We've gone to the dogs! Below are ten images of ten dogs from ten horror films. How many can you identify? While we're on the subject, there's a brand new book coming out all about the making of the classic movie CUJO ! It's called NOPE, NOTHING WRONG HERE: THE MAKING OF CUJO and it's written and edited by good old LEE GAMBIN! There's no need to beg- you can pre-order the hardcover HERE or the softcover HERE!
1. What is the first film that ever scared you?
The first one that really got me was Tourist Trap. I caught the plaster on the face scene on TV when I was around seven. It scared me so much I couldn't fall asleep that night. I told my mom and she told me to visualize the actors between takes, smoking a cigarette, having coffee, flirting with each other, all while still in costume. Putting them in the context of just regular people at work really helped me get through being frightened. Thanks mom!
2. What is the last film that scared you?
The indi horror Resolution (2012). It's a simple yet unnerving little gem and something about it is just off enough to freak me out. There were also a few scenes of the underrated Sy-fy channel series Channel Zero; Candle Cove that got me. If you're a fan of indi or slow burn horror you should give this unusual show, where each season is based on a different Creepypasta, a chance.
3. Name three Horror movies that you believe are underrated.
Housebound (2014). A brilliant horror-comedy. Sharp, unusual, and cleverly done.
Dark Touch (2013). Tragic and odd, with a gut punch ending.
The Canal (2014). I'm a sucker for haunted house stories, especially ones with a madness "is it really happening?" vibe.
*Bonus!! Kill List (2011). A fairly standard hitman tale takes a surreal cult turn. Well acted, well paced, and surprisingly scary.
4. Name three horror movies that you enjoy against your better judgment.
Ghosthouse (1988). Oy this movie. It's just terrible. And it never answered the question of who is more popular in Denver, Kelly LeBrock or Kim Basinger.
A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010). This movie is not good. Rooney Mara is a terrible heroine, the art director was apparently in a Xanax coma, and why is every color so muted and blue? But, for whatever reason (Kyle Gallner, it's totally because of Kyle Gallner), I don't hate it.
Transylvania Twist (1989). It's not a Horror per se. It's not even a horror-comedy so much as it is comedy trying to be bad horror? Or trying to poke fun at bad horror? I don't know. It's eighties and awful and god damn do I love this bastard.
5. Send us to five places on the Internet!
Listverse. Fans of Kindertrauma might dig the "Creepy" "Weird Stuff" and "Crime" sections.
The Movie Pooper. Because sometimes I want to know what happens in a movie without having to watch said movie.
Mental Floss. Facts and stuff being fact-y!
Cracked. If you like reading pop culture nonsense and wasting time, boy is this site for you.
Good Bad Flicks. Anyone who loves bad eighties/horror will like this. Our host Cecil gives witty recaps of so bad they're good movies as well as interesting production notes and backstories.
Thank you so much! It's been a Horror to know you and hopefully a Horror to know me too!
There is no reason to leave the house today! There is nothing out there in the sun. As long as you have popcorn for popping you should be all set. You see, the generous folks at COMET TV are showing THE VIDEO DEAD at 4! Let me tell you, THE VIDEO DEAD is a true one of a kind flick. It's sometimes legit creepy, sometimes legit hilarious and all the time legit charming. It's never stingy with the gore and the surprisingly impressive special effects and some of the ghouls shambling about have some serious personality (wait till you meet the bride)! There's a sweet homegrown backyard feel to this 1987 straight to video release but it runs at a good clip and features more creative set pieces than a dozen Hollywood productions. Mostly, it's just pure unadulterated eighties-style fun and the fact that writer/director ROBERT SCOTT never went on to make another horror movie is a crime against the undead. Check out this suburban nightmare on your computer (at 4) HERE or rumor has it you can now find COMET TV on that newfangled ROKU device! What will they think of next? COMET has me feeling like I'm reliving the glorious UHF days of my youth (aw, channel 48 how I miss you!). I'll be watching on my rabbit ear set with the glow in dark skull on top as it is the most likely to have a zombie pop out of it!
