INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE (1994) d. Neil Jordan (USA) Anne Rice's celebrated novel, originally published in 1976, took nearly two decades to make it to the big screen. When it finally arrived, amidst a wave of controversy over its casting of Tom Cruise in the pivotal role of Lestat, INTERVIEW fared well with critics and boosted the profiles of co-stars Brad Pitt, Antonio Banderas, and 11-year-old Kirsten Dunst as the eternally young and brutal killer Claudia. Tonight, join AC and his...

A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET (1984) d. Wes Craven (USA)  Horror Hall-of Famer Wes Craven created this hugely successful fright flick, which spawned multiple sequels, launched New Line Cinema, and introduced the moniker of “Freddy Krueger” into pop culture consciousness. Heather Langenkamp plays a teenager plagued by dreams of a horribly scarred figure wearing a distinctive red-striped sweater, battered fedora, and a glove with knives attached to the fingers. Robert Englund, in the role he...

A BUCKET OF BLOOD (1959) d. Roger Corman (1959) THE WASP WOMAN (1959) d. Roger Corman (1959)  The year before he became the American rival to Hammer Studios in the Gothic Horror department with The Fall of the House of Usher (1960), Roger Corman was the reigning "King of the B's" at the drive-ins across the USA, delivering thrills and chills to teenagers young and old. Tonight, we celebrate two prime slices of black-and-white low-budget fare that still manage to deliver the goods: A...

LET SLEEPING CORPSES LIE (aka THE LIVING DEAD AT MANCHESTER MORGUE) (1974)d. Jorge Grau (Spain/Italy) A hidden gem overshadowed by the myriad flesh-eating flicks that followed in its wake, director Jorge Grau took his given assignment of creating a spiritual sequel to George A. Romero's Night of the Living Dead and conjured a minor classic all its own. Blending social commentary (environmentalism) with shocking moments of jaw-dropping gore, Let Sleeping Corpses Lie, The Living Dead at...

HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL (1959) d. William Castle (USA) THE TINGLER (1959) d. William Castle (USA)  Words like "Emergo" and "Percepto" may not be common knowledge for younger horror aficionados, but for classic horror fans, they instantly bring a smile to our faces as we remember the first time we heard the names of producer/director William Castle and actor Vincent Price. Both approached their work with a boundless sense of gusto and enthusiasm, and the results were astonishing and have...

PARANORMAL ACTIVITY (2007/09) d. Oren Peli (USA) PARANORMAL ACTIVITY 2 (2010) d. Tod Williams (USA) PARANORMAL ACTIVITY 3 (2011) d. Henry Joost/Ariel Schulman (USA) PARANORMAL ACTIVITY 4 (2012) d. Henry Joost/Ariel Schulman (USA) PARANORMAL ACTIVITY: THE MARKED ONES (2014) d. Christopher Landon (USA) PARANORMAL ACTIVITY: THE GHOST DIMENSION (2015) d. Gregory Plotkin (USA) Paramount’s plucking of this microbudget feature from obscurity and its nimble (some might say omnipresent)...

AUDITION (1999) d. Takashi Miike (Japan/S. Korea) After seven years of mourning and encouraged by his teenage son to find a new wife, widower Aoyama (Ryo Ishibashi) seeks the advice of a colleague within the film company for which they both work. Together, they hit upon the perfect plan: Staging an audition for actresses, ostensibly for a new feature project, but in reality hoping to find the new ideal woman to share Aoyama’s life. While interviewing a series of candidates, the lonely...

PONTYPOOL (2008) d. Bruce McDonald (Canada) Pontypool, celebrating its 15th anniversary, is a fiercely intelligent variation on the “zombie/infected hordes” theme, indelibly anchored by film/TV veteran Stephen McHattie’s charismatic central performance. Exiled to the wastelands of rural Ontario, former shock jock radio personality Grant Mazzy finds himself caught up in increasingly bizarre circumstances as reports pour in of a deadly, murderous virus sweeping the surrounding area. ...

