There are many words to describe Wes Craven’s first horror effort: repulsive, jarring, unnerving, even sadistic. All words relative to the film’s content, to be sure, but that’s one of the striking things about Last House on the Left: from a critical standpoint, it is neither here nor there, good nor bad; it simply is what it is -- a macabre exploitation film intended to shock.(read more...)

Okay, I'll say it ... I haven't seen the original The Hills Have Eyes. Deride my horror hound credentials as you wish.

While this omission may be a terrible sin in the eyes of many, it gave me a chance to view Alexandre Aja's remake without being tainted by my opinions of the original. What I can say is that, on it's own merits, the new Hills Have Eyes is an intense, visceral experience that is hampered by terrible pacing and characters that, while sympathetic, are rather flat and forgettable.(read more...)

Screenwriter James Gunn (Tromeo and Juliet, Dawn of the Dead '04) makes his feature-length directorial debut with Slither, and within the first few minutes, he assuredly shows us he knows how to set the tone for a film. A gigantic meteor hurtles through space, heading for certain disastrous impact with Earth. As it hits our atmosphere, however, it begins to burn up, the layers peeling back. When it finally squelches into the muddy woodlands of sleepy Southern burg Wheelsy, it is as a background joke in a completely different scene. Of course, this being a horror film, the tiny, baseball-sized rock cracks open, promising far more insidious spectacle.(read more...)

"Miscast" is a nasty term. It suggests that the actor or actress that it is applied to would never be able to pull off their given role, even under the best possible circumstances. Some irreparable mistake was made at an early stage of production and the film will be forever marred by the poor judgment of some myopic decision-maker. Such is the case with Lon Chaney, Jr. as Count Dracula in Universal's misleadingly titled Son of Dracula. Chaney's inability to pull off the Old World nobility required of the part has dogged the film's reputation since its release. This is a shame, really, since the rest of this mature, atmospheric chiller works quite well.(read more...)