Home invasion movies exploit a realism that makes them more frightening than the average horror movie.  There’s a “that could really happen!” aspect to them.  Some movies, like The Strangers, take a suspenseful route while others, like You’re Next, go more over-the-top, and still others, like Funny Games, expertly combine the real and the surreal.  But decades before any of those films were made, in 1960, there was a lost noir thriller about a home invasion, an economical little movie called Private Property.

The nineties were a curious time for horror movies.  The success of young adult television shows like “Beverly Hills 90210,” “Dawson’s Creek,” and “Party of Five” paved the way for a slew of fright flicks that were packed with beautiful young stars and set to hip modern soundtracks.  Usually, these movie were slashers, like Scream or I Know What You Did Last Summer.  Sometimes, they were more sci-fi tinged, such as Disturbing Behavior or The Faculty.  By the turn of the century, the teen horror craze had hit the supernatural realm.  Case in point: 2001’s Soul Survivors.

In 2013, Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio was elected to the Papacy and took the name Pope Francis, after Saint Francis of Assisi.  Almost immediately, he became a controversial figure because of his progressive views.  A few years later, documentary filmmaker Wim Wenders (Wings of Desire, The Salt of the Earth) was given unprecedented access to the Pope in order to make a movie.  That movie is simply called Pope Francis: A Man of His Word.

In 2004, the first Saw movie was released, and along with some help from Hostel the next year, the torture porn subgenre of horror was born.  The Saw movies, or at least the first few of them, featured ordinary people who would wake up in boobytrapped buildings, forced to use their wits to find a way out – or die.  But, to paraphrase The Matrix (or at least the Mandela Effect of it), what if I told you that the Saw concept had been done years before, in 1997?  Because that’s pretty much what Cube did.

Those who grew up in the seventies may remember a children’s show nestled in between “Sesame Street” and “The Electric Company” on PBS called “Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood.”  It wasn’t as flashy as its bookends, but it was every bit as charming, and probably even more historically important.  The show and its creator, Fred Rogers, are the subject of the documentary Won’t You Be My Neighbor?

Last week, Cinema Fearité took a look at Lisa, a cautionary tale of a girl who gets wrapped up in pretending to be someone else on the telephone.  This week, we’re going to check out another lost gem about prank calls from the pre-Caller ID days, the 1988 television movie I Saw What You Did.

There are horror movies geared towards children, like Paperhouse or Something Wicked This Way Comes, and there are horror movies that only adults should see, such as The Human Centipede or Irreversible.  But tucked in the middle are the movies for “tweeners,” the (usually) PG-13 flicks that are too intense for little ones, but tame by adult standards, movies like Scream for Help or The Gate.  Lisa is one of these tweener movies.

In this sixth predator-featured film, Screenwriter Fred Dekker and Director Shane Black, who also has a writing credit, clearly realize that the Predator franchise needs a fresh take and an overhaul. It's great to watch Arnold Schwarzenegger crawl in the mud for survival in Predator, and even Alien vs. Predator (2004) is dreamy to fans of both series, but 2010's Predators is a total disaster. Something had to be done, and Black and Dekker have done something very different with The Predator: They've taken a page out of the Scream notebook and made it -- dare it be said --lighthearted and ridiculously funny, with a side of decent gore, body splicing, and plenty of explosions.

This week, the latest movie in the recent trend of sequels/reboots of classic flicks hits the screen with The Predator.  It seems like a good time for Cinema Fearité to take a look at the beloved creature feature that kicked off the franchise, 1987’s Predator.

November 9^th, 2016 is a day that will live in infamy for many Americans.  It is the day that reality television star/real estate mogul Donald Trump was elected President of the United States of America.  Documentary filmmaker and self-described “political junkie” James D. Stern (Every Little Step, Sport in America: Our Defining Stories) decided at the beginning of Trump’s campaign that he wanted to know why anyone would vote for the man.  He got his answers, and shares them in American Chaos.

Sequels are funny things in the horror world.  Of course, the most successful movies turn into franchises, like Halloween, A Nightmare on Elm Street, and Friday the 13^th.  Other popular movies, like American Psycho or The Lost Boys, spawn sequels that many fans don’t even know exist.  And then there are the sequels that people don’t know are sequels because they became so much bigger than their predecessor, like The Silence of the Lambs.  In today’s episode of “they made a sequel to THAT?”, we’ll take a look at the underrated sequel to the cult hit The Rocky Horror Picture Show, the 1981 musical comedy Shock Treatment.

In her long and storied career, Ruth Bader Ginsburg has gone from lawyer to judge to Supreme Court justice.  But perhaps her most interesting accomplishment has been becoming an internet meme, an inspirational figure for both modern women and liberal activists all over America.  Her fascinating story is the subject of a new documentary, appropriately entitled RBG.

In 1975, the movie world was changed by Steven Spielberg’s summer blockbuster Jaws.  And almost immediately, schlock filmmakers started imitating it, hoping some of the success would rub off.  And some did.  The Jaws clone trend has given us awesome movies like Orca, Tentacles, and even Grizzly.  Oh, and Piranha.

While the great Stanley Kubrick had a fairly modest output over his long career (13 movies in 46 years), there’s little doubt that he’s considered to be one of the most influential filmmakers of all time.  Filmworker takes a close look at the second half of his career through the eyes of someone who was involved intimately in it, his trusted colleague and friend Leon Vitali.

Not long ago, Cinema Fearité dug into the phenomenon of “Oscar Horror” when we took a look at The Silence of the Lambs.  Although that movie may be the best example of a modern horror movie going mainstream for the Academy Awards, it certainly isn’t the only one, and we’re not talking about The Shape of Water.  Four short years before The Silence of the Lambs brought home the Big Five, Fatal Attraction earned a slew of Oscar nominations of its own.