Filmland - History of Horror & the Apocalypse

If you liked this article, please like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter and please consider Donating to keep the blog going

As the fall season comes upon us once more it’s time for that spookiest of traditions: the new season of American Horror Story.  This year’s season will be about something that’s on everyone’s mind lately: the apocalypse.  The end of days is one of those primal fears that’s been with society pretty much ever since there was a society for us to fear the end of.  However, despite being a fairly ubiquitous terror and one that you’d think everyone held a stake in the Apocalypse’s place in the horror pantheon is actually pretty limited.  

Even setting up this timeline I’ve had to fudge want counts as “horror” a bit to include some stuff that’s more schlocky or was featured a lot in the old horrorathons that channels used to show around Halloween when I was a kid.  With that said, I did find enough apocalyptic horror material to create something of a timeline for the genre and how it reflects the anxieties and apocalyptic scenarios of the time.

Static Thoughts - Top 15 American Horror Story Season Six Teasers

If you liked this article, please like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter and please consider Donating to keep the blog going

Edited by Robert Beach

At the time of writing, the American Horror Story season 6 premiere is just two days away and. So far, the theme has remained thoroughly under wraps. Though there have been a handful of rumors, they’ve ranged from "The Mist" to "Orphans," so it’s still pretty much anybody’s guess what the latest season of the popular anthology horror series will be about. However, I’m not here to speculate, rather I'm praising the 24 teaser trailers FX released for this new season; each teaser has its own unique aesthetic and thematic creation. 

It was an amazing run of creativity to keep the fans guessing on what would come next for the show and has left us with a plethora of great 10-second horror films exploring the history and styles of the genre.  Now, because 24 is a huge number of videos to talk about, I’m widdling that down to the top 15 for this list. With that said, let’s dive in.

5 O'Clock Shuffle - August 22

This week on the 5 O'Clock Shuffle I look at the major Spider-Man, Flash, and Arrow casting news, Amazon's new Tick TV show, what won at the box office, the major TV coming your way, and of course the comic book forecast 

5 O'Clock Shuffle - August 1st

Welcome to the first installment of the site's new broadcast the 5 O'Clock Shuffle, coming to you every Monday with the news you may have missed over the weekend and a look at what's to come, all in just under 10 minutes.

This week I take a look at The Great Wall controversy, some Disney reboots, Sharknado 4 and of course, the weekend box office report and New Comic Book Day round-up.

6 Promos Release for American Horror Story Season 6

If you like this post or want to support the blog, please consider donating

Edited by Robert Beach

It’s that time of year again: the time where we all get to speculate on what this year’s American Horror Story theme is going to be.  If you’re new to this blog, my relationship with American Horror Story is…complicated at best.  I might best be described as an anti-fan of the show, not necessarily a hater but someone who actively dislikes the individual episodes while still being thoroughly fascinated by the drip of trailers and posters as well as the sprawling internal mythology the series has slowly cultivated. 

I'm more fascinated by American Horror Story’s style and sizzle than I am the actual plot or characters of any given season.  If you’re a diehard fan of every episode good for you, but I I’m mainly here for the weird exploration of the horror pantheon and the history of American atrocities in particular and boy are we in for a twist with season 6. 

Static Thoughts - American Horror Story: Hotel Premiere

So, American Horror Story started its fifth season this past week.  The new series, subtitled ‘Hotel,’ is a major change up for the show as it’s the first season that won’t feature the return of series regular Jessica Lange.  Since the show started in 2011 they’ve kept a very tight knit core group of actors from season to season in what’s been called a modern update of the classical concept of an actor’s company.  They’ve added to the group certainly, like Kathy Bates who joined the show in its 3^rd season Coven, but by enlarge the core group from season 1 hasn’t changed up to this season.  In an attempt to fill the hole Lange left in the production American Horror Story has brought in Lady Gaga to basically serve as their overacting and deadly series matriarch. 

Personally I’ve always had a complicated relationship with American Horror Story that I’ll get more into later in this review but Gaga’s involvement was entirely what brought me back for the fifth season.  I’ve always maintained that Lady Gaga has a unique and commanding screen presence and her history of elaborate and evocative music videos is right in American Horror Story’s wheelhouse.  If anyone could propel American Horror Story into the realms of compelling quality it would be her…it’s just too bad she didn’t do that.

