If Ugetsu is what kickstarted the Japanese tradition of Edo Gothic, Kaneto Shindo may have perfected it with Onibaba (1964). It’s a horror film that doesn’t resort to horror, a ghost story with no ghosts. Its evils reside in all too familiar sources: resentment, human nature, and religious hypocrisy, all woven seamlessly through its narrative

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Christmas Bloody Christmas

Christmas Bloody Christmas is an over-the-top slay ride of holiday cheer fear! Writer and director Joe Begos (VFW, Bliss) always delivers a combination of good storytelling and delirious, gory violence to audiences.  Digging deep into genres like horror, science fiction, and heavy metal music, each one of his films is unique in content.  Viewers can

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Three Dead Trick or Treaters

This Halloween certainly offered up more spooky offerings than usual. Some of the terrible things involve ghastly treats for children, witch hunters looking for victims to torture and burn, and a police force too busy selling the dead to protect the living. All of this and more pours from the mad mind of an author

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Shocktoberfest 2022

Final Edition The scariest movie I saw this week was the HBO documentary Four Hours at the Capitol. The powerful documentary shows what happened when an angry group of protesters attempted to disrupt the certification of the presidential election by storming the Capitol on January 6, 2022. Horror movies provide a safe space for viewers

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Shocktoberfest 2022

Week Two Nineteenth-century American author Edgar Allan Poe was my introduction to horror. Literary scholars consider him to be a key foundational block of the genre and his works are ubiquitous, certain to be found in any library or bookstore.  Even my elementary school had a copy of Tales of Mystery and Imagination that I

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Bite is a 2022 British horror thriller, written and directed by James Owen, with additional writing from Tom Critch. Although a trained trauma surgeon, James started creating short films around 2017 with the comedy short Jaffacakes (2017), with Bite being James’ feature-length debut. After a failed robbery of a dog fighting ring, young con artists

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Shocktoberfest 2022

Week One Welcome to Shocktoberfest 2022, the only horror movie festival curated by me! This is a list of movies I watched to prepare for Halloween, plus a thought or two. Week One is pretty long.  I wish I could watch ten horror movies a week, but work and a non-horror movie-loving wife need attention.

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New Religion 2022 FrightFest

New Religion is a 2022 Japanese surrealist horror, written and directed by Keishi Kondo in his feature-length debut. Kenshi is also known as the writer/director/cinematographer behind the drama short See You Again (2020). “After her daughter’s death, divorced Miyabi works as a call-girl. One day, she meets a strange customer who wants to take a

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A Wounded Fawn opens with a quote from Surrealist painter and author Leonora Carrington: “I suddenly became aware that I was both mortal and touchable and that I could be destroyed“. Centering the film around a serial-killer protagonist who slowly comes to the same realization, director Travis Stevens (Girl on the Third Floor, Jakob’s Wife)

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Deep Fear is a 2022 French horror, directed by Grégory Beghin, who has made a name for himself as a TV actor, Grégory made his debut behind the camera with the 2020 comedy Losers Revolution, co-directed by Thomas Ancora. “Paris – The 1990s. Three students decide to celebrate their graduation with a visit to the local catacombs deep in the

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