There are bad Christmas gifts—ugly sweaters, fruitcakes that could double as blunt weapons, novelty socks with reindeer that leer at you. And then there’s Don’t Open Till Christmas, a cinematic lump of coal so jagged it manages to cut you while you’re unwrapping it. Directed—well, “directed” is a strong word—by Edmund Purdom (before he quit … Read More “Don’t Open Till Christmas (1984): The Slasher That Should’ve Stayed Wrapped” »
There are many things you expect to see on a road trip through Nebraska: endless stretches of corn, the faint odor of fertilizer, and the creeping realization that your car radio can only pick up sermons about damnation. What you don’t expect is to roll into a town run by homicidal children who worship a … Read More “Children of the Corn (1984): A Harvest of Horror, Cheap Gas, and Bad Haircuts” »
There are bad movies. There are so-bad-they’re-good movies. And then there’s Black Devil Doll from Hell—a film that doesn’t just color outside the lines, it sets the coloring book on fire and uses the ashes as makeup. Chester Novell Turner’s 1984 debut is the kind of project that critics love to roast, but if you … Read More “Black Devil Doll from Hell (1984): Chester Turner’s $10,000 Sermon in Sex, Sweat, and VHS Static” »
If you’ve ever thought, “What if Friday the 13th wore cowboy boots and stopped for barbecue in Texas on the way to the slaughter?” then congratulations—you’ve already imagined Sweet Sixteen. Jim Sotos’ 1983 slasher tries to wrap its steak-bloody hands around teenage sexuality, small-town racism, and the inevitability of sharp objects meeting soft flesh. The … Read More “Sweet Sixteen (1983): A Birthday Cake with Knives Instead of Candles” »
If someone ever asks you, “What’s the worst possible way to combine Oliver Reed, Peter Fonda, and a killer snake?” just hand them a VHS copy of Spasms and tell them to clear their schedule. Not because the movie is long—it isn’t. But because they’ll need time afterward to weep, drink, and maybe reconsider the … Read More “Spasms (1983): When Snakes Attack… Slowly, Confusedly, and with Telepathy” »
Every anthology horror film lives or dies by two things: its stories and its style. Creepshow had both in spades—comic book aesthetics, killer cast, a smirk as wide as a gravestone. Screamtime, on the other hand, stumbles into the room like a drunk uncle with three half-baked anecdotes and a stolen VHS player. The result? … Read More “Screamtime (1983): Three Tales, No Terror” »
Every decade has its cinematic misfires. The 1980s gave us Howard the Duck, The Apple, and then this oddball: Possibly in Michigan, a 12-minute musical horror short that answers the question, “What if Little Red Riding Hood did acid in a department store and then ate the Big Bad Wolf?” Written and directed by Cecelia … Read More “Possibly in Michigan (1983): A Cannibal Musical Nobody Asked For” »
Some films terrify you with ghosts. Some films terrify you with monsters. And then there’s Karnal, which terrifies you with… two straight hours of people screaming at each other while everything else either burns, bleeds, or collapses. This is Marilou Diaz-Abaya’s feminist horror-drama entry from the Philippines, a film so heavy with metaphors it should … Read More “Karnal (1983): Of the Flesh, Of the Patience, Of the Endless Suffering” »
Some horror films kill their characters. A Night to Dismember goes one better: it murders its own narrative, chops up its continuity, and leaves the audience’s sanity bleeding out on the shag carpet. This is Doris Wishman’s first and only attempt at horror, and after watching it, you understand why. The woman spent decades directing … Read More “A Night to Dismember (1983): When a Movie Murders Itself” »
It takes a certain kind of genius—or madness—to look at a perfectly ordinary elevator and think, You know what this needs? Murder. Dutch filmmaker Dick Maas did just that, and the result was The Lift, a 1983 sci-fi horror film that turns vertical transportation into an existential deathtrap. It’s absurd, it’s eerie, and against all … Read More “The Lift (1983): When the Elevator Hates You” »