox, a movie-maker who is well-known for his sense of humor. Definitely worth adding to the cheesy horror collection.

The movie itself is rather simple and keeps to the 80s style of horror movies. You know, the concept of featuring a group of teens with their own weird little personalities who end up trapped/attacked/conned by a supernatural entity. In this case, the teens end up touring a waxwork exhibition that showcased a whole bunch of creepy fictional figures who, incidentally, were engaged in equally creepy torture tactics. Read more

No Emo Boys Allowed

It's hard to make fun of this classic, especially in light of what is happening to vampires today. I'm talking about The Lost Boys, that delightful 'fangboys are bad boys' flick. This was one of those iconic flicks that succeeded in transforming the vampire in a castle concept to suit the modern era. When I say succeed, I mean flesh out a bloodsucker who did had some semblance of dignity left.
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Ghosts in the classroom
This week, I ended up watching an old classic, The Innocents, which is, by far, one of the best horror flicks I have seen in recent months (sorry, TSRoD!). How can it go wrong: it was, after all, based on the popular novel by Henry James? Well, in the wrong hands, anything can happen. Thankfully, the folks behind the flick did the story justice, making it a definite favorite in my top horror list. 
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Modern vampiric worries: Bad hair and love issues
I know everyone blames Twilight for the annoying sparky makeover that vampires have received. Alright, so to a large extent they are right. But, Twilight indicates a general trend in the depiction of vampires which can be seen from the strangely emo vampires from True Blood. Generally, it is a conscious effort in creating a new vampire, one that is a far cry from the fang boys we old foggies loved and adored. Let's go through the various vampires and how changed over time, shall we?

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Oh I'm sorry, I was looking for a hobbit
During this holiday period, I was fortunate enough to come across some decent horror flicks. Alright, so it still retains a certain amount of cheesiness but at least it's not as bad as The Bloody Pit of Horror. So that leads me to the review of The Satanic Rites of Dracula, a Hammer Horror production starring Christopher Lee (Hello Saruman!) and Peter Cushing.

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At this late date, it’s difficult to differentiate adept film making from intentional camp. Removed from its release by over two decades in 1986, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 certainly isn’t a masterful piece of work, although the film does maintain a specific tone and visual bent throughout the entirety of its one hundred minute run time.

The beginnings of Massacre, though, date back to the ‘70s. After working in and around Austin, Texas – the city of his childhood – Tobe Hooper worked on a film called Eggshells. Using the backdrop of a hippie commune, the 1969 supernatural feature didn’t see an actual release, but still set up Hooper to work in the feature medium again a few years on. Read more

Imagine SVU theme at this point

I had high hopes for this one. After all, it was based on an H. P. Lovecraft short story. Think old ones, weird rituals, creepy towns and other such elements that make up a good Lovecraft tale. Well, it didn't turn out the way it expected, despite having the aforementioned features. In fact, the movie was a bit on the bland side. Let's see why. Read more

The lesser known zombie love story
There's nothing cheesy to talk about this week. Oh no, I'll talk about an incredibly funny, rather well-done zombie flick. It's the Canadian undead ventyre called Fido. Released in 2007, this movie was directed by Andrew Currie and features big names like Billy Connolly and Carrie-Ann Moss. Despite its excellent story, direction and cast, the movie came and went without much of a buzz. Which is a shame given how this movie succeeds where all other recent ones have failed in doing justice to the zombie genre. I'm talking about you, 2008's Day of the Dead.

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