There’s a particular kind of horror that is excessively bleak. “Last House on the Left” comes to mind, as do “Deliverance” and many of the Texas Chainsaw films. The horror in these films is man-made;…

A little known fact about me is that I did some work for a film production company in the 2000s, mostly trying and failing to get horror films made. I did get the chance to…

I’d never heard of “The Black Room” until I saw it on a list of Amazon recommendations. I figured, “Why the hell not?” and gave it a try. The film starts with an attractive couple…

I never finished the screenwriting advice book “Save the Cat,“ but what I did read contained a useful insight. The author advised that all great stories contain an element of irony. For instance, the Bruce…

I have a love-hate thing with the work of Wes Craven. I think “Nightmare on Elm Street” is the greatest horror film ever made, and I came around on the “Scream” series after disliking it…

I’ve mentioned “apartment horror” recently, the sub-genre where a protagonist tackles the strange modern isolation that comes with living in what are basically cells stacked upon each other. Usually, a mystery connected to the building…

I loved the 2021 horror film “Malignant” so much that I noted the name of the screenwriter who’d written such a terrific and twisty script. Thus, when I found out Akela Cooper had written the…

Well, this is a little weird. I recently watched the film “House of Darkness“ which I’d berated for being an hour of people talking about modern sexual mores, followed by a big reveal and then…

Sometimes it seems the main beneficiaries of #metoo in Hollywood were white male actors. Why? Because the villain is always the best role, and since 2015 or so, there have been numerous films that flip…

The 1980s was a period of some great Armageddon films—tales where much of society was destroyed by nuclear warfare or some kind of strange calamity. Think of the Mad Max sequels or “Night of the…

There are movies that are basically two hours of plot to set up something that happens in the last ten seconds. “6 Souls” starring Julianne Moore is one of them. It’s not a bad thing…

I’m pleased as a vampire in a blood bank to announce I have a short story coming out in the new Books of Horror Anthology. It’s available for pre-order now and arrives shortly. There are…

There are movies where you need the ending explained to you. Then there are movies where you need the whole damn thing explained to you. Then there are movies where you know there is no…

Director William Castle had a certain recipe for creating 1960s horror films that sold well but didn’t break the budget. It involved mixing… 1) Limited special effects and settings 2) Skilled actors on the downslope…

I became aware of A.C. Hessenauer upon reading her gothic horror novel “Dread House” several months back.  “Manimal” is one or her more recent works. It swaps out the gothic vibe for something closer to…