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!

Posts by Nate Yapp

Review: Malice@Doll (2000)

Submitted by Nate Yapp on Tue, 2004-07-13 00:00

Malice@Doll is weird. That's the first thing anybody needs to know about this fully CGI Japanese production. If you've tried anime in the past and find you cannot stomach it in any of its many iterations, it may also be the last thing. However, if you're open to a somewhat jumbled and not always entirely coherent experience, you might find that you enjoy it.
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Review: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003)

Submitted by Nate Yapp on Wed, 2004-06-09 00:00

I don't know what kind of hive mind Hollywood taps into, but 2003 saw the release of at least three prominent horror films with the same basic plotlines - kids on a road trip run into crazy kin intent on wholesale slaughter. Not entirely original, especially given that all three films (House of 1000 Corpses, Wrong Turn, and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre '03) not only bore similarities to each other, but the trio also brandished their 1970s "relentless terror" influences on their sleeves.(read more...)

Review: Van Helsing (2004)

Submitted by Nate Yapp on Thu, 2004-06-03 00:00

I appreciate the enthusiasm with which Van Helsing was done - really. I enjoyed Stephen Sommers' previous two Universal reworkings (The Mummy and The Mummy Returns), and I've seen interviews with the guy. He has nothing but unbridled affection when it comes to the classic scare shows. However, as it is with so many films, passion just isn't enough; this is a clunky, ridiculous film that wouldn't pass muster as even the barest of homages.(read more...)

Review: The Invisible Man (1933)

Submitted by Nate Yapp on Sat, 2004-05-29 00:00

Opening with an original music piece that perfectly mixes the moods of horror and fantasy, The Invisible Man quickly asserts the difference between it and all previous Universal horror films (a great deal of which utilized Tchaikovsky's "Swan Lake"). This is not another monster melodrama, but a wacky knockabout black comedy (with the requisite moments of blood and thunder), the type that only director James Whale could produce.(read more...)

Review: Club Dread (2004)

Submitted by Nate Yapp on Wed, 2004-05-26 00:00

About the only time you're going to see the words "Classic Horror" and Club Dread in the same sentence is... well, now. I don't know what kind of comedy that Broken Lizard does when it's not make half-baked films, but it's not anything I could see myself paying for. This is the kind of less-than-stellar product that you only watch for free.(read more...)

Review: Full Metal Yakuza (1997)

Submitted by Nate Yapp on Mon, 2004-04-19 01:00

I'll be the first to admit it - I know dip-doodly about modern Japanese cinema. In a message board recently, I confused Takashi Miike with Beat Takeshi, a cardinal sin which was pointed out with some amount of politeness almost immediately. My sheer ignorance probably has something to do with the fact that, up until now, the most recent Japanese film I'd seen was Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah. So you'll forgive some blundering in this review.(read more...)

Review: Hangman's Curse (2003)

Submitted by Nate Yapp on Sun, 2004-03-21 01:31

The full title of this little thriller (and I do mean little) is Frank Peretti's Hangman's Curse, which begs the question, who the hell is Frank Peretti? Of course, this tends to set off a long line of letters from readers pointing out that obviously Frank Peretti is a novelist who writes thrillers with a Christian bent, and Hangman's Curse is based on his very first for-teens book.

Swell.(read more...)

Review: The Order (2003)

Submitted by Nate Yapp on Sun, 2004-01-18 01:00

On first glance at the video store, the most compelling reason to buy The Order is that it is essentially a reunion film for the cast and crew of A Knight's Tale. It has the same writer-director (Brian Helgeland), the same three leads (Heath Ledger, Shannyn Sossamon, Mark Addy), and a lot of the same technical crew. Of course, anybody who's actually seen A Knight's Tale knows that it's hardly a good recommendation for buying a horror film (I could argue it's hardly a good recommendation for buying anything, but I really won't).
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Review: The Stendhal Syndrome (1996)

Submitted by Nate Yapp on Sat, 2003-12-20 01:00

Director Dario Argento latter-day works are not beloved. Most of his classic works were made before 1982 (some would argue all, but I have a soft spot in my heart for Opera). Everything else has been confused, needlessly brutal, or simply redundant. The Stendhal Syndrome, though it holds some promise, is really no different.(read more...)

Review: Wrong Turn (2003)

Submitted by Nate Yapp on Tue, 2003-10-14 00:00

The thing about Wrong Turn is that it starts out blandly, has no real characters to root for, only good-looking meat puppets with vague backstories, it's derivative of much better films, has continuity issues, and some serious gaps in logic.

The other thing about Wrong Turn is that the details don't matter. It's a fun little film.(read more...)