I have to say that I quite love “Return to Horror High.” Yes it’s convoluted and mostly a nonsensical meta horror comedy about the horror genre, but a lot of the ideas it lays out during the duration of its story are so ahead of their time. “Return to Horror High” (not a sequel, by the way) has the distinction of being cited as one of the precursors to “Scream,” but it really only holds that distinction in how it takes a step back and analyzes horror. Beyond that Bill Froehlich’s film is only really connected in that it’s a slasher with a whodunit twist. The rest of the movie is a pretty nonsensical meshing of storytelling styles, and twists that make no sense. Nonsensical is the key word to “Return to Horror High,” but that’s also what makes it so good.
Tag Archives: Slasher
Mary Had a Little Lamb (2023)
It seems like every other year there’s an attempt to deliver fans a new “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre,” and like clockwork here comes “Mary Had a Little Lamb.” Centered on Uncork’d Entertainment’s initiative to offer genre films based on classic nursery rhymes, director Jason Arber and writer Harry Boxley really don’t do anything new or creative with the whole gimmick that his movie is centered on. It’s, in a nutshell, a beat for beat, condensed remake of “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” but dropped down in to the UK.
Five More Promised Sequels That Never Happened
End of the movie stingers can be a double edged sword. They can be the promise of huge, great things to come. But often times if and when we never get a sequel or promised follow up, we’re always left hanging and begging studios for some kind of resolution or extension of a story. Nine times out of ten, the studios don’t oblige movie fans. These days studios are getting bolder, offering end of movie, mid-credit, and or post credit scenes, many of which promise new developments for sequels or spin offs. Sometimes they’re great and sometimes… they amount to nothing.
Here are five more movies that promised us sequels, but never delivered.
Dylan’s New Nightmare: A Nightmare on Elm Street Fan Film (2023)
I love a good fan film. On rare occasions they can offer up interesting ideas and concepts. “Dylan’s New Nightmare” is an ambitious and interesting fan film in that its concept works for and against the final film, in the end. While the whole concept of a follow up to “New Nightmare” is a good one, it’s problematic in that: it basically feels like a proof of concept for a sequel, and “New Nightmare” isn’t canonical to the rest of the series. With “New Nightmare,” Wes Craven was holding up a magnifying glass, stepping back to examine the overwhelming expectations and pains of success.
It was also not on the timeline of Freddy Krueger, as the monster in the film was not Freddy Krueger.
Here For Blood (2023)
Warning: Spoilers pertaining to the movie abound.
You really haven’t seen it all until you’ve seen a wrestler elbow drop a flesh eating zombie multiple times until its head explodes. That’s that thing about “Here for Blood.” It has a ton of good ideas and a great sense of humor about itself, but it gets lost in so much filler and narrative excess. What could have been a simple and fun home invasion thriller turns in to a convoluted survival film about cults, and sacrifices, and masked killers, and anointed prophets. It’s all a movie that could have been so much better with tighter editing and fifteen minutes trimmed down.
That’s a Wrap (2023)
Following their film’s shoot, a director with his cast and crew meet up at the studio for a wrap party. Soon, it’s clear someone else is there wanting to make their own meta version of the slasher film being celebrated. Continue reading
BAD MOVIE MONDAY: DEADTIME STORIES (1986)
The review I did for RISE OF SKYWALKER was a bit serious and gloomy. So I’m going to lighten things up a bit and talk about something fun this time. Today’s review is for a movie called DEADTIME STORIES, a horror anthology from 1986 that retells twisted versions of old fairy tales. Well, kinda. They do Little Red Riding Hood, and they do Goldilocks and The Three Bears, but the first story about witches isn’t really based on anything specific. That’s okay though, there’s enough nudity and gore in all three of these stories to make up for any disappointment that we’re not going to be getting a story about Humpty Dumpty as a serial killer or something. The film stars Scott Valentine as Peter, Nicole Picard as Rachel, Matt Mitler as Willie, Cathryn de Prume as Goldi Lox, and Melissa Leo as Judith “MaMa” Baer. It was directed by Jeffrey Delman. It was written by Delman, and J. Edward Kiernan, and Charles F. Shelton.
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