Impulse is an Overlooked ’80s Chiller
When Jennifer (Meg Tilly), a young ballet dancer, receives a distressing phone call from her mother that results in an attempted suicide, Jennifer and her doctor boyfriend, Stuart (Tim Matheson), head back to her hometown to visit her family. Upon…
Return to Camp Blood: Part I
By Frank Pittarese More than Halloween and beyond Elm Street, the Friday the 13th franchise holds a very special place in my heart. I’ve seen this series more than any other horror staple, bought every film in every home media…
Occult TV: Kolchak, Dark Shadows, and Friday the 13th: The Series
By Frank Pittarese In the ‘70s and ‘80s, cults became a go-to source for villainy in episodic TV. Inspired by real-life events like the Manson Family attacks and the mass suicide at Jonestown, series ranging from Starsky & Hutch to…
Ti West’s The Sacrament is an Overlooked Gem
The Jonestown Massacre is the inspiration for the 2013 found footage thriller, THE SACRAMENT. In New York City, fashion photographer, Patrick (Kentucker Audley), receives a cryptic letter from his sister, Caroline (Amy Seimetz), a recovering drug addict. In the letter,…
Satanists, Witches, and Bloodthirsty Hippies
One of the better post-Exorcist Satanic chillers of the mid-70s is definitely 1975’s RACE WITH THE DEVIL. Sort of a hybrid car chase thriller and occult horror, the film focuses on friends and business partners, Frank (Warren Oates) and Roger…
Cultists and Folk Horror
This month I’m spending time on a subgenre that doesn’t get as much play as it used to: folk horror. While the success of Ari Aster’s Midsommar sparked a short-lived interest in the subgenre, these types of films are generally…
32 Years Later and Tremors is Still the Best Monster Movie Ever
There isn’t a more perfect monster movie than 1990’s TREMORS. In the small, geographically isolated town of Perfection Valley, just outside of the Sierra Nevada mountains, people and animals start turning up dead – not just dead, but torn to…
Made-for-TV Monster Movies
by Frank Pittarese The ‘70s were the golden age of made-for-TV horror. It was a decade that gave us The Night Stalker, Trilogy of Terror, and Steven Spielberg’s adrenaline-filled Duel. It was also prime-time for monsters, as seen in these…
Why “Bog” is the Best Worst Movie You’ve Never Seen
1979’s BOG is the type of movie Ed Wood would have made in the ’50s: a cheerfully inept little monster flick that’s so bad it’s heartwarmingly charming. While on a fishing excursion in the woods of rural Wisconsin, friends Chuck…