Five More Underrated Horror Heroines

Posted on October 14, 2014 by Felix Vasquez

In 2012 we listed ten of our favorite Horror Heroines that we consider underrated. This year we thought we’d list five more very underrated horror heroines that risked life and limb for their family, or for a cause battling against a monster, demon, or some kind of alien. They’re gorgeous, strong, and prove you can be the final girl in a horror movie and not be at the mercy of pure evil. It’s really tough to find female characters in horror that are heroic and not just final girls. There’s a ton of final girls, but not many heroines, however we were able to find five we loved that also were conveniently enough, heroines until the very end.

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Werewolf Rising (2014) (DVD)

Posted on October 14, 2014 by Felix Vasquez

Director BC Furtney’s “Werewolf Rising” might be a decent werewolf horror film if it took its eighty minute run time and trimmed it down to forty five minutes. The rest of the thirty five minutes are nothing but padding, filler, and bad exposition that are meant to compensate for the obvious lack of narrative present. There is so much obvious padding that it actually becomes an endurance test, because while I was irritated at the script treading water, there is still so much here that could have become a great werewolf picture. Unlike most indie werewolf films, there is actually a good portion of werewolf action, with rampaging monsters, and transformations, and a chase through the woods, I just wish we’d seen more of that, and less people getting drunk in bars.

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The Digital Dead: Rise of the Zombies (2014)

Posted on October 14, 2014 by Felix Vasquez

I honestly have no idea what to make of “The Digital Dead,” other than it’s at least worth watching for experimental horror fans. It’s surreal, unusual, disjointed, and incredibly unfocused, and yet it seems like beneath the head scratching moments, director Wendell Cowart has ambition to create something interesting. With a bigger budget and more resources perhaps “The Digital Dead” may have been good, but as of now it looks incomplete, is woefully under developed, and really needs to trim twenty minutes to its run time. “The Digital Dead” is part slide show, part computer generated opening for a computer game of some kind, and part loose use of public domain.

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Dead Within (2014)

Posted on October 14, 2014 by Felix Vasquez

It’s always nice when a director is bold enough to take the zombie genre and try to transform it in to something completely unique. While “Dead Within” doesn’t re-invent the wheel, it’s definitely a gripping view of the aftermath of the zombie apocalypse. And I don’t speak particularly of the walking dead, so much as what happens when survivors have to live with one another and with the guilt and shock of the lengths they’ve gone through to survive. Is it worth surviving the end of the world if you aren’t really living? Can you really trust anyone once the world has resorted to the survival of the fittest? Can you justify murdering potential infected to your conscience? How do you outrun your fading sanity and crushing guilt when you’re stuck in a small room in dead silence?

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The Eidolon State (2014)

Posted on October 14, 2014 by Felix Vasquez

There are endless internet memes and faux urban legends out there, but the one that tends to spook me most is the Slender Man. It’s been established long ago it was all made up for a contest, but it’s managed to achieve fame simply because the character is so menacing. Maybe it’s the blank face, the enigmatic origins, or the tweed suit. Who knows? “The Eidolon State” is one of the many indie films tapping in to the fanbase, and directors Dion Cavallaro and Paul Thomas know how to build a very atmospheric horror film.

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Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948)

Posted on October 13, 2014 by Felix Vasquez

I honestly can’t think of a better film where the opposite spectrum of film come together so seamlessly, it’s absolutely flawless. Abbott and Costello were always that comedy pairing that could walk in to any situation and find themselves in peril, but teaming them with Universal monsters is a gamble. It’s one that thankfully pays off in to one of the funniest horror comedies of all time. While I tend to like “Hold that Ghost” a little more, “Meet Frankenstein” is spectacular just the same.

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My Boyfriend’s Back (1993)

Posted on October 13, 2014 by Felix Vasquez

It’s unusual how a film made in 1993 actually feels like it was made in 1983. And that’s likely because of producer Sean Cunningham and composer Harry Manfredini, both of whom inject an eighties atmosphere that makes Bob Balaban’s “My Boyfriend’s Back” a surreal but entertaining zombie romance comedy with a very funny script by Dean Lorey. It even has something of a Tim Burton aesthetic where the small town the story is set feels perpetually stuck in the fifties despite being the nineties.

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