A lot of well-known actors get their start in low-budget horror flicks, but Kevin Bacon happened to cut his teeth in one of the most well-known horror movies of all time, Friday the 13th. Few actors star in a classic horror movie out of the gate and then find mainstream success on their own the way Bacon did.
I’ve waited a long time for this (cracks knuckles). This argument has been a long time coming, but I know that I’m ready (cracks neck). I’m ready to make a case for an overlooked, often derided film from the Friday the 13th series (tapes fists). That’s right, I’m here in defense of Friday the 13th Part VII – The New Blood. And you know what? I’m confident that I’m going to sway at least a few of you (does series of calisthenics so as not to pull a muscle).
In a femme fatale performance as Marion Crane, Janet Leigh is such a compelling leading lady in Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho, that it’s that much more shocking when you find out in bloody fashion that she, in fact, isn’t the leading lady. So, you can imagine my excitement when I realized that one of the other movies on Leigh’s résumé features killer rabbits. With Easter Sunday coming up, I figured what better way to celebrate Jesus coming back from the dead as a giant bunny (I’m assuming that’s what happened) than by checking out a flick about massive rabbits terrorizing the Southwest?
Growing up in the ’90s, my path to the glory of Pam Grier took an odd route.
You’d be hard-pressed to find anyone more attractive to an anglophile. With gaunt, angular features and a proper aristocratic accent, Peter Cushing could just as easily sell you a first-edition Charles Dickens novel as he could read a line of dialogue. Inserting those proper English characteristics into tales of bloodthirsty creatures is part of what makes Hammer films so entertaining. In the case of Val Guest’s 1957 creature feature, The Abominable Snowman, those admirable characteristics are also integral parts of the plot.
[Hello, readers! To celebrate Valentine's Day, the Daily Dead team thought it would be fun to do things a little differently this year. We're putting the spotlight on our favorite horror-loving characters from genre cinema—people who have represented our own fandom on screen and, in many cases, helped bring our passion for horror into the mainstream. Be sure to check here for more of our tributes to some of the greatest horror fans to ever grace the big screen.]
“Kill your brother. You’ll feel better.” Such is the self-assured advice of Mr. Alan Frog (Jamison Newlander), one-half of the Frog Brothers, the Santa Carla vampire-killing duo from Joel Schumacher’s 1987 glampire flick, The Lost Boys.
In the middle of the 20th century, Alfred Hitchcock made a career out of generating fear from the mundane. Psycho made us afraid to shower. The Birds had us looking toward the skies for more than just the pigeons looking to crap on our heads. And I’ll be damned if Rear Window didn’t get me to stop spying on my neighbors with a telescopic camera.
[Welcome back, readers! With the 2017 Sundance Film Festival beginning this week, we thought it would be fun to take a look back at some of the great midnight movies that have come out of the fest over the years. Be sure to check back here each day this week for more Midnight Memories from Daily Dead!]
Last January marked ten years since Neil Marshall’s The Descent was screened at the Sundance Film Festival. Over a decade after it was featured in the Park City at Midnight lineup, The Descent is almost universally considered a modern horror classic, which is unfortunate for yours truly because until recently, I’d never actually seen it. But after finally venturing into this cave, I am happy to say that this is one of those rare movies that completely lives up to the hype.
Robert Englund and Freddy Krueger. Not since Bela Lugosi and Dracula have a character and an actor been so deeply linked.
Barbara Crampton has been a mainstay in the horror community for more than thirty years, but she’d rather not be called a “Scream Queen.” In a recent essay, Crampton explained that for her, the term is reductive and dismisses the nuances and hard work that go into her roles. I can understand if she wants her legacy to carry more complexity than a catchy nickname, especially considering the wide range of roles that Crampton has contributed to the horror genre.
If one hundred people put together a list of the worst ways that horror franchises have jumped the shark, I’m pretty sure “sent the villain into space” would be near the top of ninety-nine of them.
Ah, the carefree days of 1950s America. Suburban families had the white picket fence in the yard, the 2.3 kids in the living room, and the persistent anxiety of dying in a blast of radioactive flame. The Cold War had eyes tilted skyward in anticipation of the day the Kremlin decided to drop the big one on the US. And while there were “plans” in place (duck and cover, kids!) most people knew that there really wasn’t a whole lot they could do if a fifty-megaton warhead came to town.
As is the case with many horror fanatics, the ’80s holds a special place in my heart. I’m a happy guy if you give me some practical effects, stilted yet somehow effective acting, and perhaps a dash of nudity. If you were to distill these things into a single person, I’m pretty sure you’d get Linnea Quigley, the poster girl for Reagan-era horror. While she’s quite well-known for supplying the genre with ample amounts of nudity, it would do her a disservice to say that’s all she brings to the table.
The 1970s were a very interesting time for genre fare. Independent, low-budget horror was spreading through “exploitation” flicks meant to draw viewers in with promises of violence, nudity, and a variety of other visceral thrills that often came at the price of other luxuries like plot structure, acting, and production value. From this burgeoning grindhouse scene sprang an even more interesting phenomenon, the “blaxploitation” wave. Blaxploitation, particularly horror blaxploitation, focused on film tropes through the lens of black culture.
How the hell do I introduce a legend like Vincent Price? This is a guy who has starred in scores of horror roles and carried the banner for the genre in an era when the public saw it as little more than a breeding ground for psychopaths and miscreants. There isn’t much that I can say about this man that hasn’t been said a dozen times over, but I do have this: Vincent Price looked very much like my grandma. Or I suppose my grandma looked very much like Vincent Price. Don’t get me wrong, she was a beautiful lady, but she had Price’s ability to raise an eyebrow in a way to convey pretty much any emotion (usually mild annoyance). So for me, sitting down for a Vincent Price flick is like sitting down with a family member. Sure, he’s typically evil to a mustache-twirling degree, but who doesn’t have at least one such character tucked into their family tree? With this in mind, I got to have another little reunion with Price while I watched him in the 1959 murder mystery, The Bat.
