October 6, 2017 – Dig THIS, baby: Chillerpop can’t get behind any dull square that doesn’t love Hammer Films production of Dracula A.D. 1972! Yes, the movie is already dated at 1972. Swingin’ London, per “the Internet” was done by 1970.
October 5, 2017 – I fondly remember the days when major movie releases would have tie-in novels. They helped make the film, its logos, its marketing campaign, ubiquitous in bookstores and supermarket racks. That didn’t register as obnoxious branding to me then (it may now). If nothing else, they encouraged reading, especially for the kids who claimed they didn’t like to do it. The tough knucklehead rednecks that would pick on me for reading Narnia in 6th grade could be seen with the paperback novelizations of horror and action movies when we had those MS book pledge drives. Continue reading
October 4, 2017 – Plot: Secure within a desolate home as an unnatural threat terrorizes the world, the tenuous domestic order he has established with his wife and son is put to the ultimate test with the arrival of a desperate young family seeking refuge. Despite the best intentions of both families, paranoia and mistrust boil over as the horrors outside creep ever-closer, awakening something hidden and monstrous within him as he learns that the protection of his family comes at the cost of his soul. (Synopsis by imdb.com writer A24) Continue reading
October 3, 2017 – Plot: When police officer Carter (Aaron Poole) discovers a blood-soaked man limping down a deserted road, he rushes him to a local hospital with a barebones, night shift staff. As cloaked, cult-like figures surround the building, the patients and staff inside start to turn ravenously insane. Trying to protect the survivors, Carter leads them into the depths of the hospital where they discover a gateway to immense evil. (Source: IMDb. Written by Prodigy PR).
As I often say, I’m horrible at plot recaps and here doubly so. Because what you have in this gem is a paper thin plot involving a crazed hooded killer cult (one that makes run of the mill cinematic devil worship look like a PTA bake sale), a hospital standoff, a quest for immortality, and spare but memorable hints of gruesome insane cosmic creatures to drive you right mad. Continue reading
October 2, 2017 – If horror or science fiction can serve as a touchstone for ‘the times’, then perhaps the Sharknado franchise speaks perfectly to our political climate; its latest chapter, Sharknado 5: Global Swarming, most of all. With an alternate subtitle “Make America Bait Again”, it is tacky, it is reality-TV fueled, and most importantly, it serves as a platform, or better yet a trade exchange, for the Coin of the Realm: celebrity and ‘relevancy.’
Continue reading
October 1, 2017 – This post was originally published October 1, 2013 and has been edited.
In his crisp narrative style, SA Bradley runs the horror movie-devoted podcast Hellbent for Horror. Listening to it is indeed a pleasure. SA has introduced a number of key concepts for those of us who study and discuss horror fiction. One of these is “The First Kiss” – that first movie or piece of fiction which introduced you to horror and has left you a helpless addict. Continue reading
31
Written and directed by Rob Zombie. Starring Sheri Moon Zombie, Jeff Daniel Phillips, Richard Brake, Meg Foster, Lawrence Wilton-Jacobs, Judy Geeson, Malcolm McDowell, Jane Carr, E.G. Daily.
(WARNING: MAJOR SPOILERS FOLLOW)
Plot: It’s Halloween, 1976, and a group of skeevy carnies are driving their van through the desert. After encountering a sinister roadblock and a gang of masked kidnapper-murderers, they awaken to find themselves in 31, a sadistic kill-or-be-killed game that pits its victims against inventively gruesome psychopathic clowns with motifs like ‘Sick-Head’, ‘Sex-Head’ and more.
Like the majority of his work, Rob Zombie’s “31” is an unrelentingly brutal Impressionist white trash nightmare. Meant to be an adrenaline-fueled gorefest, it’s actually haunting and thought provoking once you process it. Maybe it shares themes with other films about death games and gladiatorial combat, but it’s spiritual parent is definitely “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.”
Chillerpop 