Search for Horror

It has long been my opinion that Hollywood is more fascinated by the subject of exorcism than the public in general. The Exorcist did for this horror subgenre what Jaws accomplished for sharks. Sure, there have been sequels and knock-offs, but no...

Nearly a half-century after the theatrical debut of Jim Sharman’s The Rocky Horror Picture Show, the movie at the heart of the cult experience has been reduced to near-irrelevance. Devotees attend midnight screenings not because they want to...

The Ruins does what a good psychological horror movie should do: rely on tension rather than gore to achieve its aims. This bleak, edgy motion picture isn't concerned with appealing to the masses that flock to multiplexes to enjoy the spatterings ...

This is the third time Stephen King’s bestselling vampire novel, Salem’s Lot, has been adapted for a visual medium. The first two, one in 1979 and the other in 2004, were both mini-series with running lengths of slightly over three hours. In o...

Saw is for hard-gore horror aficionados only. To appreciate Saw in its full gory, you have to have a penchant for productions that bask in the traditions of the Grand Guignol. While most of the film relies more on psychological tension and terror...

Horror films are like candy corn: familiar, bland, and sickening if consumed in large quantities. They're both ubiquitous at this time of year and there must be a large group of individuals who appreciate their dubious charms because they never go ...

Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, based on the novel by Alvin Schwartz (with illustrations by Stephen Gammell), is three-fourths of a good horror movie and one-fourth disappointing. The film, constructed as a series of episodic vignettes conn...

For nearly as long as there have been horror movies, filmmakers have had fun trolling the genre. The first “official” such entry was Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein but that offbeat film, which featured many of the sanctioned Universal M...

Scream is a rarity: a horror movie spoof that succeeds almost as well at provoking scares as laughs. That's because director Wes Craven (A Nightmare on Elm Street), in addition to having a genuine affection for the genre, understands how wildly...

One reason why Wes Craven’s 1996 slasher film, Scream, met with success was that Craven (and screenwriter Kevin Williamson) found a way to enliven things by incorporating a tongue-and-cheek “meta” aspect to the proceedings. In the course of ...