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Never-Seen Halloween

In the wake of another 31 Days of Halloween, we discuss making a concentrated effort to see some movies we’ve always meant to, but hadn’t until now! The Hitcher! Demonic! Satan’s Little Helper, and MORE!

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Apartment 7A!

It’s hard to do a truly spoiler-free review for this movie since it’s based on Rosemary’s Baby. But we avoid specifics and give you the run-down on whether or not this is worth your time.

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Episode 200!!!

For our 200th episode, we’ve each come to the table with a Horror Hill that we would die on! The movie we love that no one else does, and the movie we hate that the rest of the world treasures!

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Physical Media

“One of the most liberating developments in the history of free expression was the invention of VHS.” – Joe Bob Briggs.

Word. This has really been on my mind lately. I’m compiling a list of titles that aren’t currently available on physical media or streaming (in The Dark Backwards‘ case, tubi has it, but fuck commercials). None of the movies on this list were problematic enough to be ‘censored’ into streaming/physical media limbo, however, that almost makes it worse!

Tom Stern and Alex Winter’s Freaked is a 90s film I had never even heard of until Beyondfest did a screening at the Egyptian Theatre in January 2020. The night was amazing (read my thoughts here). Several of my compatriots here at The Horror Vision were familiar and ecstatic that this screening might herald a new release, however, three-and-a-half years later, that has not been the case.

I discovered The Dark Backward on Prime back in 2019 and, after watching it several times in a month, contemplated paying upwards of $50 for a DVD copy. I never did that, hoping against hope eventually someone would release this cleaned up on Bluray. Still waiting, but in the interim, like so many other movies that used to be included on Prime without ads, this has been relegated to Freevee or Tubi or Fuckkee and remixed with ads for boner pills and burger king. Fuck this planet!

Fingers. What the hell can we say about Juan Ortiz’s 2019 WTF? masterpiece of feel bad, feel weird, feel me there again and I’ll tell black comedy that really doesn’t quite constitute a Horror film in any way other than it really leaves one feeling… violated?

And finally, after taking Richard Bates Jr.’s Suburban Gothic. I’m really not sure where the hell this one went. My biggest mistake was taking a film I love this much for granted while it lived on Shudder for several years. Now, I can’t find it to watch anywhere, and the only DVD copy I’ve seen on an auction site recently went for $50. Bates is a working auteur, several of his more recent films live on Paramount Plus, and Excision just popped up on Prime again, so where the hell is Suburban Gothic?

A Prayer to the Gods of Physical Media:

Oh great and powerful deity

Please release these films on Blu-ray in the near future

Please

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Horror Movies We’re Looking Forward to in the Second Half of 2024

I asked my compatriots on The Horror Vision Horror Podcast to each pick a movie they are looking forward to releasing in the second half of 2024. Here’s what they gave me.

Tori: “I pick Starve Acre. The trailer is super creepy and doesn’t give too much away. It’s alluding to a tragedy that throws a family into chaos. It looks set in the English countryside and give off a lot of Folk Horror vibes. And Morfydd Clark and Matt Smith are starring in it.”

Missi: I pick The Beast Within. Because I love monsters–& I LOVE WEREWOLF FLICKS–they’re my favorite. We don’t have enough good ones & we don’t get enough new ones. I really like Kit Harrington. I think he’ll be an excellent wolfman. I am ALWAYS on the hunt for the next great werewolf film!

John: I pick Robert Eggers’ Nosferatu. I can’t think of anyone more qualified to take on cinema history’s original Gothic tale. Eggers is going to take Murnau’s film (and Stoker’s story) to deeply disturbing places. The trailer promises a tale of spreading pestilence for a post-pandemic world and the striking imagery for which Eggers and cinematographer Jarin Blaschke are known. And let’s not forget: Willem Dafoe as the Professor.   

Ray: I am excited for Heretic because its the same writing/directing team that gave us 2019’s Haunt. I love Horror that challenges Christian belief structures, and Hugh Grant is playing against type as the heavy in a Horror movie!

