Won’t You Be My Horror Movie?
Home-viewing fright films for Valentine’s Day with the loving Cupid seal of approval.
Cash on Demand
For all of Hammer’s reliance on its tried-and-true monsters, the studio did a fair amount of foraying. Hammer horror could take myriad forms beyond the familiar Dracula, Frankenstein, and Mummy pictures.
Silent Night, Bloody Night
No one who made 1972’s Silent Night, Bloody Night had much of a clue what the story was supposed to be, which sounds like a massive impediment, but it’s all good here in what is tantamount to a progression of darkening images and moods spun around the bare bones of an early Christmas slasher with haunted-house elements.
Silent Night, Deadly Night
In theory—well, maybe—one is not supposed to laugh while watching the events of Silent Night, Deadly Night (1984) unfold, but damn does this feel cathartic and mirth-inducing.
Black Christmas
There are horror movies in which Christmas is present, as if incidentally, and there are horror movies in which Christmas is the crux.
The Devil-Doll
Well, here we have quite the farrago: Tod Browning’s penultimate film, Lionel Barrymore in drag, enslavement, telekinesis, paralysis, skin-slicing, an explosion, Christmas, romance, and what’s tantamount to heartwarming horror.
The House in Marsh Road
We speak of unreliable narrators, but what of an unreliable film? That is, a movie that purports to tell one story but may in truth be telling another. Can such a film be worth seeking out for reasons outside the purview of its own intentions?
Revenge of the Creature
There are three prevailing mindsets behind horror-movie sequels. The most typical goes something like, “We can squeeze out some more bucks here and don’t need to put a lot of thought into anything.”
The Gorgon
To love Hammer horror films is to love the look of them and probably also have an abiding affection for the fall, given that it always seems to be autumn in the world of Hammer.
Invaders from Mars
The rub for makers of American movie horror through the bulk of the 1950s was to make sure that their scares were couched in science fiction.