It’s amazing how James Wan once went from the man who brought us movies about a maniac torturing people to one of the most horrifying ghost tales ever brought to the big screen. “The Conjuring” lives up to its hype as a slow boil and immensely scary supernatural tale about an average family terrorized by a vicious demonic entity that’s intent on ruining their foundation from the inside out.
Author John Szpunar’s “Xerox Ferox” presents itself not only as a chronicle of the horror fan magazine, but how author Chas Balun changed the horror world. Balun died in 2009 after a long fight with cancer, and left a large hole in the world of horror journalism. As well, he also left behind a long line of friends that he affected. “Xerox Ferox” doesn’t just explore the inherent passion behind horror fandom but how Balun changed horror fans’ lives forever.
The mission statement from the Bleeding Skull website is to review only horror and trash films from the 80’s, and they’d be mostly films you never heard of, before. After compiling hundreds of reviews based on films from the 1980’s that almost no one would ever bother with, “Bleeding Skull” finally releases a compilation of some of their best written reviews of pure eighties junk.
Director Jim Wynorski offers up a sometimes clever, but inferior follow up to the original Robert Englund film, that doesn’t really advance the narrative so much as it treads water. Rather than explore the themes of the apocalypse, and the eventual war of good and evil dictated by the hotline, we’re once again subjected to a tale about the hotline wreaking havoc.
Seven years after his adopted father failed to murder him and spare the world many lives, Damien now lives with his uncle and aunt. A famous industrialist, Richard Thorn is played with great zeal by William Holden, who is wonderful as the well meaning uncle of Damien who is seemingly the first among his family to realize who and what Damien is. “Damien: Omen II” is considered the lesser of the trilogy, and while it has its problem it’s a generally entertaining and creepy thriller. It just can sadly never get over one hurdle: How did Damien forget he was the anti-christ?
Director Richard Donner’s “The Omen” is the fall out of the success of “The Exorcist.” And while it does subscribe to the evil child formula that became prominent after the success of the William Friedkin movie, it doesn’t try to top the former in terror. “The Omen” reaches for heights of slow boil horror followed by immediate shocks, and even for a film once considered a wannabe of “The Exorcist” it stands alone as a wonderful horror thriller.
From Mill Creek Entertainment comes a twelve movie pack of some of the most interesting titles out there for purchase. Every year, there’s a new set with these movies, but as I always say: These packs are good for horror fans starting a collection and looking to get more for their bucks. “Don’t Answer the Phone” is the 1980 thriller about a Vietnam veteran taunting a radio show host as he describes his violent experiences with women and begins stalking her.