Anthony: Looking forward to getting “Chest Bursted” at Alien Romulus. Pretty sure we’re in for a big surprise with this one!

Shawn: My pick is Elric Kane’s The Dead Thing. I know nothing about this film, but I’m a fan of Colors of the Dark podcast and Elric has never steered me wrong on a film. His fervor for Possession put it on my radar, and that flick might have changed my life. Plus, holy cow, is this a badass poster or what?

Of course, there are a lot more films coming that we don’t even know about yet. Last September when I scored tickets for Damien Rugna’s When Evil Lurks at Beyondfest, I had no idea what the film was or that it would skyrocket to the top of my year-end list. I love that film with all my heart, and look forward to what surprises lay just around the corner in the dark side of 2024!!!

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New Stuff!

We talk Brand New Cherry Flavor, The Night House, Did You Hear What Eddie Gein Done? Also, Never Hike in the Snow, Jakob’s Wife, American Horror Story: Red Tide, Sator and a lot more!

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Cineray Goes Metal!

Feeling inspired horror fiends? Anyone who has tried to create something from nothing knows your talent isn’t always enough. Sometimes, inspiration is a real bitch to come by. Whether it’s not knowing where to start, where to keep going, or even what to create. This block can happen in writing, painting, sculpting, drawing or pretty much any creative endeavor. And, if like in today’s movies, your talent as an artist also happens to be your primary source of income, then lack of inspiration is not just annoying but dangerous. In cases like this, how do you afford to eat, feed your family, or pay rent? 

But what if all these pressures could be relieved by heavy metal music and the dark and mysterious forces it purports to conjure? Well, let’s find out in today’s films, The Devil’s Candy and Bliss. 

Continue reading “Cineray Goes Metal!”
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James Gunn’s Horror DNA

With the advent of the delightful The Suicide Squad, we decided to host a discussion about James Gunn’s Horror DNA. From writing the remake of Dawn of the Dead and The Belko Experiment to the super gory crowd-pleaser Slither – we even touch on Gunn’s industry beginnings with Lloyd Kaufman’s Troma! PLUS – we talk about Shawn’s new obsession with Nick Antosca’s Brand New Cherry Flavor, Scott Snyder and Scott Tuft’s Severed, Werewolves Within, The Silver Coin, and Ken Russell’s Lair of the White Worm. Plus, a lot more!

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Cineray Psychosis!

Hey horror fiends! Today’s double feature is a jump into the fractured dark psyches of seemingly normal people. As we have all seen on the news, it’s always the quiet ones. Ordinary people can sometimes harbor dark and horrible secrets not visible on the surface. From feelings of weakness to an inability to heal the damage of tragic events, some people are incredibly tortured. Eventually, the damn of sanity cracks and madness seeps through, ushering in pain and violence once thought unbelievable. With this in mind, I give you today’s Cineray double feature: Prano Bailey-Bond’s new film Censor and David Lynch’s classic Lost Highway.

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Deep Sea Cineray

Let’s take a deep dive today, fiends! Today’s double feature is all about monsters from deep down in the ocean. In my opinion, today’s double feature entries broke the ground for a film like last year’s Underwater to be made. That’s right, deep-sea diabolists, today’s double feature is Deep Star Six and Leviathan. 

Continue reading “Deep Sea Cineray”
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Cineray Summer’s End Slasher Triple-Feature!

All right fiends, the summertime is about to come to a close! But before it does, how about some fun summertime slashers? Today will be a little different because I am suggesting a triple feature of camper-killing fun. No Fridays here, sorry to disappoint anyone, but I wanted this list to represent what I feel are under-viewed films from the Slasher genre: The Burning and Sleepaway Camps 2 and 3. 

