Posts tagged as Horror
"Murder Party"
And now: the final installment in our quirky and bizarre month-long review of the horrorful. READ MORE
"Deathdream"
There's nothing funny about Deathdream. Most horror films, when given the right context, can be made fun of in some way. Show The Exorcist to a room full of drunk people in daylight and it's the funniest movie ever made. And as for torture porn? Well, there's a difference between undeniable dread and undeniable nausea. But Deathdream—because of what it's topic, the quality of performances and the subtle way it creates unease—is an unshakably grave movie. It also happens to be one of the best movies about the after-effects of the Vietnam War. READ MORE
31 Days of Horror: "Street Trash"
In honor of the approach of Halloween, I'm going to be showing bits from a horror movie each day throughout October. I'm a big fan of horror movies and even if they're terrible there's usually something of interest going on... even if it isn't intentional. As the month goes on, the movies will get better and better; we're starting with camp and trash, pretty much, and moving into the wonderful. A note: I know you're a grown-up and you know what's going on but sometimes people can think they're a lot more ready for violence and offensiveness than they actually are. A lot of these entries are going to have descriptions of graphic violence, homophobia, sexual violence and stuff of that ilk that is so native to the genre. READ MORE
Horror Chick: 'Devil': The Further Fall of the House of M. Night Shyamalan
You don't see a horror movie to have a nice time. You don't go to lace fingers with your sweetie and laugh at the witty repartee and sniffle into your shirtsleeve during the climactic emotional breakthroughs and gradually be lulled into halcyon repose filled with reassurance that humanity is all roses and puppies and gold lamé jumpsuits. You go to have your consciousness assaulted, your moral grounding questioned, and your niggling suspicion that our species is teetering on the edge of total depravity confirmed. You go to be right-hooked out of the day-to-day complacency of post-industrial Western life. And above all, you go to have your motherf&%#ing balls scared off. READ MORE
Expanding The 'Human Centipede' Franchise
Apparently Dutch film writer/director Tom Six wasn't content to make only one sick horror flick about multiple people sewn together to share a single digestive tract. A sequel to his 2010 film The Human Centipede is now in the works-this time featuring 12 people joined ass-to-mouth, instead of just three. So he plans to supersize the human centipede! What could be more impressively American than that-especially coming from a Dutch guy? READ MORE
Cell Phone Curse Particularly Hard On Bulgarian Crooks
Strange doings in the cellular would of Bulgaria, where the phone number 0888 888 888-I hesitate to even type those digits, such is the terrifying history of that sequence-has been suspended "after every single person assigned to it died in the last 10 years." (If you guessed the Daily Mail pat yourself on the back.) Anyway, there is more. READ MORE
The End of the 00s: Bad for Humanity, but Great for Horror, by Melissa Lafsky
I'm skeptical about this whole "decade from hell" business. I mean, just because financial karma finally arrived to kick the U.S. in its bulbous consumer-driven ass, that means the entire decade is somehow linked to Satan? The last four months of 2001 were from hell-that's certainly true. And the entire summer of 2009 (when hell's photogenic spawn ruled the media with her red heels). But seems to me this ten-year span should have been dubbed "The Decade We've Been Setting Ourselves Up For During the Three Previous Decades, and Now We Act All Shocked That We're Broke and the Rest of the Developed World Wants to Lob a Shoe Up Our Ass." Anyway, fuck politics-let's talk about horror movies. READ MORE
Horror Chick, with Melissa Lafsky: The 10 Most Terrifying Unintentional-Horror Movies (Part One)
What makes a movie horror? There are the obvious indicators: chainsaws, spurting viscera, genital smashing and other tricks in the bloody menagerie of unapologetic depravity. But some of the scariest films sneak in under the radar, infecting your thoughts and slaying your peace of mind without showing a single oozing polyp or rotting corpse. Think about it: The point of horror is that it's all metaphor-a pictorial display of the fears, anxieties, and disappointments that thrash and roil in our consciousness. Those flesh-devouring zombies and skull-munching monsters are just physical manifestations of the Inner Human Pain that can't be defined in language (except by David Foster Wallace) but still manage to crawl in our ears and tear our guts with corrosive acid-froth. It's THIS pain that's the real killer-after all, you can always bandage that severed arm or pop an antibiotic for that flesh-eating virus. Healing the ragged wound in your soul, the nameless chasm where Darkness gnaws on your psyche... well, that's a little harder. And so we have movies! Those fuzzy celluloids that take away the emptiness and lull us into complacency with their pulchritudinous stars and pat dialogue and flashy explosions. You pay your $11.50 and laugh at sweet-as-pie Kate Beckinsale or oh-so-funny-Jim-Carrey and then WHAM – without even realizing it, you're hit with a Nightmare, fed to you in the form of a bubbly romantic comedy. THESE are the real horror movies. They catch you by surprise. At least Saw is honest. READ MORE
The Terror of Butt Elmo and Butt Pooh
The Awl's Tom Scocca takes Underparenting to a new level: "Diapers are for catching urine and feces. They represent neither entertainment nor education.... Butt Elmo, by contrast, represents a world in which it's not merely branding that's out of control but cross-branding. Every space is a promotional opportunity for something else."
