Week of Review - The Mangler (1995)

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On to day two of my look back at the forgotten Stephen King adaptations of the ‘90s, today we’ll be taking a look at the Tobe Hooper film The Mangler.  This was one of the last King films of the Golden Age of adaptations, released in 1995 right before the well of adaptive works dried up almost overnight.  It’s actually somewhat staggering the level of King adaptations that cropped up between 1990 and 1995.  Including TV mini-series like IT and The Stand the first half of the ‘90s saw a staggering 12 King adaptations, the same as the entirety of the ‘80s and double the number that was made in the 2000s.  

That’s also part of why these mid-decade adaptations like The Mangler or Thinner started getting into the stranger corners of King’s canon, most of the more cinematic or standard pulp options like Christie, Misery, and The Shining had already been done so they were really scraping the bottom of the barrel with stuff about Romani weight loss curses or an evil industrial ironing machine from hell.  However, don’t let the goofier subject matter fool you because The Mangler is easily one of the best King adaptations this decade produced. 

Cover Story - Top 13 Jason Voorhees Covers

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Happy Friday the 13^th everyone, this weird day we’ve all decided is cursed for reasons we can no longer remember.  Seriously, I have no idea why the fearful and unlucky reputation of the number 13 has persisted so long or even where it started but it has stuck around so we might as well indulge it.  This Friday the 13^th I’m celebrating with a dive into the single best argument for why this random day of the year has persisted as a national holiday: Jason Voorhees, star of the Friday the 13^th film series.  

Released in 1980, Friday the 13^th may not have started the ‘80s slasher craze but it did cement it, helping to full launch the horror blockbuster and launching the franchise that would turn “Jason” into psycho-killer shorthand.  Nearly 40 years later Jason has managed to invade every medium- film, television, video games, novels, music, and, naturally, comic books.  There has been a cavalcade of Friday the 13^th comic books over the years both tied to the films and independent of them and today we honor those comics by looking at their best cover artwork, let’s dive in. 

Filmland - Severance

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As I write this, it’s the weekend of The Belko Experiment’s premiere.  This new dark horror-comedy from the director of Wolf Creek and the writer of Slither and Guardians of the Galaxy promises a playful yet gory dive into a blend of office politics, gladiatorial combat, and the corporate culture of backstabbing and inhumanity on the way to the top.  

This kind of subject has always been fertile ground for horror.  The idea of corporate greed as culture and betrayal as the order of the day was a core theme in John Carpenter’s They Live, and the idea of the evil, greedy, monolithic corporation exploiting its workforce has been a cornerstone of the Alien franchise since the beginning. 

Corporate culture was also obviously on the minds of the people behind 2006’s Severance, a British-German horror-comedy about a team building exercise that ends up murderous.  One look at the poster tells you everything you need to know about this flick, to the point you have to wonder if The Belko Experiment was somehow inspired by this film.  So, to mark The Belko Experiment’s return to this fertile genre, let’s take a trip in the way-back machine and check out the movie that got there first.    

Filmland - Return of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre

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For those not clued into the world of video games, Resident Evil has just released its 7^th installment under the title Biohazard.  This year’s latest installment in the zombie video game series comes with one foot in the world of cinema, however, as it’s been released around the same time as the latest Resident Evil film The Final Chapter.  Now, I’m not here to go on and on about the complete failure of adaptation that is the Resident Evil films, mainly because, much like the games, following the plot of Resident Evil is a convoluted and deeply unrewarding exercise. 

However, RE7, as it’s known, also draws from the world of film.  It’s a slow descent into horror based around a monstrous backwoods cannibal family in the American wilderness, a premise drawn heavily from the horror classic Texas Chainsaw Massacre.  As such, I thought this would be the perfect chance to dive into the strangest entry in the Texas Chainsaw Massacre franchise to see how the southern fried horror flick and Resident Evil’s corporate zombapocalypse stylings have a bigger point of overlap than you’d think. 

Static Thoughts - Top 15 American Horror Story Season Six Teasers

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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.

6 Promos Release for American Horror Story Season 6

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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. 

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. 

Slasher Reboots & How To Do Them

Edited by Robert Beach 

Recently, it was announced that New Line would be producing a new remake of Nightmare on Elm Street. Hot on the heals of this announcement came the news that CW was developing a Friday the 13^th TV show, most likely in attempt to capitalize on the success of similar horror shows like Bates Motel, Hannibal, and Scream. 

These two announcements represent the latest in the long, rough cycle of slasher film reboots that started in 2003 when Platinum Dunes first resurrected the Texas Chainsaw Massacre film series.  Speaking of which, that series is getting its 5^th reboot attempt next year with Leatherface, another prequel intended to explore the character’s origins.