I didn’t build my Canadian Summer of Blood schedule along regional lines – an oversight that I now regret – so any evidence I have is strictly anecdotal, but it’s beginning to seem to me that, despite the rich history of Canadian horror cinema, those French-Canadians didn’t really get into it very much. Indeed, following […]
Indisputably, Hello Mary Lou: Prom Night II is more batshit insane than Prom Night, though whether this inevitably means that it is “better” than Prom Night, or even more fun to watch than Prom Night, is a matter for the learnéd to discuss (for the record, though it is way more fun to watch). That […]
The byword of the Canadian Summer of Blood has been that there’s Just Something Special about Canadian horror filmmakers: even when their films are no “better” than the analogous United States productions, there’s some kind of increased sense of maturity and intelligence. That is, they are frequently shitty-ass slashers and all, but they are shitty-ass […]
Most people who discuss the 1982 horror film Humongous – already a small and self-selecting lot – typically do not have very admiring things to say about it. Frankly, it’s difficult to say why they should; the film is a pretty standard-issue slasher model film, and in fact much of the criticism that arrives at […]
From among the Video Nasties You tell me how I was supposed to pass this one up: 1982’s Visiting Hours is one of just two wholly Canadian-made films to make the British Department of Public Prosecution’s legendary Video Nasties list,* and the only one of those starring Canada’s favorite son, William Shatner. It’s catnip to […]
1981 – I have said before that it was the best year for slasher movies, and I see no reason not to go right ahead and say it again. It was the year of Friday the 13th, Part 2, probably the best entry in that unmatchably important, though confessedly poor franchise; it was the year […]
There is something irreducibly special about slasher films from the year 1980. It is the one totally innocent year of the genre: prior to that, there simply weren’t enough of them for it to register as a distinct genre instead of just a narrative skeleton that a few scattered horror films had employed to largely […]
The found footage horror movie, birthed by 1999’s The Blair Witch Project and thrust into the big time by 2008’s Cloverfield, burned itself out rather quickly, as will happen to a genre so cheap that you need neither a good idea nor talent to whip together something which enough damn fools will trudge out to […]
1974’s revolutionary, genre-defining horror masterpiece The Texas Chainsaw Massacre has inspired a small army of follow-ups and remakes and prequels, but shockingly, it’s taken 39 years for it to finally kick off a film that takes place in what is demonstrably and purposefully the exact same continuity, the confusingly-titled Texas Chainsaw 3D, though of course, […]
The Year of Blood comes to its glorious close at a time of rebirth and new promises: a time of resolving to be a better, more fulfilled person, and to do a better job hiding the bodies in the year to come. Happy New Year everyone, and thanks for coming along! Oh my god, guys, […]
With 1989’s Silent Night, Deadly Night III: Better Watch Out!, the Silent Night, Deadly Night franchise made a jump that was not uncommon for horror around the start of the ’90s: onto VHS. Usually, the shift in a series from theatrical releases, even very trifling, meaningless ones, over to direct-to-video productions is the clearest sign […]
In an ironic twist that could only be seen coming by everybody, the film with the extravagantly notorious reputation – the film that was protested right out of theaters in one of the few times such a trick actually worked for the morally outraged protestors – ended up generating so much interest that, instead of […]
