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A distant bell tolls. Three women in mourning attire watch as their men lift a coffin into its sepulchre. Cue the psychedelic rock track from Acanthus, a graveyard in silhouette and a smoke machine and you will quickly see why The Shiver of the Vampires (Le Frisson des Vampires, 1971) is unequivocally A Product Of Its Time. If you like frumpy velvet outfits, the long takes of 70s French horror…
Cinema has featured liminal spaces for decades. In Stanley Kubrick's The Shining (1980), every room, corridor, garden path -and arguably, the Overlook Hotel itself- exuded liminality. The empty subway tunnels in 2025's Exit 8 are another perfect example of the creepy nature of liminal spaces, as is the most recent Backrooms (2026), itself inspired by an almost decade-old internet creepypasta.…
“Having reached the end of my poor sinner’s life, my hair now white, I prepare to leave on this parchment my testimony as to the wondrous and terrible events I witnessed in my youth.” So opens Jean-Jaques Annaud’s The Name of the Rose (1986). The words are those of Adso of Melk, a minor character and novice to Franciscan friar William of Baskerville. As a child, watching it on lowly DVD, they…
During the second half of that decade of extravagant excesses that was the 1980s, the vampire film genre was riding a high wave. Cult classic Fright Night, released in 1985, singlehandedly revived interest in all things featuring the creatures of the night. The Lost Boys would premiere in the summer of 87, also to great public acclaim. And a short few months later, a low-budget movie from a then…
Back in the late 90s, Asian horror was virtually unknown to Western audiences. The few titles that did reach Europe and beyond were usually bootleg VHS copies with bad dubbing and even worse picture quality, perhaps contributing to an air of skepticism and a meh attitude towards Asian cinema. DVDs were still a novelty in those days. They had certainly not yet become as popular and commonplace as…
It all began with a giant ape It was in the distant days of 1933 when a young Canadian actress named Fay Wray became the object of contra-natura affection for a big ape. Wray, not yet 30 years of age, was tasked with appearing fainty while in the proximity of the forthcoming animal, and more importantly, to scream when Kong tried his moves on her. To scream a lot. Thus, Ms. Wray would unwittingly…
With the absolute dearth of 4K horror releases in the coming week, I have decided to use this week’s Back From the Dead slot for something a little more current. What’s the throwback, you ask? Well, the title says it all. So, the nominations for the Emmy Awards are out and Apple TV’s horror series Widow’s Bay is right up at the front of the pack with 19 nominations (only Hacks and The Pitt have…
Why are horror masks so scary? From Michael Myers and Ghostface to modern masked killers, discover the psychology of horror, the history behind horror movie masks, and why hidden faces continue to create some of cinema's most unforgettable horror villains. Explore the real reasons scary masks unsettle us and why they remain one of horror's most powerful symbols.
The devil is in the riff Horror cinema has been around a while. From Lon Chaney's early and silent forays into the genre back in the 1920s (who can forget the unmasking of the eponymous protagonist in Phantom of the Opera, portrayed by the Man of a Thousand Faces, Mr. Chaney himself), to Freddy Krueger, Michael Myers, and every creature, monster, and witch in between, the cinematic hall of fame is…
Fog washes through the screen. A camera tied to a board and worn around the neck for stability provides a low, smooth tracking POV (a shot that will later become know as Deadite-cam). Cut to a car with 5 happy-go-lucky twenty-somethings singing and following a map toward a remote cabin in the hills. The locals wave at them. They cross a rickety bridge. And there is the sense they will never be…
