31 days of fright

7 Minutes

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31 Days of Fright: The Lords of Salem

T. Dawson October 14, 2019

“Their blasphemous music echoes in my mind, driving me to the point of insanity…” Rob Zombie deserved another chance. Sure, I may have found his 2007 remake of Halloween wretched, and the southern-fried Grand...

5 Minutes

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31 Days of Fright: Sleepy Hollow

T. Dawson October 13, 2019

“Their heads were not found severed. Their heads were not found at all.” Tim Burton used to be so much fun. Off the heels of his B-movie splatterfest Mars Attacks!, Burton directed Sleepy Hollow,...

6 Minutes

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31 Days of Fright: Re-Animator

T. Dawson October 12, 2019

“I gave him life!” If you’re looking for a faithful adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft’s 1922 novelette “Herbert West, Re-Animator,” then Stuart Gordon’s Re-Animator is not for you. Gordon’s film is sleazy and gory, excessive...

6 Minutes

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31 Days of Fright: From Beyond

T. Dawson October 12, 2019

“Humans are such easy prey.” As Re-Animator made explicitly clear, Stuart Gordon’s films are not for the faint of heart. They’re horror films only nominally; they are horrific, certainly, but they seem to bridge...

6 Minutes

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31 Days of Fright: Hell House LLC

T. Dawson October 11, 2019

“This isn’t part of the show!” Haunted houses are such a part of the horror firmament that they date back to the very first Gothic novel, Horace Walpole’s The Castle of Otranto. It’s not...

5 Minutes

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31 Days of Fright: The Ritual

T. Dawson October 10, 2019

“We had those nightmares and it followed us, didn’t it?” Grief is fertile ground for horror films. There’s something elemental about it, something intimately apocalyptic: the bone-deep knowledge that something in your life is...

7 Minutes

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31 Days of Fright: Cube

T. Dawson October 9, 2019

“You think we matter? We don’t.” The conceit behind Cube is so surface-level goofy that if the viewer were given too much setup, the film would fall apart almost immediately, leaving nothing behind but...

5 Minutes

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31 Days of Fright: Creep 2

T. Dawson October 9, 2019

“I’m what they call a ‘serial killer.'” Creep 2 had a tough task in front of it. It couldn’t be a rehash of the first film, because then it would lose the slow-burn dread...

5 Minutes

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31 Days of Fright: Creep

T. Dawson October 8, 2019

“Such unspeakable things I saw.” Creep has become an inescapable recommendation. I’ve been doing 31 Days of Fright since 2016, and every year it’s come close to making the list. You can’t go down...

7 Minutes

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31 Days of Fright: A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors

T. Dawson October 7, 2019

“I can’t handle the nightmare.” A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors, is, by any definition, a better continuation of the series than was the second film, Freddy’s Revenge. Dream Warriors makes better...

8 Minutes

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31 Days of Fright: Halloween III: Season of the Witch

T. Dawson October 6, 2019

“I do love a good joke, and this is the best ever. A joke on the children.” After Halloween and Halloween II, John Carpenter and Debra Hill thought that the story was concluded. And...

7 Minutes

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31 Days of Fright: Halloween II

T. Dawson October 6, 2019

“Why won’t he die?” John Carpenter’s Halloween is a strange beast. In many ways, it was a slapdash, fly-by-night production, with much of the behind the scenes personnel wearing multiple hats. But it was...