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Reviews
Halloween (2018)
Doesn't Work
Halloween (2018) disregards all the films in the franchise but the first and fashions itself as the first official sequel, desperate to recapture the magic and the terror of that classic film. It's ironic that it falls into many of the same traps as the sequels they're ignoring. Laurie Strode is now a twice divorced, deadbeat mother whose obsession with Michael Myers has destroyed every relationship in her life. Oddly enough, the filmmakers do very little with this very dramatic and conflict-friendly material and focus instead on throwing in one too many homages and references to the films that have come before it in between scenes of Michael Myers killing a bunch of personality-free residents of Haddonfield.
Halloween (1978)
A Perfect Horror Film
John Carpenter and Debra Hill understand that simplicity and mystery are the fastest ways to get an audience to bite their nails in terror and they exploit this beautifully in Halloween. It's a simple story of a young boy who murders his sister on Halloween night and returns to the small town to stalk babysitters after breaking out of the asylum where he'd been for the past 15 years. Gorgeous and atmospheric camerawork, solid performances, and well-timed shocks that build in intensity throughout the film are some of the many reasons Halloween still impresses and terrifies to this day.
My Bloody Valentine (1981)
Cancel the Valentine's Dance!
One of the goriest and most spirited slashers of that early 80's lot with extra attention to atmosphere and characterization than most. A miner thought to have gone insane after surviving a mine explosion goes on a murderous rampage before disappearing into the night and returning years later when the town decides to celebrate Valentine's Day for the first time since the massacre. The effects are memorably gruesome and the miner is a terrifying and menacing antagonist.
In the Mouth of Madness (1994)
Soaked With Dread
An imaginative John Carpenter horror tale about a mysterious and reclusive horror author whose latest book is driving those who read it absolutely mad and could be bringing on the end of the world. It's up to Sam Neill to get to the bottom of it.
The Burning (1981)
Cropsey Chops
A better put together slasher than most with some nice photography, suspense, and excellent effects work from Tom Savini. It's your usual revenge tale involving a caretaker who returns to the camp where several children disfigured him many years ago. With his trust garden shears, he begins trimming down the camp's population one by one. In one memorable scene, he takes out a half dozen of them in the span of 30 gruesome seconds.
Black Christmas (1974)
The Definitive Christmas Horror Film
No other Christmas-themed horror film has come close to holding a candle to the terror found inside of Black Christmas. The story seems simple - sorority girls terrorized by an unseen killer over the Christmas break - but it uses its simplicity to its advantage. It's low budget, grainy, and unassuming, but it's got excellent characters, great performances, suspense, and a grimly downbeat atmosphere that sums up why 70s horror was so unique and frightening.
Prince of Darkness (1987)
Lots of Scares
Though the script has the tendency to meander during long moments of philosophical monologues about evil, Prince of Darkness knows how to conjure up one scary atmosphere. It's a chamber piece with a small cast and one main location, not unlike Night of the Living Dead. Just like in that film, the main characters find themselves trapped by a sea of zombie-like ghouls who have surrounded them outside. This features some of John Carpenter's most innovative effects and jump-worthy scares.
Carrie (1976)
Moving and Creepy Classic
A perfect horror/drama featuring career-best performances from Sissy Spacek as the title character and Piper Laurie as her deranged religious mother who believes her daughter is going to hell for having her first period in gym class. While supernatural, Carrie's scariest scenes involve the everyday horrors of bullying, family abuse, first loves, crushes, and other teen angst terrors. Director Brian De Palma knows how to wring suspense out of a stone.
Paura nella città dei morti viventi (1980)
A Real Gore Fest
Gore-soaked and atmospheric like most of Lucio Fulci's films, but it's best to turn off your brain while watching it. Nothing makes a lot of sense, but the Fulci throws enough blood, guts, and off the wall set pieces at us to distract us from that and he usually succeeds.
Inferno (1980)
Eerie and Dreamlike
Possibly the most Argento-esque of all his work. It has all the visual splendor the director is known for, all the gore, the bright colors, the strange WTF moments, and the great musical scores. Unfortunately, it's also one of his most bizarre scripts with an incredibly uninteresting lead character that bogs the film down.
The Fog (1980)
Cozy Carpenter Classic
John Carpenter's moody follow up to Halloween shares very little with that film besides some great scope cinematography and another one of Carpenter's excellent music scores. Instead, The Fog focuses on more supernatural chills as a town's sordid history comes back with a vengeance in the shape of water-logged ghouls who carve up anyone who answers their door during a fog outbreak. All all-star cast helps sell the inherently silly premise.