Released in 1981, The Burning is an early Miramax production written by Peter Lawrence and Bob Weinstein. To be clear, Bob is the brother still working in film, and Harvey is the now notorious abuser. The Burning is their take on the New York Cropsey urban legend. In this film, Cropsey is the caretaker at Camp Blackfoot. One night some boys sneak out of their cabin to prank Cropsey while he sleeps. They plant a worm-riddled skull with candles in the eyes on his bedside table and then bang on the window to his cabin to scare him. Cropsey wakes startled and knocks the skull over, causing everything in the room to go up in flames, including Cropsey. After running to the lake, Cropsey survives and is taken to a hospital. 

Five years later, Cropsey is released. Still horribly scarred after failed skin grafts, he hides in a hat and trench coat. On the streets of New York City, a prostitute lures him up to an apartment, and he murders her with scissors in a fit of rage. From there, Cropsey returns to the camp with his mindset on exacting revenge on campers. It takes a little bit for him to start murdering campers. This film is somewhat reminiscent of Michael Myers in Halloween, as both killers appear in shadows around the characters, and we get the view from Cropsey’s perspective throughout the film instead of peeks of him. When he does start murdering campers, the effects are fantastic, created by FX master Tom Savini. 

The Burning is pretty standard fair as slasher films go. The story of a mistreated weirdo who gets his revenge is nothing new, but I appreciated the concept of his being mauled by fire and driven to revenge. I am not saying I would hunt down and murder people for a prank gone wrong [Editor’s note: Ray would totally do that!], but it does make Cropsey a lot more sympathetic than the usual slasher. The film has a small twist reveal in the finale, and the cast is littered with future stars like Jason Alexander, Holly Hutton, and Fisher Stevens. 

Our next two films in this triple feature, Sleepaway Camp 2 and 3, go together well and are very similar. I did not include the first film in the series because most horror fans will have seen it by now. The story picks up years later, Angela is now an adult counselor at Camp Arawak. She has been through therapy and full sexual reassignment since the first film and deemed sane. She is an enthusiastic and chipper counselor who leads the camp in singalongs and has been chosen as one of the camp’s best counselors. The girls she is in charge of are somewhat unruly and don’t like Angela. When she catches one girl out at night with some boys at a campfire, she murders her and says she had to send the girl home to the rest of the camp. It’s not long before Angela is hacking up and murdering anyone she deems unfavorable and explaining their disappearances with the story that she is sending them all home. 

This one is a lot of fun with the kills and dark humor running throughout. Angela is played by Pamela Springsteen, Bruce Springsteen’s sister, and she plays the role with a demented chipper persona akin to Kathleen Turner in Serial Mom. The kills are creative and somewhat gruesome, with a couple making me laugh out loud. The film runs fast, which is perfect because you can jump right into the third film next. 

The third movie, Sleepaway Camp 3, takes place a year later. Camp Arawak has been shut down, and the police are on the hunt for Angela. She kills and assumes the identity of a girl who is about to leave for a new camp being conducted on Camp Arawak’s grounds. Camp New Horizons is composed of half juvenile delinquents and half rich kids doing community service. The adults in charge are Officer Barney Whitmore, a man whose son was murdered by Angela, and owners Herman and Lily Miranda. Veteran character actor Michael J Pollard plays Herman. Pollard is known for playing lovable weirdos, but in this role, he is a creep. It’s awesome. When one of the girls takes a liking to him, his character returns the affection with a pervy zeal. Unlike the previous film’s campers, many of these characters deserve Angela’s version of moral justice. The so-called good kids are mostly creeps, and the others are outright punks. Although you may feel a slight sadness when the punks get killed, I did. They are just so prototypical of the 80’s era bad kids that they are somewhat endearing. 

Sleepaway Camp 3 is also a good way to end because it’s a comedown from the second film as far as kills go. Yes, there is a murder with a lawnmower, but the blood is more of an understood concept; you don’t see it. Not quite sure why the filmmakers decided to tone down the violence in this third film. Maybe it was to return the original Sleepaway Camp’s tone, where except for the bloody severed head seen in the last moments, the kills in that one are somewhat tame.