SAW (2004) d. James Wan (USA) SAW II (2005) d. Darren Lynn Bousman (USA) SAW III (2006) d. Darren Lynn Bousman (USA) SAW IV (2007) d. Darren Lynn Bousman (USA) SAW V (2008) d. David Hackl (USA) SAW VI (2009) d. Kevin Greutert (USA) SAW 3D (2010) d. Kevin Greutert (USA) JIGSAW (2017) d. Michael Spierig / Peter Spierig (USA) SPIRAL (2021) d. Darren Lynn Bousman (USA) SAW X (2023) d. Kevin Greutert (USA) Before there was “The Saw Franchise,” there was just SAW, a relatively...

LEFT BANK (aka LINKEROEVER) (2008) d. Pieter Van Hees (Belgium) CUB (aka WELP) (2014) d. Jonas Govaerts (Belgium) Tonight’s double feature takes us across the ocean to Belgium, a land renowned for lace, beer, chocolate, waffles, and a small but notable number of horror titles, including two films we’re going to be discussing tonight: Pieter Van Hees’ Left Bank from 2008 and Jonas Govaerts’ Cub (aka Welp) from 2014. In Left Bank, Olympic-caliber track runner Marie is sidelined due to a...

SHATTER DEAD (1994) d. Scooter McCrae (USA) When the Angel of Death impregnates a mortal woman, people stop being able to die. As the living human population dwindles, the line begins to blur as to which is considered the dominant race and who are the monstrous aberrations. Tonight’s selection, SHATTER DEAD, is a shining example of why “Shot-on-Video” horror films are, as author S.A. Bradley puts it, "the punk rock of horror," where lack of funds simply means more room for unlimited...

BLACK SABBATH (1963) d. Mario Bava (Italy) Following the success of Roger Corman’s comic exploration of Edgar Allan Poe’s The Raven in 1963, Boris Karloff found himself in high demand with American International Pictures. In addition to The Terror, notoriously shot in two days on the Raven’s sets, the horror icon appeared in The Comedy of Terrors for Jacques Tourneur (alongside Raven co-stars Vincent Price and Peter Lorre), and tonight’s selection, the masterful anthology Three Faces of...

FRIDAY THE 13TH: THE FINAL CHAPTER (1984) d. Joseph Zito (USA)  One of the most influential modern horror films, 1980’s surprise hit from producer/director Sean S. Cunningham, FRIDAY THE 13th, spurred a spate of sequels and imitators. By 1984, however, interest in the slasher genre seemed to be fading (only to be reinvigorated by a certain resident of Elm Street, but that’s another show), and so the executives at Paramount decided to put their “disreputable” cash cow, Jason Voorhees, out to...

GODZILLA (2014) d. Gareth Edwards (USA) GODZILLA MINUS ONE (2023) d. Takashi Yamazaki (Japan) Join AC and his awesome panel of guests (Dan Caffrey, Barry Kaufman, Michelle Kisner, Mark Matzke, Lee Price) for the second half of our special TWO-PART EPISODE celebrating 70 years of Godzilla! Tonight, we'll discuss the first installment of what would come to be known as the Legendary Monsterverse, 2014's Godzilla, as well as last year's Oscar-winning critical and box office smash, Godzilla...

GOJIRA (aka GODZILLA) (1954) d. Ishiro Honda (Japan) SHIN GODZILLA (2016) d. Hideaki Anno (Japan) From his dark and imposing origins in 1954 to the rambunctious, bellowing, drop-kicking superhero of the 1970s to his resurgence on both sides of the Pacific in the 1990s and 2000s, Godzilla’s significance to the giant monster genre cannot be understated. 70 years, 30 official Toho films, and five Hollywood efforts later, The Big G still stands head and shoulders above the rest. Join AC...

THE BLOB (1958) d. Irwin J. Yeaworth (USA) THE BLOB (1988) d. Chuck Russell (USA) By the 1950s, sci-fi had taken Hollywood by storm, with all manner of tales involving Man exploring the galaxy, or various intergalactic neighbors swinging down to our neck of the woods for a visit. Meanwhile, juvenile delinquent pics became all the rage following the 1955 smash Rebel Without a Cause. Misunderstood teenagers already flocking to the drive-ins to see their onscreen counterparts and giant monster...

