You could pretty much build an entire library of horror films based on or around scarecrows and their tendencies to provoke or be involved in inherent horror or the supernatural. There’s just something so mystifying about the scarecrow where horror creators always go back to that same device, and most times it works. Take 1981’s “Dark Night of the Scarecrow.” The horror thriller by Director Frank De Felitta and writer J.D. Feigelson, celebrating its 40th anniversary this year, was unleashed on the CBS Network and managed to build a pretty loyal cult following over the years.
Tag Archives: Crime
Night Teeth (2021) [Digital]
There’s a lot of world building in “Night Teeth” and that’s not always a good thing. What seems like a movie based around two vampires and their inadvertent victim driver, morphs in to a very layered (to a fault) crime thriller involving two warring factions of hunters and vampires, a vampire mob boss, struggles for power, and turf wars. It almost feels like they intended “Night Teeth” to be part one of a trilogy. But I doubt we’ll ever get the complete picture of it all.
Slumber Party Massacre (2021)
Amy Holden Jones’ original 1982 “The Slumber Party Massacre” is considered one of the great trashy slasher classics of the 1980’s. It’s a movie that’s so irredeemably stupid but is still celebrated by many fans. I personally think the sequels are better, if infinitely stupider, but that’s neither here nor there. 2021’s “Slumber Party Massacre” is both a meta-satire and re-imagining that follows up on the original events of the premise of the original movie and turns it on its head.
Jason Rising: A Friday the 13th Fan Film (2021)
The “Friday the 13th” property is still in legal limbo, and the odds of us seeing a sequel or reboot any time soon are slim. All we the fans have for now are fan films. Thankfully, the delivery from filmmakers that respect the property has been fantastic, and James Sweet’s own fan film is no exception. It’s a little rough around the edges in regards to the narrative, but he offers some new fodder that I hope is made in to canon someday.
A Clockwork Orange (1971) [4K Ultra HD/Blu-Ray/Digital]
It’s been fifty years since Stanley Kubrick unleashed what is still one of the most controversial and talked about cult films of all time. And fifty years later we’re still very much talking about “A Clockwork Orange.” How many films from 1971 still cause us to raise a brow? Even in a world where we’ve pretty much seen everything, “A Clockwork Orange” still skirts with the line. Hell, it goes over the line, it stays there, and we never really come back from it.
My Five Favorite Comic Book Brawlers
Last week, Marvel Studios premiered “Shang Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings” to much acclaim and box office success. Shang Chi has been one of Marvel’s biggest and most prominent brawlers, a man who has mastered martial arts and proven to be a living weapon time and time again. In honor of Marvel veteran’s debut, I listed my five favorite Comic Book Brawlers, a group of hand to hand fighters that have been some of my all time favorites since I was a kid.
Superman ’78 #1 [of 6]
What’s old is new again, and now with Warner seemingly acknowledging the Tim Burton Batman 1989 movies as their own universe in “Elseworlds” on TV, DC dives head first in to expanding the original movie universes of their respective character properties. After “Batman ’89,” DC Comics follows up with “Superman ’78.” It’s an expansion and exploration of the beloved movie universe from Richard Donner’s Superman, and it wholeheartedly embraces everything about the movies we loved right down to the silly dialogue.