horror

Classic 1970s Horror Movies Coming to Criterion Channel in October

It’s a great time to be a horror fan. Not only are Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime Video and Shudder awash with all kinds of horror movies old and new, but the Criterion Channel is getting in on the gruesome action with a month’s worth of horror titles from the 1970s. The subscription service is the digital offshoot of the Criterion Collection, which for more than 35 years has been providing definitive archival home video versions (first on laserdisc, then later DVD and Blu-ray) of classic and contemporary films from around the world. Criterion launched its streaming service last year as…
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How Ginger Snaps Explored the Horror of Womanhood

In 2000 Mission: Impossible 2 topped the box office, Gladiator triumphed at the Oscars, and the first X-Men movie ushered in a new era of superhero movies. Meanwhile in Canada, while no one was watching, a new hero was emerging. Her name was Ginger, she was a 16-year-old girl, and ok, she might have turned into a monster and killed a few people but, wow, was she a ferocious figurehead for females everywhere.  “That’s what she’s about. She’s about fuck you, fuck the patriarchy, fuck the standard, fuck society, fuck the norm. And to me, that’s a hero,” says Katharine…
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Clive Barker Says We’re ‘Living Through’ A Time Of Horror

Clive Barker is back. After a period of relative silence, the acclaimed horror and fantasy author and filmmaker seems to be everywhere: a new movie based on his seminal Books of Blood arrives next week, a reboot of Candyman (based on his story “The Forbidden”) is due out in 2021, and TV shows based on Hellraiser and Nightbreed are in development as well. He’s also got three new books on the way, which he signals are a return to his horror roots. For Barker, his own return to horror — and the invigorated state of the genre itself these days…
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Horror Movies on HBO Max: Hammer Films, It Chapter 2, Us, to Arrive in October

As HBO Max — the massive new streaming service launched by Warner Media this past summer — continues to add to its vast programming selection, this October bring a wealth of new horror titles to the platform just in time for Halloween. HBO Max not only has scores of horror movies already licensed to HBO from other studios, but the service can also delve deeply into the legendary Warner Bros. Pictures vaults as well. And one of the prized finds that will debut on HBO Max next month is a selection of classics from the storied library of Hammer Films.…
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Best Horror Movies Streaming on HBO Max

Editor’s Note: This post is updated monthly. Bookmark this page and come back every month to see the new horror movies on HBO Max. What ever would we do without horror? So much of our day to day life is built around logic and known, verifiable facts, and for some, the rest of the time must be supplemented with comforting reassurances that everything is going to be alright. Well if the last year has taught us anything… that’s not the case. Perhaps this is why horror hounds know the best way to face abstract fears is to confront them head…
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Netflix Unveils Netflix and Chills Horror Lineup

Smell that crisp chill in the air? That, my friends, is the upcoming arrival of spooky season. Halloween may be nearly two excruciating months away, but that’s no reason not to get an early start on your horror needs.  To that end, Netflix has unveiled its lineup for “Netflix and Chills,” its lineup of horror movies, TV series, and other content for September and October.  Things get started early this year with The Babysitter: Killer Queen premiering on Sept. 10. Directed by McG, this sequel to the original 2017 thriller finds hero Cole adapting to a hellish high school life…
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Upcoming Horror Movies in September 2020: Theaters, Streaming, and VOD

As our esteemed Film Editor David Crow has said elsewhere, movies are back — but in a sense they’ve never really gone away. New original films have been popping up via streaming and video-on-demand all throughout the reign of the coronavirus, and they continue to do so even as theaters begin to reopen and the studios slowly start to fill them with new releases as well. The operative word here is “slow”: we’re not seeing a deluge of new films anywhere — the big or small screen — but there is a steady flow of them nonetheless, and as is…
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New Horror and Sci-Fi Movies Break Out at Fantasia Fest

The Fantasia International Film Festival has been serving up fresh and often visionary new voices in sci-fi, horror and other genres for nearly a quarter of a century, and this year’s 24th edition was no different — except, of course, it was all different. Fantasia, which under normal circumstances physically takes place in Montreal in mid-summer, went online in 2020 for an all-digital edition that kicked off on August 20 and concluded on September 2. The event was a mix of films that were either available on demand at any time throughout the fest (up until a maximum ticket capacity…
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How David Koepp’s New Horror Novella Yard Work Became a Terrifying Audiobook

After publishing his first novel, Cold Storage, last year, famed screenwriter David Koepp — whose work includes such movies as Jurassic Park, Spider-Man, Mission: Impossible and War of the Worlds — is unleashing a new novella titled Yard Work this week exclusively through Audible, the online audio book and podcast platform owned by Amazon. In a recent phone interview, Koepp told us that completing Cold Storage gave him a desire to keep working in the prose format, saying, “I really enjoyed writing prose and it was a delight after almost 30 years of writing movies, which have their own sets…
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Den Of Geek Presents Horror In Lockdown Panel at FrightFest

FrightFest 2020 is upon us, and this year, of course, it’s all digital. So while it’s a shame not to be crowding into a sweaty cinema for four days of intensive horror, there are silver linings! Namely that the FrightFest experience can be streamed into your living room…. Part of that experience is the live events and this year Den Of Geek is hosting a very special panel. The panel is LIVE and FREE and available to ANYONE – you don’t need a FrightFest ticket to attend. The panel is called Horror In Lockdown and takes place on Sunday 30…
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New Mutants: A Horror Version of The Breakfast Club

