Retro Slashers

In the otherwise excellent book The Winston Effect: The Art and History of Stan Winston Studio, aside from a brief mention of the Friday the 13th sequels Stan Winston’s early work in the slasher genre was strangely omitted. This dismissal was not only reserved for the slice ‘n’ dice cycle, however, as both the overlooked [...]

These days USA Network is known for wrasslin’, Law & Order marathons, and hip original shows like Burn Notice.  Back in the 1980s and early 1990s USA featured some really wild and crazy shows, the kind of shows that stay with impressionable young children long after they’ve turned old and gray.  So here’s a fond look back at [...]

“Tenebrae is a sexist novel. Why do you despise women so much?” Perhaps the most self-reflective moment from Dario Argento’s entire career. Having constantly been accused of misogyny due to the excessive violence his films have often levelled at their female victims, Tenebrae was a chance for the Italian filmmaker to finally comment on the [...]

You could be forgiven for spending the first hour of Eric Weston’s horror drama Evilspeak wondering why on Earth it would have been included amongst the ‘video nasties’ during the mid-1980s. After all, it was relatively blood-free, inoffensive and the two brief moments of nudity were far less graphic than scenes that were included uncut [...]

Michael Myers had an axe, Leatherface had a chainsaw and Jason Voorhees had whatever was lying around – yet one of the most grizzly murder weapons used in the vintage days of exploitation was the flamethrower, the weapon of choice for Donny Kohler, the disturbed antagonist from Don’t Go in the House. Released amid the [...]

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 had proven to be the third financial failure in a row for both director Tobe Hooper and Cannon Films, who had entered into a rather dubious three-picture deal following his exit from The Return of the Living Dead. With the rights available once again, New Line Cinema optioned to produce [...]

The production for Michael A. Simpson’s back-to-back Sleepaway Camp sequels, Unhappy Campers and Teenage Wasteland, would take place over a six-week period at Lakewood Studios in Atlanta and Camp Younts near Waco in Georgia, although the last day of filming would see the crew relocate to downtown Atlanta for the opening sequence of Sleepaway Camp [...]

‘Should we then ban the News at Ten?’ asked an article in The Times as the furore surrounding the video nasties increased to ridiculous proportions. It was an interesting point; if the parliament and tabloids were so concerned about upsetting or corrupting the public with scenes of sex or violence, there was nothing as shocking [...]

Whilst they no doubt launched her career and horror fans may still consider them amongst the best work that she has done, when Jamie Lee Curtis first entered the movie industry with a string of low budget slasher films critics were less-than-enthusiastic about her performances, whilst Curtis herself expressed frustration at having to play the [...]

Tom Savini seemed to have had an obsession earlier in his career with destroying heads. First, the scalp of a zombie was removed by a helicopter propeller in Dawn of the Dead, then Betsy Palmer was decapitated at the end of Friday the 13th, whilst Farley Granger would meet his demise at the end of [...]