Michael Curtiz's Mystery of the Wax Museum is a fun and curious little film. Released in February 1933, it was one of the earliest experiments with color film as well as one of the earliest treatments of a now well-known mystery plot, topped with an intriguing visual style and some horror icons in fine form for good measure. Though it is not entirely without its flaws, this is a quickly paced, creative and entertaining work from an era when the horror film was still in it's relative adolescence.

Though its title might evoke a bit of laughter and thoughts of a schlocky man-in-a-rubber-suit monster movie, It: The Terror From Beyond Space is more than just a standard creature feature. Not allowing his film to be hindered by a shoestring budget and relatively short runtime, director Edward Cahn (along with screenwriter Jerome Bixby) crafts a taut, science fiction thriller with issues and themes that require no special effects in the confines of a story that takes little time to tell.

Pathology is a solid little thriller that doesn't quite enter the land of horror. That's fine, of course – it doesn't appear to have been specifically tailored as a horror film to begin with. I review it here not because of its genre, but because its subject matter lends itself to easy appreciation by horror aficionados. In brief, Pathology is about how a group of young people turn death into a pastime and a pastime into an obsession.

Fred Dekker's The Monster Squad is an endearing love letter to the movies of the 1930s and 1940s — albeit with a decidedly 1980s mentality. Instead of being confined to Victorian graveyards and decrepit old tombs in far corners of the globe, the classic monsters now stalk modern city streets and even take trips in airplanes. Adding the Little Rascals' comedic spirit to the mix with a group of underage heroes, the end result is a fun and memorable monster romp that will satisfy both children and adults in a big way.

Most people don’t associate Francis Ford Coppola with horror, but they should. He produced Jeepers Creepers I and II, Tim Burton’s Sleepy Hollow, a 1999 TV production of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Kenneth Branagh’s Frankenstein, and the Roger Corman classic The Terror.

In the wake of New Line Cinema’s announcement that it will be rebooting the Friday the 13th series, there will be some filmgoers that will be introduced into the famed franchise for the first time and will want to check out the previous eleven entries. Those newcomers will be hard pressed to find a worse film in the entire Friday the 13th collection than Friday the 13th Part VIII:  Jason Takes Manhattan.

In 1978, 20th Century Fox looked to recreate the box-office success that it found with 1976’s The Omen by producing a sequel, Damien: Omen II using many of the same components: a supernatural and suspenseful tale of the Devil’s son, Oscar-nominated actors, and the music of Jerry Goldsmith.

If an ancient Egyptian mummy began to menace a retirement home in East Texas, what would he be called?   Why, Bubba Ho-Tep of course!  And who better to defeat them than JFK and the King of Rock and Roll?  This epic battle is the subject of Bubba Ho-Tep, a delightful horror-comedy from director Don Coscarelli, starring Bruce Campbell and Ossie Davis.  A film that knows when (and when not) to take itself seriously, Bubba Ho-Tep manages to carefully explore its main character, offer some very good laughs, and still have some poignant things to say. 

Okay, put away your books. Time for a pop quiz. I know, I know, I promised that you wouldn’t have one today, but isn’t the point of a pop quiz the surprise factor?

In the 1940s, Universal Pictures sought to bring another horror franchise to life (as it had with Dracula and Frankenstein previously) with the production of four films based off their 1932 film, The Mummy. After a rushed shooting schedule (less than a month) and last minute editing[1], the first of these films was released.