Summer of Slash: Maniac

William Lustig's Maniac is a brilliant slasher film; one that William Friedkin called not just "a great film", but, "one of the scariest films of all time." Now, Mr. Friedkin's comments – not always a pillar of reliance (see: Jade) – are quite a shock to those who think Maniac is nothing more than a gratuitous, misogynistic splatter fest. The film is so much more: it's a 42nd Street Cinema version of Taxi Driver; a film that deserves more credit than just its superb gore effects by make-up maven...

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Summer of Slash: Capsule Reviews, Part 4

Back with some capsule reviews.  These have been in the can for a while, but a mixture of grad school, work, and the hard drive for my desktop computer blowing up it's been a bugger of a time getting some new horror posts up.  I have a review for Maniac ready to go, too, but I'm still waiting for my computer to get fixed so I can get some screencaps up (my Netbook doesn't have a disc drive). In these capsule reviews you'll find brief thoughts on the Ozploitation version of Rear Window,...

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Summer of Slash: Eyeballing a Meme

Hans from the always wonderful Quiet Cool blog has pegged me for the latest meme making the rounds. This meme started over at The Dancing Image. The inspiration for the meme is "a gallery of images chosen by you to stand for so much of what makes Cinema such a rich and exciting medium." Here are the rules(cut and pasted from Hans' site): 1. Pick as many pictures as you want - but make them screen-captures. These need to be moments that speak to you that perhaps haven't been represented as...

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Summer of Slash: The Funhouse

The Funhouse is a light-hearted, fun little slasher film that, when held up to all of the other slashers I've watched this summer (almost 30 now), actually achieves what so many hope to accomplish: to be (at the risk of sounding repetitive) a light-hearted, fun little slasher movie. What's even more shocking is that it was directed by Tobe Hooper – who turned down Steven Spielberg's offer to direct E.T. so he could make this film (the two would of course team up in one of the genres oddest partnerships...

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In Lieu of Slash How 'Bout Some Links?

I'm slow on content right now because my computer blew up the other night, and I'm waiting for my tech savvy brother to help me put a new hard drive in it. So, even though I have a review that's been in the can for awhile (I'll post it later today, maybe) I felt like I should point everyone to something much better: Tim Brayton's "Summer of Blood" series on the Video Nasties.  Now, most of my readers will already be familiar with Tim's writing.  He's one of the best out there, and I implore all of you to check out his latest entry on...

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Summer of Slash: Alone in the Dark (1982)

Director Jack Sholder's sneakily good little slasher is one of the more underrated and intelligent entries into the subgenre. Released during those oh-so-infamous and fertile years for the slasher subgenre, 1981 – 1984, Alone in the Dark was initially dismissed as 'just another slasher' movie; however, the film has gained quite a reputation among horror buffs for its innovative casting (Jack Palance and Martin Landau as psycho killers!) and intelligent take on the slasher film (not to mention...

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Summer of Slash: My Bloody Valentine (1981)

One of the things that make Canadian slashers stand out more than their American contemporaries is their propensity to be consistently not awful. I think the primary reason for this is their attention to detail in things like setting and atmosphere and pacing. Canadian slasher films were much more interested in evoking a mood through the settings and the towns they took place in; in addition, they also tried a little harder to establish their characters, rather than just making them "dead teenagers"....

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A Quick Question...

I've been messing with my blog the last couple of hours.  I've changed some minor things like colors and such, and I've tweaked some major things to the sidebar like adding an index for my Italian Horror reviews, a link that explains who Hugo Stiglitz is, and as a more organized labeling system (yay OCD!) So, here's what I'm curious about in my ongoing quest to make the blog as aesthetically pleasing as possible: How does this look when YOU see it.  I've viewed it on both Google Chrome and Firefox (the latter has the header pic fill...

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Question of the Day: Which is better, Canadian slashers or American slashers?

In the spirit of the holiday coming up ("USA, USA, USA"...I kid...) -- and the fact that even though I've been watching a TON of horror movies lately, but I just haven't had the time to write about them (for Jamie: you were so, so right about Slugs, hehe, it was wonderful) -- I was thinking of posing this question about which country had the better slasher resume.  So, horror fans, which do you prefer: the slashers of America (Halloween, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, A Nightmare on Elm Street,...

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