I visited New York City last weekend (shout out to the FORBIDDEN PLANET store that sold me SEVERIN's's excellent DOCTOR BUTCHER M.D. DVD with the sublimely timely doc on the history of 42nd Street movie theaters!). You haven't lived until you've seen the Bramford Building from ROSEMARY'S BABY looming over a baffled Central Park covered in mid-March daffodil-slaughtering snow. As my friend and I ventured to cross a particularly hazardous unplowed curb, I caught from the corner of my eye a figure moving up somewhat suspiciously close. The one thing that's difficult for me to adjust to in New York as opposed to Philly is that people are way more comfortable getting up in your personal space. New York is way too crowded to afford you the good three or four feet of buffer room I'm used to. My instinct was to dodge but my friend's impulse, miraculously, was to grasp the wobbly stranger by the forearm, pull him out of the slush he was faltering in and land him safely on the sidewalk. Oh, the guy wasn't trying to assail us, he was falling…and my friend helped him! Such strange and unusual alien customs in this city…
Did I mention that the falling guy was black? Would I have so quickly imagined him as a potential threat if he wasn't? Well, it's me we're talking about here so, yes. Honestly, anybody who isn't a mewing kitten with a pink bow on its head is eligible for suspicion in my book. Still, I felt a tinge of guilt that I had alarm bells going off in my head at the exact moment my friend saw an opportunity to assist someone in need. I blamed my moment of self-reflection on the brilliant GET OUT. Suddenly I really wanted my friend to see it too but it was sold out everywhere and had been every day since its release (according to an usher I eavesdropped on). I don't know what to add to the conversation about GET OUT besides the admission above and the confession that I thought I understood the movie but then realized later that I missed a few dozen layers. I'm sure when I see it again I'll find I've missed a few more. Like the seventies social horror films it was inspired by, it's clearly going to be a gift that will keep on giving. Plus, how could I resist the rarity of my love of horror movies and my love of CATHERINE KEENER movies converging? Geez, unless you count 8MM (99') as horror, you'd have to go all the way back to KEENER's ill-fated horror convention date with KEVIN CORRIGAN in WALKING AND TALKING (‘96) for such a alignment (it's sentences like that, that worry me).
Anyway, I loved it and I'm happy that a new generation gets its own lightening rod horror movie that's genuinely fascinating to view and discuss. If you dig plunging into profound paranoia over being pummeled over the head with the usual pandering power fantasies GET OUT is pure gold. It's kind of sad that it seems so unusual to watch a horror movie where the art is actually on the screen speaking for itself rather than biding time waiting to become a purchasable T-shirt or identity-signaling button. As much as GET OUT specifically speaks on racism (both conscious and unconscious) there's something universal about its depiction of the threatening discomfort of being a minority in a larger group. Plus, putting race aside for just a wee-second here, I gotta say rich people in general are working my last nerve these days. Am I alone here? Without ruining the movie, I still have a burning Sterno can of outrage in my chest for the wealthy and blind (!) gallery owner with the gall to appropriate another person's artistic vision. I'm also pretty sure that at one point ALLISON WILLIAMS did a super creepy smile thing that curdled me to my core and I have to salute that.
Back to New York, with GET OUT sold out three weeks into release, we had no choice but to see THE BELKO EXPERIMENT in a half-filled room on its opening day. Aw, poor BELKO (also a BLUMHOUSE joint) is actually pretty darn good too but in a different way. Like GET OUT, I can easily associate BELKO with the moment that my friend decided to help a stranger and I decide to fend for myself but unlike the slow mounting horror found in the previous film, the latter is surprisingly shocking and brutal. I know it doesn't look it, but for a mainstream movie BELKO has quite the sadistic streak. I don't know if it was because I was far from home and feeling kinda vulnerable but I found it remarkably nerve wracking up until its cartoonish final act. In truth, this film hits me where my nightmares live. It's about being stuck with (and at the mercy of) other people and it's also about dealing with soulless dog-eat-schmuck corporate ghouls. It's almost as timely as GET OUT if only it was released about three more months from now. The audience I saw it with loved it and screamed and laughed in the right places and I know at least one jaw hit the sticky floor at one point because that poor jaw was mine.
The weather is about to change. Soon the Bramford Building is going to be looking down on daffodils again. It's not too late to see either of these fine flicks in the theater if you haven't already done so. Instant classic GET OUT is perfect for those who enjoy their frights fine tuned and those who prefer to be grabbed by the lapels and slapped around a bit should sign up for BELKO. Both of these thoughtful movies do a fine job of reminding us that horror films can say so much more than "boo!"…
On my last night in New York we watched a documentary on the making of ROSEMARY'S BABY and I laughed when FARROW told the tale of how POLANSKI instructed her to walk into oncoming traffic because "nobody will hit a pregnant woman." The next day, INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS (78') just happened to be on TV and I noted how the ending still gave me goose bumps. It was followed by CONFESSIONS OF A DANGEROUS MIND but only CHUCK BERRY was dead at that point, unlike two days later when CHUCK BARRIS would be dead too. At the bus station the Philadelphia bound were separated from the New Yorkers and the late 4 o'clock Philly bus people were separated from the early 5 o'clock Philly bus people. I instantly related to those who were riding on the same bus as me but we were all herded like cattle and we all dragged luggage like pods from outer space. My coat is so old that it has holes in its pockets. Getting on board the bus my paperback fell through my pocket and onto the wet street. The man in back of me picked it up and kindly handed it to me. People are so nice in New York.
