Why is Freddy Krueger scary? And yes, that’s a serious question. There are obvious reasons, like the burned face, the knife fingers, and his hideous fashion sense, but what’s at his core that makes him terrifying? Like some of horror’s best creations, Freddy is a byproduct of secrets. He’s the untold truth that people kept […]
The post ‘A Nightmare on Elm Street’ at 40: Wes Craven’s Cautionary Tale About Ignoring the Past appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.
There’s something funny about Thanksgiving. And yes, that goes beyond the very intentional comedy that comes from watching copious amounts of blood spill from the human body in ways that defy nature and gravity. Eli Roth’s latest pulls a magic trick that genre stalwarts like George A. Romero, Tobe Hooper, or John Carpenter pulled on […]
The post Smart Grindhouse: How ‘Thanksgiving’ Reminds the World that Slashers Have Brains Too appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.
A sexual encounter between two teenagers turns into a bloodbath with one or both of them no longer amongst the living. A few friends passing the dutchie discover how hazardous smoking is for your health when a maniac with a crossbow turns their bodies into compost. And so on, and so on. Horror films traffic […]
The post Generational Sins: The True Horror of “The Fall of the House of Usher” appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.
Horror often asks for a lot of empathy and understanding from its audience. It begs us not to roll our eyes when someone drops a weapon that might give them the upper hand or when they run upstairs and not out the perfectly safe backdoor. Some films, like The Strangers or Night of the Living […]
The post How ‘Talk to Me’ Adds Depth to Horror Clichés Through Loss and Loneliness appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.
Kevin Williamson built his career on peeking behind the curtain and breaking the rules. Scream deconstructed everything we thought we knew about horror films. So many imitators followed that the meta-horror movie sometimes feels like its own subgenre. Williamson understands why rules exist but knows that breaking them isn’t just fun but necessary for the […]
The post ‘Sick’ – How Kevin Williamson Redefines the Final Girl (Again) appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.
“Just don’t look.” Those three words mean many things to horror fans when put together in a short but sweet sentence. We utter the phrase when watching our favorite movies with someone squeamish. It’s sometimes what we tell ourselves when something gruesome is happening on screen as we play peek-a-boo from behind our fingers. And […]
The post “Just Don’t Look”: Jordan Peele’s ‘Nope’, “Treehouse of Horror” and Fandom in the Internet Age appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.
Obsession is weird, right? Taken too far in one direction, it creates dogged saviors. But too far in the other way breeds psychos and killers. Like Alfred Hitchcock, Scott Derrickson seems intimately curious about people driven by their inability to let things go. Ethan Hawke plays two sides of this coin, first in Sinister and […]
The post ‘Sinister’, ‘The Black Phone’ and the Horror of Obsession appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.
Wise people say the worst pain for a parent is burying a child. Hard to disagree with that statement, but the opposite is no picnic either. A child losing a parent at an early age changes their psychology and emotional makeup. Bruce Wayne is perhaps pop culture’s best—and worst—example of the trauma of burying a […]
The post How ‘The Batman’ Explores the Horror of Living with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.
I walked out of Scream with a smile on my face. And no, it’s not because I get my jollies from watching teenagers and otherwise competent adults get sliced and diced by a maniac in a mask. Scream successfully reinvents the franchise and is the most audacious entry in the series to date. Rather than […]
The post How ‘Scream’ Boldly Gives a Middle Finger to Toxic Fandom [Spoilers] appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.
I walked out of Scream with a smile on my face. And no, it’s not because I get my jollies from watching teenagers and otherwise competent adults get sliced and diced by a maniac in a mask. Scream successfully reinvents the franchise and is the most audacious entry in the series to date. Rather than […]
The post How ‘Scream’ Boldly Gives a Middle Finger to Toxic Fandom [Spoilers] appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.
Paranormal Activity: Next of Kin isn’t a complete movie. With the smoke cleared—literally—and the cops on the scene at this little farm in the middle of Amish country, a character we recognize emerges from the devastation, kills the officers using demon power, steals their car, and heads toward civilization to wreak demonic havoc. One of […]
The scariest scene in Halloween doesn’t involve a knife or a gruesome death. In fact, the most terrifying scene in the movie doesn’t even involve Michael Myers. John Carpenter’s 1978 classic about the boogeyman come to life explores the nature of evil in an ordinary town where gunshots triggered track meets, not sirens. Haddonfield, Illinois […]
When it comes to race and “uncomfortable conversations,” Nia DaCosta is out of fucks to give. Before most of us hit grade school, we’re taught to fear the boogeyman and other things that go bump in the night, but DaCosta violently disagrees. For her, the scariest things are the trauma, cultural appropriation, and lack of […]
A woman fearful she’ll lose all she holds near and dear. A man with a knife or an ax or a couple of lacerating words as his weapon. That’s usually how most horror flicks start. The woman runs for dear life only to not run fast enough. The killer catches her; cue the opening title […]