5 Ways “Horrible Horror” Helped Mold Me In To a Horror Fan

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My family and I didn’t get cable until Halloween of 1994, so I spent a lot of those early years catching horror movies the old fashioned way. This was before streaming, the internet, and cable, so often times my horror education came from whatever edited horror movies were playing on network TV, what ever horror movie my mom allowed us to see in theaters, and of course, my mom’s VHS horror collection.

“Horrible Horror” was purchased by her in the late eighties, as back then a lot of stores sold VHS movies. I fondly remember visiting my local cashier and looking at the gallery of boxes they had on display in their windows to alert customers that they were selling VHS movies. And as with every trip that involved stumbling upon a store selling VHS, my mom always zipped to the horror section or would scramble to find a horror movie she loved or hadn’t owned. “Horrible Horror” was one of the many gems she’d picked out for herself out of sheer curiosity. And it eventually earned its place in my household as a favorite of mine, and my brother’s.

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Tickle (2014)

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Corey Norman’s “Tickle” watches a lot like an episode of “Tales from the Darkside.” It seeps with eighties aesthetic, unfolds like a classic campfire tale, and has a great novelty about it that will go over well with horror fans. It’s also a hell of a good Halloween yarn that I expect will really click with fans of the holiday.

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Waterborne (2014)

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This is how the world ends. Not with a bang, but a zombie kangaroo. Ryan Coonan’s short horror film is the prologue of a bonafide zombie apocalypse (and feature film currently in development), all thanks to a contaminated water hole in the outback. Set in Australia, a local park ranger proceeds to take samples from a water hole, despite the resistance of a local who insists that he’s creating an unnecessary hysteria with his testing.

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Army of Darkness (1992): Collector’s Edition [Blu-Ray]

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Typical of Sam Raimi, his “Evil Dead” series managed to become so much more insane and wacky the more it progressed. If “Dead By Dawn” wasn’t an indicator that he’d embraced the overall sheer chaos and insanity of Ashley Williams battling demons from another dimension, “Army of Darkness” dives head first, transforming Ashley’s newest misadventure in to something of an action horror movie with a stern tongue in cheek. While Raimi does inject his share of humor, though, “Army of Darkness” retains its essence, never once reducing the concept of the series in to an embarrassment.

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The ‘Burbs (1989)

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There’s just something about Joe Dante in where he loves to shake up American middle class. We have suburbanites fighting killer gremlins, suburbanites fighting killer toys, suburbanites fighting werewolves, and now suburbanites basically turning on one another. “The Burbs” watches like something of a sick mid-quel of “Rear Window” and “The Trouble with Harry” in where the mundane is flipped on its head and transformed in to a veritable nightmare for a bunch of neighbors in a seemingly small cul de sac.

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The Flintstones Meet Rockula and Frankenstone (1979)

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I fondly remember renting “Meet Rockula and Frankenstone” quite often from our local videos store when I was a kid, and thankfully the movie genuinely holds up. Like all great comedy series, the Flintstones have had their share of crossovers, and this time they have the misfortune of meeting Dracula and Frankenstone. Or their stone age counterparts, as it were. While it’s not raucously funny as when Abbot and Costello met them, it’s a darn good short movie with the Flintstones doing what they do best.

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Aladdin (1992): Diamond Edition [Blu-ray/DVD/Digital]

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If there was ever a testament to the magic of Robin Williams, it’s in his portrayal of Genie from “Aladdin.” The friendly Genie has been something of a pop culture facet for decades before “Aladdin,” and what could have been a stock character is transformed in to one of the most inadvertent heroes of all time. That’s mainly because Williams instills a humanity and charm in the magical being that’s impossible to recapture. Even a brilliant voice actor like Dan Castellaneta never reached that pitch that Williams did with his turn as the Genie. Though Aladdin is often depicted as the hero of the “Aladdin,” it’s the genie that’s mainly the hero, because he doesn’t just help Aladdin, but he also keeps him on the straight and narrow, devising ways to prevent the magic of the lamp from corrupting the character.

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