In The New Mutants, five teenagers are being held in an asylum that is actually a front for a secret government facility. The five don’t know each other and aren’t sure how they got there or who brought them, but one thing is clear: each of them is a mutant, a human being enhanced or endowed with extraordinary powers, representing the next stage of evolution for humankind. The New Mutants is a spin-off of Fox’s long-running X-Men series of films and based on the classic Marvel comic book created in 1982 by writer Chris Claremont and artist Bob McLeod to…
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How Lovecraft Country Uses Horror to Tell Black Stories

In Lovecraft Country, Atticus “Tic” Freeman is a Korean war vet, who went to war to escape the physical abuse he received at the hands of his father. But before that, he escaped into the imagined worlds of Edgar Rice Burroughs, H.P. Lovecraft, and countless others. Reading stories wasn’t just something he did to pass the time; reading stories was survival. Commercial books, film, and television, what we call popular culture, are gateways to the world outside of the small spaces we each occupy. We connect to each other across the globe through shared experiences in the media we consume.…
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New Sci-Fi, Horror and Thriller VOD Movie Releases in August 2020

With what was supposed to be the summer movie season now just another relic of this pandemic-blasted year, and the rest of 2020’s major film releases in a continuing state of flux, it’s important to note that there has still been a fairly steady stream of new films coming out, some in limited theatrical release but others largely available via video on demand and streaming services. With that in mind, and with the customary “opening weekend” a rather fluid and ambiguous term as well, below is a rundown of films we’ve caught in the past month, along with information on…
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Blumhouse Productions Partners with Amazon to Release 8 Horror Films

Jason Blum’s house of horrors, aka Blumhouse Productions, is preparing to release a slate of new original content exclusively to Amazon. Needless to say this is the greatest treat horror hounds might expect in time for Halloween. The series of eight films, helpfully referred to as “The Blumhouse” by Amazon’s press statement, offers a variety of new voices to audiences eager for fresh blood in their thrills. The first four films in the series will premiere on Amazon beginning on Oct. 6, the other four movies will debut on the streaming service sometime in 2021. “We are excited to launch…
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Host Review: Zoom Horror That’s Fresh and Frightening

Time moves differently during lockdown. But for once that’s actually worked to the advantage of director Rob Savage who has managed to create an incredibly timely, sincerely scary and wonderfully shot horror movie in 12 weeks. That’s 12 weeks from conception to its appearance on streaming service Shudder. The result is Host, a horror set over a Zoom call that couldn’t be more relevant and more zeitgeisty, which will likely secure a place in horror history as a movie which captured a moment which, with any luck, will look like a bizarre blip. Though Host certainly leans into horror movie…
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Hideo Kojima and Junji Ito May Not Be Working on a New Horror Game After All

Famed horror mangaka Junji Ito (Uzumaki, Gyo, Tomie) made headlines during last weekend’s Comic-Con@Home for saying that Hideo Kojima had reached out to work on a new horror game together, but the artist has now walked back his statement, downplaying his meeting with the video game auteur. While Ito’s initial remarks made it sound like the mangaka and Kojima had a formal meeting about working together, the artist says it was much more casual than that. “I said casually that I received an offer from Mr. Kojima, but in reality, it was a remark made at a party where he…
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Carrion Review: A Brilliant Horror Game Where You Are the Monster

You know that bit in your favorite scary movie where you get to know your soon-to-be-slaughtered protagonists and the tension is slowly strung out like the string of a bow? Yeah, CARRION doesn’t do that. Instead, it skips right to the good part and gives you control of the monster. You play as an amorphous blob creature who breaks out of a test chamber to swiftly wreak havoc on an underground lab. It’s the stuff all great slasher fiction is made of, only here the “reverse horror” conceit firmly places you in the driver’s seat. Such a setup might sound…
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Link Tank: Relic, and How Less Can Be More in Horror

Relic by director Natalie Erika James is the pinnacle example of how less can be more in horror. “Director Natalie Erika James has burst onto the scene with Relic, and it’s a heck of a first film. James’ debut, which hits video-on-demand Friday, is a creepy, emotional haunted house feature that often takes a less-is-more approach. For the most part, it really pays off, and her confidence suggests audiences can expect more great work to come. Read more at The Week. The Amazonians of DC Comics may be getting their own animated movie according to Wonder Woman director Patty Jenkins.…
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Relic Review: The Horror of Fading Away

Losing a loved one is tough enough, but losing them to Alzheimer’s disease is a brutal, harrowing, and truly heartbreaking experience. Family and friends watch as the person they knew slowly fades away, their memories, physical abilities, and even sense of self vanishing like smoke drifting upward from a waning fire. By the time death comes to claim the shell of the person you once knew, its arrival is almost a blessing. The horror film at its best allows us to experience our deepest real-life fears in metaphorical terms, which is what the excellent Relic does with specificity, empathy, and…
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How The Fall of the House of Usher Changed Horror Movies

It was 60 years ago this month that American International Pictures (AIP) released The Fall of the House of Usher (also known as just House of Usher), a film based on the classic 1839 short story by Edgar Allan Poe, produced and directed by a low-budget B-movie specialist named Roger Corman. Corman recruited horror and sci-fi writer Richard Matheson (I Am Legend) to adapt the Poe tale, while also hiring Vincent Price — already established as a horror star in films like The Fly and House on Haunted Hill — for the lead role (just one of four in the…
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