SMILE recently passed the $200 million milestone worldwide to become the highest-grossing horror film of 2022 so far. Beyond its solid opening weekend, SMILE‘s week two drop was only 22%, the best second-week retention for a horror film since Jordan Peele’s Get Out way back in 2017. SMILE‘s surprising box office run sets it up …
Papers of all kinds are what my mother collected. I say “collected,” but the reality show doctors on my TV call it “compulsive hoarding.” I often lay awake at night looking at my stack of unread books and wonder if I will transform into the same person in my old age; this action would be …
Shebna’s feeble voice reverberated like a drunken piano chord in the damp seven-foot square room. He thudded against the wall, all skinny wrists flailing and wrenching in volcanic blasts of weakened bone, muscle, and sinew. His home is a mosquito farm. A choked whisper of a man that knew nothing of his captors beyond scattered …
Mad Love (1935) originally opened on a black screen with an audience warning very similar to Edward van Sloan’s Frankenstein (1931) opening (also written by John L. Balderston). But it was edited out prior to release. The released intro for the film is far better as the opening credits appear over a window before a …
And so begins the countdown once more…
Monday November 1, 1926 My dearest Anna, …I’m so delighted we can connect each evening with these electric dispatches. Your photo of our sweet baby Margaret was kindling for my hearth this morning. Today I have heartening news and another spark for that intense conflagration inside me—we finally broke through into the Hadal Zone this …
Once the air starts to chill and the leaves change color, there’s only one sub-genre of scary movies on my mind: folk horror. Few film genres are more autumnal than those dedicated to the natural world’s dark side, full of woods with supernatural secrets and nearby towns trying to hide them. While the genre became …
“Open your mind to fear,” states the tagline for Guillermo del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities. We should be grateful for a solid new anthology series that is worthy of attention as we patiently wait for the return of Netflix’s Black Mirror. This new collection of frightful tales shows a great deal of respect for the …
BoJo is back again! After spending the pandemic researching and testing vaccines of his own, Dr. Bo discovered a new potion that… changes him… into someone he does not recognize… Mr. Jo! Will Dr. Bo be able to hold on to his true identity? Or will he succumb to the evil Mr. Jo? Listen and …
It’s been all pumpkin mush after the fairly competent 2018 reboot of Halloween that set up a new premise and narrative framework for the long-running horror franchise with “The Shape” standing at its center. The overstuffed Halloween Kills expanded to examine the rotting effects Michael Myers has inflicted on the citizens of Haddonfield, Illinois. Halloween …
