Tag: Wes Craven
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It’s 1987 and the slasher genre was already starting to smell a bit like a basement after a flood. We’ve seen enough silent masked guys in the woods to be on the verge of burnout. The ‘Summer of 1984’ was a distant memory, and New Line Cinema was facing a crisis of identity. A Nightmare…
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By 1984, two of the big ‘unholy trinity’ of 80s slasher franchises, Halloween and Friday the 13th, had already been established. Wes Craven was late to the party, but he brought with him the film that would not only complete the slasher picture but would also birth the franchise that arguably became the biggest pop…
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Let’s get one thing straight before we step into this particular circle of cinematic hell: Italian horror in 1989 was not a place of prestige. It was a graveyard of ambition. The golden age of Mario Bava and Dario Argento had curdled into a landscape of diminishing returns, where the masters were tired, the budgets…
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“What’s your favorite scary movie?” It’s maybe the most famous opening line in horror history, and I’d somehow never actually watched the movie it came from. I know, I know, how does someone who loves movies avoid SCREAM for this long? The Ghostface mask is everywhere, from Spirit Halloween stores to Reddit memes, and I’ve…
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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 recently had the pleasure of hosting a roundtable discussion with several members of the Horror Archives staff. We examined the A Nightmare on Elm Street franchise in great detail in what made for a great conversation. Joining me for the roundtable were: Bronson West, Chris Flackett and Robert Chipman. Be sure to let us…
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Throughout six Scream films, there have been a combined 13 killers to don the mask. Some of them legendary, some overshadowed by their Ghostface peers throughout the years. A few with familial motives, a handful with desires for fame, and others with almost no motive at all, which makes them even more scary. But who…
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Although perhaps not mentioned in the same breath as Halloween, Friday the 13th, or A Nightmare on Elm Street, it’s becoming increasingly more difficult to not mention Scream in the conversation for best horror franchise of all time. Maybe it’s missing the nostalgia factor that the other franchises have but in terms of quality, Scream…