Terror on Wheels: Playing ‘Road Games’ Over 40 Years Later

Richard Franklin has been called “The Australian Hitchcock” and 1981’s Road Games is the movie that earned him that title. Unlike many of his contemporaries, however, Franklin did not particularly emulate Hitchcock’s visual style. Instead, he learned how to structure a story and effectively build a sense of dread from the Master of Suspense. He […]

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Mutants and Mind Control: Revisiting ‘Invaders from Mars’ at 70

Flying saucers and alien invasion movies were the trend in the 1950s. UFO sightings in Washington State in 1947 and the famous crash near Roswell, New Mexico in 1948 had ignited a fever for all things alien. The movies soon followed the public interest with films like The Thing from Another World (1951), The Day […]

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Dear Fellow: Remembering Peter Cushing on the Late Horror Legend’s 110th Birthday

Considering his future fame playing a certain Baron, it is an amusing coincidence that Peter Cushing’s very first job in the movies was under the direction of James Whale, director of the classic 1931 Frankenstein, as a double for star Louis Hayward in The Man in the Iron Mask (1939). Hayward played twins in the […]

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The Beast and the Angel: The Surprising Biblical Imagery of ‘Terrifier 2′

When Terrifier 2 was released in theaters, much of the conversation surrounding it was devoted to its gruesome practical effects, insane levels of violence and gore, and audience reactions that included vomiting and fainting on a level not reported since the release of The Exorcist nearly fifty years before. It was being sold as a […]

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Dracula Reborn: How Hammer’s ‘Horror of Dracula’ Redefined Vampires

By the middle of the 1950s, gothic horror was dead. Modern-set films dealing with nuclear war, radioactive fallout, and the Red Scare filled American theaters with giant bugs and body snatchers. England’s Hammer Studios was no different, releasing successful films like The Quatermass Xperiment (1955) and X the Unknown (1956), which were firmly rooted in […]

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The Fly-Eating Henchman: A Brief History of the ‘Renfield’ Character on the Big Screen

With the exception of the Count himself, Renfield is the most dynamic character in the Dracula story. Originally conceived as a madman in Dr. Seward’s sanitarium with a mysterious connection to his vampire overlord, Renfield has evolved with the ever-extending mythos that has arisen around Stoker’s original creation. Since the earliest Dracula films, the character […]

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The Eighth Wonder: Why ‘Kong’ is Still King 90 Years Later

A strong argument could be made for King Kong being the most influential movie ever made. Kong’s progeny includes Mighty Joe Young, The Creature from the Black Lagoon, Godzilla, Ray Harryhausen films, Star Wars, Jurassic Park, Lord of the Rings, Avatar, many of the character-driven stop motion creations of the past ninety years, and dozens […]

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‘Mad Love’ – This 1930s Body Horror Classic Pushed the Hays Code to Its Limits

No film of the Hays Code era revels in its own perversity quite like Mad Love (1935). Mad science, body horror, insanity, obsession, executions, gaslighting, sadomasochism—it’s all here and presented with unparalleled excellence of craft. Though it may seem tame compared to pre-Code fare like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931), Freaks, and Island of […]

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When Fiction Becomes Reality: How ‘Videodrome’ Is More Relevant Than Ever at 40

For many, Videodrome (1983) remains David Cronenberg’s signature film. It is not his most successful or necessarily even his best, but it does most thoroughly define the descriptor “Cronenbergian.” It is a distillation of many of the themes and motifs he would explore throughout his filmography. Along with The Fly (1986), it is perhaps his […]

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Fay Wray: A Tribute to the Original Scream Queen

Fay Wray began her autobiography On the Other Hand with an open letter to her most famous co-star. In it she said, “for more than half a century, you have been the most dominant figure in my public life. To speak of me is to think of you. To speak to me is often a […]

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Fear of the Dark: ‘Cat People’ and the Horrors of Repression

Two films made in 1941 led directly to the making of Cat People the following year, The Wolf Man and Citizen Kane. Kane had become a fiasco for RKO when newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst condemned the film as a thinly veiled attack against him. Ultimately it led to the ousting of studio head George […]

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The Best Horror Movies to Make You Rethink Your New Year’s Resolution

Every year around this time, millions express their desire to start anew. They set lofty goals and steel themselves with an unbreakable resolve to lose those stubborn extra pounds, break that bad habit, or learn that new skill. The determination to better themselves is unshakable. And then after a few weeks, most give up. Well, […]

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Horror Takes a Holiday: The Birth of Christmas Horror in 1972

These days it seems like Christmas and horror go together like hot cocoa and candy canes sharpened to a deadly point, but in the long history of film, this is a relatively recent development. Of course there are a few exceptions, but before 1972, it was a rarity to enjoy a vicious Christmas at the […]

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Monsters Among Us: Why ‘The Mummy’ Endures 90 Years Later

Following the release of Frankenstein, Boris Karloff, at nearly 45 years of age and having spent twenty years as a professional actor, became an overnight sensation. As the film was still raking in its rewards, Universal signed him to a star contract and immediately began searching for a property for him. As it turned out […]

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Gentleman Monster: Remembering Boris Karloff on His 135th Birthday

In his last great performance in Peter Bogdanovich’s debut film Targets (1968), Boris Karloff plays the aged and exasperated horror legend Byron Orlok. In a single line he sums up his entire career, at least as viewed by the public: “Marx Brothers make you laugh, Garbo makes you weep, Orlok makes you scream.” As with […]

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