Lake Mundo (dir. Joel Anderson, 2008) The car stalled on the way back from the dam. The only gear I could get it into was reverse. So we drove back to town in reverse. Russell Palmer (David Pledger), whose sixteen year old daughter Alice (Talia Zucker) drowned at that dam, tells the interviewer this in … Continue reading Lake Mungo (2008)

Hell House LLC (dir. Stephen Cognetti, 2015) An unknown disaster at a haunted house attraction in an abandoned hotel in the unfortunately named town of Abbadon, New York, claims the lives of 15 people in October 2009. Five years later a documentary team is determined to solve the mystery of these deaths. One of the … Continue reading Hell House LLC (2015)

The Hunger (dir. Tony Scott, 1983) Opening with Bauhaus performing ‘Bela Lugosi’s Dead’ before cutting to Catherine Deneuve and David Bowie seducing a pair of club patrons to their Manhattan home, killing and feeding on them, Tony Scott’s debut feature The Hunger shows much promise, which unfortunately I do not believe it delivers on. It’s … Continue reading The Hunger (1983)

Blood Feast (dir. Herschell Gordon Lewis, 1963) Two Thousand Maniacs (dir. Herschell Gordon Lewis, 1964) Color Me Blood Red (dir. Herschell Gordon Lewis, 1965) The Gruesome Twosome (dir. Herschell Gordon Lewis, 1967) The Wizard of Gore (dir. Herschell Gordon Lewis, 1970) The Gore Gore Girls (dir. Herschell Gordon Lewis, 1972) Herschell Gordon Lewis: The Godfather … Continue reading A Herschell Gordon Lewis Retrospective

Session 9 (dir. Brad Anderson) Jeff: What’s your point? Henry:  Just have an exit plan, dude. You stick with this job too long, it’ll mess you up, man. It gets inside you—the stress. A team of contractors are hired to remove asbestos from an abandoned psychiatric hospital in Massachusetts. Things get worse from there. It’s a simple premise, … Continue reading Session 9

The Shining (dir. Stanley Kubrick, 1980) When The Shining was released in 1980, the critical response was muted, even cool. It’s a little difficult for me to understand this considering both my overwhelming fondness for the film and its place in the cinematic canon. The mixed or negative reviews tend to focus on what they … Continue reading The Shining (1980)

The Uninvited (dir. Lewis Allen, 1944) Siblings Roderick and Pamela Fitzgerald (Ray Milland and Ruth Hussey) purchase an oceanside estate called Windward House from Commander Beech (Donald Crisp). This upsets his granddaughter Stella (Gail Russell), because her mother, the Commander’s daughter, Mary Meredith, died there. Strange happenings are afoot at Windward House, because it is … Continue reading The Uninvited (1944)

Ginger Snaps (dir. John Fawcett, 2000) Ginger Snaps 2: Unleashed (dir. Brett Leonard, 2004) Ginger Snaps Back: The Beginning (dir. Grant Harvey, 2004) “What? I’m menstruating.” 20th Century Women “She’s ovulating!” Ginger Snaps Teenage sisters Brigitte and Ginger Fitzgerald (Emily Perkins and Katharine Isabelle) are obsessed with death, staging and filming their own demises in … Continue reading The Ginger Snaps Series

Venom (dir. Piers Haggard, 1981) No, not the comic book movie with the virtuosic dual performance by Tom Hardy as a loser reporter and a loser alien symbiote falling in love with each other, but instead the British horror thriller in which a kidnapping is disrupted by a deadly snake that a pet store has … Continue reading Venom (1981)

Killer Klowns from Outer Space (dir. Stephen Chiodo, 1988) Say what you will about Killer Klowns from Outer Space, but unlike a certainly vaguely titled novel by Stephen King, this movie plainly announces what it is. It’s not good and often willfully stupid, but it has no pretensions to greater meaning. No examination of the … Continue reading Killer Klowns from Outer Space