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!

Late Night Horror Shows: Memoirs of a Misspent Youth

Late night TV, we all watch it, some of us on a regular basis and some only when sleep is fleeting. The thing is, none of us really look forward to watching it. Who really waits with bated breath to see Leno tell more Clinton jokes or Letterman pull more "wacky" stunts that try desperately to recapture the hipness he once enjoyed. Although some of us used to look forward to SNL years ago, nobody is really anxious to see it limp through another season.(read more...)

The Trick

The second of two essays related to the production process of They Only Come Out at Night.(read more...)

Universal Terror III: 1932

The Mummy 1932 poster

In 1932, Universal released its first horror film after Frankenstein. It was titled Murders in the Rue Morgue and it was loosely based on the story by Edgar Allan Poe. Murders in the Rue Morgue was the second film that Universal released starring Bela Lugosi. Bela Lugosi plays the mad scientist Dr. Mirakle. Dr. Mirakle works at a carnival in Paris with a giant gorilla named Erik. Mirakle uses his sideshow to promote his own theories of evolution. At night he kidnaps a young street girl and injects her with Erik's blood to test his theories, she dies from the experiment. Dr. Mirakle kills several women for his experiments.(read more...)

Review: The Forsaken (2001)

The Forsaken poster

Road movies annoy me, but I think vampire flicks rock. A hybrid of the two should be like the bastard child of Carrot Top and Nicole Kidman; you don't know which way it could go, but you have an aching suspicion that this one's got its daddy's genes.

Not so with The Forsaken, which rewrites vampire lore (I think director/writer J. S. Cardone should get a special prize for being "rethink #1,000,000"), but steals copiously from other vamp films (most notably John Carpenter's Vampires).(read more...)

Review: The Dead Next Door (1988)

Dead Next Door

This movie can be viewed in two different lights. The first, and more unflattering, is that of a straight zombie flick, shot on a shoe-string budget by some basically talented people with big ideas and a love for horror who haven't completely pulled off the movie they were trying to make. On the other hand, if you have seen the films official web site and watched the behind-the-scenes documentary The Dead Next Door: 15 Years in 15 Minutes, or read any of the number of articles about it, you will probably have a slightly greater appreciation for the movie and be a little more willing to cut it some slack. Does it deserve our willingness to be "grade it on a curve" or should "the most expensive movie ever shot on Super-8" be forced to stand on its own merits?(read more...)

Review: Arachnophobia (1990)

Arachnophobia poster

Although it certainly has a lot of the superficial trappings of a classic "natural monster" horror film (as well as suggestions of other subgenres), Arachnophobia never really settles down to reside in the genre. Fans who like their horror to be scary won't find much to rave about here unless they come to the film with an almost irrational, deep-seated fear of spiders. Worse, fans who become easily irritated by quirks might hate Arachnophobia, because this is a film chock full of them. In the beginning, they're as slight as Hannibal Lecter in a pink chiffon jacket. By the midway point, the film is a veritable three-ring circus.(read more...)

Review: House on Haunted Hill (1999)

House on Haunted Hill 1999 poster

I have to admit that I have a bit of a bias towards haunted house films. Horror is my favorite genre, and for whatever psychological reasons (I suspect it has something to do with my earliest experiences with the genre, and perhaps watching too much Scooby Doo as a kid), there's nothing I like as much as a good haunted house film. House on Haunted Hill is one of the most entertaining, well-made haunted house films I've seen in awhile.(read more...)

Review: Tombs of the Blind Dead (1971)

Tombs of the Blind Dead poster

Spanish/Portuguese co-production centering around the Templars, a group of medieval knights who were executed for their satanic practices and had their eyes plucked out by birds. Now, they arise from the grave in skeletal form, ready to drink the blood of any poor soul unfortunate enough to spend the night in their castle. Having no eyes, they find all of their victims by sound, but this isn't much of a handicap. If you were being chased by 600-year-old armored corpses, you'd make a lot of noise, trust me. The plot, incidental as it is, has a group of people investigating the death of a friend at the Templar ruins.(read more...)

Review: The American Nightmare (2000)

American Nightmare

To avoid fainting, keep repeating "It's only a movie....It's only a movie." This was the famous tagline of Wes Craven's infamous first film Last House on the Left. If, however, the producers of The American Nightmare are correct, things aren't that simple. Instead of looking at the effects of the horror movie on society, this original independent Film Channel documentary examines several horror movies of the 60s and 70s as a mirror of society.(read more...)

Review: Pumpkinhead (1988)

Pumpkinhead poster

Although it suffers a bit for its slight embrace of cliches and consequent predictableness, in the end, Pumpkinhead overcomes this small flaw with style.(read more...)