Matt
I've been obsessed with horror movies since I was two years old and staring wide-eyed at all the hypnotic VHS covers at the local video store.
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…
MONSTER MONTH: Here Wolf, There Wolf, Werewolf
The short but prolific werewolf cycle of the early ’80s gave us classics The Howling and An American Werewolf in London. Coming in under the radar is the underappreciated 1985 gem, SILVER BULLET, a fast-paced and immensely enjoyable monster thriller…
The New Scream Doesn’t Cut Deep
Warning: This post contains spoilers! By Frank Pittarese I went into the new Scream with low expectations, but wanting so badly to love it. It wasn’t the most necessary of sequels, but knowing that the original cast was returning was…
MONSTER MONTH: Canadian Parasites and Virgins for Dracula
You’ll never see a more slender and fragile Dracula than you will in the 1974 cult classic, BLOOD FOR DRACULA. With an absence of the fresh blood of virgins he needs in order to survive, a sickly Count Dracula (a…