I’m the first to admit that horror movies pre-1960 lack something compared to the modern era. You want teenage virgins being slowly bisected by a power saw? (Of course you do!) Or gore-dripping skeletons climbing out of their flesh prisons? Or a sword wielding ghost decapitating six people at a time?  Well, you’re not going…

I know what you’re thinking: didn’t you just review this movie, Wil Forbis? Incorrect, mein Freund. I recently reviewed “Initiation,” a 2020 slasher with heavy themes. This is “The Initiation,” a 1984 slasher featuring Vera Miles of “Psycho” fame. Got it? And how was it? An absolute blast! Just when you think 80s horror has…

This was a strange one, but in a good way. The film starts at a frequent event in slasher films: the college fraternity party. Beautiful, barely clothed young people are acting stupid, getting wasted, and hooking up. I instantly hate all of them and can’t wait for them to die. (I will add that I…

I have a difficult relationship with the work of Sigmund Freud. On the one hand, I think he offered a lot of insight into the working of the human mind, particularly popularizing the somewhat ethereal notion of the unconscious. While this hidden layer of the psyche is hard to define, I do believe it exists.…

I watched 2001’s “The Pledge“ starring Jack Nicholson and directed by Sean Penn a few years after it came out. At the time, I proclaimed the neo-noir the greatest film ever made. (The world, committed as it is to ignoring my sage proclamations, took little notice.) I was, in particular, in awe of Penn’s directing,…

Evil kid movies have a long history going back to “The Bad Seed,” first shown on screens in 1956. That lineage runs straight through 1976’s “The Omen,” where the trope goes biblical. I fondly recall Macaulay Culkin’s turn as the archetype in 1993’s “The Good Son.” And there’s what is possibly my favorite film, “Orphan.”…

You might be familiar with director Sam Peckinpah’s 1971 film “Straw Dogs“ in which a nebbish character played by Dustin Hoffman faces off with thugs in rural England who want to invade his house and violate his wife. 1986’s “Bullies“ is like “Straw Dogs“ idiot younger brother. It’s the same setup, though the family arrangement…

About 20 minutes into 2025’s “Bring Her Back“ I was worried it was one of these modern movies where nothing is ever explained, and the mystery just kind of festers until the end. And I wasn’t really in the mood for such a movie on that particular evening. I’m glad I kept going, because it…

1981’s “Delusion” (also known as “The House Where Death Lives” and boy does it ever) is an absolute gem of a movie. If you’re a fan of slow-burn psychological horror with sexual tension and psychological layering, you’ll love it. Our story begins with young Meredith (Patricia Pearcy), a home nurse who gets a gig caring…

I should watch more sci-fi horror. The genre has so many great films: “Forbidden Planet”, the “Aliens” franchise, “Blade Runner”, “Event Horizon”, “Strange Days”. And the genre isn’t overdone the way a lot of supernatural or slasher-themed movies are. (Looking at you “Conjuring“ films.) Yeah, sci-fi horror has a lot of standouts. “Death Machine,” however,…

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; they argue we don’t need to fear demons or witches, but our fellow humans. When I was younger, I enjoyed…

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 meet big directors like John Carpenter and Stuart Gordon. At one point, the company was in conversation with famed Director…

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 having sex. They get killed, then the scene switches to another attractive couple having sex. I thought, “OK, it’s gonna…

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 Willis film “Die Hard“ could be thought of with the following question: what if a man cop dreading a meeting…

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 at first, but he’s made some stinkers. It might seem weird that I would dig deep enough into his ouvre…