These films are easily accessible on Shudder, and as a horror fan, if you don’t have a subscription get on it. It’s got a lot of great horrors and exclusive films every horror fan needs to sit down and watch. Of course, many of these films are on other sites, but for $5.99 a month, it’s about $2 a movie and a whole month of more content. A note, shudder is not a sponsor of this column or theHorrorvision.com; we are all just fans of the service. 

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A Most Horrible Library

by Shawn C. Baker

Vault Comics’ The Plot

I am of the ilk that believes comic books can be literature. There are the obvious entries into that argument, graphic novels by authors like Alan Moore, Grant Morrison, Brian K. Vaughn, etc. But those iconic, high-water mark novels didn’t just change the fabric of the comic book industry; they influenced a subsequent generation of creators to follow suit. This influence is especially apparent in Horror Comics. In recent years there has been a surge in high concept Horror titles. Many of these find a home with independent publishers that don’t carry the same weight as institutional companies like Marvel or DC. Even Image and Dark Horse, as big as they are, put out titles I’m always surprised go largely unnoticed. It will be the goal of this column to try and expose some of those titles. 

I thought for this first entry in A Most Horrible Library, I would start things off with a book currently on the stands.

Title: The Plot

Author: Tim Daniel and Michael Moreci

Artist: Joshua Hixson

Publisher: Vault Comics’ Nightfall Line

Vol. 1 TPB available 7/01/20 (collects issues 1-4)

Issue 5 also available 7/01/20

During a recent re-read of Grady Hendrix and Will Erickson’s Paperbacks From Hell, I realized that Ancestral Horror had become something of a lost sub-genre. Perhaps ‘lost’ is a touch melodramatic; there have been some considerably successful examples in recent years. Crimson Peak, The Haunting of Hill House, and We Have Always Lived in the Castle are all rooted in Ancestral Horror. I’m even of the mind you could argue that Ari Aster’s Hereditary fits into the genre. But as the past has become less important to our society, the ‘sins of our fathers‘ plot device has likewise lost its power to horrify us. That said, it wasn’t all that long ago that religion’s faltering grip on our hearts and minds appeared to banish Horror’s ties to the Devil. I’ll never forget how disappointed I felt when I learned the REC remake had replaced demonic possession with terrorists making rabies. My point is, it wasn’t too long after that remake that a veritable deluge of films about possession appeared in theatres, one after the other. The lesson? 

Everything old is new again, just like those generational sins that plague the characters in Ancestral Horror stories. 

If you put your ear to the ground of most film genres, you’ll hear what’s bubbling in the world of the written word. Horror films take a lot of cues from Horror literature, and thanks to those icons mentioned above, comics are now recognized as just that. This brings me to The Plot, a relatively new ongoing monthly horror comic published by Vault Comics under their Nightfall imprint.

The Plot starts, like all good Ancestral Horror stories, with the proverbial chickens coming home to roost. Charles Blaine is the successful head of Sortvand Pharmaceuticals, a company he took over after his father passed away. When we meet Charles, we see him go from enjoying the spoils of his empire on the eve of his fortieth birthday to meeting his end at the hands of something monstrous. Something that has dragged itself up out of his family’s past and come to collect. “In order to give, first you must receive,” the cryptic message that proceeds his death also echoes through each issue, taking on ominous connotations that would appear to tie into nefarious deeds perpetrated by previous Blaine family Patriarchs. Don’t worry; none of this is spoiler country. Charles’ death is the inciting incident that kicks off the story, sending his black sheep brother Chase back to the Blaine ancestral home in Cape Augusta, Maine. 

As the story progresses, we learn that, while big brother Charles’ was being groomed to take over the family business, Chase ran away. We don’t know why he ran, but there are intimations from other characters that don’t exactly paint him in the most flattering light.

Whatever drove Chase away, his return comes off as part heroic, part foolish. Certainly, his impetus to take up the mantle of raising Charles’s two adopted children, Mackenzie and Zach, is as altruistic as it gets. But there’s something else deep-seated in Chase. An impulse that ties him to the family mystery, and thus, makes him either the inevitable next target or part of the cause. 

