Directed by Steven Spielberg, Jaws was released on June 20, 1975, and the story of its immense critical and popular success doesn’t need to be rehearsed here. Suffice it to say that not since Alfred Hitchcock’s 1960 film Psycho had a film so terrified audiences. On every count, Jaws is a masterpiece. This summer marks […]
Today is a symbiotic day for me to write this piece. I spent the day traveling to Virginia and, as I drove further and further south, I had flashbacks to scenes from Wrong Turn (2003) and Jeepers Creepers (2001). At one point I was certain that I drove past the exact point where Darry (Justin […]
Although Shark Week gets all the good press, this post is about shark’s horror film sibling, the equally disturbing crocodile. In fact, crocodiles may be even more disturbing than the shark: reptiles not fish, they can terrorize on land as well as sea (and river and lake!). Australia has demonstrated that it rules the domain […]
Last week we took a look at how the Legion of Decency’s strict moral code caused horror filmmakers to get creative in their depictions of queerness. This week we are looking at how coding in a film works. Dracula’s Daughter (1936) traces the struggle of Hungarian Countess Marya Zaleska who, upon learning of the death […]
As a genre known for pushing the boundaries of good taste, horror films occupy a unique position within American cinema. Because horror triggers an emotional response in audiences via the presentation of scenes meant to revile and offend, what is deemed to be horrific is largely dependent upon the time in which a film is […]
As part of a series of posts on the relatively neglected horror films of the 1950s, I want to begin with The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, directed by Eugène Lourié, and released in 1953 by Warner Brothers Studios. It was the first of the “monster” films that have come to define the decade—before Godzilla, before […]
Friday the 13th (Sean S. Cunningham, 1980) famously culminates with the Final Girl, Alice (Adrienne King), decapitating Pamela Vorhees (Betsy Palmer). Although she survives the first round of carnage at “Camp Blood,” Alice’s luck runs out as Friday the 13th, Part 2 (Steve Miner, 1981) begins. Still traumatized, she lives only long enough to see […]
Horror has always been interwoven with science—ever since Professor Van Helsing in Dracula (Tod Browning, 1931) asserted (about vampirism) that the “superstition of yesterday can become the scientific reality of today.” So it’s no surprise that the recent spate of woolly mammoth carcasses, emerging from thawing permafrost mostly in Siberia, should coincide with the appearance […]
Released in 2010, Paranormal Activity 2 provides a prologue of sorts to the horror that was portrayed in the first film. I chose the second installment of this franchise to rewatch because it best lays out the mythology of the film as well as providing far more character development that what we saw in the […]