Profondo rosso (1975)
One of Argento's Finest Works
One of Dario Argento's most engrossing mysteries follows a pianist in Italy who has to solve the murder of a psychic who outed a murderer in her audience during a reading. In typical Argento fashion, the film is beautifully shot and the murder scenes are disturbingly graphic, but the script is smarter than usual and the characters are somewhat interesting.
Sleepaway Camp (1983)
Excellent 80's Sleaze
A film stuffed full of do many "I bet they couldn't get away with that these days" moments that it seems like the filmmakers were making a bet with someone to see how outrageous one of these 80's slasher films could get. It's the tried and tested old "psycho runs around a summer camp hacking up teenagers" film with an undercurrent of psychosexual tension and lots of camp value due to the over the top performances and delicious dialogue.
Men (2022)
Well Shot, But Confusing
A beautifully photographed and narratively obtuse horror/thriller centering on a woman who drives to an isolated village to heal from the trauma of her abusive husband's recent suicide and gets tormented by every single man in the village. Performances are excellent and the mood is on point, but it gets repetitive, especially once you discover the filmmakers have no intention in telling you what's actually going on.
Curfew (1989)
Almost As Low As You Can Go
A dull home invasion thriller with only the novelty of featuring Halloween star and current Real Housewife Kyle Richards in one of her few adult roles. She's given little to do here and comes across better than some, but the story is repetitive and the two lead psychopaths seem to be trying and failing at trying to be funny. There's never a lot of urgency or suspense and characters behave in the dumbest ways imaginable.
The Night God Screamed (1971)
Where's the DVD or Blu-ray?
A forgotten suspense yarn about the wife of a murdered preacher who gets terrorized by the murderer's bloodthirsty followers while babysitting. A solid babysitter-in-jeopardy thriller that predates Halloween by several years and features a scary cult of Manson-esque cultists as the lead antagonists and a middle aged heroine at the center of the story.
...E tu vivrai nel terrore! L'aldilà (1981)
Gorgeous Nightmare
Besides a sliver of a story, there's not much more to The Beyond that a selection of beautifully composed and lit tableaus of gore and special makeup effects. It's entertaining, but there's not a lot of meat to hang on to. It's probably best to go into this one expecting a shiny surface but little else.
Next of Kin (1982)
Very, Very Slow
I'm all for a slow burn, but Next of Kin might test the patience of anyone. It takes an awfully long time to get going and, by the time it does, the film is almost over. It's still a well shot and well made horror film, but it's a little too lethargic for its own good at times.
Mil gritos tiene la noche (1982)
A True Splatter Classic
One of the nastiest and goriest horror films ever made and an almost textbook definition of what a slasher film is. It's well shot, but the writing and most of the acting are so inept that you won't be able to take any of it seriously.
Just Before Dawn (1981)
More Deliverance, Less Friday the 13th
Though it seems billed as your average young adult body count film, it has much more in common with something like Deliverance. The scares are never of the jump scare variety and though it does have a bit of gore, it's not a gore fest at all. It's all about dread and mood and all the better for it.
Alligator (1980)
Chamring Creature on the Loose Movie
In spite of budget issues, Alligator gets the job done rather well and with a much welcome sense of humor considering the story it's trying to get us to digest. Robert Forester is a likable and easy to root for leading man and the effects are very good.
There Was a Little Girl (1981)
Gorgeously Shot Slasher
This Italian-produced but American-lensed slasher run amok movie is better produced than most with some very nice lighting and camera work even if the story is shlocky and the pacing gets saggy towards the middle. There are still enough well-executed shocks to make it worth your while.
Hospital Massacre (1981)
Suspects Everywhere!
Playboy playmate, Barbi Benton gets checked into the world's weirdest hospital where it seems like every nurse, doctor, and orderly wants to either undress her with their eyes or murder her. And that's just in between some of the oddly staged murder scenes that are never very suspenseful, but are memorably bizarre.
Mausoleum (1983)
Campy Cult Film
A woman gets possessed by a demon that's haunted her family for generations and she starts making people levitate in shopping malls, making cars explode, and murdering gardeners. The film is cheap and the story can be a bit hard to follow, but the effects are well done.
Rosso sangue (1981)
Eastman Goes Crazy Again
A spiritual successor to the cult hit Anthropophagus has that film's star, George Eastman, playing another crazed murderer who escapes from an asylum and terrorizes a babysitter and the kids she's looking after. The violence is creative and cruel even if there's not much to the story.