Category: Film
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I’m not crazy, okay? Just… don’t forget that as we go on here. I mean, I’m nuts for Jason Movies, but that’s allowable, right? They are good-to-great movies! Well… okay-to-great. All right, they are sucky-to-great. I know, I know. Jason Goes To Hell still exists. More on that one later, though, because it’s about to…
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By 1963, Hammer’s cathedral of Gothic horror stood tall. Dracula had already bared its fangs to the world; Frankenstein had resurrected the flesh of gods; The Phantom of the Opera had mourned beauty’s decay beneath the stage. But now, with The Kiss of the Vampire, Hammer stepped into a new chamber — one where the…
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By 1962, Hammer’s Gothic world had already been soaked in blood and revelation. Dracula and Frankenstein had rewritten the language of British horror; The Curse of the Werewolf had turned that language into lamentation. And then came The Phantom of the Opera — not a storm of violence, but a sigh. Terence Fisher’s Phantom is the…
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By 1961, Hammer had built a cathedral of color and shadow. Their Gothic universe was now a mythology unto itself — stitched together from the corpses of old legends, electrified by desire, faith, and decay. Into that world of crucifixes and candlelight came The Curse of the Werewolf, Terence Fisher’s lone venture into lycanthropy. It…
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Having recently ranked the Mission: Impossible franchise after it [allegedly] wrapped up with The Final Reckoning, I got to thinking about what other franchises I could do a ranking of. In addition to Tom Cruise’s nearly 30 year action journey, I had previously done the Halloween, Friday The 13th, and Nightmare On Elm Street series…
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Act I: The Fucking Foreplay You all know the drill. You hear the magic word—SEQUEL—and the blood runs cold, not from fear, but from disappointment. It’s a studio contract, a cash-grab, a cynical, focus-grouped piece of cinematic product designed to wring a few more dollars out of a perfectly finished corpse. It’s a mandatory encore…
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I need to watch more of the classic Universal Horror features from the 1930’s through 1950’s. I’ve seen a handful of them, sure, but there are several more out there. For instance, I have skipped The Mummy and The Phantom Of The Opera because I had heard they didn’t quite measure up to the rest.…
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By 1960, Hammer Films had conquered the Gothic. Dracula and The Curse of Frankenstein had redrawn horror in shades of crimson and candlelight; The Brides of Dracula had turned that terror into liturgy. And then, without warning, Terence Fisher turned the gaze inward. The Two Faces of Dr. Jekyll is not a film of monsters…
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Despite having talked to the Mayhem team a year ago about how they put on such an event, it’s still a surprising feat, just like every other time I have attended. And also just like every other time, I have come away with a few stand-out memories and some new favourite films. Here are this…
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If Dracula (1958) was Hammer’s resurrection — the blood-soaked birth of modern Gothic horror — then The Brides of Dracula was the sermon that followed. This is Terence Fisher’s cathedral of the damned, his hymn to sin and salvation sung through fangs and candlelight. It is also a paradox — the Dracula film without Dracula,…