Classic-Horror.com | Reviewing the History of Horror Movies

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!

Review: Cloverfield (2008)

Submitted by Nate Yapp on Mon, 2008-01-21 00:29

It took nine years for the cinematic seeds planted by The Blair Witch Project in 1999 to come to full fruition as Cloverfield. In that near-decade, there have been very few films made that really took the revolutionary filmmaking that Blair Witch proposed – putting the camera into the hands of the characters – and ran with it. Given the low budgetary needs of such a venture and the insane profits reaped by Blair Witch, this fact is somewhat surprising. Perhaps we needed YouTube, and the rise in self-documentation that came with it, for the milieu to be right for another high-profile attempt at the genre. Perhaps we needed a national catastrophe like 9/11 to suggest the right story. Perhaps we needed both.(read more...)

Review: From Beyond (1986)

Submitted by Dan Haynes on Fri, 2008-01-18 01:15

How do you top Re-Animator, one of the funniest fright films of the 1980s? How do you top a movie that features a severed, undead head going down on a naked Barbara Crampton? Well, how do you? A difficult task, but it’s easily accomplished if you up the ante in terms of a great script, strong performances, and squirm inducing special effects/make-up. Under Stuart Gordon’s masterful direction, these elements come together seamlessly, making From Beyond one of the most enjoyable and most enjoyably disgusting horror films of the 1980s.(read more...)

Review: Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007)

Submitted by Timothy J. Rush on Wed, 2008-01-16 01:48

While there may be no tale of more woe than that of Juliet and her Romeo, there is no love story more grisly, ghastly and gorgeous than that of Benjamin Barker and his Lucy. Tim Burton, after a detour through tales of children's adventures in candy-coated worlds and planets of primates, makes a beautiful return to the lands of the gothic live action film with Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. His return is loud, bombastic, strewn with bodies, soaked in blood, and heralded in song. It is movie magic at its finest.(read more...)

We're Back!

Submitted by Nate Yapp on Sun, 2008-01-13 20:36

Boy, what a week this has been. On Sunday, January 6th, 2008, Classic-Horror's server went down when the hard drive failed. The next day, I discovered that all of our recent backups were either missing or unusable. You can imagine the kind of blood-curdling scream that resulted when found that out.(read more...)

It's a Qeetastrophe for Charity

Submitted by Nate Yapp on Thu, 2008-01-03 14:52

For horror fans who want to receive an awesome, one-of-a-kind piece of memorabilia while helping those in need, Qeetastrophe has arrived. DreadCentral.com's Paul Nomad has put together two charity auctions on eBay, with the winner of each receiving a 16-inch glow-in-the-dark Qee figurine signed by luminaries of either horror or music (depending on the auction). All proceeds go to St. Jude's Resarch Hospital. The horror figurine is a bear (auction here), signed by an impressive number of horror people. The list includes:(read more...)

Review: A Christmas Carol (1984)

Submitted by Eric Miller on Tue, 2007-12-25 01:01

There are many different cinematic incarnations of Charles Dickens’ 1843 classic holiday tale A Christmas Carol. It seems as if there are as many different versions, variations, and spoofs of this story as there are of Dracula and Frankenstein. One of the more memorable retellings of Dickens’ masterpiece is the 1984 made-for-television version, directed by Clive Donner and starring George C. Scott. While the direction of the film is fairly pedestrian, the overwhelming performance of George C. Scott vaults it to a marvelous level. This is this author’s personal favorite version of the tale of Ebenezer Scrooge.(read more...)

Review: Christmas Evil (1980)

Submitted by John Dubrawa on Mon, 2007-12-24 01:45

It’s Christmas Eve and tonight toymaker Harry Stadling (Brandon Maggart), with his homemade Santa suit and decrepit old van with a sleigh painted on the side, will deliver presents to a local hospital, stalk the neighborhood children that appear on his own “naughty” and “nice” lists, and kill a rich socialite in the middle of the street outside a church before the night is through. Though intriguing, the basic outline of Lewis Jackson’s Christmas Evil begs the question: Why does Harry do this?(read more...)

Review: The Curse of the Cat People (1944)

Submitted by Julia Merriam on Sun, 2007-12-23 01:27

A modern retrospective look at Val Lewton's films reveal a master of suggestion. Lewton's films rarely offered up well-defined horror or blatant supernatural elements. Instead, Lewton skillfully suggested danger, allowing the viewer's imagination to fill in the blank. Using lighting and shadows to create dark, broody atmosphere and shadows to suggest the shapes of threats, Lewton's films played on psychological fears and human emotions, allowing the audience to essentially scare themselves, and laying the groundwork for later horror masterpieces such as The Innocents and The Haunting. However, even a master can have a bad day. The Curse of the Cat People, which exemplifies Lewton's style of horror while failing to actually coalesce into anything resembling terror, probably accounted for a bad week.
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Review: Santa's Slay (2005)

Submitted by Timothy J. Rush on Sat, 2007-12-22 01:59

I wish I could tell you that Santa's Slay, a movie starring a massively muscular Jewish professional wrestler as a murderous Santa Claus, was so spectacularly bad that it was a laugh riot. I wish I could tell you that Santa's Slay was surprisingly good, an undiscovered gem of modern slasher horror. Sadly, both of these ends of the spectrum are wrong. Santa's Slay is merely a disappointment, a cheap horror comedy that wishes it was funnier.

The setup screams with potential. Potential that is ultimately unfulfilled. Santa, as this film claims, is the immaculate son of Satan, going out every Christmas on a great slaying spree. That is, until Santa lost a curling game to an angel and had to behave for one thousand years. Now, those thousand years are up, and Santa's making up for lost time with his fresh batch of Christmas carnage.
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Review: Silent Night, Deadly Night (1984)

Submitted by Nate Yapp on Fri, 2007-12-21 02:26

Silent Night, Deadly Night is a movie that reeks of cynicism and ill-will toward men like an alcoholic reeks of cheap whiskey. Take anything that’s generally revered -- Santa Claus, nuns, orphans, your eccentric grandfather -- and SNDN will kick that reverence in the teeth, using only piss-poor character development, an unfocused narrative, and a dearth of originality. Despite this, the film remains a sick pleasure on some level to which even I am not fully ready to admit.
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