Every so often, a film comes along in the horror underground that develops a reputation. A cult movie whispered about in dingy video stores, passed around on fuzzy VHS tapes like contraband, sold with the promise of “more gore than you’ve ever seen.” Darkness, the 1993 backyard vampire opus from writer/producer/editor/director/everything Leif Jonker, is one … Read More “Darkness (1993): The Vampire Movie That Proves Exploding Heads Alone Can’t Save You” »
There are horror films you endure, horror films you forget, and horror films that seep into your bloodstream like some unholy baptism and never leave. Mariano Baino’s Dark Waters—a rain-soaked, nun-haunted slice of Eastern European gothic—is the last kind. It’s the movie you stumble across late at night and wake up wondering if you actually … Read More “Dark Waters (1993) – A Holy Nightmare You Can’t Wash Off” »
Stephen King once joked that his pen name Richard Bachman “died of cancer of the pseudonym.” George A. Romero, never one to leave a corpse lying peacefully, decided to exhume that joke, beat it senseless with a typewriter, and then set a flock of carnivorous sparrows on it. Thus we arrive at The Dark Half … Read More “Twins, Typewriters, and Terror Birds: The Dark Half” »
If you’ve ever thought to yourself, “You know what would really spice up my winter getaway? A little Satanic possession and a snowmobile crash,” then congratulations — you’re either deeply unwell, or you’ve already seen The Chill Factor. This 1993 straight-to-video supernatural horror flick manages to take every cabin-in-the-woods trope, jam it into a snow-covered … Read More “The Chill Factor (1993): Satan, Snowmobiles, and Small-Town Stupidity” »
There’s a fine line between genius and garbage, and Roger Corman has made a career out of throwing beer bottles at that line from across the room. Enter Carnosaur—a film that promised prehistoric terror, genetic horror, and Diane Ladd giving birth to a dinosaur egg. What it delivered was a low-budget fever dream where chickens … Read More “Carnosaur (1993): When Jurassic Park Is Champagne, This Is Flat Warm Beer” »
Every country has its cinematic shame. America gave us Cool as Ice, Italy unleashed Troll 2, and Australia decided the world needed Body Melt, a film that proves once and for all that sunscreen isn’t the only thing that’ll make your skin peel in the outback. Directed by Philip Brophy—an art punk musician turned filmmaker … Read More “Body Melt (1993) — Just Because You Can Melt a Body Doesn’t Mean You Should” »
If you ever thought Australian horror peaked with guys in pig masks chasing tourists through the bush, Tracey Moffatt’s Bedevil is here to politely (and spookily) tell you you’re wrong. Released in 1993 and forever remembered as the first feature film directed by an Aboriginal Australian woman, Bedevil is not just a ghost story—it’s three … Read More “Haunted Country: Bedevil and the Ghosts That Won’t Shut Up” »
Some movies age like fine wine. Others age like warm milk left in a sunlit basement. Arcade is firmly in the second camp, a neon-soaked relic of the early ’90s that proves virtual reality has always been less “future of entertainment” and more “future of migraines.” Directed by Albert Pyun (of Cyborg infamy) and written … Read More “Arcade (1993): Insert Quarter, Abandon Hope” »
There are two kinds of sequels: the ones people ask for, and the ones that sneak in through the back door like a drunk uncle at Thanksgiving. Amityville: A New Generation is the latter—a seventh(!) entry in a franchise that should’ve been euthanized after the third film, but instead was dragged out like a zombie … Read More “Amityville: A New Generation – Mirror, Mirror, On the Wall, Who Greenlit This After All?” »
Every so often a film comes along that critics call “bad,” but you, the discerning trash connoisseur, recognize as a gift from the cinema gods. Zipperface is one of those treasures. Sure, on paper it’s a sleazy, half-baked erotic slasher shot in Palm City with acting wooden enough to start a bonfire. But in reality? … Read More “Zipperface (1992) — When Leather Meets Local Politics” »