Opening Credits: Cavemen vs. Goo If you thought The X-Files was just about alien abductions and government conspiracies, buckle up: this movie opens in 35,000 B.C. with two cavemen, one alien, and a puddle of black oil that’s basically the villain of the franchise. One caveman gets infected, the other gets a spear in the … Read More “The X-Files: Fight the Future (1998) – Mulder and Scully Take Their Trust Issues to the Big Screen” »
Opening Scene: Gas Station Terror, or, Brad Dourif Deserves Better The movie opens with Natasha Gregson Wagner’s Michelle driving in a storm, low on gas. She pulls into a creepy station, where stuttering attendant Brad Dourif (yes, Chucky himself, cashing a one-scene paycheck) tries to warn her about the killer in her backseat. Instead, she … Read More “Urban Legend (1998) – A slasher so desperate to be Scream it should’ve just worn a Ghostface mask” »
Opening Sarcophagus: Curse of the VHS Bin Some horror-adventure movies sweep you away to exotic lands, unearth forgotten legends, and scare you senseless. Tale of the Mummy (also known as Talos: The Mummy or, more honestly, Russell Mulcahy’s Career Low Point) does none of these things. Instead, it proves that not every ancient curse needs … Read More “Tale of the Mummy (1998) – Russell Mulcahy digs up a curse worse than Talos: boredom” »
Opening Chill: The Sequel Nobody Ordered By 1998, Stephen King’s brand had already been chewed on, spit out, and microwaved for TV a dozen times. Sometimes They Come Back (1991) was a passable small-screen creep-out. Sometimes They Come Back… Again (1996) was a shameless rehash with worse haircuts. But Sometimes They Come Back… for More? … Read More “Sometimes They Come Back… for More (1998) – Proof that sometimes they should just stay gone.” »
Opening Credits: The “Why?” Heard Round the World Sometimes Hollywood asks the big questions: What if we remade a classic with modern technology? Sometimes Hollywood asks the wrong questions: What if we remade Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho… exactly the same way… but worse?Gus Van Sant, fresh off the acclaim of Good Will Hunting, cashed in his … Read More “Psycho (1998) – A shot-for-shot remake that stabs suspense right in the back.” »
Opening Mourning: A Franchise Drifts into the Desert There’s a special kind of sadness when a beloved horror franchise limps into its fourth entry and suddenly looks less like a nightmare and more like a late-night garage project shot on camcorders. Don Coscarelli’s Phantasm IV: Oblivion is that sadness. After the gonzo energy of Phantasm … Read More “Phantasm IV: Oblivion (1998) – The sequel that proves even Tall Men can come up short” »
Opening Salvo: Made-for-TV, Made-for-Torture By the late ’90s, television horror was a strange beast. Networks wanted the thrills of Aliens and Predator but with the budget of a high school theater department and the runtime of a double episode of Walker, Texas Ranger. Enter Legion(1998), an action-horror television film directed by Jon Hess and produced … Read More “Legion (1998) – Proof that not every demon deserves screen time.” »
Opening Bite: The Horror of Ambition Outpacing Talent Every so often, a horror filmmaker decides, “You know what zombies need? More brooding, more philosophy, more diary entries!” Enter Andrew Parkinson’s I, Zombie: The Chronicles of Pain, a film so determined to be profound it forgets to be entertaining. Released in 1998 by Fangoria Films (yes, … Read More “I, Zombie: The Chronicles of Pain (1998) – A zombie movie that decomposes faster than its lead character.” »
A Possession Story with Swagger When horror goes supernatural, it usually trips over its own robe. Demons are tricky business: too subtle, and you’ve made a boring séance movie; too over-the-top, and you’re one Latin chant away from unintentional comedy. Fallen, directed by Gregory Hoblit and produced by Wes Craven’s pal Charles Roven, threads that … Read More “Fallen (1998) – A demon, a detective, and a Rolling Stones earworm that will never leave your head” »
The Setup: Wes Craven’s TV Detour When you hear “produced by Wes Craven,” you expect certain things: sharp scares, twisted imagination, maybe a guy in a mask slicing up teens. What you don’t expect is a made-for-TV movie that feels like it escaped from Lifetime’s “Afternoon Trauma” block. Directed by Larry Shaw, Don’t Look Down … Read More “Don’t Look Down (1998) – A horror movie so afraid of heights it never leaves the ground.” »