Hey, I'm absolutely allowed to enjoy a not-so-good movie if I feel like it, right? LIFE is all kinds of mundane, its monster is inconsistently threatening and the script overall is painfully mechanical to the point where somebody actually pulls out a corny copy of "Goodnight Moon". I'm guessing LIFE's largest selling point is its two high profile male leads (RYAN REYNOLDS, JAKE GYLLENHAAL) but only one of them successfully registers and he's the one with way less screen time. It's like the title/name LIFE wasn't satisfied being attached to the blandest cereal in the world and the least exciting board game (Sorry, I'm a die hard CLUE fan) so it had to go attach itself to the most routine sci-fi horror picture too! And yet I don't care because I love monsters in space so much that I'll take it (even if this one sometimes resembles THE NEW SCHMOO). You are talking to a guy who owns and enjoys the catastrophic SUPERNOVA and feels the need to watch both LEVIATHAN and DEEP STAR SIX on a seasonal basis. Yes, there is something horribly wrong with me. Why, I even watched THE RIFT the other day on COMET TV! I can't and won't be stopped (I realize I named a lot of underwater monsters rather than space monsters there but same-diff. BTW- QUEEN LATIFAH being throttled by a swarm of disgruntled jellyfish in SPHERE (1998) counts too!)!
Here's the thing, I absolutely loved LIFE's super bonkers ending. I only wish I had a copy of the movie here now so that I could keep rewinding it over and over again. It's so pessimistic and cruel and downright LOVECRAFTian and the way the music soars and repeats and twists the knife in such a mocking and unapologetic way is glorious (fantastic work JON EKSTRAND!). I mean, it's not exactly on par with the hand-grab from CARRIE but it's got a similar churning nightmare vibe and then there's this soulless God's eye aerial view that works as the final nasty nail in mankind's coffin. Does it make up for the rest of the movie? For me…yes, I think so. I dug it so much that all was forgiven. In closing, I can't recommend this movie unless you too happen to have a soft spot for somewhat clunky, embarrassingly earnest fledgling science fiction films (particularly those that swing from semi-boring to semi-incredible with exactly one nuclear blast of pitch perfect exquisite horror). Maybe just go look at your DVD collection and if you see FORBIDDEN WORLD, GALAXY OF TERROR and CREATURE starring back at you- then this flick should sufficiently stir your TANG too. Don't be fooled by its big budget and big names-LIFE works best when you don't take it too seriously.
We're having some technical difficulties (gremlin outbreak) so today's Sunday streaming recommendation will be short and sweet. If you have NETFLIX (and why would anybody not?), you must promise your old pal Unk that you will watch the South Korean end of the world zombie nightmare movie TRAIN TO BUSAN! Even if you think you've seen it all before in the zombie outbreak arena, I can assure you that TRAIN TO BUSAN will blow that notion out of your mind. It's all kinds of thrilling and suspenseful for sure but it also packs a surprisingly gargantuan wallop in the emotional department as well. No, those were not tears streaming down my face at the end of the movie; I just had something in my eye! Even if you don't usually seek out subtitled movies, please make an exception in this case. I guarantee shortly you'll be way too wrapped up in the action to notice. If you need more enticement you can check out the trailer HERE but I'd jump on board knowing as little as possible if I were you. This is a keeper, folks! Make sure you don't miss it!
Below you will find 13 images from 13 terrifying horror themed video games. How many can you identify before GAME OVER?
Hi there,
Terrific site. I was wondering if you could help me with a half-remembered TV-based trauma from my childhood.
My brain's telling me it was a scene from an American TV series, like Columbo, although it could have been a made for TV movie, and it would have been shown during the day on UK TV around the end of the 1970s (possibly beginning of the 1980s)
I remember a woman at home, alone, trying to track down the source of the sound of a baby crying. She kept looking around the house trying to trace where the noise was coming from and eventually narrowed it down to the cupboard under the stairs. She slowly opens the cupboard door and inside finds a Victorian doll, slumped motionless on a chair. Cut to the next scene and cue me running from the room, unable to tell my mum what I'd seen.
My brain's probably filling in the blanks, but it may have involved a tape recorder/dictaphone next to the doll which was producing the crying sound (maybe to send the woman mad/chase her from the house.)
It wasn't Spielberg's 'Something Evil' (which also features a following-the-sound-of-a-crying-baby moment) as this wouldn't have been shown during the day.
I'd be grateful for anyone's help on laying this to rest and can only apologise that there isn't much to go on.
Thanks in advance
UNK SEZ: Thanks, Alex! I have a vague suspicion that what you may be looking for is 1978's NIGHT CRIES? It's a made for TV movie that is all about a mother (SUSAN SAINT JAMES) whose baby died in childbirth and is haunted nightly by the sound an infant crying. It fits the time period and it also stars WILLIAM CONRAD (CANNON) which might explain the "Colombo" vibe. NIGHT CRIES is available on YouTube (first part below) so you can check it out to verify. On the other hand, I may very well be wrong so if anybody has any other guesses or suggestions feel free to share your ideas!
