Slasher filmmakers were poking fun at the sub-genre way before Wes Craven did it with Scream. Even in its infant stage, filmmakers who saw the familiarity in the gratuitous sex and violence would exploit it, usually without apology. After the success of killer-stalking-kids films like Halloween and Friday the 13th, any location with a group […]
Classic Films
Cinema Fearité presents The Screaming Skull (Dir. Alex Nicol 1958)
One of the earliest tricks that filmmakers would use to forecast fear into their audience is the use of a “warning,” a bit of fourth-wall breaking narration in the movie that would let the viewer know that they were in for some pure terror. From Edward van Sloan’s “it will thrill you, it may shock […]
Cinema Fearité presents Terrified (Dir. Lew Landers 1963)
Fear can be a powerful motivator. It’s common knowledge that it can save a person’s life when their fight-or-flight response kicks in, but can fear ever take a person’s life? Can someone ever be so scared that their body just shuts down, involuntarily, and they die? This is the concept that was explored in 1963 […]
Cinema Fearité presents The Changeling (Dir. Peter Medak 1980)
For all the monsters and murderers that populate horror films, nothing is quite as scary as a good haunted house movie. The best ghost stories usually double as mysteries, with the victimized person having to research and solve the problem of the spirits’ unrest. Of all of the ghostly haunt films, few come even close […]
Cinema Fearité presents Deranged (Dir. Ormsby and Jeff Gillen 1974)
In all the annals of the horror movie archives, perhaps no real person has inspired more films than the serial killer Ed Gein. Gein’s life has provided the basis for such legendary villains as Norman Bates in Psycho, Leatherface in The Texas Chain Saw Massacre and Buffalo Bill in The Silence of the Lambs. Not […]