THE TOXIC AVENGER (1984) d. Lloyd Kaufman/Michael Herz (USA) THE TOXIC AVENGER PART 2 (1989) d. Lloyd Kaufman/Michael Herz (USA) THE TOXIC AVENGER III: THE LAST TEMPTATION OF TOXIE (1989) d. Lloyd Kaufman/Michael Herz (USA) CITIZEN TOXIE: THE TOXIC AVENGER IV (2001) d. Lloyd Kaufman (USA) Neither celebrated for their subtle nuance nor held in high regard by the critical cognoscenti, Troma Studios has managed to carve out an indelible place in cinema history, with its 1984 flagship...

DOG SOLDIERS (2002) d. Neil Marshall (UK) Dispatched to the Scottish Highlands, a half-dozen soldiers find their special training maneuver exercises interrupted by an S.O.S. signal flare. Upon arrival at the distress site, they discover the sole remaining member of a Special Ops team, Captain Ryan, raving and bleeding profusely. Moments later, the team is besieged by mysterious, snarling assailants that decimate one of their number and leave their leader, Sgt. Wells, grievously wounded. ...

THE GORGON (1964) d. Terence Fisher (UK) THE REPTILE (1966) d. John Gilling (UK) By the mid-1960s, Hammer Studios had exhausted its supply of classic Universal monsters, with vampiric counts, stitched-together reanimated corpses, lycanthropic curses, and bandaged Egyptian shamblers all present and accounted for. In response, the creative teams dug out their tomes of Greek mythology and exotic travel guides to conjure two original monsters, both – coincidentally or not – featuring female...

THE SIXTH SENSE (1999) d. M. Night Shyamalan (USA) STIR OF ECHOES (1999) d. David Koepp (USA) With scores of classic ghost movies populating the silver screen, video shelves, and streaming queues, it's still a pleasant surprise to have two noteworthy examples arriving the same year. That’s exactly what happened in 1999 when M. Night Shyamalan's The Sixth Sense and David Koepp's Stir of Echoes hit theaters within a month of each other. For his third feature effort, writer/director...

THE LAND THAT TIME FORGOT (1974) d. Kevin Connor (UK) AT THE EARTH'S CORE (1976) d. Kevin Connor (UK) THE PEOPLE THAT TIME FORGOT (1977) d. Kevin Connor (UK) WARLORDS OF ATLANTIS (1978) d. Kevin Connor (UK) After a British cruiser is sunk by a German U-boat in the waning days of WWI, the remaining survivors – led by square-jawed American Bowen Tyler – turn the tables on their aggressors, floating in a lifeboat until the sub surfaces and taking the Jerrys by surprise. As food supplies...

ZOMBIE (aka ZOMBIE FLESH EATERS/ZOMBI 2) (1979) d. Lucio Fulci (Italy) When George Romero’s Dawn of the Dead became a major success worldwide, Italians had a stake in the matter since horror icon Dario Argento was one of its producers. In Italy, the trimmed-down Dawn was rechristened Zombi, and its blockbuster status dramatically altered the horror landscape, with molto filmmakers clamoring to ride the coattails of its success. Veteran direction Lucio Fulci was first out of the gate in...

THE FLY (1958) d. Kurt Neumann (USA) RETURN OF THE FLY (1959) d. Edward Bernds (USA) CURSE OF THE FLY (1965) d. Don Sharp (UK) Veteran director Kurt Neumann mostly toiled in mid-tier melodramas, Westerns and Tarzan movies throughout his long career, but had already made a few notable entries in the realm of science fiction cinema with Rocketship X-M (1950) and Kronos (1957). Released two months before his death in August 1958, THE FLY has endured for 65 years as true classic, not losing...

THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT (1999) d. Daniel Myrick/Ed Sanchez (USA) BOOK OF SHADOWS: BLAIR WITCH 2 (2000) d. Joe Berlinger (USA) BLAIR WITCH (2016) d. Adam Wingard (USA) Low-budget horror filmmakers take note: You can make an original and frightening film for barely any money; it simply requires a fresh approach and more imagination than Karo syrup. Witness 1999’s groundbreaking sensation from co-creators Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sanchez, The Blair Witch Project. The slender premise sees...