Week of Review - The Shining

And so we come to the end of another Week of Review, though admittedly a much shorter one.  American Horror Story: Hotel will be premiering later this tonight so for the final film in my hotel horror marathon I’ve chosen the most blatantly obvious example there is: The Shining.  The Shining is considered by many to be the greatest horror film ever made and its depth, complexity, and importance continues to echo down the long halls of cinema to this very day.  The film has been analyzed and deconstructed nearly to death with whole documentaries created about its possible meanings such as the death of the American family, the shameful treatment of Native Americans, and even claims that it was Stanley Kubrick’s confession to faking the Moon Landing. 

With a film this well known, this talked about, this discussed and considered by academia, nerdom, and the mass populous alike I normally wouldn’t talk about but I wanted to cover a certain subject that always tends to linger around the film; its connection to the book of the same name.  If you’ve never read it The Shining the book is actually an incredibly different animal to the film and a decidedly less interesting or terrifying horror story, and I’m going to talk about how and why.

Week of Review - Psycho II

Welcome back to Week of Review where we’re building up to tomorrow’s premiere of American Horror Story: Hotel.  When discussing the incredibly limited niche of hotel horror there are basically two elephants you all but have to address.  The most obvious we’ll be getting to tomorrow but today we’re taking a look at the other reigning kind of the genre Psycho.  Given Psycho’s incredible popularity now it’s easy to forget just what a massively important film it was and how much it changed the horror landscape forever.  Despite being a flawed film in a lot of key aspects there’s no doubt it’s Alfred Hitchcock’s most influential and enduring classic and is the movie a lot of folks point to as the first quasi-Slasher flick.  The film was based off of a book of the same name by Robert Block, which drew heavy inspiration from the crimes of Ed Gein, the same disturbed criminal whose actions would later inspire The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.  Given that impressive pedigree it really shouldn’t be so surprising the film got a sequel.

Week of Review - Vacancy

We are 3 installments into this shorter Week of Review as American Horror Story: Hotel looms ever near, rumbling towards us all like a kind collective, television based prostate cancer.  Today I’ll be looking at another 2007 horror film, because apparently that was just a really good year for hotel horror.  However, unlike Saturday’s 1408 today’s topic skews much more in line with the key trends and themes of horror in the mid-2000s.  As much as I like to talk about the amazing 4-year period of 2007-2010 as the time when the 2010s truly began I’m thoroughly aware that change doesn’t happen over night. 

As I mentioned 2007 was a horror landscape dominated by the twin success of Saw and the blossoming trend of horror reboots.  Texas Chainsaw and Amityville Horror had both come out in 2005 and made a ton of money with Rob Zombie’s Halloween picking up steam to complete the hat trick that same year.  Haunted house movies wouldn’t pick up again till the twin success of Paranormal Activity and Indisious and zombies didn’t fully enter the mainstream till 2010.  Combine all this with the still lingering impact of Eli Roth’s Hostel, also from the truly terrible year of 2005, and horror was in bad shape.  Which makes it all the more impressive that Vacancy, which conforms to all the horror tropes and standards of the day, is really good.

Week of Review - Motel Hell

Welcome back to Week of Review, where I dedicate 5 to 8 days to reviewing material that’s adjacent to something topical and relevant.  This week I’m looking at 5 hotel horror flicks all leading up to American Horror Story’s 5^th season: Hotel.  Yesterday I looked at the underappreciated Stephen King adaptation 1408, this week I look at the bizarre alleged horror-comedy and staple of late night horror showings and B-movie marathons everywhere Motel Hell. 

Week of Review - 1408

Welcome back to week of review, in which I dedicate 5-8 days to reviewing a collection of films and TV shows relating to a topical subject of my choosing.  5 days from now we’ll see the return of American Horror Story, the hit anthology horror show from FX.  American Horror Story and I have a…complicated relationship to say the least but I at least acknowledge the incredible influence the show has had.  As we speak the amount of anthologies currently in development is pretty staggering and our new found love of anthologies is no doubt partly responsible for the upcoming Goosebumps film.  So given that I’ve decided to produce a Week of Review dedicated to this season of American Horror Story’s theme: Hotels.  I don’t really know why the creators of American Horror Story felt “Hotel” was the perfect confluence of horror trends and American identity to devote an entire season to but thankfully we don't have to understand it, just embrace it.  So to kick things off I’m looking at one of the best and most underrated Stephen King adaptations of all time 1408. 

Panel Vision - Coven #1 Review

If I had to choose the most dynamic and exciting rising name in indie comic I would point squarely at Zenescope comics.  Zenescope has been, consistently, very ahead of the popular curve, getting in on the trend of converting public domain fairy tales and seminal children’s literature into thrilling action adventure stories well before it came into vogue.  What’s more Zenescope has never been one to sit on their laurels, always pushing ahead and expanding their stable of comics in diverse and lateral ways such as the horror anthology series Grimm Tales of Terror.