With the rise of the zombie sub-genre, every filmmaker and their brother have their own story to tell. With zombie media at an all time high in popularity, there are an abundance interesting approaches toward the zombie sub-genre. And unfortunately there are also countless forgettable attempts. Immediately, “Chronicles of the Dead” from 3N films is under pressure to perform outside the norm and offer a form of zombie fiction that is entertaining and unique. “Chronicles of the Dead” so far has potential in the range of tone, atmosphere, and direction, it just has to now step up its game and provide us with a story that we can get behind. With only episode one to judge on, the series can go anywhere at this point. We may end up with a web version of “The Walking Dead,” or we could end up with a web version of “Night of the Dead.”
Tag Archives: Suspense
An American Werewolf in London (1981)
“An American Werewolf in London” is almost the perfect horror comedy and romance that never quite relies on either genre to move its story and deliver its horror. That’s pretty shocking considering John Landis was often a director known for comedies. Occasionally dark and almost always adult, Landis was once a man known for rich and iconic comedy films. “Animal House” and “The Kentucky Fried Movie.” Need I say more? With “An American Werewolf in London,” the stark comedy can often incite laughter, but it’s so dark it almost feels like awkward laughter most of the time. It’s just uncomfortable laughter because when there’s a laugh to be had, it’s at the expense of someone or something gruesome. When something is horrific it has a true sense of humanity behind it and there isn’t a cheap play for gross out sequences.
The Haunted (1991)
Yet another apparent true story about another haunting in America, “The Haunted” is one of the most effective and creepy ghost films ever made. Though it’s primarily a TV movie, it’s been sadly shunned in to obscurity in favor of the more appealing “Amityville.” But in the end, “The Haunted” ends up feeling like much more of a true and realistic tale of an actual demonic haunting, and it’s one filled with unnerving and absolutely terrifying instances of hauntings that are filmed with such sharp editing and dark tones that it still holds up as a cinematic experience you’ll be thinking about for hours after you’ve finished it.
Dracula 2000 (2000)
Back in the late nineties if you attached 2000 or Extreme to anything, it automatically meant it was going to be the best thing since the invention of gravity. Incidentally, for some reason Dimension Films felt adding 2000 to their new Dracula film meant it’d be an amazing new entry in to the endless films about the fanged master of the vampires. It wasn’t. “Dracula 2000” only promises certain new elements to the story, but in reality it’s just another mediocre Dracula film. It’s not awful, but it surely didn’t re-invent the wheel in terms of Dracula or vampire films. In reality much of it is influenced by “The Matrix” so much of the vampire foes bred by Dracula flip around, jump off walls, and battle their foes with martial arts.
Fright Fest: 12 Movies (DVD)
From Mill Creek Entertainment comes almost eighteen hours of movies that vary in quality but are guaranteed to entertain you and keep you in your seat all Halloween day. Featured in this set are twelve movies, all of which are some films I myself have been trying to acquire for years. For fans looking to purchase this DVD and see what they’re in for, here is what you’ll be getting:
From 1998 comes Devil in the Flesh a respectable and memorable “Fatal Attraction” clone starring the gorgeous Rose McGowan as the alluring but dangerous Debbie Strand who sets her sights on the handsome teacher of her new high school and seduces him in to a web of black mail and deception that ends with a slew of dead bodies unfortunate enough to cross her path.
The Backwater Gospel (2011)
Who needs a monster when you can allow people to become the monsters themselves? When you throw in a bunch of bigoted narrow minded individuals together, and hand them superstitious hokum to chew on, you’re going to get a good idea of who they are and who they will become in due time. The town in a desert hole finds itself fearing the reaper every time the dreaded undertaker comes around to take measurements for death’s latest toll, and uses their Christian beliefs as a shield against his menace.
Tales from the Darkside: The Movie (1990)
So “Tales from the Darkside: The Movie” is based on the television show, but in the movie, “Tales from the Darkside” is actually a book filled with various horror stories. Does that mean the television show is actually a book? Is the narrator at the opening credits the one telling us the various stories? How did the witch in the film get a hold of the book? And is the witch Debbie Harry plays in the film the same one she plays in the episode “The Moth” where she portrays a devious teenage witch outwitting her mother? It’s never quite indicated. At all. I assume the film is attempting to be meta with the wrap around story, but it never quite works. However we do get a slight instance of the theme song to the television series playing during a scene in the opening.