So the three Blaines arrive in rural Maine as fish out of water. With the help of Reese, the love Chase left behind, now a local school teacher, they try to make a home. Only the town itself opposes their attempt at happiness. Bigoted locals do not appreciate Mackenzie and Zach’s Chinese heritage. The Sheriff makes no bones about telling Chase he needs to leave, that his family has always been bad news for Cape Augusta. And the house, well, the house is a horror show all its own. There are hidden tombs inside its walls, rooms that flood with phantom water, and what I can only describe as Bog Creatures that haunt every nook and cranny of the estate.  

In The Plot, Tim Daniel and Michael Moreci have conceived a story that, while clearly an homage to an outlier sub-genre, still manages to have its own unique pulse. There’s a modernity to some of the character dynamics that balances the tried-and-true ‘villagers with pitchforks’ vibe percolating in the background. Mackenzie and Zach’s heritage feels as though it will eventually come to play a more significant role, and the ties to 70s-era big Pharm adds the possibility of a conspiracy of macroscopic scope.

Likewise, Penciler Joshua Hixson and colorist Jordan Boyd employ a dark, almost gothic palette to populate the book with eerie, often earthen textures drawn directly from the Hammer philosophy of setting-as- character. Their wonderfully subtle approach to juxtaposing rotting, sepulchral entities with the visual tropes of Ancestry anchor the Blaines, both past and present, in an environment that feels perpetually unsafe. The underlying tension this creates makes each issue throb with promises that Horror lay around every corner. To me, that’s what Ancestral Horror is all about: What lies in wait.

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The Frankenstein Episode!

No, we do not talk about Frankenstein in this episode. This is the “Frankenstein” episode because due to faulty batteries and an increasing amount of Octoberfest beer, we had to record this one three times, well into the wee hours of the morning. This one is a ‘slow burn,’ but the conversation meanders into some, frankly, pretty cool places, so strap in for Chris and Tori’s reaction to Lupita Nyong’o and Josh Gad in Little Monsters, Ray’s first encounter with the convoluted masterpiece that is Lamberto Bava’s Demons series, Gaspar Noé’s Climax, AHS: 1984 and Apocalypse, Chillerama, and, oh yeah, how Nubbins from Texas Chainsaw 2 recently ran afoul of TSA security! All that, and a whole lot more.

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Richard Stanley’s Hardware!

Anthony, Tori, Ray, and Shawn gather on a Saturday night to watch Richard Stanley’s 1990’s Trash-Tec epic, Hardware! Before were get there, however, we discuss the Director’s Cut of Midsommar and the difference between theatrical and home viewing experiences, as well as Tori’s Australian Horror Binge, Melt Movies, the upcoming American Horror Story: 1984, the original The Hills Have Eyes and how the dog has the biggest body count in the picture, and the second season of Mindhunter. Oh yeah, and Ray pitches his own unique idea for a slasher movie!

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Our Ready or Not Reaction and Scott Schirmer’s Found.

Ray, Anthony, and Shawn give you their overjoyed reaction to Radio Silence’s Ready or Not, surely one of the best movies of the summer. From there, we talk about revisiting Rob Zombie’s Halloween, 1972’s Grave of the Vampire, Joe Bob Briggs, The Transfiguration, Prom Night 2, Mindhunter’s season two, Cronenberg’s Videodrome. Also, Anthony and Shawn provide a recap of their experience attending Long Beach’s MidSummer Scream Horror Con. Finally, you’ll hear for yourself how Scott Schirmer’s 2012 Epic Video Nasty Found. leaves the crew initially speechless.

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Scary Stories to Tell at 47 Meters Down!

Anthony and Shawn finally carve out a few minutes to give you their take on two of the biggest theatrical released Horror flicks this summer. They literally sit in a car and give you their spoiler-free reviews of Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, and 47 Meters Down: Uncaged. Check it out and be sure to leave a comment here or on social media telling us if you agree or disagree!