Blogging about my passion
I mostly enjoy writing about films that fit into the category „Cult“ in one way or another. It‘s, frankly, where my comfort zone lies. It would be easy to just focus on horror films (by far the most films labeled „Cult“ are horror films) but the category also includes so many films that are really un-classifiable. Many of these movies are so truly enjoyable and you don‘t even know exactly why. These are often films that are considered very poor, very cheap, very amateurish and some are just plain old studio films that got panned or performed very poorly when released. This is the stuff I like to write about and I hope you like reading about.
For the longest time while I was growing up “John Carpenter’s The Thing” was the scariest thing I’d ever seen. Even watching it on grainy VHS the ground breaking practical effects and suspenseful set-pieces, the extremely effective moody atmosphere and isolated icy setting made a massive impression. For many the film is on the short list of the top horror movies of all time.
An asbestos abatement crew, headed by Gordon, wins the bid at the abandoned Danvers State Mental Hospital. Promising to deliver in one week Gordon puts a lot of strain on his crew that has some issues to begin with.
As the week progresses at Danvers the crew will experience real terror as dark secrets come to light.
Ever since “Scream” (1996) re-charged the horror industry that was, at the time, slowly migrating towards Direct to Video the genre has stayed relevant among A-listers and, obviously, below that as well. A number of exciting talent were able to take advantage of this boost early on; among them Australian born director Jamie Blanks, an obvious horror enthusiast who made two noteworthy entries in the “New-age” slasher category.
Theatre director Alan leads his acting troupe, whom he continually refers to as his “children”, to a graveyard on a remote island to perform a necromantic ritual in order to raise the dead. At first it seems the ritual is a bust … But then the dead start to rise and the living have a survival fight on their hands.
Five years after surviving a night of terror at the hands of Jason Voorhees; Tommy Jarvis finds himself in a rural halfway house in New Jersey for mentally disturbed teenagers. Ever since that fateful night Tommy has been, more or less, a basket case and has never gotten the image of Jason out of his mind.
Before long a series of murders in the area shake up the local community and soon the killer’s sights are on the residents of the halfway house. Could it be that Jason himself is back from the dead and committing these murders?
It’s that time again and horror buffs are re-watching the Halloween series. Trouble is nowadays that the series has four timelines! For this year I chose the option of watching the Michael vs. Jamie storyline covered in “Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers”, “Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers” and “Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers”.
“Forced Entry” is a tough-to-watch exploitation cinema homage that’s heavy on the gore and leaves an impression.
Every horror fan knows “The Amityville Horror”. Maybe all of them haven’t seen it but it was such a success that it’s become a classic in the genre despite the fact that practically every critic has panned it; whether when initially released or later.
These standard slashers don’t really need a synopsis but here we go! – Under a campfire on a dark night Max (Neumann), owner of a camp for gifted children, tells staff and campers the tale of Madman Marz (Ehlers); a deranged farmer who slaughtered his family in a nearby house. Legend has it that if you speak his name above the sound of a whisper he’ll come for you.
Cult filmmaker David Cronenberg has made many cult classics but really only one B-movie complete with a bona fide hero vs. an utter villain, cars and crashes, fistfights and some good old fashioned sleaze thrown in the mix.
