Our editor-in-chief Nate Yapp is proud to have contributed to the new book Hidden Horror: A Celebration of 101 Underrated and Overlooked Fright Flicks, edited by Aaron Christensen. Another contributors include Anthony Timpone, B.J. Colangelo, Dave Alexander, Classic-Horror.com's own Robert C. Ring and John W. Bowen. Pick up a copy today from Amazon.com!

Brandt Sponseller

Brandt Sponseller's picture
Brandt Sponseller has been watching horror and other "adult" films for as long as he can remember. As far as he knows, his parents let him go straight from Sesame Street and Mister Rogers to Dracula and The Devil's Nightmare as soon as he showed an interest. He usually prefers films that lean towards the fantastic, but then again, Taxi Driver is one of the few films to have earned his "10.5" rating. A genre devotee, he likes everything from The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari to the latest teen-oriented horror flicks, and is on a ridiculous mission to see every horror film ever made--especially futile in light of his broad definition of horror, which includes everything from Psycho to Natural Born Killers to Casper. Brandt's other interests/vocations include academic philosophy, music performance and composition, fact and fiction writing and traveling.
Posts by Brandt Sponseller

Review: The Frighteners (1996)

The Frighteners poster
Submitted by Brandt Sponseller on Wed, 2002-08-07 00:00

A marvelous blend of horror, humor and incredible special effects, The Frighteners is one of the better films of 1996, and certainly falls into any "must see" list of horror films from the 90's.

Since part of its effectiveness lies with the many unusual elements of the plot, I suggest that you skip over the next two paragraphs if you have yet to watch The Frighteners. Even though I won't give away real spoilers, it's best if you know nothing about The Frighteners the first time you watch.(read more...)

Review: Wishmaster (1997)

Wishmaster poster
Submitted by Brandt Sponseller on Sun, 2002-08-04 00:00

Wes Craven's Wishmaster is darkly and nihilistically marvelous, an extremely enjoyable horror fantasy, even though it is heavily indebted to its influences at times as it treks through Evil Genie Land.

Beginning with a great sequence set in ancient Persia and showing the destructive power and tendency of the djinn (the Wishmaster/genie of the title), Wishmaster quickly moves to present day America. Robert Englund (the actor who portrayed Freddy Krueger) is an extremely wealthy collector of art and ancient artifacts and has imported a statue from Persia that unknowingly contains a jewel that is the key to awakening the djinn. After an accident, the jewel is revealed, stolen by a dockworker, and makes its circuitous way to our heroine.(read more...)

Review: Werewolf (1996)

Werewolf 1996 ad
Submitted by Brandt Sponseller on Sat, 2002-08-03 15:19

While not completely without merit, Werewolf suffers from a full complement of problems typical of direct-to-video releases. Unfortunately, these aren't all budget-related; some of the flaws are simply inexplicable.

Werewolf begins with an unlikely team of archaeologists on an unlikely dig in Arizona finding an unlikely werewolf skeleton -- completely intact. Obviously this isn't the movie to watch if you dislike implausibilities.(read more...)

Review: Tenebre (1982)

Tenebre poster
Submitted by Brandt Sponseller on Fri, 2002-08-02 00:00

Varying from pleasant exercises in gore and creepy thrills to sustained boredom and ridiculously bad filmmaking, Dario Argento's Tenebre sprawls like shiftless drunk passing out on a nice couch.(read more...)

Review: The Mothman Prophecies (2002)

Mothman Prophecies poster
Submitted by Brandt Sponseller on Thu, 2002-08-01 01:00

The bad news is that when it comes to flaws, The Mothman Prophecies seems to have lifted one too many from In Dreams. In Dreams arrived late in the 1990s, just when that decade's teen horror craze was emitting its dying breath (although we know that it's bound to get back up and chase us again as if it had never been stabbed). It was promoted as a return to `classic horror', although `classic versus teen horror' is more apocryphal than most horror fans admit, but instead it gave us interesting ideas wrapped in a drama package unpleasantly dipped in molasses and with a clichéd ending that you could see coming from the next state.(read more...)

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