The early to mid-1980s, for those (like me) who lived through it, was a very strange time. On the one hand, we had the ridiculously overblown, gold-plated glamor of Dallas and Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous; and on the other hand, we had movies, TV shows, and even pop music bombarding us with low-key … More Movies: When the Wind Blows (1986)
I have to admit that, as a rule, I’ve kinda been over vampires for a really long time. Like all self-respecting darklings, of course, I was all about Anne Rice back in the day (that day being the 80s), and my first (terrible, unpublished) novel was actually a painfully angsty vampire love story along those … More Movies: An Appreciation of The Hunger (1983)
On today’s installment, at the excellent recommendation of a listener, I’m going to discuss ten of the horror movie scenes that I personally found the scariest, or made the biggest impact on me the first time I saw them, lingering uncomfortably in my memory for years afterwards. Some of these choices may be idiosyncratic, to … More Ten of My Favorite Terrifying Horror Movie Scenes
In terms of horror movies, the 1980s was the decade of the slashers: they were relatively cheap to make, could go direct to video, and had a built-in audience of fans who would rent anything that promised creative, grisly kills (and maybe some nudity). By the latter part of the 80s, though, slashers were on … More Movies: Edge of the Axe (1988)
How I ended up watching this film was something bizarrely like kismet. My boyfriend Tom woke up one Sunday morning, and immediately (and inexplicably) started describing scenes from a movie he’d seen a long time ago, asking if I knew what movie it was. It didn’t sound familiar to me, but then he suddenly remembered … More Movies: Brimstone and Treacle (1982)
I’ve written before about how my formative years corresponded almost perfectly with the rise of home video, cable television, the new wave and post-punk explosion, and MTV, and the film I want to talk about today is sort of a culmination of all those cultural touchstones coming together in one dark, delightful, and musical package. Though subject of this post … More Movies: Rock & Rule (1983)
Stephen King movie adaptations are almost a genre unto themselves, and for some reason I’ve always been fascinated by them, even the ones that aren’t very good. King’s output is so prodigious that there are literally hundreds of novels and short stories of his that have never been adapted to film; but on the other … More Firestarter vs. Firestarter
Published in 1983, Susan Hill’s The Woman in Black has become a modern classic of old-school British gothic ghost stories. Not only has it had two film adaptations (a made-for-TV English production from 1989 with a screenplay by Nigel Kneale; and a financially successful 2012 adaptation starring Daniel Radcliffe and produced by a revamped Hammer … More Books: The Woman in Black by Susan Hill
I had actually been wanting to read F. Paul Wilson’s 1981 novel The Keep for quite a while, for several reasons: one, a number of listeners of my book reviews ardently recommended it; two, I had vague but fond memories of the 1983 Michael Mann film adaptation (though admittedly I haven’t seen it in years … More Books: The Keep by F. Paul Wilson
So I’ve been writing about horror for a while now, rabbiting on the way I do, reminiscing about some of my favorite books and movies from my youth and trying to figure out what made certain things stick with me over the years. But in all that time, it never occurred to me to write … More Movies: April Fool’s Day (1986)
The Scare Salon 