As with all lists, this is personal and nobody will agree with every choice – and if you do, that would be incredibly disturbing. It was almost impossible for me to rank them in order, but I tried and eventually gave up. Enjoy! **** 150: Session 9 Directed by Brad Anderson Written by Stephen Gevedon …
Few would argue against the original Chain Saw Massacre as being anything but a classic of the horror genre. Its influence lasted for decades afterwards, still reverberating today when horror movies opt for grimy, gritty, gross-out realism. With respect to the sequel, which was filmed and released a full 12 years later, the debate is still wide open. It has been equally lambasted and praised, sometimes for the very same reasons, such as not paying one iota of respect to the tone of the original.
When I was a kid, I used to love a scary movie. I remember catching the original The Haunting (1963) one night on Channel 9’s Million Dollar Movie when I was home alone. Before it was over, I had every light in the house on. When my mother got home she was screaming she’d been …
The original 1982 Poltergeist, directed by Tobe Hooper, opens with an apt image: an extreme close-up of a television set. Not only does the object prove pivotal to the film’s narrative, but the close proximity of the camera to the screen imbues the television with a strange, almost alien quality. Though it simply plays the national anthem over patriotic imagery, the signature sign-off for most TV stations in the 1980s, the close-up distorts the pictures and renders them wholly indeterminable. For a film that explores the dark unknowns that lie beneath the seemingly innocent and ordinary, Poltergeist certainly knows how to prime its audience for what’s to come.
When someone hears the title The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, they might just pass it off as just another inane slasher flick, but in fact Texas is much more; it’s a relentlessly agonizing, bleak masterpiece of horror cinema. Texas isn’t merely interested in scaring its audience; it’s an intelligent and visceral experience which examines the darker impulses found in people, a movie where unspeakably horrific acts take place mostly outside of the frame.
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre was at the time of its release a most unusual feature. Why the movie still resonates today though, why it still has such a strong cult following, and why it remains one of the genre’s greatest entries, is for many of the same reasons it was so groundbreaking in 1974.
Scream Factory has been doing an amazing job for a few years now with their amazing home releases of cult classics and lesser-known gems of the past few decades. With releases like From Beyond, Day of the Dead, The Howling, Darkman, Ginger Snaps, John Carpenter’s The Fog, Sleepaway Camp, The Town That Dreaded Sundown, and …
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre Directed by Tobe Hooper Written by Kim Henkel and Tobe Hooper 1974, USA When someone hears the title The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, they might just pass it off as just another inane slasher flick, but in fact Texas is much more; it’s a relentlessly agonizing, bleak masterpiece of horror cinema. …
Twisted Pictures, the production company behind the never-ending Saw series, is in talks with LIONSGATE to buy the movie rights to The Texas Chainsaw Massacre with plans to relaunch the series in 3D. Stephen Susco, a horror specialist who is most famous for penning the remake of The Grudge will write the script and Carl …
Body Count: Volume 12 Some of my earliest horror movie memories are in the early 80’s. I was a cartoon junkie like most kids my age and you know how it goes on any saturday morning. Or maybe you know how it used to go. Get up wicked early, pour a massive bowl of cereal …