With another Pride Month here, I’m always reminded at how much the LGBTQ+ community has contributed to the horror world. Be it literature, television, comic books, and or movies, the LGBTQ+ spirit is woven in to the DNA of horror as a whole from Mary Shelly, to Don Mancini, to Elvira, et al.
These are five truly great horror standards directed and/or written by an LGBTQ+ creator.
Sarah Young is a brave new voice in the film world bringing to the forefront socially volatile commentary as well as genuine scares. With “Not Him,” the genuinely talented filmmaker directs a horror film that works as a taut allegory for domestic abuse. “Not Him” is now making the rounds in various festivals and Ms. Young took time out to speak with us.
Now Available to Rent on TVOD.
Prop collecting has always been a facet of move fandom that I don’t particularly read a lot about. That’s mainly because a lot of collectors deal in replicas and that, well, collecting actual props for movies can be really expensive. You pretty much have to be very wealthy in order to buy even the cheapest prop for a classic film. “Mad Props” is a very good documentary that deals in exploring the market for collecting props as well as the passion that comes with it.
For many years now I’ve become a fan of A24 and have loved so much of their content. Have their titles all been winners? No, but their output of above level films that managed to mix mainstream sensibility with arthouse appeal as been amazing. For many years they’ve given us absolutely incredible films that have allowed filmmakers that normally wouldn’t be seen to final garner some respectable platforms. They’re not low budget or indie like Troma but they’ve allowed some unique artists to give us gems like “The Zone of Interest,” “The Whale,” “Bodies Bodies Bodies,” Ti West’s “X” movie series, “Midsommar,” “Skin” and so much more.
Now Available from Synapse Films.
Behind every good movie series there are the fans that help fuel it and Tom Sullivan is probably one of the biggest and best of them all. One of the biggest indie horror success stories is Sam Raimi’s “Evil Dead” and how it rose from low budget feature to horror masterpiece. It wasn’t an overnight success but one that was helped by the fervent love and passion by its creators Sam Raimi, Bruce Campbell and Tom Sullivan. Sullivan was one of the FX artists that helped Sam Raimi engineer “Within the Woods” in to “The Evil Dead” and worked very hard on “The Evil Dead.”
1983’s “Making of Michael Jackson’s Thriller” is a documentary I watched so much as a kid. I fondly recall my uncle owning a copy of it on VHS and while he lived with me and my family, we’d sit down with him and watch this almost everyday. Despite it being a pretty basic documentary by today’s standards, for 1983, “Making of Michael Jackson’s Thriller” was humongous. Not only was it a look behind the scenes of the biggest video of 1983 and perhaps of all time, but it was an important video release that changed pretty much everything.
Virality seems to be the new aide to indie filmmakers these days. Especially with movie studios treating films like disposable products that they can use as a simple tax write off, many times the best way for filmmakers to get traction on their work is through viral means on the web. Among one of the more notable is J. Zachary Thurman’s short “Finley.” A horror comedy with a genuinely interesting story, “Finley” recently went viral on the likes of Youtube and apps like Tik Tok, the latter of which has inspired many horror tik tokers to post live reactions to Mr. Thurman’s short.
Genuinely funny, and downright fun, “Finley” is the tale of a haunted doll named Finley that comes to life to torment the owners of a new house. The problem is that Finley is really bad at trying to kill people, and eventually becomes an utter nuisance. Filled with great puppetry, a genuinely fun concept, and oodles of clever humor, “Finley” (now available on youtube) is a short film deserving of huge attention. J. Zachary Thurman took time out of his very busy schedule to discuss the short and his thoughts on horror comedies and filmmaking.