Tuesday, January 19 2010
Unfulfilled Desires, Fulfilled Nightmares
As the new millennium accelerates we witness our world consumed by an international economic crisis fueled by unrestricted consumption and greed. Hence, the relevance of Stephen King's 'Needful Things'.
Tuesday, October 27 2009
Frightful Rome
Profondo Rosso, the Dario Argento store in Rome, hints at a dramatic cultural shift taking place in Italy regarding the appreciation and analysis of classic Italian horror films.
Monday, September 21 2009
Horrifyingly Close to Reality
Western culture’s perspective of torture is complex and paradoxical; it's considered immoral, illegal, primitive, and indecent, yet it's shocking to see that torture methods continue to be used in the interrogation of prisoners of war.
Thursday, July 30 2009
International d’Horreur
The country that is producing high quality fear flicks these days is not in North America nor anywhere in Asia, but in Western Europe.
Monday, May 4 2009
Fighting the Flu
The mobilization of the military to control the spread of the current outbreak of a rare strain of the swine flu in Mexico City is right out of Stephen King’s The Stand.
Wednesday, February 18 2009
By One’s Own Hand, Then
On the one hand society at large relies on moral and theological arguments to ban suicide; on the other our world is plagued with destructive wars and suicidal conflicts.
Tuesday, January 6 2009
Something to Do with Death
By manipulating mankind’s fear of death, organized religion clearly emerges as the most ruthless and totalitarian authority institution in the history of the world.
Thursday, September 18 2008
Horrors in the Closet: Transgressing All Boundaries
David Cronenberg and Clive Barker constantly pushed the boundaries of representations of sexual identities, yet their films feel not condemning, paranoid, or xenophobic -- but alluring and fascinating.
Friday, August 22 2008
Horrors in the Closet: Horrifying Heteronormative Scapegoating
The artificial connection between homosexuality and communism created the popular myth of evil and undetectable gay subversives living inside 1950s American society.
Monday, June 23 2008
Horrors in the Closet: A Closet Full of Monsters
A closet full of monsters is a scary place where "straight people" can safely negotiate and articulate their fascination and/or dread of "difference" in sexual preferences.
Tuesday, May 13 2008
The Demise of Horror Culture?
While the horror classics of 1968 may have indeed revitalized the genre, few today are aware of these movies' impact on the canon...if they acknowledge them at all.
Tuesday, April 15 2008
A Terrifying Ruby Jubilee
As a pivotal year of social change and as a cultural stepping stone, 1968 saw the radicalization of American society, and an accompanying revolution in the realm of horror genre filmmaking.
Tuesday, February 19 2008
American Gothic
Grant Wood's 'American Gothic' is an elegant representation of the American nightmare: the horrors and monsters that constantly lurk behind the face of normality.
Monday, November 26 2007
Horror Cinema By the Numbers
Technology is not the only reason for the recent worldwide glut in horror films. Ease of access and influence also contribute to their continuing creation.
Thursday, November 1 2007
Bringing Home the Horror
Fright film fans have an innate desire to "own" that which they obsess over. Thanks to the ever changing face of home theater technology, and the genre's link to same, they can easily satisfy their creepshow cravings.
Friday, October 5 2007
The Year of the Wolf
Leave it to the geniuses running the Hollywood studios to offset each other by delivering three legendary lycanthrope movies, 'The Howling', 'An American Werewolf in London' and 'Wolfen' during the same seminal genre year: 1981.
Monday, June 25 2007
A Matter of Morbid Elegance
While it may be hard to believe, horror imagery has its direct links in the visual variances of classic painting. It's all a matter of melancholic grace.
Wednesday, May 16 2007
The Unseen Masters of Horror
Fright fans love to praise the visionary efforts of their favorite horror directors. But behind every great terror auteur is usually an unsung macabre master.
Tuesday, November 7 2006
Fear Factoring: Part 2
In this second of a two-part examination on the roles that fan appreciation, critical consideration, and subject matter play on categorizing horror film, our resident macabre master argues that unlike other cinematic genres, the basic tenets of the terror experience can change from year-to-year, generation-to-generation.
Thursday, September 28 2006
Fear Factoring: Part I
What elements categorize a horror film? Monsters? Murders? Mood and atmosphere? In this first of a two part examination on the subject, our resident macabre master argues that unlike other cinematic genres, the basic tenets of the terror experience can be difficult to clearly delineate.
Thursday, August 17 2006
The Gruesome Gazettes Part 2: Fangoria and Beyond
Horror fandom finds its gruesome, gory touchstone in this second half of our look at genre publications, and its arrival signals a real renaissance in the power and influence of motion picture macabre.
Thursday, July 27 2006
The Gruesome Gazettes
In the first of a two part examination on the subject, our scholar of scares looks back at the role genre magazines played in the creation of the rabid macabre movie fanbase we see today.
Friday, June 16 2006
Legends of the Fang
Want to know why Richard Matheson's I am Legend is one of the most important horror novels of all time? Our resident scare scholar offers up this comprehensive overview of the man, the book, and the enduring legacy.
Thursday, May 4 2006
Trilogy of (T)errors
What do murderous Halloween masks, a monster enclosed in a Carpathian fortress, and a legion of interstellar soul suckers have in common? According to our resident scare scholar, they are part of a trio of '80s horror films that have been unfairly maligned by critics and fans alike.
Thursday, March 23 2006
A New Kind of Magic: Part III: Cinematic Symbiosis
In the final installment of his three-part look at the evolution of special effects in movie macabre, our horror historian looks at Fritz Lang, Lon Chaney, and a certain oversized ape's place in the dynamic of dread.
Wednesday, February 22 2006
A New Kind of Magic: Part II: The Modern Prometheus
In the second of a three-part look at the symbiotic relationship between the horror film and special effects, our Dread specialist shows how Mary Shelley's mythical monster, and a unique approach to art design, forever changed the horror film.
Tuesday, January 24 2006
A New Kind of Magic: Part I: The Power of Prestidigitation
In the first of a three-part look at the symbiotic relationship between the horror film and special effects, our Dread specialist argues for magician George Melies' place as the father of all F/X-based fright flicks.
Wednesday, November 30 2005
One Wedding and Lots of Funerals
While many consider it a horror classic, Lanzagorta reveals the sensationally subversive underbelly -- thanks to director James Whale -- of 1935's Bride of Frankenstein.
Wednesday, October 26 2005
Not Just Zombies
Even though George Romero is famous for his zombie flicks, he has directed a variety of other equally interesting fright films that are usually overlooked by the casual fan.
Wednesday, September 28 2005
A Fistful of Maggots
In his second column, Lanzagorta focuses his attention on a ferocious Italian filmmaker whose gore-laden lunacy redefined the zombie horror genre.
Friday, September 2 2005
A Horror Renaissance
Horror is hot again. In his new column, Lanzagorta explains how the current scary movie revival is but a regurgitation of the fears and paranoias of the 1970s, and quite apropos for these times.
