Originally broadcast on Oct. 31, 1987, the WNUF Halloween Special has to be the craziest live television program since the medium’s invention. Or rather, it would be, if only it were real. Actually a movie made to resemble — really resemble — a local newscast of the chroma key-happy era, WNUF is a damned fine … Continue reading WNUF Halloween Special (2013)
In the same year they inadvertently made movie history with the troll-free Troll 2, director Claudio Fragasso and predominantly freckled child actor Michael Stephenson went Beyond Darkness. Actually a sequel to 1998’s goofy-ass Ghosthouse, this Italian-financed haunted-house retread bears more relation to the Hollywood horror shows it rips off. Rev. Peter (Gene Le Brock, Metamorphosis) … Continue reading Beyond Darkness (1990)
Why spice things up in the bedroom when you can do it in The Black Room? “HILLTOP MANSION HAS UNIQUE & EXOTIC ROOM” is all the nightly cockblocked husband Larry (Jimmy Stathis, X-Ray) needs to read in the classifieds to color his horny self intrigued. Upon a tour of the Hollywood Hills home, he slaps … Continue reading The Black Room (1982)
It’s hard to believe in David Gordon Green, let alone any follow-up to William Friedkin’s traumatizing classic. Unlike horror franchises with a gratuitously marketable villain — like Halloween, Friday the 13th or C.H.U.D. — The Exorcist has to make do with a concept. And you can’t exactly trademark demonic possession, hence the wave of exorcism … Continue reading The Exorcist: Believer (2023)
Halloween’s indie anthology franchise returns with another bag of treats in 10/31 Part III. To continue that analogy, I liken its quartet of stories to chocolate coins: Yeah, technically, they’re chocolate, but they’re no Peanut M&M’s. As with the 2017 original (which I disliked) and Part II (which I skipped), this third trip ’round the … Continue reading 10/31 Part III (2022)