Tough Films For The Rough Crowd

  Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead are known to the horror community for their films that deftly combine cosmic horror and deep emotions. Their films SPRING, RESOLUTION, and THE ENDLESS deliver sci-fi scares, as well as strong stories about the power of all kinds of love. Now they’ve been trusted…

    In the first edition of Calling All Cryptids, I examined Bobcat Goldthwait’s WILLOW CREEK, a film that attempts to stay true to Bigfoot lore while also creating an entertaining and scary found footage film. Now, I’m switching gears to Eduardo Sánchez’s EXISTS, another Bigfoot found footage film, which…

    We’ve all had ’em — those days when you go in to work and just feel like high-tailing it in the other direction, for reasons that are difficult to quantify as they are to ignore. Work — who the hell came up with this idea? Does anyone, on their…

          Jill “Sixx” Gevargizian made a big splash in the horror scene with her short film “Call Girl” in 2014, a two-hander that happened to star two very unique actors: Laurence R. Harvey (THE HUMAN CENTIPEDE II) and Tristan Risk (AMERICAN MARY, THE EDITOR). Since then…

    In the history of genre films, clowns have constituted some of the most recognizable and malevolent antagonists in the horror pantheon. It’s hard to believe that a figure that was once synonymous with joy and laughter is now instantly recognized as a character to fear. Everything from no-budget…

  In the early 20th century, Howard Phillips Lovecraft, or H.P. Lovecraft, was writing stories of cosmic horror, madness, and incomprehensible evil. He created a pantheon of monsters such as Cthulhu that lurk on the periphery of our understanding. His stories, that often reflect his poor racial politics, have terrified…

    John Carpenter grew up watching Westerns. One of his very first short films, THE RESURRECTION OF BILLY BRONCO, was inspired by them. And although known as a horror director, he’s really been making Westerns since the very beginning: ASSAULT ON PRECINCT 13, THEY LIVE, ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK/L.A.,…

        Rose Glass’s SAINT MAUD is a feature with the storytelling scope of a short film. That’s not necessarily a bad thing – many genre films thrive fully on a simple premise with little exploration into the backstories of its characters. 2015’s DARLING is such a film, tracing one…

    Starting in 1958 and continuing throughout the ’60s, England’s Hammer Studios–partnered with Warner Bros. in America — crafted a series of Gothic horror movies starring the old guard of monster royalty who had previously been the star characters of Universal’s scarepics in the ’30s and ’40s. Dracula and…

The Andy Muschietti-led adaptation of Stephen King’s It, first released in 2017 and now concluded with IT CHAPTER TWO, is a very high profile project that already achieved much—even before the final entry hits theaters. 2017’s IT is the highest grossing horror movie of all time. Combined with Stranger Things,…

  As a critic — particularly a critic of “underground” and/or “avant-garde” comics — sometimes you’re called upon to attempt to describe the utterly indescribable. This is a good thing — at the very least it expands one’s vocabulary, sometimes even one’s consciousness — but it’s by no means an easy…

    Welcome to Calling All Cryptids, a bi-weekly column where I’ll dive into a film about a legendary creature and examine just how true it is to its cryptid’s lore. For those unfamiliar with the word, “cryptid,” it is used to refer to creatures that exist through stories and…

    Anderson Cowan has spent the last couple of decades behind a radio panel. With GROUPERS, releasing in September, he was able to switch up the equipment. We spoke to the amiable media personality about transitioning into filmmaking.     Daily Grindhouse: Hey Anderson — before we get into…

  “I prayed that he would burn in hell. But in my heart, I knew that hell would not have him.”   I feel like there’s some unwritten rule somewhere that the fifth entry in the myriad horror franchises out there has to be the most polarizing titles in their…

    Oblique connections are a recurring theme in Conor Stechschulte‘s ongoing Generous Bosom graphic novel series, but the disparate threads that run parallel to each other in that multi-faceted narrative appear to be heading for some sort of convergence as the sure-to-be-big finale approaches; in his latest self-published standalone…

    The current political climate has many calling out both the disparities between and the cannibalizing effect of the rich on the poor. As such, the horror subgenre of variations on “The Most Dangerous Game” is evergreen and ever-growing. Directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett add another banger to…

    Ostensibly a sequel to her earlier, and justly well-received, The Song Of Aglaia, French cartoonist Anne Simon’s newly-released-in-English (and in color!) The Empress Cixtisis (originally published in 2014 under the title Cixtite Imperatrice) is something rather more than that, in actuality — I mean, yeah, Aglaia’s back and all, but she’s…

Mike Nelson and Kevin Murphy have been making fun of bad movies for over three decades as part of Mystery Science Theater 3000 and now RiffTrax. This August, Mike, Kevin and the gang are taking to the stage for a live riffing of the 1975 regional sci-fi flick, THE GIANT…

  The increase in globalization giving us an influx of foreign horror films to check out and enjoy at the price of a ticket or click of a mouse brings such light to my spooky little heart, especially when they’re done by directors and writers who put so much of…

        On the heels of a wildly successful set of screenings, and an award for Best On-Screen Kill at Cinepocalypse 2019,  for their short film Brutal Realty Inc., writer Joseph Mueller, director Erik Boccio, and principal actor London May sat down for a short roundtable about creating short…

    “In Mexico, even atheists are believers.” — BELZEBUTH.       When one thinks of Mexican horror, the immediate thought goes towards the work of Guillermo Del Toro, and understandably so; his work is iconic, masterful, and in many cases transcends genre entirely.   But wearing Del-Toro-shaped blinders…

  Set in a grim urban Chicago, MOLLYWOOD follows a modern-day Jack the Ripper serial killer who lures his victims from the club scene by promising to offer them high-end drugs. Micah Fitzgerald turns in an enigmatic performance as Chase, the mysterious killer, who cites religious motivation and a moral imperative…

            The first movie I ever remember scaring the crap out of me was POLTERGEIST (1982). This film was the first major mainstream haunted house film to frighten the pants off audiences in a wide release. The top-notch team of director Tobe Hooper (THE TEXAS CHAINSAW…

  James Gallanders (BRIDE OF CHUCKY, THE SKULLS II) makes a departure in the starring role in the sci-fi/thriller PROJECT ITHACA, written by first-time screenwriters Anthony Artibello and Kevin C. Bjerkness, and directed by Nicholas Humphries. Gallanders plays the straight man and leader in a claustrophobic ship filled with six…