Universal’s “The Wolfman” has always been another of the great horror movies that fans have secretly wanted to see remade for the modern era but only for morbid curiosity. We’re a fickle bunch, but the fact is that “The Wolfman” has been a long time coming mainly because we’ve seen countless adaptations of Universals banner monsters but never the Wolfman. We came close with the stellar “Wolf,” but that wasn’t an actual remake. Joe Johnston creates what I can define as a rather above par remake, one that really pays respect to the classic monster movies and horror movie tropes while also cutting its own path in to the mythos. While I’ll agree with many that the movie isn’t a masterpiece, it certainly is a cut above all the rest of the remakes in the market and dabbles in excellence more often than not.
Category Archives: Halloween Horror Month
Dead Set (2008)
“Does this mean we’re not on telly anymore?”
Reality television is much too ingrained and injected in to the base of our society and culture to consider it a passing fad these days. We’re living in a world where we’re absolutely obsessed by surveillance, voyeurism and the like to where we can’t get enough of it and we’re provided with an abundance of television that feeds such needs. “Dead Set,” originally a five part television mini-series,” is set in the UK where reality television is a national past time setting down on a society who is consumed by it. It’s so consumed by tabloids and scandals, it can’t stop and notice that we’re being consumed by a ravenous disease turning our entire society in to flesh eating zombies.
Tremors (1990)
As kids who grew up with on TV, no cable, and a selection of recorded VHS tapes, my brother and I were given only a limited amount of movies to watch and as such “Tremors” was one of our favorite bad horror movies to put in before we went to sleep. It had monsters, laughs, no scares, and enough gore to whet our whistles, and even at a young age it was so joyously corny we had fun. “Tremors” is a monster movie that is all around about as high quality as “Night of the Lepus,” but with enough camp to keep it running as a nineties schlock spectacular with corny monsters, a cheesy ending, and a premise that granted it three equally corny sequels, and a short lived TV series.
Mandy Lane: Pretty Poison

Women are trouble. They always have been and they always will be. To the lovelorn man with a taste for old fashioned romance, women are their poison, the source of inspiration, bliss, torment, and their downfall. “Double Indemnity,” “King Kong,” “Cleopatra,” “MacBeth,” the list goes on, but the one true defining theme in all of fiction is that women can make or break the man, and Jonathan Levine’s “All the Boys Love Mandy Lane” is the truest depiction of the power of the beautiful woman and what they can do in a world that idolizes, idealizes, and fetishizes women. Levine’s film is something of a slow boil horror thriller, one that is based around love for a blond beauty named Mandy Lane, and how she inspires a stalker, male admirers, female admirers, and a slasher lurking in the shadows. This is all set to the tune of the real monster. Her name is Mandy Lane and in the final scenes of Levine’s cult classic, we learn that even the dirtiest of monsters can have an angelic face that few men can resist.
The Undead: 20 Movies Vampire Collection (DVD)
Mill Creek Entertainment releases a veritable bevy of 20 films spotlighting the undead and vampires of the sort, all of which is your typical selection you can find literally anywhere online. Sets like this usually consist of nothing but public domain and easily affordable classic horror movies and Television movies, some of which deserve to be shun in to obscurity and others are well worth the re-watch. For any horror buff looking to start their collection, a set like this is the best way to build up the numbers and school yourself in the bare essentials, and with this set Mill Creek gives the consumer four discs, all of which have some rather memorable horror films revolving around the concept of the undead.
Catfish (2010)
The big hook for “Catfish” has been the tagline “Don’t let anyone tell you what it is,” and this has had audiences providing theories since the trailer was released what the big hook is to the story. What is the big surprise in the climax? I won’t spoil it for you. At least I’ll try not to. I’ll leave it up to you. Nevertheless, “Catfish” is not a movie that you will expect going in and leaving and it will assuredly have you re-thinking your life and your overall view on personal relationships.
The Tortured (2010)
Robert Lieberman’s dose of mean spirited brutally disgusting torture porn entitled “The Tortured” is a lot like “Hard Candy” except dunderheaded, half-witted, and a pure right wing cartoon. Two young good looking parents in an upper class neighborhood are angry that the police aren’t doing enough to find their son who was kidnapped before husband Craig’s very eyes in their back yard one day. Wife Elise of course barely blames her husband, except blames the authorities. We learn all of this information in only the first five minutes of the film that speeds through the kidnapping, the investigation, Elise’s anguish at the kidnapping, and we even visit the hilariously cartoonish Koslowski, a pedophile hillbilly too ridiculous to be horrified of.

