LAURA KERN

is a writer, editor, and horror programmer based in New York. She is the editor of Bloodvine and her writing has appeared in publications such as The New York TimesFilm Comment, and Rolling Stone.

It’s been regularly cautioned that The Golden Glove isn’t for the faint of heart, and while that might be a fair assessment, such warnings may needlessly scare off potential admirers. Anyone going into a film depicting the inner workings...

November 23, 2023

An interesting piece of Australian horror history is that one of the first examples of the genre wasn’t meant to be a feature film at all. Night of Fear was originally intended as the pilot of a TV series called Fright, but was—not at all surprisingly...

November 23, 2023

Sébastien Marnier’s second feature may be cursed with a generic English title, but the film immediately dispels any semblance of the ordinary with one of the most attention-grabbing opening scenes in recent memory.

October 8, 2023

The influence of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein on motion pictures can be traced back to the early years of cinema, and reanimating the dead has since grown into one of horror’s most beloved staples.

August 18, 2023

The word alone induces twinges of dread and disgust: “influencer,” along with its evil siblings “vlogger,” “social media personality,” “YouTuber,” and “TikTok sensation,” have made our...

May 25, 2023

Quentin Dupieux’s singular brand of outlandish humor reaches gory new heights with Smoking Causes Coughing.

March 31, 2023

A stalker situation gone berserk; a cursed trailer home situated in the flat vastness of chilly, rural New Mexico; a provocative, post-coital admission of murder...

January 13, 2023

The Harbinger, the latest of Andy Mitton’s exquisitely heady—and horrifying—otherworldly explorations, is the only quarantine film we need.

December 5, 2022

With his cold, enigmatic handsomeness and piercing blue eyes, Ralph Fiennes was meant for villainy.

November 18, 2022

Suckers for crazy-ass voodoo curses that travel down female family bloodlines should delight in The Kiss, a film that got lost...

October 31, 2022

Legendary Amicus anthologies like Freddie Francis’s Tales from the Crypt (not to mention TV shows like The Twilight Zone, adopting...

October 31, 2022

After four canonical films and two offshoots, the indomitable series returns to glory with Prey.

August 17, 2022

Not just a key figure in the emergence of the J-horror movement, Kiyoshi Kurosawa is also a contender for the most important filmmaker in all of Japanese horror history.

July 15, 2022

Looking back on the experience of Darren Aronofsky’s divisive masterwork and questions of misogyny in horror from a world more surreal than the one we inhabited five years ago.

June 7, 2022

As The Innocents opens, a family of four are in the car headed to a new home. In the back seat sit two sisters: the lightly freckled Ida, her intense stare much older than her 9 years...

May 13, 2022

Audiences and filmmakers alike can’t seem to get enough of body horror. The Soskas went for it full-throttle with their 2019 remake of Cronenberg’s Rabid...

April 19, 2022

After a curiously cutesy opening-credits sequence featuring Murders in the Zoo’s cast members mirrored with similarly posed animals, a quick tonal shift occurs...

April 19, 2022

Coulrophobia—the fear of clowns—is no joke. Pennywise, that damn clown hiding under the bed in Poltergeist, and just good old trips to the local circus paired with a child’s dark...

April 19, 2022

Like the best fairy tales, which often portray darkness through the lens of childhood innocence, Laurín tells a dreamily surreal story of hardened youth.

March 17, 2022

Marriage and remarriage have forever been prominent motifs in the comedy genre. But with matrimonial success rates not exactly encouraging in much of the world...

March 14, 2022

While 1981’s My Bloody Valentine may rightfully be the go-to Valentine’s Day slasher for anti-romantics who prefer their gooeyness blood-soaked and sugar-free, Cannon Films...

February 14, 2022

In what could be the fastest-resulting rape-revenge scenario in horror-movie history, a drunken lout brutally forces himself on a young woman, Ida (Shay Garner)...

October 31, 2021

This rarity by the director of Logan’s Run and Orca may be one of the silliest slasher films ever made, but it’s also irresistible fun, both well-executed and rapidly paced.

October 31, 2021

With its theatrical origins—Piotr Rowicki’s play AdherenceDemon might be stagey in its limited setting, but there’s so much festering within that you’re hardly aware...

October 31, 2021

The close of the ’80s brought a consummate entry in that decade’s trash-horror cinema. Nightmare Beach takes a sex-comedy setting—spring break at Miami Beach...

October 31, 2021

The close of the ’80s brought a consummate entry in that decade’s trash-horror cinema. Nightmare Beach takes a sex-comedy setting—spring break at Miami Beach...

October 31, 2021

With its theatrical origins—Piotr Rowicki’s play AdherenceDemon might be stagey in its limited setting, but there’s so much festering within that you’re hardly aware...

October 31, 2021

Katie Small

is a writer, photographer, videographer, and cinephile living in Portland, Oregon.