Features
Why ‘I Know What You Did Last Summer’ Deserves Greater Acclaim
The 1990s gave us a lot of great films. From big studio releases like Silence of the Lambs, Candyman, and Jacob’s Ladder, to smaller, more obscure releases like Castle Freak, The Ugly, and Audi...
‘AHH! That’s What I Call Horror!’ Is the Distilled Essence of ‘90s Culture
What do I remember, specifically, about the ’90s? Hmm… I remember seeing a folder with artwork depicting a creepy bus driver and the words “Back to school” written on it at the...
Back to ‘Graveyard School’ With Nola Thacker: Series Creator Discusses How ‘Buffy’ Served as Inspiration for the Series
The 1990s saw a wave of horror titles aimed at young adult readers being released in the wake of R.L. Stine’s Goosebumps. One of the most versatile and endearing was Graveyard School. Written b...
How Alien Raised the Bar for Visuals in Horror
Throughout most of the 1970s, horror was very focused on realism. There was a transition period in the previous decade that moved the genre away from the Gothic Hammer films, truly cementing horror in...
Why All Directors Doing Genre Throwbacks Need to Study The Guest
I’ve been a fan of Adam Wingard since I first saw A Horrible Way to Die. I had no idea what to expect from that film, but the character work really impressed me. The buzz for You’re Next...
Why Werner Herzog’s ‘Nosferatu’ is Actually the Better Movie
F.W. Murnau’s Nosferatu is a masterpiece of silent cinema. It’s one of the all-time great horror films. While it did not get the rights to the characters of the novel Dracula from the St...
In the Mouth of Madness is a Tragically Underrated Meta Horror
Scream and Wes Craven’s New Nightmare are widely regarded as the two movies that kicked off meta-horror in the 1990s. Both were, in their own way, deconstructions of the genre. But despite havi...
How ‘Poltergeist’ Destroyed the American Dream (And Why That’s Great)
Filmmakers in the 1980s had a serious obsession with the American dream. Part of it, I think, was due to the fetish-like obsession with ‘50s Americana. People wanted a very Norman Rockwell view...
The Boy Who Lived: What Makes Tommy Jarvis a Fan-Favorite Horror Hero
Michael Myers has Doctor Loomis. Freddy Krueger has Nancy Thompson. And Jason Voorhees has Tommy Jarvis. The difference here is that while most heroes originate in the same film as the villain, we don...