horror
Halloween – the season of ghouls, screams and tricks or treats. It’s the time of year when scares of all kinds are acceptable and even welcomed. We become the creatures of the night, in search for something to satisfy our yearly holiday craving.
Is this any way to sell a board game? Hasbro’s perennial moneymaker “Ouija” is the basis of Universal’s micro-budget horror franchise in the making, and it’s hard to imagine a game manufacturer working any harder to discourage people from buying its product. The 2014 release Ouija opened at number one, and a followup was inevitable.
When we think about viruses in cinema, we usually think about them in conjunction with turning us into the undead. Indeed, the stunning alacrity and volume at which Hollywood churns out zombie epidemic films begs us to wonder if we have truly exhausted the “what if?” nature of this particular vein of horror.
Horror is in an extremely interesting place at the moment. Thanks to the rise of video-on-demand platforms and new technology, barriers between creator and distributor are disappearing, the amount of independently-made films are rising and the availability of these films is quite accessible. The trade-off of this is the problem of quantity over quality, which has meant that, much like the exploitation era of filmmaking in the 1970’s, every new or original film that is successful is followed with a string of derivative imitators, looking to cash in on genre recognition or fans looking to branch out on that particular subject matter.
Anthology films are generally regarded as being uneven, and even ones that are respected are sometimes not perfect through every single segment. I wanted to explore anthology films by looking at some with mostly negative reviews, hoping to find something great hidden within. Some of the films I watched in preparation were bad, with no moments of relief to help make it through their running times, while others were enjoyable with slight problems.
Nineties psychological horror The Blair Witch Project wasn’t an instant hit. Though a triumph with critics, its box office success was slow, but it now stands as one of the most financially successful independent films of all time, and as a forefather of the found footage trend. Not only did The Blair Witch Project pave the way for found footage horrors like [Rec], V/H/S, and the Paranormal Activity series, sci-fis and fantasies like Cloverfield, Trollhunter and Chronicle also used the format.
When the title card appears in Daguerrotype, it announces the film as “Le secret de le chambre noire”. That title reflects the film’s goals as a dark, foreboding ghost mystery, and it probably does so better than the title “Daguerrotype” does. But what I like about the title Daguerrotype (misspelled though it might be), is that it refers to the most interesting part of the film:
Killer Friends is a short horror-comedy written by Zach Noe Towers and co-directed by Towers and Tina Carbone. The film stars Jenna-Lee Carreiro, Dave Racki, and Peggy Sinnott alongside Towers, who plays the indestructible jerk himself, Scott. With Friends Like This, Who Needs Enemies?
The idea of the “secret sequel” seems to be a new marketing scheme in horror cinema as of late. Earlier this year, a sequel to the film Cloverfield came out, called 10 Cloverfield Lane, yet nobody knew it was a sequel until a couple months before its premiere. In similar fashion, Blair Witch, the sequel to 1999’s seminal horror The Blair Witch Project, was originally filmed under the fake title “The Woods” so as to hide its true intentions.
Do you know your neighbours? Even if you believe that you do, you might not actually know them. Although the person next door or across the street may seem normal, you only see the surface.
Have you ever had a dream where you were being chased? In this dream, were you being pursued by a faceless monster? Or perhaps you were being stalked by a familiar presence in the waking world?
Written and directed by Jon Watts with co-writer Christopher Ford back in 2014, Clown has been in the offing for some time now. Originally conceived in 2010 as a fake trailer for a forthcoming feature attraction fictively produced by contemporary horror genre guru Eli Roth, Watts’ first feature length production is a mixed bag. Blending various elements of body horror with the basic thematic structure of a domestic comedy, Clown is more silly than it is scary.
The title of horror anthology Southbound implies a deep sojourn into racist, redneck Americana, locked and loaded under a blood red, lone star. This is a Democrat’s version of hell, ruled by Donald Trump’s tentacles and all of his Republican demons, suckered into building a never ending wall between America and the rest of the world. Southbound suggests a one-way ticket to Hades, but its various characters are still on their terrifying journeys, clutching desperately to their ever diminishing morality.
‘So Bad They’re Good’ movies are a thing now. Movie list websites are awash with them. Troll 2 is often the high-watermark, and it appears that most of these no-budget horrors tend to be of American origin.
You may not know her by name, but you’ve definitely seen her face and are familiar with her work. She’s been on your small screen and silver screen starring along side Angelina Jolie, Christina Ricci, Zachary Quinto, and Natasha Lyonne to name a few. She may not look as glamorous as your traditional Hollywood starlet and she doesn’t often play the leading role, but Clea DuVall’s natural beauty and talent first grabbed my attention about fifteen years ago on a day I vividly remember.